The Stolen Child

by Jennie Felton

Genres: Sagas

Synopsis

A powerful new saga from Jennie Felton, in the grand tradition of Josephine Cox, Dilly Court, Maggie Hope and Rosie Goodwin, of love, loss, tragedy, drama, secrets and twists and turns.

Who will believe this baby is not hers?

When Stella Swift is discovered holding a shard of broken glass near her newborn baby boy, fears that she might harm William result in her being taken to Catcombe - the local asylum. Although the regime is not as harsh as it once was, it's not somewhere that Tom wants to send his wife - but he has no choice.

Turning to his kind-hearted sister-in-law Grace for help taking care of his other three children whilst he keeps working at the mine seems like the simplest solution until Stella is well - if only there wasn't the shared history between Tom and Grace....

At first Catcombe seems to offer the respite Stella needs - until one day she becomes convinced that the baby the nurses have given to her is not William. Is Stella losing her mind? Or is it true that a mother will always know her own child?

Don't miss Jennie's Families of Fairley Terrace series, which began with Maggie's story in All the Dark Secrets and continued with Lucy's story in The Miner's Daughter, Edie's story in The Girl Below Stairs, Carina's story in The Widow's Promise and Laurel's story in The Sister's Secret.

Release date: September 5, 2019

Publisher: Headline

Print pages: 464

Sample

Chapter One



February 1911

The mewling whimpers roused Stella Swift from the light doze she had fallen into in the fireside chair. Automatically she reached out for the handle of the perambulator, which was drawn up beside her, rocking it gently though she knew it would do no good. It never did. The whimpers grew louder, hiccuping sobs escalating into anguished cries.

Leaden with exhaustion, Stella levered herself up, lifted the baby from the pram and sank down again, unbuttoning her nightgown, exposing one heavy, milk-filled breast, and guiding the gasping mouth towards her nipple.

To her immense relief, he was latching on, sucking, and Stella prayed that he would get a proper feed this time. For a full minute she held her breath as the sharp tingles ran little rivers through her breast and into the deepest parts of her; then, as they lessened, despair flooded in, obliterating hope.

Oh no. Not again. By the light of the moon streaming in through the gap in the curtains, she could see that the rosebud mouth had gone slack, the baby’s head was lolling against her chest. She jiggled him, trying to wake him enough to get him to latch back on, but he only grumbled a little, his downy head still heavy against her.

Why? Why did he yell hungrily every time she laid him down, only to fall asleep the moment he was cradled in her arms? He was tired, she supposed – he never slept properly in his cot or his pram – but she was tired too, to the point where she could scarcely think straight any more, let alone struggle through the days caring for him and her three other children.

Six weeks it had been going on now, almost from the moment he was born. Six weeks of stressful days and broken nights while the black cloud of depression that surrounded her grew ever thicker. She could feel it now, weighing her down, suffocating her as if a feather pillow was being pressed over her face so that she struggled to breathe.

She’d experienced something similar after the birth of each of her children, often on the verge of tears, forcing herself to do the things that had to be done, feeling useless, utterly worth­less. It wasn’t unusual, her neighbour, Francie Newman, had said. A lot of women felt that way after having a baby, and it soon passed. She’d been right; gradually Stella had recovered, getting back to her normal chirpy self. But it had been nothing like as bad as it was this time.

None of the others had been this much trouble, of course. Oliver, who was six now, had been a contented baby who’d always slept well, and he hadn’t changed much, Stella thought ruefully. She still had a job to wake him in the mornings – sometimes she had to stuff him into his school clothes while he stood beside his bed, eyelids drooping, still half asleep. Alec, a year younger, might be a little monkey, but he tired himself out with his antics and fell asleep as soon as his head touched the pillow. As for Emily, a year younger again, she was usually a good girl. Being so close in age, they were a tight little unit, looking out for and amusing one another, and Stella had almost forgotten the dark days that had dogged her after each birth.

And then, to her dismay, she’d found herself pregnant again, the last thing she had wanted.

‘Four’s a good number,’ Tom had said, seemingly quite pleased. ‘And the others are at school now and off your hands all day. It’ll be easier for you to manage.’

