The Village Nurse's Happy-Ever-After

by Abigail Gordon

  ‘Yes, but I brought them back with me,’ she explained stiffly. ‘He had been operated on in the early hours for a severed tendon and I didn’t think he was fit to be discharged yet, although he’d already fixed it up with the doctor in charge. So I went to see him and unfixed it.’

  ‘Harry wouldn’t like that,’ he said laughingly. ‘But what a guy, going into the sea fully clothed to rescue not one, but two crazy kids.’

  ‘He could have been drowned, and those lads as well,’ Lucy commented from behind in sepulchral tones. Phoebe thought it was only men who could see something to rave about when distress and danger were the topic of conversation. For a woman it was always fear and dread that filled her mind.

  Leo was the second member of his sex that she’d spoken to who’d been impressed by what Harry had done. And to be honest, so was she, and so would a lot of the Bluebell Cove locals. But now he had to be sensible and leaving hospital only hours after an operation was not a good idea. In fact, she might hang onto his clothes until next morning and risk his frustration.

  By the time she’d finished her rounds, dealt with the paperwork and picked Marcus up, she’d decided that was what she was going to do. She knew he would be furious with her, but another night under medical supervision would do him no harm.

  As the evening wore on she was expecting the phone to ring any second and hear his voice asking why she hadn’t kept her promise, but the line remained dead, and as the hours crept by she told herself that Harry’s silence was worse than having to put up with his indignation.

  She would go to the hospital first thing after she’d dropped Marcus off at the nursery, as she’d done the day before.

  When she walked into the ward the next morning he was seated by the window, reading the morning paper, and when he looked up he said, ‘You’ve just got here in time. Another five minutes and I was going to make a run for it in this flimsy dressing gown and risk being arrested at the bus stop.’

  ‘You could have got a taxi.’ she told him mildly, waiting for the storm to break.

  ‘Yes. I know,’ he said dryly, and there was a glint in the dark hazel eyes that had observed her so tenderly a couple of nights ago, ‘but I didn’t want to be missing when you’d taken the trouble to bring my things. Phoebe, I have to admit that you were right. I did feel rather groggy after you’d left and would have been pretty useless at the surgery if I’d gone there straight from here too soon.’ He was getting to his feet. ‘But I’m fine this morning so can we get moving once I’m dressed?’

  ‘Yes, of course, that’s the idea,’ she told him, ‘just as long as you’ve had some breakfast. And by the way, what about those two boys?’

  ‘They’re going home today feeling rather stupid. Both of them are local so should have known better, though I was just as crazy at their age.’

  While he was getting dressed in the adjoining bathroom, Phoebe thought that he’d mentioned his childhood again, but there was never any direct reference to his parents apart from what he’d said about his mother’s dress and the hat, and in the car on the night of the Valentine Ball had mentioned briefly their grief at his brother’s death.

  Harry knew what had happened to her father and then her mother but they’d never talked about his immediate family. His aunt and uncle, yes, his cousin Jenna, yes, but not his mother and father, not as individual people anyway.

  If the opportunity came she would ask him. It might help her to understand him better.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THERE was silence in the car as Phoebe drove them back to the village. She could feel Harry’s glance upon her, thoughtful and considering, but he didn’t speak until they were almost there, and what he said was the last thing she wanted to hear.

  ‘I could tell yesterday that I upset you, but there isn’t much joy in being around someone like me.’

  She didn’t reply, just gripped the steering-wheel more tightly, and he went on to scatter her dreams even further. ‘The last thing I would ever want would be to hurt you, so maybe we should cool our relationship.’

  Without agreeing or disagreeing, she said, ‘And how do we do that with us both working at the surgery and living on top of each other as we do?’

  ‘If you remember, I thought of buying the manor house a short time ago but didn’t proceed for various reasons.’ He wasn’t going to mention that moment that he would soon be the owner. ‘Well, it’s still on the market so I might have a rethink.

