"I need you to hold her. Robert, are you paying attention? I need you to hold her so that I can get to the calf?"
I wiped the sweat from my brow with the back of my hand, dirt and hay comingling with the perspiration to form a claylike mud against my skin. But my focus remained on the miracle of birth taking place before my very eyes. That and the traumatized farmhand staring wide eyed down the business end of a heifer's birth canal.
"Robert," I barked again and the farmhand's attention snapped to me. "I said grab her."
Slipping on mud and hay and amniotic fluid, the farmhand rushed to the head of the heifer, placing a soothing hand upon her snout and muttering comforting phrases that I was quite certain was more for his benefit than the beast's.
I turned my attention to the calf emerging from the heifer's birth canal, both front hooves and a good portion of its head having already emerged.
"I sent for Lord Watts, Miss Collins. He should be here as soon as–" Robert started.
"There's no time," I told him. "Give me the chains."
Robert hesitated but did as he was told, reaching for the obstetrical chains that my brother-in-law, Lord Finnley Watts, had kept hanging in Mona the heifer's pen for this precise reason. He handed them to me without leaving the animal's front. I grabbed them, nearly dropping them through fingers coated in watery discharge, and tied each one around a hoof, pausing to count between contractions as they occurred.
"Alright," I called out, sweat dripping down my brow as I gripped the other end of the chains tightly and prepared myself. "I'm going to start pulling with her contractions. When I do, she's going to fight it. Be ready."
Robert nodded, digging his heels in and bracing himself for impact. I took a deep breath and watched closely, waiting for the muscle contractions to tell me when. The moment I saw them seize, I gripped the chains and yanked as hard as I could. The heifer screamed as the calf slid inches out of her. I took another deep breath, my shoulders lifting, and waited. Another contraction and I pulled with all my might once more.
It was difficult work, calving. Not for the faint of heart or the weak of arm as my brother-in-law always told me. But there was something rewarding about it as well. Not in the same way as the human births I had assisted with were. That was a feeling of euphoria like no other. But still, this was bringing life into the world. It was ugly and disgusting at times and far less miraculous than the preening mothers in polite society would have a young woman believe, but it was beautiful in its own way. And the work was more gratifying than anything I had ever known.
So I pulled on those chains again and again, every time those muscles contracted, until my arms were so sore I could barely stand to lift them, until I was splattered in blood and viscera and all manner of fluids, until those hooves dropped shakily onto the muddy earth and I slid down into a heap beside it. I raised my eyes to the calf, taking its first wobbly steps forward, and let out a breathy laugh, arms shaking with exhaustion, tears stinging my tired eyes.
"It's done?" Robert asked from where he stood at the mother's head.
"It's done," I repeated, nodding even though he couldn't see me.
And then I stood, my dress stained with mud and afterbirth, and strolled on trembling legs toward the front of the heifer. I placed a bloody hand on her snout and stroked.
"Well done, old girl," I told her, unable to keep the smile from my lips. "Alright, Robert. Let's get them cleaned up."
The process of cleaning was nearly just as grueling as the birth. Eventually, I found myself without a clean spot on my apron upon which to wipe my hands and told Robert I was going to get some air before I returned to help again.
The sun was shining on the vast English countryside and I turned my face up toward it, letting it warm me from the outside in. I breathed the fresh air deeply, inhaling the scents of marigold and hawkweed, listening to the mating calls of the grouse high up in the trees. Spring was in full bloom and there was no better time of the year to reside in North Yorkshire. The grass was growing tall, the flowers blossoming, the birds returning from their journey to warmer climate. The countryside was coming alive again and, despite the fact that the men of science were predicting an unusually warm summer, there was something about spring that made you glad it had come at last. Spring meant new life, a fresh start. And I couldn't have imagined a better way to ring it in.
