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Beth was hardly aware of the person who rescued her from the ditch. She knew it was a man, and a gentle one too, and she sensed he knew what he was doing.

She also knew he took her home in some sort of cart.

She could smell the horse, hear the wheels on rough ground, and each bump in the road sent a sharp stab of pain to her shoulder.

Yet that was all she knew. It wasn’t until he fumbled for the door key in her soaked raincoat, helped her into the warm, and sat her on a towel on one of the kitchen chairs in front of the fire that she came out of the grey fog in her head.

She watched him stir up the fire with the poker and put another log on. It was then that it dawned on her he knew who she was, and was familiar with the cottage.

Beth couldn’t stop shivering. She felt the cold had gone right to her core and she’d never be warm again.

He told her his name and that he was a doctor, and had been Miss Falcon’s too, but he needed to cut away her sodden jumper as she’d never get it over her head, and he needed to wash and dress the wound on her shoulder immediately.

Thankfully she had a vest on beneath the jumper, but just exposing a bare shoulder to a man she didn’t know, even if he was a doctor, made her blush furiously.

But he was quick and gentle, then wrapped her up in the shawl left on the sofa.

‘May I have permission to go upstairs to get a bath towel, your nightdress, dressing gown and slippers?’ he asked.

‘Yes of course,’ she said, hoping she hadn’t left anything embarrassing about.

When he came back down he first washed all the mud off her feet and legs, then went into the kitchen while she undressed and put the dry things on. He said he was making her tea to warm her up.

He waited till she was ready before coming back into the living room.

She had moved to the armchair and was crying more from relief than anything else.

She’d managed to get her nightdress on as it buttoned down the front, but she could only get her good arm in the sleeve of her dressing gown.

The rest of the garment was draped around her.

‘I’m sorry,’ she sobbed out. ‘I had begun to think I’d die in that ditch.’

‘For a moment I was afraid you were dead,’ he said, crouching down on his haunches beside her chair and touching her shoulder gently.

‘But you weren’t, thank heavens, and your shoulder is just dislocated.

I can fix that, but it will hurt just while I do it.

Afterwards it will be sore, but bearable.

I’ll put your arm in a sling, give you something for the pain, and put a hot water bottle in your bed, which is where I think you ought to go. ’

‘Thank you, Doctor,’ she said in a small voice. ‘I’m so glad it was you who found me. I was so frightened. Why didn’t the person who hit me stop?’

‘I think it was a tinker,’ he said with a shrug.

‘He was probably drunk and unaware he’d hit anyone.

’ He rolled her wet clothes in the towel and took them to the kitchen along with her soaking, mud-covered shoes.

He got her to sit back on the kitchen chair, and, standing behind her, held her left arm and shoulder, then jerked them suddenly.

Beth screamed at the sharp pain, but almost immediately knew he’d put it back in line.

She was even able to bend her arm again.

‘Don’t try to put your dressing gown on yet,’ he said. ‘I’ll make some tea then strap it up for you.’

It was only then that she got a good look at her rescuer.

He was tallish, perhaps five foot eleven, with a slim, athletic build, slightly too long hair, and thin, light-brown moustache.

It was a good face, not exactly handsome, but the kind anyone would warm to, as his eyes were like milk chocolate and surrounded by laughter lines.

She knew in her heart he was a man who liked to laugh, and that he’d been born kind.

She liked to think that was how her father had been.

He put Miranda’s shawl around her shoulders and then went back into the kitchen.

‘Shall I make you something to eat?’ he called out. ‘I see you’ve got soup in the pantry and there’s some scones. Or I could make you a sandwich.’

She had made the scones that morning, so she asked for two of them buttered with jam. ‘And have some yourself,’ she called back.

It was only once he was back sitting on the sofa with his scones and tea that Beth remembered his horse. ‘Will your horse be all right outside?’ she asked.

‘Are you suggesting I bring her in?’ he said.

Beth laughed, and he joined in.

