Kitabı oku: «A Summer Wedding At Willowmere»

CHAPTER ONE

LAUREL MADDOX groaned as the train pulled into the small country station that was her destination. She had two heavy cases to unload and there wasn’t a porter in sight. Just two deserted platforms and an unattended ticket office were all that were visible as the doors began to open.

For someone used to the big city where platforms and staff were many and varied it was a depressing introduction to the place that was going to be her home for some time to come. Yet all was not lost as she prepared to heave the cases out onto the platform.

A voice said from behind, ‘Can I help?’ and when she turned the man it belonged to didn’t wait for an answer. He moved past and swung the offending luggage out onto the platform, then turned and offered a firm clasp from a hand that was protruding from the cuff of a crisp white shirt.

As she thanked him Laurel was thinking that he was the only part of the scenery that she could relate to. Tall, tanned, trimly built, wearing a dark suit, he seemed more in keeping with the place she’d come from than the countryside that her aunt had described in such glowing terms.

‘I need a porter,’ she said. ‘Is there such a person in this place?’

‘Just one,’ he replied. ‘Walter does the job of porter, mans the ticket office, collects them when necessary.’ He gave a wave of the arm that took in the spotless platforms and the tubs of summer flowers gracing them. ‘And also keeps the place clean and attractive. Willowmere won the prize for best country station last year. But he does stop for lunch at this time of day.’

‘So what about a taxi?’ she asked wearily, obviously unimpressed by his description of the absent Walter’s devotion to duty.

‘There is one, but…’

‘Don’t tell me. Amongst all of that he drives the local taxi.’

‘No. His brother does that,’ he said with a smile of the kind not soon forgotten, ‘but it doesn’t look as if he’s around at the moment. I have a car and it’s parked just here. Can I give you a lift to wherever you’re going? I know we’re strangers, but I’m a doctor in the village surgery, if it helps.’ He showed her his ID, which proclaimed him to be Dr David Trelawney.

‘Well, OK. Thank you,’ she said, trying to smile despite feeling weary and irritable and wishing she hadn’t allowed herself to be persuaded to move to the Cheshire village of Willowmere. ‘So you must know my Aunt Elaine. I’m going to stay with her for a while.’

‘Elaine Ferguson, our practice manager? Yes, of course,’ he said in surprise, and bent to pick up her cases. ‘So you’ll be wanting Glenside Lodge, then. If you’ll follow me.’

As she tottered after him across the cobbled forecourt of the station on high-heeled shoes Laurel was feeling nauseous from lack of food and the journey. It had been a month since she’d been discharged from hospital and she was gradually getting stronger, but at that moment she felt as weak as a kitten and was wishing she’d stayed put in her own habitat.

‘There’s a vacancy coming up at the surgery for a practice nurse,’ Elaine had phoned to say. ‘Why don’t you give James Bartlett, the senior partner, a ring?’

‘You mean live in the country,’ Laurel had said doubtfully. ‘I’m not so sure about that. It just isn’t my scene, and I’m not sure I want to go back to nursing after what happened.’

Elaine was not to be put off. ‘The air here is like wine compared to the fumes in the city, and with some good food inside you it will help to complete your recovery. You’ve done so well, Laurel, and I’m so proud of you. Come to Willowmere and carry on with your nursing here. You are too good at it to give it up. A country practice is a much less stressful place than a large hospital…and I want to pamper you a little.’

Elaine was clearly looking forward to her coming to live in her beloved village and the thought of her waiting to welcome her with open arms had been too comforting to refuse. As well as that, her aunt made the best omelette she’d ever tasted and if there was one thing her appetite needed, it was to be tempted.

There was also the matter of the job at the practice. Laurel had eventually phoned the senior partner, and having explained that she was coming to live in Willowmere and was a hospital-trained nurse, he’d said that once she arrived he would be only too pleased to have a chat.

Returning to the present, Laurel thought that Elaine was going to be mad when she knew she’d come on an earlier train. She would have been there to meet her if she’d kept to the arrangements, but the opportunity had presented itself and she’d thought it better to get on a train that was there than wait for one that might not arrive.

