36. Hamps Fell

As church bells rang out in the little villages she passed, Ada hummed Christmas carols to herself. She’d told the truth when she’d said she’d done this walk many times, but on previous occasions it had been springtime with birds singing and daffodils in bloom, or in high summer, when sheep with their scampering lambs grazed the fells. Now it was cold and icy, but Ada felt invigorated. Energized by the necessity of her mission to get Heather to safety, she made good progress over Hamps Fell; then, after crossing the road, she covered the low hills to Newton Fell, from where she could make out Newby Bridge to the west. The ice-cold wind got stronger as she gained height and reached the ridged pathway above Newton in Cartmel. Normally, it would be comfortable walking, but, with the snow and ice underfoot, Ada almost slipped several times, until she came across a stout stick that she used to keep her balance as she climbed higher and higher. She couldn’t let anything happen to little Heather, nor to herself.

Looking down from the ridge, she gasped at the first sight of Lake Windermere stretching out long and wide until it disappeared into the hazy distance that was Grasmere, fringed by the majestic Northern Fells. Heather wriggled, as if waking up, and caused Ada to put on a spurt of speed; she had to make the most of her time while the baby slept. Once Heather was awake and restless, she’d probably have to stop to give her a bottle-feed.

The higher she climbed, the better the view was; she could even see little boats moored on the shimmering blue water, and far down below she spotted a few cars, like children’s toy cars, weaving their way along the narrow country lanes.

‘Good,’ thought Ada. ‘That means the roads are open on this side of the valley.’

It was the perfect scenario, she mused with satisfaction: the roads around Cartmel and Allithwaite, which undoubtedly Percival and Matron would take to pursue her (if they’d second-guessed her plan), were blocked with deep snow, while on this side they were open.

‘The wicked pair are stuck with no way out!’ she said out loud. ‘I hope it stays that way,’ she added, because the next thing she planned to do (after delivering Heather to Isla) was to notify the police of all that she knew about what was going on at Crow Thorn Grange.

‘The sooner it’s in the police’s hands, the better,’ Ada thought vengefully.

In Matron’s office, where Percival eventually turned up after she had threatened him, the two faced each other across her desk. Looking like he’d been drinking all night, he barked, ‘So, have you found the brat yet?’

‘NO!’ she snapped back. ‘And I can’t go turning the place upside down without arousing suspicion.’

‘Have you questioned the nurse who took her?’ he demanded.

‘She’s gone off on holiday leave,’ Matron coldly told him.

‘And what if she blabs to somebody? Or, worse still’ – he paled at the thought – ‘takes the baby to the police?’

Desperate to calm his escalating anxieties, Matron spoke in her ringing, professional voice. ‘Leave the finding of the child to me, Sir!’

Percival gave her a mocking look. ‘And how do I get around the small problem of telling the eager adoptive couple that, for the moment at least, we don’t have a baby to give them?’

‘Buy time,’ she snapped. ‘They already know the weather’s bad – tell them it’s getting worse – tell them bloody anything to stop them from turning up here!’

After a few hours of brisk walking, Heather grew restless, so Ada made a brief stop to feed her. The baby devoured her bottle of milk, then, knowing she had to make the most of daylight, Ada set off once more, hungrily eating the egg sandwiches and the apple that Shirley had so thoughtfully prepared for her. How Shirley had changed, Ada mused: the little nervous wreck of a girl had gone, replaced by a stronger, braver and more focused young woman. Life’s hardships had made Shirley grow up fast, and after her near-death experience she’d discovered a love of God and a desire to become a nun. Ada smiled to herself: Shirley’s journey had been a torturous one, but at last there was happiness in sight.

‘A bit like Heather’s journey,’ she thought. ‘She could have been lost forever, but we found her and, one day soon,’ she promised herself, ‘I’ll find out where Bertie and baby Tom went too.’

At Tower Wood, Ada started her descent to Ghyll Head, then onwards to Windermere itself. When she reached the country lanes, Ada sighed with relief – it was good not to be slipping and sliding on ice and snow – but she was beginning to feel tired and Heather, fed up with being restricted for so long, was wailing loudly.

‘All right, all right,’ Ada soothed, as she jiggled the restless baby.

The sound of an approaching car made Ada draw back into the hedgerow to let it pass, but to her surprise the vehicle, an old, rusty farm truck covered in mud and smelling acridly of sheep’s droppings, pulled up.

‘We’er art thou heading, lassie?’ the cheery farmer driving the truck asked.

Ada scrambled in her pocket for the scrap of paper on which Shirley had written the address.

‘Thou’s a few miles to go,’ he muttered, recognizing the address. ‘Hop in: I’ll drive thee yon afore it turns dark.’