  ‘Otherwise it means keeping our doors shut as much as possible when we’re in the apartments. Maybe that way you won’t find me so interfering. With regard to the surgery it shouldn’t be too difficult as we only see each other briefly. Most of the time you’re out on the district.’

  Her thoughts were in chaos. Although she wasn’t interested in being used, now Harry was coolly giving her the brush-off, it hurt more that she could ever have imagined. But if that was how he wanted to play it, he was welcome.

  ‘Yes, whatever you say.’ she told him with a casual shrug of the shoulders and fighting back tears. ‘Fortunately Marcus hasn’t known you long enough to get too attached to you.’

  As he nodded in sombre agreement, Harry was thinking of the ‘Daddy’ episode, of the pleasure he’d gained in those few seconds when the little one had called him that.

  And yet he was still going to deny himself what could be the follow-up to that and the love he sensed Phoebe had for him, because he wasn’t sure that he was right for them, not sure that in the long term he would make them happy. And making Phoebe and Marcus unhappy was the most unthinkable emotional crime he could think of to commit.

  The practice building was finally in sight, thank God. He was back on his own patch, with a gammy arm covered in bandages and a feeling that he’d just shot himself in the foot.

  ‘I’m going upstairs to shave and have a shower,’ he told her as he eased himself out of her small car. ‘I’ll be down as soon as I can.’

  When he came down Phoebe was nowhere to be seen, but the rest of the staff were happy to see him back safe and almost sound. When he had a moment to spare he rang the estate agents to check progress.

  As Phoebe climbed the stairs at the end of the day with Marcus in her arms, there was no joy in her until she arrived at the top and saw a bouquet of spring flowers outside her door.

  Her first thought on seeing them was that they wouldn’t be from Harry, not after that morning’s dumping ceremony.

  She was wrong. As she picked them up, with the heady fragrance of daffodils, narcissus and freesia all around her, the card with them read, ‘These are just to say thanks for being there for me during the last two days. It was much appreciated, Harry.’

  Much appreciated! she thought wearily. It was a wonder he hadn’t enclosed a shopping voucher to complete the formal gesture. But he wouldn’t have had time to arrange that, whereas a phone call to the florist in the village would have been enough to have the flowers delivered.

  Was the man blind? She’d been there for him because she loved him, and did not want to be patronised for it.

  With the spare key for his apartment that she was still carrying around she opened his door a fraction, placed them inside, and wrote across the card, Thanks, but no thanks!

  As Harry came up the stairs at the end of the day he too was in low spirits, physically and mentally. Physically because his arm was hurting—it felt as if all the nerves where he’d had surgery on the damaged tendon were tied in knot—and mentally because with regard to Phoebe, it was as if he couldn’t think straight.

  It was as if he was punishing her for his inner hurts, the hurts that she’d had no part in. She’d had enough of her own from the little she’d told him, and it seemed that she wasn’t to blame for them either. So why couldn’t he just give in to the joy of being with her?

  His mood took an upward curve when he reached the landing. There was no sign of the flowers he’d ordered, so she must have taken them in. When he’d placed the order he’d been promis
ed immediate delivery, so if all had gone to plan they should have been waiting for her when she came home with Marcus.

  The lifting of his spirits lasted until he opened his door and almost fell over the flowers. When he read what she’d written on the card he slumped down onto the nearest chair and stared into space.

  She was the loveliest thing he’d ever seen, he thought, and he was so hurt and angry inside he was driving her away instead of making the most of what the fates had deemed him worthy of. But the trouble was, he didn’t feel worthy of anything at the moment.

  Hanging over him was the thought of the inquest into Cassie’s death in just a few weeks’ time. He would be going back to Australia for it and was not looking forward to the proceedings at all. Luckily there had been no mention of suspicious circumstances when the autopsy had taken place, and once the inquest was over he was hoping to return in a more positive frame of mind.

