Spring Proposal in Swallowbrook (3 page)

‘And we are delighted to have you with us,’ Libby told her. ‘If there is anything that you’re not sure of don’t be afraid to ask.’ As Nathan appeared at that moment to offer his words of welcome, she said to him, ‘Ruby has already met Hugo. He took her in for the weekend when we weren’t around and has offered her the apartment above his garage to rent.’

‘Really!’ he exclaimed laughingly. ‘That doesn’t exactly fit in with his expressed desire for no visitors and time to himself when away from this place. You are to be congratulated, Ruby.’

She smiled. It was hardly the moment to explain that he had accommodated her on sufferance…and where was he? Hugo Lawrence didn’t strike her as someone who would be a poor timekeeper.

The two doctors had left her to settle into her room and gone to deal with their patients, when there was a knock on the door. She crossed to open it and there he was, in the passage outside, observing her questioningly.

‘Is everything all right?’ he asked before she had the chance to greet him. ‘You’ve met Libby and Nathan and the rest of the staff?’

‘Yes, everything is fine,’ she said brightly. ‘Libby was concerned because she hadn’t had time to find me somewhere to stay with me arriving earlier than expected, but I told her that I’d already had a very good offer of your apartment that I will be delighted to accept if it is still open.’

He was frowning. ‘When you get to know me better, Ruby, you will discover that I usually mean what I say. So, yes, the apartment is yours for a nominal rent for as long as you want. If you will come across to the house this evening, we’ll sort out the details.

‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must ring the hospital to have a patient admitted who is far from well with what appears to be septicaemia. Last week it was a mild infection that could have gone either way, but I’ve just called at the house and his condition has worsened over the weekend into something quite serious.’

‘Will you have time to tell me about it when you’ve made the call?’ she asked.

‘Er, maybe not at the moment as I have patients waiting, but if you’re still keen to know I’ll tell you about it tonight when you come round to discuss your renting of the apartment.’ he replied. ‘So, what have Libby and Nathan got planned for you on your first day here?’

He could have suggested that Ruby sit in with him during his consultations for today, but wasn’t going to as he felt he’d made enough concessions already towards welcoming her into the fold, and maybe she would be better sitting in with Libby on her first morning at the practice.

As if on cue Libby appeared and said, ‘I thought you might like to join me during my consultations today, Ruby. It will give you the feel of things and an insight as to how and what we have to deal with, don’t you agree, Hugo?’

‘Yes, I do,’ he told her, ‘and I have an urgent phone call to make so I’ll leave you both to it.’ And with a smile that embraced them both he strode off to his own particular part of the busy surgery, while Libby did likewise in the direction of hers with Ruby close behind.

It had been a fantastic day, reflected Ruby as she ate her solitary meal that evening. Even Dr Lawrence had had a smile for her and soon she would be seeing him again when she went to discuss the rental procedures, and he satisfied her eagerness to hear about the infection that he’d been dealing with.

But first she was going to ring home. She’d spoken to Robbie and her parents yesterday, so they were aware that she had arrived in Swallowbrook earlier than expected, and would now be waiting to hear how her first day at the practice had gone.

They were a close-knit family and had been a very happy one until Robbie’s illness had shown itself and her mother had been faced with the dreadful impact of her part in it.

Before she’d discovered that she had the faulty gene she’d always been happy and carefree, singing around the house, hugging them all close at every opportunity, but ever since Robbie had been stricken with that first bleed all that time ago and had had others since, she had become quiet and withdrawn, not loving or caring for them any less, more if that were possible but joyless in the process.

As Ruby had grown older and begun her medical career she had understood more than anyone the feeling of being flawed that was with her mother constantly and once when she’d asked her what she would have done if she’d known she carried the gene, she’d replied sadly, ‘I don’t know, Ruby. Because I didn’t know I was a carrier of the haemophilia gene I was never faced with having to make a choice with regard to having children.

