Princess Daisy

by Judith Krantz

  “NURSE, GIVE ME MY BABY!”

  The nurse woke up abruptly, disoriented and flustered. She held onto the infant firmly.

  “What? What?” she stumbled. “Wait—stop—I’ll call the doctor …” She scrambled to her feet, backing away.

  “Come here,” Francesca ordered peremptorily. “I want to hold her. Now. Give me my baby immediately. There was a bug on her eye!” she added, accusingly. Francesca rose from her chair and drew herself up with all the vivid authority with which she had once faced the cameras. As suddenly as if she had materialized out of a bottle, Francesca Vernon, the great star, stood in front of the nurse, holding out her arms with an imperious gesture.

  The nurse was thoroughly startled but not daunted. “Forgive me, Madame, but I can’t permit it. I have firm instructions to hold the baby at all times.”

  Now the woman changed again. Without lowering her arms she became, unmistakably, Princess Francesca Valensky, a princess who was never disobeyed, never questioned—a princess to whom all was allowed.

  “Call Doctor Allard at once!” Francesca’s voice was rusty but its power filled the room. “We’ll see about this nonsense!”

  Allard took only a few minutes to reach Francesca’s room. He entered running, stopping abruptly as he faced the suddenly beautiful woman, as dark and passionate as a puma, who gazed hungrily at the baby. Charged with adrenaline, she stalked around the bewildered but still defiant nurse.

  Mildly, but hiding as much excitement as he ever permitted himself, the doctor spoke. “Well, Maman, so we are beginning to feel better? We are making friends?”

  “Doctor Allard, what the hell is going on? This crazy woman won’t give me my baby.”

  “Soeur Anni, you may give Marguerite to her mother. Perhaps you might leave us for a moment.” Without a word the nurse passed the baby to her mother. Marguerite was wearing a light shift from which her delicate arms and legs, just beginning to show signs of plumpness, wriggled freely in pleasure at the sunshine and the light breeze. She was an inexhaustible treasure of pink and gold, so tiny and yet so definite that even jaded doctors and nurses hung over her crib.

  Allard watched carefully while Francesca gazed into the baby’s eyes. “Who are you?” she asked. Hearing the human voice, Marguerite stopped wriggling for a second and looked at her mother’s face. Then, to Francesca’s stunned disbelief, she smiled.

  “She smiled at me, Doctor!”

  “Of course she did.”

  Francesca ignored the remark. “Doctor, what’s this nonsense about not leaving me alone with the baby? I simply don’t understand.”

  “You have not been well, Princess. Until today you didn’t want to hold her.”

  “But that’s impossible! Ridiculous … simply ridiculous. I’ve never heard anything so absurd in my whole life!” Francesca looked at the doctor as if she had never properly seen him before. “Where’s my other baby?” she asked. “I don’t understand what’s been going on around here and I don’t like it one bit. Where’s my husband? Doctor, call Prince Valensky and tell him to come here at once,” she commanded. “And tell me where my other baby is … I want to hold her, too.”

  “Your smaller daughter is still in the incubator,” the doctor said quickly. There could be no question, no question at all of his patient visiting the other child. The infant had had a convulsion only that morning, the second since her birth. The sight of the sick, piteous mite could well upset the mother to such an extent that she would relapse into the depression in which she had been plunged for so long. Nothing could make him risk that.

  “Where’s the incubator, Doctor?” asked Francesca, starting to walk toward the door with Marguerite in her arms.

  “No! Maman, I forbid you! You are not yet well, not as strong as you think. Do you have any idea how long you have been here, my dear lady?”

  Francesca stopped, puzzled. “A while? I’m not exactly sure—perhaps—two weeks?”

  “Almost nine weeks … yes, nine weeks.… It’s been what you Americans call a long haul,” the doctor said gently, seeing that his patient had given up her idea of going to the incubator.

