‘And he would be my da, wouldn’t he. Once you were married.’

‘Yes, hinny.’

‘We’d be a proper family then,’ Betsy said with some satisfaction.

‘Well, we’ve been a proper family, the two of us. Just a very small one.’

Betsy nodded but without any enthusiasm, and looking at her child Rose realized the longing for a father she could call her own must have been with her daughter for a long time. Unspoken, but real. She had done everything in her power to be mother and father to her daughter but of course it wasn’t the same. Daisy’s three older girls talked about their father all the time; at least they had memories of him, but Betsy had nothing except what Rose had told her about Davey.

‘Will Uncle Alexander’s mam an’ da want me to call them Grandma and Granda?’ Betsy asked after a moment of contemplation.

Rose stared at her. How on earth did she answer that?

‘’Cause his mam’s nice, I like her an’ she’s bought me some nice things, hasn’t she, but I don’t like his da.’

‘You don’t?’

‘No, and I don’t think he likes me either.’

‘I don’t think that’s true, Betsy. He likes you but’ – she was going to have to be careful how she put this – ‘he wanted Uncle Alexander to marry someone else, not me.’

‘Who?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Someone more like them? Rich and everything?’

‘Yes, I suppose so.’

Betsy considered this for a moment before picking up her book again as she said, ‘Well, it’s nothing to do with him who Uncle Alexander marries, is it. Just ’cause he’s his father doesn’t mean he can tell Uncle Alexander what to do now he’s grown up. Anyway, Uncle Alexander loves you and that’s all that matters.’

Out of the mouths of babes. Rose ruffled Betsy’s curls and stood up. Yes, it was all that mattered. Everything else – where they would live, whether Alexander stayed in the army, her continuing to run the bakery, even Betsy’s schooling – was secondary to the fact that they loved each other and they would make a success of their marriage.