Pegasus: A Novel

by Danielle Steel

  They shared a peaceful dinner in the dining room that night, while Marianne reported on signs from the baby, and whether or not it might arrive. It distracted all of them from thinking too much about Edmund. Marianne told herself that this was just another mission, no different from the others, and he would be home soon. Either tomorrow or the next day, he hadn’t been sure, and he promised to call as soon as he could. And late that night, they heard the planes come back. It was too many to be the Germans and sounded like the same battalion that had left. Marianne lay in bed with a sense of relief, feeling the usual contractions she had had for weeks. He was almost home. And she was beginning to think that their baby would be home soon too. The contractions were stronger than usual that night, but by morning, nothing major had happened, and she waddled down to breakfast, still pregnant and looking tired.

  “Sleep well, darling?” her mother-in-law asked her, with a kiss, as she helped herself to a piece of toast, and an egg from one of their hens. They hadn’t seen bacon in a year. Those days were over for the duration of the war. But eggs were plentiful in their henhouses, and chickens on their table. It was the only meat they got. Isabel noticed that Marianne looked tired, but she wasn’t surprised. The baby wouldn’t be long now, she could tell. “I heard the boys come home last night.”

  “So did I.” Marianne had been greatly reassured to hear them return. She wanted Edmund to come soon. He hadn’t called yet, but she assumed he was either sleeping after the mission, or trying to get permission for his leave before he called to tell her when he’d be home. And Isabel took her out to the garden with her again after breakfast, telling her they had work to do.

  “My roses are a mess!” she complained, as Marianne went outside and put on her gardening boots with bare feet.

  They were still busy and Charles was reading the newspaper in his study when William the butler came to tell him that there was a gentleman to see him. He was a general of the army who lived in the area, and he and Charles were old friends. Charles looked instantly pleased.

  “Show him in.” He was glad to have some male companionship. Isabel’s constant clucking about the baby had begun to wear thin. It was all she could think of. And he stood up as his friend the general walked into the study, and held out a hand in greeting.

  “Bernard, dear man. What a pleasure to see you! We’re expecting a grandchild at any moment, and it’s all the women can talk about. It’s driving me mad. How good to see you!” His old friend smiled at what he said, but he looked serious as he took a seat across from Charles’s desk. He got right to the point. He didn’t want to mislead him, or waste time in idle conversation. His eyes locked into Charles’s, who felt his heart skip a beat.

  “I have bad news for you, Charles,” he said simply. He had wanted to tell him first, and preferably alone, in deference to their long friendship.

  “One of the boys?” Charles said it in barely more than a whisper. It was all he could get out. The general nodded.

  “Edmund. Last night. He was shot down over Cologne. We sent more than eleven hundred planes over. All but forty-three came back. Edmund didn’t make it. I’m so sorry.” He was desperately sorry for his friend. Charles fought for his composure, stood up and walked around the room, distraught, as the general came to stand with him and patted his shoulder. He had lost two sons himself since the beginning of the war. It wasn’t unfamiliar to him, which was why he had come. Edmund’s squadron leader had called him, knowing he was in the area and a friend of the young pilot’s father.

  “Oh my God, what will I tell his mother?” Charles looked into his friend’s eyes with panic and despair. This was what they had feared and hoped would never happen, like every parent in England, and everywhere else. “And it’s his baby that’s due at any moment, possibly even today.” The general knew just how hard it was. It was a terrible, unthinkably agonizing moment in any parent’s life, no matter how it happened. At least this was for a noble cause, they could tell themselves, and not some stupid accident caused by a drunk behind the wheel of a car. Edmund had been defending England against its enemies. But that was small consolation now.

  “I wish there were something I could do,” the general said kindly, but he knew there wasn’t. All he could do was deliver the news as compassionately as possible. Others were notified by the War Office by a phone call, or by a bicycle messenger arriving at the front gate with a telegram. The general had spared them that. Charles was grateful for his kindness, and thought of poor Marianne. He felt so sorry for her now, as well as himself. He couldn’t imagine how they would survive it, but he knew they would. They had to. They had no other choice.

  The general quietly took his leave then. William had an ugly premonition as he closed the door behind him. Feeling shell-shocked, Charles walked out into the garden to find the women. The sun was too bright and the birds were too loud, and his legs felt like rubber under his body. He felt as though the world had come to an end. But he couldn’t allow it to show until he told them.

  “Did you have a visitor?” Isabel asked him, looking cheerful. “Who was it?” She smiled up at him, but the moment she saw his eyes, she knew, and froze to the spot. Their eyes met, and he nodded, as she dropped her gardening tools and her hand went instinctively to her heart, as though she could stop it bleeding immediately, but she couldn’t. She felt like she’d been shot. “Edmund?” she said instantly. Charles nodded again and then took two strides and took her in his arms to console her, gathering Marianne with one arm along the way. She didn’t know yet, she didn’t understand the shorthand between them that happens after twenty-five years of marriage. Charles and Isabel had needed few words. Marianne looked confused.

