Ada couldn’t stop herself from bursting out laughing. ‘Jamie!’ she cried, as she stopped his questions with a kiss. ‘I’ll be in a maternity hospital, surrounded by trained staff – I’ll be perfectly all right. All that matters,’ she continued with determined optimism, ‘is that you return home as soon as you can to hold your baby and kiss your wife. Now come on,’ she laughed, dragging him from under the warm covers. ‘Let’s have breakfast, then climb Scafell Pike.’

‘SCAFELL PIKE!’ he exclaimed. ‘In your state, young lady?’

‘I’m as fit as a flea!’ Ada giggled, dancing around the room stark naked. ‘Beat you down to breakfast,’ she teased, and she tossed his underpants and trousers into the air.

‘Wild woman!’ Jamie laughed too, as he struggled into his clothes, then crossed the room to open the curtains. ‘Oh, my … what a morning.’

The morning mist had lifted, revealing the tarn like a vast mirror reflecting a stunning duck-egg-blue sky in its still waters. Around the edges of the tarn Muscovy ducks waddled or preened their feathers while Canada geese honked crossly as they chased each other in the shallows. In the tarn, wild trout rose and flipped before landing back in the clear water with a loud plop.

When Ada joined Jamie to share the view, he gently kissed the top of her head. ‘I could stay here forever,’ he murmured.

‘Tell me the names of the mountains,’ she asked as she cuddled closer into him.

With his eyes tracing the grey-green backbone of the hills that undulated away into the distance, Jamie dreamily replied, ‘Grange Fell, High Seat and Ashness Fell.’

‘I want to climb every fell in the Lake District with you,’ Ada whispered.

Looking down at her tummy, Jamie asked, ‘Are you sure about climbing Scafell Pike? It’s difficult walking on the top, scree and ice.’

‘Certain,’ Ada answered with gusto. ‘I want to stand on top of the highest mountain in England and admire the view with my husband.’

2. Interviews

It was obvious to Ada’s friends how upset she was after Jamie’s leave was up and he left to return to his medical team on the Front Line. Sister Theresa, a young postulant and a former patient who simply adored Ada, spoke of her concerns with Sister Mary Paul, the old nun who was both the Home’s cook and housekeeper. Rolling out pastry for half a dozen cheese-and-onion pies in the Home’s big kitchen, Sister Theresa blurted out, ‘Ada looks like she’s been crying all night.’

Sister Mary Paul straightened her stiff back and gave a heavy sigh. ‘The child shouldn’t be running around on the mountaintops in her condition.’