Page 12 of Highlander's Captive Bride
For the next half an hour, she examined Elodie. She felt her forehead, her pulse. She listened to her heartbeat, timing its regularity in her head. She pressed her ear to her chest, front and back, to listen to her breathing. She peered into her eyes and caused laughter when she got the child to stick out her tongue.
“Now,” she finally said to Elodie, “I want ye to tell me exactly how it all started when ye first got sick.”
“It was when—” Poppy began.
Daisy held up a hand to stop her. “I want to hear it from Elodie,” she said, and the servant fell silent.
The child thought for a while, then she said, “It started about a week ago. I felt all right. I drank all me tea. But afterwards, I got a tummy ache, a really bad one. I was sick, too, lots of times, and I just felt horrible. And I’ve been poorly ever since, have I nae, Poppy?”
“Aye, ye have, me pet,” said the servant, leaning over to pat her charge’s head. “She’s been suffering something terrible, Daisy. Sick as a dog, she’s been, and filling chamber pot after chamber pot. And nae a morsel can she get down. The pain is something awful when she gets these attacks. She’s as thin as a rake, and she burns up with fever on and off too. ’Tis nae fair for a wee bairn. It tears at me heart.”
Daisy stared at her, in no doubt that Poppy was telling the truth and was genuinely moved by Elodie’s plight. She softened towards her, for it was clear that neither of them knew the circumstances in which she had been brought there.
“D’ye ken what ails her yet?” Poppy asked, her pretty face beseeching as she looked at Daisy.
“Judging by the symptoms, it could be any number of things. I need time to investigate further before I can say for sure,” Daisy replied. “But I’ll do me very best to help ye, Elodie, ye can be sure of that.” She squeezed the child’s hand and smiled as reassuringly as she could, despite the circumstances. “Now, tell me what ye had for yer tea on the day ye started getting sick,” she said. “Was it the same as everybody else?”
Elodie nodded her head weakly. “Aye, I think so, but I had me tea up here so I could play with me dolls.”
“And d’ye recall if anybody else was sick after drinking the same tea?”
The child shook her head. “I dinnae think so. Was there, Poppy?”
“Nay, nae to me knowledge,” Poppy replied decisively.
“Was it something new ye ate, something ye’d never had before?”
“Nay, just venison stew and bread and butter. And some milk to drink.”
“And ye’ve never had this sickness before?”
“She hasnae!” Poppy exclaimed. “She’s usually got guts of iron, this one, especially when it comes to eating sweeties, eh?” She grinned at Elodie, clearly eager to take her mind off the examination. Daisy warmed further to her.
“Well, Elodie, thank ye for being such a good patient,” Daisy told the child gently. “I have a lot to think about. We may have to try a few things first to track down what’s making ye so sick, but I’m sure we’ll get there.”
As the three of them continued to talk and she found out more about Elodie, she wished she felt as confident as she sounded.
“I’m so happy Da brought ye here, Daisy. He’s always so busy, it must have been hard for him to take the time to do it for me,” Elodie said at one point, sending a pang of pity through Daisy’s heart.
“Aye, but the Laird has a clan to run, me pet. Ye cannae expect him to be here all day, but just be grateful when he does come, eh?” Poppy said in a soothing voice.
“I can tell ye think the world of yer faither,” Daisy told the child.
“I do. He’s the best Da in the whole of Scotland!” Elodie declared with a delighted giggle. Then, her face fell. “But I just wish he would come and play with me more, sometimes.”
“Why, I remember thinking just the same thing about me own Da when I was about yer age,” Daisy said, also wishing to soothe away the child’s evident sadness.
“I wish I could say the same about mine,” Poppy put in. “The drunken sot. We could never get rid of the troublemaker.”
This made Elodie laugh again, but then, she was seized by a violent fit of coughing, clutching her stomach. Poppy immediately cradled her, patting her back until she finally stopped coughing.
“Me tummy’s so sore,” Elodie gasped weakly, lying back on the pillow. “The coughing makes it hurt. Dinnae make me laugh anymore, Poppy.”
Daisy was very concerned. Remembering that the Laird had ordered the stable lad to bring up her things to Elodie’s chambers, she cast about for her medicine box. She spotted it on a chair near the door and went to fetch it. Taking out a small vial of white liquid, she asked Poppy to pass her a glass of water from the nightstand. After emptying the contents of the vial into the water, she swirled it and then offered it to Elodie.
“Drink this, darling, it may help to settle yer stomach and soothe the pain,” Daisy told her. She cradled her, helping her to sit up and drink the concoction.
“Ugh, it tastes just like chalk,” Elodie said when she had finished it.
