on the task before the weather turned?
But what really interested him in the room was a chest of drawers to one side of the bed, and the ranks of framed photos taking pride of place across the top of it.
Was there one of his mother?
He could hardly walk over and have a look.
Jo had pulled two chairs closer to the bed from what would be a sitting alcove by the window, and put small side tables beside each of them.
She waved him to one of them, but as she bent to set down her tray, he thought he saw her wince.
Strangers don’t ask questions, he told himself, but the doctor in him had to say, ‘Are you okay?’
‘Practice twinges, that’s all,’ she said, but the pink had gone from her cheeks and she looked a little drawn.
‘I’m also a doctor,’ he said to her quietly, ‘so if your baby decides to come early, and you can’t get into the village, I have delivered them before.’
‘This baby is not coming early,’ was the reply, no less forceful for being whispered. ‘This is to be a Christmas baby, timed to the minute!’
He considered that a bit ambitious. Would she consider having it induced on Christmas morning if it wasn’t showing signs of arrival?
‘What are you two whispering about?’ Dottie demanded to know.
Charles smiled at her.
‘I was just saying it’s a coincidence, Jo being a doctor, because that’s my profession.’
‘Ha!’ said Dottie with malicious glee. ‘I knew that vagabond was lying!’
Charles shook his head—unable to make any connection.
Jo must have been equally confused, for it was she who asked the question.
‘And just why, Dottie, does Charles being a doctor make his father a liar?’
‘Because his father always said he was a prince, and if that was true then his son would be a princeling, or whatever a prince’s sons are called, and this fellow says he’s a doctor.’
She paused, smiling in malicious glee, then went on, ‘Although he could be a liar, too, and the doctor thing just humbug!’
‘Oh, Dottie,’ Jo said, barely able to speak for laughter, ‘you do come up with the most startling logic. If his dad’s a prince then he’s probably one, too, but he could hardly hang around waiting for his father to die so he can have a job. If the liver place is as small as he says it is, there probably aren’t enough duties to keep his father busy, let alone Charles as well. He would have needed a job.’
Charles had watched Dottie while Jo was speaking—better by far than watching Jo with the laughter lingering in her eyes. The old lady didn’t seem at all perturbed, eating her way through her plate of cheese toast and sipping at her cocoa.
But her eyes were on him the whole time.
Trying to make out if he was the imposter she thought him?
Or trying to see some resemblance to his mother? A family likeness of some kind...
He hoped it was the latter, but after thirty-six years would she be able to tell?
The photos up here would definitely be off limits unless Dottie agreed he could look at them. There’d been no obvious photos of his mother in the parts of the house he’d seen so far. And, like Jo, he didn’t want to pry into drawers.
But he had come all this way to learn something of the mother he’d never known, so although her behaviour so far had been hardly welcoming, he had to overcome Dottie’s suspicion and distrust somehow.
‘Why did she call you Charles? Or did your father do that?’
The questions were so unexpected Charles swallowed some cocoa the wrong way and had to cough before he could answer.
‘No, my mother named me—well, she and my father chose the names before I was born. Apparently, they both liked Charles as a name, then Edouard after my father’s father and Albert after hers.’
He looked directly at Dottie.
‘Your husband was called Albert, wasn’t he?’
He thought the scowl she gave him might be all the answer he’d get, but then she said, ‘Bertie—we called him Bertie!’ in such a gruff tone Charles guessed at the emotion she was holding in check.
And why wouldn’t there be emotion? How would he have felt if she’d suddenly turned up at home?
Overwhelmed, to say the least.
He set aside the rest of his toast and moved his chair a little closer to the bed.
‘I know this must be a terrible shock for you, but I did write a couple of times and never received a reply so it seemed the only thing to do was to come. I’ll go away again as soon as your flood goes down, if that’s what you want.’
The scowl turned to a full-blown glare.
‘I do not open letters with foreign stamps,’ she said. ‘You do not know what germs they might be carrying. It’s how they spread anthrax, you know.’
Though slightly startled by the pronouncement, most of Charles’s attention had turned to Jo, who had her eyes shut and her hand to her belly.
That, he knew, was a contraction!
Had his inattention drawn Dottie’s eyes to Jo so that she said, ‘If that was a contraction, look at your watch and start timing them.’
After which she lifted the table off her legs, set it aside on the bed, and clambered out, remarkably spry for someone who looked about a hundred.
‘And don’t worry,’ she added, crossing the room to Jo. ‘I’ve delivered most of the people still alive in the village, grandparents, parents and even some of the older children. I’ll take care of you.’
The look of horror on Jo’s face told Charles what she thought of that idea, but she rallied.
‘That’s very kind, Dottie, but I’m a doctor, I should be able to manage. I mean, don’t women in some developing countries give birth in the fields where they are working, then wrap the baby in a sling on their back and keep working? If they can do that, I should be able to manage.’
She closed her eyes, pausing as another contraction tightened her belly.
‘Anyway,’ she added, ‘I absolutely cannot have the baby now. It’s not Christmas Day, and Chris and Alice can’t get through, and you know they want to be here.’
‘You’ve got no choice, my girl,’ Dottie told her. ‘And too bad if they can’t be here. I never did approve of them using you like this.’
Jo lifted her hand.
‘Please,