‘Your dad is loving and supportive, tells me to stop fretting, that I am not to blame for what is happening to Robbie, that it is not because of any known fault of mine, genetics have made me what I am, but I still have to live with it, don’t I? Live with the knowledge that Robbie’s illness isn’t the only blight I’ve put upon my family. There is also what I’ve done to you, Ruby.’

On that occasion with a wisdom beyond her years she had held her mother close and told her, ‘All you’ve ever
done
to me is to be the best mother in the world and Robbie, when he is older, will feel the same, so don’t weep for what you didn’t know about, Mum. What Dad says is right.’

But tonight when her mother’s voice came over the line there was only happiness in it as they chatted about Ruby’s return to Swallowbrook and her first day at the practice, until she told her about her attractive landlord-cum-colleague-cum–recluse neighbour.

‘You aren’t going to fall in love, are you?’ her mother asked, trying not to sound anxious.

They’d gone through this scenario a few times, the worry that relationships with the opposite sex brought about, and understanding only too well her mother’s thought process Ruby told her gently, ‘Not with this one. He is dubious about my suitability from all angles.’

When she’d finished speaking to her mother Ruby rang Hugo to ask what time he would like her to go across to the house to discuss the tenancy.

‘Come now if you want and let’s get it over with,’ was the brisk reply, without any hint of welcome. ‘It won’t take long. Just a matter of fixing a rental, the two of us signing the appropriate forms, and me giving you a copy of rules and regulations, along with details of the user instructions for everything.’

So ‘Mr Nice Guy’ from the surgery had changed back into ‘Sir Keep Your Distance’, Ruby thought as she replaced the receiver. What did he think she was going to do, take her knitting with her? She would be in and out like a flash and would not be asking him to tell her about the patient that he’d called to see on his way to the surgery that morning.

She wasn’t to know that he’d been expecting a call from his sister, and as always when he spoke to Patrice there was the dread in him that the new life she’d gone to without a second thought might turn out to be a mistake.

When she’d gone it had been as if he’d been given his life back. Opportunities to do his own thing for a change had presented themselves and he was out to guard them like precious gold.

Patrice always rang him on a Monday evening and until she did he was always on edge in case she was having second thoughts about her impulsive move abroad and wanted to come home. So far there had been no mention of any such thing, she and the children sounded happy enough in their new surroundings, but so stressful had been the eighteen months when he’d given up every spare moment to them he still couldn’t believe that it was actually over and she had found some degree of happiness at last.

He’d thought it was going to be her when Ruby had phoned. Had let his tension loose on her and was now regretting it, so when he opened the door to her he was smiling. Stepping back to let her in, he said, ‘My sister usually rings from Canada at this time on a Monday evening, so I hope you will excuse me if I have to break into our discussion to answer the call. I am always on edge until I know that all is well with her—you know how it can be, a new life in a new land.’

‘Yes, of course,’ she replied, and thought she would bear in mind that Monday evenings were not a good time to ring her prospective landlord.

He was leading her through to the sitting room and pointing to the sofa for her to be seated and the memory of Saturday night came back, with her drooping like a rag doll against its soft cushions after a dreadful day.

Hugo had been right when he’d said that the rental arrangements wouldn’t take long. In no time at all they had completed the paperwork needed for Ruby to rent the apartment for the next six months, to begin with at a very reasonable figure.

When she expressed her gratitude he said with none of the abruptness of earlier, ‘I thought you might have to pay off a student loan, and it is worth it to me that someone I already know will be living there, instead of an array of strangers.’

‘I do have a loan to pay off,’ she told him. ‘My parents are helping me with it, yet it is still my responsibility, so thanks for the thought, Dr Lawrence.’

He nodded and asked with casual curiosity, ‘Where is your family situated?’

‘In Tyneside. We used to live here in Swallowbrook but had to move because of my father’s job, yet I have always wanted to come back.’

‘Are you their only child?’

‘No, I have a young brother, Robbie, in his early teens.’

