‘The perfume, what’s it called?’ he asked.
Henrietta swivelled in her seat and stared at him in amazement. He was a strange creature, this country GP, she thought. The last person she would have expected to ask such a question, but maybe he liked it and was considering buying some for a wife or woman friend. Or, then again, maybe he didn’t like it.
‘It’s called Destination,’ she said slowly. ‘Why do you ask? If you are finding it unpleasant, please, say so.’
He shook his head. ‘No. Nothing like that. It just seems a bit exotic for a doctor’s surgery.’
It was a weak excuse and he knew it, but did he want to be reminded of the wife he’d lost all the time he was with Henrietta Mason? It would be just too painful.
‘I get the message,’ she said quietly, ‘and won’t wear it again for work. It was a gift last Christmas and I loved it from the moment I sprayed it on.’
‘Yes, well, if you could keep it for out of working hours.’
‘No problem,’ she said equably. ‘I’ll keep the perfume strictly for socialising, not that I’m expecting to be doing much of that while I’m here.’
When they’d finished the home visits he said, ‘What are you going to do about lunch? Go to your sister’s place? Try the café we called at earlier? Or bring something back to eat? There’s a baker’s just across from the surgery and the lady who does the cleaning for us always has the kettle on the boil.’
‘What do you usually do for lunch?’ she asked.
‘Grab a bite when I can. But today I’ll have something to eat at the café. I want to tell Jackie Marsland’s husband that I’ll take over the café for him this evening so that he can go to visit her.
‘The girl has no parents or other near relatives, and the place doesn’t close until eightish. As you saw when we called, he was up to his eyes in it and will be frantic at not being with her at such a worrying time, but they just can’t afford to lose any trade. Do you want to come and have your lunch there?’
‘No. I’ll go across the road for a sandwich,’ she told him, feeling the need to gather her wits. Only hours before he had appeared at the surgery looking like death and now was offering to take over the café while its owner went to see his pregnant wife.
As he made his way to the brightly coloured wooden building that had been the old cattle market, Matthew was feeling guilty for having made such a fuss about the perfume. Henrietta wasn’t to know that by wearing it she’d opened one of the pain valves in his heart, and now she was probably thinking that he was nit-picking in retaliation for the way she’d put him in his place when he’d come sneaking in through the back door of the surgery.
Today’s happenings hadn’t created the best of beginnings to their working relationship, but did it matter? As long as she was a good doctor and pulled her weight in the practice, he would have no complaints.
By the time the afternoon surgery was finished Matthew was ready for home. He’d been intending to catch up on some sleep when he’d called in at the surgery that morning, but after meeting the new doctor he could no more have slept off his tiredness than fly.
She’d taken him to task and though she’d seemed to approve of his sojourn abroad, Henrietta Mason was wary of him. He could feel it in her cool hazel glance.
At the second surgery of the day she’d seen all her patients long before he had, but there had been a reason for that. Almost every person he’d treated had wanted to hear about his time in Pakistan and to express their pleasure at his return. It had been gratifying but time-consuming, and when he arrived back home once more he went straight up to bed for a couple of hours and was asleep in seconds.
He awakened to the sound of Kate’s voice beside him, and as he looked up at her drowsily she said, ‘Welcome home, lad. I’ll be able to sleep easy tonight, knowing that you’re back.’
He smiled up at her. ‘You’re the best sight I’ve seen in days, Aunt Kate. In my weakest moments out there I thought of your steak and kidney puddings and hung on.’
‘There’s one steaming on the stove at this moment,’ she told him briskly. ‘It’s ready for serving any time, and I’ve made a crème brûlée. They are your welcome home feast before you have to rush off to the café. Poor Jackie. I hope she’ll be all right.’
As she put the food in front of him Kate said, ‘Do you want me to bring you up to date with all the local news?’
‘Such as the new doctor we’ve taken on at the practice being pushy Pamela’s sister?’ he said dryly.
