Just a few hours earlier Bertie Pelham, the seventh Marquess of Hexham, had lived a calm and peaceful life.
After more than ten years of marriage he still loved Edith to distraction. He had three wonderful children that he also loved, his thirteen-year-old daughter Marigold and his two boys, nine-year-old Herbert and seven-year-old Peter.
After little Peter was born, the children had stopped coming. Game was over, they had thought, and contented themselves with that.
Then, more than six years later, Edith had realised that she was expecting a baby again.
That had been a happy but a bit unsettling surprise, for Edith as well as for Bertie. But after they had time to get used to it, it changed into just happy.
The future sister and brothers of the baby were happy about it too, when they were told a few months later. They had all understood that their new sibling would always be very much smaller than the rest of them.
The three future grandparents were also more than happy about the news when it reached them. None of them had expected ever to get any more grandchildren.
...
Edith was thriving during her pregnancy but Bertie worried much more about her than he had done when she was expecting either one of their two sons. It was only natural that he worried more, Edith was over forty now, quite a bit older than she had been then.
But still, up until this morning, everything had been peaceful in Bertie's life.
That was the time when Edith had decided to tell Marigold the true story of her parentage.
...
After that everything had changed.
"How dared you!" The usually so calm and well-behaved Marigold had shouted at her mother, tears filling her eyes. "How could you leave me like that? A little baby among total strangers? You don't love me! I will never speak to you again!"
And before her mother had a chance to answer, Marigold had run away and locked herself into her room.
Edith herself was unable to try to make peace with her daughter right then. As she tried to get up from the sofa just one moment after Marigold had shouted at her and run to her room, Edith fell back against the cushions with a groan. She had gone into labour.
It was one month early, Bertie was close to panic as he ordered the doctor to be sent for.
And in the tumult that followed everybody had forgotten about Marigold. Bertie didn't give her a second thought as he paced up and down the corridor outside the room were Edith was giving birth.
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And now the nurse had placed a very tiny baby girl into Bertie's hands. She was the smallest baby Bertie had ever seen. As he held her head in one of his hands and her behind in the other it felt like holding two grapefruits. He put her more comfortable onto one of his arms, closer to his own body.
Could such a little one live?
Well, he could hear her breathe as she slept so trustingly in his arms.
...
What really worried Bertie was that the nurse had taken the baby out to him instead of inviting him in to see Edith. And the doctor was still in there.
"What's wrong with Edith?" Bertie asked the nurse, his voice almost breaking. "Why can't she hold the baby herself? Why can't I go in and see her?"
"There is nothing wrong", the nurse calmly said. "Everything is going just fine. She just has to give birth to the second child first."
...
It took Bertie quite a while to understand what the nurse had said. His head kept spinning. Chaos! That was the only word for it.
Twins? Twins?! Twins!
They hadn't even considered the possibility of that. But when Bertie got over the first shock he felt rather happy about it. And quite a bit proud over it also.
Since these two were so much younger than their other children it would be good for them to have each other, he realised.
As he stood there looking down at his second daughter he suddenly remembered the first one. Marigold! She had been so upset!
Poor little Marigold...Bertie realised that he had forgotten all about her in his worries for Edith. Marigold must think they didn't care about her at all.
...
With his new little daughter resting safely in his arms as a peace offer Bertie Pelham went to see his older daughter.
AN: Thank you for reading! Please tell me what you think!
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It was not unusual in those days that a twin pregnancy was overlooked until the children were born. The fact that there were twins, that is.
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I seem to be getting two new ideas for every story I finish. This will never end...