Country Midwife, Christmas Bride

by Abigail Gordon

  When Helen came up to check on them some minutes later she found them both fast asleep with Lizzie’s arms protectively around Polly, and as she smiled down at them she thought that James must be blind if he couldn’t see that the one he’d been waiting for all this time had arrived.

  After checking that Jolyon was all right and had eaten his breakfast the next morning, James went home for a short stay to shower and change his clothes before the neurosurgeon was due to check on his patient.

  Jolyon’s face was black and blue with the severity of the fall followed by the surgery, and a dressing on his head stood out starkly against the discolouration. But the hospital staff and his father were satisfied with his progress and the young patient himself was gradually getting sufficiently acclimatised to his strange surroundings for James to be absent for a short time.

  When he arrived home he found Helen at the cooker and the table set for breakfast but no sign of Polly, and she said, ‘She woke up not long after you’d gone last night and was still very upset, but she’s asleep now.’ As he went bounding up the stairs she was smiling a secret smile.

  His glance went straight to the bed when he opened his bedroom door and his heart tightened in his chest. It was true what Helen had said. Polly was still asleep, but she was sleeping peacefully in the crook of Lizzie’s arm, with her small fair head resting contentedly against her breast.

  Lizzie was awake, watching him with wary violet eyes. Unable to believe his eyes at the scene before him, James thought that while he’d been fretting and fuming at St Gabriel’s about imaginary rights and wrongs she’d been there for his children once again.

  Lizzie carefully eased her arm from beneath the still sleeping Pollyanna. ‘Would you have a spare robe I could borrow?’ she asked, feeling a faint flush of colour rise in her cheeks. He nodded and reached into a nearby wardrobe for a silk striped robe that looked as if it was meant for special occasions, and she thought that standing before him in her nightdress surely had to be one of those.

  As she took it from him she saw that his glance was on her smooth shoulders and the rise of her breasts under the thin cotton nightgown and it was easy enough to wonder what would have happened if little Pollyanna hadn’t been sleeping nearby. But that was why she was in James’s bedroom in the first place. There was no other reason she was ever going to be there.

  ‘I was mad at you for disappearing like you did yesterday without a word of explanation,’ he said in a low voice as she wrapped the robe around her, ‘and then I find that after being there for my son, you have been comforting my daughter. I am truly grateful, Lizzie.’

  ‘Don’t be,’ she said. ‘I’ve only done what any caring person would do in such a situation and, James, it is I who should be apologising to you for leaving like I did. It was just that I suddenly felt I was taking too much for granted and when Jess and Helen arrived I couldn’t see you needing me any more. I wouldn’t have left if you’d been alone at the hospital.’

  ‘So that’s what you thought,’ he said slowly. ‘That I was happy to have you around when I had no one else, but once reinforcements arrived you became surplus to requirements. How very selfish that makes me sound.’

  ‘It isn’t meant to,’ she protested weakly. ‘You are the least selfish person I’ve ever met, and while you’re handing out the medals it was just on the off chance that I phoned to check with Helen that Pollyanna was all right. When she said how upset she was I came straight over. We came up here, had a cuddle and she went to sleep in my arms. She was so upset about Jolyon. How is he this morning?’

  ‘Battered and bruised but chirpy enough. I was close by him during the night and didn’t leave the hospital until I’d made sure he’d had some breakfast. He was trying to decide if he wants to be a doctor when I left him.’ James checked his watch. ‘I’m only here briefly as I want to be there when the neurosurgeon comes to check on him. So let’s go down and see what Helen has for breakfast, shall we? Then I’m going to have a quick shower and go back. I intended taking Pollyanna with me, but if she’s still asleep when I’m ready to go, I’ll ask Helen to bring her later.’

  When they went downstairs there was the same good food on offer as on the day when he’d sent her to Bracken House for breakfast after the episode with the cow, and Lizzie held back a smile at the thought of Bryan arriving on the lane with his dairy cow some time during the afternoon while she was working in the clinic.