‘So your parents have the same as mine had, a son and a daughter, though in our family it is the other way round—my sister, Patrice, is the younger of the two of us.’

At that moment the phone rang and he said, ‘This will be her now.’

As she got up to go he said, ‘You don’t have to rush off. I thought you wanted to hear about the patient I called on before morning surgery.’

She was smiling, her earlier dismay at his abrupt manner having disappeared as she said, ‘It will keep for another time,’ and letting herself out she returned to the apartment and once again danced a little jig at the thought of being its new tenant.

CHAPTER THREE

T
HE
CURTAINS
were not drawn in the apartment and as Hugo chatted to Patrice he was smiling as he watched Ruby dancing around the place.

She was incredibly graceful, he thought as she pirouetted in the small lounge beneath the chandelier that had been one of his sister’s extravagances when she’d been furnishing the elegant apartment.

Now Patrice was gone. It belonged to him, and it remained to be seen what kind of a person the young graduate that he had rented it to would turn out to be. So far she hadn’t put a foot wrong,
but he had
, and there had been no reason for it except that the timing of her arrival in his life had been all wrong.

Looking after Patrice had become a way of life over the years and since it had come to an end, every time they spoke on the phone he rejoiced to hear the lift in her voice as she chatted about the children’s schools, and the attractive house they’d moved into not far away from that of her friend.

When they’d finished their weekly chat he saw that Ruby had closed the curtains across the way and settling himself in a chair by the fire with a book he thought that he wouldn’t be doing this tomorrow night as Libby and Nathan had invited him to supper, along with Ruby and John Gallagher, who was now enjoying his retirement in a pine lodge by the side of a nearby river.

Ruby hadn’t mentioned the invitation when she’d come across, but she hadn’t had much opportunity with him wanting to know about her family and anything else that would give him a clearer picture of the newcomer to the practice, and then there had been Patrice’s phone call.

It was a nice idea on the part of the other two doctors. Ruby’s early arrival had taken them all by surprise. It would be one way of welcoming her into their midst, and
an opportunity for her to meet up again with John, who had been her family’s doctor when she’d lived in Swallowbrook before.

Not having been resident here for long himself, he knew nothing of the trauma of illness and heartache that Ruby’s family had taken with them to their new home. What he did know was that she had been very keen to come back to Swallowbrook to be part of the village medical centre, which was rather strange as with her degree results he would have thought she would want to aim higher than a country practice.

The book he was holding was in his hand without a word having been read and deciding that solitude was all right in small doses he reached for a jacket and going out into the night pointed himself in the direction of The Mallard, and this time there was no Ruby rising hastily from her seat by the fire to make a quick exit.

Having calmed down after her earlier glee at the thought of securing the apartment, Ruby was towelling herself dry in front of a large mirror in the bathroom after her nightly luxurious bath when catching sight of herself she paused in contemplation.

There was nothing wrong with her figure, she thought wistfully, slender curves, smooth skin, and long legs that made up for any raving beauty that was missing elsewhere. But it wasn’t anything that was
missing
that frequently made her feel sad, just the opposite. It was something she had that she didn’t want, that might one day turn light into darkness.

Don’t let it spoil the pleasure of being back here, she told herself.

Soon it would be spring and everywhere would come alive as it always had before. The lake would be filled with launches and small boats and the fells would be beckoning the climbers and walkers who couldn’t resist them onto their rugged slopes. But best of all there would be the practice and knowing that she was back in the place that had wrapped itself around her and held her close when her world had fallen apart.

When she came out of the apartment the next morning Hugo was about to pull out of the drive and he wound the car window down to ask if she wanted a lift to the surgery.

She flashed him a smile but shook her head, ‘No. I’m fine, thank you, Dr Lawrence. I’m still in a state of delight to be back here and will enjoy the short walk.’

It was true she would, but the main reason she’d refused the lift was because she didn’t want Hugo Lawrence to feel that his reluctant overseeing of her welfare had to continue.

