‘I can’t think what’s keeping him. The sandwiches are starting to curl at the edges. They’ll be ruined soon,’ she fretted, feeling humiliated. Holly had gone to so much trouble and now it was beginning to look like he wasn’t even going to bother to come.

‘Look, why don’t we tuck in?’ Holly suggested at six o’clock. ‘Jeremy obviously couldn’t make it and it’s a shame to let all this good food go to waste.’

With a sigh, Ivy nodded, finally accepting that Jeremy wasn’t going to come. ‘The paper must have sent him out on a story,’ she excused him but inside she was seething. I’ll give him a right tongue-lashing when I next see him, she promised herself.

But it was three days before she finally saw him again after work and by then she had worked herself up into a rage. ‘What the hell did you think you were doing not turning up like that?’ she spat at him as he tried to take her hand. ‘Holly had laid you a lovely tea out and you couldn’t even be bothered to come and eat it. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so embarrassed.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ he said with the smile that could usually melt her. ‘I’m sure you’ve guessed what happened. A story broke and the paper wanted me out to cover it at the last minute. I was literally setting off to come to you when I got word and there was nothing I could do. You must know I wouldn’t have let you down if I could possibly help it.’

He looked so repentant that she wavered. His tawny eyes were moist and he looked at her with such a regretful expression that she couldn’t help softening. She supposed that journalists were a little like doctors and could be called on at any hour of the day or night, so was she being too hard on him? His arm had snaked about her waist by then and she knew she was lost. There would be other times, after all, and Holly had been very good about it.

The week after the tea, Holly arrived on the women’s surgical ward to find the ward sister waiting for her.

‘Nurse Farthing, Matron would like a word with you in her office. Immediately, if you please.’

Holly’s heart sank as she tried to think of what she might have done wrong, but she nodded and was on her way in seconds. Whatever it was she may as well face the music and get it over with.

‘Come in,’ the matron called when Holly tapped on her door and after taking a deep breath Holly straightened her back, smoothed her apron and entered the room.

Matron was seated at her desk with a mountain of paperwork teetering in front of her but at the sight of Holly she smiled.

‘Ah, Nurse Farthing. Do take a seat.’

Holly perched awkwardly on the edge of a hard-backed chair.