18 | The First Birth

It started with a restlessness she could not explain. She paced the hall, the parlour, then the music room, the dining room, the sitting room, the drawing room, and back again. Nothing interested her, and nothing comforted.

"It's just nerves, Miss Margaret," Dixon assured her. She'd come from Crampton at the beginning of July to keep Margaret company during her confinement. "The Mistress was just as you are a week before Master Frederick were born. You'll settle in, mark my words."

Margaret bit her tongue in an effort to hold back her sharp retort. She didn't give a fig what her mother did more than twenty years ago. This was not nerves. It was true she was nervous—and also hot, and tired, and bored—but none of those things explained the unbearable restlessness of her mind and body tonight. She simply must move, or go mad.

She passed by the wide front windows countless times, her eyes fixed on the light in the mill office. It was often John's habit to lose track of time, working late into the evening, but it grew worse since her confinement began. The debt to the bank had been repaid and three of their buyers had at last settled their bills. The mill would recover. Rather than enjoying their triumph, her husband sprinted onwards with a fierce relentless energy. Perhaps it was this instinct which had aided him in finding success so swiftly after his father's own failure. Or perhaps he was simply avoiding the pack of women who'd descended on his home in anticipation of his firstborn child.

When she refused to remove to London for her confinement, as was fashionable, Aunt Shaw and Edith had reluctantly come to Milton. They made no secret of their polite distaste for the life he'd provided for his wife. He bore it with civil silence, but she saw the contempt and frustration pouring off of him. She didn't blame him for hiding away after the first miserable week. Whenever their company grew too tedious, she herself would slip into his study and lock the door.

"You must rest, Miss Margaret," Dixon insisted for the tenth time that evening. "You'll wear yourself out."

"Let her alone," Mrs Thornton interjected. She sat, stalwart and steadfast, at her usual spot in the parlour and sewed. Aunt Shaw and Edith had retired to their rooms for the evening, and Fanny had gone to spend the evening with Ann Latimer. "Walkin' about never harmed anyone."

Dixon turned red, sniffed, but fell dutifully silent, bustling from the room. Mrs Thornton watched her go. Margaret nodded her silent thanks. Of all the female company she was forced to endure in the last four weeks, she was surprised to discover she preferred the elder Mrs Thornton to anyone else.

"I wish they would all go back to London."

Mrs Thornton said nothing, but her wry expression said she too wished the same.

She lay awake until he returned. He moved through the dark of their bedchamber like a ghost. No matter how tired she was, her mind could not settle tonight, turning over each of the days of the past four months like stones. Something had changed in him. She couldn't decipher what it was. He'd always been firm yet gentle with her, in spite of his temper. Even teasing. Now there was a new softness she didn't understand. But she saw it in his face, and heard it in his voice, and felt it in his touch.

The bed dipped and he exhaled heavily. She turned on her side and tried to make out his profile in the dark. He still watched her, on the rare afternoon when he could bear the feminine chaos of tea, but it was different than before. She had the strangest feeling at times that he was trying to tell her something he couldn't quite say. She saw it, like a heavy weight in his eyes, when he thought she wasn't looking, but she was too cowardly to ask. And she did not know why.

She was cold when she woke again. Cold and...wet. She pushed herself up and shifted away from the damp spot under her. Had she—Margaret blushed furiously at the terrible thought of wetting the bed, like a small child. The grey hints of light crept about the corners of the windows in promise of the coming sunrise. She slid from the empty bed.

"Oh."

More water spilled down her legs wetting the floorboards. She blinked several times, still not quite certain what had happened. Then the muscles in her lower stomach and back tightened uncomfortably. A brief moment later the sensation passed. She swallowed, and forced herself to take a deep breath. "Do not be afraid, Margaret Marie." She knew saying it aloud wouldn't make it so, but she needed all the courage she had.

She managed on her own in the master bedchamber for several hours. She braided her hair and pinned it in a crown around her head, mopped the water off the floor, cheerfully asked Daisy to launder the bedclothes when she came with the breakfast tray, and tried to eat her toast. By the time the midday break whistle sounded, Mrs Thornton, Dixon, Fanny, her aunt, and cousin had settled her in her former bedchamber. Daisy and Jane came and went constantly. Fanny, Edith, and Aunt Shaw's shrill voices seemed to never cease.

"I—" she gasped. Clammy hands brushed at her face. All the bluster and bustling crawled under her skin, making each pain worse. She could not concentrate, could not think, could not speak, she simply could not..."Out." It was said between clenched teeth. Her eyes flew open and she pushed her aunt's hands away. She breathed heavy and hard through her nose. "Get out. Now."

The room fell into a stunned silence. Then Mrs Thornton nodded and set aside the wet cloth she held. "We'll go, if you wish it. But one of us must stay. You cannot be left alone."

"You," Margaret swallowed back a sob. She didn't really want the fierce old woman. She wanted her own mother. Desperately. "You stay. And Dixon." Most of all she wanted him, but he'd not even been told yet. He'll wear us out with all his worryin', his mother had said. Best tell 'im when you're closer. His mother and her mother's servant were all she had left. "Everyone else get out."

Time molded itself around each long wave of pain. She no longer noticed when the maids slipped in and out. She did not notice the sinking sun. All she knew was the agonising present moment. The pains came and came and came, until she thought she would split in two.

"I can't," she wept into Dixon's shoulder. Her breath shook in and out of her and she shivered, cold and covered in sweat. "John—I can't—"

"Breathe, Miss Margaret. You must push now."

"No—" She shook her head, eyes casting desperately about the room. Jane stood by the wash table, refilling the basin with steaming water. "Jane—please, I can't—"

Jane's eyes widened, and she froze, "Me, Mistress?"

"Go—" her breath heaved in her chest, her fists clutching the blankets, "get—John."

The maid stood as if she were carved from stone, afraid and confused. Dixon and Mrs Thornton exchanged a glance. It's not proper, their faces said. Margaret let out a strangled yell, grunting and bearing down, almost against her will. If Queen Victoria could have her husband in attendance in her birthing room, then so too would she. Proper be damned.

"I want—John. Now."

Mrs Thornton stood. "You heard her," she snatched the empty pitcher from Jane's trembling hands. "Fetch the Master. Sharpish."

She heard his booming steps on the stairs. "John!" He was running. She hadn't meant to call out. He was coming. "John!"

Then he was there, solid and calm, smelling of cinnamon and soot, lye and pine. "John." Tears of relief spilled down her cheeks, and she clung to him. Her fingers met skin and soft hair. He'd not even bothered to unroll his sleeves and put on his jacket.

"She's nearly there," Mrs Thornton's voice was low. "The head is coming. She must not loose heart. And she must push."

"Aye," he kept his focus on Margaret. "You push 'ard," he growled. "And you will live through this."

"A c-c-command, h-h-husband?" Her breathing came in shuddering shivers. She couldn't stop the groaning yell that tore from her lips as another pain came.

"It is," he clutched her hand between his, face hard as flint. "And God as my witness, you will obey me, wife."

She yelled again, a deep horrible sound, holding onto him like an anchor in a storm. The room soon fell into sinking darkness, then the soft glow of candles lit by unseen hands. The candles were half burned down, when the old mill house witnessed the first cry of an infant it had heard in almost forty years.