It was all a far cry from a flat above the bakery but she didn’t envy anyone their possessions. She’d been totally happy with her life in Swallowbrook until Aaron had appeared and filled her heart with all the longings of before that were so much deeper now that she’d met him face-to-face again after the long and painful absence that she’d thought had taken him out of her life for ever.
A small motor launch was passing. In it were two of the guys from the group that she socialised with and one of them shouted across, ‘Where’ve you been, Julianne? We’ve missed you at the pub.’
‘Family matters!’ she called back across the water.
‘Not pregnant, are you?’ the other one teased.
‘No. Adult family matters.’
‘Difficult to know which is worse,’ he parried, and then they were gone, cutting through the water in the direction of the moorings at the far end of the lake without a care in the world, and she thought that was how she used to be, a pleasure-loving free spirit, until the past had caught up with her and a heart condition known as ‘love’ had taken over her life.
CHAPTER EIGHT
WHEN Julianne arrived at the community centre to a scene of organised chaos where young people, looking tired and bedraggled, were standing in groups, eating and drinking what the village folk were providing for them, she found Aaron and Hugo amongst them, making sure that none of them were any worse for their ordeal.
As she joined the two doctors Aaron looked up from examining the arm of one of the young boys where a nasty cut was to be seen, and as their eyes met she saw the unspoken questions that the night before had left.
Where do we stand now, his dark gaze was asking, and am I still the tactless oaf who upset you? But when he spoke it was about the boy, who was grimacing with the pain from the injury to his arm.
‘Nurse Marshall, this young man is our first real casualty so far,’ he told her. ‘He needs to have stitches in this nasty gash on his arm, so will have to be taken to A and E at the hospital. Fortunately it is only a matter of minutes from here, so would you mind asking the teacher to come over while we sort something out?’
‘The coach driver has been here all night, waiting to take them back to where they’ve come from, so maybe he could stop off at the hospital and the person in charge can take our young casualty to have his arm seen to while the coach waits outside with the rest of them.’
‘I imagine they’ll give him a tetanus jab while he’s there. It’s quite a deep cut as he fell on rocks in the dark up on the fells and is quite grimy. The vicar’s wife wanted to bathe it but I would rather it was attended to by the hospital right from the start.’
So far Julianne hadn’t spoken, but now she broke her silence to say, ‘I take it that the teacher is the guy looking so harassed?’
‘You take it right,’ he said, still with his questions about the night before unanswered, and she thought that was how it was going to stay.
She didn’t want to hold an inquest on the humiliation that had been heaped upon her this time. Aaron of all people knew what it felt like to be treated as surplus to requirements.
Loving him was just too complicated, she’d decided in the last moments before a restless sort of sleep had closed in on her during the night. She would be back with her friends on the merry-go-round the first chance she got, but that thought had passed as quickly as it had come. She wasn’t going to be around socially for some time if she was caring for Nadine.
Her sister needed her and poles apart though they might be she knew that Aaron’s suggestion that she stay with her until she was strong enough to take up the reins of her life again was the sensible and most charitable thing to do, because if she tried to get in touch with their parents it didn’t mean that they would come rushing to be with their eldest daughter in her time of need.
But that jumble of thoughts had been there during the night and now in the clear light of day she was pushing them to the back of her mind for a short time as the hospice had rung to say that her sister was not being discharged until the following weekend at her own request, so there would be a breathing space before she had to leave the apartment for she didn’t know how long.
The coach party had left, aiming first for the hospital before starting their homeward journey, and the doctors and nurse were free to return to their normal duties at the practice.
Hugo had driven Aaron and himself to the community centre and as he was aiming to visit a patient on the return journey it left Julianne and Aaron to walk back the way she had come.
A chill wind was rippling the still waters of the lake now and she thought how in keeping with her mood it was, but Aaron had another card to play to make up for getting it all wrong. Whether it would turn out to be the ace of hearts he wasn’t sure, so the best thing was to say his piece and see what sort of a reply he got.
‘The letting agent who acts for the people who own The Falls Cottage has been in touch to say that they want to sell it, that it will be going on the market soon, and are asking if I would be interested in buying it before it is advertised.’
‘Really?’ she exclaimed with muted interest. ‘And are you?’
‘What? Interested? I suppose I could be. It’s a very attractive property. You haven’t seen the inside, have you?’
‘No,’ she replied, ‘but if it is anything like the outside I’m sure it must be delightful.’
‘Yes, it is. We’ll be passing it in a few moments. Would you like to have a quick look around just to satisfy your curiosity? I’m sure they can spare us for a few moments longer at the surgery.’
‘Er, yes, I suppose so,’ she said half-heartedly, with the last time they’d been in close contact too clear for comfort.
When they arrived Julianne paused to watch the waterfall for a moment as it came down the hillside on its headlong journey into the lake, and as she looked around her she thought that the cottage was in a heavenly place. Turning to Aaron who was taking note of her expression, she said, ‘How did you find this place?’ You signed up to rent it while you were still abroad, didn’t you?’
