did he say?’
Turning to look at her, he suddenly relaxed and smiled. Spreading his hands and shrugging his shoulders, presumably as the doctor had done, he parodied, “M’sieu, I am devastated. It was not my wish to concern your lovely wife! It is only that the most current policy is to explain all to the new mother-to-be! Women insist on it!” He then said something that sounded like “Pshaw”, and gave a long discourse on how things have changed and that everything was much better in the old days. And if he doesn’t very speedily revert to the “old ways”,’ he disparaged arrogantly, ‘and give you the care and attention I think you should have, he will very speedily find himself being replaced!’
And that, she knew, was not an idle threat, and she doubted the doctor would make the mistake of underestimating him again. Before their marriage, and from what she knew of him, she had always assumed that Charles didn’t get annoyed, or involved, not because he couldn’t, but because he didn’t want to. She had thought that he liked life to be smooth and without aggravation. And maybe he did, but that didn’t prevent him arrogantly overruling anyone if he thought the occasion demanded it. And such was his standing in the community, and the awe in which people seemed to hold him, that he invariably got his way. That had surprised her, perhaps because in Beckford he was generally regarded as a lightweight. Kind, charming, but without depth; but that was very far from the truth, as she had very speedily discovered. So, either he had changed radically over the years, or he had always been like it and she had just never seen it. From feeling youthful devotion, which she now knew had been based in fantasy, she had grown to love him with an intensity that frightened her. And if he had truly been a lightweight she doubted now that her love would have survived. Without her realising it, perhaps, she too had grown up.
With a thoughtful frown she lay back again and watched as he prowled round the small room, picking up literature, glancing through it, grimacing comically and replacing it in the rack. Always fearful of his becoming bored, or irritated, and therefore marring the smooth life she was trying to build for them both, she persuaded softly, ‘Why don’t you go and get a cup of coffee?’
‘Hm?’ Glancing round at her, he only slowly registered what she had said, and a small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. Walking across to her, he reproved gently, ‘It’s from a machine, Melly. And if you had ever tasted it you would not wish it on your worst enemy, let alone me!’
Laughing, she held her hand out to him. ‘Thank you for coming with me today.’
‘And what else should I do?’ he asked gently as he came to sit on the edge of the bed. ‘You’re my wife, and,’ placing one large palm gently on the part of her stomach that wasn’t covered by the monitor, he continued, ‘this is my baby. Of course I would come. I wonder what it is? Lauren, or Laurent?’
She had asked, when they were first married, if he would like the baby to be named after his friend who had died. Lauren if it was a girl, and Laurent if it was a boy. He had seemed almost overwhelmed. Smiling at him, she teased, ‘So long as it isn’t one of each.’
‘Oh, hell. No, it would have shown up on the scan—wouldn’t it?’
‘Probably,’ she comforted. She didn’t care what it was, or how many it was, so long as everything was all right.
Turning back to watch the monitor, he continued thoughtfully, ‘I read somewhere that, if the heartbeat stays under forty, it’s a boy. Over, it’s a girl.’ With a wide smile he watched the monitor jump from thirty-eight to fifty and then back down to thirty-six. ‘Perhaps it hasn’t made up its mind yet,’ he commented humorously. ‘It doesn’t seem to stay either above or below.’
‘It had better—’ Breaking off as the nurse came in, Melly carefully watched her face as she stopped the machine and tore off the graph.
Turning, she gave Melly a wide smile. ‘Is OK,’ she said triumphantly. Whether for her English, or the graph, Melly wasn’t sure, but she didn’t miss the flirtatious glance she gave Charles.
He asked her something in French, and the nurse replied, and, to Melly’s heightened imagination, seemed to linger over what she wanted to say. It was Charles who broke the contact by standing and saying something very softly to the young nurse. She blushed scarlet and hastily unstrapped Melly from the machine.
Charles rearranged her maternity dress over her bulge and helped her to her feet. ‘We can go home. All, as the nurse said, is OK. You are to come back next Wednesday.’
Hitching her dress into a more comfortable position and collecting her bag, she asked quietly, ‘What did you say to make the nurse blush?’
Bending his head to drop a light kiss on her hair, he said softly, ‘I told her to behave herself, that I was a happily married man.’
And are you? she wanted to ask as they walked out to his car. Are you happy? Or are you just acting out a role? That of a devoted husband and father-to-be? You were the one who settled for the crumbs, she told herself with an inward sigh; don’t complain now that they aren’t enough.
* * *
‘Come on, upstairs,’ he insisted when they got home, ‘the doctor said you were to rest. And we’ll stay in this evening,’ he added as he helped her on to the bed.
‘No,’ she put in softly. ‘We’ll go out, as planned. It’s only a dinner party, not standing around or anything, and it will help take my mind off things. if I stay in I’ll only lie and worry.’
Staring down at her for a moment, he frowned, then finally nodded. ‘All right, but only for a little while. We won’t stay late.’ Slipping off her shoes, he pulled the quilt across her and tucked it warmly at her side. Perching on the edge of the bed, he smoothed her unruly hair back with a gentle hand. ‘Get some sleep. I’ll give you a knock about seven.’
‘All right—and Charles?’ she called softly as he got up and walked to the door. ‘Thank you.’
‘Nothing to thank me for, Melly,’ he denied rather sombrely. ‘Nothing at all.’
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