  When she opened her door the next morning Phoebe’s eyes widened at the sight of her flowers on the landing. He doesn’t give up, does he? she thought. Can’t bear to be in the wrong. But when she read the message on the back of the original card that said, It was just to say thanks, nothing more, it seemed as if that was exactly what Harry had done. He’d given up on her, and another empty day stretched ahead of her.

  There was a new patient down on her list for a visit that morning and as she drove to the outskirts of the village, she had to pass Glades Manor. The ‘For Sale’ sign was still there, but she reasoned it would be. It had only been yesterday that Harry had said he might still be interested, and if he went ahead it would be the first time any man had bought a house to get away from her. So much for her sex appeal.

  Whereas he had it all—the looks, the charisma, the captivating personality and, remembering what he’d done for the two drowning lads, a fearlessness and courage that was amazing. All of that added together came to the total of every woman’s dream man and she’d had the nerve to think he wanted to be hers.

  Hannah Trescott had been in hospital having intense treatment for gangrene in her foot. She’d been discharged the previous day with a recommended healing regime that was going to require regular after-care from a district nurse.

  It would consist of changing the dressing every day, including weekends, keeping a progress report and making sure that the patient took the large doses of antibiotics required to keep the dreaded infection at bay.

  When Phoebe arrived at Hannah’s cottage down by the harbour she didn’t have to knock. The door was ajar and when she stepped inside she found Hannah sitting with her foot raised in front of the log fire that was burning in the grate.

  She was a hardy old woman who’d lived in Bluebell Cove all her life and had spent a lot of her adulthood fishing out in the bay and beyond. Until a stab in the sole of her foot from a sharp piece of driftwood had started an infection that just wouldn’t go away and had ended up gangrenous.

  ‘Come in, Nurse,’ she called. ‘I’ve just had a visit from Harry Balfour. Seems strange having him in Ethan’s place, but me and Harry go back a long way. I used to take him fishing with me weekends and school holidays when he was a kid because his parents were always either moping or too busy.’

  ‘Why was that?’ Phoebe asked casually as she laid out a fresh dressing for Hannah’s foot before removing the present one.

  ‘They had stables just outside the village. Lived and breathed horses until his ma died after being thrown by one of ’em, and a couple of years later his pa followed her. Had a heart attack from the stress of trying to run the stables single-handed. Harry was at college at that time and found out that all he’d inherited from the two of ’em was a bankrupt business.’

  While she’d been talking Phoebe had been gently removing the dressing and breathing a sigh of relief to find that there was no evidence of the infection when Hannah’s foot was revealed.

  ‘That seems to be healing nicely,’ she said with a smile for the elderly stoic, ‘but take care not to be on your foot too much and try not to knock it. Also, wear loose shoes so that there is no undue pressure on it.’

  As Phoebe was packing up to go she asked, ‘Did you request a visit from Dr Balfour, or was he just passing?’

  ‘I didn’t ask him to come,’ was the reply. ‘He came because he was keen to know all about the trouble I’ve been having with my foot, said he was sorry he hadn’t managed to get to see me before for old times’ sake, and I understood. Losing his wife over there and then taking over from Ethan here can’t have been easy, and I believe he fished two kids out of the sea the other night, which sounds like him.’

  ‘Yes, it does,’ Phoebe agreed, not knowing what else to say. It was simultaneous torture and heaven discussing Harry like this.

  ‘It’s time something good happened to Harry,’ Hannah went on to say, ‘I was never sure about that wife of his, but I only saw her once when he brought her over to meet his aunt and uncle and Jenna.’

  She sighed and unwittingly brought more gloom into Phoebe’s day by saying, ‘He might be one of those folk who never meet the right one.’

  Or meets the right one and is too blind to see it, Phoebe thought as she left Hannah to her day with the promise to call again the next morning.

  It was Easter Monday at the end of what had been an empty holiday weekend with nowhere to go and no one to go with, so Phoebe was looking forward to the Easter Bonnet Parade through the village and the socialising afterwards.

