Chapter Seven
“Wha’ do ye want?” A round dumpling of a woman Wwith graying hair and the scent of flour and cinnamon about her answered Daisy’s knock on the cottage door the next morning. The porter’s map had proven exceptionally true, but it would have helped a great deal to know that “estate” was their hoity-toity way of saying “farm.” Englishmen. Daisy, Red, and the countess passed the place three times before realizing the picturesque cottage, outbuildings, and pens populated by all manner of farm animals were indeed their destination.
Daisy adjusted her jacket, glanced around the neat gardens, and smiled. “We have come to see Professor Huxley. This is his home?”
The old girl gave them a thorough once-over, openly assessing the carriage, the fine clothes, and the fancy horseflesh.
“Wull, ’e don’t tutor these days. And anyways, he ain’t here.”
“He can’t ’ave strayed far—not with such a handsome lass in th’ house,” Red said, with a wink that brought color and a surprised grin to the housekeeper’s worn face. Daisy watched him charming the woman and wondered where he had picked up the word “lass.”
“He be out in the far shed.” The woman pointed over her shoulder with her thumb. “Bessie’s calvin’ an’ he’s . . . tendin’ ’er.”
“Would you mind if we wait, dear lady?” Red asked with a flourish.
She studied his grand appearance and gallant talk, but must have decided that purposeful flattery was better than no flattery at all, for she smiled coquettishly and gave a small dip at the knee.
“Becky’s th’ name, sarr. Housekeeper fer th’ perfesser.” She regarded Daisy and the countess with less approval, but stepped back and waved them forward. “In with ’e, then, and I’ll put a kettle on. Could be a spell b’fore he’s finished.”
Red and the countess followed the housekeeper inside, but Daisy paused on the doorstep, then turned without a word and strode off through the gardens in search of her quarry.
The place was an idealized miniature of a working farm . . . everything half scale and what the gentry would call “quaint.” The cottage sat amidst a well-tended garden of hollyhocks, daylilies, nasturtiums, and asters, and was climbed by prolific red roses. Hedge roses climbed sheds and fence posts along a path of well-laid bricks that swept through flocks of ducks, geese, and chickens, then later broadened to include a vine-covered arbor complete with a stone bench. Each paddock, fence, and shed was neatly whitewashed and the barn itself was a brick, hip-roofed structure with carved stone cornices and no small number of furbelows. It was nothing less than idyllic. Exactly the kind of place a high-minded professor might choose to live out his twilight years.
As she approached the farthest shed, she heard a man’s harried voice floating from it and hurried to the edge of the half wall that made up the sides of the structure. Inside, an older man in plus fours, rubber boots, and tweed coat and vest paced beside a doe-eyed cow lying on a bed of straw. The beast’s sides bulged; she was indeed in the throes of giving birth.
“Come now, Bessie, let’s get on with it,” the professor implored. “This is a fully natural process. Part of intricate weave of the fabric of life. A touch of the grand and eternal mystery.” Exasperation began to show as he pointed to a book lying atop the far wall. “You’ve heard what Erasmus and John Locke had to say: Nothing worthwhile comes without effort. Put your heart into it and give it a proper push.”
“Professor?” Daisy called, standing on her tiptoes to lean over the side of the shed. “Professor Broadman Huxley?”
The man turned partway, scowled at her, and declared “Not now” with a dismissive wave. “I’m engaged in a tricky bit of animal husbandry, here.”
Daisy frowned. “I have traveled a long way to see you, Professor. All the way from New York.”
“If you’ve waited that long, you can wait a bit longer,” he said irritably. “This poor creature is giving birth and in need of instruction.”
He knelt by the cow, produced a small book from his jacket pocket, and began to read to her in a language that sounded suspiciously like Latin.
“What the devil are you doing?” she called.
He turned halfway, clearly annoyed. “Dipping into philosophy from the wisdom of the Greats. The classical masters are full of it.”
“They’re full of it all right,” she muttered. The old boy was thick as cow pies. Stepping around the shed for a better look, she spotted a pair of hooves protruding from the cow’s rear quarters. While she watched, the cow’s muscles contracted and the forelegs were thrust out further, and then retreated as soon as the contraction passed. The same ineffectual process was repeated twice more before it struck her what was happening.