‘Is she expecting you?’ David asked as he drove along a country lane where hedgerows bright with summer flowers allowed an occasional glimpse of fertile fields and their crops.

‘Yes and no,’ she told him. ‘Elaine knows I’m coming but not on the train I arrived on. I caught an earlier one.’

‘That explains it.’

‘Explains what?’

‘She won’t be at Glenside Lodge at this time. Elaine will be at the surgery. So shall I take you there instead?’

‘No!’ she said hurriedly. ‘She’s told me where to find the key. I’d like to go straight to her place if you don’t mind.’

‘Sure,’ he said easily. ‘Whatever you say.’

At that moment she slumped against him in the passenger seat and when David turned his head he saw that she’d fainted. Now it was his turn to groan. What had he let himself in for with this too thin, overly made-up girl in sheer tights and heels like stilts, wearing cotton gloves on a warm summer day…and with the appeal of a cardboard box.

He stopped the car and hurried round to where she was crumpled pale and still in the passenger seat. When he felt her pulse Laurel opened her eyes and sighed. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said listlessly. ‘It’s just that I’m hungry and tired.’

‘And it made you faint?’ he questioned, but the main thing was she’d come out of it quickly and in a very short time they would be at Glenside Lodge.

‘So where is the key?’ he asked when they arrived at the end of a long drive that in the past the carriages of the gentry had trundled along.

‘Under the water butt at the back,’ she told him weakly, and he observed her anxiously.

The moment they were inside he was going to phone Elaine and get her over here as quickly as possible, he decided, and in the meantime he would keep a keen eye on this strange young woman who looked as if she’d stepped out of a back issue of one of the glossies.

When she got out of the car Laurel’s legs wobbled beneath her, and afraid that she might collapse onto the hard surface of the drive he put his arm around her shoulders to support her while they went to find the key and then opened the door with his free hand and almost carried her inside.

There was a sofa by the window and after placing her carefully onto its soft cushions he went into the kitchen to see what he could give her to eat and drink before he did anything else.

A glass of milk and a couple of biscuits had to suffice and while she was nibbling on them and drinking thirstily he phoned the surgery.

‘What?’ the practice manager exclaimed when he told her that her visitor had arrived and wasn’t feeling very well. ‘Laurel wasn’t due until later in the afternoon. I’ll be right there, David.’

With that she’d put the phone down and now he was waiting to be relieved of the responsibility that he’d brought upon himself by offering to help Elaine’s niece.

‘I’m not always like this, you know,’ she told him languidly as she drained the glass. ‘I’m known to be friendly and no trouble to anyone.’

‘You don’t have to explain,’ he told her dryly as the minutes ticked by. ‘I suggest that you see a doctor in case you’re sickening for something.’

She managed a grimace of a smile. ‘I’ve seen a doctor, quite a few of them over recent months, and lo and behold, now I’ve met another.’

Elaine’s car had just pulled up outside and she became silent, leaving him to wonder what she’d meant by that. Maybe she was already suffering from some health problem as she didn’t look very robust.

During the short time that he’d been part of the village practice David hadn’t known anything to disrupt the calm efficiency of its manager. A petite blue-eyed blonde in her late thirties, Elaine Ferguson had accountancy qualifications and controlled the administration side of it in a way that kept all functions working smoothly. But when she came dashing into the small stone lodge that had once been part of an estate high on the moors, Elaine was definitely flustered and the young woman he’d picked up at the station wasn’t helping things as on seeing her aunt she burst into tears.

‘Laurel, my dear,’ she cried. ‘Why didn’t you stick to the arrangements we’d made?’

‘I know I should have done,’ she wailed, ‘but it was so quiet in the apartment and I felt so awful. I just couldn’t wait any longer to be with you.’

David cleared his throat. Now that Elaine had arrived he wanted to be gone, but first he had to explain that her niece had fainted due to what she’d described as hunger and exhaustion and he was going to advise that she see a doctor at the surgery to be checked over.

