Algernon chuckled. "I am afraid it is time to wake up for now," he said, "much as I regret having to do so. I seem to recall signing Miss Higgins' card for a set sometime after supper. And I have only just realized that the storm is still raging. What an unusually long time it is lasting."

"I had not noticed either," Celia said. "How safe I feel here with you, Algernon."

He hugged her to him once more. "Shall we keep our secret for a while?" he suggested. "Perhaps it would even be a good idea for you to return home as planned in two days' time. I shall follow after you within a few days so that I may talk with your father, as is only proper. Will he approve of me, do you think?"

"Oh, yes," she said. "Papa will love you." She giggled suddenly. "He will approve, anyway."

"I am going to work on making you laugh more often, Celia," Algernon said, lifting her hand and placing it formally on his sleeve before leading her back into the main hall. "You are quite hopelessly adorable when you do so. Not that I have an easy time resisting you even when you are as serious as a judge, mind you."


***

The wind was howling outside the cottage. Lightning was flashing and thunder crashing almost incessantly. At any moment the rain was going to lash down. Mr. Perkins and the children had come in from outside and had disappeared into the inner room, where the youngest children had been sleeping for some time. Mr. Perkins had hovered in the main room, it was true, looking down at his wife in acute distress, but when she tensed again against pain, he turned and almost staggered into the room with his mother and children. Only the two older daughters remained with David to tend their mother as best they could.

David was scarcely aware of any of these happenings. His starched collar had been shed long ago. The top button of his shirt was undone. His damp hair had been pushed back from his forehead so many times that it was thoroughly disheveled. His shirt and knee breeches, so carefully tended for the past few years so that they might last, were creased and stained.

He was sponging off Mrs. Perkins' hot face yet again with gentle hands. He was smiling down into her tired eyes.

"It should not be long now, should it?" he said. "Your mother-in-law has said that it is usually not long after the water has broken."

Thank goodness for that quavering and constant voice from the inner room, David thought. Without its direction he would not have even known about the breaking of the water before birth. He certainly would not have prepared for it by settling layers of rags over the mattress.

"It has never been this long, Reverend," Mrs. Perkins said. "I am sorry. I don't seem able to do anything to help you." And then she shut her eyes tightly and arched her back against yet another onslaught of pain.

Thank God it was this long, David thought, feeling a pang of guilt over wishing an extension to the agony of the poor woman before him. Would the midwife never come?

The swift knocking on the door that ensued seemed an answer to his prayer. David felt his shoulders sag with relief as one of the girls ran to open the door. Rain lashed against the window at the same moment, almost as if a giant hand had hurled a mammoth pailful of water against the cottage. But he did not turn. He was still clasping Mrs. Perkins' hand and murmuring soothing words to her, waiting for the now familiar signs of the subsiding of the pain.

"Oh," a breathless voice said from behind him, "just in time. I am so glad there was a light in your house still, Tess. I hope you do not mind my coming in."

David turned sharply, and his eyes met the startled glance of Rachel. She was dressed for the ball, with no cloak or bonnet. Her hair was blown into wild disarray.

"David?" she said. "What is it? Is someone sick? Oh. It is Mrs. Perkins' time?"

The voice of old Mrs. Perkins came from the inner room. "Is that you, my lady?" she called. "You had best come in here. That is no place for a young lady to be. I am afraid we are crowded, but you must have the chair."

"Where is the midwife?" Rachel asked, ignoring the voice. "Has she not been sent for?"

"She has been busy all day attending another birth," David said. "She is supposed to come as soon as she is able."

"But she will not come now," Rachel said. "Listen to that rain, David. And the wind. Travel will be impossible for several hours at least."

"Go into the other room, my lady," Mrs. Perkins said weakly. "Oh, Reverend, I'm so sorry." She began to gasp again, and David turned back to her.

"Please to go inside, my lady." Mr. Perkins had emerged from the inner room, looking rather like a ghost, Rachel thought. "I shall go and see to your horse."

