Page 6 of A Helpin g Hand for the Village Nurse

It was only May, and yet the garden was already a vibrant mass of summer colour: towering hollyhocks, rose bushes, poppies, marigolds, lavender, marguerites and many other varieties Ottilie had no name for. As she walked the path, they released bees and butterflies into the sky. In the shade of the house was a mossy-edged pond, a tiny water feature trickling into it and an actual frog sitting on the stones. It was like a house from a fairy tale, and standing in front of the entrance with a key in her hand, Ottilie could scarcely believe she owned it.

Suddenly aware of how long it was taking her to unlock the door and that, perhaps, she might look a bit nutty to her removal team as she stood and gazed at her house, she shook herself. There would be time later to come to terms with her new home and the life that would come with it, but there were more pressing matters to deal with. There was a lot to get inside and the day was already slipping away from them.

Ottilie turned the key in the lock and pushed the door open.

The smell was immediate, that strange smell that would smell like home once she got used to it but, for now, was unfamiliar. Different air, different rooms, different building materials, the products the previous owner used to clean, the food they ate regularly, even the places where the sun came in through the windows, all these things and more mashed together to create an individual aroma that every house had. This wasn’t the same as the new build she’d shared with Josh in Manchester. This was somehow mellower, earthier, perhaps a note that told her she’d have to look out for damp during the winter months. But it was an old house and that was to be expected – it didn’t worry her. There was something waxy in it, old wood and carbolic soap, and perhaps a hint of lavender and honeysuckle sneaking in from the clumps growing closest to the front door.

The layout was flat and broad. Ottilie had visited many houses – especially the old terraces where many of her family members had lived as she’d been growing up – where the house would look like nothing from the front but would reach back for what seemed like miles in the most deceiving way. But Wordsworth Cottage was honest about what lay beyond the entrance, the front door opening straight into a sitting room with stairs at one side and a parlour at the other, and the kitchen clearly visible beyond through an open door. It was all at once bright and yet cocooning, airy but cosy, felt very old but fitted with all the trappings of modernity.

On the shelf over the log burner stood a vase filled with pink carnations and an envelope tucked behind it. With the sounds of the removal men throwing open the truck behind her, Ottilie went over with a faint smile and opened it.

Hello Ottilie!

Just a note to welcome you to Thimblebury. We’ve left some local honey and teabags in the larder, a pint of milk and a block of butter from the dairy farm in Windermere in the fridge and some freshly baked bread in a crock on the kitchen counter. We thought it might be useful to start you off until you can get to the shops and you don’t want to be worrying about any of that when you’re trying to move in.

We hope your new life in Wordsworth Cottage will be everything you wish for. If you’re half as happy here as we’ve been then it will be like heaven. Good luck with the villagers!

Fondest wishes,

Harold and Doreen

Ottilie gazed up at the carnations. She’d been feeling emotionally vulnerable as it was, but the kindness of Harold and Doreen was almost enough to push her over the edge. Sniffing hard, she went to the front door, still clutching the note, and called to the removal team.

‘Anyone want a cup of tea?’

There was a chorus of approval, and while Ottilie went to her car to find her kettle, someone started whistling the tune to ‘Jerusalem’.

She gazed up at the hills beyond her new home. In England’s green and pleasant land…weren’t they the words to that song? Well, she couldn’t argue with that.

CHAPTER THREE

Ottilie opened her eyes as the sun streamed into the bedroom window. She’d been so tired the night before that she’d fallen into bed, not caring that she hadn’t yet put curtains up and forgetting that dawn would wake her stupidly early without window coverings to keep it out.

As her eyes adjusted to her surroundings she let her gaze rove the room. There were still many so many boxes to unpack that she wondered if she’d be straight before the year was out. At least she could make use of the fact that she was up early to get started on that, she supposed.

