Birth in Venice by Diana Birchall

Lady Catherine de Bourgh was used to being well served. Therefore when she was awakened by the unaccustomed spectacle of her bedchamber filled with sunshine from a sun already fairly high in the sky, she was startled. Why, it must be past nine o’clock. Where was her maid?  No one had come to pull back her curtains or stir up the morning fire; and when she sat up indignantly and looked around, it was evident that her clothes had not been laid out for her either.

Muttering furious imprecations, Lady Catherine climbed down from the high bed with some difficulty, and found a dressing-gown. Of heavy worked silk, it was sufficiently like a day-dress to permit her to step out into the hall, but there was nothing to be done about her hair without help, though it was disarrayed upon upon her shoulders in a fuzzy night-braid. She tugged her frilled cap tightly and proceeded in as stately fashion as ever to the breakfast room, which looked out onto the gardens. Her astonishment increased as she met with no other person in her progress. All was silent in the corridors, no maids, no men, not even the faintest usual clatter from the distant kitchen.

Yet there was something – a moaning, mewling noise, that as she stepped into the room, grew so loud she suspected an animal had got inside somehow. Looking about, she saw, on a divan in the corner, only her very least favorite inmate of the house, the hugely pregnant Lydia. She was writhing in pain, her face was very red, and the sounds came from her.

“Great Heaven! What do you think you are doing, Lydia,” Lady Catherine exclaimed. “Cannot you control those unseemly noises?”

“Oh, Lady Catherine – what does it look like? Any simpleton should know,” Lydia managed to get out, angrily.

“Well, I like that! A simpleton, am I? Coming from you, that is rich. What is this state you are in? I suppose you are designing to produce that unfortunate babe on that sofa there, right here and now?”

“I would if I could,” Lydia howled. “It – it won’t come out! I declare it is stuck!”

“So you sit here in all your indecency, in public, do you? I never saw such a thing.”

“I would have help if I could! I have been calling and calling and no one has come.”

“Nonsense,” began Lady Catherine, and then suddenly remembered it was not nonsense. She had not seen a single servant, after all, and for that matter, where were Darcy and Elizabeth and the children at such an hour? “Has not Mrs. Darcy not been down?”

Pains seized Lydia and she rolled side to side, huffing. When she could speak again she gasped, “The picnic – don’t you remember it was today?”

Lady Catherine had forgotten, not being interested in the plans and disdaining to listen when they were discussed; but now the memory rushed back. “That is true. Yes. They were going quite a distance, Torcello was it? With the men and the maids and the picnic food. It comes to me now that they were foolish enough to give every servant the day off. Perfectly absurd of Darcy. He might have looked for such a result. We are completely neglected. Not even any breakfast provided.”

“Yes,” cried Lydia, “not that I could eat anything anyway, but now I’m sitting all in soaking water and the baby – won’t – come – out!”

Lady Catherine gingerly moved closer and surveyed the situation. “Tsk,” she observed, “that divan is ruined, completely ruined. Have you no shame?”

Lydia sat up and roared. “Shame! You talk about shame! I shall die here! You stupid old woman, why don’t you send for the doctor?”

“Keep a respectful tongue in your head, you hussy,” Lady Catherine snapped with unaccustomed coarseness of expression. “There is no one to send for a doctor, and I do not know in the least where one is to be found. And I cannot walk about the streets of Venice with all its cobblestones, in my furred slippers.”

“Then help me yourself, damn you!”

Lady Catherine drew herself up, and her dark brows beetled together. “You had better watch your tongue, or you will find yourself put out of this house when Darcy hears about your language.”

“Blast my language! You must know something about having babies, you’ve had one, even if it was just a puling sickly little female, not like my strong babies. I’ll have you know I’ve had three, and I know how it’s supposed to be but – this time something’s wrong. It needs to be pulled out I tell you. So do it!”

Lady Catherine’s expression was a picture of disgust, but she approached a little closer to the divan. Immediately she jumped back, as a fountain of blood splashed in her direction and some drops fell on her dressing-gown.

“Now look what you’ve done!” she cried.

Lydia was incoherent. “Help me,” she screamed. “You inhuman beast!”

Lady Catherine considered. “Do not be concerned,” she told Lydia calmly. “I do assure you I am as equal to an emergency as any one in England. Now, if I had a towel,” and she looked around. A pile of clean towels were on a sideboard.

Lady Catherine wrapped two cloths around her hands and put them on each side of the baby’s head. It would not budge and Lydia’s screams became lamentable.

