Swallowbrook's Winter Bride (7 page)

‘Yes, you’re right, of course it is,’ she said steadily, and wished that John had felt confident enough to reassure her with regard to Nathan’s desire for her company.

She sat in the back seat of the car next to Toby as Nathan drove them to the hospital. Apart from a brief word of thanks from him for accompanying them, and her telling him that thanks were not necessary in such a situation, they hadn’t spoken since they’d left his father’s place, but she could feel the depth of his anxiety like a tangible thing.

Taking over the care and wellbeing of a child in Toby’s circumstances must be nerve-racking enough without this kind of thing thrown in for good measure, she thought. But apart from that moment of weakness when they’d been hastening to his father’s place after he had received the phone call, Nathan was in control again.

Yet she did wish that he didn’t feel he had to thank her for being there for the two of them. She’d witnessed his distress when she’d opened the door to him in the early dawn, and seen how much he loved the boy when they’d arrived to find him so poorly.
That
was enough to make her want to be with them every second of the trauma that they were caught up in.

CHAPTER SIX

S
HE
’
D
never loved them both so much as at that moment, Libby thought as Nathan drove them to the hospital through the morning rush-hour traffic, the child because he was ill, and the man because he was being cast in the role of the frantic parent.

Holding Toby’s hand tightly, she ached to do the same for Nathan, but felt that the memory of what he’d said when leaving her after they’d spent the previous evening together didn’t give her the right to do anything other than give him the kind of support that anyone would do in such a situation, which wasn’t quite what she had in mind.

Tense behind the wheel, Nathan was aware of how much he needed her, how much she brought stability into his disrupted life, but it wasn’t just that, he was in love with Libby. The man who had decided that love was not to be trusted had found that with her it wasn’t like that. Life could be so good for them if she would only forgive him.

Since he’d returned to Swallowbrook and got to know her better he’d discovered that it was a passionate, caring woman that he’d once sent away. All his doubts were disappearing as he was getting to know Libby for the person she really was and he wanted her in his life for evermore.

Whether she would believe
that
was doubtful after the way he’d talked about finding himself a wife the night before as if
she
didn’t come into it.

When the nightmare they were in the middle of with Toby had been hopefully resolved he would take her somewhere special and propose to her amongst candlelight and flowers. Maybe then she would accept that he was totally sincere in what he had to say.

The months had gone by. Working from dawn to dusk out there, he’d done nothing about the moment of raw awareness that she had awakened in him, until his father had casually mentioned Libby’s approaching marriage to Jefferson.

It had jolted him into the realisation that he couldn’t let it happen without seeing her first, that he had to go back to see for himself if the love she’d had for him was still there.
And much good it had done him,
he thought grimly, with the memory of those desolate moments in the church porch surfacing once more
.

He was watching her in the car’s rear-view mirror, noting how gentle and reassuring she was with Toby, and as the turning for the hospital loomed up ahead the tight band of anxiety across his chest increased its stranglehold.

When they arrived at Accident and Emergency he carried a drowsy Toby inside, with Libby close by his side. Two of the staff had been alerted by his phone call and were waiting for them, and once they’d been shown into a cubicle a doctor appeared.

‘I don’t recognise your youngster’s symptoms immediately,’ he told them when he’d examined Toby, ‘and I take it that neither of you are sure or you wouldn’t be here. If I had to make a guess I would say that whatever is wrong with him is allergy related, but we don’t rely on guesses so we’re going to admit him for a couple of days while we do some tests.’

Turning to Libby, he said, ‘We have met before, haven’t we, Dr Hamilton, at some meeting or other? And this is your family, I take it?’

‘I’m afraid not,’ she told him with an anxious look at Toby, who was clinging to Nathan and looking really poorly. ‘This young patient is Dr Gallagher’s ward. We are both employed at the Swallowbrook Medical Practice and live next door to each other.’

‘Ah, I see,’ he said, and turned his attention to what Nathan was saying.

