Abigail Gordon - A Baby For The Village Doctor

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 keep Sophie’s nails very short, and dab the rash with calamine lotion. She should be feeling better once they’ve all come to the surface, and in the meantime give her paracetamol if the raised temperature persists. Has Sophie started school yet?’

‘She goes to nursery school twice each week and is due to start in the main stream in September,’ her mother replied.

‘We’ve had a few cases of chickenpox over the last couple of weeks,’ Georgina informed her, ‘so the infection is with us, it would seem. Sophie should be fine in a few days, but if there is anything at all that you are concerned about, send for me straight away.’ She gave a reassuring smile to the anxious mother. ‘I’ll see myself out.’

When she went downstairs into the shop area she told Robert Ingram, ‘I’m afraid that Sophie has got chickenpox, Mr Ingram. The rash is appearing quite quickly and she will feel much better when it is all out. But I’ve told your wife if either of you have any worries about her, don’t hesitate to send for me.’

He nodded. ‘Thanks, Doctor. I’m relieved that it is nothing more serious.’ And they both knew what had been in his mind.

As she was about to leave, Robert didn’t mention that he’d had someone in earlier, arranging to rent the cottage next door to hers for a minimum period of six months. He thought that Georgina would surely feel happier if the other property was occupied, as they were the only two buildings on Partridge Lane.

As he’d watched her drive off that morning Ben had felt shock waves washing over him. How could Georgina have waited so long to tell him that they were going to be parents again? he’d thought dismally. Yet knew the answer even as he asked himself the question.

Georgina had been the butt of his grief and despair when they’d lost Jamie and it would seem she hadn’t been prepared to risk a repeat performance by letting him into her life again when they were going to have another child.

He’d felt as if his heart had been cut out when it had happened all that time ago, and if anyone had dared tell him that time was a great healer, he’d turned on them angrily. Now he knew that it was so. The pain was still there, but instead of being raw it was a dull ache and there were actually days when he managed not to think about it.

He didn’t know how Georgina had coped over the last three years. When the divorce had come through and she’d disappeared out of his life, the shock of it had brought him to his senses, but not to the extent that he’d done anything about it because he’d been gutted at the way he’d treated her.