  It was a strange feeling to be having breakfast with James, just the two of them in the big family kitchen, Helen having put out the food and then made a tactful exit. This is how it would be if we lived together, Lizzie thought dreamily, though with just one difference. The children would be there to make it a family breakfast and she would love that, the four of them starting the day together, but she knew that James’s thoughts were very different. His mind was on getting back to Jolyon in St Gabriel’s as quickly as possible, and who could blame him for that?

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  LIZZIE wasn’t wrong about where James’s thoughts were and within minutes he was getting to his feet and saying, ‘Ben will be in charge of the surgery in my absence, Lizzie. I’ll be staying with Jolly for the rest of the day. I’m keeping Polly off school until her brother comes home in view of her distress last night. I really do appreciate the way you’ve been there for them both and maybe when life gets back to normal you’ll let me thank you in a positive way.’

  She gave him a gentle push towards the door. ‘Thanks are not necessary, James. Don’t worry about this end. I’ll be around to assist Helen with Pollyanna if she needs me, and Jess will be here soon, won’t she?’

  ‘Yes. She can bring Polly to the hospital later in the day instead of Helen, who could do with a rest.’

  ‘What time will Jess be taking her? Not too late, I hope?’

  ‘Er, no,’ he replied, looking puzzled, and Lizzie thought he wasn’t to know that the farmyard was coming to St Gabriel’s. She was going to ring the ward when he’d gone and tell the nurses to look out for Daisy without James or Jolyon knowing anything about it, and as for Pollyanna, the next time Lizzie went to Bracken House she was going to bring her the blue shoes to play with.

  When Lizzie had said goodbye to her last patient of the day it was only half past four and she decided to go straight to the hospital to see James and the children, but first she wanted to ask Ben if he had any messages for James about the practice.

  He smiled when the trim figure of the community midwife appeared and when she said, ‘I’m off to the hospital to see if there is anything I can do, Ben. Pollyanna was very upset last night at being separated from her brother and I stayed the night with her. She was still asleep when I left this morning and hopefully might be feeling happier, but if she isn’t it’s a lot for Jess and Helen to cope with while James is absent. I’ve popped across to see if you have anything you wish me to tell James about the surgery while I’m there.’

  He shook his head. ‘Only that everything is under control, Lizzie.’

  ‘Good. I’ll pass that message on.’ She paused in the doorway as she was leaving. ‘I want to check on any visitors that Jolyon has had when I get there to find out if one of them had four legs.’

  ‘Four legs?’ he said blankly.

  ‘Yes, Daisy the cow is due to visit this afternoon.’

  ‘Right,’ he said, adding in the bemused sort of tone used by those who thought they have a deranged person to deal with, ‘I hope she doesn’t let him down.’ He grinned, unable to resist getting in on the act. ‘Will she be bringing flowers or grapes?’

  Lizzie hid a smile. ‘I’m not sure, but one thing she will have brought with her is a full udder.’ And off she went with a sense of purpose of the kind that she hadn’t experienced in a long time.

  She was beginning to belong, she thought as she drove to the hospital between hedgerows dressed in autumn colours of bronze and gold. To be accepted by the village and its people was a warming thought, but to belong to the motherle
ss ones and their father at Bracken House would be heaven on earth.

  She didn’t think the children would have any problem accepting her in place of the mother they’d never known, but their father was a different matter. She’d thought it before and was thinking it again. If James had coped without the joys of marriage for nearly six years, why would he think of changing that for a dried-up, childless woman whose heart had been frozen for the last three years and was only now beginning to feel warm again?

  When she walked into the ward Pollyanna and Jolyon, who was still looking battered and bruised with a bandage round his head, were playing a board game at a table by the window, with James seated nearby.

  ‘And how is my little wounded soldier today?’ she asked softly.

  The soldier in question didn’t reply. Instead, he said excitedly, ‘Lizzie, Daisy came to see me!’ He pointed to the lane outside. ‘She was just there on the grass with Farmer Timmins!’

