There was an old strip of towelling hung from a hook in the entryway, and after hanging up his dripping coat and removing his boots, he used it to towel his dark-blonde hair dry. It was only after midnight, an hour after Geoffrey had ridden into the gathering storm to try and fetch the doctor, that the midwife had grown alarmed. Her labor had been long and hard, but no longer and no harder than that of many other young ladies she had seen, the midwife declared. Make sure you do that so if she changes the bed she won't pull them out with the ground sheet. Get them as far under as you can, he thought blindly. "Dear old Geoffrey" He spoke it aloud this time as he stepped into the huge and stuporously warm West Country kitchen. "All done?" she asked a few moments later. He remembered Geoffrey saying You must not cry in front of her, old man - that is the one thing you must never do The moisture running down his cheeks now was not rainwater but tears. "I thought you were in a lot of pain, buster." She looked at him, gaze narrowing slightly. "Annie, could you wait five minutes?" he managed. He looked at her helplessly, knowing he was going to be caught after all. ![]() " He knew what he wanted to say but it was drifting away from him. Writing does not cause misery, it is born of misery. The layers of gauze kept thickening, moving steadily from gray toward black. I'll just put a few things away and come right back." As soon as she was out of the room he was reaching behind him, bringing out the boxes and stuffing them under the mattress one by one. ![]() "By the sound o" ye coat a-drippin" out there in the entry, ye nairly drowned between the sheds and the hoose"
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