‘So you know?’
‘Yes. I do. We’ve met and she’s not impressed with me.’
‘Why ever not?’
‘Mainly because she turned up there this morning and found she was the only doctor present. John’s mother has taken a turn for the worse and he was on his way to be with her, and yours truly was in transit from the airport. I sneaked in the back way, looking like a tramp, and found her at my desk, which didn’t please me all that much. Then to cap it all I discovered her connection with the Wainwrights.’
‘Yes. I met Henrietta late this afternoon,’ Kate said. ‘I’ve been asked to meet the school bus and stay with the children until she comes home from the surgery on weekdays. On first acquaintance I would say that she’s nothing like her sister. She hasn’t got Pamela’s bounce and style, but the children adore her and she’s lovely with them. So natural and friendly.’
‘Are we talking about the same person?’ he asked quizzically. ‘Or was it just me getting off on the wrong foot with her?’
Henrietta had enjoyed meeting Kate Crosby, especially after she’d said, ‘You’re nothing like Pamela, are you?’
‘No. I’m from the poor side of the family,’ she’d told her laughingly. ‘But I come in useful at times.’
‘We wish that Henny lived here in the village so that we could see her all the time,’ Mollie had said, and Keiran had nodded his agreement.
Now the children were in bed and so was she. But not to sleep. Her mind was too full of the day’s events and uppermost were the moments she’d spent with Matthew Cazalet.
Kate had informed her that she was his aunt and Henrietta had been able to tell from her tone that she had a great affection for him, but that had been all she’d said about him. There had been no information about his private life and there was no way she was going to ask.
Her curiosity came from the circumstances of their meeting, she told herself, and wondered what tomorrow would bring at the village practice.
The children caught the school bus at eight o’clock each morning, which gave Henrietta just enough time to drop them off before making her way to the surgery. Or at least it would have done if Keiran hadn’t forgotten his homework.
After driving back to the house to get it and having to chase the bus for a couple of miles before she caught up with it, she was ten minutes late for morning surgery.
Matthew had already started treating those who were waiting to see him by the time she arrived, so Henrietta scuttled quickly into the smaller of the two consulting rooms and, after making sure that the patient’s notes were on her desk, called in the first one. Hoping that she looked cool and dignified and knowing she didn’t.
She knew that Matthew’s regulars would be keen to be treated by him, and that she would be dealing with the mish-mash of those who had made last-minute appointments, or just wanted to see any doctor.
That was how it had been at the late surgery the day before, but not so the previous morning when she’d arrived to find she had been the only doctor there and had had to deal with the lot of them.
Whether anyone had cancelled on finding that the two regular doctors were not available, she didn’t know. But from now on she intended to make her presence felt, make a niche for herself in this country practice, and as one strange face followed another, she thought wryly that her late arrival had not been in keeping with that sort of thinking.
Tomorrow, before any of them set foot out of the house, she would mak
e sure that the children had everything they needed for school. Today had been a lesson learned. Her expression softened at the thought of the two young ones who’d been placed in her care.
‘So you’re the new doctor,’ an overweight, middle-aged man with high colour said when he’d settled himself across from her in the middle of the morning.
‘Yes, I am. Mr…er…Warburton,’ she said, referring to his notes. ‘What can I do for you?’
He sighed. ‘Not a lot, I should think. I’ve got diabetes and am on medication for it. I have to come in every so often for a check-up and that’s why I’m here today.’
‘I see, and how are you coping with it?’
‘Terrible! I’ve always had a sweet tooth and if it wasn’t for my wife keeping me on a strict diet, I’d be falling by the wayside.’
‘I see from your notes that you’re borderline. Have you tried to lose weight?’
‘Yes. I’m on a low-fat diet.’
‘What about exercise?’
‘Not as often or as much as I should, I’m afraid.’