I heard the hoofbeats before I saw the company. Dust rose on the horizon and then the horses cleared the hill. I recognized the rider at the head of the column in an instant. Lord Finnley Watts sat atop his preferred gray male, his square jaw darkened by the appearance of a five o clock shadow, his trimmed black hair unruffled by the breeze as he rode home at speed. I took a step forward, smiling and raising a hand to wave in greeting, but halted at the sight of what crested the hill behind him. An ornate carriage, seafoam green with golden overlay. I would recognize it anywhere.
Shaking my head in stunned disbelief, I backed away from the procession, peering over my shoulder at the barn behind me and calculating my chance of escape if I made a run for it now.
"I'm sorry," Finnley was saying before he even dismounted his horse. "Norah, I am so sorry. Your father left me with no choice. It has to be this way. Just, please, hear her out and–"
"Natalie said you went into town for feed," I interrupted him, still backing away, still shaking my head. This wasn't happening. This couldn't be happening. Not now. Not yet.
"Norah–"
He reached for me. I flinched away and he dropped his hand back to his side, hurt flickering in his dark eyes. I might have felt a stab of guilt if it weren't for the carriage coming to a stop at that moment. Finnley kept his eyes on me but his men were already moving to open the door.
I saw my mother's shoe first, an eyesore of glittering jewels and yellow satin. My heart sank as she emerged from the carriage, helped by my brother-in-law's men. She dusted off her ruffled satin bodice and examined her surroundings with a wrinkled nose and curled lip. When her eyes settled on me, covered head to toe in calving afterbirth, the distaste grew sour.
"Honestly, Norah, this is how you greet your mother after two years away from her?" she asked, that primly snobbish tone of hers snapping right into place as always. I bristled, clenching my teeth as her very voice grated against every nerve, every firing synapse in my brain. "I send you away a proper young lady and come to find you arm deep in a heifer."
"Cow," I corrected her. "She's a cow now. And I was never a lady."
Finnley smiled at that but quickly and surreptitiously covered the grin with his hand.
"You will be," my mother crooned, her voice a low threat as she narrowed her gaze at me, shrewdly examining me once again. "Lord Watts."
"We are to return home at once, Norah," my brother-in-law told me, stepping forward and offering me his hand. He might have cared that I was covered in blood and afterbirth, might not have wanted to offer me physical support because of it, but he knew that I'd spent the better part of the last few hours pulling on obstetrical chains so hard that my legs might buckle if I attempted to walk unattended. And he knew that it would absolutely kill me to do so in front of my mother. So he offered me a hand and glanced toward my mother as I took it. "There is... much to discuss."
Too exhausted to properly question the foreboding nature of those words, I let him lead me to a horse which I mounted and rode back to my brother-in-law's estate, my mother's carriage following after us at a slower pace intended to ensure the vehicle didn't burst apart at every bump and divet.
"You could have warned me," I growled, my voice low as I kept my eyes focused on the trodden dirt road that my mount followed onward without my lead.
"Natalie thought it best not to," he admitted.
I turned to find him very pointedly not looking my way. His jaw was clenched but his eyes remained on his home, already looming on the horizon. I settled into my saddle with a grimace. So he and my sister had discussed this, without me, and she had decided to keep me in the dark. I clenched my fists around the reins, trying not to allow the betrayal to leave too bitter of a taste in my mouth. It was clear that I had a fight ahead of me. I wanted to remain as clear-headed as possible for it.
I did not wait for the others when we reached the estate. I dismounted my horse and did not bother to tie it up as I marched straight for the house. Finnley called after me. A stableboy cursed as he tried to grab the reins of the horse I'd left behind. But I did not stop for either of them. Instead, I stormed into the house, stomping through each and every room until I found her. She was in the nursery.
"Would you care to tell me," I snapped, clenching my fists at my sides as I confronted my sister, "why our mother has decided to take a sudden jaunt into the countryside that it appears you knew about and did not warn me of?"
