“Do you think it’s that?” She looked around, as he soaked it up with the towels, and she realized then that her nightgown was damp. He was right. It was her water.

“I’ll call the doctor,” he said as he stood up.

“I don’t think we have to. He said it could be an entire day before anything happens after that.”

“I’d still feel better if we called him.” But he felt a great deal worse after he called the hospital in Chaumont. Le Professeur Vinocour, as they referred to doctors in France, had left with three colleagues for Warsaw. They were going to offer their services to help there, and do whatever they could, and in addition there had been a terrible fire in the next village that night. All the nurses were helping there, and there were literally no doctors. They were desperately shorthanded and the last thing they needed to concern themselves with was an ordinary accouchement, even for Madame la Duchesse. For once, absolutely no one was impressed with his title. “A baby is no great thing to deliver,” they told him. They suggested he call one of the women from a neighboring farm, or someone at the hotel, but they couldn’t help him. He wasn’t even sure what to say to Sarah as he walked back upstairs, feeling sick, knowing that he should have taken her back to London, or at the very least Paris. And now it was too late. He had delivered puppies once, but he certainly had no idea how to deliver a baby, and neither did Sarah. She was even more ignorant than he was, except for her miscarriage, and they had given her a general anesthetic for that. He didn’t even have anything to help her with the pain, or to use to help the baby, if there was a problem. And suddenly, he remembered what she had said, that sometimes there was a lapse of an entire day before the pains began. He would drive her to Paris. They were only two and a half hours away, it was the perfect solution, he decided as he ran up the stairs to their bedroom. And then he saw her face with dismay, when he walked back into the room. The contractions had started out of nowhere with a vengeance.

“Sarah.” He ran to the bed, where she seemed to be struggling for air, as she wrestled with the pain that overwhelmed her. “The doctor isn’t there. Do you feel strong enough for me to drive you to Paris?” But she looked at him with horror at the suggestion.

“I can’t… I don’t know what happened … I can’t move … they just keep coming … and they’re so awful …”

“I’ll be right back.” He patted her arm and dashed back downstairs, deciding to take the woman’s advice. He called the hotel and asked if anyone could help him there, but the girl who answered was the owner’s daughter, and she was only seventeen and very shy, and he knew she would be of no use. She said everyone else had gone to the fire, including her parents.

“All right, if someone comes back, anyone, any woman who thinks she could help, send her up to the château. My wife is having a baby.” He hung up on her then and ran back upstairs to Sarah, who was lying on their bed, bathed in sweat, rasping as she breathed, and moaning by the time he reached her.

“It’s all right, darling. We’re going to do this together.” He went to wash his hands and came back with another huge stack of towels, and surrounded her with them. He used a cool cloth on her head, and she started to thank him, but the pain was too great for her to speak. For no reason, he glanced at his watch, it was almost midnight. “Well, we’re going to have a baby tonight.” He tried to sound cheerful as he held her hand and she thrashed with the pain while he watched her. He had no idea what to do to help, and she begged him to do something each time one of the vicious pains ripped through her. “Try to go with it. Try to think of it as something that will bring you our baby.”

“It’s too awful … William … William … Make it stop … Do something! …” she wailed, and he sat helplessly beside her, wanting to help, but not knowing how. He wasn’t sure anyone could, and she was overwhelmed by how awful the pain was. The miscarriage had been terrible, but this was infinitely worse. This was worse than her worst fears of what the birth would be like. “Oh, God … oh, William … oh … I feel it coming!” He was relieved that it was so soon, if it was going to be ghastly for such a short time, then she would survive it. He prayed that it would be quick now.

“May I look?” he asked hesitantly, and she nodded and moved her legs further apart as though to make room for the baby, and when he looked he could see the head, but just a bit of it, covered with blood and fair hair. The space he could see was about two inches across, and it seemed to him that it would be only moments before the baby was born, as he called to her in his excitement. “I can see it, darling, it’s coming. Push it out. Go ahead … push out our baby …” He kept encouraging her, and he could see the result of her pushing briefly. For an instant, the baby seemed to come closer, and then it would move back. It was a slow dance, and for a long time, there was no progress. And then the portion of the baby’s head that he could see seemed to grow a fraction larger at last. He braced her legs against his chest so she could push harder, but the baby wouldn’t move, and Sarah looked desperate as she screamed with each pain, remembering what the doctor had said, that the baby might be too big to be born that way.

“Sarah, can you push any harder?” he begged her. The baby seemed to be stuck. And they had been at it for hours. It was after four o’clock, and she had been trying to push it out since just after midnight. There was no respite between the pains, she got only a few seconds each time to catch her breath and push again, and he could see that she was panicking and losing control. He gripped her legs again and spoke to her firmly. “Push again now … now … come on … that’s it … more! Sarah! Push harder!” He was shouting at her, and he was sorry for it, but there was no other way. The baby wasn’t even far enough out for him to try to maneuver it or pull it. And as he shouted at her, he could see the head come a little farther forward again. They were getting there, but it was after six o’clock, and the sun was coming up, and they weren’t there yet.

She kept pushing and trying, and by eight o’clock she was losing a lot of blood. She looked deathly pale, and the baby hadn’t moved in hours, and then he heard a stirring downstairs and he called out to anyone who might hear him. Sarah was barely conscious and her pushing had grown weaker. She just couldn’t anymore. He heard rapid footsteps on the stairs, and a moment later, he saw Emanuelle, the young girl from the hotel, with wide eyes, in a blue gingham dress and an apron.