  “What about Edmund?” Marianne looked panicked, suddenly sandwiched between her parents-in-law, with her enormous belly. She felt as though she couldn’t breathe. “Is he all right?” Her father-in-law looked at her as honestly as the general had at him.

  “No, he isn’t,” he said simply. “His plane went down over Cologne last night, on the mission we saw leaving. A thousand bombers. He didn’t come back.”

  “Was he injured? Did they take him prisoner?” she asked frantically, not wanting to accept what had happened.

  “They shot him down. The plane crashed,” he said as gently as possible, so she would accept it, but she couldn’t.

  “Sometimes people survive that. How do they know what happened?” He didn’t want to tell her what the general had told him before he left, that the plane had exploded, and it had been quick. There were no survivors.

  “They know,” he said quietly with an arm around her shoulders, holding her close to give her what little comfort he could, as Isabel clung to him with a glazed look and said nothing. She was worried about Marianne too. It gave them someone to comfort, other than themselves. She had lost a husband and the father of her unborn child.

  “He promised me he’d never die,” Marianne said angrily, shouting at them. “He said he’d always come back!” She choked on a sob, and then collapsed into her parents-in-law’s arms, crying hysterically, as Isabel gently led her into the house, to lie down. “He said … he promised … it’s not true … they’re lying … he’s coming home today.…” She tried everything, but nothing would change what had happened. No amount of denying or begging, no fury and no pain. All she wanted now was him.

  Isabel soothed her with cooing sounds as tears ran down her own cheeks. She made Marianne lie down, and gave her water to drink. Charles came in and out of the room like a ghost, not knowing what to do for her either, as the three of them cried. Simon called later that morning, and he was crying too. They had just told him. He’d had an ear infection and couldn’t leave on the same mission, although he’d been scheduled to. And Isabel thanked God he hadn’t gone. If she’d lost them both, it would have killed her, and Charles, who was as distraught as his wife, and had no words to express what he was feeling. They were all in agony and Marianne sobbed all day, unable to believe what had happened. She fi
nally fell into a light sleep, and Isabel left the room to find her husband. He was sitting in his study looking ravaged, and he looked up when she came into the room.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said to the mother of his firstborn and burst into tears again. And she came to hold him in her arms as she cried too.

  “He was such a good boy,” she said miserably, and he nodded. “But so is Simon,” she said loyally. “We’re lucky to have him,” she reminded Charles, although she’d been closer to Edmund in recent years. He was a more expressive person. “What are we going to do for that poor girl?” she said, as they sat together and she blew her nose on the handkerchief he handed her. He always had one in his pocket.

  “There’s nothing we can do,” he said honestly. “Take care of her and the child. She’ll stay here with us, of course,” he said, echoing his wife’s thoughts. “She can’t go home to Germany now anyway. God, I hate those bastards,” he said with feeling, forgetting that his daughter-in-law was German, as was her father, whom he loved dearly. But they were exceptions. He had raw hatred now for a country and all its people, and the man who had started a war on their behalf and killed so many others, and his own, in the process.

  “I hope she doesn’t go home after the war,” Isabel said sadly. “At least we’ll have his baby. Maybe it will be a little boy who looks just like him.” She was clutching at straws for comfort.

  They had to plan a memorial service, and Simon had said he would come home for it. But she couldn’t think of that now with the baby about to arrive any minute. It seemed too cruel to schedule it now, with Marianne still expecting his child. It would be too much for her to endure. Isabel could hardly think straight, as she went back upstairs to Marianne’s room, and saw that she was still sleeping. She went to her own room then, and lay down, and fell asleep. She hadn’t eaten since breakfast, none of them had, and a little while later she heard Charles come upstairs and felt him lie down next to her. He took her hand in his own, and they lay there, holding hands and saying nothing. There was nothing left to do or say, except be there together.

  The next morning Marianne didn’t come down to breakfast. She was usually up early, and at ten o’clock Isabel went upstairs to check on her. She knocked on the door and got no answer, and found her in her bathroom, on her knees on the floor, retching into the toilet, and the eyes she raised to her mother-in-law’s looked dead. She felt as though she had died herself the day before. And suddenly Isabel was grateful she hadn’t given birth the day she heard the news. It would have been too cruel to have the anniversary of his death every year on the birthday of their child. But at least she had his baby. Isabel was wearing somber black, and had instructed William the butler to put a black wreath on the door, and Charles told him to fly their flag at half-mast. By nightfall all of their neighbors knew, and handwritten sympathy notes had begun to drift in. Everyone felt sorry for them, and there were too many other families like them now. At least her son had died a hero’s death. She tried to tell herself it mattered, but it really didn’t. Her baby was dead. But Marianne’s was still alive, and she forced herself to concentrate, and put a damp cool cloth on the girl’s head as she vomited miserably. She was pale gray, verging on green. The day before had been too much.

  “How’s the baby?” Isabel asked her quietly. Marianne had never looked worse.

  “Not moving,” Marianne said, and looked as though she didn’t care.

  “Any contractions?” Marianne shrugged.

