Overhead the floor boards creaked; a murmur of voices, the words they spoke indistinguishable, reached the listeners below. Wesley Baines began to look anxious and fidgeted more violently with his piece of leather.

‘Looks like Em was right,’ he said at last. ‘Must be more than some little thing.’

Miss Mayfield could think of nothing more helpful to say than:

‘Try not to worry Mr Baines.’

Presently, the doctor came down the stairs; he now looked anxious as well as pressed for time.

‘Where’s the nearest phone?’

‘Post Office. Can I go for you?’

‘They’d take no notice of you. I want a bed in Wandford Hospital.’

‘Is . . . is it serious, then?’

‘I don’t know. You,’ he said, looking at Miss Mayfield, ‘give her a hand. She’s very distressed.’

Miss Mayfield went upstairs and into Sydney’s room, where Mrs Baines stood holding a folded blanket against her chest and crying quietly and despairingly.

‘I’ll pack what he needs if you’ll just tell me where things are,’ Miss Mayfield said.

Mrs Baines nodded towards a chest of drawers. Miss Mayfield gathered together two pairs of pyjamas, a brush and comb and some handkerchiefs; she saw a red dressing-gown hanging behind the door, took it down and folded it and reached for the slippers that were under the bed. During all this time, Mrs Baines did not move; the tears dripped from her quivering cheeks on to the blanket.

‘He’ll want some washing things,’ Miss Mayfield said.

Mrs Baines spoke then, in a choked voice:

‘All so useless.’

‘I don’t think so. Taking him into hospital is surely a hopeful sign, Mrs Baines. And you ought to start wrapping him, you know. The doctor was only going to the Post Office.’

‘I know.’ She moved, unfolded the blanket and then said, ‘The bathroom is across the landing; Sydney’s face flannel has the red border, and his toothbrush is red, too. His father’ll get something to put it all in.’

Wesley Baines opened a cupboard and produced a suitcase, and Miss Mayfield put into it the things she had collected, and by that time Dr Macdonald – now frankly trotting – returned.

‘I thought you’d be ready,’ he said, looking at Miss Mayfield reproachfully.

‘I suppose I’d best carry the boy down,’ Wesley Baines said in a confused way.

‘He can’t walk,’ Dr Macdonald said crossly. He took his bag and hurried out to the car, the back door of which he opened, and then stood by it, impatience screaming from every line of his face and figure. Wesley Baines lumbered upstairs and came down immediately, carrying Sydney’s blanket-wrapped form as easily as a child would carry a kitten. Mrs Baines, still crying, followed and then, at the end of the path, passed her husband and ran and climbed into the car.

‘Here, give him to me,’ she said.

‘Are you going, Em?’