There was relief in Emma’s voice too. ‘Thank you, Nelly,’ she said, adding firmly, ‘and though I know that you and Marlow meant well, you had no right to keep this from me.’ Her emotions were in a turmoil. The thought of another woman’s child in her home created a murmur of resentment in her. Yet there was also a warm glow and a feeling of comfort that gladdened her heart; amidst all of that was so much pain and bitterness, so much love for the boy she had lost.

Now, though, Emma had a purpose. It was to speak to this ‘Molly’. She needed to know how the young woman had come by the clasp. And she needed to know now. ‘Where does she live?’ Emma asked, hurrying from the room.

Nelly ran after her. ‘I don’t know. Not the name o’ the street… nor even the area. She never gave none of her business away. But I do recall the child talking about a neighbour by the name o’ Watson. And a fella, by the name o’ Mick… lives on a barge down Eanam Wharf!’ She was astounded to see Emma put on her overcoat and tammy. ‘Where yer going, Emma gal?’ she asked, at the same time grabbing her own outdoor clothes.

‘Eanam Wharf. That’s where I’m going, Nelly,’ Emma replied stoutly, and it occurred to the astonished Nelly that she had not seen Emma in such a determined and purposeful mood for many a long day. ‘We’re going to talk to Marlow,’ declared Emma now. ‘He knows all the bargees out of the wharf… and so he surely must know the one called Mick.’

Emma spent a moment eyeing herself in the long arched mirror of the ornate hallstand, tipping her tammy this way, then that, until, having secured it with a hatpin at just the right angle, she went smartly out of the front door, with the frustrated Nelly chasing after her, shouting abuse at all and sundry as she struggled to fasten the dark cape about her shoulders. ‘Cor, bugger me, gal… when yer make yer mind up, there ain’t no stopping yer, is there, eh?’ she shouted, going down the path with a curious half-running, half-skipping gait. ‘Wait on, wait on. I ain’t got me bleedin’ breath yet!’

From the window of his office, Marlow looked down into the mill yard. He had only just finished going through the ledgers with Joe Turney, the manager. Things were looking good and business was prospering. Cotton shipments were on the up and up, and the Tanner Transporting Concern was positively flourishing. Life had been good to him in so many ways. He had worked his way up from being a bargee who struggled for a living, going cap-in-hand to such men as Caleb Crowther who once owned most of the mills along the wharf – property that, by rights, had belonged to Emma. He had been broken-hearted when he could not have Emma all those years ago, afterwards sailing the world as a deckhand in order to find his fortune. He had not found that fortune in foreign parts though, but right here in his own backyard, doing what he knew best. In addition, he had the love of Emma. Here he was master of all he surveyed, while Caleb Crowther, by all accounts, was on a downward slide. Yes indeed, it was strange how fate and fortune swung its pendulum from one man to another.