A little, ma’am, and very poorly
If Elizabeth had still been able to reach the pianoforte, she would have concluded her performance with a tremendous cacophony.
As she had barely been able to reach the ivory keys, her force, and thus volume, were much reduced. As her lap was also quite reduced, she was forced to drop her hands to her sides, and finished her recital with a rueful shrug.
“Thus ends my performance. Please accept my apology for its complete lack of musical ability,” she announced.
Lady Catherine would surely have berated her, notwithstanding her own complete inability to perform even the simplest scale, and Elizabeth, for once, would not have argued with her, but as her audience was made of her husband and his sister, her own sister Jane and her perpetually reassuring and cheerful husband, no criticism, not even the mildest acknowledgement of her melodic fiasco, ensued.
“Oh, Lizzie, you were delightful—” that was Jane, her dulcet tones even more dulcet in contrast to the last woefully struck chord.
“I thought it sounded very well,” Georgiana, still somewhat shy even in the bosom of her family, offered.
“’Twas jolly good, plenty of spirit and my foot was tapping away, wasn’t it just, Jenny?” Charles Bingley said, most enthusiastic and possibly tone-deaf.
“You are too hard on yourself. You faced an insurmountable barrier to the correct execution of the piece,” Darcy said, having risen and crossed to her side as the last ill-considered note was still ringing. He had a hand under hers to help her to rise, the other swiftly wrapped around what was left of her waist to offer ballast. Lady Catherine would surely have condemned Elizabeth for leaving her chamber, so close as she was to her confinement, so similar in her bearing to a whale in her own words, Darcy remonstrating with her that she was everything perfect, struggling as he was now to keep a hand from resting on the full moon curve of her belly.
“You must be fair. It was nothing to do with my great expectations,” she replied, smiling saucily in the way she knew he liked best, patting the spot where she felt a small foot pushing quite firmly. “I’ve always been an abysmal pianist and not being able to reach the keys was the least of my troubles.”
“But it couldn’t help, could it?” Charles said, making them all laugh.
Tagging @janeuary-month for Day 5 prompt, "pianoforte."