‘Oh, thank you,’ sighed weary Ada. ‘That’s so very kind of you,’ she added, as she opened the passenger door, then stopped short as a wet collie dog slurped her hand with its warm tongue.

‘Shift, yer owd bugger!’ the farmer said with rough affection. ‘Make room for’t lass, wil’t?’

After the collie had mooched over on to the back seat, Ada sank gratefully into the passenger seat he’d just vacated.

‘It’s very kind of you, Sir,’ she said again, releasing Heather from her makeshift sling, then blushing as she realized how very smelly the baby was. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said apologetically. ‘She’s needs a nappy change.’

‘Doesn’t fret this’elf, cock,’ the farmer chuckled, as he clanged gears and they rattled slowly along the road that skirted the now-darkening lake. ‘Owt’s better than the stink of sheep shit!’

After a few stops for the farmer (accompanied by his faithful collie) to chuck hay into the snowy fields for his sheep to graze on, Ada arrived at her destination.

‘Is that babby somebody’s Christmas present?’ the farmer teased, as Ada staggered out of the car clutching Heather, whom she’d managed to change during one of the stops.

Gurgling and contented now, Heather wiggled her feet in the woolly leggings that had kept her warm all day.

‘You could say more of a Christmas surprise,’ Ada laughed, as she abandoned the sling and settled Heather on her hip before looking around to get her bearings.

‘It’s yon big ’ouse over yonder,’ the farmer said, and pointed to Jeannie’s house, which, Ada could see, ran all the way down to Lake Windermere.

After thanking him again, she waved off the farmer and his dog, then took deep breaths to steady her nerves. What would Isla say? How would she react when she saw her baby again? What if she were in the throes of getting over leaving Heather and Ada’s appearing so unexpectedly like this would rip the wound open all over again?

‘It’s too late for that now,’ she declared, and, with her stomach churning, she walked to the front door and rang the bell.

‘Okay, kiddo,’ she muttered to Heather. ‘Time to see Mama again.’

It was Jeannie’s housekeeper who opened the door, but, on seeing Ada standing on the step holding a little baby, she quickly beckoned them in out of the cold.

‘Could you tell your mistress that it’s Sister Ada from Mary Vale?’

‘Yes, Miss,’ the housekeeper replied, and hurried away to make her announcement. Hardly a minute passed before Ada heard running footsteps approaching and Isla’s soft, lilting voice calling excitedly down the long echoing hallway. ‘ADA!’

Just as she was about to throw herself on to Ada, Isla spotted the little bundle now resting in the curve of her friend’s arm; going as white as a sheet, Isla visibly rocked on her feet with shock. ‘Heather …’ she gasped.

‘Isla, dear, what is it?’ Jeannie’s voice rang out, as she too came hurrying into the corridor. ‘Is it really Ada, come visiting on Christmas Day?’ she inquired in a delighted voice.

‘It is Ada,’ Isla replied, her face now transformed by a radiant smile that brought the colour rushing to her cheeks. ‘Jeannie, darling, Ada’s brought …’ She paused as Jeannie caught sight of Heather. ‘She’s brought my daughter home to me.’

That night Isla fed her baby with the formula that Ada had had the foresight to bring with her along with the bottles of prepared milk she’d fed little Heather on their journey over to Windermere. As starry-eyed Isla gazed adoringly at her daughter, flushed and asleep after she was sated, Ada began her long and frightening story.

Isla shook her head incredulously. ‘And there we were, thinking that Heather would soon be established with her new family, when all the time Matron was planning her own particular scenario.’

‘In retrospect, I think there was something fishy going on right from the moment Father Ben was hoisted out of his role. With the priest out of the way, Percival and Matron more or less had a free hand to pull the wool over everyone’s eyes – that is until brave little Shirley started to unravel the mystery. We know from her that Matron sneaked Tom out of the Home and took him to the Grange, where a horrid girl called Olive looked after him; Gloria heard the same girl talking about Bertie’s death while he was in her care, and it was the same unscrupulous girl who told me that Heather was going to be adopted.’

Jeannie shook her head as she gazed into the crackling fire, which the housekeeper kept well stoked up. ‘Good God!’ she cried out in anger. ‘Why would anyone in a position of power as they are steal a child away from Mary Vale?’

‘To make money, of course,’ Ada answered bluntly. ‘What other possible motive could they have?’

Holding her baby tightly, as if frightened she might lose her a second time, Isla recalled, ‘At the time, I really believed Matron about the measles scare. Though I remember you didn’t, Ada.’