Stella had bitten her lip and said nothing. It was easy for him to say that. It wasn’t him who had to cook and clean, wash clothes and bedding, take the children to school and collect them each day, feed them, put them to bed. During the week he was at work in the pit from dawn till dusk – dark, even, in the long winter months – and all for a pittance that she had to make stretch somehow to keep body and soul together. Another baby wouldn’t just be more work; it would mean extra expense too. She’d long since got rid of the layette that had served the first three children – most of it was matted and shrunken from countless washes anyway, and she had hoped their family was complete. Now, from somewhere, she’d have to magic up a new set, and clothes for a toddler too as the baby grew. Not to mention that there would be another mouth to feed.

No, she hadn’t been best pleased, but since there was nothing to be done about it, she’d put on a brave face and hoped for the best. And when William had been placed in her arms, she had been so suffused with love that all her misgivings had been forgotten. She couldn’t imagine how she could not have wanted him. Tom had been right. Four was a good number. They would manage.

But then the problems had begun – the constant crying when he should be sleeping, the dozing-off the minute she began to feed him. And the depression she’d suffered with each previous birth returned with a vengeance. She was weighed down by exhaustion. Tears were never far away. Her temper was frayed like the old binders she’d dumped four years ago. Sometimes she felt locked away inside herself, so that speaking required enormous effort; sometimes she heard herself snapping at Tom, shouting at the children over the slightest misdemeanour. She’d even slapped Emily across the back of her legs for laughing when Alec had scribbled his name in crayon on the scullery wall and Stella had flown into a rage, hitting out blindly. ‘It’s not funny!’ she’d screamed at the little girl.

Almost at once she’d been horrified and ashamed at what she had done, gathering a sobbing Emily into her arms and weeping herself into her daughter’s soft golden curls. Giving the boys a clip round the ear when they deserved it was one thing; slapping Emily hard enough to raise red finger marks on her plump little thighs was something else entirely.

The blackness had descended again then. She was a terrible mother. She was making life miserable for all of them. They’d be better off without her. She wished she could end it all. Go to sleep and never wake up. But she couldn’t. They needed her. She was trapped in a haze of exhaustion and despair, an endless round of chores and trying to cope. And all the while the baby crying . . .

She’d managed to get some nourishment into him tonight at bedtime by expressing some milk from her throbbing breasts into a pap boat and drip-feeding it to him. Tom, who was getting more worried about her by the day, had suggested they move the crib to his side of the bed, and he’d rocked it with an outstretched arm until Will settled. Grateful and tired out, Stella had fallen asleep the moment her head touched the pillow, but a couple of hours later, the thin mewling cries had wakened her. She’d struggled up and out of bed, anxious to get to Will before he woke Tom too. He had work tomorrow and another long day hewing coal in the depths of the earth. He needed his sleep.

She’d grabbed her dressing gown from the hook on the back of the bedroom door and taken Will downstairs. She managed to get a little more milk into him, then laid him in his pram and settled herself in the fireside chair. She did that sometimes to avoid disturbing Tom, and she prayed she could snatch a couple more hours of much-needed sleep herself.

But now Will was awake again. And once more refusing to feed. Stella could feel the tension rising inside her like a kettle coming to the boil.

She’d try the pap boat. It had worked earlier. Please God it would work again.

She went to the scullery, fetched it, and expressed some more warm milk. Then she lifted Will out of his pram and went to sit down again. But disorientated and heavy with exhaustion, she landed heavily against the arm of the chair, bumping down into the seat, and the pap boat slipped from her grasp and smashed on the tiled fire surround. Shards of glass and a couple of larger fragments swam in a sea of milk, and Fluffy, their cat, who had been curled up in front of the fire, shot up and streaked out of the room.

‘Oh no!’ It came out as an anguished scream. ‘No! No! No!’

Frightened by the sudden eruption, Will began to cry again with all the strength of his little lungs. Tucking him roughly under one arm, Stella reached down to right the remains of the pap boat before more milk spilled out, but it broke apart beneath her searching hand, one large jagged shard piercing her palm and cutting into her finger. Instinctively she jerked her hand up into her lap. Blood was gushing from her cut finger, though as yet none was seeping from the spot where the piece of glass had embedded itself in her palm, erect as a well-aimed dart on a dartboard. Instinctively she grasped it with her other hand, yanking it out and staring at it for a moment as if transfixed. Blood was dripping down on to Will’s white nightgown, but she barely noticed. She was aware of nothing but the sharp pain throbbing in her finger and the black despair that was closing in on her as if the broken glass had cut not only her hand but the fragile thread of her control. Her head drooped; tears ran unchecked down her face and mingled with the blood.

