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‘You haven’t done that, though, have you?’
‘Counted the cabbages? No, but I’ve been in love. Sadly I was never a bride. I lost the love of my life before our relationship had progressed that far.’
‘Yes, and it’s such a shame,’ Laurel told her. ‘You would have been a lovely mum. That’s what you’ve been like to me, Elaine.’
‘You are my sister’s child,’ she said gently. ‘I’ve tried to make up for what she and your father lacked in parenting skills, but they did turn up at the hospital to see you, didn’t they?’
‘For a couple of hours, yes, because they’d read about me in the papers, but they were soon off on their travels again.’
‘That’s the way they are,’ Elaine said soothingly. ‘Free spirits. We’ll never change them and they do love you in their own way.’
‘I’ve lost my way, Elaine,’ she said forlornly. ‘I used to be so positive, but since it happened I feel as if I don’t know who I am. My face isn’t marked, for which I’m eternally grateful, but there are parts of the rest of me that aren’t a pretty sight.’
‘That won’t matter to anyone who really loves you,’ she was told. ‘Like I said before, you’re brave and beautiful.’
‘I wish,’ was the doleful reply.
David Trelawney was house hunting. Since moving to Willowmere he’d been living in a rented cottage not too far from the surgery and Bracken House, where James Bartlett lived with his two children.
So far it was proving to be an ideal arrangement. It wouldn’t have been if his high-flying American fiancée had wanted to join him, but that was not a problem any more.
They’d called off the engagement just before he’d accepted the position at St Gabriel’s, and though it had left him with a rather jaundiced attitude to the opposite sex, his only regret was that he’d made an error of judgement and would be wary of repeating it.
Yet it wasn’t stopping him from house hunting. He didn’t want to rent for long, but so far he hadn’t made any definite decision about where he was going to put down his roots in the village that had taken him to its heart. He told himself wryly that he’d made a mistake in his choice of a wife and wasn’t going to do the same thing when it came to choosing a house.
He’d spent his growing years in a Cornish fishing village where his father had brought him up single-handed after losing his wife to cancer when David had been quite small, and once when Caroline had flown over to see him he’d taken her to meet him.
‘Are you sure that she is the right one for you, David?’ Jonas Trelawney had said afterwards. ‘She’s smart and attractive, seems like the kind of woman who knows what she wants and goes out to get it, but I know how you love kids and somehow I can’t see her breast feeding or changing nappies. Have you discussed it at all?’
‘Yes,’ he’d said easily, putting from his mind the number of times the word ‘nanny’ had cropped up in the conversation.
He’d met her on a visit to London. She’d been staying in the same hotel with a group of friendly Texans who, on discovering that he had been on his own, had invited him to join them as they saw the sights.
She’d made a play for him, he’d responded to her advances, and the attraction between them had escalated into marriage plans, though he’d had his doubts about how she would react to the prospect of living in a town in Cheshire, as at that time he’d been based at St Gabriel’s Hospital.
It was going to be so different to the glitzy life that he’d discovered she led when he’d visited her in Texas. Yet she hadn’t raised any objections when he’d said that he had no plans to leave the UK while his father was alive. But he was to discover that the novelty of the idea was to be short-lived as far as Caroline was concerned.
His uneasiness had become a definite thing when he’d been expecting to go over there to sort out wedding arrangements and she’d put him off, saying that she had the chance to purchase a boutique that she’d had her eye on for some time and didn’t want any diversions until the deal was settled.
‘I would hardly have thought our wedding would be described as a diversion,’ he’d said coolly, and she’d told him that she was a businesswoman first and foremost and he would have to get used to that.
‘I see, and how are you going to run a boutique in Texas if you are living over here?’ he’d asked, his anger rising.
There was silence at the other end of the line and then the dialling tone.
She phoned him again that same day at midnight Texas time. It sounded as if she was at some sort of social gathering if the noise in the background was anything to go by, and as if wine had loosened her tongue Caroline told him the truth, that she didn’t want to be a doctor’s wife any more in some crummy place in Britain and wanted to call off the engagement.
