I’ll Bring You Buttercups. Elizabeth Elgin
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must admit,’ Andrew replied gravely, ‘that at first the matter did cause me concern. But I am a competent physician and intend to become a better one. Time is all I need. And I beg you to hear me out with patience, for I think your sister cannot have told you all.
‘I am the son of a coal miner. My father was injured in the pit and suffered pain for two years before he died. Those two years affected me greatly. I was unable to help him, you see, then had to watch my mother work herself to a standstill so we might live.’
‘But that is dreadful!’ Helen Sutton’s dismay was genuine. ‘Did not the owner of the mine make some restitution?’
‘No, ma’am, and we did not expect it.’ He spoke without bitterness. ‘But after my father died, my mother took consumption from a sick man. She went out nursing, usually night work, so she might have the days free for other things. Apart from a child to tend to, she worked mornings for the wife of the doctor, to pay off the debt of my father’s illness.
‘She insisted I remain at school, though I was old enough by then to have worked at the pit. But she would have none of it. The only comfort in her death was that at least she lived long enough to know I’d been given a scholarship to medical school.’
‘But how did you manage? All those years of study,’ Giles murmured, uneasily. ‘How did you eat – buy books?’
‘I bought secondhand books and ate as little as possible,’ Andrew laughed. ‘I’d sold up the home, though there was little left by that time. Most of it had gone, piece by piece, over the bad years. But what was left helped, and my mother’s sister, my aunt Jessie, gave me her savings, to be paid back when I qualified. I was grateful for her faith and trust. I even had thoughts that, once I could afford decent lodgings, she could come to me: I’d have cared for her for the rest of her life. She died, though, even before I qualified. She was never to know me as a doctor. But that is why I have no family to offer you – only myself …’
‘I am so sorry,’ Helen whispered, ‘and please, if you find it upsetting, there is no need to tell us.’
‘Upsetting? No, Lady Sutton, you misunderstand,’ Andrew smiled. ‘What I have told you is neither to seek praise nor pity. It is merely a fact of my life – my background – that you should know about and, I hope, try to accept.
‘The two women who made it possible for me to qualify are beyond my help how, so instead I pay my debt to them in other ways. Apart from my work at the hospital, I hold a twice-weekly surgery at my lodgings; those who cannot afford to pay, I treat without charge. I turn no one away, and it pleases me to think that one day I might diagnose consumption in its early stages and be able to prevent a woman dying as my mother died.’
‘Then your beliefs are to your credit, doctor,’ Helen said gently. ‘I wonder – would you care to take coffee with us?’ She pulled on the fireside bell and was amazed by the speed at which it was answered.
‘Milady?’ Mary stood pink-cheeked in the doorway.
‘Will you bring coffee for four – and will you apologize to Cook and tell her there will be one extra for luncheon?’
Unable to conceal her delight, Mary made triumphantly for the kitchen.
‘Mama!’ Julia cried. ‘It’s all right? We can be married? Oh, thank you!’
‘Julia!’ As sternly as she was able, Helen Sutton silenced her daughter’s excited flow. ‘You may not be married whilst you are still a minor, and even when you come of age I ask you not to consider yourself engaged to Doctor MacMalcolm.
‘What I am prepared to agree to is that you may write as often as you please and meet each other here, or at Aunt Sutton’s. Then, in a year from now, if you are both of the same mind, we can all discuss the matter further. There, miss – will that suit you, for the time being?’
‘Ma’am, it will suit me very well indeed,’ Andrew replied warmly, ‘and I – we – thank you most gratefully. You will not regret the decision you have come to today, I promise you.’
‘Dearest Mother.’ Julia’s voice was low with emotion, and tears, the sweetest, happiest of tears, shone in her eyes. ‘Thank you …’
It was, as Mrs Shaw said when Mary had carried up the coffee tray and reported in detail on the atmosphere in the small sitting-room, only to be expected. Miss Julia had come back from London an altogether different young woman, and beautiful for all to see.
‘London,’ said Cook, looking across the table at Alice, silently daring her to deny it. ‘London was where it all started, or I’m a Dutchman. Am I right, Alice Hawthorn?’
But Alice merely smiled and went on with her polishing and said never a word, whilst upstairs, as his sister crossed the lawn outside, fingers entwined in Andrew’s, Giles Sutton demanded of his mother why she had capitulated so suddenly and completely.
‘You surprised me. You almost said yes to their marriage, Mama. Oh, he’s likeable enough and makes no bones about his upbringing, which is to his credit,’ he shrugged. ‘Indeed, I can see why Julia is so besotted. But you, dearest Mother, fell completely under his spell, too. Why, will you tell me?’
‘Spell? Tut! Not at all! But yes, I liked him, and his complete honesty won me over. That, and the dedication with which he follows his profession, is to be commended. But, Giles – how am I to explain?’
How could she, even to herself? How, when she had been prepared to stand fast and completely forbid the affair, had she surrendered without protest? How could her son, who had yet to love, understand that even the height of the doctor, the way he held his head, the way he smiled even, had so reminded her of John that it had almost taken her breath away. And how, when he looked at her with eyes neither green nor grey – looked at her with her husband’s eyes – she had known, as surely as if John had whispered it in her ear, that this man was right for her daughter.
‘I think,’ she murmured, ‘that his eyes won me over. Didn’t you notice them, Giles?’
‘No, dearest, I did not,’ he offered, mystified.
‘There you are, then. You are a man and you’ll never understand.’
So he had kissed his mother’s cheek and begged she excuse him until lunchtime, and closed the library door behind him still wondering about it.
But Helen Sutton, when she was alone, closed her eyes blissfully and whispered, ‘John, my dear, thank you for being with me when I needed you. Thank you, my love.’
‘I cannot believe it!’ Julia laughed. ‘I don’t believe that you are here and we are walking in the garden for all to see.’
‘Then you’d better, darling girl, for I’m to stay to luncheon, remember – and hoping to be asked again.’
‘You will be. Mama liked you; I knew she would – Giles, too …’
‘Aye. Your brother tried fine to be the stern guardian, and all the time trying to work out what the upset was all about, I shouldn’t wonder.’
‘Mm. And wanting to get on with his work. He’s seeing to the library. Pa neglected it dreadfully, so Giles is trying to get it into some kind of order. Some of the older books need attention, and he’s packing them up, ready to send to London for repair. And oh, darling, isn’t it a beautiful morning?’
‘Aye. And will you smell that air?’ He breathed in deeply. ‘And look at that view. Do you ever look at it, Julia, or have you seen it so often that you take it for granted?’
‘Perhaps I do, darling,’ she smiled, looking at it with his eyes; at the last of the sweet-scented narcissi and the first of the summer’s roses, climbing the pergola, tangling with honeysuckle and laburnum. And at the delicate spring green of beech leaves and linden leaves, newly uncurled; and a sky, high and wide and blue, with the sun topping Brattocks Wood. ‘But I shall look at it differently now, and how I wish you could be here when evening comes.