As William approached the large chest of drawers in the dining room, in which the candles and matches were kept, a large gust of wind blew in from the open window on the other side of the room. Shivering, William rushed over to close it, watching as a torrent of heavy rain came down as if from a waterfall.
"Oh no!" William realized out loud. "The messenger might become too ill to ride to the doctor... And it might be too muddy to get here!"
Poor William felt very frightened by this prospect and was just about to run upstairs to talk to his father about it when he remembered his errand. Fumbling through a drawer that he could only just reach on tiptoe, the boy eventually found two matches and one candle. Soon enough he was upstairs and his mother was screaming again.
"Oh mamma, I wish you were not in such pain!" cried William, giving his father the candle and matches.
"Oh William, you are so sweet," breathed Jane, her face contorted in agony. "You'll have a brother or sister at the end of this, my son."
Hopefully, William and Mr Rochester both thought.
"Thank you for the candles, but what took you so long? You look even more upset," commented Edward.
"The weather's horrible, father. I've barely seen it rain so hard as it is raining now!"
Edward looked troubled, but remained calm in front of his wife, whose hand he was still holding.
"If the doctor cannot come here tonight, we will do the best we can. We will pray to ask for Jane to give birth safely."
Little William, stunned into silence with fear, fear that his mother would die, fear at not knowing what his life would be like, knelt down and prayed at his mother's and father's bedside.
"Dear Lord, please make sure mother can give birth without help from the doctor, if he does not arrive on time and please let my new brother or sister be born healthy and well. I thank you for making my mother pregnant, as she and my father want another child so much. Amen."
William smiled meekly at his parents, but had to retreat quickly out of the room as Jane began to scream again. He did not know why she was screaming only some of the time, William found this disconcerting and surprising.
He stood outside the closed bedroom door while he waited for his mother to quieten down and watched the rain patter on the nearest window. William now heard thunder and could not see a trace of the trees less than a mile from their house, it was now too foggy and rainy to make them out.
As soon as William had heard that the noise had died down, he ventured back into the birth chamber, to find Edward just about to come and look for him.
"Ah William, another favour you could do is to help Emily collect some boiled water for Jane, she needs plenty to drink."
"All right," William nodded, although he became secretly worried about boiling water. Last time he had helped Emily, the maid, boil some in their kettle, he had forgotten to grasp the handle without a cloth and burned his hand quite badly.
As they hurried downstairs, William asked Emily, "If I am thinking about poor mamma in pain and whether the doctor will be able to ride through the mud or not, will I be able to concentrate enough on my errand not to burn myself?"
"Ooh, don' worr' yersel' wi' those thoughts Wil'yum, jus' doo what I doo an' yer'll be fine." Emily smiled in a cheery manner which surprised William, but nonetheless made him feel better.
Luckily the family had a store of water very near the house, so William only needed to put a blanket over his head to help Emily carry a bucket of the store into the house. He still worried about wet feet though, once when he had been splashing in many puddles and grown very cold after he had stayed outside carving, he had had to stay inside for a week with a very bad cold. He was frequently told that wetting his feet had caused it, so if that was true, he certainly did not want to be in bed for a week again, especially at a time like this.
Thankfully, William did not wet his feet too much and there was still a fire in the dining room which he could warm himself by before continuing to help Emily.
It was very laborious pouring a tiny bit of water into the kettle, waiting a few minutes for it to boil and then taking it up to Jane in a large mug, over and over again, but it distracted William enough from his worries for him to feel reasonably calm. Just as Emily was pouring water into the kettle for the fifth time, William heard the clatter of hooves on the stony entrance.
"The doctor's here!" cheered William and ran off to open the door for him.
"Wait-" Emily called, but he was already out of the kitchen and in the hallway, turning the old doorhandle to greet the man they had waited for for nearly an hour.
A wave of fear and disappointment washed over William when he realized who had arrived. He liked the messenger and his sleek dapple horse, but not now. He wanted the doctor, to treat Jane and make sure she did not die and make sure that his new brother or sister did not die. But instead, it was the cold, freezing messenger coming inside to speak to Mr Rochester.
"B- but where's the doctor?" questioned William in a high, nervous tone.
"He's just finishing treating someone in town," the messenger told William as calmly as he could, putting on a fake smile. "And he needs to check up on an old man's teeth, but that'll only take a few minutes. You'll see, young 'un, he'll be here in time to treat your mother."
William could not believe it. Not only was the doctor not here yet, after all this time, but he was going to take so much longer than it had already been. If the rain continued, he might not even make it through the forest, if it was too muddy and slippery.
"But if he doesn't come now, then he won't make it!" William screamed angrily.