As anger came surging back he told her that it was fine by him and coldly wished her every success in her business dealings.
He discovered afterwards that there’d been more to it than she’d admitted that night on the phone. A certain senator had appeared on her horizon and she’d used the boutique story as a get-out.
In his disillusionment David decided to make a fresh start. His father had once told him that his mother had come from a village in Cheshire called Willowmere, and shortly after his engagement to Caroline had ended he met James Bartlett’s sister Anna in the company of a doctor from the village practice. They’d been involved in a near drowning incident in a village called Willowmere and the way they described the place made him keen to find where the other part of his roots belonged.
When he’d found his mother’s childhood home the discovery of it pulled at his heartstrings so much that he decided he wanted to live in Willowmere, and as if it was meant he was offered a position in the village practice.
What was left of the house stood in the centre of a field on the way to Willow Lake, a local beauty spot, and as he’d stood beside it he’d felt that this was where he wanted to be, where he wanted to bring up his children if he ever married, and at the same time contribute to the health care of those who lived there.
All that remained of it was four stone walls, the roof having long since fallen in, and he remembered his father telling him how his mother had left it as a bride and gone to live with him in Cornwall where his home had been.
David found no reason to regret his decision to move to the Cheshire countryside. He was totally happy there, but supposed it might not be everyone’s choice. For instance, there was the girl he’d met at the station, he thought as the day took its course. She’d taken a dim view of the place.
So far he hadn’t found a property that appealed to him and knew it was because every time he went back to the ruins of his mother’s home the idea of restoring it was there.
Laurel and Elaine had had an omelette for their evening meal with chips and fresh green runner beans out of the garden, and when she’d placed the food in front of her niece she’d said, ‘I know it’s not exactly the fatted calf but it’s something that I know you like.’
‘I love your omelettes,’ Laurel told her. ‘I used to dream about them when I was in hospital.’
‘Yes, I’m sure you did,’ Elaine said laughingly. ‘You must have had better things to think about than my cooking.’
‘It was the only thing that cheered me up,’ Laurel insisted. ‘Darius was in the process of ditching me slowly, the skin grafts weren’t a bundle of joy, and neither was my leg that they’d had to pin all over the place.’
‘I know, my dear,’ Elaine said soothingly. ‘I tisn’t surprising that you’re feeling low with all that has happened to you but, Laurel, it could have been so much worse.’
‘Yes, I know,’ she said flatly, ‘and I really do want to like it here and get fit again. I look such a sight.’
‘Not to me you don’t.’
‘Maybe, but your Dr Trelawney kept looking at me as if I was some peculiar specimen under the microscope. I wish my hair would grow more quickly.’
‘Have patience, Laurel,’ she was told. ‘What has grown so far is still the same beautiful colour.’
‘Yes, the colour of fire,’ she said with a shudder as she ate the food beneath the watchful gaze of her hostess.
‘I think an early night would be a good idea,’ Elaine suggested when they’d tidied up after the meal, ‘but how about a breath of good country air first? Perhaps a short walk through the village, past the surgery where David and I spend our working lives, and where you might be joining us when you feel like going to see James.’
‘Yes, sure,’ she agreed, ‘and if that is where he works, where does he live?’
‘David lives in a small cottage nearby. He’s staying there until he finds a property to buy. I know that he’s house hunting quite seriously but hasn’t mentioned finding anything suitable so far.’
‘And will he be living alone when he does?’ Laurel asked.
‘Yes, as far as I know, unless he has a wife tucked away somewhere, and I doubt that.’
David was returning from his usual nightly stroll to gaze upon his mother’s old home when he saw them coming towards him. Elaine, trim as always in slacks and a smart top, and the strange young woman he’d met at lunchtime still in the same outlandish garb as before that looked totally out of place in the setting.
‘Hello, there,’ he said when they drew level. ‘Have you been showing your niece the sights of Willowmere, Elaine?’
‘Yes, some of them,’ she replied, ‘such as the surgery and your spacious accommodation.’
