‘She’s a beauty. I just hope I can remember how to cycle.’

‘You’ll soon get the hang of it again,’ he assured her and she hoped he was right.

Her first attempts at riding the bicycle were somewhat wobbly to say the least but she soon mastered it and within days she was a regular sight zooming about the town with her little black bag sitting in the basket and her cloak flying out behind her as she went from one patient to another.

Her first call one particular morning was to one of the children suffering with chickenpox in the courts. She was a very fragile little girl whom Holly had already called on a number of times but sadly no matter what she did the child was showing no signs of improvement and she was gravely concerned about her.

‘How is she today?’ Holly asked the child’s mother as she entered the tiny cottage and placed her bag on the table. The woman was eking out a meagre amount of porridge amongst her other offspring and she nodded towards the truckle bed that stood against one wall.

‘She was really poorly till about three this mornin’ but then she dropped off, thankfully, an’ I ain’t heard a peep out of her since.’

‘I see.’ A cold finger played up and down Holly’s spine as she approached the bed and she saw almost immediately that her worst fears had been realised. Without even touching her she could see that the little girl was dead. Her face was the colour of wax, making the red blister-like spots that covered her skin stand out in stark contrast.

Holly quietly felt for a pulse. The child was as cold as ice and her heart sank. She stood silently until the children were hungrily eating their food at the wobbly table that took up the centre of the room before calling the mother over to her.

‘I’m so sorry, Mrs Land, but I’m afraid she’s gone,’ Holly told her gently. ‘I think she must have died some hours ago.’

The woman wiped her hands on her apron and shook her head in shocked denial. ‘But she can’t have. She looked so peaceful when she went to sleep.’ Yet even as the words left her lips she could see that Holly was telling her the truth and she began to cry, great racking sobs that shook her thin frame. ‘It’s my fault,’ she choked. ‘I should ’ave watched her more closely but when I thought she were sleepin’ peacefully I snatched a couple of hours’ sleep meself.’

Holly laid a hand on her arm. ‘You mustn’t blame yourself, you did all you could.’ She gently pulled the worn sheet up across the child’s face. Somehow that simple act made the little girl’s death all the more real and the woman cried harder. ‘Would you like me to call at the undertaker’s and get him to come?’ she asked then. ‘I shall have to go and report her death to Matron before I go to any of my other patients. But I could lay her out for you, if you like?’