City Doctor, Country Bride

by Abigail Gordon

  He put on a pair of white overalls and reached for the stripper, ‘And you know where I’ll be. Give me a shout when it’s lunchtime, Henrietta.’

  Smiling hazel eyes were observing him from under the peak of the baseball cap. She was happy, and had a feeling that so was he.

  CHAPTER SIX

  WHEN they stopped for lunch and were all seated around the kitchen table, eating the food that Kate had left for them, Keiran looked across at Matthew and out of the blue said, ‘Is your house sad because you haven’t got any children?’

  Henrietta took a deep breath as she waited for Matthew’s reply.

  ‘So you think my house is sad, do you?’ he said thoughtfully. ‘I suppose it might be happier if children lived here, but children have to have a mother, and there isn’t one.’

  ‘Aunt Henny is the same as you. She hasn’t got any children either,’ Keiran told him. ‘She hasn’t even got a boyfriend.’

  Henrietta placed her hand across her eyes and looked down at the tabletop. She knew where this was leading and was cringing at the thought. ‘She says she doesn’t want to marry anybody, but we think she would marry you, Uncle Matthew, if you asked her, don’t we, Mollie?’

  The honorary ‘uncle’ title had been Henrietta’s idea. She’d thought it sounded more respectful than just calling him Matthew, as he’d suggested they should do.

  ‘Yes,’ his sister agreed, with dreamy eyes. ‘I could be a bridesmaid and scatter rose petals.’

  ‘Yes, and you could also be getting on with painting the back gate,’ Henrietta said quickly, getting to her feet. ‘Have you both had enough to eat?’

  When she looked across at Matthew he was smiling. Leaning over the table, he said in a low voice. ‘It’s all right. It would seem that matchmakers come in all sizes. But, you know, Henrietta, what Keiran has just said has given me food for thought. He’d picked up on this being a sad house. Children can be so perceptive sometimes. It was a happy place when Joanna was alive and that is how she’d want it to be now. I’m the one who’s filled it with gloom, and I’ve been wrong.’

  ‘I’m so glad that you are beginning to feel like that,’ she said quietly.

  ‘I’ve been feeling it ever since you and the children arrived this morning. There’s been noise and laughter in the empty rooms.’

  ‘And the smell of paint?’

  He laughed. ‘Yes. That’s something else that hasn’t been there in a long time.’ He was flexing his arms and turning to go back to stripping the bedroom, and she thought it would seem that nothing else that Keiran had said had given him food for thought.

  Upstairs in the main bedroom Matthew was wondering what Henrietta had thought of the children’s suggestion. Not a lot he felt. She had sat with head bent and made no comment, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t tuned in.

  He supposed he could have grasped the opportunity to take it a step further once Mollie and Keiran had gone back to painting the gate, but could imagine how Henrietta would feel at the children having to prod him into action.

  The memory of how she’d felt in his arms a couple of nights ago kept coming back. Her slenderness, the low-cut sundress showing lots of pale gold skin and the perfume, familiar yet new on Henrietta, had all made him drop his guard, and there hadn’t been a moment since when he hadn’t been thinking about her.

  When the decorating was finished he was going to take her out as a thank-you gesture and then, without any prodding from Mollie and Keiran, he would tell her how he felt.

  By the early evening they’d all had enough. The children had left the painting of the gate and gone inside to watch television, and both Henrietta and Matthew were ready for a rest and a shower.

  “I think we’ll make tracks,’ she told him. ‘The children won’t need any rocking tonight and neither will I. We’ll be back in the morning, and why don’t we go out somewhere for a nice lunch to break up the day? You’ll know the right places to take them better than I do.’

  ‘Yes, great idea,’ he said easily, adding as they walked to the gate, ‘I intend to speak to Dave Lorimer tonight and will let you know in the morning what we’ve talked about.’

  She turned to face him and said softly, ‘I worked with some clever and dedicated doctors in my last job, but I had to come to a small Cheshire village to find the most caring and the best. No wonder the people around here hold you in such high regard. I hope you’ll be around if ever I need a doctor.’

