The Last Princess (49 page)

Looking back at her daughter, she quickly made allowances. Melissa simply
couldn’t
be as monstrously self-centered as she then seemed. After all, she told herself, she had just been through great trauma; she was very young and scared. It was too much to expect much emotional maturity from her.

Lily tried one last time. “Melissa, please believe me. You’ll feel differently once you’ve seen this baby—your baby. She’s so tiny, so helpless in that incubator. The doctor says it’s still touch and go, but she’s doing miraculously well. If she gets through the next few days, they’ll begin to hope that she’ll have a chance.”

“It would be better for everyone if it died,” Melissa said, turning away. Couldn’t her mother understand? She didn’t
want
that baby!

Lily wanted to scream, to slap her, to threaten. Instead, controlling her temper, she got up and walked out of the room. She leaned her head against the smooth, cool wall of the corridor, tears streaming down her face, while Harry and Ellis looked on, stunned.

“Lily, what is it?” Harry finally managed. “What’s wrong?”

“She doesn’t want the baby, Harry. She wishes that it would die.”

She broke into sobs. Harry gathered her against him, saying nothing, simply stroking her hair while she wept. Finally, as she grew calmer, he said softly, “Shall we go to see the baby, Lily?”

Ellis followed them silently. It was not for him to intrude on their shared moment of anguish.

Down the hall at the neonatal unit, the three of them stood gazing through the glass at the infant. Lily longed to hold her, to cradle her in her arms. That little unwanted baby in the incubator had somehow become herself.

Ellis put a hand on her shoulder. “It won’t be long, Lily. She’s going to live. That baby is going to make it. I just know she will.”

“Oh God, I hope so! I hope so.”

Ellis’s prediction came true. Even as Melissa regained the strength sapped by her pregnancy and her poor diet, so the baby gained weight and strength.

After Melissa told Lily Jean-Paul’s name, Ellis set in motion inquiries as to his whereabouts. Well-known though he was, there was some confusion about his itinerary. The message telling him about Melissa and the baby didn’t reach him until he arrived in Gstaad.

Duval sat on the edge of his hotel-room bed and ripped open the telegram. Reading it, he grew very still. The baby had already arrived. God, and it wasn’t due for another two months! He was genuinely upset to learn that Melissa was so gravely ill. He felt as though he’d deserted her, though who could have known she would deliver so soon? Like Melissa, he was sorry the baby had survived and was expected to live. But he wasn’t a monster, it was just that everything would have been so much easier if it had simply died.

Sighing, he crumpled the telegram and tossed it in the wastebasket. He might as well go ahead with tomorrow’s practice before flying back to Paris; the whole thing was over, in any case, and it was too late for him to hold Melissa’s hand.

He did wire her a huge bouquet of flowers, along with a telegram which read, “Sorry I couldn’t be there. Hope all is well. Returning to Paris two days. Love Jean-Paul.”

Melissa was thrilled by the sight of the flowers the nurse brought in. She ripped open the accompanying telegram, her hands trembling with excitement.

“What does he say, darling?” Lily asked her.

“He says he’ll be back in two days!”

“That’s wonderful, Melissa. Anything else—about the baby?”

“No, Mother, don’t be ridiculous. We already decided all that, long ago.”

“I know, darling, but why don’t you wait to make your decision until Jean-Paul has actually seen the baby? It might make a difference in his thinking.”

“Mother, forget it! There’s no way on earth we’ll change our minds. And I don’t want you to start trying to convince him, either. It will just annoy him.”

Lily held her tongue. She just couldn’t get over it—what a stranger her daughter had become. As calmly as possible, she announced the intention she had been harboring since she learned her daughter planned to abandon her child. “In that case, Melissa, I’m thinking about adopting the baby myself.”

Melissa laughed contemptuously. “You, Mother? You’re too old.”

“Hardly, darling. I’m quite young enough to run around after a child.”

Melissa heard the firm resolve in her mother’s tone. Clearly, she realized with dismay, her mother spoke in dead earnest. Sitting up, she started at Lily unbelievingly. “What are you trying to do? Is this some kind of plan to trick me into taking it?”

“No,” Lily replied steadily. “It has nothing to do with you. It’s quite simple, really. I love this baby.”