  Francesca sat down, still gathering her child close. She had the impression that she had been some sad place far away, locked in a world as dismal and colorless as rain in winter; some place lost, in which dim events passed before her eyes like a remote shadow play glimpsed through a distant window. But nine weeks! Suddenly in every bone and muscle, she felt her force drain away. Mutely, she held the baby out to the doctor.

  Allard took advantage of the moment. “We must regain our strength, Maman, before we start to go visiting.” Francesca nodded tiredly in agreement. “In a week, perhaps even less if you do not overtire yourself. You have a long way to go, my dear, before you get back to normal. Now, we have talked enough for the moment. You must try to sleep, heh?” He brought the baby close to her. Francesca brushed her lips over the choicest part of any baby, the fragrant, silky little folds that will one day become a neck. “She will come back to you this afternoon—you can give her the next bottle,” the doctor promised, opening the door so the waiting nurse could come in. He carried Marguerite back to the nursery, saying over and over to himself, “Thank God! Thank God!”

  As soon as the doctor telephoned, Stash raced to the clinic at ninety-five miles an hour. During the past weeks he had spent hours every day with Francesca, trying vainly to penetrate her withdrawn silence, her fathomless misery, so thick that it seemed to come from without, like a cloud which had enveloped her and made her invisible. His vigil had been made bearable by the visits Marguerite made to her mother, visits ordered by Dr. Allard whether Francesca responded or not.

  Stash had fallen passionately in love with his daughter. He played with her for as long as they would let him. He insisted on unwrapping her completely so that he could see her naked. He displayed her enchanting little body to Francesca, hoping that the sight of this newborn perfection must move her as much as it did him, but to no avail. He had had long conferences with Allard, demanding constant reassurances that every precaution had been taken to prevent Francesca from doing herself harm.

  When he wasn’t with Francesca, Stash shut himself up in the villa, seeing no one from the outside world. Just as he and Francesca had managed to escape, undetected by reporters, on their honeymoon, so he was able to prevent news of the birth of his children from appearing in the press. Dr. Allard’s clinic offered complete privacy and the only people who had known that Francesca was pregnant were Matty and Margo Firestone. Stash had written them during the first week after the premature births, telling them only of Marguerite and of Francesca’s postpartum depression. He had asked, and obtained, their silence on behalf of the sick woman.

  But now … now! he thought to himself, as he waited impatiently in Dr. Allard’s consultation room, at last life could begin again. He had known, from the beginning, that he must win this cruel game. He had promised himself a thousand times that it was only a matter of time before he could take Francesca and Marguerite home with him. Stash had never permitted himself the slightest doubt.

  At length Allard appeared, fairly waltzing in satisfaction.

  “Can they come home with me now?” Stash demanded, without even greeting the doctor.

  “Soon, soon, when the Princess is stronger. But first, my friend, we must talk about the other baby, about Danielle.” Even the doctor had not been able, during the time of Francesca’s depression, to force Stash to discuss his second child. Good Catholic that he was, Dr. Allard had seen to it that she was baptized the day after her birth, since he was not sure she would survive another twenty-four hours. He himself had chosen the name, that of his own mother, hoping that it might bring some good luck to the unfortunate infant.

  “Danielle.” Stash said the name as if it were a foreign word which had absolutely no meaning for him. “I do not expect her to live.” His voice carried a tone of finality, of utter dismissal.

  “But if she lives, and sh
e may, you will have to deal with the neurological complications …”

  “Doctor, not now!”

  The doctor continued imperturbably, with emphatic gestures and formal intonation. “I have examined both of your children, Prince. There is a precise set of tests used to determine the extent of nerve development in newborn babies. Doctor Rombais and I have examined them together in order to compare their reactions and …”

  Stash interrupted him with the savagery with which he confronted any obstacle in his path. His neck and head became the hunting beak of an angry, vicious bird as he spoke.

  “Just give me the results!”

