City Doctor, Country Bride

by Abigail Gordon

  When Henrietta went back into the sitting room after seeing him off Matthew said, ‘So are we on line for the decorating again tomorrow? I’m really getting into the swing of things now. I can’t wait to see the result, and it’s all thanks to you, Henrietta. You’ve done what no one else could do, made me see sense.’

  She managed a smile. ‘I’m only glad to see you happier, Matthew, and, yes, we’ll be round tomorrow. What are you going to have the children doing now they’ve finished the gate?’

  ‘Are you sure they’ll want to paint again? The novelty will have worn off by now. They can play in the garden if they want, or watch television.’

  She wanted him to go. He was only inches away. She could smell his aftershave and see the creases around the dark eyes that she sometimes felt saw into her mind. Yet if that was the case he would know that she loved him. That she wanted to be the one who was going to live in the transformed house with him. But Matthew wasn’t the only one who had his pride. So, prolonging the agony, she said. ‘How about a coffee before you go?’ and hoped he would refuse.

  He didn’t. Instead, he came into the kitchen and watched her as she made it, and then carried the two mugs into the sitting room while she followed with a plate of pastries.

  He had seated himself opposite her, so wasn’t so near as before. She began to relax until he said, ‘The children were telling me last week that they have a school trip next Saturday. That they’re all going to the Fylde coast for the day.’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. They will be picked up here in the village at eight o’clock in the morning and dropped off at half-seven in the evening. I can still turn up for the decorating, though.’

  He shook his head. ‘No such thing. We’ll give the decorating a miss and spend the day together once morning surgery is over. Just think, Henrietta, no patients, no decorating and, delightful as they are, no children. There will be one thing, though. I’m down for playing cricket on the village green in the afternoon. How would you feel about that.’

  ‘All of it sounds lovely, as long as I haven’t got anything else planned,’ she told him, happy at the thought of being with him but not too chuffed about being taken so much for granted.

  He was frowning. ‘I’m sorry. I should have remembered that you have a life of your own, just as I do. I hope you’ll forgive me.’

  She smiled across at him. ‘There’s nothing to forgive. I’d love to spend the day with you.’

  The frown disappeared as quickly as it had come. ‘So how about once you’ve seen the children off and I’ve done the surgery, I call for you and we go into town to do some shopping, then have lunch somewhere, followed by me putting on my whites and trying to hit ball with bat, or alternatively knock somebody’s bails off. Kate will be there. She’s one of the ladies who see to the refreshments in the cricket pavilion.’

  ‘That all sounds delightful,’ she told him, her spirits rising again. ‘Just as long as there isn’t anyone else you would rather spend the time with.’

  What was that supposed to mean? he wondered. What had he said to make her think that?

  ‘There isn’t,’ he said firmly, and got up to go. At the front door he turned. ‘What are the security arrangements like at this place?’

  ‘Exactly what you would expect,’ she told him. ‘First class. Security lights all over the grounds, an alarm system inside the house with sensors and panic buttons wherever I look. Why do you ask?’

  ‘Henrietta, why do you think? Make sure you set it all in motion when I’ve gone.’

  ‘Of course,’ she told him calmly, and as he went striding out to his car she was thinking that if Matthew was as concerned about what made her happy as he was about what kept her safe, she would be content.

  As he drove the short distance home Matthew was thinking that it had been time well spent for sorting out his furnishings, and as far as he and Henrietta were concerned it had not been an evening of lost opportunities. The thought of just the two of them spending some time together seemed to have appealed to her as much as it had to him. Yet he sensed that she was still wary of him.

  Was she afraid of being second in his life after Joanna? he wondered. He should have reassured her about that, but would look somewhat foolish if the problem didn’t arise and she wasn’t that attracted to him.

  Maybe a whole day with just the two of them would help make their feelings towards each other clearer, and until then he would count the days. Though before that there was tomorrow, and working together at the practice during the next week, but it was the thought of having her to himself that gave him the most pleasure.

