‘Yes, if I’m invited. I wouldn’t want to intrude.’
It wouldn’t be the first Christmas she’d spent alone. At St Gabriel’s she’d always offered to work so that staff with families could be with them.
It went without saying that babies ready to leave the womb were no respecters of holiday times, so someone had to be there to welcome them when they decided to put in an appearance. Even here in Willowmere there might be a birth on Christmas Day or thereabouts.
‘Of course you are invited,’ he said stiffly, and because she’d been so downbeat about it added perversely, ‘The more the merrier. I know two small mortals who will be most disappointed if you’re not there.’
‘And that’s it?’
‘No, of course not! I’ll be disappointed too, Lizzie.’
‘Then I’d better be there, hadn’t I?’
‘Yes,’ he said steadily, ‘you had, but Christmas is some weeks off. The next event in the village is the bonfire this coming Saturday. Everyone turns out for that. The Women’s Institute excel themselves with the food on that occasion and the Scouts and Guides help out, with their leaders in charge of the fireworks.’
‘Sounds good.’
‘Yes, it is.’ He was beckoning the waiter over to settle the bill and as she waited Lizzie thought what a strange evening it had been. First the disconcerting question about her sex life, or lack of it, then a half-hearted invitation to his Christmas party, and lastly he’d been describing the village bonfire in terms glowing as the fire itself, like a salesman on a front doorstep.
As they got up to go James had a sickening feeling that the evening had not been the success he’d hoped for, and he was to blame. He’d talked about everything except the feelings close to his heart, and Lizzie must think he was deranged.
She had no idea how she’d been arousing his senses in the smart black dress that revealed the smooth skin of her neck and shoulders. He’d seen quite a bit of her on another occasion when she’d been in his bed, cuddling Pollyanna, but at the time he’d been too harassed over Jolyon’s accident and Polly’s distress to take note. However, it had registered in his subconscious.
But tonight it was different. He’d been keen to be alone with her and what had he done? Started off by asking Lizzie about her sex life, like some interfering therapist.
Then just as they had been finishing the meal he’d started to eulogise about the bonfire as if Lizzie would never have seen a pile of wood burning brightly on a November night, when all the time what he should have been doing was telling her how much he wanted her in his life…for always.
There was silence between them again as he drove them back to the village and James thought if she asked him in it would be surprising, yet surprising it was.
‘Do you want to come in for a coffee?’ she asked, standing in the open door of the cottage.
‘No,’ he replied abruptly, and she stepped back as if he’d struck her, ‘but I’ll come in for this.’ Stepping over the threshold, he took her in his arms and kissed her brow, her lips and the hollow of her throat until she was clinging to him in total abandonment.
‘What was that for?’ she gasped when at last he let her go.
He smiled. ‘It was to make up for the opportunities I’ve missed tonight, and now I’m going before I carry you upstairs and we let the chemistry between us really take over. Or are you of the opinion that there isn’t any, that I’m mistaken?’
‘I don’t know what I think,’ she said weakly. ‘My life has changed so much since I came to Willowmere my mind is in a whirl. The only people who have needed me in the last few years have been my patients, for obvious reasons, but now it is all changing and, James, I think that I need you more than you need me. You are surrounded by people who love and respect you, and you must have been happy enough since you lost your wife or you would have done something about it. Do you really want to change all that?’
‘What do you mean?’ he said stiffly. ‘Do you honestly think it has been easy? My priorities have always been my children and the practice. But as you’ve just said, one’s life can change unexpectedly and then it’s decision time, but it sounds to me as if you’re trying to talk me out of falling in love with you. That you don’t want to break out of the safe cocoon that you’ve wrapped around you, and so you’re reminding me of what a good life I’ve got.’
He sighed, running his fingers through his dark hair. ‘Lizzie. It’s us I’m talking about at this moment. Think about what I’ve said, will you?’ With that he opened the door and went out into the night.
As the door swung to behind him she leant against it weakly. Why had she got this mania of wanting to be so sure that James wanted her for herself alone and for no other reason? After the way he’d kissed her she should have no doubts on that score, and yet she’d ended up by trying to dissuade him from changing their relationship from friends into lovers.
Now it was her turn to sigh for the complexities of her thoughts as she went slowly up to bed, knowing there would be little sleep to escape into after what had just happened.
When Olivia Derringham arrived for her Thursday morning voluntary help in the clinic she asked, ‘Are you all right, Lizzie? You look pale.’
She managed a smile. Pale was how she felt, pale and pathetic. The man she’d been drawn to since their moment of meeting had offered her a glimpse of heaven on earth the night before, and she’d been dithering like a frightened virgin.
There would be no chance to talk to him alone in the next few days unless she made a big thing of it, but on Saturday after the bonfire she was going to tell him how much she cared, hoping that he hadn’t taken her humming and hawing too much to heart. In the meantime there were babies to weigh and mothers to advise on feeding and teething, and for those who were waiting to be blessed with a newborn the meticulous checks for such things as rising blood pressure, diabetes and other complications of pregnancy.
