Country Midwife, Christmas Bride

by Abigail Gordon

  ‘No,’ she replied, ‘and if you saw Willowmere and the new clinic you would understand why.’

  And what about the handsome widower by your side, doesn’t he have anything to do with it? he thought, but Lizzie was Lizzie and since she’d lost her husband she’d never shown interest in anyone else.

  As they were about to pull out of the hospital car park a few minutes later James said, ‘What is your guess about the bleeding?’

  ‘Placenta praevia? The placenta is too low and blocking the uterus?’

  ‘Hmm, great minds think alike. We’ll have to see what Meredith comes up with, though.’

  ‘Yes, of course. I’ve just told Kirsten’s mother that he is the best. Giles is a friend as well as a colleague. He was there for me at a very bad time in my life.’

  There was silence as James waited for her to continue satisfying his curiosity, but it seemed as if that was to be his crumb for today and he didn’t pursue it.

  Yet it seemed that there was another little snippet of information coming his way from the woman who had appeared in his life and was making the road he was used to travelling seem rigid and unexciting.

  Lizzie was pointing to a block of apartments opposite the hospital. ‘You see the one with the ‘For Sale’ sign? It’s mine. That’s why I’m renting the cottage near the peace garden. I can’t buy a place in Willowmere until it’s sold.’

  ‘I see,’ he said slowly. ‘So you were even nearer the job here than you are now. Did you never find it rather suffocating?’

  ‘Occasionally maybe, but I needed somewhere to live and it was convenient.’

  ‘Do you want to go across to check that everything is secure? There might be some mail.’

  ‘I rarely get mail,’ she told him evenly, ‘but, yes, I suppose I could while I’m here, though I’ve only been gone a week. Do you want to come with me, or wait in the car?’

  There was only one answer to that, James thought. His curiosity wasn’t going to let him stay where he was, though he couldn’t see an empty apartment providing any clues about Lizzie’s life before Willowmere.

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ he replied.

  As he stepped over the threshold he saw immediately that it was a modern, soulless sort of place, the kind where one could go weeks without seeing another resident. But maybe after a long hectic day on the maternity wards it was what Lizzie had felt she needed.

  Everything was intact, and as she’d thought there was no mail. As if reading his mind, she said, ‘It’s a far cry from where I’m living now, isn’t it?’

  He could hardly disagree with that. ‘Yes, I suppose it is, and if it is solitude you want you won’t get much of that in Willowmere where we all look out for each other.’ Unable to resist the opportunity, he asked, ‘But why, Lizzie? What has life done to you to make you feel like that?’

  It was a beautiful day but her smile was wintry as she told him, ‘I’ll tell you some time, and hope that you of all people will understand, but at the moment I’m starving. Can I treat you to breakfast somewhere?’

  I’m all for stopping to eat,’ he agreed, taking the hint, ‘but if you want to be independent, how about fifty-fifty?’

  ‘No. You had Helen feed me the other day if you remember, so now it’s my turn.’

  Her manner was more relaxed now and he thought that Lizzie would be even more beautiful with the long fair plait, expressive eyes and fine-boned slenderness if she was cherished and content instead of the solitary woman that she seemed to be. But maybe she preferred her completely independent life.

  ‘Is there a Mr Williams?’ she asked as they drove around, looking for somewhere to eat. ‘I got the impression without anyone actually saying so that there wasn’t.’

  He nodded. ‘You could be right. I’ve not been called out to the farm often over the years, and when I have been I’ve only ever seen Loretta Williams and Kirsten there, as if the mother runs the place herself. There’s no Mr Williams registered with us. But it’s isolated up there. If that is the case one would expect Loretta to be able to drive, unless the fellow who waved to us has a car and lives in.’

  Unaware that just a few moments ago James had been taking stock of her, while they’d been discussing the absent husband Lizzie had been thinking that his eyes were so amazingly blue the tiny creases round them were barely visible, and though he had a strong jaw line, his mouth was kind, and when she saw that he was observing her questioningly she said to change the subject, ‘Were the children still asleep when you phoned me about Kirsten?’