“I came to see if I could help Madame la Duchesse with the baby.” But only William suspected that Madame la Duchesse was dying and there would be no baby. She was hemorrhaging, though not uncontrollably, but the baby wasn’t moving, and she no longer had the strength to push when the pains came. She just lay there and moaned between screams, and if they didn’t do something soon, he was going to lose them both. By then, she had been in hard labor for nine hours and gotten nowhere.

“Come quickly and help me,” he said to the girl urgently, and she stepped forward and came to the bedside without hesitation. “Have you ever delivered a baby?” He spoke to her without taking his eyes off Sarah. She was a gray color now, and her lips were slightly blue. Her eyes were rolling back in her head, and he was still talking to her and making her hear him. “Sarah, listen to me, you have to push, you have to, as hard as you can. Listen to me, Sarah. Push! Now!” He had learned to feel for the contractions by keeping a hand on her stomach. And then he spoke to the girl from the hotel again. “Do you know what to do?”

“No,” she said honestly. “I have only seen animals,” she said with a heavy French accent, but she spoke good English. “I think we must push it out for her now, or … or …” She didn’t want to tell him his wife might die, but they both knew it.

“I know. I want you to push down as hard as you can, to push the baby toward me. When I tell you to …” He was feeling for the next pain and it was already coming, as he gave a sign to the girl, and began shouting at Sarah again, and this time the baby moved more than it had in hours. Emanuelle was pushing down as hard as she could, and she was afraid that she might kill the duchess herself, but she knew they had no choice. She just kept pushing and pushing and pushing, trying to squeeze the baby out, and bring it into life, before they lost both mother and child.

“Is it coming?” she asked, and she saw Sarah open her eyes as he nodded. She seemed to be aware of them, but only for an instant, and then she sank back into her sea of pain.

“Come on, darling. Push again. Try to help us this time,” he said quietly, fighting back his own tears as she cried. Emanuelle bore down on her with her full weight and all the force she could exert this time, as William watched and prayed, and slowly … slowly… the head pushed slowly out of Sarah, and before they had freed the baby, it gave a long wail. Sarah stirred when she heard it, and looked around as though she didn’t understand what had happened.

“What’s that?” she asked groggily, staring at William.

“That’s our baby.” There were tears running down his cheeks, and Sarah began to panic as the pains started again, and she had to push some more. They still had to free the shoulders, but now William was helping, trying to get them free, as mother and child cried, and William felt his sweat mix with tears. Sarah just couldn’t help them. She was too weak, and the baby was much too large. The doctor in Chaumont had been right. She should never have tried to give birth to this child, but it was too late now. It was half born, and they had to free it from its mother at last. “Sarah! Push again!” William shouted at her this time, and Emanuelle continued to press on her abdomen until it looked like she would go right through her. But the baby inched forward again, and William got one arm out, but he couldn’t get the other. And then suddenly he remembered the puppies he had delivered so long ago. There had been one like that, and it had been terrible for the mother, but he had saved them both. The pup had been unusually large, as he could see his own child was.

And this time when the pains ripped through Sarah and she screamed, William reached inside her and gently tried to turn the baby to a different angle, while feeling gently around the shoulder, and Sarah jumped in anguish and fought him as hard as she could. “Hold her down!” he told the girl. “Don’t let her move!” Or she might kill the child. But Emanuelle held her firmly, while William forced her legs down and tried to free the baby, and then suddenly with an odd little sound, the other arm popped out, the shoulders were free, and a moment later, William delivered the rest of him. He was a boy, and he was beautiful, and absolutely enormous.

William held him aloft in the morning sun, to look at him in all his beauty, and now he knew what his mother meant when she spoke of a miracle, for truly this was one.

He carefully cut the cord, and handed the baby to the girl, while he tenderly bathed Sarah’s face with damp cloths, and tried to stop the bleeding with towels.

But this time Emanuelle knew what to do. She gently set the baby down in a little nest of blankets on the floor and came to show William. “We must press down very hard on her stomach … like so … so she will stop bleeding. I have heard my mother say this about women who have had many children.” And with that she pressed down on Sarah’s lower abdomen even harder than she had before, and kneaded it like bread as Sarah screamed weakly and begged them to stop, but he saw that the girl was right, the bleeding slowed and eventually all but stopped, except for what seemed normal to both of them.

It was noon by then, and William couldn’t believe that it had taken twelve hours to deliver their son. Twelve hours that Sarah and the baby had barely survived. She was still deathly pale, but her lips were no longer blue, and he brought the baby to her and held the baby for her so she could see him. She smiled, but she was too weak to hold him herself, and she looked up at William gratefully, instinctively knowing that he had saved them. “Thank you,” she whispered as tears rolled down her cheeks and he kissed her. He gave the baby back to Emanuelle then, and she took him downstairs to wash him and then bring him back to his mother later on. William bathed Sarah and changed the bed, and wrapped her in clean blankets and towels. She was too weak to move herself, or even to speak to him, but she watched him gratefully, and finally lay back against the pillows and drifted off to sleep. It was the worst thing William had ever seen, and at the same time the most beautiful, and he felt overwhelmed by his own emotions, as he went downstairs to make her a cup of tea and lace it with brandy. As he made it, he couldn’t resist taking a quick swallow himself.