Jewels (44 page)

“What do you suppose this thing is?” she asked, truly annoyed by then. She hadn’t enjoyed a meal since November.

“I believe it’s very simple, Madame,” the doctor said calmly.

“That’s comforting.” But she was still annoyed at herself for catching it in the first place. Thank God Julian hadn’t gotten it, but she’d been careful about what he ate and drank. She didn’t want him to get sick there. But for herself, she had been a good deal less careful.

“Have you any plans for next summer, Madame?” he asked, with a small smile, and Sarah began to panic. Was he suggesting surgery? But that was seven months away, and then suddenly, she wondered But it couldn’t be. Not again Not this time.

“I don’t know … why … ?” she said vaguely.

“I believe you will be having a baby in August.”

“I am?” At her age, she couldn’t believe it. She was going to be forty in August. She had heard of stranger things before, and she was hardly over the hill. She still looked as she always had, but one couldn’t lie to the calendar. And forty was forty. “Are you sure?”

“I believe so. I would like to run one more test to be certain it is positive.” He did, and it was, and she told William as soon as the doctor called her

“But at my age … isn’t that absurd?” Somehow, this time, she was faintly embarrassed.

“It’s not absurd at all.” He looked thrilled. “My mother was much older than you are when she had me, and I’m perfectly fine, and she survived it.” He looked happily at her. “Besides, I told you we should have another child.” And this time, he, too, wanted a daughter.

“You’re going to send me to that dreadful clinic again, aren’t you?” Sarah looked at him ruefully and he laughed. There were times when she still looked like a young girl to him, she was a beautiful woman.

“Well, I’m not going to deliver it myself again—not at your age!” he said teasingly, and she screeched at him.

“See! You think I’m too old too. What will people think?”

“They’ll think we’re very lucky… and not very well behaved, I’m afraid,” he teased, and she had to laugh at herself. Having a baby at forty seemed a little foolish, but she had to admit, she was pleased too. She had enjoyed Julian so much, but he was hardly a baby anymore at five, and he would be starting school in September.

Emanuelle was a little startled when Sarah told her in March, and Nigel was faintly embarrassed by the news, but congratulated them very politely. Both shops were doing so well that they really didn’t need Sarah’s constant attention. She spent much of that year at the château, and as always, Phillip joined them there for the summer. He made very little comment about his mother’s pregnancy. He thought it was too nauseating to even mention.

This time Sarah prevailed on William not to make her go away. They compromised and he let her go to the new hospital in Orléans, which wasn’t as fancy as the clinic was, but it was very modern, and he was satisfied with the local doctor.

They managed to celebrate her birthday and have a good time, and this time even Phillip was very pleasant. He left for Whitfield the next day, for the last of his vacation before he went off to Cambridge. And the night he left, Sarah got very uncomfortable and after Julian went off to bed, she looked at William very strangely. “I’m not sure what’s happening, but I’m feeling strange.” She thought maybe she should warn him.

“Maybe we should call the doctor.”

“I feel silly doing that. I’m not having pains. I just feel…” She tried to describe it to him as he watched her nervously. “I don’t know … kind of heavy … more than heavy … and like I want to move around all the time or something.” She had an odd sensation of pressure.

“Maybe the baby’s pressing on something.” This baby wasn’t quite as big as the others had been, but it was large enough to make her uncomfortable, and it had for weeks. And it never seemed to stop moving. “Why don’t you take a warm bath and lie down, and see how you feel then.” And then he looked at her firmly. He knew her too well, and he didn’t entirely trust her. “But I want you to tell me what’s going on. I don’t want you to wait till the last second, and then not make it to the hospital. Do you hear me, Sarah?”

“Yes, Your Grace,” she said demurely. He smiled at her, and left her to take her bath. And an hour later, she was lying on their bed, still feeling the same pressure. But by then, she’d decided that it was indigestion and not labor.

“Are you sure?” He questioned her when he came back to check on her again. There was something about the way she looked that made him nervous.

“I promise.” She grinned.

“Right. See that you keep your legs crossed.” He went back to the other room to look at some balance sheets from the stores, and Emanuelle called her from Monte Carlo to see how she was and they chatted. Her affair with Jean-Charles de Martin had ended two years before, and she was engaged in a far more dangerous one now, with the Minister of Finance.

“Darling, be careful,” Sarah scolded her, and her old friend laughed.

“Look who’s talking!” Emanuelle had teased her a little bit this time about being pregnant

“Very funny.”

“How are you feeling?”

“I’m fine. Fat, bored. And I think William is getting a little nervous. I’ll come in to the shop as soon as I can after you get back from your holiday.” As they were every year, they were closed for August, but they were going to reopen again in September.

They chatted on for a little while, and when they hung up, Sarah walked around the room again. She seemed to be making endless trips to the bathroom.

But each time she came out of the bathroom, she seemed to walk around the room again, and then she went downstairs and came back, and she was still pacing when William came back to their bedroom.

“What are you doing, for heaven’s sake?”

“It’s too uncomfortable to lie down, and I’m restless.” By then she had a sharp pain in her back, and she felt as though she were dragging her stomach along the floor. She went to the bathroom again and suddenly as she walked back into their bedroom, a huge pain roared through her, starting at her back, and making her want to bear down. All she suddenly wanted to do was stop where she was and push out the baby. The pain never stopped, it just kept pressing down on her, from her back to her stomach and downward. She could barely stand as she clutched a chair, and William instantly rushed to her as he saw her expression. He pulled her onto his wheelchair and lay her down on the bed with a look of terror.

“Sarah, you’re not doing this to me again! What happened?”

“I don’t know.” She could barely speak. “I thought … it was indigestion … but it’s pushing so hard … it’s… oh, God… William … the baby’s coming!”

