Royal Sisters: The Story of the Daughter Page 0,26
give Anne the impression that her anger was a sign of fear for her mistress’s health.
Anne could be stubborn on occasions, Sarah was discovering. Perhaps it was a warning that she should not take too much for granted. But Sarah was usually in too much of a hurry to heed warnings, too sure of herself to believe she could ever be wrong.
Meanwhile Anne sat by her husband’s bed while he held her hand and although he could not speak, his eyes told her how happy he was to have her there.
Anne was melancholy, for she, like everyone else, believed that he was going to die. She thought of the day they had met, of their immediate liking which had made both of them accept the marriage calmly. Rarely could strangers have contemplated marriage with such serenity. But they were serene people—both of them—perhaps that was why theirs was such a happy marriage.
From George’s bed, she went to that of her elder daughter. The child lay, panting for her breath, racked now and then by fits of coughing.
Anne wept, then hastily dried her eyes that she might go to her husband’s bedside with a smile.
Hourly she was expecting the death of husband and daughter and never in her life had she been so unhappy. She had her baby; she would hold the child in her arms and wonder how long it would be before little Anne Sophia would be the only member of her family left to her.
She was sitting by her husband’s bed one day when Sarah came into the room. There was a closer bond between them because Sarah had a boy now whom she had christened John after her husband and as a mother Sarah could understand and sympathize with the anguish Anne was now enduring. Sarah had three healthy children. Lucky Sarah! Her successful motherhood endeared her to Anne. It seemed yet a further proof that Sarah would always be successful.
Now Sarah was subdued which was startling because it was so unlike her.
“Mary …?” whispered Anne.
Sarah drew her outside and put an arm about her.
“It is the little one,” she said.
The child was lying in its cradle; her face was scarlet, its limbs distorted.
“No!” cried Anne. “This is too much.”
She looked wildly about her, calling for the doctors; but there was nothing they could do.
Anne stood at the window watching the snowflakes falling. She was not weeping; but her limbs felt heavy. She had lost her baby—little Mary was desperately ill and her dear George was sick with a fever.
It was Sarah who came to stand beside her, miraculousy silent for once, but conveying so much by that silence.
“How can I tell him, Sarah?” she asked.
Sarah took her hand and pressed it firmly and it seemed to Anne that Sarah’s strength and vitality flowed into her body.
“No matter what happens … there will always be you. You’ll never change.” She added: “Mrs. Freeman.”
“Mrs. Freeman will always be at hand to comfort her dear friend Mrs. Morley.”
One of the women approached them.
Anne took one look at her and flew to the bedside of her daughter Mary.
It was incredible; fate could not be so cruel. But it was so. Anne had lost both her children.
Strangely enough from that day George began to improve.
They said that he saw he was needed to comfort his heartbroken wife. She would sit by his bed and hold his hand; and they often wept quietly together.
He told her that he had known all the time that she had been in the sickroom, and it was that knowledge and that alone, which had pulled him through.
“I cannot bear to see you unhappy,” he said.
“And it grieves me to see you sad.”
“Then, my dear wife, we must smile for the sake of each other.”
He was growing better every day. This was clear for when Anne brought delicacies to his bedside his eyes lit up at the sight of them.
“Try this, my love,” she would say.
And he would take a tidbit and put it into her mouth instead.
They would sample the food, discuss it; and talk of what they would eat tomorrow.
It was a return to the old life.
“Do not fret,” he said. “We have lost three but we shall have others.”
And as soon as the Prince was about again sure enough Anne became pregnant; and she was sure that if she could only hold a healthy child in her arms she would be ready to forget the anguish of her previous loss.