  Dave Lorimer didn’t have to wait long for surgery. He was sent for within the week, much to the relief of all concerned. His father came into the surgery on the day after the operation and told Matthew, ‘They’ve removed the tumour and my lad’s in Intensive Care, getting over the operation. Now we’re waiting to hear if it was benign, as none of us are going to relax until we know for certain. We’re so grateful for the way the practice picked up on it so quickly.’

  ‘You have Dr Mason to thank for that,’ Matthew told him. The same Dr Mason who is helping me decorate my house, looking after her sister’s children and doing a good job here, but is keeping me at a distance when it comes to anything else, he thought.

  ‘Will you thank her for us, then?’ Alan said. ‘And what about the band, Matthew? When are you coming back? A cheer will go up if you ever walk through the door of the Scout hut again. There isn’t anyone in the village who doesn’t want to see you back to how you used to be.’

  Matthew smiled. ‘I’m working on it by making a start with the cricket team on Saturday. As for the band, give me time. I don’t even know where my trombone is.’

  He wasn’t going to tell Alan that he was working on it from another angle that really would bring him out into the light if he didn’t make a mess of it.

  After Alan had gone, Matthew went outside to make a start on his home visits and found Henrietta standing by her car, about to set off to do the same thing, looking cool and composed in a smart dress of brown linen and a cream jacket.

  When he saw her, Matthew wanted to go across and take her in his arms. Shatter her calm with his mouth on hers and her body hard up against his chest. But it was not the time or place. Instead, he gave a casual wave in her direction and went to where his own car was parked.

  She was still standing there when he drew level and, rolling down the window, he said, ‘Dave Lorimer has had the op and is in Intensive Care. That’s the latest bulletin. And about us. Are we still on for Saturday?’

  ‘Er…no…I mean yes.’

  ‘Good. Though you don’t sound so sure.’

  ‘Yes. I am. I’m looking forward to it.’

  In truth she was and she wasn’t. Because she didn’t know what was in his mind. It would be very different from a day spent painting and papering, where half the time they weren’t in the same room. They would have each other’s undivided attention. As Matthew had said when he’d suggested it, no children, no patients, no decorating. Just a few hours to themselves.

  Once he was out of sight she set off on her rounds, the first name on her list that of an elderly man who lived in a stone cottage beside a disused waterwheel at the far end of the village.

  Long ago, in the eighteenth century, wheels like it had been used to fashion some of the tools needed in the making of the Peak Forest Canal. But now it lay unused, bypassed by the fast-flowing river as it came down from the hills. Thomas Saxby lived with the sound of running water for ever in his ears. But it wasn’t his ears that were bothering him.

  He came to the door leaning heavily on a stick, and by way of introduction said, ‘I was watching two kingfishers having a fight by the river bank last night and it was muddy underfoot. I slipped and went down on my back and it’s been hurting ever since, Doctor. By the way, who are you? Where’s Dr Cazalet? He isn’t poorly or anything like that, is he? I’m told that he’s been in Pakistan.’
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  ‘Yes, he has and, no, he isn’t poorly,’ Henrietta said. ‘He’s been back for a few weeks now. I’m the new doctor at the practice.

  ‘Aye, well, I don’t get to hear much of what goes on in the village these days.’

  ‘Do you think you can manage to get your shirt off, Mr Saxby, and perhaps loosen your trousers around the waist?

  After she’d felt all over his back with practised fingers, Henrietta said, ‘There is some bruising just above the bottom of your spine, but I don’t think you’ve damaged anything. I’ll drop a prescription off at the chemist for some gel that will take away the inflammation and soreness, and will come back to see you in a few days. If it should get worse before then, send for me immediately and I will arrange for an X-ray.’

  ‘Aye, all right, Doctor, but how am I going to get the prescription? You’ve seen the state I’m in and the chemist is at the other end of the village.’

  ‘You don’t have to worry as they’ll deliver it for you, Mr Saxby.’

