Abigail Gordon - Country Midwife, Christmas Bride

When she’d been asked if she would take on the responsibility of the new venture she’d agreed without hesitation. Since she’d lost Richard, her husband, in a pile-up on the motorway three years ago and in the horrendous aftermath of the accident had also lost the baby that would have been their firstborn, her job had become the only thing she had left to hold on to and she gave it everything she’d got.

David had also worked at St Gabriel’s, then as a registrar, before deciding to move into rural health care, and she was going to be doing the same.

When he’d mentioned that he would soon be vacating the cottage he was renting in Willowmere to start married life in the house by the lake, she’d got in touch with the letting agents and now here she was. Just across the way was one of the special attractions of the place: a flower-filled peace garden that she’d been told was the pride of the local folk who had paid to have it put there and contributed to its upkeep.

She’d sold their house after Richard and the baby had been taken from her, unable to bear seeing the nursery he’d been working on half-finished, and conscious all the time of the empty half of the bed that would always be there to remind her.

The leafy suburb where they’d lived had been left behind and she’d moved into an apartment near the hospital… and at the same time had bought a single bed .

It had been a modern, impersonal sort of place where she’d eaten and slept, and she would probably have stayed there for ever if the Willowmere position hadn’t come up. Now she’d gone to the other extreme and was renting a small limestone cottage in an idyllic Cheshire village that she hadn’t seen until the night before.

When she’d made the tea and sipped it slowly in her new surroundings, off came the suit she’d worn for the wedding, on went jeans and a sweater, and back went the long fair swathe of her hair into a ponytail as she began to unpack the boxes that held her belongings.

Once that had been accomplished it was time to find a shop as the only food in the place was a loaf she’d brought with her and a packet of cereal, which would have made rather dry eating if she hadn’t noticed a farmer delivering milk to nearby properties and been able to obtain a supply from him. He’d asked if she wanted a regular delivery and she’d been quick to say yes. It would be one less thing to shop for when she was busy at the clinic.

On her way to seek out the shop, or hopefully shops, Lizzie was promising herself that if she should come across a café of some sort she was going to eat there as it was beginning to feel a long time since she’d had food at the wedding reception.

There was something along those lines, she discovered. The atmosphere in the Hollyhocks Tea Rooms was welcoming and the food was excellent. She would be dining there again, she decided as she left the place. As she looked around her, taking in her surroundings, she saw the doctor who’d been best man at the wedding coming towards her with a young child on either side of him. She recognised the twins, a boy and a girl that she’d already seen once that morning in the company of a dark-haired, youngish woman and an elderly lady.

James Bartlett was smiling as they drew level and as she observed the bright-eyed little girl and solemn small boy he said, ‘Hello, Lizzie. You won’t have met my children.’ He placed the palm of his hand on top of each of their small golden heads. ‘Pollyanna and Jolyon.’

‘I saw them at the wedding,’ she told him with an answering smile, ‘but didn’t realise they were yours. I suppose that having your best man’s duties to perform they were with their mother.’

‘We haven’t got a mummy,’ the boy called Jolyon said matter-of-factly. He pulled at the neck of the smart little shirt he’d worn for the wedding. ‘I’m too hot, Daddy.’

‘We’ll be home soon,’ his father told him, ‘and then you can change into your play clothes.’

His sister was looking down at Lizzie’s feet, now encased in comfortable casual shoes, and into the silence that followed his father’s reply she said, ‘Where are your blue shoes?’

James’s smile was fading fast. This is just too embarrassing, he was thinking. He’d only stopped to say a brief hello to Lizzie Carmichael and within seconds Jolyon had told her about the great gap in their lives, and as Pollyanna had a thing about clomping around in Julie’s shoes, no doubt she would ask Lizzie if she could try her shoes on some time.

‘The shoes are at the cottage where I’m living,’ Lizzie told her easily. ‘They were hurting my feet.’

‘I wear my mummy’s shoes and pretend I’m grown up,’ Pollyanna explained.

‘Yes, well,’ her father interrupted gently, ‘perhaps we can talk about that another time, eh, Polly?’ He smiled apologetically at Lizzie. ‘The person you saw with the children was Jess, their nanny, and somewhere nearby would be Helen, my housekeeper. You’ll no doubt get to meet them soon. Willowmere is a very friendly village.’ And with his son tugging to be off and his daughter wanting to linger, he wished Lizzie a brisk goodbye and the trio went on their way.

Lizzie felt embarrassed that she’d been so presumptuous as to take for granted that the slender dark-haired woman she’d seen with the children was their mother. She wondered what had happened, and hoped she hadn’t upset them. It had been an easy enough mistake to make as they’d seemed so content in the woman’s company.

It was out of character, though, as after losing Richard and the baby she never presumed anything, took nothing for granted. If something good happened in her private life it was a bonus, and there hadn’t been many of those over the last few years.

Meeting David and subsequently the lovely Laurel, who’d had her own bridges to build, had been one, and she hoped that one day she might have the pleasure of seeing the young bride at her maternity clinic. But there would be plenty of time for that, and she, Lizzie, would be around for all of it as she intended to settle permanently in Willowmere, circumstances permitting.

She’d been going to ask James about the shops in the village but had been sidetracked by the children, and now as she looked around her Lizzie saw that there was no need to have enquired. They were all there on the main street, one after the other, starting with the post office at one end, an attractive delicatessen next to it, then the usual butcher’s, bakery, greengrocer’s and the rest, all of them with a quaint individuality of their own that set them apart from the usual shopping facilities of the modern age.

As James walked up the drive of Bracken House, his detached property next to the surgery, with the children skipping along in front, he was wishing that his introduction to the latest member of health care in the village had been more dignified.

Theirs was going to be essentially a working relationship and already Polly and Jolly in their innocence had turned it into something less official, and he’d ended up reciting his domestic arrangements as if by some remote chance Lizzie might want to hear them.

She was an unknown quantity and that was how he would like it to stay until Monday morning. Time then to see if the bright star of the maternity unit at St Gabriel’s was going to be the right one for Willowmere and the nearby rural communities.

He was well pleased that home births were being highlighted through the generosity of Lord Derringham, and knew that his lordship would have insisted that his project be properly staffed, and he supposed that what little he’d seen of the newcomer so far was reassuring.

She was in her early thirties, according to the information he’d been given, which made her five or so years younger than himself, and was unattached which he supposed could mean anything. But her having moved into the tiny cottage that David had been renting seemed to indicate that as well as being unattached Lizzie Carmichael lived alone…though he was presuming, of course.