The Village Doctor's Marriage

by Abigail Gordon

  When she gazed upwards, the peaks looked dark and menacing against a heavy grey sky, and stirrings of unease started. It wasn’t that long ago that they’d been up there with the missing Scouts. The weather had been nightmarish then, but that would be as nothing compared to blizzard conditions.

  ‘Have we heard from Steve?’ she asked the staff, and was told, no, he hadn’t rung in.

  At that moment a farmer with a four-wheel-drive came in to pick up a prescription that he needed urgently. He said that the snow was drifting fast in lanes and gullies near the tops and that he was keen to get home before the way was blocked.

  ‘Folk have been known to freeze to death up there in this sort of weather if their cars have got stuck,’ was his parting shot, and Sallie shuddered.

  ‘Try Jennifer Maxwell’s number for me, will you?’ she said to the receptionist, and was told that the line was dead, which could mean that the snow had brought the wires down.

  When he hadn’t appeared by the time late surgery was due to start, Sallie rang the police and told them Steve had gone to visit a patient on a remote lane up near the tops at twelve o’clock that morning and hadn’t returned yet. His mobile phone gave no response.

  She was asked to give them full details of his car and the address that he’d gone to and was told they would look into it, which did little to calm her fears.

  Sallie knew that what the farmer had said was true. The peaks surrounding the village were majestic, but they could be cruel, too, scorning the frailties of man.

  As she put on a calm front for those attending the late surgery, fear made her blood run cold. She loved Steve now more than she’d ever done, she thought achingly. Loved him for the way he’d endured her coolness towards him, and for the way he’d faced up to the curiosity of patients and friends. If anything had happened to him, she would never forgive herself for not telling him how much she cared.

  She’d tried to be as supportive as possible during that terrible time long ago, but the fact remained that he had been the one who’d faced the nightmare of cancer and the fear of not being able to father children.

  After facing his demons alone, he had come back to her, and what had she done? Kept him at a distance. Let him think she didn’t want him any more. He’d heard her crying in her sleep and had found her holding something that had belonged to him. It must have given him hope. But the way she’d reacted when he’d told her what he’d seen would have made him think again.

  She rang the police again as soon as she was free, but they had nothing to tell her except that weather conditions up on the tops were atrocious and they would be in touch as soon as they had some news.

  Suppose Steve was buried beneath the snow somewhere, or had skidded down a steep hillside. How long would it take for them to discover something like that? she wondered as she climbed the stairs to the apartment with dragging feet.

  Hannah met her at the door with Liam in her arms and, on seeing her expression, asked, ‘What is it? What’s wrong?’

  ‘Steve went up on the tops this morning to visit a patient and he hasn’t come back. I’ve been on to the police and they’re dealing with it, but with this kind of weather I’m very concerned.’

  It seemed as if Hannah had nothing to say and when Sallie observed her questioningly she said uncomfortably, ‘It has happened before, hasn’t it?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That he’s gone.’

  ‘Not under these circumstances!’ she cried. ‘Have you seen what it’s like out there, Hannah? And it will much worse over the moors.’

  ‘Yes. I know,’ was the reply, but Hannah wasn’t looking her in the eye and Sallie thought it was incredible that this woman who knew them so well could think such a thing. It added to her distress.

  Yet she couldn’t deny the truth of what Hannah had said. Steve had left her before, but not without a word. On that other occasion all he’d been short of had been a fanfare of trumpets. Sneaking off was not his style.

  After Hannah had gone, the night slid slowly by, with Liam asleep and herself becoming more agitated by the minute. If there was no news by morning she was going to go and search for him herself, she decided desperately. She knew the lanes and gullies up there as well as anybody.

  But suppose she found him and it was too late? she told herself, with the memory clear in her mind of what the farmer had said when he’d come for his prescription. Hannah’s comments came back to haunt her. Or she didn’t find him at all because he didn’t want to be found?

