Peach (42 page)

In fact, she scarcely saw Harry these days. He was locked away in his study writing his new novel, all about a city in the past that was like ancient Rome but with modern characters and present-day evils which all boiled down to the fact that life really hadn’t changed much over the centuries. It was all so different when Harry had been writing
her
books.

It had been exciting being Harry’s inspiration although after a while it became a bit disturbing. Sometimes she would wonder when he made love to her if it was going to turn up on his pages for all the world to read about and she would blush when Harry introduced her as his “muse” at publishers’ parties.

And sometimes when she had been lying there on the bed still wrapped in the afterglow of his lovemaking, watching Harry’s intense beautiful face as he wrote about her, she thought that this was what she liked best of all. She had felt a part of Harry’s world when she shared his thoughts as well as his body. In those moments she had everything she’d ever wanted.

With a sigh Peach turned away from the window. Giving the sullen log in the fireplace a kick to stir its greying embers into flame she slumped into a vast wingchair that was as old as the house and pulled a bundle of knitting from behind the cushion. It was blue knitting and was meant to be a baby’s jacket, but its lacy pattern was full of holes that weren’t meant to be there and it was already grubby from her hot hands as she struggled to master the pattern. “Oh
merde!
” Ripping the stitches from the needles she flung the knitting on to the fire, watching miserably as it crumbled into ashes. The marble clock on the mantel ticked loudly into the silence.
It was only three thirty and it felt like eight or nine! The November greyness outside was already becoming dark and Harry wouldn’t emerge until at least half past six and even then he’d probably just have a drink and ask her to have the housekeeper send something to eat into his study because he’d be working late. And when he hadn’t joined her by ten Peach would put aside the book she’d been trying to read and turn off the record player and the music she’d been hoping to share with him and she’d just climb the stairs and go to bed alone. Again! She was twenty-two but inside she still felt like the eighteen-year-old she’d been when she met Harry. And here she was having a baby and living the life of an old married woman. It was a lonely, lonely life.

Picking up the phone she called Melinda.

“Come for tea,” said Melinda, “and tell me about it.”

Life at the Seymours’ was informal and the house always seemed to be bursting at the seams with people and animals. Dogs rushed to greet Peach as she stepped into the hall and voices shouted a welcome over the sound of the latest record being played at top blast by Melinda’s younger brother. Peach liked the way people just dropped in for tea at the Seymours’, for drinks, or even supper without waiting to be asked, and there was always somebody there to recount the latest local gossip.

It was so different from life at Launceton Hall where people were invited formally and dinner parties were meticulously planned by Harry so that he had a balanced group of guests from the literary and academic worlds, who could provide the sort of stimulating dinner-table conversation that you really had to think hard about to catch on to what they meant. The house parties were the worst, though. Harry would invite a dozen people to spend the weekend and Peach would dread their arrival. Thank God the cook knew how to churn out the sort of meals they were used to
and there was always a rice pudding with stewed fruit after lunch and a meringue for dessert after dinner! Harry said it was what they all got used to at school but Peach thought it revolting. The worst part was that she had absolutely nothing in common with any of them. She would wear what she thought was pretty and appropriate for dinner in the lovely panelled dining room where the long refectory table seated twenty—or thirty when all the leaves were pulled out—but all the other women would be wearing long patterned dresses in brown and sage green or that electric blue that they all seemed to like and which killed their pink complexions. They’d stare at her beautiful red Dior silk with a “what can you expect—she’s French” look, and talk to her as though she knew nothing about life or literature. And the men would pay her intellectual compliments before dinner and then talk about events that had happened before she married Harry, dropping Augusta’s name carelessly and then glancing at her apologetically.

“I can’t stand it any longer!” she complained to Melinda as they sat before a roaring log fire toasting crumpets on a long brass fork.

“Here’s yours. Catch.” Melinda tossed the hot crumpet to her, burning her fingers. “Of course you can,” she said, buttering hers lavishly and taking a large bite. “It’s just that
you
are pregnant and
Harry’s
busy. After he’s finished the book and the baby’s born you should get him to whisk you away to somewhere wonderful for a holiday. Barbados is lovely in winter—hot and sunny, just the way you like it.”

“Barbados! I can’t even get him to take me into
London
with him! Harry goes there every couple of weeks when he can’t stand writing any more. He has lunch with his publisher or his agent and then he has dinner at his club and chats with his old friends. He says that he needs to get away. And he tells me I’m too pregnant to take up to town. Besides,
if I went we’d have to stay at his mother’s and Harry hates that. He has a hundred reasons for not taking me with him. Harry likes to think of me at home waiting for him, waiting for his child to be born. I feel like an actor in a play he’s creating.”

“Well, in a way you are. I mean you are his inspiration.”

“Not any more,” replied Peach gloomily. “He’s gone back to ancient Rome. Melinda, do you know what I’m going to do after the baby is born? I’m going to buy a place in London. In Chelsea perhaps, or maybe one of those pretty little mews houses in Belgravia. Then Harry and I will have a home of our own in town.”

“I doubt that Harry will want to spend money on a town house,” said Melinda. “I hear he spends it all buying more acres for the Launceton estates. Harry’s land-rich.”

“I’ll buy the house myself with my grandfather de Courmont’s money,” said Peach, suddenly enchanted with her idea. She knew exactly what she wanted, she’d noticed one just like it last time she was in London. A low, white house with a front door painted glossy black and a brass knocker. She would have two bedrooms just in case she wanted to bring the baby to town, and a sweet little kitchen where she could cook a surprise for supper. Or maybe Harry would take her out to dinner at one of those charming little restaurants in Belgravia. She could see it all now … and she’d have such
fun
choosing wallpapers and curtains and, of course, a lovely big bed, and soft rugs for their bare feet. It would be their love nest and everything would be just the way it was before. And it would be her secret until it was finished. It would be her grand surprise present for Harry.

