‘And don’t forget,’ Danny said gently, not wanting to say the words but knowing he must, ‘I don’t think he knows anything about you.’

Her mouth was now set in a decisive line. ‘Then it’s high time he did know. It seems as if my poor mum took all the shame and he got off scot free.’

Danny smiled pensively. ‘Eh, you do sound like ya gran when ya gets a bee in ya bonnet about summat.’

‘Well?’ Ella said defensively. ‘It’s true, isn’t it?’

He sighed and nodded. ‘Yes, I suppose it is. But just remember one thing, Ella. Ya mam must have had her reasons. She loved him very much. That she did tell me. Maybe she loved him so much that she wanted to, well, protect him or not cause him pain. I don’t know. As I say, she didn’t tell me much. But just – well – tread carefully. Don’t do anything hasty that might be totally against what ya mam would have wanted.’

She stared at him for a moment, taking in what he had said, considering it. Slowly, she nodded. ‘I promise I’ll go carefully, Uncle Danny, but I have to find out who he is at least. I have to.’

‘I can understand that. But supposing he’s still alive? Supposing you do find him, what then? What if he doesn’t want to see you, to have anything to do with you? It could be you getting hurt then. Ya mam wouldn’t have wanted that to happen either.’

‘I won’t get hurt,’ Ella said, and as the picture that still haunted her dreams, of Rob chasing the summer girls along the beach, came into her mind, she added, resolutely, ‘Not any more, I won’t.’

Now plans were beginning to formulate in her mind, but she clamped her jaw tightly shut against the temptation to share them with Uncle Danny.

This was something she had to do on her own.

When the O level results came out, Rob had just scraped the grades he needed to go to the farm institute near Lincoln. And Ella’s results were good enough for her to be able to choose just whatever she wanted to do: stay on at school to take A levels and try for university or leave now and go to college. The other alternative was to get a job in Lynthorpe, but if she were to suggest that, then she knew what her grandmother would say at once: ‘Ya needed here, on the farm.’