He smiled. ‘It’s all right for one, two at the most.’
‘And are you still house hunting?
‘Er, yes, sort of. I’ve got something in mind but it won’t be a fast solution.’
He was aware that Elaine’s companion hadn’t spoken at yet another unexpected meeting and thought that maybe now she was established in the village she was keeping a low profile, but he was to discover there was nothing wrong with her vocal cords.
‘I don’t remember thanking you for coming to my rescue when I was getting off the train,’ she said in a less abrupt manner than the one she’d used then.
‘Think nothing of it,’ he said easily, as if the whole episode had been a pleasant break in the day. ‘The main thing is how are you feeling now?’
She smiled and David was struck at the transformation.
‘Improving,’ was the reply, ‘and once Elaine has shown me the lake it’s off to bed for me. It’s been a long day, but not as long as some have been recently.’
As they moved off in opposite directions David was thinking how pale she was. James had said there was a health problem of some kind regarding Elaine’s niece, and he wondered what it was.
CHAPTER TWO
WHEN Laurel awoke the next morning she found herself looking up at an unfamiliar ceiling dappled by a summer sun and for the first few seconds couldn’t think where she was, but not for long.
She was in Elaine’s quiet backwater, she thought, with birdsong the only sound breaking the silence. Recalling how she’d asked her aunt what they did for fun in Willowmere, she wondered why she’d brought up the subject. That kind of thing wasn’t going to be on her agenda with a broken engagement behind her and some unappealing scarring.
But now here she was and glad of it in spite of her lack of enthusiasm for country life. As sleep had stolen over her the night before she’d vowed she was going to make an effort to fit in and if she got the job at the surgery at least she wouldn’t be moping around all day.
‘Does anyone in Willowmere know what happened to me?’ Laurel asked of Elaine as they ate a leisurely breakfast out on the sunny patio.
Her aunt shook her head. ‘No. At the time I was too distressed to talk about it, my beautiful niece caught up in the stupidity of others, and if anyone around here saw it in the papers they wouldn’t see any connection.
‘Right from the start I’ve felt it would be an invasion of your privacy to discuss you with others even though I’ve been bursting with pride every time I thought of what you did. But as far as I’m concerned, that is how it will stay, Laurel. If you should want to tell anyone, that is a different matter.
‘And now what would you like to do today? If you’re not over the moon with our lovely village we can go into the town and shop if you like, but I would rather we saved that sort of thing for when you’ve had some rest and relaxation, which could be in short supply when you’re working at the surgery.’
‘You mean if I’m working there. I’m not exactly spectacular at the moment with a gammy knee that sometimes lets me down and hair that looks as if it’s been cut with a knife and fork.’
‘Nonsense,’ Elaine soothed gently. ‘Your hair is growing back nicely and you’re beautiful with your green eyes and lovely, curvy mouth.’
‘And my rough red hands,’ Laurel reminded her with dry humour. ‘I wear the gloves all the time so that I won’t be mistaken for a domestic drudge.’
‘Get away with you,’ was the response. ‘People around here are very kind and if they knew how you’d got the scarring they would acclaim your courage and dedication to the job. But, as I’ve just said, that is entirely your affair, and as to how we are going to spend your first day away from London, what is it to be, the town or the village?’
‘The village, I think,’ Laurel replied. She would have preferred to go shopping but she knew how much Elaine wanted to show her Willowmere and they could always shop another day.
‘So how about a leisurely stroll and then we’ll have lunch at the Hollyhocks Tea Rooms? It may not be as upmarket as the places where you usually eat, but they won’t be able to beat the food that Emma and her husband serve to their customers.
‘Then if you like I’ll take you to the surgery and introduce you to James. He will want to arrange a time to interview you. Beth Jackson, who is leaving, wants to go as soon as possible. She and her husband are opening a business next to the post office and if you feel the need, by all means wear the gloves, though I do think that you have no call to be so self-conscious about your hands.’
