by Sue Peters
SUNFLOWER SUMMER
Sue Peters
Nan loved country life, and she understood country people and their ways. So when the newcomer, Doctor Keir Raven, arrived, with his sophisticated, critical London outlook, she didn't at all appreciate him. with Keir Raven, all that mattered was clinical efficiency; he wouldn't understand that some people preferred tumbledown cottages and a cosy cottage hospital to tower blocks and all the latest medical discoveries! So Nan prepared to do battle with him - until the rich and glamorous Marcia Lisle began to pursue him relentlessly, and Nan was forced to re-assess the way she felt about him..
CHAPTER ONE
'I'm back, Aunt Mary!'
Nan Durrant propped her bicycle against one of the round stone pillars that supported the canopy over the front door of Minster House, and ran lightly up the steps.
'Did you get the beef, miss?' A tousled red head appeared through the green baize door at the end of the hall in response to her call.
'Sorry, Rose.' Nan shook her head at the harassed-looking 'help'. 'The butcher hadn't got a piece big enough, so I brought a shank of lamb instead.'
'Lamb's well enough for us.' Rose took the basket from her hand doubtfully. 'But I dunno about someone from London.' Her worried frown made her look even more harassed, and the brisk breeze through the open door did nothing to subdue the wild disarray round her head. 'He'll have been used to eating in posh restaurants and things, I expect,' she said vaguely, 'where they calls everything by a foreign name.'
'And come up with Wednesday's pudding at an astronomical price,' Nan laughed. 'Well, if he doesn't like lamb, he can jolly well put up with it,' she said firmly. 'Don't worry, Rose. If Keir Raven's used to restaurant fare, then fresh garden vegetables should make a pleasant change. Although young doctors don't usually eat at places like that. In my experience, they more often live out of tins,' she said drily. 'Oh, that sounds like Aunt Mary.' The unmistakable squeak of the front castor on the sofa in the drawing-room told her that someone had just risen from its hospitable cushions. 'I'll go and break the news about the beef.'
'But, miss,' Rose waved mysteriously at the drawing-room door, 'Mrs Gray's not—oh, drat that kettle!' A piercing whistle summoned from the kitchen quarters, and whatever Rose had been about to say was lost as her copper head and Nan's shopping bag disappeared behind the green baize door to rescue the kettle.
'Poor Rose !' Nan smiled to herself, and turned away. Their help had just got used to John Barclay, her uncle's previous assistant. He had been a quiet, uncomplicated young man, homely and likeable, who settled easily into the doctor's household, and quickly won Rose's heart by his undisguised enjoyment of a jug of hot cocoa left on the hearth for his consumption after late night calls. They had all been sad to see John go, although delighted at his opportunity to specialise.
'I expect the next one will be just as shabby, and just as hungry as John was when he first came here,' Nan spoke aloud to the as yet invisible Mary Gray. The drawing-room door was wide open, and she must have heard her exchange with Rose. 'Anyway, we'll see when he arrives tonight—oh !' She stopped short at the room door and regarded the tall, dark-haired man confronting her with some confusion.
'Did you want Uncle Oliver?—I mean, Doctor Gray?' she asked. 'The surgery is round the side of the house. The yellow door-, with the notice on it.' She stammered to a halt, uneasily conscious that the wind of her bicycle ride had wreaked the same mischief with her own fair hair that the breeze through the kitchen door had done to Rose's. She put up a hand to straighten it, then dropped it again, nettled by the flash of amusement that lightened the black eyes watching her from a height considerably above her head, and from under dark brows and wavy black hair that had been subdued Jo a neatness very much at variance with her own windblown locks.
'I've come to see Doctor Gray, but not as a patient. And I am hungry.' He smiled, showing even white teeth, and added, 'I'm here earlier than I expected, but I was offered a lift. I hope I haven't put you to any inconvenience?' The amusement faded, and a hint of concern took its place at the hazel-eyed dismay with which Nan stared at him.
