They stopped in at the shop every day, and Phillip was very excited when a new emerald bracelet came in, and on another afternoon when Emanuelle told them they had sold two enormous rings in one morning. What was even more amazing was that she had sold one of them to Jean-Charles de Martin, her lover. He had bought it for her, and had teased her mercilessly, pretending it was for his wife when he bought it. And then, as she grew angrier and angrier at him, he took the ring from the box, and slipped it on her finger. It was there now, and Sarah raised an eyebrow.
“Does this mean something serious?” Sarah asked, but she also knew how much jewelry he bought for his wife and girlfriends, at other jewelers.
“Only that I have a beautiful new ring,” Emanuelle said realistically. She had no illusions. But she had a few very interesting clients. Many of the men who bought from them, bought for their mistresses as well as their wives. They had complicated lives, and all of them had come to know that Emanuelle Bourgois was the soul of discretion.
They went back to the apartment late that afternoon, and Phillip went to the movies that evening with his tutor. He was a fine young man, a student at the Sorbonne, and was fluent in both English and French, and fortunately Phillip liked him.
It was already July by then, and Paris was hot and steamy. They had been there for two weeks, and Sarah was anxious to go home again. It was so beautiful at the château at that time of year. It seemed a shame to waste the summer in Paris.
“I wouldn’t call it ‘wasted’” William mused with a smile as he watched her. She looked like a beached whale as she lay on their bed in an enormous pink satin nightgown. “Aren’t you hot in that thing?” he asked, it made him uncomfortable just looking at her. “Why don’t you take it off?”
“I don’t want to make you sick, having to look at me like this.” But he rolled slowly toward the bed as she said it.
“Nothing about you ever makes me sick.” He was a little sad this time, not to be there when she had the baby. He felt a little left out of it, with her fancy Paris doctor, and the clinic, but it was William who wanted her there, because it was so much safer.
She fell into a deep, deep sleep that night, as he slept fitfully in the heat, and she woke him at four in the morning, when the pains came. He dressed carefully, and called the maid to help her, and then he drove her to Neuilly, to the clinic they had chosen. She seemed to be in considerable pain by the time they left, and she said very little to him on the short drive in his Bentley. And then they took her away from him, and he waited nervously until noon, fearing that things might be going as badly as they had the first time. They had promised to give her gas this time, and they had assured her that everything would be easy and modern. As easy as it could be for a woman having a nine-pound baby. And finally, at one-thirty, the doctor came out to him, looking very neat and prim, and smiling broadly.
“You have a handsome son, Monsieur.”
“And my wife?” William asked worriedly.
“She worked hard,” the doctor looked serious for a moment, “but it went very well. We have given her a little something to sleep now. You may see her in a few moments.” And when he did, she was draped in white sheets, and very pale, and very groggy, and she seemed to have no idea where she was, or why she was there. She kept telling him that they had to go to the shop that afternoon, and not to forget to write to Phillip at Eton.
“I know, my darling … it’s all right.” He sat quietly next to her for hours, and about four-thirty, she stirred and looked at him, and glanced around the room in confusion. He moved closer to her again then, and kissed her cheek and told her about their baby. William still hadn’t seen him yet, but all the nurses said. He was lovely. He weighed nine pounds, fourteen ounces, almost as big as Phillip, and William could only imagine from the look of her that it hadn’t been easy.
“Where is he?” she asked, looking around the room.
“In the nursery, they’ll bring him in soon. They wanted you to sleep.” And then he kissed her again. “Was it awful?”
“It was strange …” She looked at him dreamily, holding his hand, and still trying to focus. “They kept giving me gas and it made me feel sick … but all it really did was make me woozy, it seemed like everything was very far away, and I still felt the pain, but I couldn’t tell them.”
“Maybe that’s why they like it.” But at least they were both safe, and nothing dreadful had happened.
“I liked it better when you did it,” she said sadly, this was all so odd, and so foreign, and so antiseptic, and they hadn’t even showed her the baby.
“Thank you I’m afraid I’m not much of a surgeon.”
But they brought the baby in to them then, and all the pain was suddenly forgotten. He was beautiful and round, he had dark hair and big blue eyes, and he looked just like William. And Sarah cried when she held him. He was so perfect, such a wonderful little boy. She had wanted a little girl, but she didn’t mind now that they had him. All that mattered was that he was there, and he was all right. They had decided to call him Julian, after a distant cousin of William’s. And she insisted on William as his middle name, which his father said was foolish, but he reluctantly agreed Sarah cried when they took him away again. She couldn’t understand why they had to do that. She had her own nurse and her own room. She even had her own sitting room and her own bathroom, but they said it wasn’t sanitary to leave him there for too long. He belonged in the nursery with sterile conditions. Sarah blew her nose and looked at William after Julian was gone, and the emotions of the day overwhelmed her. And he suddenly felt guilty for bringing her here, but he promised to take her home quickly.
He brought Phillip to see her the next day, and Emanuelle, who proclaimed Julian beautiful when she saw him through a window. They wouldn’t let the infants visit with guests, and Sarah hated the place more than ever. And Phillip stared at him through the glass and then shrugged and turned away, visibly unimpressed, as Sarah watched in disappointment. He looked angry about the baby, too, and he wasn’t very kind to his mother.
“Don’t you think he’s sweet?” Sarah asked hopefully.
“He’s all right. He’s awfully small,” Phillip said disparagingly. And his father laughed ruefully, knowing what Sarah had been through.
“Not to us, young man. Nine pounds, fourteen ounces is a monster!” But there was nothing else monstrous about him, whenever they brought him to Sarah to feed, she could see he had the sweetest disposition. And after he nursed, he would lie nestled next to her, and as though a bell had rung, a nurse arrived instantly to remove him from her.
By the eighth day, Sarah was waiting for William when he arrived with a fresh bouquet of flowers, and she was standing in her sitting room with her eyes blazing.
“If you don’t get me out of here in the next hour, I’m going to take Julian and walk out of here in my nightgown. I feel perfectly well, I’m not ill. And they won’t let me get near my baby.”
“All right, darling,” William said, knowing this would come, “tomorrow, I promise.” And the next day, he took them both back to the apartment, and two days later they all went back to the château, as Sarah held Julian in her arms, and he slept happily in the warmth of his mother.
By her birthday, in August, Sarah was her old self again, thin and well and strong, and enchanted with her new baby. They had closed the shop for the month, Emanuelle was on a yacht in the South of France, and Sarah didn’t even have to think of business. And in September when Phillip went back to school, they went to Paris for a few days, and Sarah took the baby with her. He went everywhere with them and sometimes he slept peacefully in a little basket in her office.
“He’s such a good little boy,” everyone commented about him, he was always smiling and laughing and cooing, and on Christmas eve, he was sitting up and the whole world was in love with him. The whole world except Phillip. He looked angry each time he saw him. And he always had something disagreeable to say about him. It cut Sarah to the quick, she had been so hopeful that he would come to like him. But the brotherly affection she had hoped would come never had, and he remained distant and unpleasant.