Totally ignoring her the midwife swung the child in the air and after dangling her upside down she gave her a sharp slap on the back. Still only silence save for the sound of the logs spitting on the fire and the tick of the clock on the shelf. Emma had joined them now and she began to wring her hands anxiously. The nurse almost threw the baby onto the bed and pinching her nostrils together she began to breathe into the child’s mouth. Still silence. She turned the child and slapped her smartly on the backside and suddenly the baby opened her mouth and her protesting wails echoed around the room.

‘Oh, thank God.’ Holly felt almost faint with relief. She had feared that the child was dead but she was certainly making her presence known now.

With a broad smile the nurse wrapped the baby in a towel and laid her on her mother’s chest before Ivy could protest. She had been adamant that she didn’t even want to look at the child when it was born but now the strangest thing happened. Her arms cradled the baby instinctively and the look of shock changed to one of tenderness as she stared down at the indignant little face.

‘Well, hello there,’ she whispered with a look of awe on her face. ‘You certainly gave us a scare then, didn’t you?’

Holly and her mother both simultaneously sighed with relief. It was beginning to look like Emma wasn’t going to have to search for any adoptive parents after all.

‘Right, that’s enough of that for now,’ the midwife teased as she took the baby from Ivy’s arms after a few minutes and plonked her into Emma’s. ‘We need to get this afterbirth delivered and get you cleaned up, so madam here can go for a bath too.’

Emma was only too delighted to do as asked as she skipped from the room with Holly close behind her.

In the kitchen the child was bathed and changed into the tiny clothes Emma had laid ready as Cook and Holly cooed over her. Even Holly’s grandfather ventured into the kitchen to take a peep at the new arrival.

‘Hmm, she’s got a good pair of lungs on her,’ he commented and hurried back to his study to leave them to what he called ‘women’s stuff’. Even so his eyes were damp as he thought back to the night his late wife had given birth to Emma and the utter joy he had felt as he had caught his first sight of her. He hadn’t been able to believe that he could produce someone so perfect, nor believe now that he had been such a fool as to hold Holly at arm’s length for all those years, just because her mother had chosen to disobey him when she met Holly’s father. He sighed. There was nothing like old age and the awareness of your own mortality to force you to confront unwelcome truths about yourself. He just hoped it wasn’t too late to make it up to her.