'You're not'—she gulped, 'you're not—Keir Raven?' He couldn't be—could he? He looked much too old, to start with. She had not actually asked Uncle Oliver how old his new assistant would be, she automatically assumed he would be taking someone about the same age is John had been when he first joined them. He had seemed more like a younger brother to Nan's twenty-six years, but this man must be in his thirties. And sophisticated with it. She looked at him critically. His pearl grey suit fitted like a glove, shunning association with any but the most exclusive—and expensive— tailor. His spotless white shirt, she noticed observantly, was pure silk, as was the tasteful blue tie that set his outfit off to perfection, and his shoes looked handmade. What was more, he did not look in the least ill fed.
'I'm Keir Raven,' he confessed, and held out a beautifully manicured hand. 'How d'you do?' he introduced himself gravely.
'Er—how do you do?' Surreptitiously, Nan rubbed her right hand down the leg of her slacks, before taking his. She had had trouble with her bicycle chain on the way back from the village, and her fingers still bore black traces of her battle to fix it back on the cogs of the gear mechanism, despite valiant efforts with a handful of dock leaves from the verge beside the lane. They had removed most of the black, and stained her fingers green instead.
'Ah, Raven!' To Nan's relief Oliver Gray strode through the open french windows. 'My wife told me you'd come. I'm glad you managed to get here early, it'll give you time to settle in before you start work in the morning.' The kindly, grizzled-haired doctor shook hands with the newcomer with every appearance of pleasure, and watching them, Nan wondered how on earth her uncle had; come to choose Keir Raven as his assistant. Or rather, why Keir Raven had chosen to join the elderly country doctor in a rural backwater, where the most exciting event of the year was the local flower show. It would be hard to imagine two men more dissimilar in appearance. Oliver Gray, tall, still vigorous, but stooping slightly with rheumatism and his sixty years. She had heard him talk about his next assistant coming as his partner. A flash of memory enlightened her as to the possible reason for Keir Raven's age, and look of experience.
'You're not thinking of retiring, are you?' she had asked him at the time, her face full of concern. His practice, and the cottage hospital it encompassed, was Oliver Gray's life, she knew. 'You're not ill, are you?'
'Good heavens, no, child,' he laughed her fears to scorn. 'But the villages are growing, there's already too much work for one man to do properly, and I shall eventually have to retire, for my patients' sake as well as my own,' he said seriously. It was typical of his conscientious approach to his work, and the people under his care, that he thought about this well in advance. 'Planned succession, I think they call it in industry, and it's a sensible idea to apply it to a practice,' he pointed out. 'It gives the patients time to. get used to a new man—you know how long it takes country folk to accept a stranger,' he spoke the undeniable truth. 'And it'll leave me more time for research at the hospital,' he added. It was an abiding interest which would never leave him, Nan knew, no matter how old he eventually grew.
'I see you've met Nan, and you already know my wife,' as Mary Gray bustled into the room with a tray of coffee, and some wafer-thin sandwiches.
'I heard you say you were hungry,' she smiled. 'Lunch will be about an hour, and these are too small to spoil it.' She dispensed refreshments happily, pleased as she always was to have someone to look after.
'Not for me, thanks,' Nan accepted her cup of coffee but refused a sandwich. 'I had mechanical trouble on the way home,' she explained the state of her hands. 'I need to scrub up before I eat.'
'Do y
ou do your own car maintenance?' Keir Raven asked her politely. From his tone he sounded as if he was not really interested, and she answered him with similar indifference.
'I don't run a car, I was referring to my bike. It's vintage, and needs a helping hand occasionally,' reacting despite herself against his smooth manner and almost too perfect dress.
'You could get some driving practice before you go back to the hospital,' Mary Gray suggested. 'You'll have more time while you're still with us. Nan's a Sister at Bartholomews, in Hopminster,' she explained to their guest. 'Then I went down with appendicitis, and she came home to nurse me afterwards, and stayed on to help Oliver after his last assistant left,' she added, dispensing second cups of tea as she chatted.
