‘My Grandma Joy,’ Libby confirmed, with a nod. ‘She was Scottish, you see, and ready to go home. She agreed to take Lettice’s baby and pretend he was her own. She’d tell everyone she’d got married down south to a man who had died in the war. Her village wouldn’t know any different. So they escaped to Scotland before Lettice was showing, and hid out in a rented cottage not far from the village. Once Uncle Ron was born, Lettice set Grandma up with a house in the village and sent money every month for his upbringing. She gave her locket to Grandma Joy, as a memento. Then Lettice went back to Aldermere to wait out the rest of the war. By then, Freddie had gone off to fight, too.’

‘But then there was all that fuss about the missing maid,’ Rosalind remembered. ‘So Joy had to come back to prove she was still alive.’

Libby smiled. ‘Yes. Grandma Joy always liked to tell the story of how she rose from the dead. But she never told us the reason she’d left in the first place. I don’t think she even told Granddad Jack – she married, a few years later, you see, and had my mother. But she kept Lettice’s secret her whole life – the only person she told was Ron, just before she died.’

‘And he never did anything about it?’ Posy asked. ‘I mean, he was Lettice Davenport’s son. From what I’ve heard, the money from her books is the only thing that’s kept Aldermere in the family the last few decades.’

Libby shrugged. ‘Clementine and I never knew, but apparently he came here some time back in the nineties, after Grandma Joy and Lettice were both dead. He spoke to Hugh but, according to Mum, he didn’t believe him. Threw him out of the house.’

‘Okay, skip ahead to now. Why was Clementine really here?’ Posy asked.

‘She’d been in touch with Hugh, months ago,’ Libby explained. ‘She wrote, first, but got no response. So being Clemmie, she called him. Told him who she was and he didn’t believe her.’

‘Just like her dad,’ Caro said, and Libby nodded.

‘But then she told him she had Lettice’s locket, and that she’d be willing to take a DNA test. She threatened to go to the papers if he didn’t meet her.’

‘So they met up in London,’ Rosalind guessed, remembering Isobel’s fears. At least she didn’t need to worry about an affair anymore.

‘Yes. But Hugh kept stalling, telling her he needed more time to put things in order.’ Libby laced her fingers together, then separated them. ‘It was around the same time I was approached about being script doctor for the new movie. Clementine figured he was holding out on her until that was all sorted. So she went looking for Lettice’s will.’