She was up and running, ready for any challenge that came her way in the new life she had chosen for herself, just as long as she could put on hold the interest he had awakened in her from the moment of their meeting.

About to drive off, he said as a parting comment, ‘We’ll have to sort out you taking over the spare car at the surgery that I mentioned. Can’t have you without transport, even though you do enjoy walking everywhere.’

‘Yes, when you’re ready,’ she agreed obediently, and off he went.

Hugo’s face was set in solemn lines as he pulled up on the forecourt of the practice. What was the matter with him, he was thinking, fussing over this young doctor to such a degree? Had the time he’d spent looking after the needs of his sister and her children turned him into a control freak? The void he’d lived in for the last eighteen months was opening up and life was going to be good again, if he would let it.

If Ruby Hollister had turned up smartly dressed and brimming with confidence on Saturday he wouldn’t have given her a second thought, but it was as if she’d appeared in his life for a reason, and of one thing he was sure, it was not going to be as someone to fill the gap.

She could sort herself out in future. He would keep his distance, and no sooner had that determination been born than he remembered the supper party at Libby and Nathan’s that evening.

Unaware of his thought processes, Ruby sought him out before the morning got under way and said, ‘I’m on my own today with instructions to ask any of the three of you if I have any problems, but as I’m sure that you must feel you’ve already seen enough of
me and my problems
I’ll avoid troubling you further and will consult either Libby or Nathan.’

‘Sure,’ he said easily. ‘Whatever you’re happy with, Ruby, and by the way, do you still want to know about the patient with septicaemia?’

‘Yes, of course,’ she said promptly. ‘I want to know about everything and everyone in this place.’ And into the silence that followed came the thought,
You in particular.

‘Right, then,’ he said briskly. ‘Jeremy Jones is the village postman and I have never seen an infection develop more quickly than the one he’s got. He was sawing up wood for the open fire in his cottage with a rusty saw and it slipped and gashed his leg quite badly.

‘Instead of getting it seen to in a proper manner to prevent any complications, he has been bathing it with all sorts of old remedies, typical of an elderly bachelor who thought he knew best, and didn’t.

‘He called me out last Friday and I put him on antibiotics immediately with instructions to call out the emergency services over the weekend if it worsened before the medication had a chance to kick in and the dreaded red line of septicaemia appeared.

‘Jeremy decided to wait until Monday morning when one of us was available, but before he could get in touch I called to see him on my way here, if you remember, and from then on it was all systems go to get him into hospital. I’m afraid that he might lose the leg through nothing more than his own negligence as he hadn’t taken the medication I’d prescribed.’

‘How could he have been so foolish with all the facilities of the NHS at his disposal?’ she exclaimed.

‘Yes, exactly,’ he agreed, and as the big hand of the surgery clock swung on to half past eight Ruby went into her own small room and picking up a patient’s notes from the top of a small pile on the desk went to find him.

There were a few surprised glances when she appeared in the doorway of the waiting room and as she smiled upon them she wondered how many of them would shy away from consulting a doctor of her obvious youthfulness.

But the spotty teenage youth who got to his feet in answer to his name didn’t care who he was being seen by as long as they could do something to put an end to the misery that a face covered in pimples was causing him.

‘I’ve come about these zits,’ he said awkwardly. ‘I can’t face going anywhere with my skin like this and I don’t know what to do about it.’

Ruby flashed him a friendly smile. ‘Maybe you don’t, Dominic, but I do
.
You’ve come to the right place. It is acne that you’ve got, the teenage blight.

‘It will have started by blackheads appearing, am I right?’ He nodded sombrely. ‘Then the blackheads became zits, and if those zits aren’t treated they will become cysts that are infected with bacteria made up of dead skin and white blood cells, known as cystic acne, which can leave permanent scars. So we need to sort this out quickly as your problem is moving in that direction.’

He had gone very pale. What he was suffering from was every teenager’s nightmare. The embarrassment of it would be unbearable.

