In the few weeks that Ada had been away from Mary Vale she had bloomed into a radiant mother-to-be; her rich, thick brunette hair was long and lustrous, and her tanned skin glowed with good health. It was clear from the shape of her that Ada’s baby was also blooming, growing so big and round that the girls attending the class insisted it was a boy.

‘You’re carrying it all high up front,’ one insisted. ‘Nice and neat, a sure sign that it’s a boy. Girls sit lower, more spread out, making your bum look enormous!’

‘Baby or not I’ve always had a big bum,’ one girl giggled.

Ada burst out laughing. ‘Stuff and nonsense!’ she declared.

At the end of the class Ada approached Sybil. ‘A little bird tells me that you’ve finally found a friend,’ she smiled.

Sybil’s witch-green eyes widened. ‘I wouldn’t go that far,’ she demurred.

‘From what I’ve heard you and Rosie have palled up,’ Ada continued.

‘We just chatted a bit when I was on ward duty,’ Sybil answered with a dismissive shrug.

‘Well, I’m delighted to hear it,’ Ada beamed. ‘Bed-bound as she is these days, Rosie needs all the friends she can get.’

Anxious that her behaviour shouldn’t arouse suspicion – after all she had previously been the most anti-social resident in Mary Vale – Sybil insisted, ‘I wouldn’t say we were friends. I just delivered her meals three times a day and sometimes stopped for a chat.’

‘I think it’s very thoughtful of you,’ Ada added. ‘With her children gone, Rosie must be awfully lonely.’

Feeling uneasy, Sybil recalled Rosie’s happy smiling face as she had gazed at her children on the ward. Washed and scrubbed up, wearing clean clothes, possibly hand-me-downs from the older children at Hope Farm, Sally and Ronnie looked almost unrecognizable. Sally’s former straggly hair had been cut into a neat bob which emphasized her sweet little heart-shaped face, and Ronnie had lost his two front teeth, which made him look uncharacteristically cute.

‘It’s because of me that they’re no longer at Mary Vale with their mother,’ Sybil reminded herself, but, before guilt got the better of her, she also reminded herself that she had never seen the Pickles kids looking better. ‘Maybe I’ve done them a favour after all?’

Just before tea-time, which, from the smell issuing from the kitchen, was cheese-and-onion pie, Sybil, bearing a pretty posy of flowers which she had popped into a little vase of water, appeared at Rosie’s bedside with a rather sheepish smile on her face.

‘Thought these might cheer you up,’ she said, as she plonked the vase on the bedside table.

‘Oh, they’re lovely, Sybil,’ delighted Rosie exclaimed and leant over to inhale the delicate smell of sweet peas. ‘They smell lovely too, thank you so much,’ she said with genuine gratitude.