“No, it’s not!” He absolutely refused to let it happen again, he left her for an instant, and wheeled across the room to call the hospital and ask them to send an ambulance. She was forty years old this time, not twenty-three, and he was not going to play games again with another ten-pound baby. But she was screaming for him when he hung up, and they had assured him they would come at once. They were twenty minutes away, and the doctor was going to come with them.

She clutched at his shirt as he reached her again, and clung to his hand. She wasn’t crying, but she seemed to be in terrible agony, and she looked surprised and frightened. “I know it’s coming… William … I can feel it!” She was shouting at him, it was all happening so hard and so fast and she had had no warning. Or at least, precious little. “I can feel the baby’s head … it’s coming now!” She screamed, and as she lay there, she was alternately pushing and screaming, and he quickly pulled up her nightgown, and saw the baby’s head just crowning, as he had seen before. Only the last time it had taken hours, and so much work, and this time, nothing seemed to stop it. “William … William …no! I can’t do this… make it stop!” But nothing was stopping this baby Its head was pushing its way relentlessly out of its mother, and a moment later there was a small face looking at him, and two bright eyes, and a perfect pink mouth shouting, as they both watched it. And instantly, William reached down to help her. He tried to get Sarah to relax and then to push again a moment later, and suddenly the shoulders were free and the arms, and then in a burst of speed, the rest of her body. It was a beautiful little girl, and she looked absolutely furious with both of them, as Sarah lay back on their bed with a look of amazement. They were both stunned by the sheer force of it. It had been so powerful and so quick. One minute she’d been talking to Emanuelle, and then suddenly, she was having the baby. And the whole delivery had taken less than ten minutes.

“Remind me never to trust you again,” William said huskily as he looked at her and then kissed her. He waited for the doctor to cut the cord, and wrapped them both in clean sheets and towels. Their brand-new daughter was slightly mollified by then, suckling at her mother’s breast, and giving her an occasional angry look about how rudely she’d been expelled from her cozy quarters.

They were both smiling and laughing when the doctor came twenty minutes later. He apologized profusely, explaining that he had come as fast as he could. But she was Sarah’s fourth child, after all, and there had been no way of knowing she would come so quickly.

He congratulated both of them, pronounced the baby to be perfect, cut the cord that William had neatly tied with a clean piece of string he’d found in his office. He complimented both of them on how well. They’d both done, and offered to take Sarah to the hospital, but admitted that she didn’t need it.

“I’d much rather stay home,” Sarah said quietly, and William looked at her, still pretending to be angry.

“I know you would. Next time I’m taking you to the hospital in Paris two months early!”

“Next time!” she said.
“Next
time! Are you joking? Next time I’ll be a grandmother!” She was laughing at him, and suddenly feeling more herself. It had been shocking, and briefly terribly painful, but it had actually been very easy.

“I’m not sure I’d trust you at that either,” he retorted, and went to let the doctor out. And then he brought her a glass of champagne, and sat watching her for a long moment with their new daughter. “She’s so beautiful, isn’t she?” He stared at her, at her mother’s breast, as he rolled slowly toward them.

“She is” Sarah smiled, looking up at him. “I love you, William. Thank you for everything.…”

“Anytime.”

He leaned over and kissed her. They called the baby Isabelle. And in the morning, Julian announced that she was “his” baby, entirely his, and they would all have to ask him if they could hold her. He held her all the time, with all the tenderness of a new father. He had all the emotions that Phillip never showed now, all the gentleness, all the love. He adored his baby sister. And as he grew, there was a bond between the two that no one could tamper with. Isabelle adored Julian, and he remained her loving brother, and fiercest protector. Even their parents could never come between them, and in a very short time, they learned not to even try. Isabelle belonged to Julian, and vice versa.

Chapter 21

HEN
Phillip graduated from Cambridge in the summer of 1962, no one in the family was surprised when he announced that he wanted to go to work at Whitfield’s, London. The only startling thing was that he announced to all of them that he was going to run it.

“I don’t think so, darling,” Sarah said quietly. “You have to learn the business first.” He had taken courses in economics, and gemology during the summertime, and he felt he knew everything he needed to know about Whitfield’s.

“You’re going to have to let Nigel show you the ropes at first.” William added his voice to hers, and Phillip was livid.

“I know more now than that dried-up old fruit will know in his entire lifetime,” he spat at them, and Sarah got very angry.

“I don’t think so. And if you don’t take a backseat to him, and treat him with the utmost respect, I won’t let you work at Whitfield’s at all, is that clear? With your attitude, Phillip, you will not be an asset to this business.” He was still furious with her after several days, but he agreed to work for Nigel. For a while at least, and then he wanted to review the situation.

“That’s ridiculous,” Sarah stormed afterwards. “He’s a twenty-two-year-old boy, almost twenty-three, all right, but how dare he think he knows more than Nigel? He should kiss the ground he walks on.”

“Phillip has never kissed anything,” William said truthfully, “except if it got him what he wanted. He sees Nigel as no use to him. I’m afraid Nigel is going to have a hard time with Phillip.” They warned Nigel, before Phillip started working there in July, that he had full control, and that if he felt that their son was unmanageable, he had their permission to fire him. He was deeply appreciative of their vote of confidence for him.

His relationship with Phillip was certainly tenuous over the next year, and there were moments when he would have gladly killed him. But he had to admit that the boy’s business sense was excellent, some of his ideas good, and although he didn’t think much of him as a human being, he thought that in the long run he would be very good for the business. He lacked the imagination and the sense of design that his mother had, but he had all his father’s business acumen, he had already shown that in helping him to run Whitfield.