‘I hope you will soon feel better,’ he said to the woebegone figure on the sofa who was sniffling into a handkerchief, unaware that her mascara had become black smudges around green eyes that looked so striking against her creamy skin and red-gold hair. The hair in question was quite short and shaggy looking and he presumed it must be the fashion back in London.

Elaine came to the door with him, still tense and troubled, but she didn’t forget to thank him for looking after her niece and it gave him the opportunity to say his piece.

She nodded when he’d finished. ‘I have quite a few concerns about Laurel and the first one is to get her settled here in Willowmere where I can give her some loving care. I’ve persuaded her to leave the big city for a while and come to where there is fresh air and good food.’

‘Your niece isn’t impressed with what she’s seen so far,’ he warned her whimsically. ‘A station with just two platforms and no porter to hand.’

‘So she didn’t notice the shrubs and the flowers that Walter tends so lovingly, but she will,’ she said with quiet confidence. ‘Laurel just needs time to get a fresh hold on life. I’m taking what’s left of today off and the rest of the week. I’d already arranged it with James so everything is in order back at the surgery.’

‘I can’t imagine it ever not being in order,’ he said as he stepped out onto the porch.

‘That could change,’ she said wryly, casting a glance over her shoulder at the slender figure on the sofa, and as he drove to the practice on the main street of the village David was wondering what Elaine had meant by that.

‘So you’ve met Elaine’s niece already!’ James Bartlett, the senior partner, exclaimed when he arrived at the practice. ‘How did that come about?’

‘I went by rail to collect the last of my things from St Gabriel’s,’ David explained. ‘I thought it would be quicker than driving there, and when the train pulled in at Willowmere on the return journey I saw this girl about to get off and she had two heavy cases. So I stepped in and lifted them down onto the platform for her.

‘She asked about a taxi but the one and only was nowhere in sight so I drove her to Glenside Lodge then rang Elaine and by that time she wasn’t looking very well.’

James nodded. ‘I know there is or was a medical problem of some kind. There was a period when Elaine was dashing off to London to see her whenever possible and it is why she has persuaded her niece to come and stay with her as they’re very close.’

‘I’m sorry for the delay on my part,’ David said. ‘I’d expected to be away only a short time.’

‘Don’t be concerned,’ James told him. ‘You couldn’t leave a damsel in distress and Ben was here until midday. He’s been on cloud nine ever since little Arran was born. It’s a delight to see him and Georgina so blissfully happy.

‘But getting back to practice matters, would you take over the house calls now that you’re back, while I have a chat with Beth Jackson? Our longest-serving practice nurse is champing at the bit to hang up her uniform.’

‘Sure,’ David agreed. ‘It’s a delightful day out there and a delightful place to be driving around in. I’ll get the list from Reception and be off.’

His first call was at the home of eighty-six-year-old Sarah Wilkinson, who had recently been hospitalised because of high potassium levels in her blood due to drinking blackcurrant cordial insufficiently diluted.

She was home now and due to have another blood test. Sarah had been quite prepared to go to the surgery for it, but they’d told her that the district nurse would call to take the blood sample.

Today his visit was a routine one. All the over-eighties registered with the practice were visited from time to time, and when it was Sarah’s turn there was always an element of pleasure in calling on her because outwardly frail though she was, underneath was an uncomplaining, good-natured stoicism that had seen her through many health problems of recent years.

One of them had been a sore on her arm that had refused to heal. It had resulted in visits to the surgery for dressings over a long period of time, but the old lady had never complained and of recent months a skin graft had finally solved the problem.

When she opened the door to him she said with a twinkle in her eye, ‘Can I offer you a drink of blackcurrant cordial, Doctor?’

David was smiling as he followed her into a cosy sitting room. ‘Do you intend to put plenty of water with it, Sarah?’

‘One can’t do right for doing wrong in this life,’ she said laughingly. ‘I thought by taking the cordial almost neat I was building myself up, but no such thing.’

‘I know,’ he soothed. ‘But we’ve sorted you out, haven’t we?’

‘Yes, you have and I’m grateful. So to what do I owe this visit?’

‘It’s a courtesy call. Just to make sure you are all right.’

