“I thought I told you, Dr. Franklyn, that Jo has asked you not to involve yourself in this matter!” Bennet stood looking up at Nick, his face stern.

“Dr. Franklyn is my brother,” Nick replied shortly. “Jo, for God’s sake, explain.”

“Jo does not know you’re here.” Anxiously Carl Bennet put his hand on Nick’s shoulder. “She is in a deep trance. Now, please, I must ask you to leave-”

“Jo? Dear God, what have you done to her? You bastard!” Nick knelt at Jo’s side and took her hand gently in his.

“Shall I call the caretaker?” Sarah said in an undertone. She had her hand on a bell by the door. Bennet shook his head. He sighed. “Please, Mr. Franklyn. You must leave. I am sure you realize it would be dangerous for you to interfere at this stage.”

“Dangerous?” Nick was staring at Jo’s face. Her eyes were looking at him quite normally, but she did not see him. The scene she was watching was in another time, another place. “She swore this wasn’t dangerous. And she asked me to come with her,” Nick went on, controlling his temper with an effort. “I only got her message an hour ago. Please let me stay. She would want me to.”

Her eyes had changed focus now. They no longer looked at him. They seemed to stray through him, unfocusing, the pupils dilating rapidly as though she were staring directly at the window. Slowly Nick released her hand. He backed away a few paces and sat down on the edge of a chair. “I am staying,” he repeated. “I am not letting her out of my sight!”

Jo suddenly threw herself back against the sofa with a moan of agony. Her fingers convulsed and she clawed four parallel grooves in the soft hide of the upholstery.

“Holy Mother of God!” She screamed. “Where is Jeanne? Why doesn’t she come?”

There was a moment’s total silence in the room as the three looked at her, electrified. Nick had gone white.

“Make it stop.” Jo moaned. “Please, someone make it stop.” She arched her back again, catching up one of the velvet cushions and hugging it to her in despair.

“For God’s sake, Carl, what’s happened?” Sarah was rooted to the spot. “Bring her out of it. Wake her quickly!”

Bennet sat down beside her. “My dear, can you hear me? I want you to listen to me-” He broke off with a cry of pain as Jo grabbed his hand and clung to it. Her face was wet with perspiration and tears.

“For pity’s sake, wake her,” Nick cried. “What’s wrong with her?”

“She’s having a baby.” Sarah’s voice cut in as Jo let out another moan. “Women do it all the time.”

“Pregnant women, perhaps,” Nick snapped. His skin was crawling. “Wake her up, man, quickly. Do you want to kill her?” He clenched his fists as Jo screamed again.

“Jo? Jo? Can you hear me?” Bennet battled to catch her hands and hold them still. “The birth is over, Jo. There is no more pain. You are going to sleep, Jo. Sleep and rest. And when you are rested, you will wake gently. Can you hear me, Joanna? Now, close your eyes and rest…”


***

“It’s taking too long!” Elen looked at Margaret, frightened. Gently she sponged Matilda’s face with a cloth wrung out in rosewater. “For sweet Jesus’ sake, isn’t there anything we can do to help?”

They both looked pleadingly at the midwife, who was once more feeling Matilda’s stomach beneath the bloodstained linen. The girl was practically unconscious now, propped against a dozen pillows, the deep straw litter of the childbed covered with sheets to make it soft and smooth. Between each pain black exhaustion took hold of her, drawing her down into blessed oblivion before another spasm of rending agony began inexorably to build, tearing her back to screaming wakefulness. Only the warmth of the blood in which she lay soothed her.

“There now. He’s nearly here, the boyo.” The birthing woman was rumbling beneath the sheet. “Another push or two, my lovely, and it’ll all be over. There’s brave, it is.” She smiled imperturbably as Matilda arched her back in another agonized contortion and a further spurt of blood soaked into the bedding. The rosary they had put in her fingers broke and the beads rolled across the floor. Horrified, Margaret crossed herself and it was left to Elen to twist a towel into a rope and give it to Matilda to grip as, with a final desperate convulsion, the girl’s body rid itself of its burden.

For a moment there was total silence. Then at last there was a feeble wail from the bloodstained scrap of life that lay between her legs. Matilda did not hear it. She was spinning away into exhausted sleep, her body still hunched against another pain.

“Is he all right?” Margaret peered fearfully at the baby as the woman produced her knife and severed the cord. None of them had even doubted Matilda’s prediction that it would be a boy. The baby, wildly waving its little arms in the air, let out another scream. It was unblemished.