  There were twelve contestants and she’d been told that she was number six. She was hoping that Harry would be there, if only to see her wearing his mother’s hat and the dress that she’d worn on the evening when she’d needed help with the zip.

  What had happened afterwards was locked away at the back of her mind, to be taken out and cherished then put back with haste because the hurt of the rejection that had followed was too great to dwell upon for long.

  The vicar’s wife had offered to look after Marcus while the parade was on so that she didn’t have to worry about him when it was her turn. When she took him to the vicarage, the older woman said, ‘I’ve asked Dr Balfour to judge the contestants. He is well liked and well known in the village. I felt that it would be a good way of showing our pleasure at having him back among us.’

  Having Harry back is not all pleasure, not for some of us anyway, Phoebe thought as she went back to the apartment to get changed.

  The morning had dawned bright and clear, to the relief of the organisers. She’d been really looking forward to the event until she’d heard that item of news, and now she was thinking how embarrassing that Harry should be judging while she was wearing his mother’s hat.

  The only in-depth conversations they’d had since the day she’d brought him home from the hospital had been about surgery matters. She’d heard him coming and going as the days went by, and a couple of times had looked out of the window of her apartment and seen him pulling off the surgery forecourt in the red car, and that was all.

  There was much laughter among the twelve contestants lined up in the village square as they waited for the parade to begin. Jenna Devereux was in modern dress with a large brimmed hat trimmed with lots of roses. Lucy from the surgery had found a crinoline from somewhere with a pokey bonnet to match and looked as if she’d stepped out of the Victorian era, while Charlotte Templeton, headmistress of the village school, had a mortar board on her head, tied under the chin with ribbons.

  Meredith, who spent her days chained to the huge cooking range in the kitchen of her guest house on the coast road, was sporting a chef’s hat bedecked with corn stalks, and the rest of those competing were in pretty outfits with suitable headgear.

  Harry, in a chunky Arran sweater and jeans, was already in place on a small platform that had been erected for the judging, and the contestants were milling around him, waiting for the parade to commence.

  When his glance locked with Phoebe’s for a moment he asked in a low voice, ‘What have you done with Marcus?’

/>   ‘He’s with the vicar’s wife,’ she replied smoothly, and he nodded approvingly. What did he think she’d done with him? she thought tightly. Given him to gypsies? Left him making sandcastles on the beach or locked him in the apartment?

  The village band had just struck up and the commentator, a retired milliner from the village, was about to introduce the first competitor. With a swing of the hips and a bright smile, Jenna began to walk around the flagged square to display her headwear.

  Then it was Lucy in the crinoline, followed by Charlotte with the mortar board then a couple of teenage girls with saucy little numbers perched on their long blonde tresses. In what seemed like no time at all number six was being called.

  As Phoebe did her tour of the square with Harry’s gaze on her, she was wishing that it was the vicar’s wife doing the judging and the man on the podium minding Marcus.

  That way she could be her natural self. Her heartbeat wouldn’t be pounding in her ears and the rest of her wilting with longing. But she was the only one aware of that and so strolled calmly past those gathered to watch.

  No doubt when this event was over there would be a general exodus to the beach, Harry had been thinking while waiting for the event to start. Bluebell Cove came into its own on beautiful spring days such as this.

  Phoebe had been thinking the same, that she and Marcus could go to the beach or maybe even to the woods. There, the bluebells that the village got its name from flowered everywhere in bright blue abundance, straight-stemmed and slender. Whatever she did, it would be better than sitting around the apartment, moping.

  It was over and the winner had been announced. Lucy in her stiff crinoline and pokey bonnet had been chosen by the man on the platform and had gone up to receive a bouquet of Easter lilies and a ticket to a famous hat museum not far away.

  Then everyone was transferring to the community hall for the cream tea that a band of helpers had prepared. While that was taking place, Phoebe went to find Marcus in the care of the vicar’s wife.