Saddle the Wind Read Online Free PDF

her boots. Minutes later she and Emmie had left the house and started up the hill.
    The way was difficult as they struggled through the deepening snow, their heads bent against the biting wind that struck their faces like shards of glass, rocked them in their tracks and seemed to enter through every fibreof their clothing. Like Emmie, Sarah was without gloves, and the hand she held to keep closed the collar of her coat was soon almost numb with cold. Then at last, after what seemed an age, they reached the side door of Hallowford House, entered and made their way across the yard. When they reached the rear of the house Emmie opened the back door, and Sarah, after kicking the snow from her boots, followed her inside. There Emmie took Sarah’s coat, shook it free of snow and hung it up.
    The scullery was the only part of the house Sarah had ever seen before and as she followed Emmie into the hall she couldn’t help but be aware of the elegance of her surroundings. The soles of her old, worn boots sank deeply into the soft pile of the carpet and the thought went briefly through her mind that the whole house where Ollie and the children now lay sleeping would have fitted into this hall alone.
    Seconds later she had reached the top of the stairs and was following Emmie across the landing to the door of a gaslit bedroom. There on the threshold she stopped as John Savill came towards her. He reached out to her and took her cold hands in his. ‘Thank God you’ve come,’ he whispered. Turning, he led her into the room. ‘Help her,’ he said, his voice breaking on a sob. ‘Please – help her.’
    Sarah moved to the bed and looked at the young woman as she lay on her back, wincing and biting her lip as waves of pain racked her body. ‘I’ll do whatever I can, sir,’ she said.
    On the landing outside the bedroom John Savill stood motionless as he waited, his face pale in the gaslight and looking older than his fifty years. Inside the room the fire was banked high, and the atmosphere was humid.The sweat shone on Sarah’s face as she bent over the young woman while beside her the elderly Florence leant over and gently dabbed at her mistress’s forehead with a cool, damp cloth. At the same time Emmie and Dora, who had already brought in towels and steaming kettles of water, hovered, ready to help, waiting for instructions. The group of women was like a tableau; they had been like this, their positions hardly changing, for over an hour.
    The long, long minutes continued to drag by, and then all at once from the bed the woman’s breath began to come even faster and suddenly she gave a scream and arched her back. Sarah saw then that the top of the baby’s head had begun to appear. ‘It’s here!’ she whispered. Then, slowly, so slowly, the tiny baby made its way out into the world and at last lay limp and seemingly without life in Sarah’s bloodstained hands.
    ‘It’s a girl …’ Florence breathed while Sarah, after quickly clearing the baby’s nose and mouth of the matter that had lodged there, lifted the deathly still form, holding it by the ankles in her left hand. Then with her right hand she gave it a small sharp slap on the buttocks. There was no reaction and she tried again. Still nothing; the small body just swung there like some lifeless doll. Sarah became suddenly aware of the stillness of the room, a stillness broken only by the sound of breathing and the occasional crackle from the fireplace. She was aware too of the women as they gazed, awed, and of the pale face of the child’s mother as she anxiously looked on.
    Raising her hand again Sarah struck the child once more, and this time she felt the tiny body convulse in her grasp as it sucked the room’s warm air into its lungs. Then a moment later it began to squall and she cradled it in her arms and smiled at the woman on the bed. ‘Yes,you’ve got a daughter,’ she said to the young woman. ‘A beautiful daughter. And she’s perfect.’
    Turning back