‘Not to me, but Gus must have plenty of questions to ask. Gus, why don’t you take your father up to his room so you can talk in private? I’ll get Victoria to take care of the desk for the next hour or two.’

Gus showed his father the way up to the room on the first floor and set his case down on the bed.

For a moment they looked at each other in silence, then his father said. ‘I owe you an explanation and an apology. Shall we sit down?’

They sat on the balcony and Mr Lavender drew a long breath. ‘You were told I was lost at sea. I’m afraid it wasn’t the truth. The fact is, I was transported.’

‘Transported!’

‘I was stupid enough to let a couple of mates persuade me to join them in a bit of smuggling. Nothing much, just a bit of rum and tobacco, but of course it all went wrong and we were caught. I was sentenced to be transported for ten years.’

‘Ten years?’ Gus was calculating. ‘I was only a baby when Ma said you’d gone. The ten years must have been up – what four or five years ago. Why didn’t you come home?’

His father sighed. ‘Perhaps I should have. But I hadn’t had any word from your mother in all that time. I reckoned she’d made a new life for herself, maybe married again. I didn’t want to come back and spoil things for her – and you. Having an ex-convict for a father isn’t the best start in life.’

‘You didn’t hear,’ Gus said, swallowing back tears, ‘because she was dead.’

‘When did she die?’

‘I was two years old. She got ill and died.’

‘Two years old? So May would have been, what, four. Who took care of you?’

‘No one. We were sent to the workhouse, with the other orphans.’

‘The workhouse!’ His father sat silent, his throat working. ‘If I’d known … But I had another seven or eight years to serve. I should have come back, as soon as I was free. I didn’t realise …’

‘There’s no reason why you should.’

‘You said you never believed I was dead. Why?’

‘I don’t know. I just had that feeling. I always said one day I was going to sea to look for you.’ He gave a laugh that was almost a sob. ‘Looks like I found you in the end.’

‘So what have you been doing with yourself, since you left the workhouse? Did you go to sea?’