regard to herself, she’d been coping just as long as she didn’t let her mind travel back to that afternoon in the sitting room of the house where she’d once known such happiness. But that frail cocoon had been torn apart just an hour ago when Ben had appeared and discovered why she’d wanted to talk to him.
James, in his caring way, had noted that she wasn’t her usual self and suddenly she knew that she had to tell someone what had happened before she’d arrived at the surgery. She couldn’t keep her life under wraps any longer if Ben was going to be around.
‘My ex-husband turned up this morning,’ she said in a low voice. ‘I didn’t know which of us was the most dumbfounded, though for different reasons. I had no idea he was coming, and on his part he had no idea I was pregnant.’
‘Poor you!’ James exclaimed. ‘How long is it since you saw him?’
‘It had been three years, until we met unexpectedly eight months ago.’
‘And you are about eight months pregnant,’ he said slowly.
‘Yes,’ she agreed flatly, ‘the baby is his.’
‘And what does he think about that?’
‘He is delighted.’
‘So is that good?’
‘It might have been once.’
‘I see. Well, Georgina, I don’t want to pry into your affairs, but I’m here if you need me. Obviously you have a lot on your mind. Do you want to take the day off?’
She shook her head. ‘No, thanks, James. I need to keep myself occupied. I will remember what you’ve just said. You are a true friend.’ And before she burst into humiliating tears, she went to start another day at the village practice.
‘By the way,’ he called after her as she went towards her room, ‘St Gabriel’s have phoned with appointments for Christine Quarmby. The neurologist will see her on Thursday and the rheumatologist the following day.’
She paused. ‘That’s brilliant. I pulled a few strings and it seems that it worked. I’m very concerned about Christine. I just hope my fears for her aren’t realised. On a happier note, have you heard from Anna and Glenn yet?’
‘Yes. They’ve arrived safely and are already working hard.’ James filled her in on Anna and Glenn’s assignment before she went to her room and called in her first patient of the day, grateful to have her mind taken off the shock of seeing Ben again.
The day progressed along its usual lines, with Beth still managing but relieved to know that a replacement for Anna had been found. The two nurses had been great friends and Anna had been delighted when James had taken on Beth’s daughter, Jess, as nanny for his two young children.
The children were fond of Jess. Aware that she was going to be missing from their lives for the first time since they’d been born, Anna had been happy to know before she’d left Willowmere that the arrangement was working satisfactorily.
Georgina’s second patient was Edwina Crabtree. She was one of the bellringers in Willowmere who helped send the bells high in the church tower pealing out across the village on Sunday mornings and at weddings and funerals, but it wasn’t her favourite pastime that she’d come to discuss with her doctor
‘So what can I do for you, Miss Crabtree?’ Georgina asked the smartly dressed campanologist, who always observed her more critically than most when their paths crossed. She had a feeling that Edwina had her catalogued as a loose woman as she was pregnant with no man around, and thought wryly that loose was the last word to describe her.
She was tied to the past, to a small fair-haired boy who hadn’t seen danger when it had been there, and ‘tied’ to the man who had been hurting so much at the time that he’d become a stranger instead of a rock to hold on to.
Edwina was in full spate and, putting her own thoughts to one side, Georgina tuned into what she was saying, otherwise the other woman was going to have her labelled incompetent, as well as feckless.
‘The side of my neck is bothering me,’ she was explaining, ‘just below my ear. I didn’t take much notice at first but the feeling has been there for quite some time and I decided I ought to have it looked at.’
‘Yes, of course,’ Georgina told her. After examining her neck carefully and checking eyes, ears and throat, she asked, ‘Do you ever get indigestion?’
‘All the time,’ she replied stiffly, ‘but surely it can’t be connected with that. I thought you would just give me some antibiotics.’
‘Before anything else I want you to have the tests and we’ll take it from there, Miss Crabtree. If you are clear of the stomach infection, it will be a matter of looking elsewhere for the neck problem, but we’ll deal with that when we get to it.’
When she’d gone, looking somewhat chastened, Georgina sighed. Oh, for a simple case of lumbago or athlete’s foot, she thought. Edwina Crabtree had the symptoms of Helicobacter pylori, bacteria in the stomach that created excess acid and could cause peptic ulcers and swellings like the one in the bellringer’s neck.
Christine Quarmby, on the other hand, had all the signs of Sjögren’s syndrome, an illness with just as strange a name but far more serious, and she was beginning to wonder what strange ailment she was going to be consulted on next.
Willow Lake, a local beauty spot, was basking in the shafts of a spring sun behind the hedgerows as Georgina drove to her first housecall later in the morning, and she thought how the village, with its peace and tranquillity, had done much to help her find sanity in the mess that her life had become.
As the months had become years she’d expected that one day Nicholas would inform her that Ben had found someone else and it would bring closure once and for all, but she’d been spared that last hurt, and now incredibly he seemed determined to come back into her life. She couldn’t help wondering if he would feel the same if she wasn’t pregnant.
Robert Ingram owned the biggest of Willowmere’s two estate agencies and he had asked for a home visit to his small daughter, Sophie. The request had been received shortly after morning surgery had finished and Georgina was making it her first call.
Apparently Sophie had developed a temperature during the night and a rash was appearing in small red clusters behind her ears, under her armpits and in her mouth.
From her father’s description the rash was nothing like the dreaded red blotches of meningitis, but she wasn’t wasting any time in getting to the young patient. She never took chances with anyone she was called on to treat, and children least of all.
When Alison, Robert’s wife, took her up to the spacious flat above the business Georgina found the little girl to be hot and fretful and the rash that her father had described was beginning to appear in other places besides the ones he’d mentioned.
‘It’s chickenpox,’ she announced when she’d had a close look at the spots. ‘Have you had any experience of it before, Mrs Ingram?’
‘Yes. I had it when I was young,’ Alison replied. ‘My mother had me wearing gloves to stop me from scratching when the spots turned to blisters.’
‘Good idea,’ Georgina agreed, ‘or alternatively
