Princess Daisy by Judith Krantz Page B

dreams. But two!
    “So, my dear Madame,” the doctor continued, “you will now come to see me every two weeks for the next month and then, just to be on the safe side, once a week until the babies begin to manifest a desire to enter the world. Yes?”
    “Of course.” Francesca hardly knew what she was saying. Suddenly the bewitched dream of her world had been destroyed as easily as an iridescent soap bubble. She wanted only to leave and drive back to the villa and try to absorb this invasion, this new reality.
    The entire chalet beat rapturously to the rhythm of the news. Twins! Stash, in his incredulous delight, hadn’t been able to resist telling his valet, Mump, almost immediately. Mump had told the housekeeper, the housekeeper had told the chef, the chef had told Masha, who, bursting with excitement, ran to find Francesca in the library and reproached her mistress for not having announced the news herself.
    “I should have been the first to know, Princess. After all … and now everyone knows about it, right down to the old laundry women and the men in the stable.”
    “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Masha, I didn’t even know it myself until yesterday. Why, oh why, do you all gossip so much?”
    “Gossip? Why, Princess, we never gossip. We only say what we have happened to overhear or observed or have been told.… That’s not gossip!”
    “Of course not. Now Masha, we’re going to need twice as much of everything now. Two layettes, dear God, evenone seems too much! Bring me some paper please, and I’ll start making lists.”
    “I think the Princess should lie down,” Masha insisted.
    “Masha, the Princess has work to do!”
    February and March passed gaily, except for Francesca’s ever increasing discomfort. At night she could lie only on her side, Stash behind her. Often, for hours, he stayed pressing closely the fragrant length of her body, his arms around her so that he could feel the movements of her swollen belly.
    “They push you like two little horses,” Stash murmured proudly. “When I was a baby Masha used to tell my mother that she had never heard of a child who suckled with such strength. She said no man had dared to treat her with such impudence, not even the one who gave her a bastard. My God, imagine two like me!” He gave a lofty chuckle.
    Francesca smiled to herself at his absolute conviction that he was simply going to be reproduced in miniature, not just once but twice.
    He took it for granted that the babies would be no less than extensions of himself. Already he had made plans to teach them to ride and ski, as if they would be born at the age of four, each a precocious Hercules.
    One day, during the third week of April, Francesca’s back ached particularly badly. That night she woke up as if she had been tapped on the shoulder in the dark. “Who …?” she said, not really awake, and then she knew. “Well … well … what do you know?” she asked herself in a whisper and lay quietly, waiting. Half an hour later, after two more contractions had gripped her, she woke Stash gently.
    “It’s probably nothing, darling, but Doctor Allard said to phone him if anything happened at all. This must be false labor, nothing to get excited about, but would you call him for me, please?” She felt shy about waking the doctor in the middle of the night.
    Woken from depths of sleep, Stash jumped out of bed with the instant reactions that had become second nature in the RAF.
    “Wait, it’s not a scramble—take it easy,” Francesca said, basking in a feeling of heightened well-being.
    Stash returned from the phone in a minute.
    “The doctor said to come to the clinic immediately. Here’s your coat and your handbag … oh, your boots.”
    “I’ll brush my teeth and pack a nightgown and …”
    “No,” Stash ordered, bundling her into her coat and bending down to put her bare feet into her fur-lined boots.
    “At least wake somebody and tell them we’ve gone,” Francesca