  “Prince,” the doctor replied, without changing his measured lecturing tone, “you must become aware of what we have to deal with, no matter how little you wish to know about it. I assure you that there is no way in which I can give you the results, as you put it, in two words. Now! If you will permit me to continue—Marguerite responds in all ways like a normal, strong infant. She sucks vigorously, her rooting inflex is strong and the Moro reflex was normal. To obtain it I put her on her back and slammed my hand down loudly near her. She extended her arms and legs abruptly and fanned her fingers and toes. When I held her up with her feet touching the examination table, she made stepping movements, and when I pulled her to a sitting position for the Traction Response, her shoulder and neck muscles contracted. All in all, it was a lively session.”

  Stash followed every word the doctor said with painfully reined-in attention. He needed no doctor to tell him Marguerite was perfect. There was a slight pause while Allard collected his words for what he had to say next. He sighed heavily, but resolutely.

  “Danielle showed very little reaction to all of these tests. I repeated the examination twice at a three-week interval and the results obtained were no different. There is a paucity of movements, she rarely cries, she has not yet held up her head and she has put on only a little weight … what we call a failure to thrive.”

  “Failure to thrive! You mean she’s a vegetable!” Stash could contain himself no longer.

  “Certainly not, Prince! She is only nine weeks old and there is still positive hope that her body will, with the best of care, develop along normal lines. If she should continue to gain weight at the rate she is gaining, slow though it is, there is nothing to stop her from eventually becoming a physically active child. She is not deformed in any way, merely weak, very weak.”

  “And mentally?”

  “Mentally? Mentally, she will never be normal. We have known that from the beginning.”

  “But what are you telling me exactly, Doctor? How far from normal will she be?”

  “She will be retarded, that much is certain. The exact degree of retardation is something which I can not possibly estimate at this time. We cannot even give your daughter an I.Q. test until she is three years old and even then the judgment may not be final—in this problem, Prince, there are so many, many variations, from mild to moderate to severe …” Dr. Allard paused abruptly and lapsed into silence.

  “Could it be … mild?” Stash finally forced himself to ask, in a low, disbelieving voice, each reluctant word acid on his lips.

  “Prince, there is so much room for possibility in these cases. Sometimes only a few percentage points of I.Q. can make the difference between a child who is only barely trainable and a child who can develop certain skills—no one can predict where the strengths might be …”

  “Spare me these vague generalities!” Stash bit out. “What is her future, damn it!”

  There was a short silence. Dr. Allard finally answered with the most precise information available to him.

  “The most we can hope for is that little Danielle will be somewhere on the borderline from low-mild to high-moderate retardation, that she will manage some personal care, that she can form some social relationships, that she can express some simple phrases on a prereading level—perhaps that of a four-year-old …”

  “A four-year-old—Doctor, you’re talking about a kindergarten mentality! And you call that ‘moderate’—no matter how old she gets to be?”

  “Prince,” answered the doctor, facing the question squarely, “that is probably the best, the very best you can hope for. Because of the little one’s lack of oxygen before and during birth, the poor response to the tests—the convulsions—no, Prince, we cannot possibly hope for more than that.”

  There was total silence in the room for minutes. Finally Stash spoke again. “What if you’re wrong, what if she’s severely retarded? What then?”

  “Don’t borrow trouble. There will be, in any case, the question of constant care, even with moderate retardation. With severe retardation the problem becomes enormous. Great watchfulness is necessary in all cases, throughout the child’s life. Once the child can walk, there will always be danger. As puberty approaches, the problem becomes aggravated. Often an institution is the only answer.”

  “If … if she lives, Doctor, how long can she remain here in your clinic?” Stash asked.

  “Until she gains enough weight to go into the nursery with the others. Not until she weighs five pounds, eight ounces, Prince, which is a question of only a few months, in my opinion, if there are no complications. While she is still in the incubator, of course, we are in complete charge. But once she grows large enough for the nursery, we can’t continue to keep her. At that point you should make preparations to take her home.”

  At the word “home” Stash’s face hardened. “Doctor Allard, I don’t intend to speak of this to my wife until she’s stronger.”

