He read it aloud. ‘Gran in hospital after injuries in coach accident stop come home stop Albert Payne.’

Tess turned to her hostess. ‘Oh, Mrs Bell, I’ll have to go at once. Can Jonty drive me to Thorpe station? Oh, but I’ve got to reply to this . . .’ She clasped her head as though to still her whirling thoughts. ‘What should I say? I can’t tell Albert what time I’ll arrive in Lime Street because I don’t know . . .’

Jonty ushered her gently into the kitchen, sat her down in a chair and then addressed the telegraph boy, who was standing waiting, pencil and telegram form at the ready. ‘I reckon you can’t do better than to say Coming asap stop Tess.’ Jonty glanced at his mother. ‘Can you do without me for a few days, Ma? I’d like to go back with Tess because she may need someone to give a hand. I’m not suggesting that I’d be gone long, but surely a few days wouldn’t hurt?’

‘Oh, Jonty, if only you could . . .’ Tess began, but at that moment the back door opened and Mr Bell strode into the room. The telegraph boy, clearing his throat meaningfully, indicated the reply paid form.

‘If you wouldn’t mind, miss, the sooner you give me your reply the sooner it’ll reach the sender,’ he pointed out.

Tess stared. ‘Oh! Oh, I see; the telegram was sent to me so it must be I who reply to it. Only Jonty said exactly what I would have said myself.’ She seized the boy’s pencil and wrote swiftly: Coming asap stop Tess.

The boy studied the form. ‘The sender paid for another eleven words,’ he pointed out rather reproachfully. ‘Isn’t there anything else you’d like to add?’

Jonty laughed, but Tess just shook her head. ‘No, I think it’s better to keep it short,’ she said. ‘It’s no use pretending that I’ve any idea when I’ll reach Liverpool, because I haven’t. We’ve already missed the first train, the one I would have been catching in a few days’ time, and I’ve no idea when the next one leaves, let alone arrives. So that’s it, thank you.’

The boy tucked the reply-paid form into this pocket, sketched a vague salute to the assembled company and left. Tess watched him mount his bicycle and ride off across the yard, then turned to Mrs Bell, who was explaining what had just happened to her husband. ‘. . . so if it’s all right with you, Father, Jonty would like to go back to Liverpool with Tess, just for a couple of days,’ she was saying. ‘I don’t say we shan’t miss him, because we shall, but he deserve a day off now and again. Tomorrow was going to be a holiday anyway, so he can go with my blessing, if you’re of the same mind.’

Mr Bell nodded slowly. ‘Good idea,’ he said. ‘And then if there’s nowt much wrong with the old lady he can bring young Tess back to enjoy the rest of her time with us.’ He looked at the telegram, laid out upon the kitchen table, then smiled at Tess. ‘It don’t say your gran’s badly hurt, so if she can manage it she’s very welcome to come back with you and Jonty. Mother’d take good care of her, feed her up so’s she gets well all the quicker.’