‘I’m fine. I’m not ready for pushing up the daisies yet. I’m going to enter my home-made jam and Madeira cake at the Summer Fayre at the end of July just to prove it. Are you going to be there?’

‘Yes, now that you’ve told me about it. Although it’s a while off yet, isn’t it, as June is still bursting out all over. What time does it start?’

‘Eleven in the morning until four in the afternoon. The café and the judging take place in a big marquee that Lord Derringham lends us. He’s the rich man who owns the estate on the tops. One of your practice nurses is married to his manager and Christine Quarmby, who has that ailment with the funny name, is his gamekeeper’s wife.’

‘I can see that if I want to get to know what is going on in the village this is the place to come,’ he commented. ‘Do the people in Willowmere see much of His Lordship?’

Sarah shook her head. ‘No, keeps himself to himself, but on the odd occasion that he does appear he’s very pleasant and, like I said, he lets us use the marquee.

‘On the night before the Fayre we have a party in the park that runs alongside the river. There’s food and drink, and a band on a stage to play for dancing, with us women in long dresses and the men in dinner jackets. You must come.’

‘Why? Will you be there?’

‘Of course.’ She had a twinkle back in her eye. ‘Though I’m not into rock and roll. A sedate waltz is more in my line.’

‘So can I book the first one?’

‘Yes, you can.’

‘I’m impressed.’

‘Get away with you.’ She chuckled. ‘When the young females of Willowmere see you all dressed up, the likes of me won’t be able to get near you.’

David laughed. ‘Talking about young females, I gave one a lift from the station today.’

‘Oh, yes? And who would that be?’

‘She’s called Laurel and is the niece of Elaine the practice manager.’

Sarah smiled. ‘So that’s another one that’ll be in the queue.’

I don’t think so, he thought, and returned to more serious matters by changing the subject. ‘Right, Sarah. So shall I do what I’ve come for?’

He checked her heart and blood pressure, felt her pulse and the glands in her neck, and when he’d finished told her, ‘No problems there at the moment, but before I go is there anything troubling you healthwise that you haven’t told me about?’

She shook her silver locks. ‘No, Doctor. Not at the moment.’

He was picking up his bag. ‘That’s good, then, and if I don’t see you before I’ll see you at the party in the park.’

‘So tell me more about Dr Trelawney,’ Laurel said after David had gone. ‘He told me that he’s one of the GPs here.’

‘He joined us just a short time ago from St Gabriel’s Hospital where he was a registrar seeking a change of direction,’ Elaine explained. ‘David has replaced Georgina Allardyce, who has just given birth and tied the knot for a second time with the husband she was divorced from almost four years ago.

‘Georgina is on maternity leave at the moment and may come back part time in the future. In the meantime, we are fortunate to have David, who is clever, capable, and has slotted in as if he was meant to be part of the village’s health care.’

‘He was kind and I don’t think I behaved very well,’ Laurel said regretfully. ‘In fact, I was a pain. I’ll apologise the next time we meet, but I felt so awful. I’m a freak, Elaine.’

‘Nonsense, Laurel. You are brave and beautiful,’ her aunt protested. ‘The scars, mental and physical, will fade. Just give them time, dear.’

‘Everything is such an effort,’ she said despondently. ‘I’d put on my war paint and nice clothes to make a statement, but didn’t fool anyone, certainly not the Trelawney guy. He suggested that I see a doctor.’

‘And what did you say to that?’

‘That I’d seen plenty over the last few months and was about to tell him that I’m no ignoramus myself when it comes to health care, but you arrived at that moment.’

‘Right,’ Elaine said briskly, having no comment to make regarding that. ‘Let’s get you settled in. David said you fainted, so how do you feel now?’

‘Better. He gave me some milk and biscuits.’

‘Good. So let’s show you where you’ll be sleeping. Take your time up the stairs, watch your leg. I’ve put you in the room with the best view. It overlooks Willow Lake, which is one of the most beautiful places in the area.’