  “I agree. In fact, I advise great caution at the moment There has been massive denial, on the part of the Princess, of either child. However, now she has made normal contact with Marguerite and the prognosis is extremely good. However, her depression was severe, most severe, and in such a case she must not have any further shocks. If the Princess continues to do well, you can take her and Marguerite home in a few days. I shall see to it that she doesn’t see Danielle until the baby is, as you put it, ‘out of the woods.’ Nature will decide the timetable.”

  It was on a brilliant day, almost the last in June, when Dr. Allard declared Francesca well enough to go home. From the instant that Stash had hired a baby nurse from a Lausanne agency, it seemed as if every international newspaper correspondent in Switzerland had been alerted to the news. A crowd of reporters and photographers waited with increasing impatience outside the impenetrable gates of the private clinic. They had been keeping vigil since early morning, and now, seven hours later, when Stash and Francesca Valensky appeared at last, carrying their baby, there was an uproar in a dozen languages, demanding that the child be held up for the cameras.

  In spite of the protective scowl of her husband, the pale woman, whose prodigal beauty had vanished from print many months ago, carefully tilted the white lace cocoon so that the infant’s sleeping face could be seen. A quilted, white silk cap covered the tiny head but wisps of hair escaped and flared silver in the breeze like delicate petals. Although the child had been christened Marguerite Alexandrovna, she seemed in her mother’s arms so much like a flower in human form that the imagination of the press was fired. In every one of the pictures that appeared of that moment she was crowned Princess Daisy.

  The convoy of photographers and reporters followed Francesca and Stash all the way back to their villa. They besieged the great house, standing outside the locked gates in a large group and shouting, over and over, “We want Daisy.” When, at last, they left, persuaded only after a long wait that there was no chance of getting any stories or even any more pictures than those they had snapped on the steps of the clinic, everyone had forgotten that the baby had ever been named Marguerite, even her parents.

  She was Daisy to Stash and Francesca, and Princess Daisy to most of the servants who still clung to the old ways.

  She was a circus of a baby when she was awake, distributing smiles to all her hovering adorers, lifting her head halfway off the mattress of her crib if she
spied a butterfly or a flower or a friendly finger, making music with the collection of rattles which hung on the side of her crib, kicking her legs for joy when she was touched. She slept almost eighteen hours a day, by Francesca’s reckoning, and ate for two hours, but the remaining four hours in every day she held a royal court.

  For several days all of Francesca’s attention was focused on Daisy. Each morning she asked to be driven into Lausanne to see her other daughter, but Stash managed easily to convince her that she wasn’t strong enough yet to make the trip. Indeed, her vitality was exceptionally slow in returning. She was so weary by late morning that she spent most of each day on the chaise longue in her room. But finally, after a week, exhausted though she still was, Francesca fretfully demanded to be taken to visit Danielle at once. The moment Stash was dreading had arrived. He had prepared his words over and over.

  “Darling, the doctor and I have agreed that it is a very bad idea for you to visit Danielle yet.”

  “Why not?” she asked in quick alarm.

  “The baby is … very small, extremely weak … in fact, my darling, she’s ill, very ill.”

  “But that’s all the more reason … I might be able to do something, maybe I can help … why … why didn’t you tell me before that she was sick?” Her face was contorted, her eyes jagged with shock.

  “Christ! Look at you!” he cried in fear and anger. “I knew I shouldn’t have told you! You’re much too upset. You haven’t been well enough to be told, and damn it, you aren’t well enough now.”

  “Stash. What’s wrong with her? Tell me! You’re only making it worse!”

  Stash took Francesca in his arms. “She’s too small, darling. You wouldn’t be even allowed to touch her. Now, listen to me, my dearest, since you know she’s not well, I’m going to tell you the whole thing. That’s the only way you’ll understand why you shouldn’t see her yet. The chances that the baby will survive are almost nonexistent. Allard feels, and I totally agree, that for you to become attached to the baby now might plunge you right back into your depression … when … if … anything happens to her.”