“Yes, with our dear Marguerite. Both too sweet for the world, I’m afraid. But Fanny wasn’t shy coming into it.”

The midwife took off her brown cape and folded it over a chair. “Well, I’ve never seen two births the same. Not in all my time. But we’ll hope for the best.”

“I told Mr. Godwin I’d be down for dinner tomorrow afternoon.”

“Let’s have a look, then,” said the midwife, eager to attend to the business at hand. “D’you mind if I take off my cap?”

“Of course, Mrs. Blenkinsop. We don’t stand on ceremony here.”

“‘Mrs. B’ ought to do fine,” she said, taking some almond oil from her bag and rubbing her hands clean with it. “Shortens things up.”

“Mrs. B, then.”

A servant appeared with a pressed apron for the midwife, which she wrapped around her own dumpling of a stomach and tied at the back. She removed the woman’s slippers, squeezing the arch of each foot before lifting her legs onto the bed, then laid her palms on the great taut womb, and closed her eyes as a way of gathering all her senses to feel the child inside. Satisfied that the baby had fallen down proper and headfirst, she sat on the edge of the bed to raise the missus’s knees to a slight bend, rolled her gown to the crest of them, pulled off her underthings, and lightly pressed her legs apart. They had the give of a woman who’d done this before.

As the midwife inquired into her case—dilated only one finger’s worth across—the pregnant woman exhaled a slow breath and talked to the ceiling.

“I told Mr. Godwin over breakfast I had no doubt of seeing the animal today, but that I must wait for you to guess the hour. I think he was somewhat alarmed at the prospect of it all, but relieved when I sent him away. Though I promised I’d send word throughout the day.”

“Then it’ll just be the two of us, for now.” The midwife wiped her hands on her apron. The custom of gathering a gaggle of female relatives and friends, as far as she was concerned, did nothing to serve the cause, or the patient. None of them, in her experience, could agree on a best course going forward or backward: Was it oystershell powder for weak digestion, or crushed chamomile flowers? Cayenne pepper or laudanum for morning sickness? A “cooling” or a “heating” diet throughout? (Mrs. B had seen too many women living like a horse on grassy food and water.) If a woman’s pains weren’t strong enough, her attendants promoted large quantities of strong liquors, and if very strong, even more. The only thing worse, in her mind, was the calling of a doctor, who was always quick with the forceps and short on patience with a woman in pain.