Of course he would like to! He would like to go inside with her and stay there for evermore he thought, but he knew that Georgina was still holding back. He’d lost her trust once and she wasn’t going to risk any further heartbreak even though the bond was still there.
In his most despondent moments he told himself that if it hadn’t been for the baby, she would have sent him away long ago, but almost as if by divine providence they’d been given something to unite them in joyful anticipation.
‘No, thanks just the same,’ he said easily, trying not to choke on the words.
She nodded as if that was the answer she’d been expecting, and went inside.
When they went to call for Pollyanna and Jolyon on Saturday morning, the children were watching for them from the window of Bracken House. When James opened the door, he said, ‘These two young ones have been looking for you ever since breakfast-time and are bursting to know where you’re taking them.’
‘We’re going to a place where there are lots of animals and exciting things to do,’ Ben told them. ‘We’re going to have a picnic while we’re there, as well.’
Georgina smiled as the children, with eyes like saucers, listened to what he had to say.
‘You’ll have hit the jackpot with that,’ James said.
Pollyanna was hopping with excitement, but Jolyon, always the deeper thinker of the two, wanted to know, ‘Are we going to play cricket?’
‘Yes, if you want to.’ Ben smiled. ‘Go and get your bat and ball and the stumps.’
The little boy didn’t waste any time. He was back within minutes and they were off, waving their good¬ byes to James as the car pulled away from Bracken House.
The weather was holding out for them and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Georgina was determined that there weren’t going to be any in her sky on this bright Saturday morning.
When they arrived at their destination, Ben looked around him at green lawns, silent statues and fountains in profusion in front of a beautiful old house.
‘This is great!’ he exclaimed, and turned to the children. ‘What do you want to do first?’
‘See the animals,’ they chorused.
‘Right! So that’s what we’ll do,’ he said. ‘Afterwards, how about some ice cream before we go on all those exciting things in the play areas?’
‘Yes, please!’ they said.
‘And then can we play cricket?’ Jolyon asked quietly.
‘Then we will play cricket,’ Ben assured him, gently ruffling the solemn little boy’s hair.
This was what he’d been denied, Georgina thought, as her heart ached with tenderness. They both had.
As if he’d read her thoughts, Ben said, ‘Are you all right, Georgina? Tell me if you’re feeling tired, won’t you?’
She smiled up at him, and he wanted to take her in arms and tell her how much he loved her, but it was the children’s day. He didn’t want his emotions running riot to spoil it for them.
They did everything they’d come to do, and when it was time for the picnic that Georgina had set out on a grassy slope behind the gracious house Ben told Jolyon, ‘When we’ve had our lunch we’ll play cricket.’
‘I’ll be the wicket keeper, if you like,’ Georgina volunteered.
‘Great stuff,’ Ben said approvingly. ‘Jolyon, you can be one of the opening bats and I’ll be the other. Pollyanna can be the bowler.’
‘She can’t do over-arm throws,’ Jolyon whispered in his ear. ‘I’ll be the bowler and Pollyanna can bat.’
James was waiting at the gate when they arrived home. Grubby, tired and happy, the children couldn’t wait to tell their father about their day. He said, ‘I can tell they’ve had a really good time. Are you going to come in for a drink?’
‘No, but thank you for the offer,’ Georgina told him. ‘My feet are aching, but we’ve had a lovely time too.’
‘It’s been great,’ Ben said. ‘Your children are terrific, James. You are very fortunate to have them.’
‘Yes, I know,’ he said in a low voice as he watched them scamper towards the house after saying their thanks and goodbyes. ‘Yet I ache all the time because Julie isn’t here with us.’
‘Georgina and I can sympathise with you. We know all about the agony of loss, but we are at last coming through it, and the world seems a different place.’
* * *
They were home, and Ben was making tea in her kitchen while Georgina sat with her feet up. When he came in, carrying two steaming mugs, she said, ‘That was lovely what you said to James. We are coming through it, aren’t we?’
‘Yes,’ he said soberly. ‘Since I came here I’ve been remembering only the good times we had with Jamie.’
‘That is how it should be,’ she told him. Remembering what James had said about his wife, she said, ‘Rightly or wrongly, James has kept the faith.’
‘And we didn’t because our love wasn’t strong enough,’ he commented.
She turned away to hide the hurt that his words had caused and then, facing him again, said steadily, ‘Maybe so, but we’ve been given a second chance, haven’t we?’
She was giving him another opportunity to say what was really in his mind, but again he didn’t take it. Instead, he said, ‘If you say so. But it doesn’t alter the fact that I drove you away. And you let me.’
‘I’m sorry we got involved in this sort of a discussion,’ she told him as she rose to her feet. ‘It has spoilt the last few moments of a lovely day. I’ll see you on Monday, Ben.’
‘So that’s it, is it?’ he said dryly. ‘It’s only half past four and I am dismissed.’
‘I’m sure you can find something to do. Why not watch the cricket again? You enjoyed it last time, if I remember rightly.’
‘I might just do that,’ he replied, ‘and when it’s over make a day of it by dining at the Hollyhocks.’
And what was that meant to be? Georgina wondered when he’d gone. A hint about where he could be found later?