  There had been all those nights when he’d gone out without saying where he was going. Had he given up on her at last and found someone else? She shook her head. No. He would have told her if he had. There wasn’t a deceitful bone in his body.

  At five o’clock in the morning there was a ring on the doorbell and she was down the stairs in a flash, but it was only a young constable looking cold and pinched, who’d been sent to tell her that the search was continuing. That Mountain Rescue had been out all night, so far without success, and might soon have to call off the search as the weather was worsening around the peaks.

  ‘It can’t get any worse surely,’ she cried. ‘And what about the patient my husband went to see? Her phone is dead and I’m concerned about what has happened to her as well as him.’

  ‘That question I can answer for you,’ he said, as she led him upstairs into the warmth. ‘During our enquiries someone living on the lower hillside reported seeing an ambulance going up to the tops late yesterday morning, and when we rang A and E we were told that a Jennifer Maxwell had been admitted with a fractured elbow.’

  ‘The paramedics who’d gone out on the call confirmed that it had been Dr Beaumont who’d sent for them. That he had been alive and well when they’d left him and ready to make a quick departure before he got stuck up there. Apparently he’d locked up the lady’s house and given her the key, which could have proved to be unfortunate, as he could have gone inside to shelter if it had been too bad for him to drive back here. The search party made it to the house, but there was no sign of Dr Beaumont or his car.

  ‘I want to join the search party,’ she told him desperately.

  He shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. Just stay put. The moment we have anything to tell you, we’ll be in touch.’

  So Steve had got as far as Jennifer’s house, she thought when the constable had gone, and had arranged for her to be taken to A and E. But what had happened after that?

  As she gave Liam his breakfast her eyes were on the closed door of the spare room. If only it would open and he would come striding out, she thought. She would tell him how much she still loved him. How life without him had no meaning. But was it too late? Had she dallied until the opportunity had gone?

  When Hannah arrived, her first words were, ‘Any news?’

  ‘Yes, and no,’ Sallie told her. ‘The police have established that Steve arrived at the patient’s house and had her transferred to hospital, but no one knows what happened after that.’

  ‘I’m sorry about what I said yesterday,’ Hannah said sombrely. ‘It was just that I felt for you so much when he left you that I had to warn you it might have happened again. It was a cruel thing he did to you.’

  ‘Steve had cancer, Hannah,’ Sallie informed her. ‘He was operated on and now might not be able to have children. He was in a state of great despair.’

  ‘But none of us knew that!’ Hannah exclaimed. ‘We would have all thought better of him if we had.’

  ‘Yes. I know,’ Sallie said softly. ‘Yet that was how he wanted it to be, and it’s why I’ve never told anyone. But after yesterday I thought that you should know.’

  ‘What a mess, Sallie.’

  ‘It was, but it won’t be any more if the peaks haven’t claimed him,’ she vowed.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  WITH the car out of action, Steve decided that the only thing to do was walk with shovel in hand. He was wearing a thick suede jacket and boots, but they were lightweight as h
e’d had no premonition that the weather was going to worsen so quickly. Within minutes his feet were soaking wet.

  Walking was not a good idea, he decided, and turned to go back to the car, which was gradually disappearing beneath the snow. The blanket that he always carried was there, wrapped in plastic to keep it dry, and he found a bar of chocolate in the glove compartment. Then he wondered what to do next.

  As he peered through the swirling white mass, he saw a derelict barn in the field beside him and with the blanket in one hand, the shovel in the other, and his feet freezing in the wet boots, he fought his way to the barn and pushed back the sturdy wooden door.

  It was cold inside but dry, with straw scattered around and a musty smell of animals, but in his moment of need it was a palace. The first thing he did was take off the wet boots and socks. He sat on the straw and wrapped his feet in the blanket.

  Having done what he could towards survival he thought dismally that Sallie would be wondering where he was, and what it was he’d wanted to show her.

