LITMIR.BIZ

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Mr Jaspert’ll be in his constituency.’

      ‘Of course he will.’

      She had forgotten. Peter’s was a solidly safe Conservative seat, but he had campaigned vigorously in the three weeks since the last Parliament had been dissolved. Isabel had been excused by her condition from sitting beside him on platforms, applauding his speeches and smiling, smiling. But she would be expected to do it next time. Peter had married a politician’s perfect wife, and he would see to it that she functioned as one. At the thought of it, at the very idea of after the birth and the demands that would be placed on her again, Isabel’s skin crawled. She turned and smiled a bright, tight, skeletal smile at Bethan’s worried face. ‘Leave the tray, Bethan. I feel quite hungry now. I won’t need anything else tonight, thank you.’ She felt suddenly cunning. Of course she could hide the disgusting food somewhere, and pretend that she had eaten it.

      Reluctantly Bethan stood up. ‘Well, if you’re quite sure … you will ring for me, if you need me, won’t you?’

      At last, Isabel thought, she was alone again. She was levering herself upright, intending to slop the soup and wine into her hand basin, when something that had been obscenely stretched inside her burst wide open. Water seeped and then splashed. Her dress was soaked, and the pale green watered-silk of the day bed showed a dark, spreading stain.

      ‘No,’ Isabel whispered. But even as she said it she felt the first low pull of pain, as definite and undeniable as gravity itself.

      Peter Jaspert was comfortably pleased with the day. It had been a long, arduous one during which he had been driven from one makeshift street-corner hustings to the next to rally the last of the undecided into voting. It had hardly been a fight even from the beginning. There was no Liberal candidate, and the Labour man, a muddled MacDonaldite, had never stood the ghost of a chance in a squarely middle-class constituency. But Peter had spared no effort in making his victory as emphatic as it could possibly be. All day he had been shaking hands, and smiling confidently, and exhorting voters to choose the man who was so incontrovertibly right for the job.

      When the polls closed he had had an excellent dinner with his constituency agent and the committee at a rather good local hotel, and then they had driven to the Town Hall where the count was taking place to await the result.

      They had had to wait until one a.m., but the result when it came was well worth it. Peter had increased his majority by six thousand votes.

      In a mood of mellow elation he decided that he would drive back to town at once instead of putting up for the night at the hotel. That way, he could be certain of seeing Archer Cole first thing tomorrow morning.

      As Peter came up the stairs at Ebury Street he saw that Isabel’s light was still burning. The habits of the last months dictated that he should ignore it and go on to his own room. But tonight he felt so pleased and happy that he decided that he would go in and share the good news with Isabel at once. The door swung open and he marched inside.

      His wife was lying on her day bed in the window, and her face was as white as the pillow.

      Peter saw that she had bitten her lips so hard that there were bloody punctures in them. He saw the tray beside her, where spilled wine mingled disgustingly with bread and congealed soup, and then the other spilt wetness on the silk underneath her.

      ‘What’s happening? Why haven’t you called anyone?’ His voice was harsh with fear and accusation. He knelt beside the day bed and touched the stain, and then looked at his fingertips. Not blood, then. Some water was normal, wasn’t it? ‘Why haven’t you?’ Isabel’s head rolled just a little to one side, and Peter noticed how brittle and thin her white neck looked. His fingers stretched and clenched, and then he stumbled to her bell and rang and rang. Bethan came flying, with her hair wound up in curl papers.

      ‘I’ve just come in,’ Peter blustered. ‘And look at her.’

      Bethan was kneeling beside her now, one hand feeling for Isabel’s pulse and the other resting over the bulge of the baby.

      ‘Ring for Mr Hardwicke,’ she said. ‘And the other man, the obstetrician. Sir.’

      She pushed aside the mess of the tray, and folded her hand over Isabel’s damp forehead. ‘Why didn’t you call anyone, love?’

      ‘It isn’t time for it to come yet,’ Isabel said clearly. ‘I don’t want it to come yet.’

      The doctors arrived with surprising speed. They brought leather bags, nurses in white aprons, and an atmosphere of steady reassurance.

      Mr Hardwicke ushered Peter and Bethan out of the room. ‘Nothing to worry about. Not a bit. She’s just got a bit of a head start on us, that’s all. If I were you, Mr Jaspert, I’d go downstairs and have myself a large whisky.’

      Peter went, and Bethan slipped down to the telephone in the butler’s room. She fumbled inexpertly through the directory pages until she found ‘Royal Lambeth Hospital. Nurses’ Hostel’. Then she dialled the number and waited. The ringing went on for what seemed an eternity, and then someone answered. ‘Lambeth. Nurses’ Hostel porter.’ The voice was thickened with sleep, but there was no mistaking the fury in it.

      ‘I want to speak to student nurse Lovell. Please.’

      There was a brief, incredulous silence. Then the voice said acidly, ‘This is not a message service for nurses. It is an emergency number, for use in the case of fire, or war. I suggest you contact your friend through the normal channels.’ There was a click, and then the dialling tone again. Bethan could have cried. She had no idea what the normal channels might be. All she knew was that Amy would have the strength and determination to stick by Isabel as long as she was needed. She would know how to cut through Mr Jaspert’s bluster, and the doctors’ smokescreens.

      But Bethan didn’t know how to reach her. She reached out to the telephone again, but her courage failed her. Instead she turned around and tiptoed back up to her room, to wait.

      Mr Hardwicke’s colleague, gloved to the elbows, leaned over and looked into Isabel’s face. ‘You’ve got to help us, my dear. You’ve got to push the baby out. You’re both ready now, and then it will be all over.’

      Isabel was shaking, and her teeth were chattering, but she was buoyed up by the sudden, intoxicating feeling of power. The pain had been like torture, but now she felt that she was floating somewhere above it, beyond the reach of the tearing fingers. She smiled through the terrible shivering, and could almost have laughed. She was in control of herself after all. The baby wouldn’t be born, because she didn’t want it to be. Even as the thought came, she seemed to float higher and away from herself, as if it was someone else’s body submitting to the agony on the bed beneath her.

      Isabel saw the nurse’s face swim closer to her, and had time to wonder ‘Is she up here with me too?’ The muslin masking the lower half of the nurse’s face looked just like a shroud.

      ‘Come on, dear. Be a brave girl and push for us.’

      Isabel did laugh now, although it came out sounding cracked.

      The doctors exchanged glances across the bed.

      ‘She isn’t co-operating,’ the specialist said. Mr Hardwicke was frowning, trying to put the docile, responsive girl he had known together with this mute, staring woman. Something had happened to Isabel Lovell.

      ‘If she won’t, she won’t,’ the other doctor said irritably. ‘We’ll have to take her in. Can’t risk the baby any longer. Nurse? Ring through to the hospital, will you? Perhaps you’d speak to the father, Hardwicke.’

      After that it was all noise and jarring movement for Isabel. Her room was suddenly and inexplicably full of people, and they were pulling her off the bed where she was floating so comfortably and dragging her on to a narrow canvas stretcher where the fingers of pain dug themselves into her all over again. She was swaying down the familiar stairs feet first and the thought came to her that she was dead. She wanted to laugh again, but found that she couldn’t now. At the door she saw Peter and she knew

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