‘I can’t,’ said Penny, swallowing back tears. ‘I don’t want to let things go just like that. I don’t want anything to change, but maybe you’re right, it’s going to have to eventually, isn’t it? You’ll go back to London, and there’s no way Dad and I can keep this place going by ourselves. I can’t just give up my job either. Oh, maybe we should just sell before we turn it into a wreck altogether.’

She looked distraught and Elle felt like a complete heel now. She reached over to pat her sister’s hand. ‘It is the right decision, honey. It might not feel like it now, but it is.’

There was a moment of silence, then the sharp noise of Ned’s hand slapping against the hard dark wood of the table. It sent a shock through the room.

‘No,’ he said. ‘No, this can’t happen. It isn’t what your mother would want. It’s out of the question that we sell it. For all your talk, Elle, you don’t really know what goes into a place like this either. You’ve got no idea what it means to love it like a third child. That’s how your mother felt about this hotel. I won’t give it up. Not with the sacrifices we already made to keep it.’

Elle looked like she had been slapped, she was so shocked. She didn’t say anything and neither did Penny. It was clear that their father was readying himself to say more, but they were also too taken aback to speak. It was possibly the most Ned had said in years and certainly the first time they’d ever heard him assert himself in this way. And what did he mean by the sacrifices they’d already made to keep it? Was the hotel in more trouble than they thought? Had it ever made a good living for her parents? Elle never really thought about the ins and outs of it before, assuming that it must have been holding its own.

Ned looked at his youngest daughter. ‘Penny, your heart is in the right place but you, also, have no idea of the love and work your mother put into this place. It is the only legacy she has. And I will not see it sold it away like nothing.’ As always Penny looked wounded. Elle wished her sister didn’t take his ways to heart so much, take everything Ned said as some kind of personal rejection. But it had always been that way.

Elle and Penny let his words sink in and after a moment they looked at each other and nodded.

‘OK Dad, I’ll take a look at the finances again and see what we can do,’ Elle suggested.

Penny bit her lip, tears in her eyes. ‘We’ll do our best by Mum, I promise.’