Country Doctor, Spring Bride. Abigail Gordon

      CHAPTER TWO

      WHEN he’d gone, Kate slumped down on to the sofa and gazed bleakly into space. Whatever had possessed her to ask such a thing of him on such short acquaintance? Had she expected him to jump at the chance of employing her when he had no way of knowing how proficient she was?

      Having worked in the practice in the past, she had the experience, but Daniel hadn’t seen her in action. It wouldn’t be easy to look him in the eye when they next met. She’d been on the receiving end of his good nature since the moment he’d found her on the carpet in front of the electric heater. He’d even offered to take the wedding dress that she hoped never to see again to the charity shop, and now he must be thinking she was taking advantage.

      The day stretched ahead, long and miserable, and she wished her mother was home to offer comfort.

      That was a bolt from the blue! Daniel was thinking as he drove towards the main street of the village, Ruth’s daughter asking to be taken into the practice. It had taken him by surprise and he’d fobbed her off, thinking as he did so that Kate wasn’t backward at coming forward. He supposed that her life was in turmoil at present and she was seeing a job at the practice as a means of sorting out one part of it at least.

      But when he took someone on it was going to be done properly with an in-depth interview, references and the rest. Not after a cosy little chat with his landlady’s daughter. And if she was the right person for the job, then he would hire her. However, he also knew that the thought of working with Kate had unsettled him more than he wanted to admit.

      After he’d lost Lucy he had decided that love and pain walked hand in hand and he couldn’t go through that terrible kind of loss ever again. It was a defeatist attitude. He knew it. But it was why he steered clear of women and relationships. He didn’t want Kate becoming any more entangled in his life than she was already.

      The charity shop where Mrs Burgess ruled the roost was looming and, parking outside, he picked up the big cardboard box and went in. When he laid it on the counter and opened the top flaps of the box, there was a flurry of interest amongst staff and early morning customers alike, and someone said, ‘It’s beautiful. Just look at the lover’s knots along the scalloped hemline. Who did it belong to?’

      ‘An acquaintance,’ he explained, having no desire to depart from the truth.

      ‘It looks as if it’s never been worn,’ someone else said, and he shrugged noncommitally and wondered if Kate was making a mistake in getting rid of it so fast, though he understood that the dress was a reminder of how her hopes and dreams had been shattered.

      Leaving them still admiring it, he drove to the surgery, intending to forget the jilted bride for a while as he concentrated on the needs of his patients.

      As he was passing through Reception Jenny collared him, wanting to know how Kate was. ‘Improving,’ he told her. ‘But I’ve told her to stay put and keep warm.’

      Later on in the morning Mrs Giles brought her young son in for Daniel to see. The child was jerking his neck uncontrollably and his mother said anxiously, ‘I’ve brought Billy to see you because of his neck.’

      Daniel was on his feet and round their side of the desk before she’d finished speaking.

      ‘How long has he been like this?’ he asked, observing the neck movements keenly.

      ‘He had a really bad sore throat last week,’ Linda Giles said uncomfortably, ‘and then he started twitching. His brothers and sisters keep laughing at him. But I thought I’d better bring him in to be looked at.’

      ‘It is a good job you did,’ he told her as he gently examined her son. ‘Why didn’t you bring him into the surgery when he had the inflamed throat?’

      She shrugged. ‘I gave him some Friar’s balsam on a spoon with some sugar and it didn’t seem as bad after that.’

      Daniel frowned. ‘Friar’s balsam is a very old remedy, and in some cases is sufficient to clear up a sore throat, but what your son had would have been much worse than that,’ he explained. ‘He should have been seen by a doctor.’

      The Giles family lived in an old tumbledown house at the top of the road that led to the circle of peaks that surrounded the village. There were five children in all and though Linda Giles did her best she never seemed to be on top of things.

      ‘Why? Is it the sore throat that’s making him twitch?’ she wanted to know.

      Daniel nodded. ‘It could be.’ Turning to Billy, he said, ‘Can you hold your hands out in front of you for me, Billy, like this?’ He showed him, with palms facing downward.

      The child, who seemed to have a better idea of what was going on than his mother, obeyed, and Daniel saw what he didn’t want to see. The fingers were curling backwards, and he knew he was seeing a case of Sydenham’s chorea.

      ‘Have you ever heard of St Vitus’dance?’ he asked Mrs Giles. ‘That’s the common name of the illness that I think your son might be suffering from, which is rheumatism of the central nervous system. It’s hardly heard of in this day and age but it can occur very rarely. I’m going to get Billy seen by a neurologist as soon as possible to see if I am right. In the meantime, take him home, put him to bed, keep him warm and give him the antibiotics that I’m going to prescribe for his throat.’

      ‘I can’t take him home. I’m on school dinners,’ Linda protested. ‘I’ve been taking him with me while he’s been poorly.’

      ‘Forget school dinners until he has been seen by the neurologist,’ he told her firmly. ‘The only thing that will stop the body movements getting worse is bed rest and sedation and I am not going to prescribe anything like that until a firm diagnosis has been made. So please do as I say.’

      At last Mrs Giles seemed to realise the seriousness of the situation and she took Billy’s hand in hers and led him out of the surgery. Daniel sighed and hoped that she would do as he had said.

      He rang her later in the morning and told her he’d arranged an appointment with a neurologist for the following day. ‘It will be a home visit,’ he told her. ‘He will be coming to the house so don’t let Billy out of bed until he’s seen him.’

      ‘Oh!’ she wailed. ‘Does he have to come here? I haven’t had the chance to put the vac round for days what with one thing and another.’

      ‘Don’t worry. He’s not coming to look at the house. He’s coming to see Billy,’ he said. And I’m pretty sure I know what he will say, he thought as he said goodbye and put the phone down.

      He’d told Billy’s mother that the neurologist wasn’t going to be looking at the house, but damp living conditions and poor nourishment would be noted.

      When they were getting ready to leave at the end of the day he said to Miriam, ‘What experience do you have of Sydenham’s chorea in a patient?’

      She was reaching for her coat and collecting her belongings, anxious to be gone, and she replied, ‘So far, none. I’ve heard of it, of course.’ And before he could explain that he would like to discuss little Billy’s case with her,