Thankfully, and it wasn’t always the case, it was a smooth run and, when lunchtime came she went across to the surgery kitchen to make a mug of tea to drink with the sandwich she’d brought. Hoping at the same time that she might see James.
But as if she’d read her mind, as she was passing the nurses’ room Laurel said that he’d gone on an urgent visit to someone staying at The Pheasant who’d developed severe chest pains and couldn’t get his breath.
‘Yes,’ David chipped in from behind her. ‘A couple of elderly walking fanatics are booked in there for a few days and it sounds as if the old guy has been overdoing it.’ Then he said the same thing that Helen had said. ‘You look pale, Lizzie. Are you all right?’
‘I’m fine in body,’ she told him, ‘but the mind is a bit cluttered at the moment.’
‘Anything I can help with?’ he asked.
She shook her head. ‘No, thanks just the same, David. It is something I have to sort out myself.’
The man that James had been called out to needed an ambulance with all speed, he decided when he entered a chintzy bedroom beneath the eaves of The Pheasant. He was gasping for breath, perspiring heavily, and there was froth on his blue lips.
When James sounded his heart it was beating fast and irregularly and he reached for his mobile and made the call to the emergency services, thinking as he did so that it had all the signs of a heart attack except for the frothiness of his lips, which could indicate some kind of poisoning.
The sick man’s wife was waiting anxiously beside the bed and when he’d finished phoning she said, ‘Is it his heart, Doctor?’
‘It could be,’ he said gravely. ‘All the symptoms are there, including the blueness around the mouth, but I’m not sure about the frothiness. Has your husband eaten anything that could have poisoned his system this morning?’
There was horror in her expression as she listened to what he was saying and she gasped, ‘We were up on the tops first thing among the gorse and heather and we saw what looked as if there were some wildberries still around, and as I’ve often ma
de a fruit tart with them he gathered some and ate them, even though I warned him that they weren’t growing as close to the ground as they usually do. So maybe he was mistaken, is that what you’re saying?’
‘It’s possible,’ he said with continuing gravity, ‘and whatever they were may have poisoned him.’
The screeching of a siren announced that the ambulance had arrived, and as he heard them come in down below he went to the top of the stairs and called, ‘Up here, quickly!’
When they appeared he explained briefly the possibility of poisoning from unidentified wildberries, and after giving him oxygen to help his breathing and checking his blood pressure, as James had already done, they carried him quickly to the ambulance and set off in the quiet morning, with his wife ashen-faced beside him and sirens blaring once more.
James headed back to the surgery, glancing towards Lizzie’s domain as he went to his room, but he didn’t knock on her door, much as he would have liked to. Every one of the events of the night before were crystal clear and every time he thought about her, passionate and unresisting in his arms, he longed to hold her close again, but there was the aftermath of that passion to consider and he didn’t know how he would cope if he couldn’t have her. She had brightened his life and loved his children almost as much as he did. Until last night he’d seen the way ahead clearly, but Lizzie’s hesitancy had shattered the dream and he was going to stay away from her until she was ready to tell him truthfully what was in her mind.
As she got ready to go to the bonfire on Saturday night Lizzie was wondering if James would be expecting her to be there after Wednesday night. She’d spent the afternoon in the nearest town, doing some clothes shopping to take her mind off what she was going to say when she saw him, and the thought kept recurring that it wasn’t going to be the most romantic setting in which to tell him that she loved him, with fireworks screeching above, the fire cracking noisily beside them and the children close by, but for some perverse reason she didn’t care. It would be easier in a public place, and she wasn’t exactly going to be making the announcement over the loudspeaker system.
Dressing in a warm sweater with a thick jacket over it, and jeans, boots and a woolly hat on her head, she thought that her attire was very different from Wednesday night’s. She doubted it would have the same effect on James as that had.
When she stepped out of the cottage into the cold night air there were lots of people about, all moving in the direction of the playing field in the park that ran alongside the river bank, and she thought that this was what living in the countryside was all about—a feeling of community, a common interest.
She loved this place, but she loved the man who had held her in his arms on Wednesday night more. She loved his children too, and would count it a rich blessing to be part of their lives. But first she had to find out if James had really meant the things he’d said the last time they were together.
When she arrived at the bonfire there were so many people there that she had difficulty finding him and the children. Sarah was there with her fiancé, happily looking forward to the wedding that had been put forward to next Saturday, and she saw Jess in the crowd with her sturdy farmer’s son and wondered if he would persuade her to emigrate like he wanted to.
A voice behind her in the crowd asked, ‘Are you looking for James?’ When she turned Helen was there, holding a tray of parkin and smiling her welcome for the woman who she hoped was going to be the new mistress of Bracken House.
Unaware of the direction of the housekeeper’s thoughts, Lizzie nodded, knowing she wouldn’t be heard above the noise, and the other woman pointed to the far end of the field and she saw that James was there with the children on either side of him.
When she was just a few feet away Jolyon saw her and cried, ‘There’s Lizzie.’ And when Polly heard him she let go of James’s hand and came running towards her, with Jolyon following at a slower pace. As Lizzie took their hands in turn and began to walk towards him, James watched her gravely.
