Spring Proposal in Swallowbrook

by Abigail Gordon

  Don’t let it spoil the pleasure of being back here, she told herself.

  Soon it would be spring and everywhere would come alive as it always had before. The lake would be filled with launches and small boats and the fells would be beckoning the climbers and walkers who couldn’t resist them onto their rugged slopes. But best of all there would be the practice and knowing that she was back in the place that had wrapped itself around her and held her close when her world had fallen apart.

  When she came out of the apartment the next morning Hugo was about to pull out of the drive and he wound the car window down to ask if she wanted a lift to the surgery.

  She flashed him a smile but shook her head, ‘No. I’m fine, thank you, Dr Lawrence. I’m still in a state of delight to be back here and will enjoy the short walk.’

  It was true she would, but the main reason she’d refused the lift was because she didn’t want Hugo Lawrence to feel that his reluctant overseeing of her welfare had to continue.

  She was up and running, ready for any challenge that came her way in the new life she had chosen for herself, just as long as she could put on hold the interest he had awakened in her from the moment of their meeting.

  About to drive off, he said as a parting comment, ‘We’ll have to sort out you taking over the spare car at the surgery that I mentioned. Can’t have you without transport, even though you do enjoy walking everywhere.’

  ‘Yes, when you’re ready,’ she agreed obediently, and off he went.

  Hugo’s face was set in solemn lines as he pulled up on the forecourt of the practice. What was the matter with him, he was thinking, fussing over this young doctor to such a degree? Had the time he’d spent looking after the needs of his sister and her children turned him into a control freak? The void he’d lived in for the last eighteen months was opening up and life was going to be good again, if he would let it.

  If Ruby Hollister had turned up smartly dressed and brimming with confidence on Saturday he wouldn’t have given her a second thought, but it was as if she’d appeared in his life for a reason, and of one thing he was sure, it was not going to be as someone to fill the gap.

  She could sort herself out in future. He would keep his distance, and no sooner had that determination been born than he remembered the supper party at Libby and Nathan’s that evening.

  Unaware of his thought processes, Ruby sought him out before the morning got under way and said, ‘I’m on my own today with instructions to ask any of the three of you if I have any problems, but as I’m sure that you must feel you’ve already seen enough of me and my problems I’ll avoid troubling you further and will consult either Libby or Nathan.’

  ‘Sure,’ he said easily. ‘Whatever you’re happy with, Ruby, and by the way, do you still want to know about the patient with septicaemia?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ she said promptly. ‘I want to know about everything and everyone in this place.’ And into the silence that followed came the thought, You in particular.

  ‘Right, then,’ he said briskly. ‘Jeremy Jones is the village postman and I have never seen an infection develop more quickly than the one he’s got. He was sawing up wood for the open fire in his cottage with a rusty saw and it slipped and gashed his leg quite badly.

  ‘Instead of getting it seen to in a proper manner to prevent any complications, he has been bathing it with all sorts of old remedies, typical of an elderly bachelor who thought he knew best, and didn’t.

  ‘He called me out last Friday and I put him on antibiotics immediately with instructions to call out the emergency services over the weekend if it worsened before the medication had a chance to kick in and the dreaded red line of septicaemia appeared.

  ‘Jeremy decided to wait until Monday morning when one of us was available, but before he could get in touch I called to see him on my way here, if you remember, and from then on it was all systems go to get him into hospital. I’m afraid that he might lose the leg through nothing more than his own negligence as he hadn’t taken the medication I’d prescribed.’

  ‘How could he have been so foolish with all the facilities of the NHS at his disposal?’ she exclaimed.

  ‘Yes, exactly,’ he agreed, and as the big hand of the surgery clock swung on to half past eight Ruby went into her own small room and picking up a patient’s notes from the top of a small pile on the desk went to find him.

  There were a few surprised glances when she appeared in the doorway of the waiting room and as she smiled upon them she wondered how many of them would shy away from consulting a doctor of her obvious youthfulness.

  But the spotty teenage youth who got to his feet in answer to his name didn’t care who he was being seen by as long as they could do something to put an end to the misery that a face covered in pimples was causing him.

  ‘I’ve come about these zits,’ he said awkwardly. ‘I can’t face going anywhere with my skin like this and I don’t know what to do about it.’

  Ruby flashed him a friendly smile. ‘Maybe you don’t, Dominic, but I do. You’ve come to the right place. It is acne that you’ve got, the teenage blight.

  ‘It will have started by blackheads appearing, am I right?’ He nodded sombrely. ‘Then the blackheads became zits, and if those zits aren’t treated they will become cysts that are infected with bacteria made up of dead skin and white blood cells, known as cystic acne, which can leave permanent scars. So we need to sort this out quickly as your problem is moving in that direction.’

  He had gone very pale. What he was suffering from was every teenager’s nightmare. The embarrassment of it would be unbearable.

  ‘I’m going to put you on an antibiotic capsule that is very good for this sort of skin infection. It should attack the bacteria, reduce the inflammation, and prevent it from progressing into what I’ve just described.’

  He was smiling for the first time. ‘That’s great! You’ve no idea how much it’s been affecting me.’