“Is it her first calf?” she called to the professor. He bristled and read louder. “I said: Is she a first-calf heifer? How long has this been going on?”
“I don’t know who you are, young woman”—he turned, still squatting, red faced, and irritable—“but your presence here is both inappropriate and unwanted. Be so good as to remove yourself and allow me to minister to this poor creature.”
“Minister?” Daisy was struck forcefully by the old boy’s high-handed dismissal, but fought past her annoyance to concentrate on the emerging crisis. “Reading to her is not going to do a bit of good. She’s got a big calf.” She pointed. “Look at the size of those legs and hooves.”
Before he could respond, she had removed her gloves and was around the open end of the shed, unbuttoning her jacket.
“Now, see here—” He stood and spread his arms to bar her from the sight. When she darted around him to look closer at the business end, he gasped. “Come away from there, this instant! This is most unseemly!”
“It’s not just unseemly, it’s downright dangerous.” She draped her jacket over the nearest shed wall and rolled up her sleeves. “Most cows give birth out in the pasture with no trouble, but sometimes—especially with first-calf heifers—a calf may be too big for a cow to birth by herself. That’s what’s happening here, and if we don’t help her, she’ll go into shock and she and the calf will die—you’ll lose them both.”
“You cannot possibly—this is no business for a lady,” he said, then glanced anxiously at Bessie, who had begun to make odd panting noises. His eyes flew wide.
“Rope, we need heavy rope,” Daisy ordered, turning him by the shoulders and shoving him toward the stall opening. “Or chains.”
He halted, staring at Bessie with distress, and Daisy barked: “Now.”
A second later, he scrambled out of the shed and headed for the barn. While he was gone, Daisy knelt beside Bessie’s head and stroked her stoic face. “It’s all right, girl. We’re going to get your baby out, safe and sound. It may be your first, but I’ve been through this dozens of times.”
A sudden, powerful wave of feeling swept her, taking her back in time and across an ocean, taking her to spring calving, first-calf heifers, and a stirring of new life that made everything seem possible. For the first time in months, she was intensely homesick. How many times had she sat at a cow’s head with a lantern while the ranch hands hauled a calf into the world? How many times had they relented and let her help because they needed an extra pair of hands? Old Jake and Lefty and Fred . . . they had treated her like a princess one day and an annoying kid sister the next. If only she could see them, hear them laugh, and have a snort of whiskey with them again.
The professor came running back with two ropes, one of which seemed sturdy enough. She switched to the business end of the birthing and prayed she remembered the wrap and knots correctly.
“Are you certain you know what you are doing, young woman?”
When she looked up, the professor was teetering between imperious skepticism and naked hope. The way he wrung his hands—he was still uncertain he should be allowing a young female to meddle in such messy business. When she tugged on the ropes to test the knots, his eyes bulged. The impact of what they were about to do finally struck.
“Been pullin’ calves since I was knee-high to a prairie dog.”
“You’re going to pull the calf out?” He staggered a step.
“We’re going to do it—you and me, Professor.”
He produced a handkerchief and mopped sweat from his brow and she took a moment to tuck her skirts back out of the way.
“We wait for the next contraction—till the legs start coming out again—and then we pull like their lives depend on it, because they do.”
They positioned themselves and waited until the legs started to move. They started to pull. “Harder—put your back into it!” she shouted. Despite their best efforts, the legs halted and slid back inside.
“Don’t die on me, Bessie!” the professor pleaded, rushing to stroke the cow’s head. “If you’ll just help me get this calf out, right and proper, I’ll never pester you with Aristotle again!”
“We need help, another strong back,” Daisy said, thinking of Uncle Red, back at the cottage, and maybe the coachman. But, both were on the downhill side of fifty and no longer used to physical exertion. Then she looked up and found a tall, broad-shouldered answer to their dilemma bearing down them.
At that moment, in the brilliant morning sun, she could have sworn Ashton Graham had a halo of light around his imposing frame. The sure, confident way he walked, the sway of those shoulders . . . By the time he reached the shed, she had to struggle to shake off that unsettling effect.
“Just in time,” she greeted him. “Take off your coat and get in here.”
