City Doctor, Country Bride

by Abigail Gordon

  It was the overwhelming feeling of emptiness in the rooms that was upsetting her, though she supposed it was to be expected if he just used it as somewhere to eat and sleep.

  She’d looked each room over in turn and in the main bedroom averted her eyes from the king-size bed where he spent his lonely nights. There was a big photograph of a merry-eyed woman with short golden hair and a smiley mouth on the dressing-table and she didn’t know whether to comment, or pretend she hadn’t seen it.

  Matthew was watching her. She could feel the intensity of his gaze and when she looked up and their eyes met, she knew that he was waiting to see what she had to say.

  ‘She was beautiful, your Joanna,’ she’d said softly. ‘Really lovely. You must have been very happy.’

  ‘Yes. We were,’ was all he said. ‘So what do you think of the house?’

  ‘It’s nowhere near as horrible as you made out,’ she told him. ‘But the whole place is badly in need of a facelift, and it will take us some weeks to put it right.’

  ‘And you are still prepared to get involved?’

  ‘Yes, I am, because it won’t get done if I’m not. You’ll shelve it again.’

  ‘No, I won’t, Henrietta. Remember I’ve bought the paint and paper, and now have just one question.’ He was smiling. ‘Who’s going to be the gaffer and who’s going to be the labourer?’

  ‘I can’t believe you feel the need to ask,’ she told him in mock surprise. ‘I’m in charge, of course.’

  When Matthew and Douglas arrived at eight o’clock in the summer evening Henrietta opened the door to them dressed in a peach cotton sundress and strappy sandals. Matthew had only ever seen her with her hair down, but tonight it was piled on the top of her head in shining coils held in place with a gold comb, and the effect was such that he found himself taking a deep breath as hazel eyes, clear and untroubled, met his.

  She stepped back to let them in and he caught a whiff of the perfume that he’d asked her not to wear at the surgery. Was it her way of telling him that he might rule the roost during the day, but her free time was a different matter?

  When she’d worn it before he’d made a big issue of it and regretted it. He had no intention of going down that road once more, but felt that he owed her an explanation. Not in front of Douglas, though.

  The elderly practice manager was looking around him, suitably impressed, and as Henrietta showed them into the sitting room he said, ‘By Jove. Henrietta, this place is amazing!’

  She smiled. ‘It isn’t mine, you know, Douglas. I’m childminding and house-minding at the same time.’

  ‘Have you had time to eat?’ she asked Matthew as she brought in a tray of drinks and some nibbles.

  ‘Yes. I did the milking in record time then went home and showered before eating the meal that Kate had made for us. And now here I am, ready to hear what Douglas has to tell us.’

  In truth, he was not in the mood for facts and figures at all. He was wishing that he could spend the evening with just Henrietta, chatting, strolling around the grounds and peeping in on the children. Hopefully Douglas would go early once they’d concluded their business and then he would have her to himself.

  When they were all seated the elderly practice manager said, ‘The first and only item on my agenda is whether you think we should have the inside and outside of the surgery decorated.’

  The two doctors smiled and he asked, ‘What’s the joke?’

  ‘We’re about to start giving my place a facelift in the next few days,’ Matthew told him. ‘Maybe we ought to see how that works out first. Or have we enough in the kitty to bring in a firm of decorators?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Douglas replied. ‘I wouldn’t have suggested it otherwise. We still have some of the money left from the sale of the land at the back of the surgery.’ He turned to Henrietta. ‘It was before your time, my dear. There was a piece of waste land doing nothing that belonged to the practice, so we sold it, and as you will have seen someone has built a house on it. If you are both agreeable, I will get some estimates from decorating companies and will arrange another meeting when I’ve got them. Is that all right?’

  Yes,’ they agreed, and as Douglas got to his feet he said, ‘I’ll be off, then. My mates at the pub will be waiting for me to join them in a game of snooker.’

