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'I'm aware of that,' the obstetrician conceded qui-edy. 'It is unfortunate that your wife missed her earlier antenatal appointments. Had she not done so we could have picked up the problems that much earlier.' He glanced away from Max before looking back at him to tell him bluntly, 'I do understand how you must be feeling, but I've had prem babies under my care who have survived birth at twenty-three weeks. To abort—'
He stopped compassionately as he saw the emotion Max was struggling to keep under control.
'Maddy will never agree to sacrifice her baby,' Max told him. 'She'd sacrifice herself first.' When the consultant said nothing, Max protested furiously, 'For God's sake, in all humanity you can't expect...I should be the one to make the decision, to take responsibility. She's my wife. We already have three children.'
Max could feel the burn of his own emotions sting-ing the backs of his eyes. Was this then fate's punish-ment for him? That in celebrating their love, in his reaffirmation of his vows to love her, he had quite literally sowed the seed of Maddy's death?
'We're talking about a situation that may never oc-cur,' the consultant reminded Max firmly. 'If your wife responds well and quickly to treatment, then all will be well. It is, of course, essential at the moment that she is not subjected to any kind of...upset or...pressure.' He gave Max a long look. 'I hope I make myself clear.'
Max made a terse nod of his head. He knew that the obstetrician was warning him not to discuss the situation with Maddy or allow her to see his own distress. 'I understand,' he confirmed. 'I have to go home now...to collect our children from school, but I'd like your permission to bring them in to see her.'
He paused and waited.
'Yes, I can agree to that,' the doctor told him.
'...and for me to be able to stay the night here with her,' Max continued swiftly.
With a small sigh the consultant nodded his head.
'But I must warn you, any sign that your wife is being upset or distressed in any way by either the presence of her children or her husband and I shall have to ask you to leave.'
Grimly Max inclined his head.
JENNY'S MOBILE rang just as she was about to leave the supermarket and drive to Olivia's. When she answered it she heard Max's voice.
'Mum...'
'Max.' She could detect the tension in his one word.
'I'm at the hospital.'
'The hospital?' Jenny gripped the mobile. 'What's wrong... Ben?'
'No, it isn't Ben, it's Maddy,' Max told her tersely.
'She's suffering from pre-eclampsia. I don't know what's going to happen yet,' he continued, overriding Jenny's anxious questions, 'but they're keeping her in.
That's one of the reasons why I'm ringing you. Could you go over to Queensmead and check up on Ben and—Mum—we're going to need your help not just with Ben but with the kids as well.'
'Don't worry,' Jenny reassured him. 'You know I'll do whatever you need me to do.'
'I'm on my way to collect them from school now.
I'm taking them straight to the hospital to see Maddy, but if you could come and take them home, I'm going to stay overnight at the General with her but the kids need...'
'Of course,' Jenny agreed immediately. 'I'll drive over to Queensmead now and check on Ben.'
She could hear the relief in Max's voice as he thanked her. When she started the car her hands were shaking. They all took Maddy so much for granted, her sunny nature, her calm gentleness, her ability to find room in her generous heart for even someone as irascible and difficult as Ben.
Virtually singlehandedly she had turned Queensmead from a cold unwelcoming barn of a house that no one had ever liked to visit into a warm welcoming haven which increasingly had become the hub of Crighton family life. The work she did for the Mums and Babes charity was of incalculable value. She had surprised everyone, including herself, not just with her administrative talents but even more so with her flair for fund raising. No matter how busy she was she still always found time for those who asked for it.
Max adored her and if anything were to happen to her... Jenny knew how potentially serious her condition was—how dangerous.
Her hands tightened on the steering wheel of the car. The first thing she did when she reached Queensmead was ring Jon but all she could reach was his message service. Her mouth compressing, Jenny dropped the phone into her handbag without bothering to leave any message.
Ben was asleep in his arm chair when she walked into the library. Gently she woke him up.
'Where's Maddy?' he demanded irritably. 'I'm hungry. Gone off gadding somewhere with Max, I suppose. She's supposed to be here looking after me. Acting like this house is their own. Huh...we shall see about that....'