She wasn’t sure she wanted to take him up on it. He’d put the dampener on her hopes with his disparagement of their past relationship, yet after a rest and a shower she was changing into one of her flowing dresses and preparing to walk the short distance to the Hollyhocks as if Ben was willing her to appear.
He was seated at a table by the window and when he heard Emma greeting her as she came in, he rose to his feet and smiled his welcome as if they’d parted on the best of terms.
As he pulled out a chair for her he said in a low voice, ‘I’m sorry about earlier. I don’t deserve you.’
‘No, you don’t,’ she agreed, and now it was her turn to smile, ‘but I’m here, aren’t I?’
‘Yes, you are, and I hope it isn’t only because you’re feeding two,’ he teased.
‘That could be the reason, or it might be because there’s nothing on television worth watching. Then again it could be because this child of ours is kicking away inside me in protest at the behaviour of its parents and I thought you ought to know.’
He sighed. ‘Not parents…parent. I was the one casting the gloom.’
‘So let’s change the subject, shall we?’ she said lightly. ‘Are you going to accompany me the next time I go to see Ian?’
He raised a questioning eyebrow in her direction. ‘I thought we’d already agreed on that. Yes, of course I am,’ he said decisively.
* * *
Unlike the occasion when they’d dined at the smart new restaurant up on the tops, the night was mild as they walked slowly back to their respective cottages.
As they turned on to the lane a badger ambled in front of them, then disappeared into the darkness. Georgina said, ‘The people at the post office feed them every night, and they never fail to turn up.’
He’d only been in the place a matter of weeks yet everything that had happened since he’d arrived was engraved upon his mind. Even the smallest happenings, and the big ones, all about being with Georgina again, would stay with him always, like
stars in a dark sky, with the moment when he’d discovered she was pregnant the brightest star of all.
He ached to sleep with her again, to be able to reach out in the darkness and hold the pliant warmth of her in his arms again. And then when daylight came to have breakfast together. Just simple things but for those starved of them precious beyond belief.
Did she ever feel like that? he wondered. If she did, she hid it well. She’d made a point of telling him that day at the hospital. How she was her own woman and not interested in any of the advances of the opposite sex, and he’d known that it included himself.
It had been a blow to the heart, but even worse had been the knowledge that he was to blame for it, and it could be that any warmth she was showing towards him was either out of pity or put on just to get the waiting time over until the baby was born.
Georgina was observing his expression and commented, ‘I thought we had banished the gloom.’
‘We have,’ he said firmly, and told himself to be satisfied with what they’d got, instead of wishing for the moon.
He wasn’t invited in for a nightcap this time. If he had been he would have accepted, yet it didn’t matter. He’d just told himself to think positive and that was what he was going to do. He did that in every other aspect of his life, but what there was, or was not, between Georgina and himself was as delicate as gossamer.
As Georgina lay looking up at the night sky through her bedroom window, the day that was past was occupying her thoughts and they were a jumble of pleasure and pain. There’d been the happy hours with the children that had made the longing for a family of her own so bad she could almost taste it.
Then the fall to earth over what Ben had said about the quality of their love in time of need, and last but not least she’d been back up in the clouds as they’d walked home together in the gloaming.
Her spirits had been up and down more times than a yo-yo and in the middle of it all was the longing to be not just the mother of Ben’s baby but the cherished wife that she’d once been.
The resident owl hooted to announce its nocturnal presence and taking comfort from that small moment of normality, she slept.
CHAPTER EIGHT
WITH no problems apart from the usual discomforts of pregnancy, Georgina was counting the days to the birth. The baby’s head was down in the right position now and when she was called out to the Quarmbys’ cottage on Lord Derringham’s estate one morning, Christine said on opening the door to her, ‘Dr Adams! I wasn’t expecting it to be you that came. Shouldn’t you be resting?’
‘I’m fine, Christine,’ she told her laughingly. ‘Just a little out of breath and my feet are rather puffy at the end of the day, but that is all. You are the one I am concerned about, so tell me what’s wrong today, my dear.’
‘It isn’t me this time,’ she explained. ‘It’s Dennis. He would have come to the surgery as he doesn’t like a fuss, but I didn’t think he should drive.’
‘So what’s wrong and where is he?’ she asked.
‘He’s falling about all over the place, can’t keep his balance. The moment he got up this morning it was there. The room was spinning and he couldn’t stand up straight. He’s gone back to bed.’
‘And this is the first time it has happened?’
‘Yes, to this extent. He’s had a few minor dizzy spells before but they’ve only lasted a matter of minutes. Today it’s much worse.’
‘This kind of thing can be due to low blood pressure,’ Georgina said when she’d tested it and examined the gamekeeper’s eyes and ears, ‘but I think not in your case, Mr Quarmby. Have you had any headaches?’
‘No, but my ears have been tender and painful,’ he mumbled irritably, and she thought that for once Dennis Quarmby wasn’t in control and he wasn’t liking it.
She nodded. ‘Vertigo, which it most likely is, comes from a disturbance of the nerves in the canals in the ears. I’m going to prescribe some antihistamine tablets that will help to restore your balance, and in the meantime you need rest and quiet.’
