Chapter Thirty-Five
A Child
Elizabeth became pregnant in the second year of their marriage.
Neither she nor Darcy spoke of which child they hoped for.
That would have been unbearable.
At first Elizabeth experienced joy so complete it frightened her. Then came guilt.
She would stand before the mirror with one hand resting over the small curve beneath her gown and think of Anne.
Their first Anne.
Dark eyes like Elizabeth. Darcy's serious mouth. A temper so mild it had once convinced Mrs. Bennet the child could not possibly belong to Lizzy until Anne learned to speak and began asking questions no adult wished to answer.
Darcy found Elizabeth crying one morning in the dressing room.
He did not ask why.
He knew.
"I feel disloyal," she whispered.
Darcy came behind her and rested both hands over hers. "To whom?"
"Them."
"By loving this child?"
"By wanting this child."
Darcy's face appeared beside hers in the mirror. Young again, but his eyes carried all the years.
"Elizabeth, we wanted them before we knew them."
She closed her eyes.
"That did not make the love smaller after they arrived," he continued. "This does not erase them."
"I know."
"Do you?"
She laughed through tears. "I hate when you use my own methods against me."
"Marriage improved me."
Elizabeth elbowed him weakly.
The birth began on a rainy September night.
Darcy paced.
Again.
Mrs. Reynolds eventually opened the bedroom door, pointed at a chair in the corridor, and said, "Sir, sit."
Darcy stared.
Mrs. Reynolds stared back.
He sat.
Mr. Gardiner, who had arrived that afternoon with his wife, hid a smile.
"Do not," Darcy said.
"I said nothing."
"Your face did."
Hours later came a cry.
Darcy stood so quickly the chair struck the wall.
A maid appeared. "A girl, sir. Mrs. Darcy is well."
Darcy closed his eyes.
A girl.
He entered the room slowly.
Elizabeth looked exhausted, pale, radiant, and terrified.
The baby lay against her.
Darcy approached.
Elizabeth smiled weakly. "She has your nose."
"Poor child."
Elizabeth laughed, then winced.
Darcy sat beside her.
The infant opened dark eyes.
Not Anne.
They knew immediately.
Their first daughter had possessed Elizabeth's eyes, almost startlingly bright from birth.
This child was new.
Grief and love collided so violently Elizabeth began to cry.
Darcy understood.
He touched the baby's cheek with one finger. "Who are you?"
The child yawned.
Elizabeth laughed through tears. "Impertinent already."
"Then yours."
"Her nose says otherwise."
They did not name her Anne.
Anne belonged to a daughter they had loved.
This child deserved her own name.
Elizabeth looked down at her. "Clara."
Darcy raised an eyebrow. "Clara?"
"I have always liked it."
"You never mentioned it."
Elizabeth smiled. "I was waiting another lifetime."
Darcy laughed.
Clara Darcy.
New.
Entirely herself.
They loved her without apology.
The first weeks were exhausting in ways memory had softened.
Clara slept only when carried. She possessed a powerful voice and no respect for household schedules.
Darcy, who had once believed babies belonged primarily to nurseries, discovered himself pacing the library at three in the morning with a furious infant against his shoulder.
Elizabeth came to the doorway in her dressing gown and laughed.
Darcy glared. "Do not."
"You look very dignified."
"She has been screaming for forty minutes."
"She likes you."
"This is affection?"
Clara abruptly stopped crying and fell asleep.
Darcy looked down, astonished.
Elizabeth's smile softened.
"There," she whispered. "She knows you."
Darcy's face changed.
He looked at his daughter and then at Elizabeth.
"Yes," he said quietly.
This Pemberley was learning them all.
Clara was followed not immediately by another child but by a miscarriage that neither Darcy nor Elizabeth had expected.
The loss came early, before most of the family knew Elizabeth was expecting, and yet it reopened every fear she had carried from the nursery.
For days she refused to speak of it.
Darcy did not force her.
He sat beside her, handled visitors, answered Mrs. Bennet's worried letters without revealing what Elizabeth wished private, and waited.
At last Elizabeth said one evening, "I thought knowing loss would make me better at it."
Darcy looked up. "Has anything ever made you better at being hurt?"
She gave him a weak glare. "That is annoyingly sensible."
"I have had practice."
Elizabeth rested her head against him. "I was afraid the second life meant we would be spared."
"No."
"I know."
"Do you?"
She laughed through tears. "I dislike you."
"Frequently."
The miscarriage did not teach them a lesson. Elizabeth resented stories in which every grief existed only to improve someone.
It simply hurt.
Months later the hurt became smaller.
Then Matthew came.
He was not a replacement.
That mattered too.