  ‘No, as I left Helen was giving them their breakfast. When they heard me say I would pick you up they wanted to come with me, which they couldn’t, of course, so to take their minds off it I promised to let them stay up late tonight.

  ‘They’re a handful sometimes, but they’re good kids. Polly is the easy one to cope with, what you see is what you get with my small daughter, but Jolly is a different matter and doesn’t always live up to his name. Yet they get on well together in spite of the difference in their personalities.’

  He found a parking space and pulled in. ‘They have no mother as Jolly was quick to inform you when we met outside the Hollyhocks on the day of Laurel and David’s wedding, but as well as having me there all the time they have Jess and Helen, and my sister, Anna, who will shortly be coming home from Africa, adores them, and that being so we do the best we can. Right, this isn’t appeasing our hunger, is it? Shall we go and find the nearest eating place that is serving breakfast?’

  As they ate together in a café in the town centre Lizzie was experiencing a feeling of unreality. It was as if the clinic was something in the background and the man seated opposite was the reason why she’d come to Willowmere, which was crazy.

  She needed Monday morning to come quickly, she thought, so that the job she loved would fill her thoughts instead of the village doctor that she was seeing so much more of than she’d expected. Her career had been her lifeline over the last three years and she wanted it to stay that way.

  James was just part of the package, she told herself, but when she looked up from the cooked breakfast she’d ordered to find him observing her thoughtfully she could feel her face warming.

  ‘What?’ she asked uneasily.

  He smiled. ‘I was thinking that you might be feeling that I’m crowding you a bit, that you haven’t come up for air since you came to the village. Lizzie, did you have any regrets while we were at St Gabriel’s with the chance to compare the two? It registered that Giles Meredith would like to have you back.’

  ‘That was just Giles,’ she said, regaining her composure, ‘and you heard what I said to him, didn’t you? That if he saw the village and the clinic he would know there was no chance.’

  She wasn’t to know that Giles would have put the man sitting opposite at the top of her list of reasons for liking the place if he’d been asked.

  Her response to James’s first question was slower and she sensed he guessed what was going through her mind. ‘No, I don’t feel overwhelmed by you, certainly not with regard to the job,’ she told him, ‘but I’ve been out of circulation in every other way for quite some time, my own choice by the way, and am not sure how much I want to have to polish up my social graces to get back into it.’

  It was only half the story, she thought sombrely, but she wasn’t going to open up her heart to a man she’d only just met, even if he was as kind and charismatic as this one.

  His brow was clearing. ‘That’s all right, then. Just as long as I’m not crowding your space. By the way, when the children heard me on the phone to you this morning Polly said, “Is it the lady with the blue shoes?” I can see that you will have to keep your eye on them or she’ll be asking if she can add them to her collection.’

  ‘I’d already decided to give them to her as they aren’t very comfortable,’ she told him. ‘Yet I can’t do that without finding something for Jolyon too. As soon as I do, she can have them.’

  ‘I can’t let you do
that!’ he exclaimed. ‘If I remember rightly, they looked expensive and I don’t want Polly to think she can coax them off you.’

  Lizzie felt her cheeks start to warm again. There must be those of her sex who would like to take the reluctant widower to the altar and saw his children as a means of getting him there.

  She shuddered to think that he might suspect that the newcomer to Willowmere came into that category, and her calling him out to the bull that had been a cow came to mind.

  James had already finished eating and when she pushed her plate to one side, having suddenly lost her appetite, he said, ‘Are we ready to go, then? Helen said there was no need for me to rush back, but I don’t want to be too long as she looks forward to her weekends.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, getting to her feet, and went to pay for the food before he could intervene.