He groaned. ‘And while I’m having that the poachers will be out on the estate in full force if they know that I’m laid low.’
‘You should soon be much better once you start taking the medication,’ she told him, ‘and don’t get stressed. If the attacks persist we’ll look into it further, but for now just take the tablets and keep calm.’
Dennis Quarmby’s glance was on his wife hovering anxiously beside the bed and he said, ‘I can’t be ill, Doctor. Christine needs me. This vile thing that she’s got isn’t getting any better and I can’t bear to see her suffer so.’
‘Hush,’ Christine said gently. ‘We both know that it isn’t going to go away, but we love each other, Dennis, and as long as that never changes, we’ll be all right.’
He reached out, took her hand in his, and said gruffly, ‘Aye, Chrissie, nothing can take that away from us.’
Driving back down to the village Georgina’s thoughts were back there with the Quarmbys. Sjögren’s syndrome was an incurable autoimmune disorder related to the rheumatoid arthritis that Christine had been diagnosed with and, as she’d said, it wasn’t going to go away. In fact, it could get worse, so the outlook was bleak.
But those two had something more precious than gold in the way they loved each other. She and Ben had been blessed with that kind of love once. Would it blossom again in the last days of spring when their child came into the world?
When she arrived back at the surgery, Ben said, ‘You look very solemn. Is everything all right?’
With the Quarmbys still at the forefront of her mind she told him, ‘Yes. I suppose so. I’ve just been with two people who love each other very much.’
‘And?’
‘It reminded me of how we used to be.’
She saw him flinch and regretted the words as soon as she’d said them.
‘Maybe they’ve never lost a child,’ he commented flatly.
Contrite, she reached out to take his hand in hers, but as if he hadn’t seen the gesture Ben walked through the main doors of the surgery towards his car. Deflated and upset, Georgina watched him drive off on his own calls.
* * *
David Tremayne had been for an interview with a view to joining the practice at the end of May when his contract at St Gabriel’s was up. When he’d gone the three doctors had all expressed their approval of the possible newcomer, having been impressed by his brisk yet friendly manner and his unmistakable enthusiasm for his calling.
In his early thirties and unmarried, he was tall and very attractive, and Georgina thought that a mother somewhere must be proud of her handsome son.
James had asked Ben to sit in on the interview even though he was just a temporary member of the practice, and the more she saw them together the more Georgina was aware that the two men had taken an instant liking to each other.
When the interview was over, she had carried on for the rest of the day with an easier mind regarding her own arrangements and that evening when Ben arrived home from the surgery, he came to have a chat about the day’s events.
‘So what do you think about David Tremayne?’ he asked.
‘He seemed a really nice guy,’ she replied, ‘but it’s how good a doctor he is that matters most. I do hope that he can join us when he’s free, but first James and Elaine will have to sort out the admin side of it.’
The next subject was her appointment with the gynaecologist the following day. ‘I’ll meet you at his rooms, as I did the last time,’ he said. ‘Just in case I’m on the last minute getting away from surgery. I presume you’re taking the afternoon off as you did before? Have you any concerns to discuss with him?’
‘No. Not really. I keep getting a touch of indigestion, which I suppose is because the baby is pressing on my digestive tract, but apart from that I’m all right.’
‘Blood pressure still behaving itself?’
‘Yes. I seem to have escaped that problem this time.’
‘Good.’
She made tea for them, and he perched himself on a kitchen stool while he drank it. He’d been cooler since she’d mentioned the Quarmbys to him, still caring but withdrawn, while she was aching for love and tenderness.
Ben’s thoughts on the matter were that what she’d said had been a veiled reproach and he’d thought grimly that no one regretted what had happened to their marriage more than him, but at least he was trying to make up for it.
Georgina was early for the appointment with Ian Sefton and as she sat in the empty waiting room, leafing through a magazine while she waited for Ben, the man she was waiting to see came through on his way back from one of his clinics at the hospital. When he saw her, he stopped for a quick chat.
‘Hi, Georgina,’ he said. ‘Did Ben tell you I phoned the other night to suggest we might meet up to discuss our work? I didn’t realise that you and Ben Allardyce were a couple until he joined you at your last appointment.’
‘There didn’t seem any need to mention it,’ she replied, playing it down. ‘We’ve only just renewed our acquaintance.’
‘Yes, he told me. Ben said that you’d been apart, but were together again now and starting this new family.’ Moving towards his consulting room, he said good-naturedly, ‘I’ll be ready for you as soon as he arrives. While I’m waiting I’m going to have a quick cuppa. Those clinics can be gruelling places.’
So Ben had told him that they were together again, she thought. But that wasn’t strictly true. So why had he said it? To impress? She didn’t think so. That wasn’t his style.
As soon as Ben arrived, the receptionist smiled across at them, and said, ‘Mr Sefton is ready for you, if you’d like to go in.’
‘So, any changes or problems?’ Ian asked as he examined her.
‘I’m experiencing Braxton Hicks contractions more often,’ she told him, ‘which I know is normal, so I’m not going to mistake them for labour pains. They’re too far apart, for one thing.’
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