“Mother, you can’t do this to me. I want to forget this ever happened. If you take the baby, I’ll never see you again!”

“The truth is that you don’t bother to see me much as it is, do you? Let me tell you, Melissa, if you’re going to force me to choose between you and your baby, I will. And once I’ve adopted her, I will never let you take her back.” She paused, then went on calmly but deliberately. “Obviously I made a lot of mistakes somewhere along the line with you children. Well, maybe I’ve learned a thing or two since then. And I know only too well what it’s like to be abandoned. I won’t sit by and see my own grandchild passed off to strangers.”

“All right, then. Take the damned baby! See if I care! I don’t care what you think of me, anyway. I have Jean-Paul and I love him.”

“Well, I hope that you’ll be happy. But let me give you one piece of advice. A man who wasn’t with you at the birth of your child, who doesn’t want that child, a man who doesn’t return as soon as he knows how ill you have been, a man who won’t marry you, is not a very good prospect as far as I’m concerned.”

“Oh, and you’re a great judge of men, aren’t you, Mother? Look where your good judgment’s gotten you.”

“I won’t go into that with you, Melissa,” Lily said. “Anything between your father and me is just that: between us.”

“Fine. And everything between Jean-Paul and me is between us. I won’t hear another word against him. Why don’t you just mind your own business.”

Lily looked grim. “You are my child. You
are
my business. I can’t sit by while this man abuses you. Make no mistake, Melissa. Abusing you is exactly what this Jean-Paul is doing. His attitude toward your baby is reprehensible. That he watched on while you let yourself get so thin is even worse. And now that he knows you and the baby—his baby—are in the hospital, what does he do? Goes and skis for two more days.”

Tears welled in Melissa’s eyes. “You don’t understand!” she said hoarsely.

Lily sighed. “Melissa, darling, listen. I don’t want to say things that will hurt you. You’re my daughter and I love you; nothing could ever change that. Maybe I’ve said more than I meant to say. But if you abandon that baby, I am taking her. Are you very sure you want to do that?”

“I won’t give up Jean-Paul.”

“Well then,” Lily said, “you’ve made your decision.” She leaned over and kissed Melissa’s forehead. “I wish you well. Good-bye, darling.”

Lily’s heart ached as she took one last look at Melissa’s pale, resolute face. This, after all, was her own child.

Back in her suite at the George V, Lily was overcome by a throbbing migraine. She pulled the drapes closed and took two aspirin and lay down on the bed with a dampened cloth on her forehead. Thinking of Melissa only made her feel worse. Even animals in the jungle fought for their own young, but Melissa could give up her baby with no more thought than if it were a stray cat. I must have failed terribly as a mother, thought Lily, to have raised such a selfish, heartless child.

Meanwhile, Harry and Ellis had been out to lunch. There was more than a trace of awkwardness between them. Harry had not gotten over the shock of finding Ellis with Lily in Paris. Now he sat chain-smoking as they waited for their meal to be brought. Conversation was an effort.

“How’s the work been going?” Ellis asked casually.

Harry shrugged. “I haven’t really been able to get going on anything since I sent in
The Sod
.”

Taking a drag on his cigarette, he let out a hacking cough. Ellis’s brows drew together in a frown. “That doesn’t sound good, Harry.”

“Well, I’ve just been under the weather.”

“That’s what Lily said. I know you’ve had bronchitis for some time, but it sounds worse. Have you seen a doctor?”

Shrugging, Harry said, “Actually, I’ve been in a hospital for the last couple of weeks with pneumonia, but I’m recovering now. That’s why I took the place down there in Palm Beach, for the warm climate and the sea air.”

Harry seemed wearier than Ellis had ever seen him. The agent thought back to the young man who had presented himself in his office so many years go. He had been so eager, so passionate about his work, so vital and young. But today he looked pale and tired. Almost overnight, it seemed the years had taken their toll. It had been several months since Ellis had seen him, and the change in Harry was startling.

Harry added, “Please don’t say anything about it to Lily. She has enough to worry about.”

Ellis changed the subject. “I’m glad Melissa is doing so well, and the baby is better every day.”

The ghost of a smile touched Harry’s lips. “Lily always did love babies.”

