Mrs Wilson pointed her in the direction of the drawer holding more baby clothes, and Danuta dressed the underweight baby which was now mewling to be fed, and wrapped her snugly into a blanket.

‘There we are,’ she crooned. ‘All lovely and cosy.’ Handing her to Mrs Wilson, who immediately put her to her breast, she smiled. ‘Well done, Mrs Wilson. It’s been a bit of an ordeal, I know, but they’ll look after you and the babies in the hospital.’

‘What about Fred and the kids?’ she fretted as the heavy footsteps of the ambulancemen approached up the stairs. ‘He won’t be able to cope on his own.’

‘He will manage because he will have to,’ soothed Danuta. ‘I will see that the boys have eaten and explain everything to your husband, so please don’t worry about anything.’

Tears shone in Mrs Wilson’s eyes as she reached for Danuta’s hand. ‘Thanks ever so,’ she breathed. ‘I dunno what we’d have done without you.’

The ambulance took Mrs Wilson and her two babies off to hospital, leaving Mr Wilson dithering anxiously on the doorstep.

‘Come along,’ said Danuta, rounding up the two children and steering them towards what she guessed would be the kitchen. ‘Mummy will be back in a couple of days, so Daddy and I will write list for shopping and then get you ready for bed.’

Having done the list and organised Mr Wilson into clearing up the tea things and preparing the boys for bed, Danuta went back upstairs to clean and tidy the bedroom. She put clean sheets on the bed, changed the damp pillowcases and remade the cot. Then she packed her bag, wrapped the afterbirth in newspaper and carried the dirty laundry downstairs.

Placing the newspaper parcel in the dustbin outside, and the laundry beside the sink in the outhouse, she returned to find Mr Wilson settling into a kitchen fireside chair with a picture book and both little boys on his lap in their pyjamas.

‘As you will see, I have put the dirty bed linen in the sink outside, and have tidied your bedroom. Mrs Wilson has done you proud today, giving you another son and a little daughter, so it is now time for me to go home.’

He looked up from the book and smiled shyly. ‘Thanks for all you done,’ he said. ‘I’ll get the shopping first thing and see to these two.’ His worried gaze settled on her. ‘Kate and the babies will be all right, won’t they?’

‘I do believe they will,’ she said firmly. ‘Mrs Wilson and your new son are most robust. But your little girl is very small and weak, so it could be some time before she is able to come home.’

‘Will you stay for a cuppa? It’s the least I can offer after all you’ve done tonight.’

Danuta caught sight of herself in the mirror above the hearth and noted that it was now almost ten o’clock. She couldn’t possibly turn up at the Grove looking like this, even if Stanislaw had waited for her as he’d promised – and even if she went home to change, the place would have closed by the time she got back there.