  He hoped she wouldn’t do anything so crazy as to come looking for him. It was weather that he hadn’t seen the like of in a long time, and what might have happened if he hadn’t seen the barn was a thought not to be dwelt on.

  After a while, as his body heat started to rise, he began to feel drowsy and knew it was from fighting his way through the snow to this place. He tried to throw the feeling off, but it was no use. As the snow drifted around his shelter he slept, after telling himself that he may as well because there was nothing else to do. His mobile wasn’t picking up a signal and there had been no other signs of civilisation out there, as far as he’d been able to see.

  There was tension in the air when Sallie went downstairs to face the day. All the staff were aware that Steve was missing and, because of the village grapevine, so were most of the patients waiting to be seen.

  After the constable’s warning not to go up amongst the peaks herself she had reluctantly decided to stay put for the time being and keep the practice functioning. It was what Steve would want her to do, but she wasn’t sure how long she was going to be able to keep it up.

  One of the first of those waiting to be seen was Jack Leminson, the builder. His car had skidded on the ice the previous night and he’d wrenched his neck.

  After she’d examined the affected area, Sallie could tell that he was expecting her to suggest a collar, but she told him that the routine had changed. Recent results had shown that the collar support sometimes did more harm than good and that the neck strain usually went after a while.

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘But what if it doesn’t go? I’m in the building trade and won’t be able to work if it’s painful.’

  ‘See how it goes, and if it doesn’t clear up, come back,’ she told him. ‘You have got some neck strain, but I don’t see it as serious at this moment.’

  He hesitated on the point of leaving, and she wondered what was coming next. ‘So has he taken you there yet?’ he asked.

  ‘Has who taken me where?’

  ‘Your husband. Has he shown you the—?’

  ‘My husband has been missing up on the moors since yesterday,’ she interrupted tearfully, and his jaw sagged.

  ‘Oh, heck!’ he groaned. ‘What a mess! I didn’t know that he was the one they were talking about in the waiting room. I heard them say they were searching for somebody lost in the blizzard, but I didn’t know who.’

  ‘Yes, well, now you do,’ she told him bleakly, and without explaining the question he’d asked he went, his expression revealing his feelings.

  It was the longest day Sallie had ever known. There were a couple of calls from the police to say no luck so far and that was it. She skipped lunch as there were two lots of house calls to do and in the snow they were going to take longer than usual. Then there would be the whole of the late surgery patients to attend to.

  She didn’t know how she was coping, but she was, probably because she knew it was what Steve would want her to do, but by the time the day was over she’d had enough. If they didn’t find him soon, she shuddered to think what the outcome might be, and beneath the dread and anxiety was the regret that was tearing her apart because she hadn’t told him how much she still loved him.

  It was only a matter of days to Christmas, she thought as she climbed the stairs wearily. Soon Melanie would arrive to claim her baby.

  It was going to hurt, parting with Liam, but what sort of a Christmas would it be without Steve? What sort of a life would it be without him? She’d been without him before, but had known that he was alive somewhere. This could be so different, achingly, heartbreakingly different.

  It had stopped snowing at last. Daylight was almost gone. But the glistening white mass all around them was giving off enough glare for the search party to make out the top of a dark blue car sticking out of a drift beside a hedgerow.

  A halt was called and with shovels at the ready the would-be rescuers began to clear the snow from around it, stopping only when they saw that the car was empty and the door unlocked

  ‘The doc must have set off on foot,’ one of them said after they’d found his driving licence in the glove compartment. ‘A risky thing to do under these circumstances, but I know Stephen Beaumont. He’s not the type to do anything daft.’

  At that moment the door of an old barn in the middle of the field nearby was pushed slowly open against the snow that had drifted against it, and a voice called out, ‘Hey there! Am I glad to see you.’

  ‘Didn’t I tell you?’ the man who’d just spoken said, adding to Steve, ‘Hang on there. We’ll come and dig you out.

