Another sharp, piercing cry cut through the silent night air. In spite of the lateness of the hour, three rooms were lit in Hawking Manor. The manor house was a large, stately building. Like a watchful giant, it silently overlooked the extensive estate with an imposing presence. Two sets of sprawling stairways led along the parkway in front of the mansion decorated with manicured flowerbeds. They curled around behind a magnificent fountain where they united and ascended to a large terrace in front of the main entrance of the house. A cobblestone roadway stretched for several hundred yards from the parkway to an alley of pruned trees. Here, the roadway divided to embrace the large fishpond in front of which a flower garden sloped gently to the water’s edge. Having circled the pond, the path led to the front gate. There, an ancient oak tree stood.
Once more, a long, shrill cry coming from the manor filled the stillness of the slumbering March night. Faint beams of light wandered from some lower windows behind which a spacious study lay. The light cast flickering shadows across the withered snow banks now caked with time. Winter had been loath to go, but a more mellow wind had swept across Hawking Manor in recent days stirring in unseen spirits’ hope of new life.
Hawking Manor was home to Sir Samuel Carstairs and his family, a distinguished clan with a long, local history. At the exact moment, the next cry of pain emanated from the one room lit on the third floor where all the bedrooms were located.. The gentleman pacing the floor of the study spoke to someone seated in a great chair in front of the fire that was blazing in the exquisitely constructed fireplace. “How long must this go on father?” Samuel questioned. The hands that had always remained calm in battles on three continents shook as he poured himself another glass of sherry.
“Like with the coming of spring, one only knows that it will come,” the gentleman seated in front of the fireplace and hidden from Samuel’s view replied choosing his words. “One might interpret the signs and expect it to be this day or that, but in the end you can only go about your business and wait.”
“Henry! What are you up to out of your room at this hour?” The young woman who had climbed the last set of stairs to the third floor carrying a heap of large white towels scolded in barely a whisper the young boy who was standing in the hallway in his nightgown.
“Why is mother hurting so?” the boy, a husky six-year old, demanded. “Make it stop, Hannah!” He flung his long, curly black hair obstinately to the left side of his shoulder as he stuck his face up to the young lady’s view. She could see both fear and anger in his big, black eyes. His fists were clenched, and he stomped his foot when he repeated his words, “Make it stop, Hannah!”
Hannah Cardinal was the children’s governess and nanny. She was also their mother’s cousin and confidant. Placing the stack of towels carefully on the table in front of the great mirror on the wall between Henry and his parents’ bedroom, she turned to the boy. “Come along, sweet Henry.” Her voice was soft and melodious. She bent to place a kiss on the child’s cheek, took him by the hand, and led him back to his room. “Into your bed you go, you little rascal,” she pretended to scold. “If you are a good lad and stay tucked in, I will leave the door open ever so little, and you will be able to hear our new baby when it comes into this world in just a little while now.”
“I don’t want a new baby,” Henry complained, but he seemed placated for the moment by the attention heaped on him by Hannah. “Promise to make mother’s pain go away, Hannie,” he pleaded quietly now, when she tucked him in and gently kissed his brow.
“Any moment now, you will hear your baby sister or brother’s little cry, and then you will know that your mother is very happy, like she is when she smiles at you. You will then begin to love your baby, and it will love you too.” Hannah stroked his black locks. She had formed a special bond with the young boy. In spite of his willful nature and his tendencies not to obey his parents, for Hannah, Henry did almost everything she asked of him.
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