  ‘So do I,’ he told her, and wondered if she would ever want him around in any other guise than that.

  The children were tugging at her. It was time to say goodbye until tomorrow, and with the thought of that pleasure to come he waved them off.

  As Matthew watched Henrietta and the children getting out of the car on Sunday morning, the good feeling he’d had since the previous day increased.

  As he flung open the front door, Mollie and Keiran came running up the drive, happy and bright-eyed after a good night’s sleep. Henrietta was close behind looking happy enough but not quite so bright-eyed and rather pale.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he asked immediately, picking up on her pallor.

  ‘Yes. I’m fine. I didn’t sleep very well, that’s all.’

  The truth was that she’d hardly slept at all, even though she’d been tired after the day’s exertions, and Matthew was the reason. Matthew, who was observing her with the keen glance of the GP and the concerned expression of a friend.

  ‘Was it the thought of coming back here today that kept you awake?’ he asked wryly ‘Another day’s hard grind.’

  ‘No, not at all. There’s something therapeutic about watching brightness replace gloom. I enjoyed every moment.’

  ‘Even Kieran’s lunchtime chatter?’

  ‘Except for that maybe, which is perhaps best forgotten.’

  She knew she must have dozed off at some point during the night as she’d had a crazy dream where she’d been walking down the aisle of the village church in a wedding gown, with Mollie behind her, scattering rose petals.

  She’d been able to see the back of the bridegroom waiting for her at the altar, and had known from the set of his shoulders, the cut of his hair and the tanned skin at the back of his neck that it had been Matthew. But when she’d drawn level she’d seen that there had been another woman standing beside him with a smiley mouth and golden hair, and he had been so engrossed in her he hadn’t even noticed that she, Henrietta, had been there.

  She’d turned to flee and bumped into a man who’d stepped out of the shadows. Miles, the reluctant father. She’d picked up her train and dashed down the aisle like a flash of light with Mollie running behind her, shouting, ‘Wait for me, Aunt Henny!’

  It had been like dreams often were. A jumble of thoughts connected with recent happenings, mixed up and difficult to comprehend. But as she’d lain wide eyed afterwards it had seemed as if there had been a message of sorts in it. That neither man was meant for her. Miles had shown it by just one sentence back there in the city, and as for Matthew, she knew where his heart was in safekeeping. He’d only kissed her because she’d smelt like Joanna.

  ‘Aunt Henny hasn’t even got a boyfriend,’ Keiran had told him in childish concern, and at that moment, sleepless beneath the stars, it had seemed like the most sensible situation to be in.

  She’d woken up on Sunday to the sound of church bells pealing out across the green meadows that separated The White House from the village and had felt the uncertainties that had kept her awake fall away.

  When she’d gone to the window to take in the view, as she had each morning, a solitary farmer had been ploughing a field in the distance, and a heron had flown past, bound for the river and its breakfast of some unsuspecting fish.

  She wanted to stay in this place for ever, she’d thought, caught in its spell. No matter what else was going on in her life.

  But now, with Matthew’s dark gaze upon her, she knew that without him in her life the village would be just a delightful place to
live. There would be no purpose in her. She was becoming more aware of him all the time, and it wasn’t all sexual chemistry.

  There was how he was with Mollie and Keiran. They’d taken to him immediately. Then there was the way he ran the practice. She cringed when she thought of how she’d been so critical of everything during her first two days there. She hadn’t allowed for his absence and the domestic crisis in John Lomas’s life, and hadn’t known that Matthew carried a cross of someone else’s making.

  ‘There’s a place on the edge of town called Barnaby’s that the kids would like if we’re going out for lunch,’ he was saying. ‘It isn’t what I’d choose for myself, and I don’t think their mother would be too chuffed at them eating there, but kids love it. It’s a fast-food place. The kind where they serve burgers, french fries and milkshakes.’