‘I can’t stand it!’ she cried brokenly. ‘I can’t stand it any more!’

‘Stella? What . . . ? Oh my God, Stella!’

She barely heard Tom’s voice, didn’t register that he was there. She simply sat rocking herself and sobbing, the piece of glass still clutched in one hand while the other dripped blood on to Will’s gown.

Tom was across the room in a few quick strides, horrified at the scene that had met his eyes.

He’d already been half awake when the commotion had begun; he hadn’t been back to sleep properly since Stella had taken Will downstairs to feed him. He was desperately worried about her, and anxious about Will too. The doctor hadn’t been able to find anything wrong with him, saying he was just a colicky baby and he’d grow out of it, but though Tom wanted to believe him, a niggling doubt remained.

His overriding concern, however, was Stella, who he knew was barely coping. She’d gone through a worrying stage after the other children had been born, but nothing like this. He remembered a woman who had lived nearby when he was a boy; she had ‘gone funny’, as his mother had described it, after she’d had a baby, and had smothered it while it slept. Though he’d never seen the woman again – she’d been taken away to the lunatic asylum, his mother had said – the horror of it had cast a long shadow and he’d scuttled hurriedly past the house for years as if it was haunted. These past weeks he’d watched Stella becoming less and less like herself, and found himself thinking about his former neighbour for the first time in years. God forbid that Stella would do anything to harm Will, but he hurried home from work each day, never knowing how he’d find her and increasingly anxious.

The minute he’d heard her screaming, he’d leapt out of bed and rushed downstairs, breath tight in his chest. As he’d gone into the living room, he’d turned cold at the sight that greeted him.

The sharp fragment of glass in her raised hand, hovering above Will’s tiny form. The blood. The glazed look in her eyes. And most chilling of all, her anguished words: ‘I can’t stand it! I can’t stand it any more!’

‘For God’s sake, Stella, what have you done?’

His hand shot out, grabbing her wrist. The piece of glass fell from her grasp and he reached for Will, lifting him out of her unprotesting arms. The baby was yelling lustily, but mercifully he seemed unharmed. Tom laid him in his pram and turned his attention to his wife.

He could see now that the blood had come from her hand; it was running down her wrist and soaking the sleeve of her nightgown. There was a pile of clean binders on the kitchen table; he fetched one, using it to catch the drips while he examined the wound, which looked to be fairly superficial, then wrapped it tightly round her hand. He knew from past experience that fingers could bleed heavily, but hopefully that would stop the worst of it. And to be honest, he was more concerned about her mental state than a couple of cuts.

He dropped to his knees beside her chair, holding her bandaged hand and looking into her face.

‘What happened, Stella?’

She shook her head, still rocking, still gazing unseeingly into space. Tears were rolling unchecked down her cheeks. He wiped them away with his fingers.

‘Talk to me, Stella, please.’

Still nothing. Her mouth worked a little, but only to chew at her bottom lip. Her flooded eyes flicked towards the pram; her free hand went up to cover her ear, as if to shut out the sound of the baby’s crying. She whispered something. He leaned closer.

‘What?’

‘I . . . can’t . . . stand it . . . any more . . .’

The same words she’d sobbed out earlier. Tom’s heart dropped into the pit of his stomach. His worst nightmare was becoming reality. She had been going to harm Will. Thank God he’d come downstairs when he had. But what the hell was he going to do now? There was no way she could be left alone with the baby again. She needed help. He’d have to get the doctor to her. But it was the middle of the night. And Will needed feeding. First things first. Somehow he had to try to get some milk into him, get him to sleep, so that at least he could think straight.

In her present state he wasn’t sure it was a good idea to ask Stella to try and feed him, but with the pap boat in pieces he didn’t know what option he had. He lifted Will out of the pram, laid him in Stella’s lap and pulled the neck of her nightgown open.

‘He’s hungry. Try him again.’

‘It’s no use,’ she whimpered.

‘Just try.’ His tone was stern now and she seemed to respond to it, lifting the baby’s head to her breast.

To his relief, Will latched on, and with Tom’s hand resting against the back of his neck to keep him steady, he sucked desperately for perhaps five minutes. Then his head lolled again.

‘See?’ Stella’s eyes rose to meet Tom’s, challenging, as if to say ‘I told you so’.