  When Henrietta went back into the sitting room after seeing him off, Matthew was standing by the window, looking out over the smooth green lawns of The White House, and he said, ‘That was short and sweet. We could have sorted it in five minutes back at the practice. I thought Douglas had a list of things to discuss as long as his arm when he asked for a meeting with such urgency, but obviously not. Do you want me to go, too?’

  She shook her head. ‘Not unless you want to. Let’s take our drinks out on to the patio. It’s too nice an evening to be indoors.’

  He couldn’t believe it, Matthew was thinking as they sank down into comfortable wicker chairs. He’d wanted to have Henrietta to himself, and now he’d got his wish, what was he going to do about it? At the surgery they talked freely about practice matters and many other things, but being alone with her here at The White House was a different matter, and in complete contrast to what was in his mind he said, ‘Do you ever envy your sister and her husband their lifestyle here?’

  ‘No. I don’t. I prefer something more cosy. All I need to be happy and content is love, kindness and integrity.’

  ‘They come with a good marriage,’ he said sombrely. ‘Yet you’ve never thought of tying the knot.’

  ‘I have, and it wasn’t so long ago.’

  ‘What happened if you don’t mind my asking?’

  Henrietta sighed. ‘Our apartments were opposite in the complex where I lived and we were always bumping into each other. He asked me out eventually and we got on well, so much so that I thought something would come of it. But it seemed that he’d been married before. His ex-wife had seen me with him and she came round to tell me that they were divorced and had a little boy who couldn’t understand why his daddy never came to see him when he had ample visiting rights.

  ‘I wasn’t happy that Miles hadn’t told me he’d been married before. It wouldn’t have mattered just as long as he’d told me. But when I asked him why he didn’t visit his son, and it turned out that he couldn’t be bothered, that was it.’

  Matthew nodded. ‘It’s often a fact of life, Henrietta, that those who have cherish not, and those who have not are left to manage the best they can.’ He smiled sadly. ‘And speaking of those who have not, I feel I should explain about the perfume you’re wearing.’

  ‘I hope you’re not going to object to me wearing it in my own time,’ she said levelly.

  ‘No. Nothing like that. If you remember, we hadn’t known each other more than a couple of days when you wore it the first time, and it threw me. Destination was the perfume Joanna used to wear and instead of explaining I acted the big boss and asked you not to wear it any more at work. I can imagine what you thought of my behaviour that day, as we hadn’t exactly hit it off at that time, had we?’

  ‘I would have understood if you’d told me,’ she said softly.

  ‘Yes, I know, but I just couldn’t get the words out. We’d only just met and the last thing I needed was for you to think I was looking for a shoulder to cry on.’

  Henrietta frowned. ‘I might have thought it of someone else maybe, but never you. At that time I thought I’d never met a person more in control. I thought you were self-opinionated, brusque and bossy until I saw you with your patients, and had to have a rethink.’

  ‘And what do you think of me now?’ he asked in a low voice.

  ‘Er…well…shouldn’t the fact that I’ve offered to help rejuvenate your house give you some idea?’ she said, avoiding a straight answer. ‘And by the way Mollie and Keiran can’t wait for Saturday to come. They’ve already sorted out their painting clothes. What are you going to give them to paint?’

  ‘The back gate maybe,’ he sugg
ested, and thought that he’d been neatly sidetracked. Maybe it was Henrietta’s way of saying she wasn’t interested in anything other than their working relationship, and if that was the case, fair enough. On that thought he got up to go.

  ‘Do you want to have a peep at the children before you go?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes,’ he said immediately, and as he stood looking down at them a few minutes later, rosy and cherubic in sleep, with Henrietta by his side, he was smiling.

  ‘Great kids,’ he said, and turning away found himself close up against her. He could smell the perfume again and as if it was the most natural thing in the world he took her in his arms and kissed her, slowly at first and then with rising passion.

  After the first moment of surprise Henrietta kissed him back. It was a moment she would have liked to go on and on, but was Matthew just caught up in the past? she wondered, and backed away from him.

