By late April, the weather in London had turned warm and erratic, with golden mornings that gave way to sudden downpours. In Bloomsbury, Jane spent her days quietly, her writing desk once again piled with papers, her body slow and heavy with the weight of approaching birth. After William’s departure, she had poured herself into work, determined to hold to some purpose, to endure the ache of waiting with pen in hand.
Mrs. Radcliff had read her essays with care, and after a week’s reflection, declared them of the highest quality. “You write like someone who has studied—and lived—far too much for your years,” she had said, her tone brisk but warm. “And more importantly, someone who is not afraid to tell the truth.”
That was how the gatherings began. They were never large, never formal—Charlotte saw to that. The front drawing room was cleared of its more fragile furnishings, tea laid out in a simple porcelain service, and invitations extended only to women trusted to speak their minds without consequence. Most were widows or the unmarried daughters of scholars, clergymen, or civil servants. They were poets, essayists, translators. One or two had published novels under initials alone.
At first, Jane had merely listened, offering the occasional remark—but week by week, her voice gained strength. Gradually, without quite meaning to, she had begun to preside. Mrs. Radcliff remained a guiding presence—always well-mannered and proper—but even she seemed to defer toJane’s insight. And Charlotte, seated languidly near the hearth, watched it all with an air of amused pride, as though she'd expected nothing less.
To newcomers, Jane was introduced as Mrs. Strathmore, wife of Lady Charlotte’s distant cousin—an officer presently serving with Wellington’s army. The lie was thin, but it offered just enough pretext to explain Charlotte’s frequent visits. It did not fully account for why a duke’s daughter spent so much time in a modest Bloomsbury house, far from her family estate in Norfolk—but Jane’s fierce intelligence and quiet authority soon made her the unspoken center of the room. No one cared to press for more.
As May settled in, her belly had grown too large for comfort. She could no longer sit upright for long, and even with a cushion at her back, every movement sent pressure low into her spine. Yet she refused to cancel the gatherings. The company, the debate, the work, it all sustained her.
The morning it happened, the sky outside was soft and pearled with spring rain. The usual half-dozen had gathered—Mrs. Radcliff in her usual armchair, Miss Fielding with her hair perpetually unraveling, Mrs. Compton whose whispered sonnets were always more erotic than she admitted, and Miss Emery, the sharp-eyed pamphleteer whose views on marriage were considered inflammatory even by radical circles.
Jane had been having pains since last night—nothing sharp, just a gathering tension low in her belly, like a muscle slowly winding tight. She told herself it was nothing. The last time it had happened, Mary had rushed to Westford House in hysterics, only for the pains to fade by evening. She would not cause such a fuss again. Not unless she was certain.
So she sat on the sofa in her lace-trimmed robe, her feet propped on a stool, hands resting on the swell of her stomach, and sipped her tea with the air of a woman wholly at ease.
“…but even Byron’s so-called ‘passion’ is little more than self-indulgence. The modern poets, for all their fire, still write as men do—shaping women into fictions of their own longing. Silent, devoted, half-angel, half-mistress—never speaking, never choosing. They call it love, but what they crave is submission.”
There were murmurs of assent. Miss Fielding muttered, “Muse, not partner…”
Jane’s smile was faint. “That may be. But I think the longing they describe runs deeper than vanity. Yes, it’s shaped by a male voice—what isn’t, in our libraries? But the desire itself is not foreign to us. Yearning belongs to women, too. The grief of absence. The ache of admiration unspoken. These are human things. And it is in our hands—ours—to give them voice. To take what was written for us, and make it speak in our voice.”
“Why must we always begin with their words?” Emery pressed. “Why inherit their myths—always Mars and not Minerva?”
“Because there is no beginning. Every age inherits what came before—Athens, Rome, Jerusalem. And yes, that inheritance has always come in a man’s voice. But the voices change, even if the questions don’t.” Jane said quietly. “Grief. Desire. Power. Loss. These aren’t theirs or ours. The ancients wrote of conquest, yes—but also of honor, loyalty, sacrifice, mourning. Take Lucan. His republic was dying. And still he found poetry in the ruin. The same grief Byron writes, only with different emblems.”
There was a pause, an almost reverent silence. Then Mrs. Compton made a low sound of appreciation and murmured, “My dear, you ought to write that down.”
Jane gave a small breath of laughter. “I likely already have.”
She moved to rise, murmuring that she would ask Mary to fetch more tea, but the moment her feet touched the carpet, her body seized. A pain clutched low—no longer a mere tightening, but burning and spreading.
She froze. One hand braced on the arm of the closest chair, the other pressed instinctively across her abdomen.
“Jane?” It was Charlotte’s voice this time, sharper than before. Jane managed a nod, though her face had gone very pale.
“I’m quite all right. Just—”
But then came the wet sound. A hush fell. Jane looked down. Beneath the hem of her gown, a spreading bloom of damp darkened the rug. Her hands shook.
“Oh,” she said, softly, in surprise. “Oh dear.”
Mrs. Radcliff rose at once. “Mary!” she bellowed toward the hall. “Go fetch the midwife, the doctor!”
Charlotte was already at her side, catching her elbow before she could sway. “It’s time.”
Jane nodded mutely, the first real bolt of fear crossing her face. But it passed just as quickly. She steadied herself on Charlotte’s arm and exhaled.
“Yes,” she said. “It seems it is.”
The women in the room rose—not in panic, but with resolve, as if their presence might lend her strength. Mrs. Scott ran to the kitchen for hot water and towels, while another fetched pillows to prop her up. Someone closed the shutters, another moved the tea set aside.
Outside, the spring rain fell lightly, indifferent and gentle, as Jane was helped upstairs. Her child had decided. It would not wait for its father to return.
* * *
By the time the doctor arrived—a thin, spectacled man with precise hands and a faint Scottish accent—the pains had quickened. The midwife followed soon after, older, gruff, and unruffled by Jane’s cries.