Much as she already loved the cosiness of Wordsworth Cottage, the decor was far from her taste and she didn’t think it would really feel like home until it was. The bedroom ceiling was papered with a delicate rose pattern – that was something she hadn’t seen before, and not something she was entirely sure she was on board with. The fringed lightshade would have to go too.

In the corner of the room was a stack of boxes, still sealed. One of them contained a dozen or so glossy home interior magazines. She’d been buying them since she’d put in the offer on Wordsworth Cottage. Planning the changes that would make it her own had given her something to focus on, something to take her mind off the nerves that twisted her gut every time she thought about the move, something to think about other than her grief. Because as much as she’d wanted to come here and as much as she’d understood how much she needed it, she’d been terrified. To come alone, to leave everyone she knew and loved behind, to start afresh in an unknown place, not certain if her own fragile mental state would be able to take it, had been scary. But she’d done it anyway and, despite the rest, was a little bit proud of herself for at least that, no matter how it turned out.

On a morning like this in the old days she’d have opened her eyes to find Josh already awake beside her, maybe reading the previous day’s newspaper or scrolling through his phone. He’d turn and smile and he wouldn’t need to ask what she wanted. Sometimes he’d say he was making a cup of tea but dash out to the café down the road and bring back breakfast bagels or muffins, to surprise her. Sometimes, he really was just making a cup of tea. Whichever way it went, Ottilie had been happy. But there was nobody to bring her tea in bed now, let alone any of the other stuff.

She lay for a few moments in quiet contemplation of the mad rose-patterned wallpaper on the ceiling and then let out a heavy sigh. Much as she would have liked to have gone back to sleep for another hour, there was too much to do and nobody else but her to do it, and so she swung herself out of bed and went downstairs to find something for breakfast.

The home-made bread and local butter Harold and Doreen had left for her had made a pretty fabulous breakfast. Ottilie had eaten it outside at a little mosaic and iron table they’d left in the back garden for her, listening to birdsong echo around the valley and not much else. It was so peaceful, the air so clean, she could barely believe places like this still existed. She and Josh had often tried to eat al fresco back in Manchester, but used to laugh that conversations over the roar of passing boy racers were more difficult than they were worth, so they often ended up back in the house.

Beyond the hedge that separated her garden from a fallow field were the crests of hills, black lines of shadowed valleys running between them. It was still early enough to see mist hanging there, though the day promised to be warm and it would soon dissipate. If she strained hard enough, she could just about make out the gurgling of the nearby river. Later, she’d go down and see it properly.

She reached for her mug, wrapping her hands around it and sighed as she gazed up at the majesty of those hills. Could she be happy here? If it didn’t work out, it definitely wouldn’t be the fault of the scenery, because this morning, with golden light and the mist and the birds singing to her and the scent of summer flowers in her head, this was just about the most beautiful place she’d ever seen.

Like everything else in Thimblebury – at least what she’d seen of it so far – the village shop-cum-post office was housed in a quirky stone-built cottage with a low wall and a front garden full of fragrant and slightly unruly flowers that lined either side of the path to the front door. As Ottilie pushed it open a little bell tinkled above the door frame and a man in his fifties shot up from beneath the counter looking faintly surprised to see her. Perhaps he didn’t get many customers, because he certainly seemed to have been caught off guard by one entering.

‘Oh!’ he fumbled, blushing and slapping a book down on the counter, pressed open at the page he’d been – presumably – reading.

‘Sorry…’ Ottilie cast a glance around the interior as he straightened his shirt. It was small, shelves crammed close together and right up to the ceiling, stocked with fairly basic stuff – teabags, instant coffee, sugar, tins of beans, bread…the usual. An open fridge contained milk and yoghurt and cheese that looked locally made – at least the packaging was quite rustic, and it was labelled Lake District Dairies. ‘Didn’t mean to disturb…You are open, right? Only the door was?—’

‘Open? Absolutely! I was just…’ He let his gaze wander to the book he’d put down.

‘Slow morning?’ Ottilie asked as she looked at the title. ‘The Shell Seekers? That’s an old one.’

---