  ‘Yes, well, you’ll have to be patient, you know.’ she told him sympathetically. ‘The problem isn’t going to disappear overnight, but you should soon see an improvement. Come and see me again in a couple of weeks.’

  When he’d gone with less of the attitude of the ‘leper’ in his manner Ruby thought that no matter what age group there was always some health problem that could arise. She knew that only too well from what Robbie had to endure and his was for always, just the same as hers was.

  With regard to her first patient of the day his problem should clear up with the right medication and when his body had adjusted to the changes of adolescence.

  When the doctors stopped for a brief coffee break in the middle of the morning Libby appeared to say that it was the antenatal clinic in the afternoon that she was usually in charge of, but not today as she had an appointment of that nature herself at the hospital on the lakeside. So Hugo would be taking it instead and she, Ruby, along with one of the practice nurses, would be assisting him.

  ‘Have you done anything like that before?’ she asked with a smile for the young doctor who was now part of the practice.

  ‘I haven’t done antenatal as such,’ Ruby said slowly at the thought of being enclosed with Hugo for a full afternoon, ‘but I spent a month on a maternity ward during my hospital training.’

  ‘And how did you find that? Was it enjoyable?’ Libby asked.

  ‘Yes and no,’ was the reply. ‘The feeling of responsibility in helping to bring a new life into the world was awesome and sometimes quite terrifying if complications were present.’

  Surprised at the intensity of feeling in her voice Libby said, ‘There shouldn’t be anything like that today, Ruby. It will be mainly straightforward check-ups on our mothers-to-be and if Hugo finds anything that he is concerned about it will be straight to hospital for the patient.’

  ‘Dr Lawr
ence was very kind when I arrived so unexpectedly,’ she said as Libby was about to go back to her own room, ‘but once I’d recovered from the traumas of Saturday I did feel that I had spoilt his weekend as he seems to be a very private person.’

  ‘Hugo gave up a position in general practice down south to move to Swallowbrook when his sister’s husband died suddenly and she was in a dreadful state, unable to look after herself or her two children properly. He’s just come to the end of a gruelling eighteen months that seemed as if it might go on for ever, until Patrice met an old friend over from Canada who persuaded her to go and live there, leaving him free at last to get his own life back.

  ‘When you approached him on Saturday he had just got back from Somerset where he’d been tying up all the loose ends from when he’d lived there, and was probably looking forward to flaking out when he got back, don’t you think?’ she said laughingly as she observed Ruby’s expression.

  ‘Oh, no!’ she groaned. ‘What a pain he must have thought I was.’

  ‘Hugo can’t have thought you too much of a pain if he’s offered you the apartment to rent,’ Libby said consolingly. ‘Nathan and I were amazed because he’d intended leaving it empty as much as possible to avoid noise and interference.’

  ‘He must have seen how much I liked it and taken pity on me,’ she said with the gloom of not knowing his circumstances and being too quick to judge heavy upon her.

  Whatever the reason there was no time for further discussion. Coffee break was over, it was back to the demands of the day and in what seemed like no time at all it was early afternoon.

  The practice nurses were setting out their room to accommodate mothers-in-waiting in the various stages of their pregnancies and Ruby thought that she’d been crazy to think she could avoid Hugo Lawrence while on practice premises, but would try her best to do so when she wasn’t…once the ordeal of tonight’s party was over.

  Hugo was impressed by Ruby’s efficiency. So far she hadn’t exactly filled him with confidence outside the surgery, but there was no fault to be found with the way she was dealing with the pregnant women who had come to be examined.

  The practice nurse was taking blood-pressure readings and checking urine samples, while he and Ruby saw each woman in turn to check for problems that could be a cause for alarm with regard to the health of mother and baby.

  In one case a patient who was eight months pregnant had been for a hospital check-up the week before and been told that the baby had turned and was in a breech position, and that if it hadn’t moved back to where it should be in a fortnight’s time they might have to perform a C-section.

  She was overwrought and tearful about what was happening, and while Hugo examined her, with Ruby watching intently, she held the distressed woman’s hand and stroked her brow.

  When he’d finished feeling her swollen stomach gently Hugo told her, ‘Your next visit to the hospital will confirm whether the baby is still in the breech position, but they do have the tendency to return to their original position during the last few weeks, and if that doesn’t happen you will have all the professional help that is available for a safe birth.’

  He had stood by and watched while Ruby dealt with a couple of patients on her own and she’d been conscious of his keen gaze all the while, unaware that his scrutiny was also taking in the pallor of her face and the taut lines of her throat that indicated tension, but only she knew the reason for that and it was how she intended it to stay.

  ‘Well done,’ he said when the clinic was over. ‘I can see you being ready to do this on your own soon. When Libby finishes you’ll be the only woman doctor in the practice and our pregnant patients do prefer a female doctor to be in charge of the antenatal clinic if possible.’

  She didn’t reply to that, just smiled a pale smile as if the prospect wasn’t all that exciting, and he thought that maybe she’d been conscious of his doubts about her and now that praise was forthcoming she wasn’t going to go overboard with delight.