‘I was very uneasy but I felt I had no choice but to go along with it – measles is serious!’ Ada exclaimed. ‘But now I feel so guilty I didn’t act. It’s my ward – wouldn’t I, as sister in charge, have spotted Tom’s symptoms? Just as I would have spotted that Heather had a fracture, which is what Matron told Jones to say. I knew something wasn’t right when Matron said Tom needed to be isolated, but I would have come across as grossly unprofessional if I’d complained, especially as she kept insisting, in a martyred voice’ – Ada rolled her eyes as she recalled Matron’s words – ‘that she was doing it for the “benefit of all the other babies in the nursery”.’

She gave a heavy sigh as she took a sip from the glass of sherry Jeannie had filled for her.

‘And then poor old Shirley paid such a price for seeing what she did,’ Isla murmured.

The memory of Shirley lying on the marsh caused Isla’s face to drain of colour, and, seeing her change of expression, Jeannie quickly suggested she make some cocoa, asking Ada if she’d come to help.

Once they were in private, Jeannie spoke in a whisper to Ada. ‘I know we have to get to the bottom of all this ghastly business, and we will, you mark my words. But my Isla is so vulnerable right now; it’s taken a while to recover from the experience of seeing Shirley in such a terrible way,’ she advised. ‘And then having to give up Heather, which she had no idea would be so hard, and now having her back – the poor child doesn’t know if she’s coming or going.’

‘She’ll need time to come to terms with it all,’ Ada replied softly.

While they waited for the pan of milk to boil on the big old Aga that warmed the kitchen, Jeannie earnestly thanked Ada for bringing Heather home. Ada blushed as she confessed how arduous the journey had been.

‘I knew I was taking a risk coming here, especially with little Heather, but an overwhelming instinct told me it was the right thing to do, I couldn’t think of anything other than getting Heather as far away from Matron and Sir Percival as possible in order to keep her totally safe.’

Jeannie gave her a comforting pat on the hand. ‘You absolutely did the right thing, and you were very brave. Who knows what would have happened to our precious Heather if you hadn’t had the courage to do that?’ Her voice turning more sober now, she continued, ‘You have no idea what a difficult time it has been here. Isla was simply inconsolable about leaving Heather; we were going to head over to see you all just as soon as this blasted weather calmed down. I initially thought that once her hormones had settled down and her milk had dried up, she might start to feel better, but every day seemed, if anything, worse than the day before. The longer she was away from her baby, the more depressed Isla became. So perhaps it’s partly fate that’s brought you here. I can’t see her being able to let the little mite go a second time, especially after all this.’

Ada slowly nodded her head. ‘I’ve seen things like this happen before,’ she confessed. ‘Not baby snatching!’ she quickly corrected herself. ‘But mothers changing their mind at the last minute and asking to have their babies back. In the end, only Isla can decide what is right for her and for her baby,’ she concluded.

Quickly lifting the pan from the heat before it boiled over, Jeannie made three mugs of cocoa. ‘I’ll take this to Isla and be right back,’ she said, leaving the room. When she reappeared, Jeannie had a big smile on her face. ‘Both fast asleep,’ she said tenderly.

‘They need this time together,’ Ada commented. ‘Isla struggled with her conflicting emotions in the Home: she never allowed herself to bond fully with Heather, yet at the same time she felt huge love for her.’

‘Poor darling,’ Jeannie sighed.

Ada gave a resigned shrug. ‘That’s what mothers who are planning to hand their babies over for adoption have to train themselves to do: keep a check on their emotions for their own sake and for their babies’ too.’

‘I’ve been wondering, now that we know something fishy was going on at Mary Vale, if Isla somehow intuitively sensed the danger her daughter was in – you know, like a sixth-sense type of thing?’

‘That wouldn’t surprise me at all,’ Ada replied. ‘One thing I’ve learnt from experience is that childbirth brings out an animal instinct in new mothers. I’ve heard some say that their wombs contract when they hear their baby crying; even though their baby is outside of them, their body reacts as though the child were still inside the womb. I have no doubt about Isla sensing her baby was in danger,’ she concluded. Laying down the mug she’d been cradling in her hands, Ada outlined her next plan of action to Jeannie.

‘Now that Heather’s safe, I intend to go to the police tomorrow. To be honest, if the phone lines hadn’t been down, I would have got in touch right away; as it is, I’ll now have to wait until tomorrow morning. I know it’s Christmas, but there’s got to be somebody on duty,’ she insisted.

‘I’ll come with you,’ Jeannie said without a moment’s hesitation. ‘First thing in the morning, we’ll go to the police station together.’ Seeing Ada’s weary face, she added, ‘You look like you haven’t slept in days, dear.’

Ada nodded. ‘I feel like it,’ she laughed.

‘I’ll make you up a bed.’

‘Thank you, that sounds lovely,’ Ada said, as a slow smile of satisfaction spread across her face.

‘I’d say, with all the evidence we have from Shirley, Gloria and Emily, and maybe even Olive, we have quite a lot to say to the police, wouldn’t you, Jeannie?’