“It doesn’t feel cold to me,” said Dr. Heyworth.
“Me, neither,” added Rosamunde. “In fact, I’d go as far as saying I’m rather warm.”
“Then it must be my thin skin,” Antoinette declared, wrapping her cardigan tightly around her body.
Dr. Heyworth smiled at her sympathetically, which made Antoinette’s eyes well with tears. “It’s perfectly natural to feel the chill, Lady Frampton. Nothing at all to worry about.”
Antoinette had never really noticed how handsome Dr. Heyworth was. If she had, she would have been a reluctant patient, unable to discuss intimate medical matters without embarrassment. But now her sister had mentioned the unmentionable, she realized that, in spite of his glasses, he was indeed handsome. His face was long and kind, with intelligent green eyes and a strong nose that gave him an air of authority. His hair, which had once been dark, was now gray and thinning, but the generous shape of his head and the warm color of his skin ensured that baldness would not diminish him. Although his visit was an informal one—he was now semiretired and saw only private patients occasionally—he looked dignified and proper in a tweed jacket and tie.
“Thank you for coming to the funeral,” said Antoinette, wringing her hands to warm them.
“It was a beautiful service,” he replied. “Lord Frampton was well loved and highly respected in the community. We shall all miss him.”
Antoinette felt the familiar tightening of her throat and the uncontrollable wobbling of her lower lip as her heart heaved with grief. She was grateful Margaret wasn’t there to witness her crying in front of the doctor. “I can’t say I remember a great deal about the service. I was . . .” When Antoinette’s words trailed off, Rosamunde intervened to save her sister any embarrassment.
“The flowers were very pretty,” she said. “You know Antoinette chose them all herself. The smell filled the whole church.”
“Indeed it did,” Dr. Heyworth agreed. Then he settled his kind eyes on Antoinette. “Did you get any sleep last night?” he asked softly, and the concern in his voice released a sob that Antoinette stifled with her handkerchief.
“A little,” she murmured.
“Would you like me to prescribe you some sleeping pills?”
“That would be nice, thank you.”
“Sleeping pills?” Rosamunde interjected as the doctor lifted his bag onto his knee to make out a prescription in small, illegible writing. “Do you really need sleeping pills, Antoinette?” She turned to Dr. Heyworth. “Aren’t they terribly bad for her?”
“They’re very mild,” the doctor explained patiently. “And it’s only for a while. You see,” he continued, turning back to his patient and speaking in a slow, reassuring manner, “if you are tired, your heart cannot heal because all your energy goes into getting you through the day and not into tackling the core of the trouble. So you need to rest, eat well, take long walks in the country air, surround yourself with loved ones, and give that battered heart of yours a chance to recover. If sleeping pills help you rest, then I can see no harm in taking them for a short period.” Antoinette listened attentively, wiping her eyes in an attempt to stem the flow of tears. It was very unusual that a doctor should talk about her emotional health with such understanding. For a moment she felt that he was a wise old friend and not a doctor at all. “It’s all right to cry, Lady Frampton,” he said. “Tears are nature’s way of healing.”
“Yes, Antoinette,” Rosamunde added. “You must cry it all out; that’s what our Mama would have said. It’ll make you feel much better.”
Dr. Heyworth handed Antoinette the prescription. “It might be that your heart never completely heals, but that a patch metaphorically covers the wound to stave off the pain and enables you to pick yourself up, dust yourself down, and go on. You have suffered a terrible shock, and so you have to give yourself time and space to grieve. And you mustn’t feel guilty or that you are a burden to your family and friends, because if you don’t let it all out, it will bury down deep and never go away. It will only find a moment later on in your life to come back and manifest as physical pain.” For a moment his eyes darkened, but he seemed to push through the sudden wave of sadness and continue with a compassionate smile. “You must talk about it as much as you can, Lady Frampton. One day you’ll discover that it doesn’t hurt anything like as much as it does now.”
“Antoinette is certainly no burden to me, Dr. Heyworth,” said Rosamunde firmly.