‘That’s better,’ he said. ‘I always like to leave my patients laughing.’

He filled up the hot water bottle and took it upstairs to her bed, then came down and took some pills from his bag. ‘You can take two of these now and I’ll leave you some to take first thing in the morning. But I shall be round to check on you after my morning surgery.’

‘I’m sorry I messed up your evening,’ she said. ‘And it’s pitch dark now.’

‘I’m just glad I was coming home that way,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry, I have lights on the gig, and my horse knows the way even blindfolded.’

He placed the fireguard in front of the fire for her. ‘Will you be able to go upstairs alone?’

She smiled up at him. ‘You are thoughtful. I’ll be fine now. I don’t want to waste more of your time.’

He left then, and Beth got up and walked to the window to see him getting his horse to turn the gig round and go off down the hill.

In bed later, the hot water bottle next to her sore shoulder, she thought how lucky she was that the doctor came along.

She doubted many people went along that road after dark.

If nothing else, it would give her something interesting to write to Jack about, should he ever write to her.

She had written to him before Christmas, but to her disappointment she’d had no reply.

She’d more or less given up hoping now, assuming he’d had another girl all along.

But in idle moments she would daydream about him, and tell herself that if he had gone to North Africa, perhaps the mail was held up for months.

The next morning Beth found her whole body stiff and aching, not just her shoulder, and she had a job to get down the stairs to make a cup of tea.

It was very cold down there too, as she hadn’t thought to bank the fire up last night.

She didn’t think she had the energy to rake it out and relight it, so she made some tea and took it back to bed with her.

She dropped off to sleep again, but a banging on the front door woke her. The alarm clock had stopped as she hadn’t wound it, so she had no idea what time it was. She opened the bedroom window and called down to her visitor.

The attractive but anxious face looking up at her wasn’t the doctor, but Kathleen.

‘I can let myself in if you like,’ she called up. ‘The doctor told me you had an accident, but I didn’t like to just barge in with my key.’

Beth got back into bed. Kathleen came into the room a few seconds later.

‘What a good thing I ran into the doctor this morning,’ she said, coming closer and putting her hand on Beth’s brow. ‘An accident like that would be enough to give you pneumonia, to be sure. But you don’t seem to have a fever. Just the same you’d better stay in bed.’

‘I was going to get up but the fire had gone out and I hadn’t got the energy to make it.’

‘Don’t you worry your head about that, I’ll see to it,’ Kathleen said. ‘And I’ll make you some breakfast. The doctor won’t be here till after one. The good Lord must have been watching over you, to send him along last night.’

‘You are very kind,’ Beth said, ‘but I mustn’t keep you from something more important.’

When she’d arrived, Beth had had a job to get Kathleen to discuss her wages.

In the little account book she’d kept after Miranda had died she’d only taken two shillings for jobs she did here without jotting down the time it took her.

That included cleaning the cottage after paying guests had left.

There was ￡9 5 s . in the cash-box. She’d taken the money for the food she’d bought when Beth was expected, but not for cleaning the cottage from top to bottom, or for coming in the next morning to light the fire and put a hot water bottle in the bed.

Beth had to be quite forceful in the end, saying she admired Kathleen for having such a kind heart, but it wasn’t right to work for nothing and made Beth feel awkward.

So they finally agreed on an hourly rate, and Kathleen would continue to jot the hours down in a notebook and be paid monthly in cash.

‘You need help today,’ Kathleen said, smoothing Beth’s cheek as if she were a child. ‘You just stay in bed in the warm, I’ll look after you.’

It was the first time she could remember anyone saying they’d look after her, and Beth’s eyes filled with tears. She lay back on the pillow and turned her head away so the older woman couldn’t see.

When Dr McMara arrived, Kathleen left after telling her there was some homemade soup on the stove for her supper, and promising to pop in the next morning.

‘She’s an angel,’ Beth said to the doctor as he sat on the edge of her bed and checked her blood pressure.