  There was silence between them on the journey back to Willowmere, with Lizzie feeling that the least said the soonest mended, and James wondering why what he’d said about Pollyanna and the shoes should create coolness between them. The last thing he wanted was for Lizzie to feel that she had to bring gifts for his children.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  WHEN they arrived back in Willowmere James stopped the car in front of Bracken House and said, ‘I’ll let Helen know I’m back before I drop you off at your place.’

  At the same second that he got out of the car the front door opened and Pollyanna and Jolyon came running down the path, crying excitedly, ‘Daddy! Are we going to the park?’

  Lizzie felt envy rise in her throat like bile. If only her baby had been spared, she thought, holding back tears. It would have given some sort of purpose to her life.

  When James went to greet them he held out his arms, and as they ran into the circle of them she turned away, surprised at the wave of emotion that such a simple gesture had caused.

  When she turned back the three of them were approaching, and she swung her legs out of the car and stood waiting for them to draw level, ashamed at being envious of the life James had made for himself and his children. She dredged up a smile.

  He was some man, this country doctor, she thought. He had to be for him to be making such an impression on someone like herself, who had jaundiced views on almost everything except maternity care.

  It couldn’t be easy with a busy practice to run, as well as bringing his children up on his own in a stable family home, and with no one to turn to for comfort in the dark hours of the night. But it seemed as if that was the life he had chosen for himself and he seemed content enough.

  The children were observing her curiously, Pollyanna smiling and bright-eyed and Jolyon with a youthful gravity that made her want to sweep him up into her arms and kiss away his frowns.

  ‘We always go to the country park by the river on Saturday mornings,’ James explained into the silence that had fallen upon them. ‘There is a safe children’s play area, a pond covered in waterlilies, where the heron rules the roost, and lots of wildlife all over the place that are attracted by the river.’

  ‘We take bread for the ducks as well,’ Pollyanna explained.

  ‘Mmm! It sounds like great fun,’ Lizzie told her, suitably impressed. ‘I’ll have to go and see the park for myself one day.’ She looked at James. ‘So why don’t you go now? There is no need to drop me off at the cottage—it’s only minutes away.’

  ‘If you come with us you can see the ducks and the swings and everything now,’ Pollyanna said, her quicksilver mind leaping ahead.

  ‘Lizzie might have other things to do, Polly,’ James said in mild reproof.

  ‘If I have, they can wait,’ Lizzie said, smiling down onto the little girl’s upturned face, unable to resist. ‘That would be lovely, as long as you don’t mind me tagging along, James.’

  ‘Of course not,’ he said easily. ‘It will be someone to chat to while the children feed the ducks and play on the swings. I’ll just pop inside to thank Helen for holding the fort and wish her a pleasant rest of the weekend, and then we’ll be off.’

  As soon as she’d agreed to join them Lizzie wished she hadn’t, but she couldn’t resist Pollyanna’s suggestion and when it seemed as if James had no problem with her joining them the idea had taken hold of her. But now as they approached the park beneath a mellow sun she wasn’t so sure. She was going to be butting in on one of the children’s weekend treats and James would have invited her along out of politeness.

  Yet those doubts were soon laid to rest when they arrived at the play area of the park. Pollyanna was up the steps to the top of the slide within seconds, but Jolyon stood watching, instead of following his sister.

  James had gone to catch her at the other end and the cautious member of the twosome asked, ‘Will you come down the slide with me, please?’

  ‘Oh…yes, of course I will,’ Lizzie told him, the urge to hold him close coming over her again. ‘If you get on first, I’ll sit behind you and hold you tight.’

  When James looked up after catching Pollyanna at the bottom and saw them coming down, his eyes widened, and before he could say anything Jolyon was pulling on Lizzie’s hand the moment they were back on their feet and crying, ‘Again!’

  ‘Incredible!’ his father in a low voice as his son raced back up the steps. ‘I can’t count the number of times I’ve tried to get Jolly to come down the slide with me when he didn’t want to come down on his own, but he’s such a cautious child.’ His glance took in Lizzie’s slenderness. ‘He was always afraid I would get stuck between the two sides.’