  ‘Well!’ she exclaimed. ‘What a surprise! I wonder who told Daisy that you’d hurt your head.’

  When she looked up James was observing her with a quizzical smile and he said, ‘I would expect it was someone who is kind and thoughtful and top of the list of people he likes.’

  ‘Is that so?’ she replied, not meeting his glance, and went for a swift change of subject. ‘So what has the surgeon had to say today?’

  ‘Good progress, he says, and if we promise to see that Jolly doesn’t do any chasing around for a while when he gets home, he might discharge him at the weekend and refer him to Outpatients.’

  ‘But can I still sleep with you, Lizzie?’ Pollyanna asked, the memory of the cuddles of the previous night still fresh in her mind.

  ‘Well, yes,’ Lizzie said hesitantly, ‘but don’t you think your daddy might want his bed back?’

  ‘I can sleep in Jolly’s bed,’ James said easily, as if her moving in on a temporary arrangement was no big deal.

  ‘Er, well, yes, then,’ she agreed weakly. ‘If that is going to make Pollyanna happy.’

  It would make him happy too, James thought, and Jolyon, but he wasn’t sure where he, as the children’s father, came in her scheme of things. Lizzie’s love for Polly and Jolly was plain to see. Would he end up as the hanger-on if he asked her to marry him?

  Jolyon had been looking through the window wistfully when the cow had appeared only feet away, and he’d observed it with high delight, while his own first thought had been for Lizzie. She would have thought of this and he could have wept at the wonder of it.

  The farmer and the docile Daisy had stayed there for some time, with all the children in the ward and their nurses watching as she munched away contentedly on the grass verge of the lane, and when at last Bryan felt it was time to go he waved goodbye and led his dairy cow back to the vehicle that he’d brought her in.

  Her visit had been the main topic of conversation between the children for the rest of the afternoon and as James had listened to them he’d wished that Lizzie could have been there to see their excitement.

  He had arranged with Jess that he would take Polly home for her tea and then come back to stay with Jolyon for the night again. The nanny had gone home just before Lizzie had arrived, so now there was just the four of them.

  ‘I’ll stay with Jolyon while you take Pollyanna home,’ Lizzie said, ‘and when you come back I’ll go to Bracken House again to spend the night with her.’

  James was frowning. ‘I can’t help feeling that we are putting you to a lot of inconvenience.’

  ‘And what else would I be doing at a time like this except helping in any way I can?’ she said coolly, not pleased that he might be thinking that was how she was seeing her involvement in the anxious time that he’d been going through.

  And upsetting her further, he said, ‘Life has been reasonably free from trauma during the years I’ve been on my own with the children, but at times like this I feel that they need a mother and maybe it is time I did something about it.

  ‘Anna, my sister, filled the gap for them until not so long ago and they were content. When she married Glenn and went abroad with him I employed Jess and Helen, who are both lovely with the children, but Jess has her own life to lead away from Bracken House and Helen is elderly, which is why I never leave the house in the evening until the children are fast asleep.’

  As he was about to explain his true feelings, that, no matter what, he would never marry again if the woman in question didn’t love him as much as his children, Lizzie didn’t let him finish.

  Stung by what she saw as a tactless hint that she might fit the bill with regard to his household arrangements she said dryly, ‘So why not try a mail-order bride or speed dating on the internet?’

  He flinched, groaning inwardly at what was turning out to be a poor attempt at trying to gauge her feelings for him. His timing had been all wrong for one thing, and giving her the false impression that he only wanted her for the use of, when every time he saw her he was more drawn to everything about her, was catastrophic. He was falling in love with her but so far she’d given no sign that she returned his feelings, and he’d been hoping she would open up to him when he’d explained that marriage was in his mind.

  She hadn’t finished. ‘Maybe we’ve both kept faith long enough, James, without any means of knowing if our respective partners would want that of us. I’m sure that no one would condemn you if you felt the need to take a fresh look at your life. I might try a little speed dating myself.’

