Chapter 15A

Katy had just told me that she might be pregnant and was obviously worried about how I might react to the news.

I admit I was a bit shocked by what she had just told me and I could see from her expression Katy was worried about how I might react to her news. However in our financial situation I did not see it as something to worry about or get angry over

I pulled her to me and kissed her.

"Well if you are pregnant it is just a bit earlier than we planned." I told her. "If it is true, and we will soon find out, then I will be overjoyed and be very happy that we have a baby on the way."

"But what about my studies?" She asked.

"I've just done a quick calculation in my head," I told her, "The baby should be due late March or early April next year, so with help, we should be able to work out a schedule that will allow you to keep up your studies. It isn't an unsolvable problem."

Relief flooded Katy's face when I said these things.

"You are not mad at me for being so stupid," she asked

"Certainly not. I am really happy that I am going to be a father. If you are willing I want a lot more children, but hopefully not until after we have finished our studies."

"I could always try and finish this year and then come back to my studies when the baby is a bit older." she said.

"That won't be necessary, I said. "When the baby comes, and even before it, we can hire a nanny to look after her when you have lectures or need time to work on your studies. We can also have someone part time to take care of things in the house when you get to the later stages of your pregnancy."

"That will be expensive!" she said with a worried look.

"Katy, money is not a problem. I will even have my accountant look at what we may have to do and see if any of it is tax deductible. Either way it is not a problem. I have more than enough money for what we need and you have your trust fund. I am sure you could use some of that if it was necessary on the grounds it enabled you to continue with your education"

"I never thought about that," she said. "You are right we can afford to pay for help if we need. Like you, I am happy that I am going to have a baby, I was just really worried that you would be upset because I was so stupid and careless..."

"You made a simple mistake; you were not stupid or careless. We would have coped, even if we had not been in the fortunate financial position we are. So let us just plan for our baby's coming and enjoy the process.

At that, she came and sat on my knee and put her arms around my neck and kissed me.

"I am so glad I have such a handsome and understanding husband," she said with a giggle, "I love you Calum. I love you more than I can ever put into words."

"I love you too sweetheart. I am so glad to have you by my side and I am really looking forward to having our child. I wonder what your parents will say when we give them the glad news."

"I am not sure how they will react, so once I go to the doctor and have it confirmed we should let them know as soon as possible. I suspect though that they will be quite pleased, because it doesn't look as if my brother is going to produce any offspring that he would be willing to own at any rate. So if he doesn't, they will at least know there is a potential heir to the title. That will be true whether we have a boy or girl.

"Now that raises another question for us, do we want to know the sex of our child or do we wait until he or she is born before finding out?" I asked with a smile."

"If you agree," Katy said, "I think I would like to know, so when they do an ultrasound picture I would like to ask them about it."

"If that is what you want sweetheart, then that is what we will do. It will also let us plan and prepare for the child's coming whatever its sex."

Later that week after her appointment with the doctor, he confirmed that Katy was pregnant and together we mapped out a program of maternity care for her. When we returned from the doctor's I asked whether we should phone or wait till we saw them before breaking the news to her parents. Katy decided that we should phone her parents straight away and let them know what had happened,

When she told her mother I heard a scream from the other end of the phone. Apparently this was followed by her mother saying that she thought we had decided to wait until we had finished our course.

"We did, Mother," Katy replied, "But I accidently missed two days of my pill and this is the result. But we are both quite happy about it and we hope you and my Father will feel the same way."

Sylvia had replied that she was quite pleased that at least one of her children had decided to make her a grandmother and she assured Katy that her Father would be delighted. If your brother doesn't mend his ways and settle down at least he will know there is an heir apparent to the title. Katy had laughed when her mother said that.

"I said to my husband this is how dad was likely to react, so I will reaffirm that to him when I put the phone down." Katy said with a giggle.

She talked to her mother for a bit longer and when she put the phone down she told me what Sylvia had said regarding her dad's reaction to the news of our forthcoming baby.

I laughed and said that it was just as she had predicted. I also pointed out that they must be really worried about her brother, because they act as if he will never marry or have children in a legitimate relationship which would enable one of them to inherit the title.

"I think their concern goes a bit deeper than that," Katy replied, "I think they are worried that he is going to end up doing something that will get him a heavy jail sentence. Reading between the lines, I think that even his relationships with the farm workers end because he is so abusive with them."

"Well I was under the impression they were worried about the inter race thing because they felt it might get him killed. Nelson Mandela despite formerly embracing nonviolent protest so when even a moderate like, decided to go down that kind of road shows how unstable things are going to become," I told her, and I was quite safe with my knowledge of the future to go on and predict that things would become even more unstable in the coming years. "I think things will become more violent and as violence grows the risk armed units taking action against whites will increase. In this case if your brother gets a reputation as someone who abuses African women, then this fact will mean there is an increased risk that he could become a target"

"It also reinforces what I felt at the time, if my parents had not been at home he would have raped me. I wonder if he suffered some sort of brain damage at birth, because there doesn't seem to be any history of that in the family lineage," Katy speculated.

"You can't be certain of that, Families tended to brush things like that under the carpet in Victorian times and even further back than that." I responded. "If they were lucky and it didn't appear in the heir to the title it would be easy to hush it up by locking the child or the adult away in some obscure part of your mansion, hopefully with somebody to look after him or her."

"I suppose you're right," Katy conceded. "I hadn't thought of that possibility. Whether it's hereditary or an accident at birth, there seems to be something wrong with my brother."

"I won't argue with that," I told her. "It seems to me it is just a matter of time before something blows up in our faces and he either gets himself killed or lands up in jail. Lord help him if he ends up in a South African Jail for molesting black women."

When we flew down to her mum and dad's a few days later both Lord Harry and Sylvia greeted us warmly. When we sat down with them for afternoon tea the discussion was all about the baby and the likely birth date. Sylvia then wanted to know how this would affect Katy's studies.

"It won't affect them very much," I told her. "There is every chance the baby will be born late March or early April so with luck it might even happen during the Easter break. If so she will be able to sit her exams in May and June. We will have a nanny in place before the baby is born so she will be able to look after the baby when we are busy with our studies."

"Since you have plenty of room in your house at Saint Andrews, I take it that she will be a live in nanny?"Sylvia asked.

"Yes, I think she would need to be," Katy replied, "But we will also have plenty of time to look after our own child because we can do a lot of our studying at home. We want to be the ones who have most influence on the upbringing of our child not someone whom we have paid to look after her.

"I feel the same way as Katy on that subject and it will affect a lot of our decisions about the future. I haven't made up my mind what I am going to do after University, but if we decide to stay in Saint Andrews at least we know there is a good school to which we can send the child as a day pupil. If we move then we will have to wait and see what is available in the area in which we settle. If possible we want to avoid boarding school but we will have to wait and see how things pan out."

"There are times recently when I have come to wish that Katy was my first born," Lord Harry said at this point, "Under the new laws she would've been my heir and her oldest child, irrespective of sex, would have granted stability to the line of succession. As things stand now, even if my son produces an heir at some stage, one might still have concerns about the stability of any child who is subject to the kind of upbringing he or she is likely to experience at their father's hands."