  “Not really. My back hurts and I feel sick.” And as she said it, she threw up again. Isabel flushed the toilet, pulled her hair back, and washed her face with cool water, as Marianne lay down on the bathroom floor, too sick to move or go back to bed. All she wanted now was to die. He had lied to her, and didn’t come back this time, after he’d promised. It was a promise he couldn’t keep, and she hated him for it.

  “Let’s get you back into bed,” Isabel said, and helped her get up off the floor, but as soon as she did, Marianne doubled over, and a flood of water came from nowhere and covered the bathroom floor. Isabel knew instantly what it was, and Marianne looked panicked.

  “I can’t have the baby now—I’m too sick.” Isabel helped her take her nightgown off, and reached into the cupboard for a fresh one, as Marianne doubled over again and clutched her between sobs. She was in terrible shape, and Isabel grabbed a stack of towels, spread them on the bed, and got Marianne to lie down.

  “I’ll be back in a minute,” she promised her, and left the room quickly while trying to look calm and ran into Charles in the corridor on his way downstairs with a funereal look. “Get the doctor!” she told him quickly, and he looked instantly worried.

  “Is she all right?”

  “No. Yes. She’s distraught, but she’s having the baby. She just lost her water, and she’s quite ill. Tell him to come now.” She hurried back into the room, and Charles disappeared to do as he’d been told. And when Isabel got back, she could see that Marianne was having serious contractions. She looked up at her mother-in-law with sad eyes.

  “I don’t want the baby,” she said miserably, as tears slid down her cheeks in rivers. “He’s never coming home again.”

  “I know, dear, I know …” Isabel said, stroking her hand gently, and then Marianne reached out and clutched her. The pains had started to come hard the moment her water broke. The baby was ready, whether its mother was or not. It was time.

  The pains got harder and longer for the next half hour, as Isabel got more towels, and wished the doctor would hurry. She didn’t want to deliver this baby alone and had never done so. She was no midwife. Marianne let out a groan and a scream as the door opened and the doctor walked in, carrying his bag. He looked somber and sympathetic, having just heard the news after he saw the wreath on the door.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said to Isabel, and then rapidly turned his attention to Edmund’s widow. It had occurred to Isabel the night before that her daughter-in-law was now a widow at twenty-one. It seemed a cruel beginning to life, and equally so to lose a child, as she had. And as he looked at Marianne, he could see from the signs that things were moving quickly. She looked desperate as she glanced at him and clutched Isabel’s arm and then her shoulder.

  “I can’t have this baby,” she gasped at him. “I’m not ready.”

  “Perhaps not.” He smiled at her kindly. “But I think the baby is.” He didn’t tell her that we get no choice in these matters, whether birth or death, but it was true. And her baby was going to be born that day, whether she was ready or not.

  He examined her as gently as he could, and she screamed, which Charles heard from the hallway, and scurried downstairs, terrified by the sounds. Isabel went to get the old sheets that she’d put aside for the delivery, asked one of the maids to bring in more towels, and returned to Marianne, who was vomiting again, and in agony with each contraction. “This is horrible!” she screamed. “I can’t do this without Edmund.”

  “He’s right here with you, Marianne,” Isabel said calmly. “He always will be. He won’t leave you alone. Just hear him in your head. He won’t let anything happen to you.” Marianne looked at her as she said it, and suddenly got very calm and stopped screaming. It was exactly what she had needed to hear, and the doctor nodded his approval as he felt Marianne’s belly. The baby was moving down nicely, and then Marianne looked at them both wild-eyed as a force greater than any she’d ever known pushed through her, and the doctor told her to bear down as she braced her legs. It was all happening very quickly, and Marianne was frightened as she screamed with each push, and fell back against the pillows and gave up.

  “I can’t, I can’t,” she said, crying and then the force seized her again, and she screamed one long, horrifying, never-ending scream that went on forever and ended in a small but mighty wail. Marianne looked at them both in amazement and then saw a small face between her legs.

  “Oh my God,” she said, crying, and looked at them with smiles mixed with her tears. The baby had dark hai
r like Edmund, and Isabel thought the baby looked just like him. The doctor told Marianne to keep pushing, and the baby slid out with another long wail and began crying fiercely. It was a girl, just as Edmund had hoped. Marianne lay back against the pillows with a victorious smile, and tears ran down her cheeks.

  “She looks like Edmund,” Isabel whispered to Marianne, crying, too, with all the joy and sorrow of birth, especially now. And Marianne had seen it too. The baby was the image of him. Marianne looked suddenly grown-up and mature as she lay there while the doctor cut the cord, wrapped the baby in a small blanket Isabel held out to him, and put the baby to her mother’s breast. She had lavender-blue eyes like her mother’s, but the rest was her father, without a doubt.

  The three of them exclaimed over the beauty of the baby, and then they laid her in a bassinette, and Isabel helped clean the mother up, and then washed the baby, and swaddled her and gave her back to her mother. The doctor was satisfied that all had gone well—in fact, it had been an easy birth, and had only taken four hours from beginning to end. Isabel suspected she’d been in labor the night before and didn’t know it. And she left Marianne alone with the doctor for a few minutes to find Charles and tell him the news. He was in his study and drinking straight scotch. She smiled when she saw it. He deserved it, so she didn’t comment.