“She seems to have become totally wrapped up in this one. Did you see all the things she bought yesterday? There must not be a bootie or an embroidered baby gown left in Paris.”

Harry frowned. “I hope it won’t be too tough on her when she has to leave it.”

“Do you think there’s any possibility that Melissa will bring the baby back to New York?”

“No. She’s serious about putting her up for adoption. She claims to be totally devoted to this goddamned skier—the one who hasn’t troubled himself to come see her yet—and he wants no part of her if it means having a kid. Son of a bitch!” A sudden cough racked his body, anger gripped his heart. He felt so frustrated and powerless. If only he could talk to Melissa about this bastard, set her straight. But then, such things were really Lily’s province.

And Drew’s words still haunted him. Who was he to preach to Melissa? In ways, he was as much of a cad as this Jean-Paul Duval character. Although he wished it otherwise, it was simply too late for him to play the role of concerned father. For all his children, far too late.

Lily lay in her darkened room at the George V. Her head still throbbed but she was determined to develop a plan. A strange tingle had run through her when Melissa had announced, “Go ahead, take the baby.” Horrified as she was at her daughter’s carelessness, she was secretly thrilled at the prospect of making that baby her own. Another chance for her to be a mother, another child to be loved.

She
must
have that baby—but that meant marriage, for no agency, government or private, would allow a divorced single woman to adopt. She must find a man. Oddly enough, the first candidate to spring to her mind was Ellis. He would marry her, she was sure, and love the child as his own. Ellis had always loved children. But was that really fair to him? He had said that he was in love with her, but the marriage she had in mind was one of convenience. Would he take her on any terms? If he did, could she let him? Would that be fair of her? She had never allowed Ellis to come close to her since that fateful night she had left Harry, but her woman’s intuition told her that his feelings were unchanged. She still shied away from examining her own emotions. As wonderful as Ellis was, she could not allow herself to fall in love ever again.

No, he would marry her, without question, without any demands, but he was too fine a man to be condemned to a loveless union. Lily would do much for the sake of this precious baby, but she would not do that.

That left only Harry. Barely a month ago, she would have sworn that it was an impossibility that they would ever be friendly enough even to discuss such a thing. She would have sworn that their paths would never converge again. But the agonizing worry over Melissa and the baby had somehow smoothed the raw edges of anger and recrimination. The crisis had drawn them together. They were still far from love, but somehow concern for their child revived an old bond. Surely Harry would agree to go through a ceremony for appearance’s sake.

With a start, she remembered: The divorce was not actually final yet! They had long since worked out the property settlement and alimony, but she had not yet signed the final decree. The papers from her attorney had been sitting on her desk for almost two weeks, and she had been avoiding them, subconsciously putting off severing the tie. Now she blessed her procrastination. All they had to do was tear up those papers, and in the eyes of the law, she and Harry would still be man and wife. And who would be a more appropriate party to adopt the child than her own grandparents?

Glancing over at the chaise, she saw the dozen or more baby clothes she had bought the day before. Lily felt a sense of relief she had not known since her arrival. Tonight, she would broach the subject with Harry. Soon the baby would be in her arms.

She went to the bath and turned the gold taps to fill the tub.

After lunch, Ellis and Harry had gone back to the hospital. It was almost six o’clock when they gathered in Lily’s suite.

“Are you hungry?’ Harry asked.

“Yes,” Lily answered. “But first, I’d like a drink—a nice tall one.”

She was clad in a new dove-gray gown, her hair burnished and glowing. Ellis instantly noticed the change in her mood.

As Harry dialed room service, he told her, “You look lovely, my dear.”

“Thank you,” she smiled. “I just decided to pick up my spirits a little, have my hair done….”

“I’m glad you’re feeling better.”

After the waiter brought the drink trolley, Ellis mixed martinis, then handed them around. “Here’s to Melissa’s recovery—and the baby’s.”

“We can’t just keep calling it ‘the baby,’” Harry said. “Hasn’t Melissa decided on a name for her yet?”

“She doesn’t want to name her,” said Lily. She took a deep breath and went on. “As a matter of fact, that’s something I wanted to talk to you about. Melissa and I had a talk. She has decided to give the baby up for adoption.”