‘To be sure she is,’ he said with a smile. ‘Ever since Miranda hurt her spine, she did everything for her, bathing her, dressing her, the works. But there’s so many people around here who have benefited from her help and kindness, so different from some of the begrudgers.’

‘What are they?’ she asked, thinking it was some kind of Irish expression.

His eyes twinkled. ‘They are the ones who hate anyone to have good fortune. Miranda came across it a great deal, and you will too. So don’t you get upset if anyone makes a sharp remark to you.

I’m not convinced that coming here was actually good fortune for you.

You are too young to be alone, and without work to fill the time you’re going to become very bored. ’

‘I’m still thinking about what I want to do,’ she said. ‘I’d like a job. When my shoulder is better, I’ll go into Waterford and see what’s about.’

‘It isn’t like England,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Unskilled jobs here tend to go to family members or else you need qualifications like nursing or secretarial. Why do you think so many young Irish people rush over to England?’

‘Are you suggesting I should pack this place up and go back?’

‘No, I’m not saying that. It must be hell in London right now with bombs dropping continually. And if the Germans do invade England—’ He paused, as if the thought of that was too awful to talk about.

‘Well then?’ she asked.

He shrugged. ‘I’m an example of someone who ought to have left. Ireland is in the grip of the Catholic Church, and maybe I was a coward giving in to my father’s wishes to take over his practice. My wife claims I am.’

‘I think it was a good and kind thing to do,’ Beth said indignantly.

He chuckled. ‘Did Miranda railroad you into coming here?’

‘No, she didn’t. I used to write to her sometimes, but there was nothing in her letters to suggest she’d leave this place to me.’

‘Weren’t your family worried about you coming?’

‘I haven’t got any now. My father was killed in France during the Great War. Mother died in 1939.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, and she was touched that he looked not just sorry but embarrassed.

‘You weren’t to know,’ she said quickly. ‘Why would you?’

‘There was a great deal of speculation here about you when it got out that Miranda had made you her sole heir, mainly because she didn’t tell anyone anything about you,’ he said with a little chuckle.

‘Some people are convinced you are her child, and that she’d abandoned you to an orphanage when you were a baby.

I knew for a fact she’d never had a child, and I doubt she ever wanted one.

But folk around here like a bit of scandal to brighten their lives. ’

Beth laughed. ‘I have to admit I couldn’t really see why she chose me. She might have been my godmother, and a childhood friend of my mother, but she never visited, and letters were few and far between.’

‘She was a lady who burned all her bridges, I think,’ he said, leaning closer to Beth and tapping his nose as if this was secret information. ‘She once told me that she was guilty of cutting people off when they got too close. I suppose by that she meant both sexes.’

Later, after Dr McMara had left, Beth lay in bed considering every last thing he’d said to her, and musing that she was a bit attracted to him.

She was also sure it was reciprocated. They had chatted for far longer than anyone would consider normal for a home visit.

The conversation had flowed effortlessly, they had laughed at the same things, though when she thought back it was all inconsequential stuff, nothing important.

But when he untied the sling around her shoulder, and felt to make sure it had gone back into the right position, his fingers lingered, caressing her shoulder, while he looked right into her eyes.

It felt almost like a mild electric shock, and she didn’t want him to take his hand away.

‘You have beautiful skin,’ he said. ‘It’s like porcelain.’

She might never have had a good experience with a man before, but she certainly knew a doctor shouldn’t be making personal remarks to a patient.

But it was the way it made her feel which surprised her.

She should’ve brushed his hand away, or said something sharp, but she had liked it and wanted it to continue.

Even now he was gone she had a bubbling feeling of excitement in her stomach.

She closed her eyes and thought of his lovely brown eyes and the gentleness of his hands.

As he left he reached out, lifted her hand and squeezed it.

‘Stay in bed and keep warm,’ he said. ‘I’ll pop in to see how you are tomorrow. ’