‘One of the reasons we’re here is because I’m in the process of adopting Toby,’ he explained, ‘and have not yet received his medical records from the practice where he and his parents were registered before they were involved in a tragic accident. So I felt that the hospital needed to see him before we began to treat him.’

‘Has he eaten anything that could have caused this? Or been near any plant life that could have a sting in its tail?’ the other man asked.

‘Not that we know of. He spent yesterday with my father and he doesn’t let Toby out of his sight.’

‘Hmm. So what do the two of you think it might be?’ he asked as they bent over the small figure on the bed.

‘I thought of urticaria,’ Libby told him. ‘When he is at his grandfather’s place Toby sometimes plays in a field nearby and if nettles are present he could have been stung by them.’

‘Yes, but there would have been tears if that was the case and Dad would have picked up on that,’ Nathan said sombrely. ‘If we are looking at plant life I think that it might be something he has eaten.’

Looking down at Toby, he asked, ‘Did you play in the field yesterday?’ And got a drowsy nod for an answer.

‘And did you eat anything that you found there?’

‘Only the grapes,’ was the weak reply.

‘What kind of grapes were they, Toby?’

‘Black and shiny.’

His next question cut into the tension in the room like a knife. ‘How many…er, grapes did you eat?’

‘Two. I spat the others out because I didn’t like them.’

‘That’s all right, then,’ Libby told him gently, and as the three doctors observed each other there was the same thought in their minds. Toby’s symptoms could be those of the poisonous plant belladonna, or deadly nightshade, as it was sometimes called due to the serious effects it could have if the berries were eaten.

As Libby stroked his hot little brow gently the doctor took Nathan to one side. ‘It does sound as if your young one has been in contact with the so unsuitably named belladonna, or something similar. The vomiting will have brought some of it up, but I’m afraid that we will have to resort to water lavage if blood tests show the belladonna poison is present. Stomach washing out is an unpleasant prospect for anyone, especially a child, but that is what needs to be done immediately if our premonitions are correct.’

The answer they were dreading was there with the test results and the doctor in A and E said, ‘Fortunately Toby doesn’t seem to have eaten many of the berries, which is a godsend, but the situation is still critical. Hopefully once his stomach has been washed clear of the poison it will prevent any further complications, but it must be done now.’

Nathan nodded bleakly. ‘I’m in favour of anything that will save Toby’s life so, yes, let’s proceed as quickly as possible. Time has been wasted because neither Dr Hamilton or myself had any idea that Toby might have been near belladonna and been tempted by what he thought were black grapes.’

The doctor was already arranging for a theatre to be made available with staff there ready to assist by the time Toby was brought down, and as he was being transferred there, with Libby still holding his hand, Nathan said with his face a grey mask of horror, ‘I’m going to insist that I’m there while they do what they have to do. I’ve done plenty of theatre work while I was abroad, it won’t be anything new. But you should get back to the practice, you’re needed there more than here. I’ll see you when this is over, Libby, and thanks for coming.’

‘Will you please stop thanking me? I don’t want your thanks,’ she told him, stiffening at the abruptness of his dismissal. ‘What I
do
want
is to know that Toby will soon be well again and that the pain and the nightmare that is there for the parents of any sick child will soon be over for you, and now I’ll do what you suggest and go back to my patients, which will leave your father free to come here.’

As Toby’s bottom lip began to tremble she said gently, ‘I won’t be long. I have to go and see to my other sick people now, but I’ll bring you something nice when I come back.’

‘What will it be, Libby?’ he asked with a momentary brightening of his small pale face.

‘It will be a surprise,’ she told him, and turning to Nathan as the feeling of being no longer needed persisted, ‘I would appreciate a phone call when you have a moment to spare.’

‘That goes without saying,’ he said evenly, and as she went out into the corridor with a heavy heart she didn’t hear him groan at the way he’d told her to go as if she’d served her purpose. It
had
been the right thing to do. It was Libby’s responsibility as senior partner to be back at the practice, but it had been the wrong way to do it. What was the matter with him? He’d been floundering about like a quivering jelly ever since they’d found Toby in this state, while she’d been like a rock to hold onto, and now he’d sent her away.

