Ruby sat silently for a moment before slowly shaking her head. ‘No, Miranda must have been very hurt to find out about me the way she did.’ A thought suddenly occurred to her and she said incredulously, ‘This means that Miranda and I are actually half-sisters, doesn’t it?’

A nod from Serena confirmed it and Ruby sat back in her chair, shocked anew at this. For so long she had convinced herself that Maddie was her mother but suddenly everything was falling into place and the realisation hit her that she didn’t just have a mother, but also a father, a half-sister, an aunt and a great-aunt too. It was incredible. Now she understood why Maddie had taken her in on the night she ran away, and why Mrs Petty had brought her to Miss Wood – she still could not think of her as anything else – when she disapproved of the way Maddie was treating her. But what had Maddie been doing in Nuneaton so late on the night she had run away from her adoptive father?

When she asked the question, Serena sighed. ‘It was just pure chance,’ she admitted. ‘As you know, Maddie has her fingers in a lot of pies, not all of them legal unfortunately, although thankfully all that is about to change. While you’ve been gone her gentleman friend’s wife has died and later this year, he has finally agreed to make an honest woman of her. Anyway, it just so happened that that evening she was, as she calls it, “doing a bit of business” with someone in the town. She was on her way to the station to catch the last train home when she came upon you, and thank goodness she did or I dread to think what might have happened to you. Before then I truly believed that you had a happy home or I promise you I would have fetched you away, even if it meant disclosing my secret.’ She reached her hand out but Ruby drew away from her.

‘I . . . I think I just need some time to try and take everything in,’ she told them in a small voice.

Serena nodded understandingly. ‘Of course you do, and while you’re doing that we shall take the best possible care of you . . . and Dilys too,’ she added. It hadn’t been the emotional reunion she had dreamed of but then she respected that Ruby had a lot to digest and after waiting for her daughter all these years she was prepared to wait a little longer. She could hardly have expected her to fall into her arms and tell her all was forgiven, especially after everything that had happened. She was painfully aware that she had a lot of making up to do – she only hoped Ruby would allow her to do it.

‘Ruby, I—’ Oscar began.