“Harry will love it,” she said, beaming, “I just know he will.”

Melinda sighed as she looked at her friend. There was a lot Peach didn’t know about Harry.

It was one of the coldest Januarys on record but Peach didn’t care. She lay snug and happy in her four-poster at Launceton Hall with a cheerful fire burning in the grate, the snow falling outside her window and her baby sleeping soundly in his crib beside her bed.

He wasn’t a beautiful baby—he was too masculine for that, but he
was
very handsome and she didn’t think he looked the least bit like Harry. He had her dark blue eyes but everyone told her that babies’ eyes change colour so she was waiting to see what they would turn out to be, and he had masses of very straight dark hair and a nose that was a proper nose, not just some baby pudge. And she loved him like crazy. Peach couldn’t think how she could have resented him when she was pregnant. She thought that if everyone knew what they were getting at the end of those nine months and the ordeal of the birth then they’d feel a lot happier about feeling sick and getting fat and clumsy.

Best of all, her mother and father were here. They came over to spend Christmas and stayed on for the birth. Her mother had been the star of all the Christmas parties, dazzling the locals with her glamorous good looks and fitting in with everyone much better than Peach ever had. She’d gone to the Christmas ball looking superb in yellow satin and she’d sparkled at sombre dinner parties in sapphires and blue silk and she’d eaten lunch at the Seymours’ kitchen table, helping to clear off afterwards, and she hadn’t minded when the dogs clambered up on to her elegant tweed lap
slobbering and shedding hairs and probably a few fleas as well.

Amelie had been there to hold Peach’s hand through the worst of the pains and she was there smiling at her, holding out the baby to her afterwards. Peach didn’t know what she would have done without her.

And when Peach told her father what she wanted it was Gerard who sorted out the baby’s name. “I know you won’t mind if I insist,” he said, smiling charmingly at Harry and his mother, “but the name Gilles has been in the de Courmont family for generations. It would be an honour for us to join it with the Launceton family names.” Of course they had no choice but to accept.

Peach thought maybe Gerard hadn’t been too keen on her giving the baby his father’s name but it suited him. And at the christening a few weeks later, with the baby clasped in his godmother Lais’s arms and yelling in what Peach felt sure was a very untraditional manner, he was named William Piers Gilles Launceton. And somehow he was always called Wil.

Nanny Launceton, who had brought up Harry and his brothers, was summoned back from her position with a nice family in Hampshire a month before the birth to prepare
her
nursery. Of course Peach had already done it the way she wanted it. It had been the only aspect of her pregnancy that she had enjoyed. She had gone to the White House in Bond Street and bought a lavish layette with dozens of little vests and nighties and heavenly little smocked jackets and tiny embroidered boots and bonnets in silk. She’d bought a wonderful crib and a lavish shawl and then she’d gone to Harrods and chosen new nursery furniture for when the baby was a bit older, a cot and a high chair and gaily painted wooden blocks, and all kinds of things that she would enjoy
playing with herself. Harry complained she’d squandered a fortune when there was already plenty of stuff in the attics from the years before but Peach didn’t care. She felt happy thinking of their new little baby in his all-new yellow-painted nursery with its crisp cotton curtains and soft blue carpet.

Nanny Launceton took one look at the new nursery, tuttutting and shaking her head and said, “This will never do, Mrs Launceton. Oh dear me, no.” She’d had the new blue carpet up the very next week and plain blue linoleum laid in its place. “You need to have surfaces that can be kept clean and free of dust, Madam, for a new baby,” she’d said severely when Peach protested.

The new cot and the high chair were sent back to Harrods and Harry’s old ones brought down from the attics. “No use wasting good money on this flimsy new stuff,” Nanny Launceton said, kindly enough, as though Peach were another child. “This was good enough for Master Harry and his brothers and no doubt it’ll see another generation of Launcetons through until they’re old enough for a proper bed.” Peach refused to part with her new crib from the White House though. She placed it firmly beside her bed in her room, daring Nanny to say anything, and when Nanny saw how determined she was she smiled and said, “Well I dare say it’s all right to have a new crib, the old one in the attic would need mending anyway. And it is very pretty.” Peach had smiled at her in relief. Perhaps she and Nanny could have a truce, although she knew they would never be friends.

Peach couldn’t breast-feed the baby, there just wasn’t enough bosom and enough milk. Nanny Launceton took him away from her and prepared bottles full of rich-looking formula and soon he was thriving and getting plumper and more like a person. Sitting in a chair by the nursery fire
Peach held his bottle, watching him guzzling and gurgling. “Greedy little pig,” she said happily.

“Time for Master Wil’s nap now,” said Nanny, sweeping him from her arms and burping him expertly.

Peach soon gave up the battle of the bath, which anyway always coincided with the time Harry emerged from his study for a drink, and Nanny triumphantly brought the baby to show his father, dressed in the plain serviceable cream Viyella nighties that she preferred. “Much more suitable, Mrs Launceton, than all those fancy French things,” she said, dismissing the adorable blue and yellow and white ones with the silk ribbons that Leonie had sent her greatgrandchild.

Peach thought that Harry seemed quite pleased with his son. Not thrilled and jumping-up-and-down with excitement but, still, he was pleased. He stroked the baby’s hair gently and said very un-literary things about him, such as, “Good bones. Strong too. Look at those shoulders—he’ll make the rowing eight at Eton, maybe even the rugger squad too.” Or, “The lad’s a Launceton, no mistaking that face.” Peach had expected poetic descriptions of his emotions as a new father but Harry just seemed to assess his son the way he might have a new horse … sound chest, good fetlocks, strong hindquarters. She felt a little sorry for her baby.