‘I asked Laura if she would find me somewhere to live when I arrived in Swallowbrook and she sent brochures from local estate agents. Once I’d seen the one for this place I didn’t look any further, but you are here to see what it’s like inside.’ He opened the door and ushered her in out of cold.
‘It is a mistake to describe this beautiful house as a cottage,’ she told him after the first few moments of viewing what so far had been his temporary home, but she was turning to go. ‘I don’t want to see any more, Aaron, or I might fall out of love with my apartment. Yet it is said that home is where the heart is and that is certainly where mine is.
‘But don’t let me discourage you from buying this lovely place if you intend staying in Swallowbrook. You must remember, though, that you were dismayed to find me already living here when you arrived, and added to that during the last few days Nadine has surfaced not too far away and nothing has changed much where she is concerned. In spite of losing her baby and the disappearance of her husband, she is still “Nadine has to have”.’ And I can’t bear the thought that ‘having’ you once again might be on her agenda.
‘It only needs my parents to turn up,’ she went on to say, ‘and the whole of my dysfunctional family will be blundering into your life, whether you like it or not. It is my mother that Nadine gets her desire for the luxuries of life from, and my father sails the seas in a beautiful yacht all the time as a way of avoiding family responsibilities. So think carefully before you buy this beautiful home. I would hate to have to watch it grow sour on you.’
When she’d stepped over the threshold of The Falls Cottage Aaron had been smiling because he’d been expecting Julianne to be as impressed with the house by the waterfall as he was, and if that had been the case he would have invited her to somew
here much more special than the back seat of his car, where he would have asked her to marry him, but what she’d just said had left his hopes of her feeling the same as he did—in fragments.
He didn’t care a damn what her family were like, had already had the stuffing knocked out of him by one of them five years ago, and her description of the older generation fitted in more with the word ‘parents’ than Mum and Dad.
But they and Nadine were not the ones he wanted to love and cherish for the rest of his life. Tolerate maybe, he would do that for Julianne’s sake, but she was going to need some convincing that it was the right thing to do if he asked her to marry him. From what she’d just said, she was light years away from thinking along those lines.
As they walked the rest of the way in another of the silences that seemed to come so often upon them, he thought wryly that he would live anywhere that she wanted if only she loved him, even in the apartment above the bakery if that was what she wished. At least up there they wouldn’t have to go far for fresh bread, and maybe the genial George would walk the bride down the aisle if her yachtsman father didn’t make it.
But it seemed as if there might be a long way to go before any of that happened, if it ever did, and when the surgery came into sight it was a reminder that there were those inside whose problems were of the present rather than the future.
As Julianne went to join the other two nurses she couldn’t believe that she had spoiled Aaron’s pleasure in showing her around somewhere that he had seemed keen to make his permanent home. She’d used the shortcomings of her family as a deterrent when in truth she was still smarting at the way he’d put her from him in his car the night before as if she was bad news, or maybe he’d sensed a honey trap of some sort.
They’d had to pass The Mallard on the way back to the practice and she’d glanced across at it edgily. Life had been easy and uncomplicated not so long ago, no unrequited love to contend with or passion that came out of nowhere and turned her into a heap of yearning.
Yet it had also sometimes been boring, with the same friends in the same places. So why had she behaved like someone with no interest whatsoever in being part of Aaron’s life, when in truth she would be ready to live anywhere with him if he would only ask her?
But was it her that he would want to live with him in the beautiful lakeside property? She’d seen his concern when they’d discovered that Nadine was their patient the other night, and he hadn’t hesitated in suggesting that she, Julianne, should move in with her into what would undoubtedly be a pretentious property in a select position, making her own little haven seem like a hen cote. If Howie didn’t show up soon, her sister might reveal just how much her affections were on shifting sands with Aaron around all the time.
Unaware that her mind was on other things when she appeared in the nurses’ room, Helena said, ‘Don’t forget the Snow Queen procession on Saturday, Julianne. Sophie Armitage, Laura and Gabriel’s nine-year-old daughter, is to be the queen and needless to say our practice manager is highly delighted and so is the Angel Gabriel, as her father is known to some of his grateful cancer patients.
‘Sophie will be touring the village with her attendants dressed as snowflakes on a sleigh pulled by two of the horses from the riding school, and will be crowned in the village hall by Libby Gallagher, with her own little snowflake, baby Elsey, close by.
‘After the crowning ceremony there will be hot soup and bacon rolls in the village hall, making the whole thing a very fitting occasion for this time of year. But we do need some snow to make the day complete and although the weathermen are hinting at it, nothing definite has been promised.
‘Dr Somerton is going to be there, he’s keen to be involved in the life of Swallowbrook apart from what he does here at the practice, so you will have company.’
I wouldn’t be too sure about that, Julianne thought. After what I said earlier. I would expect Aaron to run a mile in the opposite direction if he sees me coming on that day.
He appeared at that moment with a request for the records of a patient that appeared to be missing from the pile in front of him on his desk, and was told that Gina, one of the two nurses left to hold the fort while Julianne had been at the community centre, had seen the patient earlier for an injection and Aaron was questioning if that had anything to do with the misplaced records.