“There, my lady, see. He’s beautiful.” Gently Elen laid the child in Matilda’s arms. “Look at him. He’s smiling.”

Fighting her exhaustion, Matilda pushed away the birthing woman, who had been trying roughly to massage her stomach. She dragged herself up onto her elbow, trying to gather her courage. The moment she had dreaded was here. Somehow she clawed her way back to wakefulness and with outward calm she received the baby and gazed down into the small puckered face. For a moment she could not breathe, then suddenly she felt a strange surge of love and protective joy for her firstborn. She forgot her fears. He was beautiful. She buried her face in the little shawl that had been wrapped around him and hugged him, holding him away from her again only to look long and lovingly at the deep blue-black eyes and tiny fringed lids, the button nose and pursed mouth, and the thatch of dark, bloodstained hair. But as she looked the child’s face grew hazy and blackened. She watched paralyzed as the tiny features became contorted with agony and she heard the child begin to scream again and again. They were not the screams of a child, but those of a grown man, ringing in her ears. In her arms she held a warm woven shawl no longer. She was clutching rags, and through the rags she could feel the bones of a living skeleton. After thrusting the body away from her with revulsion, she feverishly threw herself from the bed and collapsed weakly on her knees, retching, at the feet of the terrified women who had been tending her.

“Sweet Mary, Mother of God, save him and save me,” she breathed, clutching at the coverlet convulsively. Slowly the world around her began to swim. She saw the great bed rocking before her then a deep roaring filled her ears, cutting out all the other sounds, and slowly, helplessly, she slipped to the floor.


***

“Jo!” Nick reached her first. “Jo! It’s all right. Jo, please, Jo…” He gathered her limp form into his arms, cradling her head against his chest.

“Leave her, please.” Bennet knelt beside them. “Let me see her. Jo!” He snapped his fingers in her face. “Listen to me, Joanna. You are going to wake up now. Do you hear me. Now!”

There was a moment of total silence. Outside the sound of a police siren wailing in the Marylebone Road brought the twentieth century back into the room.

Jo stirred. She opened her eyes and lay looking up at Nick. The strain and anguish were slowly clearing from her face as she eased herself upright.

“Jo? Are you all right?” Nick’s voice was gentle. He still had his arm around her shoulders.

She frowned, staring around the room, looking first at Bennet and then at Sarah who was standing, whitefaced, by the desk. Then her gaze came back to Nick. She smiled weakly.

“He’s dead, isn’t he?” she said shakily.

“Jo, love-” Nick pulled her close, his face in her hair. “None of it happened. Nobody died-”

She stared at him. “Don’t lie to me.” Her voice was very weary. “I want to know the truth.” Her gaze traveled past Nick suddenly. “Archdeacon?” The room in Devonshire Place faded slightly as she peered toward the end of the bed. She was once again lying beneath the covers but now they were cleansed. Darkness had come outside and the room was lighted with a dozen torches. Gerald held a crucifix in his hand and he was praying quietly, his eyes occasionally flitting up to her passive face.

“The child is dead.” She heard her voice as a hollow whisper in the silence of the castle. Somewhere in the distance the police car still wailed. Her lips and tongue were dry as dust.

Gerald kissed the crucifix calmly and tucked it back into his girdle. Then he came to the side of her bed and put his cool hand on her brow. “Not at all,” he said cheerfully. “The child is squalling manfully. I’ve seen it. A fine healthy boy, my lady, to set all your fears at rest.” His grave eyes surveyed her carefully, taking in the disarrayed tangled hair all over the pillow, the pallid, damp skin, the quick, shallow breathing. “You have a touch of fever. Enough to cause some wandering of the mind in your overwrought condition, but there is nothing to fear, for the child or for yourself. I have ordered sleep-wort and poppy for you to take. A good night’s rest will set you right.”

She opened her mouth to speak, but sternly he put his fingers to his lips and pronounced a blessing over her. Then he stood by and watched as Margaret, looking pale and shaken, brought her the sleeping draught, after which she lay back, exhausted. Too tired to think, she let her mind go blessedly blank and drifted slowly into the welcome forgetfulness of sleep.


***

“Who was she talking to?” Nick found himself glancing over his shoulder as Jo settled once more into his arms, her eyes closed. His skin prickled uncomfortably.

Bennet shook his head. “She was still seeing her archdeacon,” he said slowly. “He must have spoken to her, reassured her. Look at the flush on her cheeks almost as if she were asleep-” Gently he picked up Jo’s wrist and felt her pulse.