Page 105 of The Sapphire Child
Chapter 39
Stella fell asleep. She woke to a strange sound. The lamp had been turned down low but she could make out the shape of the cradle beside her bed. It was gently rocking. Leaning up, Stella saw Karo sitting cross-legged on the floor, pushing it.
She smiled at Stella and then called out for Esmie.
At once, Esmie appeared in the doorway. ‘How are you, lassie? Could you manage a bowl of soup and some chapatti?’
Stella realised that she was hungry. ‘Yes, I’d like that, thank you.’
Without being asked, Karo rose and went to fetch some food.
Esmie sat down on the edge of the bed. ‘I know you’ll want a bath,’ she said. ‘But do you think you could try and feed the baby after you’ve had a bite to eat yourself? Karo can help show you how.’
They had agreed this was what they would do for the first days; Stella would nurse the baby herself. Then when the hotel opened up again, Karo’s daughter Gabina would return from Srinagar to be the baby’s ayah – and Stella would go back to Rawalpindi.
Stella was sore and still exhausted – and not sure any more that she wanted to nurse the infant. But it didn’t seem a lot to ask; Esmie had done so much for her these past months. Nothing she did could repay the Lomaxes for standing by her when she had needed them so badly.
‘Of course,’ Stella said, wincing as she tried to sit up.
Esmie helped prop her up with pillows and then lifted the baby out of the cradle. The snuffling sound that had woken Stella was growing into a querulous cry.
Esmie held the tiny girl in her arms and stroked her cheek. ‘There, there, wee lamb,’ she crooned. ‘Milk is coming.’
She walked around the small room, patting and soothing. Tears sprang to Stella’s eyes at seeing Esmie – childless for so long – treating the baby with such tenderness. If she’d had doubts about her decision to give her to the Lomaxes, this moment of intimacy dispelled them. Esmie would love her daughter with a devotion that she might not be able to match herself.
Karo returned with an aromatic bean soup, and Stella devoured it. The queasiness she’d experienced for months at the smell of spicy food was miraculously gone. Afterwards, Karo helped Stella put the baby to her breast. Stella gasped at the sharp tug from such a tiny mouth. It was the strangest sensation – neither painful nor comfortable – and she stared at the creature feeding from her, amazed at the newborn’s instinctive ability to know what to do. She had dark eyes that fixed unfocused on the creamy curve of Stella’s breast.
Soon the baby stopped sucking, her eyes closing. Karo showed her how to unlatch the small mouth without it hurting. Stella felt a flicker of disappointment when the warm, snuffling infant was removed and placed back in the cradle.
‘What do you want to call her?’ Esmie asked.
Stella had fleetingly thought of naming her daughter Myrtle, after her mother, but dismissed the idea at once. There must be no connection with her family at all.
‘You and MrLomax must decide,’ she said, forcing a smile.
Esmie seemed about to say something and then changed her mind. She nodded. ‘Karo will prepare a bath for you. Then you can sleep.’
Stella sank back in the bed and tried to stop the tears that were leaking between her closed eyelids. She was glad of the subdued light in the room, which hid her emotional state.
The Lomaxes decided to call the baby Isobel.
‘It’s after my Aunt Isobel in Scotland,’ Esmie explained. ‘I know she wasn’t my real aunt but she was a wonderful guardian after my parents died – and a great friend.’
Stella remembered Esmie being upset about the woman’s death five years ago.
‘My only regret in staying out east was that I never saw her again,’ Esmie said with emotion.
‘She was a wonderful woman,’ said Tom, ‘and a great doctor too.’ He gazed down at the baby in his arms. ‘If you have half of Isobel Carruthers’s spirit, my wee girl, you’ll take on the world.’
Esmie smiled. ‘Tom, we don’t want her to take on the world – just to thrive in it.’
Stella felt a pang at their happy talk, glad that the baby was already bringing them joy as well as a renewed tenderness towards each other. Where the upset over Andrew had put a strain on them for years, the two weeks that Isobel had been in their lives had lifted their jaded spirits.
Tom chuckled. ‘But Isobel sounds a bit serious for such a delicate creature, so we’ll probably call her Belle for short. What do you think?’
Stella’s eyes glistened. ‘I think that’s a lovely name.’
‘Belle it is, then,’ Tom declared, his lean face creasing in delight.