He glanced briefly in Julianne’s direction and she longed for there to be harmony between the two of them in spite of her doom-and-gloom attitude of earlier.
She’d wanted any time she spent with Aaron to be happy and carefree. Having him so near after such a long absence from her life would be magical if only there were no side issues such as Nadine’s health and happiness and her sister’s uncertain future, and there was also the state of her own life to consider, which could hardly be described as contentment.
They were still going to see Nadine each evening, Aaron and herself in their separate cars, as the repair to hers had been as the breakdown company had foretold, less serious than it had at first appeared.
There was still no sign of the man her sister had rejected Aaron for and the days were drawing nearer to her return to the empty house that she had been dreading so much until she, Julianne, had fallen in with his suggestion and was going to be there with her.
* * *
But before the Sunday of Nadine’s discharge from the hospice there was the Snow Queen celebration on the Saturday and though the cold was strengthening there was still no sign of the soft white flakes falling from the sky that would make the day complete.
On the Friday night when Julianne went to see Nadine she asked her if she would like to go to the crowning the following day. ‘It is in the afternoon and I could come for you and take you to Swallowbrook where it will be taking place,’ she coaxed, observing that her sister was already shaking her head at the idea, and she wondered if it was because Aaron wasn’t there to offer his persuasion.
It was the first time he’d missed an evening visit, the reason being that he was helping the organisers of the yearly event to erect a raised platform in the village hall for the Snow Queen’s throne, and his absence had been noted with obvious disappointment by the woman who had once passed him by for what she’d seen as a bigger fish and was coming to realise that what she’d caught in her net might turn out to be just a small one.
‘Just be sure to come for me on Sunday,’ Nadine said in the form of a refusal. ‘The trivia of village life does not appeal to me.’
‘I’m not likely to forget Sunday, am I?’ Julianne commented with a vision of the apartment that would be denied her presence in days and weeks to come.
Reading her mind, Nadine was observing her scornfully. ‘You’ll soon forget that box of a place where you live when you see Fellside,’ she announced, and Julianne thought grimly that the only thing that would cause her to go into raptures would be the arrival of the missing husband to take up his responsibilities towards his wife.
When Julianne awoke on Saturday morning thoughts such as those were far from her mind. A fine white carpet lay over the village. During the night the elements had been kind to the youthful Snow Queen and her attendants and everyone was smiling at the gift from above.
As if that wasn’t enough to bring rejoicing, Aaron phoned early to say that if she was going to be on her own at the event he would be looking out for her where the procession was due to commence on the lakeside after the queen and the rest of the young girls had finished sailing round the lake on one of the big launches that were always to be seen on its waters.
Once they had left the launch the local brass band would take over and lead the way to the village hall for the crowning, and as Julianne’s gaze searched the crowd for him amongst those waiting to see them set off he appeared beside her and made her day complete.
He was observing her laughingly and commented, ‘No need to ask if you are well cove
red against the cold. I love the woolly hat and mittens...’ he touched her face gently ‘...and the rosy cheeks.’
It felt as if the moment was wrapping itself around her like soft cashmere until he asked casually, ‘So how was the patient when you saw her last night?’ And suddenly the fabric felt rough and repellent.
Drawing away from his touch, she said, ‘I offered to bring Nadine here today but she refused, didn’t want to be involved in “village trivia”.’
‘That is her loss, then,’ he said casually, but she saw that a frown was creasing his brow and thought surely it wasn’t because Nadine had refused her offer, knowing her it wasn’t entirely unexpected.
‘And what about tomorrow?’ he asked, with more urgency.
‘No problem there. She’s looking forward to going home now that she won’t be alone,’ she told him, and saw that he was smiling.
‘That’s good.’
‘Yes, I suppose it is. I can’t let her be in what sounds like a big place on her own, and mine is too small, so...’
‘Exactly,’ he agreed and as the band struck up and the procession began to move off, ‘and tomorrow is another day. Today is ours, Julianne, are we agreed on that?’
‘I suppose so,’ she told him, ‘but before it gets under way, can I say something?’
‘Yes, as long as it doesn’t spoil it for us.’
‘You have already done that.’
He was swivelling to face her. ‘How? What have I done to make you say that?’
‘You turned us into a threesome by asking about Nadine.’
‘That was the doctor in me surfacing,’ he protested incredulously. ‘Surely you understood that? I can’t believe it if you didn’t.’
‘I didn’t, I’m afraid,’ she said remorsefully, ‘and now I’m the one who has spoiled the day.’
‘Why don’t we call it quits,’ he said mildly, ‘pick up the pieces and start again? I know you must feel that Nadine is a blight on your life in spite of your concerns about her welfare. So if I might be allowed to repeat myself, today is ours. Agreed? And if we don’t get a move on, we will miss the crowning.’ Taking her hand in his, he broke into a sprint to catch up the tail end of the band as it disappeared round the next corner.
Swallowbrook's Wedding of the Year (The Doctors of Swallowbrook Farm) Page 11