‘Give my love to your mother, Isabelle, she’s very dear to me.’ The aged Bert Bannister caught Isabelle’s arm just as she stepped out into the blazing sunshine. He was bent nearly double with arthritis and his steps were laboured, but he insisted on working a few hours a week, ‘just to keep my hand in’.

‘I will, Bert. I only hope I’m not too late, as she sounds seriously ill.’ Isabelle smiled wanly at the concerned man. He had been her mother’s prop, from the time when she first set up her chain of department stores. If it hadn’t been for Bert, Charlotte Atkinson would never have dreamed of owning a string of shops. He had insisted that he would work for her until he dropped, but now it looked as if it was going to be the other way round.

James kissed his wife tenderly on her cheek. ‘Give her my love – I’ll be thinking of you all. I’ll be home as soon as I can.’ He watched as Isabelle stepped down the stairs of the busy store, unfurling her parasol to shade her from the ferocious heat of the early summer’s day, walking quickly to the trap and horse with Luke, their son, at the reins. Once she had climbed in, he turned and went back into the store to give support to Madge and the disgruntled bride-to-be.

‘I thought you were never going to come. I seem to have been standing here for an age, and the horse here is getting hotter and hotter.’ Luke looked at his mother as she climbed up beside him in the lightest trap, which Jethro had advised him to take, for speed. ‘Even though I’ve changed the horse, it’s not liking the heat and standing out here,’ he added quickly.

Isabelle looked at her son and then at the horse, which she instantly recognized as Bess, Jethro’s most relied-upon trotter. ‘Luke, do you think I don’t know my animals? This is Bess, from Windfell. You’ve not changed the horses, as your father asked. I love my mother dearly, Luke, but I don’t want Bess to drop down dead on the way home. Now what are we going to do? My mother wouldn’t appreciate the waste of a good horse, for the sake of seeing her on what could be her deathbed. You should have taken your father’s advice, or perhaps borrowed a horse and carriage from the Red Lion, for we do have an account with them.’

‘I wanted to take you home and look after you,’ replied Luke, scowling.