‘He’s had some at least.’ Tom laid Will back in the pram, pulling the lacy blanket up to cover him. ‘Now, you’re going back to bed.’

‘He’ll be awake again soon . . .’ Her voice was tearful, but at least she was talking.

‘I’m fetching the gravy boat.’ He’d thought of it as he sat silently watching the baby feed. ‘Squeeze some milk into that. If he does wake, I can try to get some into him.’

‘But—’

‘I’ll stay down here with him. You need some sleep, Stella.’

‘So do you.’ Her voice was flat, expressionless.

‘I’ll be all right.’

Wordlessly she expressed some milk into the gravy boat. Tom set it on the table and urged her towards the stairs. She was moving like a woman in a dream, limbs awkward and heavy, and as he pulled the covers over her he saw that her eyes were still staring, haunted.

He turned off the oil lamp, kissed her forehead.

‘Just rest, my love, and don’t worry about anything.’

She didn’t reply, but as he pulled the bedroom door shut behind him, he thought he heard a muffled sob.

He went back downstairs and settled himself in the chair she had vacated. There was nothing more he could do tonight. But first thing in the morning he was going to call the doctor. They couldn’t go on like this. Stella had reached breaking point and she was a danger to both herself and Will, and perhaps to the other children too.

Tom closed his eyes and tried to get what rest he could. But the anxiety was a cold, hard knot in his stomach. He had no idea what anyone could do for Stella, how they were going to manage or what was going to happen next. But he had a terrible feeling that they had reached a turning point in their lives and nothing would ever be the same again.

Chapter Two



Dr Alistair Mackay drove his motor up the long, curving hill out of Hillsbridge and along the straight stretch that was Dunderwick Road. He passed a row of terraced houses – miners’ cottages – on his left-hand side, with open fields on his right, then slowed as he approached more rows of tied cottages beyond them, coming to a stop outside number 21.

No pony and trap for him now – he’d treated himself to the Model T Ford two years ago and had never regretted it for a second. The motor saved him so much time; he was able to make home visits to even the most distant villages much more easily, and it was immeasurably easier to get it going than to have to persuade a sometimes reluctant pony into the shafts of the trap.

This morning, damp and bitterly cold, with the cloud so heavy it was still not properly light, was a case in point. He’d not long been out of bed when there had been a knock at the door. He’d hastily buttoned his waistcoat and shrugged into his tweed suit jacket as he hurried downstairs.

By the time he reached the hallway, his wife, Jessica, had already opened the door and was speaking to a young lad he didn’t recognise, but who looked to be about twelve or thirteen years old. As she heard Alistair behind her, she stepped to one side, making room for him on the doorstep.

‘This is Ferdie Newman – he lives next door to the Swift family in Dunderwick Road. Mr Swift asked him to come for you. It seems it’s urgent.’

‘Is it the baby?’ Alistair asked, anxious. He’d attended Stella in her confinement just a few weeks ago, and the child hadn’t appeared to be suffering any complications. But infants were horribly vulnerable, and nothing caused him more distress than a new little life cut short.

The lad twisted his cap between his hands. ‘He didn’t say – just to fetch you quick sharp. But I could hear the babby crying.’

‘I see,’ Alistair said, relieved. If the baby was crying, at least he was alive. But it wasn’t like the Swifts to call him out for no reason. ‘Very well. I’ll come now.’ A thought struck him. ‘How did you get here? Would you like a ride back?’

‘It’s all right. I got me bike.’ The lad jerked his head in the direction of the road, and Alistair saw a bicycle propped up against the low wall beside the gate.

‘I could put it on the back seat.’

‘No, you’re all right.’

Alistair was surprised at him turning down the chance of a ride in a motor, but he guessed from the lad’s body language that he wasn’t completely comfortable. Because Alistair was ‘the doctor’, he supposed. Though he never put on airs and graces, always treated his patients as equals, many of them were in awe of him.

‘Do you want a cup of tea before you go?’ Jessica asked as the lad scampered away down the path.

‘Is there one in the pot?’

‘Yes – it should be brewed by now. And what about something to eat?’

‘No, just a quick cup of tea. I’ll have breakfast when I get back.’

Jessica poured it, adding milk and two sugars the way he liked it, and he drank half a cup in between buttoning his jacket and fetching his medical bag and overcoat, then headed for the door. Jessica followed him into the hallway and reached up to give him a kiss on the cheek.

‘Take care.’

