‘An’ whut, Doctor surr, do ye think yere after doin’?’ she inquired. ‘Fussin’ an’ wurryin’! An’ still gettin’ under me feet, like ye’ve bin after doin’ since ye rose from yere bed, is whut!’

Bridie put down the tray of china she had brought in with her, and began laying the table for the tea party Nathan was giving after the consecration ceremony.

‘How many times am I after tellin’ ye, Doctor surr, that the family won’t be findin’ Bridie’s burnt the kuchen an’ the strudel, jus’ because the missus is still away.’

The delicious aroma of baking cakes was drifting in from the kitchen, and Nathan surveyed Bridie with affection. She was loyalty personified. And who but she had held together the everyday warp and weft of his tempestuous marriage?

Tempestuous until a few years ago, he corrected himself. But Bridie had behaved throughout as though nothing untoward was going on in the household, taking all in her stride. What would Nathan have done without her when post-natal depression caused his wife to reject her newborn child? Thankfully, Leona knew nothing of that traumatic episode, or she might have grown up believing her mother didn’t really love her; in addition to realizing, all too soon, that her parents didn’t love each other.

Nathan glanced at the photograph of himself and Rebecca on their wedding day, the gleaming silver frame a testament to Bridie’s housekeeping, and reflected that their marriage hadn’t stood a chance. Nor had this house ever been a home. Just a battleground until eventually the fight had gone from both of them. After which an indifferent peace had reigned. He had not minded in the least when Rebecca went to spend the winter in Florida with her sister who lived there.

Nathan would not have been surprised had he known that Marianne thought of him as the one remaining elder. Little by little his wife had distanced herself from the family.

Bridie, busy folding the starched napkins that matched the damask tablecloth, gave him a long-suffering look. ‘If yere after makin’ sure I do me job properly, Doctor surr, why don’t ye do it sittin’ down?’

Rather than argue with her, Nathan did as he was bid, the vacant Queen Anne chair on the other side of the hearth serving to heighten the bitterness his present thoughts could not but evoke.

So much for the arranged marriages of his youth, when a wealthy girl was offered by her parents to a lad whom money could help on his way. Nathan’s friend, who later became his partner, had thought Nathan fortunate to be offered a girl whose beauty was an unexpected bonus. Yet Lou’s arranged marriage, to a girl as plain as she was good-natured, could not have been more contented.