‘Really,’ was the lacklustre response, and Elaine hid a smile. Laurel was a city dweller through and through and might be bored out here in the countryside, but she needed the change of scene and the slower pace of life. Elaine wasn’t going to let her go back to London until she was satisfied that her niece was fully recovered from an experience that she was not ever likely to forget.

‘Is your fiancé going to visit while you’re here?’ Elaine asked after she’d helped bring up Laurel’s cases. ‘He will be most welcome.’

‘It’s off,’ Laurel told her as she peered through the window at the view that she’d been promised. ‘I’m too thin and pale for him these days…and then there are the scars, of course.’

‘Then he doesn’t love you enough,’ Elaine announced, and without further comment went down to make them a late lunch.

She was right, Laurel thought dolefully when she’d gone, but it hurt to hear it said out loud. Darius was in the process of making his name in one of the television soaps and had rarely been to see her while she’d been hospitalised, and less still since she’d been discharged. When she’d said she was going to the countryside to assist her recovery he’d thought she was out of her mind.

‘You’re crazy, babe,’ he’d said. ‘Why would you want to leave London for fields full of cow pats?’

If his visits had been sparse, not so Elaine’s. Her aunt had been to see her in hospital whenever she could and Laurel loved her for it. Other friends had been kind and loyal too. But Darius, the one she’d wanted to see the most, had been easing her out of his life all the time. In the end, dry eyed and disenchanted, she’d given him his ring back.

After they’d eaten Elaine said, ‘Why don’t you sit out in the garden for a while and let the sun bring some colour to your pale cheeks while I clear away?’

‘If you say so,’ Laurel agreed without much enthusiasm and, picking up a magazine that she’d bought before leaving London, went to sit on the small terrace at the back of the lodge. But it wasn’t long before she put it down. It was too quiet, she thought, spooky almost. How was she going to exist without the hustle and bustle of London in her ears?

For the first time since she’d arrived, she found herself smiling. What was she like! Most people would jump at the chance to get away from that sort of sound, yet here she was, already pining for the throb of traffic.

The silence was broken suddenly by the noise of a car pulling up on the lane at the side of the garden and when she looked up Laurel saw that the window on the driver’s side was being lowered and the village doctor that she’d met earlier was observing her over the hedge.

‘So how’s it going?’ David asked. ‘Are you feeling better?’

‘Er, yes, a bit,’ she said, taken aback at seeing him again in so short a time. ‘You didn’t have to come to check on me, you know.’

‘I’m not,’ he told her dryly. ‘There are plenty of others who will actually be glad to see me. I’m in the middle of my house calls so I won’t disturb you further.’

She’d given him the impression that she thought him interfering, Laurel thought glumly as he drove off. What a pain in the neck he must think she was.

Elaine appeared at that moment with coffee and biscuits on a tray and as they sat together companionably, she asked, ‘Did I hear a car?’

‘Yes. It was your Dr Trelawney.’

‘David?’

‘Yes, on his home visits. He saw me out here and stopped for a word. He doesn’t look like a country type. How does he cope with it, I wonder?’

‘The job?’

‘No, the silence.’

‘You ungrateful young minx,’ Elaine declared laughingly. ‘Lots of people would give their right arm to live in a place like this.’

‘Yes, but what do you do for fun?’

Still amused, she replied, ‘Oh, we fall in love, get married, have babies, take delight in the seasons as they come and go, count the cabbages in the fields…’

‘You haven’t done that, though, have you?’

‘Counted the cabbages? No, but I’ve been in love. Sadly I was never a bride. I lost the love of my life before our relationship had progressed that far.’

‘Yes, and it’s such a shame,’ Laurel told her. ‘You would have been a lovely mum. That’s what you’ve been like to me, Elaine.’

‘You are my sister’s child,’ she said gently. ‘I’ve tried to make up for what she and your father lacked in parenting skills, but they did turn up at the hospital to see you, didn’t they?’

‘For a couple of hours, yes, because they’d read about me in the papers, but they were soon off on their travels again.’

‘That’s the way they are,’ Elaine said soothingly. ‘Free spirits. We’ll never change them and they do love you in their own way.’