  Instead she said, ‘About tonight at Libby and Nathan’s place, do I dress up or down? I’ve only one dress suitable for evening wear.’

  Was she kidding? The Gallaghers’ supper parties weren’t those kinds of occasions. It would be a nice meal, a few drinks, with young Toby sleeping peacefully upstairs and the adults chatting comfortably down below.

  ‘Just casual wear will be fine, I would imagine,’ he told her. ‘It will be the kind of thing that the four of us do at the cottage every couple of months or so and now that you’ve joined us it will be five. Do you want a lift?’

  The words were out before he’d had time to think and were at odds with his decision to keep contact out of working hours to the minimum, but he wasn’t to know that Ruby had been having similar thoughts and she said airily, ‘No, thanks just the same. I’ll see you there, Dr Lawrence.’

  ‘The name is Hugo out of surgery hours,’ he told her, ‘just as it will be Libby and Nathan tonight, but I think that John Gallagher might prefer to be given his full title. How long is it since you last saw him?’

  ‘Over twelve years. I was fourteen when we moved to Tyneside because of my father’s job and it took me a long time to get used to it. It took me a long time to get used to a few things, but in the end I did,’ she said flatly, and he wondered what she meant by that.

  The two cottages across from the surgery where Libby and Nathan had lived separate lives until the love they had for each other had brought them together had just been made into one as their weekday home. On an island in the middle of the lake was Greystone House that Nathan had bought Libby as a wedding present and where they spent their weekends.

  As she walked the last few yards to where the lights of the combined cottages were shining out into the darkness of a winter evening, Hugo caught her up and Ruby realised that he must have been a few steps behind as she’d walked the short distance from Lakes Rise. Surely he wasn’t still keeping her under surveillance, she thought as they exchanged polite greetings?

  He’d got it wrong again, he was deciding. Ruby must think him insane if he couldn’t let her walk a couple of hundred yards without appearing on the scene. She’d be accusing him of stalking next and that would knock him off his pedestal as the most eligible unattached male in the village.

  She’d pressed the bell and when the door opened Libby was there with Toby beside her, clean and rosy cheeked in his pyjamas. When he saw Hugo he ran into his arms and he swung him up and held him close.

  As Libby watched them fondly the five-year-old cried, ’Can Dr Hugo read me my bedtime story, Mummy Libby?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ she said gently, and as Hugo started to mount the stairs with Toby still in his arms she said to Ruby, ‘It is always like this when Hugo comes for supper. He takes Toby up to bed, but first they have a little play and then he reads him a story before he settles down for the night. He is so good with children, was so kind and protective towards those two little nieces of his before Patrice took them to live in Canada.

  ‘Nathan and I are hoping that now the burden has been lifted he might look around the village and find himself a nice wife who will give him some children of his own.’

  ‘Mmm,’ Ruby murmured, stuck for words. Personally she couldn’t imagine her hermit-like landlord wanting to strike up any sort of romantic union, though he was certainly good looking enough to attract a mate. Yet he did go to The Mallard in the evenings and those kinds of places were renowned for meeting people of the opposite sex.

  As Hugo and Toby disappeared on the landing Libby ushered Ruby into a comfortable chintzy sitting room and in a matter of seconds Nathan appeared wearing a striped apron and announced that it was his turn for kitchen duty and could he get her a drink?

  ‘Dad has just rung to say he is on his way,’ he told her, ‘and is looking forward to seeing you, Ruby, after such a long time.’r />
  Nathan hadn’t so far commented on her having lived in Swallowbrook before, or her family being registered with the practice at that time, so she wasn’t sure whether he was being tactful, protecting patient confidentiality, or had completely forgotten the trauma that had been present in their lives then and still was for that matter.

  Maybe the surgery here had never seen the results that had been in the pipeline as they had been leaving the area and had never known that Robbie’s first ever bleed had been diagnosed as haemophilia. Hopefully that was how it would be, which would prevent any curiosity regarding herself.

  When the elderly retired head of the practice arrived Ruby thought how little he had changed, just a head of silver hair and a few extra lines around kindly blue eyes were the only differences that she could see as they shook hands, and there was nothing to indicate in his manner or words of welcome that he had any particular memories of the time her family had spent in Swallowbrook.

  But his many years in general practice had taught John Gallagher caution in his dealings with people. He hadn’t forgotten what had happened to the Hollister family, but the young doctor who was observing him anxiously with beautiful brown eyes could rely entirely on his discretion.

  With regard to Nathan he hadn’t been involved with the family as much as he had, so doubted that any recollections of the child’s illness would surface where he was concerned.

  That Ruby Hollister had wanted to come back to Swallowbrook was delightful, and surprising considering her degree results, so even if her time with them turned out to be short it was most welcome.

  Hugo appeared at that moment with the news that Toby was asleep and Ruby observed him curiously. It was as if he was a different person from her rather dour landlord. He was smiling and relaxed, laughing as the others teased him about his friendship with Toby.

  ‘Hugo is like this with all the young ones who come to the surgery,’ Nathan said quizzically. ‘All the mothers ask to see Dr Lawrence when the children aren’t well.’