He grinned. ‘You still don’t trust me to drive Lizzie safely, do you?’ It had been Jessica’s idea to give the motor a name.

‘Of course I do! It’s just that . . . well, accidents happen.’

‘Don’t worry. I’ll be careful. And I’ll probably be hungry enough for bacon and eggs when I get back.’

But telling Jessica not to worry was a pointless exercise. She’d worried about him when he’d been driving the pony and trap, afraid a wheel might come off or the pony bolt or slip when the roads were icy. She’d always had a vivid imagination, and since becoming a doctor’s wife she seemed more aware than ever of all the misfortunes that could suddenly disrupt, or even end, a life.

But he loved her for it, just as he loved everything about her. Until he’d met Jessica, he’d been a confirmed bachelor in his thirties, considered very eligible by more than one mother seeking a good marriage for her daughter, but his demanding profession had been more than enough for him. And then, five years ago, he’d fallen in love.

How lucky could one man be? he sometimes asked himself. Happily married, in a profession he loved, and the proud owner of a smart Model T Ford – black, with red leather seats – that usually started first time when he turned the starting handle. No more having to harness up the pony on filthy mornings like today. And the motor would be there outside the house in Dunderwick Road when he finished his visit to the Swift household, not halfway down the lane as the trap had sometimes been when the pony had gone off in search of fresh grass to munch.

Collecting his medical bag from the back seat, he opened the gate to number 21, walked down the path between tidy lawns and neat flower borders, bare now for winter, and rapped on the door with the brass knocker fashioned in the shape of a fox’s head.

Almost at once he heard footsteps running across the tiled entrance hall, and the door was opened by a small boy wearing a solemn expression. Close behind him were his younger brother and sister, looking equally solemn. Somewhere in the house, the baby was crying.

‘Oliver, isn’t it?’ Alistair’s voice still carried a soft Scottish burr, which was less thick now than when he had first come to Hillsbridge some sixteen years ago, but which he had never lost completely. ‘Can you tell your daddy the doctor is here?’

Tom Swift appeared in the doorway of the living room and joined them in the little hall. ‘Come in, Doctor. And you three,’ he said to the children, ‘make yourselves scarce. Go and play in the front room – I’ve got the fire going in there, so it should be warm by now.’

‘What about school, Daddy?’ Oliver asked.

‘We’ll worry about that later.’ Tom turned to Alistair, who was closing the front door after him, and lowered his voice. ‘Can we have a word out here before we go in? It’s Stella, Doctor. I’m worried to death about her.’

‘Of course. What seems to be the trouble?’

‘I don’t know, and that’s the truth. But she hasn’t been herself since William was born, and last night . . .’

He went on to relate the events of the previous night in an urgent whisper.

‘I don’t know what she meant to do,’ he finished. ‘I’m just glad I came downstairs when I did, or . . . well, it doesn’t bear thinking about. I can’t leave her on her own with the baby – I should be at work now, but . . .’ He spread his hands helplessly. ‘All I could think of was to send for you. I don’t know what you can do for her, but she’s got to have some help or I dread to think what might happen.’

‘You did the right thing.’ Alistair’s heart had sunk. It sounded to him as if Stella was suffering from puerperal fever, which was not uncommon, and if memory served him right he thought she had had it before. But if she really had intended to harm young William then it must be far more serious, and really there was very little he could do to help her.

One look at her was enough to confirm his worst suspicions. She was seated in the fireside chair, rocking back and forth, her hands working ceaselessly in her lap. But her eyes were glazed, her expression vacant, and she was completely ignoring the baby crying in his pram.

‘Stella?’ he said, pulling an upright dining chair beside her and sitting down so that he was more or less eye level with her.

For a moment she did not respond at all; it was as if she was locked away inside herself. Then her lips moved and she mumbled something too softly for him to hear.

‘I didn’t catch that, Stella . . .’

Her head swivelled towards him with startling abruptness and the dead eyes were suddenly alive and blazing.

‘I can’t stand it any more!’ It was an angry shriek, as if she was blaming him for not hearing her the first time. ‘He won’t stop crying, and I can’t bear it.’

Then she turned away, the dazed expression back on her face.

‘He does cry an awful lot,’ Tom interjected. ‘And it’s a hell of a job to get any feed into him. We did mention it to you, if you remember, and you said it was most likely colic.’