'That was only an emergency measure, until Uncle Oliver got another assistant,' Nan added, seeing Keir's eyebrows raise. 'I've relinquished my post, as from now.' She could have worked happily along with her uncle's previous assistant, indeed on several occasions she had done so, but not with this one, she decided. Keir Raven did riot look as if he would take kindly to an offer of help from anybody, on anything. Which brought back the puzzle as to why he should have accepted the job in the first place.
'I hope I measure up to the standards you set,' he said smoothly, and Nan flushed. Was he being sarcastic ? She decided not to take up the challenge; it would not do for them to start off on the wrong foot, and as one of the family it was up to her to try and make the newcomer feel at home. 'Don't you think I will?' Her resolution was destroyed by Keir himself, and prompted, she realised vexedly, by her own puzzled stare. She had not realised she had been looking at him for so long.
'I'm sure you'll do beautifully.' She could not quite quell the faint bite in her voice.
'And?' he queried softly, forcing her to go on.
'You're slightly older than I expected, that's all,' she answered him bluntly, annoyed by his persistence.
'I thought I'd told you I wanted someone, with a view to a partnership,' her uncle protested. 'Someone who would take over at the hospital as well. I did say . ..'
'Yes, I remember. I just didn't think, that's all.' She had been too busy nursing her aunt at the time to pay much attention to more than the general details, and one newly qualified doctor was much like another to Nan. She liked people, and so was prepared to get on with whoever turned up, and beyond remembering his rather unusual name she put the brief description her uncle had given her at the back of her mind, and turned her attention to more immediate things, not bothering to read the new mail's list of qualifications, which would have told her, she realised, what sort of person to expect. If Keir Raven was to deputise for her uncle at the hospital as well, he must also be a surgeon.
'I sometimes feel older even than I expect.'
Nan looked up at him swiftly, catching something, she did not quite know what, underlying the rather banal remark. His face was expressionless, and the black eyes had a shuttered look, defying interpretation, but he had forgotten to control the expression in his voice, and that held—what? Bitterness? Disillusion? She did not know, and it made her uneasy. She hoped her uncle had gone well into whatever references the man produced, she thought worriedly, and then checked herself. Oliver Gray might choose to live in the depths of the wolds, but he was nevertheless a shrewd man, and a widely travelled one, and was unlikely to be taken in by anyone, however plausible.
'Nan will show you round if you like,' he offered after lunch, and she bit her lip. She did not like to refuse, but she found she did not want to show Keir Raven round, as her Uncle put it, although there was no logical reason why she should not, she had no plans for that afternoon and evening.
'It would help if I could get a general idea of the district,' Keir agreed readily. 'That is, if Miss Durrant...?'
'Call me Nan.' Her voice was sharp. They were not working together in hospital, and she had no intention of allowing a doctor/nurse relationship to develop between them at Minster House. While I'm here he'll treat me like a human being, she thought grimly, and some of her determination must have shown in her face, because he replied meekly,
'Very well, if you'll call me Keir?'
'It's shorter,' she admitted, carefully not adding that it had not occurred to her to call him anything else. If he was going to remain at Minster House, he would have to get used to a certain lack of formality in the practice, whether he liked it or not. She was unable to judge from his expression whether he minded or not, and she sighed, sharply. It would have been pleasant to spend the remaining few weeks of her stay in the easy company of the departed John Barclay.
'Will you drive, or shall I?' She gave him the choice when she brought her uncle's Land-Rover round to the front door later that afternoon.
'You drive,' he retorted promptly. 'Your aunt said you needed practice, and I'd like to be able to look around me, and get the lie of the land.' He pulled himself up into the passenger seat, but not before he had courteously opened the driver's door and handed her into her place behind the wheel. It was an unexpected gesture, and Nan found she enjoyed it. More often in her role as Sister in charge of the surgical ward at Bartholomews, it was she who looked after other people.
'Do you mind the hood being off?' She paused in the act of inserting the ignition key. 'It seemed such a lovely day.' The sunshine was soft and warm, and the opportunity to enjoy it was all too short, but he might be used to a closed car, and find their mode of transport a bit crude. It would blow his hair about as well, she thought maliciously, still smarting from her own disadvantage in that direction at their first meeting.