Laurel wasn’t sure about visiting the surgery. ‘Don’t you think that David Trelawney might feel that since arriving here I’ve been continually in his line of vision?’ she said dubiously. ‘At the station, in the garden, when he was driving past on his way to house calls, and at sunset last night.’
‘He’ll be seeing much more of you than that if you’re working at the same place,’ Elaine said laughingly. ‘And how do you know he won’t feel that he can’t get too much of a good thing?’
Laurel couldn’t bring herself to share in Elaine’s amusement. How long, if ever, was it going to be before she felt desirable once more? Each time Darius had visited her in hospital it had been clear that he wasn’t keen on the damaged version, and as she’d fought her way through the pain it had been with her confidence at a very low ebb.
As they walked along the main street Elaine was greeted by everyone they met and Laurel was aware that some curious glances were coming her way, which was not surprising as she was wearing a high-necked sweater, a hat and gloves on a hot summer day.
This is so different from city life, she was thinking as she took in the friendliness of the people. She and her fellow nurses had often commented that in London people were always rushing about, and getting to know one’s next-door neighbour was a rare event, but in Willowmere life seemed to be lived at a slower pace, as if each moment was to be cherished rather than passed quickly by.
It had always been Elaine who had been her visitor before this, staying at the apartment and enjoying every moment with the niece that she loved like a daughter, but now it was Laurel’s turn to leave her natural habitat for a while.
And now here she was, happy to be with the one person who loved her unconditionally, yet feeling totally out of her depth amongst quaint limestone cottages and shops that had an individuality all their own.
‘We passed the surgery last night if you remember,’ Elaine said, indicating a large stone building across the way from where they’d just had an excellent lunch. Noting Laurel’s lack of enthusiasm, she added, ‘Are you sure you want to meet the people who work there?’
‘Yes, of course,’ she said with assumed heartiness, deciding that she may as well get it over with. At least it was only a place for local people with their ailments. There would be no rows of beds or doctors with sombre expressions looking down at her, and nurses treating one of their own with sympathy and efficiency.
She’d been introduced to the two receptionists, both of them middle-aged, pleasant and organised, met the two practice nurses and discovered that it was a delicatessen that Beth Jackson and her husband were going to open very soon at the other end of the main street.
At that moment the door of the nearest consulting room opened and an attractive, dark-haired woman was framed there, holding a baby in her arms. The doctor she’d been consulting was close behind and as she was about to leave he bent and kissed her tenderly.
Laurel’s eyes widened and as Elaine steered her in the opposite direction she explained, ‘That is baby Arran Allardyce come to see his daddy. Ben is helping out while Georgina, his wife, who is one of our regular doctors, is on maternity leave.’
‘I see,’ Laurel said, and wished that she had a man in her life to kiss her like that and a beautiful baby to go with it. Day would turn into night before that ever happened in the light of recent events.
James Bartlett, the senior partner, was all that Elaine had described him to be, pleasant, handsome, a very likeable man with two lovely children if the photograph on his desk was anything to go by, and when they’d been introduced her aunt left them to get acquainted.
She’d removed the hat by then, deciding that if she was going to be employed there it was only fair that the man sitting opposite should see what she really looked like, yet she needn’t have worried. James didn’t seem to see anything too odd about the young woman that Elaine had brought to the surgery. ‘When could you come for an interview, Laurel?’
‘Whenever,’ she replied. ‘My time is my own at present.’
‘Then how about on the afternoon of the day that Elaine returns from the leave that she arranged in honour of your arrival? Say two o’clock?’ As she got up to go he shook her hand and said, ‘We’ll look forward to seeing you then.’
She was missing nursing, but until Elaine had suggested she work at the practice had felt it would be too painful to go back to it. But there was something about this pleasant village health care centre that was reaching out to her…and of course there was David Trelawney. Where was he today?
Yesterday she’d been too frazzled to really register the man who’d come to her rescue when she’d been getting off the train, but now she was curious to see if he was as presentable as she’d thought. It would be nice to see him again now that she was in residence, so to speak, and it would give her the opportunity to express further gratitude for his assistance, but it seemed that it was not to be on this bright summer day, and it did rather take the edge off it.