‘It probably is,’ Alistair said. ‘I don’t expect it’s anything to worry about, but I’ll take another look at him later to be sure. At the moment, though, my major concern is Stella. I think the best thing would be for her to be taken into hospital, for the time being anyway.’

‘You mean the cottage hospital at High Compton?’ Tom was looking more worried than ever, wondering, no doubt, how he was going to manage.

‘No,’ Alistair said evenly. ‘They wouldn’t be able to help her there. I think she should go to Catcombe.’

‘Catcombe?’ Tom repeated, horrified. ‘You mean . . . the asylum?’

‘The mental hospital, yes.’ Alistair didn’t like the old term, still commonly used locally. It carried a terrible stigma, as well as invoking horror and dread. ‘They have the facilities to keep her safe, hopefully help her back to her old self, and take care of the baby too.’

‘William would go with her?’ Tom asked. He was still reeling from the shock of what the doctor had said, but struggling to remain calm.

‘While she’s still breast-feeding, yes. But that would be supervised, and he’d be looked after in the nursery at other times. It may well be that it’s her nervous state that’s been upsetting him, and in calm surroundings the feeding problems will be solved.’

Tom ran his hand through his thick thatch of fair hair. ‘Oh Doctor, I don’t know . . .’

‘I don’t think we have any choice, Mr Swift,’ Alistair said sympathetically. ‘As you’ve said yourself, she can’t be left here with a baby to care for while she is so poorly. And hopefully it won’t be for long. As soon as she recovers, she and William can come home.’

‘I suppose so . . .’ Tom clearly didn’t like it one little bit, but what choice was there? ‘When . . . ?’

‘I’ll make the arrangements at once. Then, if you can pack a bag for her and the baby, I’ll come back as soon as my morning surgery is finished and take her myself.’

‘Thank you, Doctor. I’m sorry to cause you all this trouble.’

‘No trouble at all. And none of this is your fault. I’m just sorry it’s happened. But don’t worry. I’m sure she’ll recover before long and be back here with you and the children.’

But for all his comforting words, as he left the warmth of the little house for the clammy cold of the February morning, Alistair Mackay was not feeling overly optimistic.

He’d come across something similar when a patient had insisted on having the bedroom window locked because she was terrified that she would throw her baby out, but Stella’s case seemed to be much more serious. He only hoped that a stay at Catcombe would put her right, but he had heard of cases where the patient never made a full recovery.

He was concerned about the baby too. Was it possible he’d missed something? Once they were in the hospital, he’d do some further investigation. For the past six years he had been one of the medical officers who dealt with any physical ailments among the patients there, and he would make little William a priority. Get the baby right, and hopefully Stella would improve too.

He tossed his medical bag on to the back seat of the Ford and cranked the starting handle to bring the engine to life. Then he set out to drive home, where he might just have time for some breakfast before taking his morning surgery.

The asylum at Catcombe had been built some sixty years earlier, in response to the new legislation that required each county to provide for the mentally ill: two three-storey wings either side of a central block with an archway in the centre, all constructed from locally quarried stone. Surrounded as it was by acres of land it was more or less self-sufficient, with its own farm and kitchen garden, a smithy and workshops. In the intervening years, as overcrowding had become a problem, extra accommo­dation had been added – a cottage ward near to the farm for the men who were fit to work it, and a villa to provide accommodation for thirty women. It was approached by way of a driveway with an iron-gated entrance flanked by stone lions mounted on pillars of the same local stone.

It was just after noon as Alistair turned into the drive, William in a Moses basket on the front seat of the Ford, Stella sitting behind. Tom had asked if he should accompany them, but Alistair had thought it would be better if he didn’t. From previous experience, he knew there could be upsetting scenes when a patient realised they were about to be incarcerated.

Stella, however, still seemed lost in a trance. He’d kept an eye on her during the half-hour drive and seen nothing to indicate she had any real understanding of what was happening. Hopefully it would last until she’d been admitted and he could leave her in the care of the nurses.

Baby William had been quiet too for the whole of the journey: the motion of the motor seemed to have lulled him into a much-needed sleep.

Alistair drew up as close as he could to the main entrance and left Stella and William in the motor whilst he rang the bell. Then he helped a still catatonic Stella down and gently lifted the Moses basket and placed it on the top step so that he would be ready to grab her should she suddenly come alive and try to run away.

Moments later, the door was opened by a fresh-faced junior nurse. As a frequent visitor, Alistair had no need to i