Ruby wondered where she was to begin. She had no idea how much Mr Pembroke had already told the woman so there would be no point in lying.

‘I . . . I suppose it started just before last Christmas when my mother died,’ Ruby began in a faltering voice. ‘And just before she passed away, she informed me that she and my father had actually adopted me when I was just a few days old and they weren’t my natural parents as I had always believed. And then on the day of her funeral my father came to my room . . .’ Slowly she recounted what had happened to her over the last few months, omitting nothing, and the old woman listened without interruption.

‘Hm, it seems you have had a rough time of it,’ she said when Ruby had finished. ‘And from what I can make of it none of it was your fault. The question now, though, is what do you intend to do about it?’

Ruby frowned as she stared at her in confusion. ‘I’m sorry . . . I don’t understand what you mean.’

‘What I mean is, you’ve had it hard but so have a lot of others. Let me tell you me and my brother Walter came from nothing! We lived in a two-up two-down in the slums of Birmingham with our parents, an army o’ siblings and rats for company. When we left school, our Walter worked every hour God sent to save enough to enter the jewellery school an’ become an apprentice goldsmith, an’ look at him now! He, or should I say we, the family, have a string o’ jewellery shops all over the country an’ I’m proud of it. We earned ’em through blood sweat an’ tears. Luckily our Walter married a good woman who backed him all the way, she was Oscar’s mother an’ we all got involved in the business in one way or another. There’s a lot to learn, you see. So basically, what I’m saying to you is, there’s two ways you can go now. You can wallow in self-pity an’ let what’s happened to you ruin the rest o’ your life, or you can make somethin’ of yourself. Which is it to be?’

Ruby was taken aback. Hermione certainly wasn’t afraid to say what she thought. ‘But I-I don’t know what I could do,’ she admitted. ‘All I’m really good at is cleaning and baking.’

‘And didn’t Oscar tell me that you were interested in gemstones?’

‘Well, yes, I do like them, but I don’t know anythin’ about them.’