  It would be the perfume that had made him reach out for her—Joanna’s perfume. It must have seemed for a fleeting moment that she was there and she, Henrietta, had become the wife he’d lost.

  ‘I’m sorry, Henrietta,’ he said flatly. ‘I got carried away. It must have been the perfume and the summer night.’

  ‘And the loneliness,’ she said gently.

  ‘Yes, that, too,’ he agreed stiffly. Turning, he went, taking the stairs of the wide curving staircase two at time.

  When he’d gone Henrietta couldn’t settle to anything. After drawing the drapes and setting the alarms, she went to bed, still in a state of disbelief, still with the feeling of Matthew’s mouth on hers. If she had been relaxed and at ease when he’d arrived, she certainly was not so now.

  Did she want to get involved with a man who was still bound by memories of his dead wife? she asked herself. It would be so easy to love Matthew. He was everything she could want. But would life with him be a continual process of trying to compete with Joanna? Taking second place to a memory?

  In a lay-by on the road that led back to his place Matthew had stopped the car and was staring out into the gathering dusk. From the moment Henrietta had opened the door to Douglas and himself, he had wanted her. But he’d known when she’d drawn away from him that she’d thought he was using her. That he was still in love with Joanna and the perfume had brought all the old longings back.

  He might have thought that himself until he’d taken her in his arms and kissed her, and it had been then that everything had changed. His feelings for her were new and tender. They had wiped away the dread of being hurt again, but what about Henrietta? Would she want to put her trust in him after the way her previous boyfriend had behaved?

  When they’d stood, looking down at the children, for a mad moment he’d wished that they were theirs, and then for an even crazier moment had presumed that Henrietta was as attracted to him as he was to her.

  It had been a stupid thing to do. They had to work together. Before tonight there hadn’t been any awkwardness between them, but that would have changed when next they met. Of all the years, months and days he’d been on his own, he had never felt this way about another woman until tonight, and he knew deep down it wasn’t going to be the end of it.

  The school bus was late turning up the next morning, which meant that Henrietta wasn’t on time at the practice. As Matthew watched the clock with a sinking feeling inside him, he was telling himself that she really must be taking a poor view of the previous night’s happenings if she wasn’t going to put in an appearance.

  He had convinced himself that was the case to such an extent that when she came dashing through the front door of the surgery he found himself goggling at her disbelievingly.

  ‘Sorry I’m late,’ she gasped. ‘The school bus was delayed due to an accident and I couldn’t leave the children until I’d seen them safely on it.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ he assured her. ‘Don’t worry about it. Just as long as all is well.’

  She was moving towards her own room and taking her jacket off at the same time, but she picked up on the question in his voice and turned to look at him. ‘If you’re referring to what happened last night, yes, all is well, Matthew. I accept that it was just a moment of chemistry that came out of nowhere. That you were missing Joanna, and I don’t have any problems with that. As far as I’m concerned, we are still friends.’

  For once he was speechless. What Henrietta had just said had stunned him. Joanna had been far from his thoughts when he’d kissed Henrietta. He hadn’t been thinking about anyone else, and had wanted it to go on for ever. The feeling of her in his arms and her mouth against his had kindled the kind of desire that he’d almost forgotten existed.

  When he’d got home he’d gone upstairs and picked up the photograph from the bedside table. Looking down at it he’d said, ‘I’m moving on at last, Joanna. I’ve met a woman who is bringing light into my life and I know you will be happy for me.’

  But this morning that same woman had just told him calmly that she understood why he’d behaved the way he had the previous night and had read nothing into it, treating it as a brief moment of chemistry between the sexes, and there was no way he was going to let her see how much it hurt.

  ‘Fine,’ he said, trying to sound casual. ‘I’m glad you understood.’ And went to start another day of health care.

  There was no time for Henrietta to dwell on their conversation as there was a pile of case notes beckoning on her desk and the patients they belonged to would have their eye on the clock in the waiting room. But in the lunch-hour, while Matthew was involved with a salesman from one of the drug companies, her thoughts went back to it.