If she and Elaine had walked a little further she would have had the answer to her question. David’s car was parked outside the village hall. He’d been about to start his home visits when a call had come through and he’d gone straight there to find the chairlady of the Women’s Institute, who were holding their usual monthly meeting on the premises, looking far from well.
She was experiencing severe chest pains, perspiring heavily, and her lips were blue. Before he’d even sounded her heart David was phoning for an ambulance and telling her gently, ‘I’m sending you to hospital, Mrs Tate.’
She nodded. Maisie Tate was no fool. She wouldn’t be chairlady of Willowmere’s branch of the Women’s Institute if she was. She could tell that the new doctor at the practice had her down for a heart attack and she didn’t think he was wrong.
But if that was the case, who was going to look after her husband? Barry always had kippers for tea on a Thursday and she wasn’t going to be able to call at the fishmonger’s on her way home today.
David had finished examining her and as another stab of pain ripped across her chest he said reassuringly, ‘The ambulance will be here any moment, Mrs Tate, and they’ll take you straight to hospital when I’ve had a word with the paramedics.’
The rest of the Women’s Institute was hovering around her anxiously and one of them, who must have known her routine, said, ‘Don’t worry, Maisie. I’ll get your Barry his kippers.’
She nodded and David thought incredulously that this was the age group who’d been brought up to have a meal ready for the man of the house when he came in from work. But surely when he knew what was happening to his wife the absent Barry wouldn’t have any appetite.
As he drove along the main street of the village on his way to the delayed calls he was surprised to see Elaine and Laurel walking slowly along the pavement ahead of him, and as he pulled up alongside them he saw that the short skirt, high heels and sheer tights had been replaced by jeans and sandals.
But the rest of her attire was still strange and he didn’t think it was what the fashion-conscious were wearing for the summer in London. A soft felt hat was completely covering the short red-gold hair and she was still wearing the white cotton gloves.
‘Hello, there, and what are you folks up to on this glorious day?’ he asked with a smile that embraced them both.
‘I’m showing Laurel around the village,’ Elaine replied. ‘We’ve just been to the surgery and she’s been introduced to everyone there. Where were you, though? You were the only one missing, David, although you’ve already met my niece, haven’t you?’
I have indeed, he thought, three times to be exact.
‘Yes,’ he replied with the smile still in place, and went on to explain with his glance on her so-far silent companion, ‘I was out on an emergency call.
‘And how are you this morning, Laurel?’ he said easily, wondering if she was anaemic or something of the kind to be wearing that sort of jumper in the heat of summer.
‘Much better, thank you,’ she said flatly, and he sighed inwardly.
He turned to Elaine. ‘I was called to the village hall where the Women’s Institute are having a meeting and found their chairlady with a suspected heart attack.’
‘Oh! No!’ Elaine exclaimed. ‘That would be Maisie Tate. Poor Maisie!’
‘Yes, it was,’ he replied, and thought he couldn’t imagine her companion having much interest in the ills and ailments of the Willowmere villagers. There was an aloofness about her today and he was curious to know what lay beneath it as he never could resist a challenge.
‘And so what do you think of our beautiful village?’ he asked Laurel.
‘I thought that you were a newcomer too,’ she commented dryly, while comparing his clear-cut attractiveness to the wavy dark hair and fashionable stubble of Darius, who’d not wanted her any more because he’d seen the scarring and been revolted…
It wasn’t a situation that would ever occur with this man, she thought with a rush of blood. There would never be an occasion when he saw her minus clothing and…where had such an idea come from anyway?
He was smiling at the comment and she thought how likeable he was as he said, ‘I am a newcomer in one way, yet I feel as if Willowmere has always been part of me. Sometimes we find the place of our dreams and are given the opportunity to live there and that is what I intend to do when I’ve found a house.’
There was no mention of a woman in his life, Laurel noticed, which was incredible, but the odds were that there would be one tucked away somewhere, or relegated to the past for some reason.