‘I’m going to put you on an antibiotic capsule that is very good for this sort of skin infection. It should attack the bacteria, reduce the inflammation, and prevent it from progressing into what I’ve just described.’

He was smiling for the first time. ‘That’s great! You’ve no idea how much it’s been affecting me.’

‘Yes, well, you’ll have to be patient, you know.’ she told him sympathetically. ‘The problem isn’t going to disappear overnight, but you should soon see an improvement. Come and see me again in a couple of weeks.’

When he’d gone with less of the attitude of the ‘leper’ in his manner Ruby thought that no matter what age group there was always some health problem that could arise. She knew that only too well from what Robbie had to endure and his was for always, just the same as hers was.

With regard to her first patient of the day his problem should clear up with the right medication and when his body had adjusted to the changes of adolescence.

When the doctors stopped for a brief coffee break in the middle of the morning Libby appeared to say that it was the antenatal clinic in the afternoon that she was usually in charge of, but not today as she had an appointment of that nature herself at the hospital on the lakeside. So Hugo would be taking it instead and she, Ruby, along with one of the practice nurses, would be assisting him.

‘Have you done anything like that before?’ she asked with a smile for the young doctor who was now part of the practice.

‘I haven’t done antenatal as such,’ Ruby said slowly at the thought of being enclosed with Hugo for a full afternoon, ‘but I spent a month on a maternity ward during my hospital training.’

‘And how did you find that? Was it enjoyable?’ Libby asked.

‘Yes and no,’ was the reply. ‘The feeling of responsibility in helping to bring a new life into the world was awesome and sometimes quite terrifying if complications were present.’

Surprised at the intensity of feeling in her voice Libby said, ‘There shouldn’t be anything like that today, Ruby. It will be mainly straightforward check-ups on our mothers-to-be and if Hugo finds anything that he
is
concerned about it will be straight to hospital for the patient.’

‘Dr Lawrence was very kind when I arrived so unexpectedly,’ she said as Libby was about to go back to her own room, ‘but once I’d recovered from the traumas of Saturday I did feel that I had spoilt his weekend as he seems to be a very private person.’

‘Hugo gave up a position in general practice down south to move to Swallowbrook when his sister’s husband died suddenly and she was in a dreadful state, unable to look after herself or her two children properly. He’s just come to the end of a gruelling eighteen months that seemed as if it might go on for ever, until Patrice met an old friend over from Canada who persuaded her to go and live there, leaving him free at last to get his own life back.

‘When you approached him on Saturday he had just got back from Somerset where he’d been tying up all the loose ends from when he’d lived there, and was probably looking forward to flaking out when he got back, don’t you think?’ she said laughingly as she observed Ruby’s expression.

‘Oh, no!’ she groaned. ‘What a pain he must have thought I was.’

‘Hugo can’t have thought you too much of a pain if he’s offered you the apartment to rent,’ Libby said consolingly. ‘Nathan and I were amazed because he’d intended leaving it empty as much as possible to avoid noise and interference.’

‘He must have seen how much I liked it and taken pity on me,’ she said with the gloom of not knowing his circumstances and being too quick to judge heavy upon her.

Whatever the reason there was no time for further discussion. Coffee break was over, it was back to the demands of the day and in what seemed like no time at all it was early afternoon.

The practice nurses were setting out their room to accommodate mothers-in-waiting in the various stages of their pregnancies and Ruby thought that she’d been crazy to think she could avoid Hugo Lawrence while on practice premises, but would try her best to do so when she wasn’t…
once the ordeal of tonight’s party was over.

Hugo was impressed by Ruby’s efficiency. So far she hadn’t exactly filled him with confidence outside the surgery, but there was no fault to be found with the way she was dealing with the pregnant women who had come to be examined.

The practice nurse was taking blood-pressure readings and checking urine samples, while he and Ruby saw each woman in turn to check for problems that could be a cause for alarm with regard to the health of mother and baby.