  As if, she thought as he stared at her in disbelief. She was already wishing she could take the words back and tell him that she had already met a man like no other, who had gently turned her painful, nightmare thoughts about Richard into just a sad memory, and that now she was ready for a fresh start with him and his beautiful children. But James had just made it clear that he didn’t see her in that way, and if it had to be as just friends then that was what it would have to be.

  He took Pollyanna’s hand, kissed Jolyon lightly on his bruised cheek and without any further comment in her direction nodded briefly and departed.

  James was back within the hour and found Jolyon having his tea with Lizzie watching over him, and the leaden weight that was his heart became even heavier at the sight.

  He’d had time to think on the way back from taking Polly home and had decided that a formal apology without any further explanations or misunderstandings was needed, and was hoping that then they might get back to the no-strings-attached arrangement of before.

  On the return journey he’d bought her flowers, a beautiful arrangement of white orchids and pink roses to show how much his apology was meant.

  When she got up to go he went out into the corridor with her and said, ‘I’ll walk you to your car, Lizzie.’

  She shrugged slender shoulders inside the uniform that she hadn’t had time to change and said with the same coolness as before, ‘Please yourself. Why don’t you stay with Jolyon?’

  His glance went to his son, who was happily munching away. ‘He’ll be all right for a few moments.’

  When they were outside in the car park he turned to her and said, ‘I’m sorry for being an insensitive clod before. If you’d let me finish you might have thought better of me.’ He took the flowers from the back seat of his car and placed them in her arms. ‘I also meant to apologise for being so downbeat about the birthing pool. I think it’s great that Lord Derringham is on board and you have my full support, too. Whatever you think of me, I can’t manage without you, Lizzie. Can’t we at least be friends again?’

  She was melting with love for him. How could she ignore his plea? She said softly, ‘We’ll always be that James, if nothing else. Go back to your son and I’ll go and see to your daughter.’

  Reaching up, she kissed him lightly on the cheek. Keeping his hands tightly by his sides, he resisted the opportunity to extend the moment into something more meaningful and went back to where Jolyon was waiting for him.

  Jolyon was discharged on the Saturday
, as had been half promised the first time the surgeon had seen him after the surgery, and when the car pulled up in front of Bracken House with James and his son inside, Pollyanna and Lizzie were waiting at the gate to welcome them.

  The last few days had been uneventful, with James at the hospital, Jess taking Pollyanna there later in the day and James bringing her home when Lizzie arrived to be with Jolyon. But now it was going to be as it had been before, with Lizzie at her own place and the three of them in Bracken House, unless something unforeseen happened, and James wasn’t looking forward to seeing so little of her from then on.

  They were back on amicable terms but keeping their distance and he almost broke that rule when he saw the blue shoes in Pollyanna’s bedroom.

  He was going round the bedrooms and bathrooms, collecting the laundry after they’d all had lunch together, and he called across the landing to Lizzie, ‘You shouldn’t have let Polly have the shoes. I can tell they weren’t cheap.’

  ‘A promise is a promise,’ she told him, the memory surfacing of their brief, angry exchange of words at the hospital a few days back. They had made peace when James had given her the flowers, but it hadn’t been the same between them.

  There were words unspoken that should be said, she thought wistfully, but neither wanted to hurt the other any more, and so they were communicating, but only on the surface.

  Pollyanna was tearful when Lizzie was ready to go home and she said comfortingly, ‘When Jolyon is really better, maybe the two of you can come and stay the night at my house if your daddy agrees. Would you like that?’

  ‘Yes,’ they chorused. ‘Can’t he come too?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ she said quickly before James could get a word in, and making a joke of it. ‘He is very big and the cottage is very small.’

  And that puts me in my place, James thought as he listened to the discussion. Am I ever going to be forgiven for giving Lizzie the impression that I only see her as a mother figure for my family, when I can’t sleep for thinking about what it would be like to make love to her?