Feathers in the Fire by Catherine Cookson

the kitchen she answered his question. ‘She’s better in that the fever’s gone down.’
    As he took the cup from her he said shortly, ‘Well, is there anything else?’
    ‘I can’t say, Master, only that she seems tired.’
    ‘Rest will cure that. There’s . . . there’s no sign of the child coming?’
    ‘She doesn’t say, Master.’
    ‘Say or not’ – his voice had risen – ‘you’d be able to tell.’
    And now, also for the second time in two days, her voice rose to answer his. ‘How can I tell when she gives no sign? I am no doctor.’
    He gritted his teeth while he stared at her; then forcing himself to calmness, he added, ‘Well, you don’t think the fever has had any effect?’
    She turned her head to the side and shook it as she answered, ‘Not that I can say at the moment, Master. Yet the mistress is not herself.’
    He turned away and walked to the door. He was well aware that she was not herself, but her emotional condition didn’t trouble him; as long as she held on to what was in her and gave it a chance of life, that was all that he was concerned about at the moment.
    So much did this matter take up his mind that Molly, coming out of the far door of the dairy, caused no ripple to pass through him. She was carrying two large pails of skim, and she dropped them with a clatter on a small platform ready for Johnnie to pick up and take to the pigs, and when she hitched up her full breasts with the cushions of her thumbs there was no tightening of his loins, no deep drawing in of breath.
    He finished his tea and turned from the door and, coming back into the kitchen, said, ‘You think she necessitates the doctor?’
    Again Winnie turned her head to the side and shook it before saying, ‘That’s up to you, Master. That’s up to you.’
    Yes, that was up to him, but the last person he wanted to talk with Delia at this moment was old Cargill. He was a fusspot, a gossiping, probing fusspot. By now, like all those in Hexham, he would have heard of the flaying and were he to call, he would, with a question here, a nudge there, as he sauntered around the farm, come to the truth quicker than any judge, after which he himself would be in for a long rigmarolling admonition. No, he didn’t want Cargill here just to attend her in a fever. But if he thought there was the slightest suspicion that the child was affected then he would gallop into the town himself and fetch him.
    He glanced at Winnie again. She’d know. She was a knowledgeable woman, a sensible woman, and she had an affection for her mistress, so therefore her perception would be keener.
    Winnie brought his attention to her again as she said, ‘Who’s to stay when you’re all at church, Master? I think it should be somebody who could use his legs just in case; me da’s not much use in that way.’
    He was walking towards the door again as he said briefly, ‘I’ll be here.’
    Although Delia in her present state could not carry out her threat of denouncing him in church, he thought that her indisposition would not only supply an excuse for his absence today but also for the coming Sundays ahead until the child was born. After that he would meet events as they came. One thing he was certain of, once the boy was born he’d put her in her place again.
    The pain that now rent her body seemed to split it in two. It had attacked her quite suddenly, waking her from a half-dazed sleep. To save herself crying out against it she bit tight down on the side of her hand, and when it had passed she lay gasping.
    The sound of her heavy breathing should have brought Molly from the dressing room, but it didn’t. When the sweat had cleared from her eyes she looked towards the open door where, reflected through the mirror of the wardrobe in the light of the lamp, she could see the girl, her head lolling to the side as she slept in an upright chair.
    She had said to Winnie, who was very tired, ‘Go and rest, I’ll be all right,’ but Winnie