She received a rapturous welcome when she got back home from her mother and the cook.

‘Why didn’t yer tell us yer were comin’? I’d have cooked yer favourite,’ the cook scolded her but Holly only smiled.

‘To be honest it was a last-minute decision,’ she admitted. ‘And I can only stay for a couple of hours because the trains to Euston don’t run as regularly on Sundays.’

Her mother’s smile faltered for a second but then deciding to make the most of every precious second they had together she whipped her daughter off to the drawing room.

‘Father, look who’s come to see us,’ she said happily and for the first time since he had ordered her from his house she and her grandfather found themselves face to face.

‘Hello, Grandfather.’ Holly wasn’t at all sure of what sort of a welcome, if any, she might get from him but to her surprise he smiled at her.

Folding the newspaper he had been reading he laid it aside before saying, ‘Hello, Holly. You’re looking very well.’

‘Thank you, and so are you,’ she replied primly but she was lying. He seemed to have shrunk in size and looked so much older than the last time she had seen him.

‘Will you be staying for a while?’

She shook her head. ‘No, I have to return today for work tomorrow but I can stay for dinner … if that’s all right?’

‘Of course it is,’ he answered then rising from his chair he said, ‘I’ll leave you and your mother to it then. I’m sure you have a lot to catch up on.’

She inclined her head and when he had left the room, closing the door softly behind him, she let out a deep breath.

‘He’s changed,’ she remarked to her mother and Emma nodded.

‘Yes, he has, I think he’s softening in his old age,’ she agreed. ‘I also think he deeply regrets trying to force you into a marriage with Walter … I mean, Mr Dolby.’

‘You two seem to be getting on very well,’ Holly commented, and her suspicions were confirmed when she saw a flush creep into her mother’s cheeks.

‘We do get on well,’ she admitted. ‘Walter has become a good friend and his children are lovely too. I’ve met them a couple of times now.’ Seeing the grin on her daughter’s face she then added hastily, ‘As I said, we’re nothing more than friends. How could we ever be more when your father is still probably out there somewhere?’ she ended bitterly. Then hoping to change what was for her a very painful subject she said, ‘But now that’s enough about me. Tell me all about what you and Ivy have been up to.’

And so for the next hour Holly told her all about her nursing course and Ivy’s involvement with the suffragettes. ‘Thankfully she doesn’t spend all her spare time with them though,’ she told her mother. ‘She’s enrolled in evening classes and she’s doing really well. My course is going well too, in fact the sister who trains us thinks I should be ready to go onto the wards soon and I can hardly wait.’