  She smiled. ‘They’ll think that’s great. And as for my sister, she is a loving mother, you know. A bit overpowering, I admit, but I’m sure they’ll have been to that kind of place before, even though Pamela would shudder at the thought.’

  Together they gathered up some brushes and rolls of wallpaper and headed up the stairs. ‘By the way, Matthew, what about David Lorimer?’

  ‘Oh, yes. You were right about him having the symptoms of a brain tumour,’ he said. ‘I examined him and we had a chat. His blood pressure was a bit high, but that could be because of the stress that he’s under. We need some fast action there, Henrietta. Tomorrow we start pushing for that appointment.’

  ‘I feel better now that you’ve seen him,’ she said soberly. ‘He’s been on my mind all the time.

  As predicted, the children did like Barnaby’s and loved the burgers, fries and milkshakes. So did the two doctors. An old lady sitting nearby, tucking into a cheeseburger, said, ‘You have two bonny children. The girl is like you,’ she said to Matthew, ‘and the boy like his mother.’

  Henrietta watched Keiran’s mouth open as he prepared to put her right and said quickly, ‘Shush, Keiran.’

  Unaware of her mistake, the lady said, ‘I’ve come to do some shopping with my friends. We come on Sundays as it’s quieter, but when we’re ready for a bite they won’t come into this place. They want tablecloths and plates and fancy cakes. I say, give me a burger any time.’

  When she’d gone, leaning heavily on a stick, Matthew said, ‘We’ve just been paired off again. Do people see something about us that we don’t. Or are they just too quick to assume?’

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ she replied distantly, with the memory of Margot Chilton’s faux pas surfacing. ‘And does it matter?’

  She wasn’t smiling, as he’d thought she might have done, and he wondered if Henrietta was telling him in a roundabout sort of way that she couldn’t care less about having her name coupled with his, as she wasn’t interested anyway.

  If that was the case, how would she feel if she knew that when he’d arrived home on the night he’d kissed her, he’d told Joanna he was letting go. That he’d finally found someone just as special as she’d been and, though he would never forget her, he was moving on.

  In his own way and his own time, he was going to tell Henrietta that, and the last thing he wanted when the moment came was for her to think that he’d been spurred on by everyone coupling them together.

  For the rest of Sunday they worked in silence as they painted and papered the bedrooms, while Mollie and Keiran, unaware of any atmosphere, worked industriously on the back gate, a lot more interested now that they were putting on the final coat of green paint.

  The finished article would be far from perfect, but neither of the two doctors were bothered about that. From Henrietta’s point of view, it was doing them no harm to do something for someone else and as for Matthew he was just happy to have them around.

  When it was time for them to go he went out to the car to say goodbye, and as he and Henrietta faced each other he said, ‘Thanks for giving up your weekend, Henrietta. If ever you decide to buy a place of your own in the village, I’ll do the same for you should it be necessary.’

  So he wasn’t contemplating asking her to settle down under his roof, she thought, and told him breezily, ‘You don’t have to do anything in return. We’ll come again next weekend…if you want us.’

  ‘Of course I do. I’ve been wondering if you’d come round some time to choose carpets and curtains with me. One of the big stores has a facility where their experts will come out with swatches of different fabrics for you to choose from, and will advise generally.’

  ‘Yes. I don’t mind doing that,’ she told him in the same breezy tone, ‘but how? We’re at the practice all day, and in the evenings I’m housebound because of the children.’

  ‘I could come up to The White House.’

  ‘Er…yes…I suppose you could,’ she agreed, with the memory as clear as crystal of the last time he’d done that. But she wasn’t expecting any repeat performances.

  It was obvious that Matthew had no yearnings in her direction if he found it so offputting when they kept being seen as a couple. That being so, there was no way he was going to find out that she was falling in love with him.

  In the week that followed David Lorimer went for the tests to see if he might have a brain tumour and they proved positive. From the checking of hormone levels in the blood and urine, a CT scan and an MRI, he was diagnosed with a pituitary tumour. That was the bad news that threw Dave and his family into a state of despair. But there was some light in the darkness, and Matthew was pleased to see how positive Dave was being when he came to surgery.

