June 1796
Almost a full year passed by after Kitty was born before Fanny became with child again. Unfortunately, before the quickening, her husband had been angry about something and took his displeasure out on Fanny. It had led to a miscarriage.
Her husband causing her miscarriage became another item about which Fanny wrote in her secret journal.
Had her husband known she was recording many things, each time he laid hands on her included, he would have shown her his displeasure with his fists and destroyed the journal and its contents.
It was the reason she kept it hidden. No one but she knew of its existence and where she secreted it.
She was with child once again, but this time Fanny was more than confident she carried a son and possibly more than one. She was far larger than she had been any of the previous four times she had been with child, and this one was far more active than Lizzy had been.
Already it was the first day of June, and Fanny could not wait until the babe or babes came into the world. She hardly slept and had to use the chamber pot multiple times each hour.
Mr Jones had agreed to see her—only if her husband paid his fee before he examined Mrs Collins—and afterward, he had announced that as far as he could tell, everything was as it should be. He had recommended she remain abed given her girth as she neared her lying-in.
By ten o’clock at night on the first Thursday in June, Fanny’s labouring had begun. Not long after midnight, which was the third day of the month, the midwife instructed Fanny to push.
The midwife saw the head begin to emerge, but then, due to its size, the babe was stuck.
She had read Fielding Ould’s 1742 Treatise of Midwifery in Three Parts,[2] where he had described a procedure to enlarge the opening in certain instances.
She had a pair of the crooked probe-scissors he had used and began to cut like he had described.
Regardless of how much Mrs Collins caterwauled, for her and the babe’s health, it had to be done.
With the additional space, the huge babe, which afterwards she would swear was close to one stone in weight, was born easily. Having studied with a surgeon, the midwife stitched up Mrs Collins after handing the heavy babe to the housekeeper-cook to attend.
Thanks to the blood she had lost and the ordeal, Mrs Collins lost consciousness while the midwife worked to stem the bleeding.
At last, she had the problems under control.
She fumed that with the size of the babe, Mr Jones should have attended, but the miserly Mr Collins had not thought the expenditure warranted.
When she looked at the way the giant babe had damaged things on her way out, she was certain that Mrs Collins would never carry another babe.
On the midwife’s way out of the house, she encountered the estate’s master returning from a night of getting foxed at the Red Lion Inn. She told him his wife was in a delicate condition and would not be ready for marital calls for up to six months.
In his inebriated condition, Collins did not bother to ask what the sex of his newest child was. After all, had his wife not all but guaranteed him a son?
By the morning when Collins managed to drag himself from his bed, with his head pounding, he had no thoughts of his wife and babe in his head.
He had two helpings of powders and went to break his fast. Seeing Mrs Winters enter the dining parlour with his meal in hand, he remembered he had seen the midwife arrive the previous night.
“How is my son?” Collins growled.
Mrs Winters did not like her mistress, but she disliked the master and his abuse of her far more.
“The mistress has not regained consciousness, and the babe is with the one tenant wife able to feed… the babe.” She was sure the master would explode with anger when he was told he had another daughter, which was why she did not mention the sex of his huge daughter.
It was a temporary reprieve; at some juncture the master would discover the mistress had birthed another female.
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On the fourth day after she gave birth, a greatly weakened Fanny woke for the first time since the event. The maid sitting with her informed her that her daughter was at a tenant’s home due to Mrs Collins being unconscious for four days.
“Does my husband know what the sex is?” Fanny almost whispered in case he was close by and heard her.
“No, Missus, ‘e don’t. Mrs Winters not tell the sex,” the young maid related.
Fanny knew it was only a matter of time until Clem discovered the truth. All she could hope was that she recovered enough of her strength before the inevitable sessions of punishment.
Now that she had delivered her husband a second daughter, she had to admit, if only to herself, that she could no longer lay the blame for only girls being born while married to him at her late husband’s door.
Not for the first time, she owned that while Mr Bennet lived, she was far better off, and her precipitate contacting of Clem Collins and everything subsequent had all been mistake after mistake.
Admitting such to herself still did not mean that she could tell her brother what she had done with her first three daughters. The fear of imprisonment was too strong.
She could not fathom that being in gaol would be an improvement over her life now.
It was in mid-September that her husband deigned to go meet his son, who Fanny had named Lydia, if only to herself. In the interceding months she had spent as much time with Kitty, who was already three, as possible in case the worst occurred when her husband met his daughter.
Once Collins discovered that the babe he thought was a son was another daughter, he stormed back to the manor house and punished his wife for failing to do her duty to him.
It was months before Fanny recovered, but by then, she was able to have relations again. She knew she could not bear another child, but she could never tell that to the devil she had married. She believed with all that she was that her life would be forfeit if he knew.
In the meanwhile, she spent time with Kitty and walked to see Lydia daily. The youngest Collins remained with tenants for ten months until she was weaned.
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