  ‘Lady!’ Jolyon was shouting from the platform up above, and James frowned.

  ‘You’ll have to excuse him, but he doesn’t know your name, does he? What do you suggest the children call you?’

  ‘Just Lizzie. I don’t mind.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ he called as she began to climb the steps.

  ‘Yes, I’m sure,’ she replied, smiling down at him.

  The two of them had been down the slide at least a dozen times and now Jolyon was sliding down on his own, and as James came striding across from where he’d been pushing Pollyanna on the swings he said laughingly, ‘There’s an ice-cream van over there. Can I buy you a cornet as a token of my appreciation for the way you’ve helped Jolly to conquer his fears?’

  Her eyes were sparkling, her mouth tender, and he thought that she was beautiful when she was happy, and happy Lizzie had been while they’d played with the children. She would make some child a lovely mother, but was there a man in her life?

  There was no sign so far, despite the wedding ring. He supposed he could sound Giles Meredith out about it, but he wouldn’t do that. It would be an invasion of her privacy and there was nothing to say that Giles would be willing to satisfy his curiosity if he did.

  They’d fed the ducks that had been out of the water and on the river bank in a flash when the children began to throw the bread. Had watched the heron bend its long neck before dipping its beak in the lily pond and coming up with a flapping fish, and now it was time to go.

  The children were hot and hungry, ready for their lunch, and Lizzie was starting to feel as if she’d been around long enough as a result of Pollyanna’s impulsive invitation. For all she knew, James might be putting up with her company on sufferance just to please the children.

  As she was about to say goodbye Jolyon’s solemn blue gaze fixed on her and he said, ‘Will you come and play with us again?’

  Before she could reply Pollyanna enquired, ‘Have you got any boys and girls?’ And now it was James who seemed to be watching her intently.

  ‘No. I haven’t got any children,’ she told her, ‘and, yes, I’d love to play with you both again, Jolyon, but it will depend on what your daddy says. My name is Lizzie, by the way, and I’m a nurse, the kind that helps babies to be born.’

  She sent James a smile. ‘I don’t want to intrude in your lives. I’m going, James. I’ll see you on Monday with flags flying and doors open at the new centre. All I need now are some patients.�
�

  ‘They’ll be there,’ he promised, ‘enough to keep you fully occupied. You might be glad of some help from Lady D. Enjoy what’s left of the weekend, Lizzie.’

  ‘We’d like a baby to love, wouldn’t we, Jolly?’ Pollyanna said, halting Lizzie in her tracks. ‘Could you get us one? But you need a mummy for a baby, don’t you, and we haven’t got one.’

  ‘That might be a bit difficult, then. I think that you’d better talk to your daddy about it,’ she told her gently, and she glanced at James, who was observing his daughter with raised brows. ‘Over to you, Dr Bartlett.’

  As she let herself into the cottage Lizzie was smiling, even though she knew she was doing the very thing she’d always vowed not to, but how could she resist those children? They were so different, so enchanting, but she had a feeling that the pleasure of spending time with them would be short-lived.

  There must have been lots of willing members of her own sex eager to be a second mother to them and a new wife to their father, but it was clear that like herself James had no inclinations of that sort. So she couldn’t see an invitation to go to the park with them being repeated, and in any case it had been Pollyanna’s idea, not his. He’d gone along with it because his small daughter had put him on the spot.

  She spent the rest of the weekend washing, ironing and unpacking her belongings, and on Sunday morning rang St Gabriel’s to check on Kirsten. They confirmed that it was placenta praevia that was causing the bleeding. That was the bad news. The good news was that it had stopped and the placenta was almost back where it should be, but they had no intention of sending her home until they were satisfied there was no danger to mother or baby.

  Lizzie wasn’t going to disagree with that. For one thing Kirsten had been her patient previously and might soon be again if she transferred to the new clinic, and she had all the sympathy in the world for young girls who were left to cope alone with the results of teenage hormones.