  She had expected him to be relieved at the get-out she’d given him, but now she wasn’t so sure. It hadn’t been an easy thing to do. She’d admitted to herself in the long hours of the night that getting to know him had been magical, and if they’d met under other circumstances, without his tragic past casting a shadow over his life, they might have had something very special.

  She was happy being part of the practice, happy working and living in the village, and would be happier still if Matthew had a different agenda regarding his private life.

  They would be working on his house together at the weekend, and the last thing she wanted was for there to be constraint between them. Hopefully he had understood what she’d said and they would be back to how they had been.

  When he surfaced after the meeting with the medical rep he said, ‘I called on Dave Lorimer’s dad this morning on my way to the surgery. He was out when I stopped by last night.’

  He had her attention immediately. ‘What did he have to say?’

  ‘Only that he knows all about his son’s problems and is very worried. I’ve phoned Dave to ask him to come to see me out of hours as I’m fully booked for the next few days, and we’ll take it from there. But not a lot can be done until he’s seen the consultants. I’m going to ring the hospital the first chance I get to see if they’ve given him an appointment.’

  As he turned to go back to his own room he said whimsically, ‘Alan asked me if I would be interested in joining the band again.’

  ‘And what did you say.’

  ‘That I would think about it.’

  The sun was high in the sky almost before Henrietta and the children had finished breakfast on Saturday morning, and as she fastened her hair back with a rubber band and planted a baseball cap firmly on top of it, she was looking forward to the day ahead. If Matthew wasn’t as attracted to her as she was to him, she was happy just to be in his company, and the children enjoyed being with him almost as much as she did.

  The kids were dressed in their old clothes, while she was in a pair of jeans and a well-washed top, and now all they had to do was drive to where he would be waiting for them.

  While she was unloading the boot of her car, Mollie and Kieran rushed into the house to find Matthew. Swinging them both up in his arms, he asked, ‘So are we ready for a hard day’s work?’

  He received firm nods and when he
looked up Henrietta was standing in the doorway watching them, arms laden with an assortment of paintbrushes, rollers, white spirit and the rest.

  He put the children down and told her as he went to take them from her, ‘You’re looking very businesslike.’

  She smiled. ‘I’m in charge, remember.’

  ‘All right. But guess what I’ve got. A steam wallpaper stripper!’

  Henrietta laughed. ‘Well done.’

  ‘So where do you suggest we start?’

  ‘Upstairs and work down maybe. How about tackling the main bedroom first?’ she suggested. ‘While you’re stripping the paper off, I’ll sand down the woodwork.’

  ‘Yes, but not in the same room at the same time, I don’t think. A room where a stripper is being used is like a sauna. Sand down the woodwork in another room and then come back to the main bedroom when I’ve finished.’

  ‘All right,’ she agreed amicably. ‘But before we go any further, what about our young helpers? What are you going to give them to do?’

  ‘The back gate. There are a couple of brushes and a can of undercoat on the kitchen table for them to make a start.’

  ‘And supposing they make a mess?’

  ‘No problem. There are some old sheets around that Kate has brought. We can put one on the paving near the gate to avoid splashes. By the way, she’s also done a bake for us with lots of goodies.’

  Picking up the tin of undercoat and a couple of sheets of sandpaper, Matthew took Mollie and Keiran outside to where the back gate stood forlorn and peeling.

  They looked up at him questioningly and he said, ‘First of all we get rid off all the flaky bits, like this.’ And gave the surface of the door a hard rub with the sandpaper. ‘When you’ve done that, tell Henrietta as I’ll be up in the bedroom stripping the wallpaper. Then if she thinks you’ve done a good job she’ll show you how to put the undercoat on. Is that OK?’

  There was no need to ask. Each with a sheet of sandpaper in their hands they were already on the job.

  ‘Our two young helpers are hard at it,’ he told her when he went back inside, ‘and will be reporting when they’ve finished the sanding down.’