  ‘The consultant told me he would have to operate to remove the tumour, otherwise it would grow and press on other areas of my brain,’ Dave explained. ‘He was pleased to hear about the baby, as he said the tumour would also affect my fertility if it was left. If it had been more advanced, we might have found it difficult to conceive as my sperm count would have been too low.’ The young man smiled. ‘He also told me that pituitary tumours are almost invariably benign, and as long as no hiccups present themselves during surgery, I should make a good recovery. I cried like a baby when he told me,’ he admitted.

  ‘I’m not surprised,’ Matthew said. ‘How soon is he going to operate?’

  ‘Some time in the next couple of weeks. The sooner the better. Those at home are feeling a lot happier and so am I. I’ve been teasing my dad, telling him that he was only worried because he thought he was going to be one short in the band.’ And with that he went on his way, back to those who loved him.

  When Dave had gone Matthew went to tell Henrietta the outcome of her concerns over him, and as he was leaving her consulting room he said, ‘Would Friday night be all right for the people from the store to come round? You haven’t got anything planned?’

  ‘No. that would be fine. The children still go to bed early on Friday nights, even though there’s no school on Saturday. They’re always tired at the end of the week. So, as I mentioned before, I’m always at home in the evenings.’

  ‘And it doesn’t bother you, having no social life?’

  ‘No, not really. There is plenty of room for me to spread myself around in The White House, and if I had to go somewhere in the evening there is no one I would trust to be with the children, apart from Kate and yourself, and I feel that she’s been here long enough by the time I get home.’

  ‘Which just leaves me.’

  ‘Yes, and as far as Mollie and Keiran are concerned you would be number-one choice in any case. But I’m not likely to be going anywhere so the necessity won’t arise.’

  There was still a coolness between them after Sunday, he thought, but neither of them were going to let it interfere with practice matters.

  The salesperson from the department store was due to arrive at eight o’clock on Friday evening and Matthew was early. The children had only just settled down for the night when Henrietta opened the door to him and put her finger to her lips.

  ‘Don’t let Mollie or Keiran hear your voice or they’ll be downstairs i
n a flash,’ she whispered.

  ‘Well, it is Saturday tomorrow, you know.’

  ‘Yes, I do know, but if you want me to concentrate on what this person is saying, I don’t want the children to come romping down the stairs all set for fun and games with you.’

  She wondered if he really did need her input for his refurbishing, or if it was just an excuse to see the children and he was disappointed they weren’t around.

  ‘So, what sort of a colour scheme do you think I should choose?’ he asked, as if reading her thoughts. He was looking down at the carpet beneath his feet, a thick pile of the palest cream, and commented. ‘Nothing as pale as this, I think.’

  ‘Why not?’ Henrietta wanted to know. ‘There’ll be only you to walk on it.’

  ‘At present maybe, but supposing my life changed and I wasn’t the only one living there?’

  Henrietta ignored the painful jolt she felt at his words. After all, here was a man who didn’t like being manipulated. Who wasn’t happy at the way his name kept being linked with hers. Which made it look pretty certain that it wouldn’t be her feet walking on a pale cream carpet.

  A ring on the doorbell announced the curtain and carpet person had arrived and for the next couple of hours they were engrossed in colours and quality.

  ‘Do you think pale green carpets and gold for the curtains would go with the decorating we’ve got planned?’ Matthew asked, and she nodded.

  ‘It would be perfect. Once it’s finished, your house will be so beautiful you won’t ever want to leave it.’

  ‘That would depend on who I was sharing it with.’

  Henrietta felt her spirits take a further dive. There it was again, the hint that Matthew was well and truly out of the doldrums, and she might have to stand by and watch the transformation. She could feel the maiden aunt mantle settling on her shoulders already.

  It was ten o’clock and the satisfied salesman had left with a large order in his book, and they had been left with the promise that fitting would take place whenever it was requested, as long as they allowed three weeks for the order to be processed.