  ‘Phone for an ambulance,’ he told one of the team, when they’d cleared the way to the barn and were gathered around Steve, but Steve protested that he would be all right as soon as he’d got some dry footwear.

  ‘OK. You’re the doctor,’ he was told. ‘You’ll know the signs of hypothermia as well as we do, and we’ve got some spare boots in the truck.’

  He had woken up late in the evening of the previous day. The cold had brought him out of sleep and he’d known immediately that he had to get his body heat up again or he would freeze. He’d been able to see through the window of the barn that it had still been snowing, which had meant that it had been too dangerous to go out into the night without suitable footwear or proper equipment. So he’d spent the long hours doing exercises and trying not to think how hungry he was, having eaten the chocolate long ago.

  What was Sallie doing? he’d wondered. He’d been so keen to take her to see the house, but it had all gone wrong. He hadn’t risked going to sleep again in case he missed anyone searching for him or developed hypothermia.

  When he’d heard the voices of the mountain rescue team it had been like music to his ears, and when he’d forced the barn door open and hailed them across the snow they’d looked like an expedition on Everest.

  And now they were taking him back to civilisation beneath a winter moon. Soon he would be with Sallie who, they’d told him, was frantic. He was desperate for the sight of her, the smell of her, wanting to hold her in his arms…

  She heard his key in the lock a second before the phone rang. Ignoring its strident interruption, she flew down the stairs and into his arms. For an endless moment they stood entwined in the bliss of being together again, shaken by the depth of their feelings. When she looked up she was weeping and he said softly, ‘Don’t cry, Sal. I’m not worth it.’ At that the tears flowed faster.

  ‘Hey,’ he chided. ‘I’m back, safe and sound. Slightly frostbitten, very grimy and dying of hunger.’

  ‘People have died up there in this kind of weather,’ she choked. ‘I thought that was what was going to happen to you, and I’d never told you that I love you now more than ever. I love you for the way you’ve tried so hard to make up for what you did. For the way you’ve put up with my coldness towards you. For the way you are such a clever, caring doctor.’ She was smiling now. ‘And because you are still the most wantable,
attractive and sexiest of men.’

  His smile was brighter than the sun. ‘Is that so?’ he breathed. ‘As soon as I’ve got rid of the grime, I’ll see if I can live up to that.’

  ‘Yes!’ she whispered. ‘Just don’t ever leave me again, Steve.’

  ‘I won’t! Be assured of that! When I came crawling back I was so desperate to be near you I would have lived in a tent in the garden if you’d refused to have anything to do with me, rather than return to the life I’d been living.’

  The police rang while he was getting cleaned up. It seemed that it had been them earlier when she’d flung herself downstairs at the sound of the key being turned in the lock. When the officer at the other end of the line heard the lift in her voice he said, ‘So you’ve got your husband back, Dr Beaumont. Safe and sound, I’m told.’

  ‘Yes, thanks,’ she said. ‘I am so grateful to all of you who helped to find him.’

  ‘The mountain rescue boys are the ones to thank for that,’ she was told.

  ‘Yes, I know, and people like the young constable who called here this morning at five o’clock.’

  ‘He was just doing his job,’ was the reply. ‘Like your husband was when he went to visit his patient. Thankfully he came to no harm, mainly because he did the right thing by taking shelter and staying put until the weather calmed down. Where is he now?’

  ‘Under the shower,’

  ‘Right. I’ll leave you to it, and a merry Christmas when it comes.’

  Christmas! she thought as she put the phone down. It had been the last thing on her mind over the last two days, but in less than a week it would be here and she still didn’t know where Melanie was going to live.

  ‘You remember the little jaunt I’d promised you?’ Steve said when he reappeared.

  ‘Yes, of course I do. Though I have to admit that it hasn’t been uppermost in my mind in view of the fact that you’ve been missing for twenty-four hours. Christmas hasn’t been on my mind either, until the police rang a moment ago to say that you were safe. The officer I spoke to wished me a merry Christmas and suddenly it hit me how near it was.’