  The old man sighed in relief. ‘Really! That’s wonderful. When you get back to the surgery, remember me to Dr Cazalet, will you? They were a lovely couple, Matthew and that wife of his.’

  ‘Yes. I’ll do that,’ she replied, and thought that it was only natural that the lovely Joanna should be remembered by the locals. But it was a reminder that she, Henrietta, was the newcomer, on the fringe of village life. Maybe one day she wouldn’t feel like that if she put down roots there, but would she want to be around if Matthew didn’t want her?

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ‘I SAW Thomas Saxby this morning,’ Henrietta told Matthew when they met up at lunchtime. ‘He sends his regards.’

  ‘What was the matter with Tom?’

  ‘He’d slipped in mud on the river bank and strained his back.’

  ‘Badly?’

  ‘Not at a first glance. I’ve prescribed some gel to take away the soreness and told him to get back to me if there’s no improvement in a couple of days.’

  ‘He’s a great old guy. Tom used to take me birdwatching when I was a kid.’

  She smiled. ‘It must have been like paradise, living in this place as a child.’

  ‘It still is, in spite of everything.’

  ‘Are your parents alive?’ she asked, and his face clouded over.

  ‘My mother died when I was in my teens. My father remarried and went to live abroad. He wanted me to go with him, but I opted to live with Kate. We send each other cards at Christmas and birthdays and that’s about it. So it was just Kate and I, until you came along, level-headed, impersonal, no axe to grind, and began to bring me back into the real world.’

  She was tempted to tell him that there was nothing impersonal in her feelings for him, that when she was near him she was far from level-headed, but he was asking, ‘What about your parents. Where are they?’

  ‘Gone. My parents died in a motorway pile-up when Pamela was twenty-two and I was seventeen. She took charge of everything and was there for me all the time I was at medical college. Those are the kinds of situations where she functions best—crisis times.

  ‘By the time I’d graduated she had married Charles and we weren’t so close as before, but we’ve always kept in touch. When she had the children I was hooked. So there you have the uninteresting story of my life. Make of it what you will.’

  ‘One thing is clear,’ he said flatly. ‘Neither of us have spent a great deal of time within the circle of a loving family. I had every intention of making up for that when I married Joanna, but that was not to be either. Yet in the middle of all my misery there has always been Kate, caring and faithful.’

  ‘She’s wonderful,’ Henrietta told him. ‘The children love her, and I can relax while I’m at the practice, knowing that she’s with them. Has she never married?’

  ‘No. There have been a few after her, but she doesn’t seem interested in anyone she’s met so far. I’ve told her a thousand times that I don’t want to put a blight on her love life, but she just laughs.’

  She didn’t know whether he was blighting his aunt’s love life, but it wouldn’t take much for him to blight hers, she thought wryly. When they’d first met she hadn’t even liked him, but as the days had passed that had changed as she’d got to know his worth as a doctor and a man, and now he was never out of her thoughts.

  ‘People who aren’t used to being part of a family usually think in one of two ways,’ he said, breaking into her thoughts. ‘They either become self-sufficient loners, or at the first opportunity fill the gap in their lives with a family of their own because they long for that kind of love. Which category would you say we come into?’

  ‘A bit of both, I suppose,’ she said hesitantly, not sure where the question was leading. ‘I’ve had to stand on my own two feet since my teens, but I intend to marry and have children one day.’ She went on laughingly, ‘If only to put Mollie and Keiran’s minds at rest. I’ll not forget in a hurry Keiran’s anxiety when he told you that I hadn’t even got a boyfriend. But I can cope with it, just as long as he doesn’t advertise for someone in the post office window.’

  He joined in her laughter. ‘I have to say I felt for you that day, especially as he was trying to get us both off the shelf in one go. But, as I’ve said before, I do like to make my own decisions.’

  ‘And so do I, just in case you’ve forgotten,’ she said promptly, and on that note she went to get ready for the second surgery of the day with the feeling that she’d just been warned off.