They’d arrived at the theatre on the lower ground floor and after that everything else was forgotten as the great machine that was the NHS took over.

The moment Libby arrived back at the practice she was greeted by John, with an extra furrow of worry to add to those that age had carved across his brow.

‘So what’s the news, Libby? What did they say at the hospital?’ he asked.

‘It seems as if it might be belladonna poisoning,’ she told him. ‘When Nathan asked Toby if he’d eaten anything while he was playing in the field, or anywhere else for that matter, he said, yes, he’d eaten some shiny black “grapes”, which we think came from a belladonna plant as it describes its berries exactly and his symptoms fit in with what we know of the poisonous effects of it.

‘Fortunately he didn’t eat many of the berries, just one or two, but he’s finding it rather difficult to swallow and is drowsy. Then there’s the fact that he has sickness and diarrhoea and his temperature is up, so the doctor in A and E is going to have to wash his stomach out to get rid of any poisonous substance. Nathan is insisting on being there while it is being done so Toby will have him close all the time, thank goodness.’

John was observing her, dumbstruck. ‘I was with Toby all the time he was in the field. The only time he was out of my sight was when he was playing at hiding in the bushes and I had to find him, so it would have to be then that he found the berries. I feel dreadful that it should have happened while he was in my care, or that it should have happened at all.’

‘
You must
not
feel like that,’ she told him firmly. ‘These things can happen without any blame attached to anyone. How were you to know there was deadly nightshade nearby and that he would mistake the berries for grapes? It is typical of a child to eat what they shouldn’t.’

About to set off for the hospital he paused and asked, ‘Nathan—how is he coping? These are times when a child needs a mother. I have the feeling that somewhere in the past he took the wrong turning with regard to that. I don’t suppose he’s ever said anything to you to that effect, has he?’

As if,
she thought grimly, and told him, ‘No, John, he’s never said anything like that to me.’

‘I thought not,’ he said with a sigh, and drove off to see his adoptive grandson.

There were still a few stragglers in the surgery waiting room and when Libby called the first of them in she was confronted by middle-aged Thomas Miller, leaning heavily on a stick.

He owned the outdoor equipment store in the centre of the village, patronised by many of the walkers and climbers who were attracted to the lakes and fells.

Once a keen climber himself, he was no longer able to enjoy their delights due to a serious leg fracture that he’d sustained while up on the tops. He had been missing for days until the mountain rescue team had found him at the bottom of a gully.

The delay in getting him to hospital for the surgery needed on the injured leg had left him only partly mobile on it, so now he was doing the next best thing to climbing the fells by providing those who still could with everything
they
might need to keep them safe, dry, and fed.

He was a likeable man with a wife and two teenage sons who had no yearnings to become involved in the sport that had once been their father’s favourite pastime.

As well as the store Thomas was chairman of the community centre in the village and almost always had something interesting to pass on when he saw her about what was being planned by his committee.

Before she had time to ask what had brought him to the surgery he was asking for information, rather than giving it, in the form of wanting to know, ‘What’s wrong with the laddie that Nathan’s bringing up, Libby? I’ve just seen John setting off for the hospital looking very downcast, said he hadn’t time to chat as the young’un was very poorly.’

‘Yes, he is,’ she agreed. ‘We had to take him there this morning as we weren’t sure what was wrong with Toby. Nathan is there with him now and I’ve just got back. When something like this happens and the adoptive parent knows nothing about the child’s previous medical history it’s very worrying.

‘Maybe you’d like to pass the word around for the benefit of other children and their parents that it seems as if he has been poisoned by eating the berries of the belladonna plant and at the moment the situation is serious.

‘And now what about you, Thomas? What brings you here on this chilly winter morning?’

‘I’ve got a swollen foot on my good leg and thought I’d better come and see you.’

When she’d examined his foot Libby said, ‘It looks like an infection of some sort. Have you had a sore or a cut on it recently?’

‘I bought some new shoes a few weeks back and they rubbed the skin off one of my toes. It healed up all right, but still felt tender and then the swelling appeared.’