‘Hello, there,’ he said in the kind of tone he’d used when they’d first met, and her spirits sank as she thought, Is this how it is going to be, back to square one?
But there was no sign of her inner doubts as she called a casual ‘Hello’ across the intervening space.
‘How long have you been here?’ he asked.
‘Only a matter of minutes,’ she replied as the three of them joined him a safe distance away from the fire. ‘What a crowd!’
‘There always is,’ he told her. A firework exploded into bright stars high above them. ‘A lot of work goes into it by the Willowmere Events Committee, and it’s the same at Christmas.’
She didn’t want to be involved in all this small talk, Lizzie was thinking. She wanted to talk about them, and as the numbers increased of those around the fire she was deciding that it hadn’t been a good idea to contemplate telling James that she loved him on an occasion such as this.
They could have talked at Bracken House or the cottage, but she’d wanted it to be on neutral ground, and as she looked around her she thought it couldn’t be more neutral than this.
As the children watched the spectacle goggle-eyed, James said in a low voice, ‘So why are you here, Lizzie? Is it to finish your downbeat comments of the other night?’
‘No,’ she told him quietly. ‘As far as I’m concerned, what I have to say is as upbeat as it can get.’ Her gaze locked with his, and she said, with eyes melting with love for him, ‘I’ve come to tell you…’
Her voice trailed away as above the noise of the bonfire a voice cried, ‘James! Surprise! Surprise! We’re back!’ A woman who’d been pushing her way through the crowd, with a man who was deeply tanned by her side, flung herself into James’s arms, while Polly and Jolly clung to her skirts, crying excitedly, ‘Anna!’
Aware of how much joy the moment was bringing, and that James had forgotten she was there in that moment of reunion, Lizzie stepped back into the shadow of the bushes, and as the cries of delight continued to ring out she slipped away, deciding that such moments were to be treasured by the family concerned without strangers hanging around.
She saw Helen again as she was leaving, talking to Jess and her boyfriend, and stopped to inform them that Anna was home from Africa, then went on her way with their delighted cries ringing in her ears too. She felt more alone than she’d ever been in her life before.
It had been a repetition of that time in the hospital when she’d been feeling secure in James’s need of her and Helen and Jess had arrived and unwittingly brought her back down to earth.
How could she have ever imagined herself as part of that secure, loving family circle that she’d just witnessed? she thought as she sat in her sitting room, staring into space, with the noise of the fireworks in the distance. She hadn’t been wrong when she’d told James that he didn’t need her as much as she needed him.
Lizzie didn’t see anything of James and the children over the rest of the weekend, but didn’t expect to. They would all have lots to talk about and Anna and Glenn would have to settle in again after their absence from the place where she and James had been brought up.
The children would be so happy and excited to have their aunt back, she thought, which was only right as Anna had put her own life on hold to fill the gap that the death of their mother had left in theirs when they had been only a few weeks old.
From the way she’d greeted them it seemed reasonable to expect that she would want to take up where she’d left off, the only difference being that her sacrifices hadn’t been in vain. Anna had at last been reunited with and married the only man she’d ever loved, and it made Lizzie think that James had only ever loved one person too and probably still did, which made how he’d kissed her, and what he’d said to her, seem even more like just a moment of madness.
She was wrong in thinking that James wouldn’t notice her absence. As Anna had released him from her embrace to hold the children close in those moments of homecoming, he’d tu
rned to introduce Lizzie to the unexpected arrivals and saw that she’d gone.
He’d groaned silently, saying nothing that would take away the joy of their homecoming for his sister and her husband, but there was the knowledge that Lizzie had been prevented from finishing what she had to say to him, and that was the last thing he would have wanted to happen as it could have been the words he’d been longing to hear.
But instead she’d left the scene as if she’d felt like an intruder, and she would never be that. At the first opportunity he was going to tell her so in no uncertain terms.
He’d waited so long for someone like her to come into his life that he could not afford to lose her, but for the present there was Anna bubbling over with happiness to be back, with Glenn watching over her adoringly, and for a little while he was going to put his own affairs on the back burner until the right moment occurred. He was determined to make sure it wasn’t long in coming.
CHAPTER TEN
DAVID TRELAWNEY’S new wife, Laurel, had come into the practice as a temporary nurse on the arrangement that it might be just until Anna came back. Before she’d married Glenn Hamilton there had been two nurses at the practice—Beth Jackson, who had been full time, and Anna on part-time hours because of her involvement with the children.
When she’d gone to work in Africa with Glenn, Gillian had taken her place on a full-time basis, and shortly afterwards another vacancy had occurred when Beth had left to open a delicatessen in the village with her husband, and a very successful venture it was turning out to be.
It was then that Laurel, who had previously been a nurse in a big London hospital, had joined the practice and in the days that followed Anna’s return she was anxious to find out what was going to happen.
If Anna wanted her job back on a full-time arrangement, which she might, then she, Laurel, would not be required. Witnessing the other woman’s pleasure in returning to the place where she’d put down her roots seemed to indicate that job hunting might soon be on the cards for herself, and she didn’t want that.
Country Midwife, Christmas Bride Page 13