  Matthew sighed. His feelings for Henrietta were like tender new shoots coming out of dark earth, he thought. She was nothing like Joanna, and that was how he wanted it to be. But he wished he knew how she felt about him…

  They were both kept busy for the rest of the day and it wasn’t until she was driving home in the late afternoon that Henrietta’s thoughts went back to their conversation in the lunch-hour.

  They had so much in common. No parents to strengthen family bonds. Both of them doctors who loved children. Each of them equally enchanted by the Cheshire countryside. And yet they weren’t getting any closer.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Kate asked when Henrietta walked into the kitchen where she was clearing up after the children’s meal.

  ‘Er, nothing,’ she told her unconvincingly.

  Kate was not to be sidetracked. ‘It’s Matthew, isn’t it? Do you have feelings for him?’

  Henrietta sighed, too disheartened to sidestep the question. ‘Yes, Kate, I do. But, please, I beg of you, don’t ever let Matthew find out. The children have been trying to marry us off to each other. Various other people have thought us to be a couple and he doesn’t like it.’

  Kate sighed, too. ‘That man is dear to my heart, but he must be blind if he can’t see what’s under his nose here at The White House.’

  Henrietta’s smile was wry. ‘Then blind he must be, Kate.’

  When she drew back the drapes on Saturday morning warm summer rain was coming down in torrents out of a leaden sky.

  That was the first blight of the day. The second was when Mollie woke up with a temperature and was sick after her breakfast, which meant that a coach ride to the coast was not going to be a good idea.

  When Henrietta explained gently that there was going to be no outing for her, the little girl dissolved into tears and wouldn’t be consoled when Keiran promised to bring her back a stick of Blackpool rock.

  He was still raring to go, but she had to get him to the coach, and Mollie was still nauseous and fretful. If she had to watch it set off without her there really would be tears. It was just seven o’clock and there was only one person she could ask to collect him and take him to the pick-up point in the village.

  She rang Matthew on the phone beside the little girl’s bed, and when he answered and heard her voice with Mollie’s sobs in the background, he said anxiously, ‘Henrietta! What’s wrong?’

  ‘I’m sorry to disturb you,’ she said.

  Before she could say anything else he said
, ‘Is that Mollie I can hear crying?’

  ‘Yes, she’s not well. She’s just been sick and has a temperature, so she won’t be going on the outing. But Keiran is fine, and I’m phoning to ask if you wouldn’t mind picking him up from here and seeing him safely onto the coach.’

  ‘Yes, of course I will,’ he said immediately. ‘What time do you want me there?’

  ‘A quarter to eight, if that’s all right.’

  ‘Yes. I’ll be there.’

  ‘I’m sorry that our plans for the day are going to have to be cancelled,’ she said regretfully.

  ‘It’s no big deal. First things first, and a sick child always comes first,’ he said briskly, concealing his disappointment. ‘I’ll be with you shortly.’

  So their day together had been ‘no big deal’, she thought glumly. Why had he suggested it, then?

  When she went upstairs to check on Mollie, she was sniffling into a tissue. ‘I’m so disappointed, Aunt Henny,’ she said tearfully.

  ‘Yes, I know you are,’ Henrietta said gently as she cuddled her niece. Disappointment seemed to be the order of the day, but only as far as she and Mollie were concerned. Keiran was still on track with the school outing, and Matthew hadn’t sounded as if cancelling their day out had mattered all that much.

  As he drove to The White House at just gone half past seven Matthew was thinking that the day so far was in keeping with the weather. Rain was still lashing down out of a steel-grey sky, instead of the sunkissed mornings they’d been getting of late.

  He saw that the river wasn’t dawdling over a shallow, rocky bed, as it had during the dry weather, but was bounding along beneath the pouring rain. Up above, the peaks were shrouded in the mist that could come down so quickly when the weather changed.

  His mood was like the day, he thought. Obviously he was concerned about young Mollie, but couldn’t help feeling disappointed that the time he’d planned to spend with Henrietta wasn’t going to happen.