Squashing her irritation, Jenny explained what had happened. The whole family made allowances for the often irascible Ben who had never reconciled himself to the death of his twin brother. But, increasingly, he was making challenging and hurtful comments about both Maddy and Max and about their future tenure of the house.
Jenny knew that Max felt concerned enough to have bought a large piece of land on the other side of town on which he hoped he would be able to build a new house for himself, Maddy and the children if Ben ever did carry out his threat to disinherit him.
'David has promised that if Dad should leave Queensmead to him he will immediately hand it over to you,' Jon had tried to reassure Max.
When Jenny reached the hospital, Max and the children were in the waiting room. Max hurried towards her and she could tell from his expression just how anxious he was about Maddy.
'Can I see her?' she asked him once she had hugged and kissed the children.
Shaking his head Max told her, 'She's asleep at the moment. This is all my fault,' he added emotionally.
The bleakness in his eyes tore at Jenny's heart. Silently she hugged him, trying to offer him some comfort but inwardly she was as frightened for Maddy as she could see he was.
'They can do so much these days,' she tried to reassure him.
'I should have guessed—seen—I know she hasn't been feeling well.' His voice was torn with pain.
'Where's Dad?' he asked abruptly. 'I thought he would come with you.'
'He's up at Fitzburgh Place. Apparently David rang him whilst he was playing golf to tell him that Lord Astlegh wanted to see him.'
She gave Max a forced smile. With all that he had to worry about the last thing she wanted to do was to have him guess how she was feeling.
'I'll take the children home with me now and don't worry about having to get home tonight, Max. I'll stay at Queensmead with them and make sure they get to school in the morning.'
FROM THE SMALL ROOM at home she used as an office Olivia could see Amelia and Alex playing in the garden. At the moment they seemed happy to accept that Caspar had stayed behind in America whilst they had come home but soon she knew they would start to miss their father and ask questions. They would be upset she knew. They both adored Caspar. But surely they were better off living with her in a loving happy atmosphere than enduring the kind of misery she had known as a child knowing that her parents were not happy together. Her agitation increased, her heart starting to pound with a now familiar sickening speed and intensity. She hated the fear she felt threatening to flood over her, hated the sense of loss of self-control it brought.
Pushing her hands into her hair she tried to massage the tight band of pain out of her skull. She had just spent the last hour reading through the work notes she had made before leaving for America but i
nstead of calming her, easing her anxiety, they had only served to increase it.
She thought of Jenny and looked anxiously towards her silent telephone. Her aunt hadn't even rung to welcome her home. But then why should she? Olivia was only a niece to her. Jenny had sons and daughters of her own who were far more important to her than Olivia ever could be and Jenny had grandchildren, too.... Far more loved by her than Olivia's children could be. Fiercely Olivia swallowed against the tight ball of angry pain stuck in her throat.
Tania, her own mother, had never even seen her grandchildren.
'Darling, I'd love to see the new baby,' she had announced over the telephone after Amelia had been born, 'But there's just no way I could ever come back to Haslewich....' Olivia had been able to visualise the shudder which would have run through her mother's fragile body as she listened to her. 'And even if I could, I know that my darling Tom would never allow me to do so. He can't believe how cruel your father was to me. And I'm afraid we couldn't invite you to come down here. We just don't have the room....'
And of course her mother didn't want to make room. Olivia had known that, but to offset that pain there had been Jenny. Jenny ready to open her arms to Olivia and her new baby and to become the loving wise surrogate grandmother Olivia had ached for them to have.
But then, one after the other, Jenny's own children had married and produced grandchildren for her, and Olivia had started to distance herself from Jenny a little, out of a fierce maternal desire to protect her own daughters from being hurt as she had been.
Everywhere she turned it seemed to Olivia that she was not as valued as other people were. Neither of her own parents had truly loved her—she knew that—and as for Ben, her grandfather, he had made his prefer-ence for Max as plain as his contempt for her.
At work she had tried to prove that she could work as hard, do as much, as any man. Even Caspar, who she had thought loved her, had chosen his family over her.