'It's fine as it is.' He settled himself in beside her. 'I hate being closed in.' Again there was that trace of something in his voice that haunted Nan. That was another puzzle, she realised suddenly. Keir had not brought a car with him. Even John Barclay, hard-up though he was when he joined her uncle, had managed to run an old banger, as he called it. This man was car-less, a state unusual enough in itself with a person of his appearance, to excite comment. He looked the type who would run a sleek, expensive sports car—not the noisy, exhausty sort, but one with a smoothly purring engine, and a thoroughbred turn of speed. Perhaps he had lost his licence for some' reason. Drink? She watched him covertly for a moment, letting the engine warm. He did not look the type who drank, particularly when he was driving.
'Aren't you going to fasten your seat belt?' He clipped his own round him, adjusting it to suit his slim body. Oliver Gray had sat in the passenger seat last, and his more ample form had needed a longer strap.
'Mmm.' Nan followed suit, clicking the latch into place on the floorboard, feeling oddly relieved. Whatever it was, his licence had not been breathalysed out of existence, she felt sure.
'We'll go out towards Hopminster,' she decided. 'That's our nearest town. Market variety,' she amended, in case her companion should get the impression that it was at all sizeable. 'That way we can do a complete circuit of the village. It'll give you an idea of where the main farms lie, in case you have to call on them, and the direction of the other villages from here.' She turned the Land-Rover uphill, keeping her speed low. 'I'll stay on top of the rises as much as I can,' she promised, 'it's like looking at a map from the tops,' she breathed deeply of the warm, clear air, relishing the myriad scents that always spelled the wolds to her.
'This is better than petrol fumes any day.' Keir leaned back in his seat, seeming prepared to enjoy the ride too, and she drew to a halt on a high, unfenced lane, from the side of which a sheet of standing corn spread like waving gold across the hill to its very base.
'They've already started cutting at Coton Hill farm,' she pointed to her right where a gap in the gold showed a field of spiky stubble. 'This lot looks about ready for the combine,' she cast a critical eye on the fringe of the field close against the side of their vehicle. 'They'll be crop shooting here next week. Do you shoot?' she turned to him enquiringly. 'I expect they'd be glad of another gun, if you'd like to turn out,' she offered. 'Uncle Oliver would arrange
it for you.'
'I'm committed to saving life, not destroying it,' he retorted curtly, and Nan stared at him, nonplussed.
'I only thought. ..' she began, astonished at the reception of her offer.
'Well, don't, so far as I'm concerned,' he told her emphatically. 'I find the whole idea of shooting for pleasure barbaric.'
'They don't do it exactly for pleasure ... oh, well,' she shrugged and set the vehicle rolling again. He could at least have refused her politely, she thought angrily; whatever his personal feelings were on the subject there was no need for him to be quite so blunt. She preferred plain speaking herself, but open rudeness was quite another thing. No doubt he would eat his share of the rabbit stew from what they received of the shoot harvest, which she knew from long experience would appear in the doctor's kitchen after it was over. I'll let him eat it, and then tell him where it's come from, she promised herself furiously, and immediately felt better.
'There's Minster.' Conscientiously, if reluctantly, she carried out her job as a guide. 'You can see the church tower through the trees, and that long, low building away to the right of the village is the Cottage Hospital. Either road leads to it,' she told him. 'If you follow this one right round it keeps to the spine of that hill on the other side of the valley, and then dips into the village by the church. Where that car is now,' she pointed to a small, moving speck in the distance. 'By the way,' it was hone of her business, she thought guiltily, but she was curious, 'will you be using the Land-Rover while you're here, or will you bring your own car?' She had a right to know, she excused herself. Aunt Mary had suggested she get in some driving practice, and there were only the two vehicles available at Minster House, the one they were in now, and her uncle's Rover saloon.
'Doctor Gray said I could use this one.' Keir's voice was mild, as if he had already forgotten his sharpness of moments before. 'My own car's been involved in an accident.'