After a struggle, Lady Catherine said with direct urgency, “You are right, it is stuck. I must have some instrument.” She looked at the table with its empty fruit bowl and large serving tongs. “Better than nothing,” she said, and dived back to her work.

It was enough. The child’s head dislodged and it slid quite quickly out, to both Lydia and Lady Catherine’s relief. “A boy,” Lady Catherine said, succinctly.

“Oh good, Byron will like that,” Lydia returned feebly.

“Don’t talk of such things, you insolent creature. As if he cares what you produced. What we need now is water. Why could you not chuse a better place to perform your animal function. And I do not believe my dressing gown will wash.”

With water in the pitcher, and the fruit bowl and towels, Lady Catherine, with much commentary on her distaste, dealt perfunctorily with the cleaning up of Lydia and the child, and then turned her attention more thoroughly to her own hands and gown, with commendable efficiency considering she had never performed such tasks before in her life.  Lydia was soon able to hold the baby, while Lady Catherine rather grudgingly searched for and found some goblets so they might drink what little water was left, and also a plate of crackers.

All was quiet when Lady Catherine’s own sewing woman, who had chosen to sleep in rather than go to the picnic, finally appeared, to see the shocking sight in the breakfast-room and receive the scolding of a lifetime from her mistress. Pale and shaken she fled out in haste to seek out “il dottore” for the English lady.

It was evening and the sun going down when the happy picnicking party returned in their gondolas. The sewing-maid under Lady Catherine’s direction had tidied as well as could be; Lydia still lay on the divan, properly washed and with fresh sheets and comforters, and Lady Catherine had succeeded in dressing herself properly. The maid had improvised a meal of bread, cheese and cured ham from the kitchen regions, and made some tea. The doctor in his brief visit had pronounced the baby and mother likely to do well, and taken his departure.

The Darcys heard the story in astonished horror, and their maids were hastily directed to take the children to their rooms so they should see nothing distressing. Elizabeth sank down in a clean armchair while Darcy paced in front of his aunt, and Lydia poured out her version of events.

“I was that close to death, I was, and Lady Catherine would not do a thing, but I told her she must pull out the brat else I should die, and what do you think she did? She used that very spoon and tongs on me! My pain I cannot describe, and I am sure my poor little babe will bear the marks for life.”

“Lady Catherine’s action seems to have been effective,” said Elizabeth, “you are sitting up, your colour is good, and the baby is a fine one.”

“Oh, as far as that goes, I have always had easy confinements. You’ll see, I’ll be up in a day or two.”

“You cannot conceive what I have endured,” Lady Catherine put in. “To come downstairs and find oneself completely abandoned!  And this creature in such an  state, unfit to be seen by any one used to decent society. Never in my life have I experienced such an outrage, as being forced to stoop to being a – a midwife! And at such a lying-in!”

“You seem to have risen to the occasion, Aunt,” Darcy observed, “and I can assure you we are sensible of your goodness in having taken such measures.”

“Oh, of course I was perfectly equal to the emergency,” Lady Catherine replied. “The doctor was quite surprised, when he came in, long after it was all over, no thanks to him.  ‘Lady Catherine,’ he said, ‘I should positively have thought you were a doctor yourself. You have a veritable talent for medical matters.’  It is of course no more than the truth; if women were permitted to study medicine I daresay I should have been a famous doctor, and won many laurels.”

“I cannot deny you have done well indeed, Aunt Catherine, and I am sorry you were in such a situation, which I admit is somewhat our fault, for giving the servants a holiday. We might have considered it was unwise, with Lydia so close to her time.”

“Well, well, I do not blame you entirely, Darcy. We as a family have given far too much thought to that wicked woman as it is.”

“Let us have Lydia and the child carried to their own room, and you had better go to bed yourself, aunt, after such a day.”

“Yes, but first I shall have a bath,” she said grimly as she departed.

After Lydia was removed, Darcy and Elizabeth sat over the fire, both looking rather shaken. He examined his wife’s face anxiously. “I hope, Elizabeth, that this shock has not been too much for you.”

“Oh, dear no,” she said cheerfully. “It was an unfortunate circumstance, but as Lady Catherine says herself, she is equal to any thing.”

Darcy shook his head. “After this, I never will doubt her capacities again.”

“Besides, I console myself for any shock by another consideration.”

“And what is that? Tell me, I could use a bit of consolation myself.”

“Why,” she replied, “I am thinking that now this miracle of birth has been achieved, how soon we may be able to go home. Is not that enough to put a smile on your own face, Darcy? Think of England!”