“It cannot be time! No, not now!” she cried, grasping her stomach.
Standing above her mistress, Mayeya wrung her hands in desperation. She didn’t know what to do. She had never taken part in a birthing before and was in fear for her life if she did anything wrong. What if the babe didn’t come out? What if it was born dead? Her mind conceived all the evils that she had heard could happen when it was a woman’s time. Frantic, she ran to the middle of the road and looked first one way and then the next for any sign of help. There wasn’t any, and now the light that was there just a moment before was gone. Her eyes on her mistress, Mayeya’s fear swelled. Nothing but ill could come of the situation. She bit her lip as Mistress Craig cried out in pain. Shaking from the cold and terrified that she would do the wrong thing, the young girl then made the first unaided decision of her life. Snatching her bag from the ground, she slowly turned and then ran as fast as she could back across the road and into the field. Not once did she look back at her mistress. Mayeya didn’t stop running until she could no longer hear the screams nor see the form lying alongside the road. When she did slow, it was to realize that she had made a fatal decision, one that she would never be able to take back. Wiping her tears of anguish from her face, she ran out onto the moor and disappeared into the darkness.
With curses upon her breath for Mayeya and unable to resist the impatience of life within her, Selina pushed with obedience, giving into a ritual as old as the earth. She felt herself being torn open as her body ejected her man-child. But the spongy form made no sound.
Possessed by madness, Selina shook it, slapping the tiny back to make its lungs contract and breathe. As the dull thud of her slap vibrated through the infant’s unresponsive frame, Selina shoved it aside before collapsing into a void of unknowing blackness.
Chapter Two
The stagnant odor of years of smoked cigarettes and cigars permeated the reception room. Katherine sat by the receptionist’s desk in a heavy leathered chair contemplating her meeting with the solicitor. Her thoughts were interrupted as the door opened and a woman glided into the room. Katherine eyed the newcomer, whose lavender attire with matching laced gloves and beribboned hat filled the room with color. In her frugal brown outfit, she felt as drab and colorless as the walls that surrounded her.
Katherine watched the woman run her fingers lightly over the softness of her purse and caught her brief disinterested scan. The look on the other woman’s face told Katherine that the woman had made a quick judgment about her, and she suddenly felt as menial as she looked. The woman moved to a chair on the other side of the room. Although she had a right to be there, the critical eyes of the woman made Katherine wish she could have waited in another room.
The stagnant air in the office became even more uncomfortable, and Katherine coughed. The other woman waved her handkerchief before her face.
“Open that window,” the woman ordered as she pointed to it.
Had she not been ordered to do so, Katherine might have indeed opened the window. However, she chose to glare back at the woman, and coolly replied, “If you wish the window opened, then open it yourself.”
A blush rose to the woman’s cheeks. “Well! How rude! Is this how servants behave in this country? I would have expected better.”
Katherine looked away but said nothing.
The window remained closed.
Both women sat in the screaming silence, impatiently glancing now and then at the private frosted doors for a sign of life.
* * *
In the enclosed chamber, Neal Jameson’s secretary waited to present the letters pertaining to the case at hand. The solicitor stood glancing out of the window at the increased activity on the street. He considered the task at hand, that of Robbie’s will. Had he done all he could to execute it? Three letters were sent to Robbie’s heirs, two complied, and one had been returned unopened and marked ‘deceased.’ The sending of the third letter was the secretary’s error. Neal knew that Robbie’s son was dead. Still the letter’s return made the solicitor feel as if he had failed to satisfy his lifelong friend’s final request.
As he contemplated his failure, his secretary spoke, “They’re here, sir.”
Neal already knew this for he had watched each one arrive. His guardianship was to begin. He wondered how he was going to handle these two young women who were so different from each other.
“Shall I show them in?”
“No, Harry, not yet.” Neal had been called back from holiday to handle Sir Robert Craig’s estate and wasn’t ready to settle his friend’s business. Instead, his spiritless eyes lingered over the view before him. The heavy cloak of fog gave the city a look of mystery, and the people moving about in it seemed ignorant of their own mortality. Neal knew about mortality for his best friend had met the dismal dispatcher of death not long ago. The gruesome details of Robert’s demise still haunted him.
“How fleeting are the feet of life,” he uttered, “especially when greed speeds
