Dr Joseph Craven stood in the East Landing's huge and many-paned window staring down at the lawn in horror as he watched a father and a son walking back to the house. When Colin began to jump about out of sheer good-natured high spirits and Archie's face lit up with laughter, Joseph had to bite down hard on his knuckle to prevent himself from crying out in distress.

'What happens now?' asked Irene Goodwin, the large and gregarious young woman who had what the doctor always regarded as the misfortune to be Colin's latest nurse. 'Will I be dismissed?'

It was the note of hope in her voice that annoyed him. He knew how much she did not like her place at Misselthwaite Manor or indeed her chosen profession. She disliked the country and disliked the sick what on earth she thought she was doing working as a nurse Joseph had no idea.

'I don't know what is about to happen,' he replied. 'And, young lady, I have far more important things to consider than your farce of a career.'

He turned on his heels and stalked away.

On reaching the sanctuary of the room he'd set up as an office he closed the door and for a terrible moment felt that he might burst into tears.

That boy, that wretched selfish boy! What trick, what device had he employed to fool them all? And worst of all how had he, Dr Joseph Craven graduate of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge and member of the Royal Society of Medicine been so easily deceived by a boy, a mere boy, a clear thirty years his junior?

Minutes ago it had been Joseph's professional opinion that Colin was a seriously ill child so weakened by spending his entire life in bed that his body was all but useless; now that was utterly without foundation. Wildly, Joseph grabbed one of the many loose-leafed files of notes that he had written up during his young patient's lifetime and threw it at the wall where it burst on impact and sent paper cascading everywhere.

It was all wrong! All meaningless! The last ten years wasted! Even at a distance Joseph had clearly seen that Colin was a healthy and robust lad and that Archie was looking better than he had done in years.

With a roar of anger Joseph swept everything off his desk then threw himself down on his chair and sat with his head in his heads. His great gamble had not paid off. He would not be the Master of Misselthwaite Manor now.

It had seemed such a simple plan. Lilias had died so Joseph, who was from the poorer side of the Craven family and actually had to work for a living unlike his cousin Archie who'd merely had to be born and then inherit to become one of the richest men in the Empire, had left his thriving London practice and set himself up as the doctor in Thwaite village and personal physician to Archie who had gone clean off his head with grief and his sickly new-born son who was not expected to live a month if that.

It had been perfect. Joseph was not an unscrupulous man he would never have harmed Archie or Colin and he told himself that he didn't have to because the baby would die and Archie would soon follow unable to bear the stress of his wild, unnatural seeming mourning on top of the pain of the kyphosis that had bent his spine and made his shoulders crooked. It wouldn't take long, Joseph had decided, and then he'd be Lord Craven and the house he'd loved from afar all his life plus the land, riches and prestige that went with it would be his.

And then he'd got stuck.

Archie had regained his wits, learned how to manage his pain and began his restless travels and the baby had clung onto to life to become a demanding, fretful toddler and then a ghastly, hysterical child with no redeeming features that Joseph could detect. They'd lived: the crippled, solipsistic father and his lunatic son, and left Joseph marooned in a small village performing operations on kitchen tables and frequently accepting meat and vegetables as fees instead of money.

'God damn it!' Joseph screamed aloud as he thumped his fist into the desk. His covetous desire of Misselthwaite had seen him throw away his entire thirties, the decade of a man's life where he should be consolidating his position and becoming someone of worth and achievement, and in the end it had got him nothing.

He'd cut himself off from everything that he regarded as civilised to live amongst dull-witted peasant folk and been thoroughly miserable in the process. It had never occurred to Joseph that he could have been happy in Thwaite and loved and respected by all if only he'd stopped looking down on his fellow villagers and mistaking a general lack of education for a lack of intelligence and soul. He was a crushing snob of the worst kind and his prejudice had made him lonely.

Eventually, he brought himself under some sort of control and got to his feet. He was going to have go downstairs and plaster a smile on his face when he saw Colin and say...what could he say? Should he abandon all his hard-won scientific knowledge and talk of miracles? Was there anything he could do right now to look less of an idiot?

As he approached the drawing room, Joseph could hear laughter and breathless childish chattering and a nerve in his cheek twitched as he swallowed back his anger and deep, deep disappointment that things were as they are.

He hesitated in the doorway only to be spotted by Archie who quickly bid Colin to pause for a moment then came and stood close.

Joseph went to speak but found himself silenced by an upraised hand.

'Well, don't we have a lot to discuss, cousin?' said Archie in a sarcastic but quiet voice. He obviously didn't want Colin to hear him. 'Someone has made a tremendous error and right now I can't think who else it could be apart from you.'

'Archie I-'

'No, not now. I'm busy with my son,' He couldn't help but smile a little as he said those last two words. 'Go home, Joseph. I'll send for you when I am ready to hear what I can only imagine will be an outstanding litany of excuses.'

He towered over Joseph who for a second was afraid that Archie might strike him.

'All those letters you sent me,' seethed Archie. ' "Colin remains very ill. We are so worried. I continue to do my best but there is little hope." And on and on. How could you? How could you lie? What did I ever do to you that meant you would torment me like that?'

Joseph looked up into Archie's furious eyes and decided that it would be wise to stay silent.

'Get out,' Archie commanded. 'Thwaite excepted, you will not set foot on my land until I say so. And unless you can somehow give a truly remarkable account of your conduct you won't be the doctor there for many more days. You can go back to your precious London and...' Archie shrugged. 'I don't care what you do. As long as you're not doing it anywhere near me.'

After one last glare Archie went back inside the drawing room leaving Joseph to summon a footman to get him his hat and coat and give orders for his carriage to be brought around to the front. For so long he'd dreamed of the day he'd come up the drive as the Master of Misselthwaite Manor now he was going in the other direction away from the house he'd so ardently desired with his dreams in tatters.

He sat in the privacy of the rattling carriage and wept.