"Shh," Natalie hissed, nodding her head in the direction of the sleeping toddler she had just lain into his crib behind her. Then she gripped me hard by the elbow and pulled me from her child's room, shutting the door tightly behind us before whirling on me again. "This is my home, Norah. I do not have a responsibility to tell you of each and every guest that comes to visit."
"That's utter bullshit, Natalie, and you know it."
I placed my hands on my hips, ready for our bout of verbal sparring to truly begin, but she just shook her head and strolled away from me. The dismissal of it infuriated me more than anything else possibly could have. So I stormed after her.
"This is our mother, Natalie," I said, hot on her heels as she strode through the house. "She does not come for visits. She does not stop by for tea and idle conversation. She plots. She plans. And then she executes those plans with brutal efficiency. And it has become clear that whatever this one is, you have been let in on it, and I have not."
"Norah–" my sister started, exhaustion creeping into her voice again in that way it always did with mothers of young children.
"Do not patronize me, Natalie. I thought we were on the same side here. I thought we were always on the same side."
"We are."
"It doesn't feel that way. Why am I being blindsided?"
"There you are," another voice interrupted and I didn't have to look to know who it belonged to. My mother's carriage had finally made it at last.
I held my sister's gaze as her husband came to stand beside her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders in that protective way of his he always adopted around my mother and other members of the elevated nobility.
"Sit down, dear," my mother ordered. "Stop making me chase you all over the English countryside."
I took a deep breath, closing my eyes and readying myself for what was to come. Then I turned and faced her. I did not sit. I just crossed my arms and waited.
"You cannot follow even the simplest of instructions, can you Norah?" she asked, taking a seat of her own and taking her time settling in, fixing the folds of her dress and crossing her ankles just so.
I tapped my foot impatiently, waiting for her to say whatever it was she had come to say. Finally, she did.
"Your father has requested you return home."
My jaw went slack, my arms falling to my sides.
"What?" I blurted.
"It's been two years, Norah," she reminded me with a sigh. "It's time you returned to more... polite society."
She glanced toward Finnley and Natalie at that. The former tensed while the latter just closed her eyes and hung her head.
"I am doing well enough here, thank you," I argued, crossing my arms again.
"I am not asking," she replied, her tone blunt, firm. A warning.
"Why? Why now?"
"It is past time you made your debut to society. We allowed you to venture out to the country to help your sister through the birth of her baby, to find a release for some of that rebellious energy you seem to always have an infinite supply of. But dear, Bernard is nearly two years old and you've taken to this midwifery nonsense far more than a lady of your standing should ever pursue–"
"I like it. It gives me purpose."
"You have purpose."
"Allowing myself to be dressed up like a doll and paraded around London is not a purpose, mother. It is a farce."
"It is society and you will adhere to its customs."
"I will not."
Silence descended upon us at that. I remained standing, arms crossed and jaw tight. My mother sat still in her chair, glaring at me, gripping the arms so tight that her knuckles turned white. Finnley and Natalie wisely remained silent through our battle of wills but it was no use. In the end, my mother pulled the one card she knew would get me to go anywhere she pleased.
"Your father's health has taken another turn," she told me, ice in every word. "He will not admit it but I believe part of his reasons for summoning you home is to be closer to you during what may very well be his last days."
"Mother!" Natalie gasped, covering her mouth in horror as her eyes widened at my mother's obvious, unethical ploy.
But it had worked as she'd known it would. My father was my soft spot. He always had been. And if he had truly summoned me home then he had his reasons. He knew how well I liked it here in the country. He would not have called me back unless he felt he needed to. I just hoped my mother was wrong about the why.
"Fine," I said and my sister turned her wide eyed gaze to me. "I will go with you, mother."
She grinned back at me, victoriously, as Finnley and Natalie blinked in shock that I had given in so easily. But my lips spread into a wicked grin as I turned and strolled from the drawing room, hot bath and fresh clothes on my mind.
"Besides," I spoke through quirked lips, "there are babies to be born in London as well."