‘Hm, and what price would you have paid for that home eventually if her housekeeper hadn’t got you out of there, eh?’ Hermione sniffed disapprovingly. ‘The police are well aware of how she makes a living but she’s clever and they’ve never managed to catch her with any stolen jewellery as yet. She has a fence who she passes the pieces to and he sells most of it for her. I’m surprised she took you in, though. From what I’ve heard of her she usually just lets them come to her when they have something for her.’

Ruby was surprised. While she’d stayed with her, there hadn’t been any young visitors, other than Bill. But then, she’d only been there a few weeks, and maybe they’d come once she’d gone to bed. Hermione didn’t strike her as the sort to make up lies about people, so she realised she was probably telling the truth. But why had she taken her in, unless of course Maddie really was her mother and her conscience was troubling her for abandoning her at birth?

She decided to try not to think of it, and when the meal was over, she volunteered to help Mrs B with the dinner pots, an offer that was gratefully accepted. When that was done, she rejoined Hermione in the sitting room and read to her from the newspaper. Her schooling had been limited but her reading had vastly improved while she was staying with Maddie, so although she stumbled slightly over a few of the longer words she managed it.

‘You will improve the more you read,’ Hermione assured her. ‘And I’m also going to give you a few elocution lessons. You’ve adopted a lot of local slang and that won’t do if you ever have to work with our customers in any of the shops.’

‘Work in the shops?’ Ruby looked slightly worried but Hermione merely smiled.

‘Why, of course. There’s a lot more to the business than learning how to make the jewellery, it also has to be sold. Not that you’ll be expected to attempt everything. But there’s so much more to producing it than people think. For instance, do you know what the term annealing means?’

When Ruby stared at her blankly, Hermione went on, ‘Annealing is the process of heating valuable metal like silver and gold to make it more workable. Then we have the chasing and the repouseé. And there’s damascening – this is a way of making a decoration by cutting incisions into the metal before introducing threads of gold or silver wire which is then beaten into the cut for embellishment. And, of course, enamelling is very popular at the moment. This is where colourful powdered glass substances are introduced on to metal and fused with heat. And that is only a part of it – there is so much more.’