‘I’ve lost my way, Elaine,’ she said forlornly. ‘I used to be so positive, but since it happened I feel as if I don’t know who I am. My face isn’t marked, for which I’m eternally grateful, but there are parts of the rest of me that aren’t a pretty sight.’

‘That won’t matter to anyone who really loves you,’ she was told. ‘Like I said before, you’re brave and beautiful.’

‘I wish,’ was the doleful reply.

David Trelawney was house hunting. Since moving to Willowmere he’d been living in a rented cottage not too far from the surgery and Bracken House, where James Bartlett lived with his two children.

So far it was proving to be an ideal arrangement. It wouldn’t have been if his high-flying American fiancée had wanted to join him, but that was not a problem any more.

They’d called off the engagement just before he’d accepted the position at St Gabriel’s, and though it had left him with a rather jaundiced attitude to the opposite sex, his only regret was that he’d made an error of judgement and would be wary of repeating it.

Yet it wasn’t stopping him from house hunting. He didn’t want to rent for long, but so far he hadn’t made any definite decision about where he was going to put down his roots in the village that had taken him to its heart. He told himself wryly that he’d made a mistake in his choice of a wife and wasn’t going to do the same thing when it came to choosing a house.

He’d spent his growing years in a Cornish fishing village where his father had brought him up single-handed after losing his wife to cancer when David had been quite small, and once when Caroline had flown over to see him he’d taken her to meet him.

‘Are you sure that she is the right one for you, David?’ Jonas Trelawney had said afterwards. ‘She’s smart and attractive, seems like the kind of woman who knows what she wants and goes out to get it, but I know how you love kids and somehow I can’t see her breast feeding or changing nappies. Have you discussed it at all?’

‘Yes,’ he’d said easily, putting from his mind the number of times the word ‘nanny’ had cropped up in the conversation.

He’d met her on a visit to London. She’d been staying in the same hotel with a group of friendly Texans who, on discovering that he had been on his own, had invited him to join them as they saw the sights.

She’d made a play for him, he’d responded to her advances, and the attraction between them had escalated into marriage plans, though he’d had his doubts about how she would react to the prospect of living in a town in Cheshire, as at that time he’d been based at St Gabriel’s Hospital.

It was going to be so different to the glitzy life that he’d discovered she led when he’d visited her in Texas. Yet she hadn’t raised any objections when he’d said that he had no plans to leave the UK while his father was alive. But he was to discover that the novelty of the idea was to be short-lived as far as Caroline was concerned.

His uneasiness had become a definite thing when he’d been expecting to go over there to sort out wedding arrangements and she’d put him off, saying that she had the chance to purchase a boutique that she’d had her eye on for some time and didn’t want any diversions until the deal was settled.

‘I would hardly have thought our wedding would be described as a diversion,’ he’d said coolly, and she’d told him that she was a businesswoman first and foremost and he would have to get used to that.

‘I see, and how are you going to run a boutique in Texas if you are living over here?’ he’d asked, his anger rising.

There was silence at the other end of the line and then the dialling tone.

She phoned him again that same day at midnight Texas time. It sounded as if she was at some sort of social gathering if the noise in the background was anything to go by, and as if wine had loosened her tongue Caroline told him the truth, that she didn’t want to be a doctor’s wife any more in some crummy place in Britain and wanted to call off the engagement.

As anger came surging back he told her that it was fine by him and coldly wished her every success in her business dealings.

He discovered afterwards that there’d been more to it than she’d admitted that night on the phone. A certain senator had appeared on her horizon and she’d used the boutique story as a get-out.

In his disillusionment David decided to make a fresh start. His father had once told him that his mother had come from a village in Cheshire called Willowmere, and shortly after his engagement to Caroline had ended he met James Bartlett’s sister Anna in the company of a doctor from the village practice. They’d been involved in a near drowning incident in a village called Willowmere and the way they described the place made him keen to find where the other part of his roots belonged.

When he’d found his mother’s childhood home the discovery of it pulled at his heartstrings so much that he decided he wanted to live in Willowmere, and as if it was meant he was offered a position in the village practice.