‘Losing weight is a strange thing,’ she told him. ‘It takes a lot of willpower, but most people find that once it starts to go down the feeling is so gratifying that they become really keen to continue with it. But getting back to what you’re here for. Surely you should be seeing the nurses in the diabetes clinic that they hold each Tuesday morning?’
He stared at her with hard blue eyes. ‘Yes, I should, but as it’s been cancelled and I wasn’t informed. I’ve insisted on seeing you for my check-up. I live way up over the tops. It’s a long way to come on a wasted journey.’
Henrietta groaned inwardly. She would have known that the clinic had been cancelled if she hadn’t been late. It was to be hoped that this rather forthright individual wouldn’t start complaining about having had further aggravation from the doctor.
‘We’ll start with your blood pressure, I think,’ she said calmly, ‘and then I’ll examine your feet, if you wouldn’t mind taking off your socks and shoes.’
After she’d examined him and had taken blood and urine samples for testing, Fred Warburton got to his feet. ‘Thank you, Doctor. I’d insist that you are kept informed of what’s going on in this place, if I were you.’
‘I’ll bear that in mind,’ she told him smoothly, and waited for him to depart.
‘What happened?’ Matthew asked when the surgery was over and they were having a quick coffee before starting the home visits. ‘Yesterday I was the one who was missing and today it was your turn.’
He looked immaculate that morning she thought, in a smart suit, crisp white shirt and a subdued tie. He still needed a haircut but she knew there’d been no time for that since his return.
There’d been a gleam in his eye as he’d asked the question, and she knew he was thinking that the boot was on the other foot as he followed it up with, ‘Did you oversleep?’
She shook her head. ‘No. It was a hiccup that occurred while I was getting the children off to school. I drove them to where they pick up the school bus and as they were getting on Keiran remembered that he’d left his homework behind and threw a wobbler. So we had to go back and get it. When we’d done that we discovered that the bus had gone and I had to chase it for a couple of miles before we caught up. It won’t happen again, I assure you. I shall be making absolutely sure they’ve got everything in future.’
He nodded. ‘How old is Kieran?’
‘Six.’
‘Seems a bit young for homework. But having no children of my own, I’m not up to date with what goes on in the education system. You’ve taken on a big responsibility, looking after someone else’s children night and day.’
‘That doesn’t bother me. I have no other agendas in my life at present, apart from working here, and with regard to that my being late meant that I didn’t know the diabetes clinic had been cancelled. One of my patients took great pleasure in informing me of the fact and insisted on seeing a doctor instead. He said that he’d come a long way and didn’t want to have to make a second journey, which I have to say I understood.’
‘That would be Fred Warburton. The clinic was cancelled because we are short-staffed. One of the nurses is on holiday and another of them rang in sick this morning, which only left one to do everything. We tried to phone him but he’d already left.
‘The fact that we have only one nurse today is also probably the reason why you weren’t informed that the clinic had been cancelled. But one of the receptionists should have made sure you knew and I shall mention that to them. I expect you to be prompt and efficient, but am not demanding that you be psychic.’
‘They probably didn’t see me arrive. I didn’t exactly sneak in by the back door,’ she told him with a twinkle, ‘but I nipped into my room smartish and they wouldn’t have known I’d arrived until I started calling the patients in. So, you see, it was my fault that I didn’t know.’
As they went out to his car Matthew was thinking that this replacement in the practice was not prepared to see someone told off for a situation that she’d been responsible for. It would have been easy to let someone else take the blame.
As they fastened their seat belts he said, ‘You mentioned your sister’s children catching the school bus, so obviously they don’t attend the one in the village.’
‘No, they don’t. Mollie and Keiran go to a private school somewhere on the borders of Derbyshire and Cheshire.’
He didn’t say anything, just looked rather grim, and she saw that his glance was on a group of ramblers going past. Yet they weren’t making a nuisance of themselves, far from it. They waved and called good morning and she waved back, but Matthew just nodded rather stiffly. He started the car and they moved off.