* * *
Ashton battled through momentary confusion, taking in the half-delivered cow, his old professor’s anxiety, and Daisy Bumgarten’s rolled sleeves and partly raised skirts.
“Good God, Miss Bumgarten.” He stood gripping the sides of his half-shed suit coat, already complying with her demand. “What have you—”
“Now, Mr. Graham.”
She turned her attention back to the cow and he found himself entering the shed hatless and in shirtsleeves. She explained that the heifer’s calf was too big and they were waiting for the next contraction to begin pulling again. He stared at her in disbelief.
“You expect me to . . .”
“I most certainly do,” she said emphatically, and for a moment those blue eyes contained a flash of lightning.
Her sleeves were rolled to the elbows, her half-tucked skirt was littered with straw, and her skin was flushed with warmth. Her honey-blond hair was being teased out of its proper coif by contact with her standing collar. He couldn’t recall ever seeing a woman in such circumstances, but he couldn’t imagine any of his numerous female acquaintances looking more appealing than Daisy Bumgarten while pulling a calf out of a cow.
He positioned himself on the rope behind Daisy and before the professor, and began to pull when she gave the order. “Harder.” So he wrapped his hand with the rope and really put his back into it.
The legs didn’t retreat fully this time and Daisy shot a grin over her shoulder.
“It’s working. We may get it with this next round.”
In fact, two more contractions were required to convince Bessie’s body to finally heave the calf out onto the straw. The sudden release sent Ashton and the professor thudding back against the shed wall and Daisy falling back atop Ashton. As she struggled up, she flashed a smile at him and headed for the calf and Bessie. He lay against the wall, stunned, feeling the lingering imprint of her body against him and her hand on his thigh as she pushed away.
The little beast was dark and wet, but it already moved and gasped for its first taste of air.
“Get up, girl, you’ve got to see him—he’s beautiful!” she coaxed the mother as the little calf struggled to his feet. “And he needs a good licking.”
* * *
Ashton got to his feet and helped the professor up. Together they watched in silence as Bessie inspected and cleaned her calf. It wasn’t long before the calf was attempting to stand on legs that were hugely out of proportion to the rest of him.
“Purely miraculous,” Huxley whispered, his voice choked. “Good job, my girl—good job!” He rushed toward them and Daisy braced with expectation. But he lurched past her and threw his arms around the little cow’s neck.
A soft smile lit her face as she watched the professor blink away tears and mumble thanks for Bessie’s safe delivery. Her cheeks were rosy, her lips curved into a perfect bow, and her eyes—those blue eyes were suddenly as clear and fathomless as a summer sky. Ashton stared, spellbound.
She looked like a Madonna . . . soft and appealing, giving and wise in a way he’d never seen in a flesh and blood woman. Moments later she stepped in to dry the little calf with some straw and then the hem of her skirt. She laughed as the calf nuzzled her, and the full, throaty sound sent ripples of reaction beneath his skin.
“Not me, little fella. Your ma’s the one with the chuck wagon.” Ashton had no idea what that meant—some god-awful Americanism, no doubt—but she looked up at him with such genuine delight, he couldn’t help but smile.
“Isn’t he beautiful?” she asked in a voice that was pure music. “So new, so perfect.” A second later she was on her knees beside the little beast, running bare hands over his sturdy little frame and knobby legs.
The professor joined her in adoring the newborn and together they giggled like children. For a moment, Ashton was drawn into it with them, aroused in soft places he had forgotten existed inside him. His chest grew tight and his knees were a little spongy. He stood absorbing the wonder of the moment until Huxley turned to Daisy and snatched her hands into his.
“Thank you, thank you, dear lady. Don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t happened along. I owe you a debt.” He looked chagrined. “And I don’t even know your name.”
“Daisy Bumgarten, Professor. From Nevada. In the States.”
The bottom dropped out of Ashton’s stomach.
The Grand Old Man of English History, the feared “Hatchet of Scholarly Hopes,” the once dreaded Don of Doom . . . blubbering over a cow and slathering gratitude on a dollar princess who fancied herself an expert in bovine midwifery. What the hell happened to his razor-tongued old mentor?
Never mind Huxley—what the hell had happened to him?