Molly stood by, helpless, as the top of the child’s head appeared. She watched the opening of her daughter’s body stretch and the tiny head, that looked so small and vulnerable to her and felt so big and cumbersome to Briony, push its way out into the world. Then its shoulders appeared and it slipped from its mother and into the doctor’s arms where the baby immediately began to cry, big, gasping, lusty cries that made Molly smile in delight. The child had a reddish tinge to its downy hair and its face, unlined and smooth, had a peach colour to it that denoted health and strength. Looking at it, she felt a stirring inside her. This was wholly Briony’s child, that much was evident.

Briony lifted her head from the pillows and tried to glimpse the baby, but she could see nothing. Then the doctor put the child on her now blessedly flat stomach and she looked into the sea green eyes of her son. He looked at his mother and his crying ceased immediately. It was as if mother and child sized each other up for a few split seconds.

Molly saw Briony smile at him and felt a great sadness for her. It would be hard to give up a big beautiful child like this, but give it up she must. Instinctively she grasped her daughter’s hand as the doctor finished cutting the cord and Mrs Horlock swaddled the child. She kissed Briony then, tenderly, in a way she had never kissed any of her children before. It was as if she and Briony had become sisters, sharing now a common bond: the pains of birth and of motherhood.

Isabel was sitting in the morning room with Tommy Lane. They had hardly spoken to one another. Both sat silent, straining their ears to hear what was happening upstairs.

Tommy noticed that the woman was wringing her hands together. He watched her ample bosom heave as she waited for the outcome of the birth. Then they heard the long low shriek and the sound of a child’s crying.

Their eyes met and of one mind they stood up and went to the door. They met Molly on her way down the stairs.

‘It’s a boy child. A big, lusty boy child.’

Isabel lifted her skirts and ran up the stairs like a girl, her face glowing with happiness and expectation. She burst into the bedroom where Briony lay in the bed with her son in her arms.

Looking down into his face, Briony experienced a feeling like looking forward to ten whole Christmasses rolled together. Like the excitement caused by a very high place or the opening of a large present. She traced his every feature with her eyes, drinking in the smell of him, the size of him, the shape of his jaw.