‘Where do you live, Dr Cazalet?’ she asked as they drove around the village. ‘You know where I’m based, but I don’t know the same thing about you. I met your aunt yesterday. Do you live with her?’
‘No,’ he said levelly. ‘I live alone and, for goodness’ sake, Henrietta, drop the Dr Cazalet. My name is Matthew.’
She was smiling, not prepared to be put off. ‘So, Matthew, where do you live?’
‘We’ll be passing it in a moment. Not much to look at. My wife and I bought it when we were first married. We thought it had the potential to make a gracious home. But when I was left on my own the plans we’d made seemed pointless. Now it’s just somewhere to sleep.’
Henrietta nodded absently. She was wondering if she dared ask him where his wife was and, as if he’d read her mind, he said flatly, ‘My wife is dead.’
‘Oh!’ she exclaimed. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘Yes, so am I,’ he said as he slowed the car in front of his house, and wondered why on earth he was showing this woman he’d only just met where he lived.
‘I hope you don’t want a grand tour,’ he said dryly as she gazed at the sombre stone building.
‘No, of course not. I wouldn’t dream of being so intrusive.’
‘That’s all right, then. Especially with you living in the palatial White House. A lot of folk will envy you that.’
‘They don’t need to,’ she retorted as they moved off. ‘I’m nervous in there. It’s too big and sumptuous. I’m scared of putting a foot wrong. Before I came here I had a small flat. It was nothing special but it was my own. The whole of it would fit into the bedroom I’m using now, so you can tell how big it is.’
‘And what have you done with it.’
‘Rented it out. I had to. I need the money.’
‘So your sister isn’t funding the disruption she’s caused in your life.’
‘No. I wouldn’t want her to. It’s not necessary. Pamela would have been ready to offer if I’d given her the chance. But I had no intention of doing that. She’s done me a favour. I’ve always envied her and Charles living here and it’s one of the reasons I let her persuade me to fall in with her plans.’
‘Yes, she does like people to fall in with her plans, doesn’t she? But not e
veryone enjoys being manipulated. I certainly don’t.’
She didn’t know what that was supposed to mean and decided not to ask. This was a man who carried his grief around with him, felt things deeply. That would be one of the reasons why he’d gone to help the earthquake victims.
It wouldn’t be hard to find out what had happened to his wife. She could ask Kate, or quiz Pamela when she next rang up to see how they were faring, but she wasn’t going to do either of those things. Matthew would have to tell her himself if he wanted her to know.
‘We had a call from Goyt Lodge while you were seeing the last of your patients,’ he told her as they drove along the main street. ‘It’s a local guest house and it seems that someone staying there woke up this morning in a very confused state. From the details we were given, it seems that the lady had been perfectly all right the night before, but when she didn’t come down to breakfast this morning the owner’s wife went to check on her and found her wandering around the bedroom, not knowing who or where she was.’
‘What age is she?’ Henrietta asked.
‘Sixties, I believe. You’re thinking of Alzheimer’s?’
‘No, not really. Would we expect it to come on so suddenly? I was thinking more of a mini-stroke.’
‘Maybe,’ he agreed. ‘Hopefully we’ll soon find out.’ He pointed to a solid-looking red brick building just off the road, ‘That is Goyt Lodge. I’ve been called out to this place a couple of times before, but it’s never been anything serious, so let’s hope that this time turns out to be the same.’
They were shown into a small sitting room where a smartly dressed elderly woman was drinking tea out of a china cup, with a younger woman seated beside her.
The younger of the two women got to her feet when she saw them, while the older one placed the cup noisily on to the saucer and asked, ‘Who are these people, Lynda? They haven’t come to take me away, have they?’
‘No, of course not,’ Lynda said. ‘I sent for the doctor to come to see you as you aren’t yourself this morning, are you?’
‘That’s true enough,’ the elderly woman said as tears began to flow. ‘I don’t know who myself is and it’s frightening.’
City Doctor, Country Bride Page 3