Rachel stared guiltily as he opened the door and had it almost whipped from his hand. He disappeared outside. "David, do you have any experience in this?" Rachel asked when he had finished talking to Mrs. Perkins and was dabbing at her face with a cloth.

His soft laughter sounded genuinely amused. "It is not part of the training of a clergyman," he said, "though perhaps it should be. Go on into the other room now, Rachel."

"No," she said. "You need help. Let me do that, David."

She reached out a hand for the cloth, but he dropped it hurriedly into the bowl in order to take the hand of Mrs. Perkins, who, to Rachel's horror, turned rigid and even redder in the face. She began to moan and bite on her lower lip, which was already looking swollen and bruised.

"Let the sound out if you must," David was saying to her. "Scream if it will help. We will endure it, and the children have company."

Mr. Perkins had just come back in from outside, looking drenched to the skin.

Rachel dipped a finger into the bowl, found that the water was tepid, and hurried over with it to the pail that stood beside the door. By the time Mrs. Perkins had again relaxed, Rachel was back at her side with fresh cold water. She knelt and began to sponge off the hot, tired face and neck. She turned her head and smiled at the two young girls, who were hovering at the foot of the mattress, their eyes wide with tiredness and fright.

"Have you been helping?" she asked. "How very brave of you. I think you deserve a rest. Would you like to go in and join your grandmama or perhaps go up to the attic to lie down? I shall help the Reverend Gower now. I shall call if we need you. All right?"

Lil almost sagged with relief and even Tess put up no argument. They both disappeared up the ladder into the attic, taking no light with them. Indeed, they needed no light. The lightning was still almost incessant.

On old Mrs. Perkins' instructions and some weak affirming murmurs from her daughter-in-law, David had gathered up the remaining pile of dry cloths that the girls had set on a chair and brought them over to the bed. He and Rachel spread them in a thick layer on the mattress. A smaller pile was left beside the bed for wrapping the baby after the birth. Rachel stared at them and realized suddenly and for the first time exactly what was about to happen. But there was no time to panic. Mrs. Perkins was moaning beside her. Soon she would need the mercy of the cool cloth again.

Over the next hour Rachel forgot the storm, the imminence of birth, and all else in her efforts to relieve the mother's pain.

"It's time," the woman said at last with some urgency. Her breathing quickened. "It's time, Reverend. Where is the midwife?" The last words were almost screamed as Mrs. Perkins gripped the sides of the mattress and bore down against her pain.

David's eyes met Rachel's across the bed. He was looking very pale, she noticed, but not panic-stricken. He looked quite in charge of the situation. She forgot that he had no more experience than she with such an event. She looked calmly to him for instructions.

"Grip both of her hands, Rachel," he said, "so that she can push with more force. I will receive the baby. Mrs. Perkins senior has given me full instructions on how to proceed."

Rachel obeyed without question and watched quite calmly the preparations David made as surely as if he had delivered a hundred babies.

And then, quite unaware of the pain in her hands caused by Mrs. Perkins' viselike grip, she watched in growing wonder and awe the slow miracle of birth. And finally there was the moment when David held in his hands the tiny red and slippery child, and it cried without any encouragement to take its first breath. The newest Perkins boy had made his appearance.

Mrs. Perkins relaxed her hold on Rachel's hands and reached out her arms. She was laughing weakly, her whole attention focused on her son. "Oh, give him to me," she said.

Rachel reached for some warm cloths in a daze and wrapped them around the tiny, noisy little bundle before placing it in the mother's arms. As she crossed the room to fetch warm water in the bowl, she noticed with puzzlement that David was still busy. It was not over yet. Old Mrs. Perkins was calling instructions from the inner room, and the new mother was adding details.

And then it was all over and Rachel was able to take the baby in trembling hands, wash him off gently with the water, and wrap him in the remaining clean cloths before handing him again to his mother, who was covered up and smiling tiredly, her eyes following every move Rachel made with her precious bundle of humanity.

And then Rachel called in Mr. Perkins, and he came, pale and trembling, and stared down in humble timidity at his wife and son. David was beside the door washing off his hands and rolling down his shirtsleeves. Rachel followed him there. Their eyes met and held.