‘There’s no need for you to do anything. I’ve already had a long talk with Nan and we have agreed that it is time for her to retire. I shall give her a small pension, in recognition of her years of good work. Did you know she has a married sister who lives on a farm in Wales?’

‘She mentioned her once or twice. They don’t get on.’

‘Apparently there has been a reconciliation. As far as I understand it, the sister married a man Nan had hopes of for herself and that caused the breach, but the husband is now dead and they have decided to let bygones be bygones.’

‘She did go away for a couple of days a few weekends ago. She didn’t say where. I suppose that’s when it happened.’

‘So it seems. She plans to go and live with her sister.’

‘Oh!’ The implications of what had been said were just beginning to come clear to May. ‘So what happens now?’

‘That is what I want to talk about. Strictly speaking, your apprenticeship still has almost a year to run, but you have shown that you are more than capable of fulfilling the demands of the job, so I propose to free you from it and make you a fully qualified milliner.’

‘Thank you, sir!’

‘Don’t thank me yet. The next thing I have to say may not please you so well. In many ways, the logical thing for me to do is to put you in charge of the millinery department. Lord knows, you’ve been running it more or less single-handed for months. But there is a problem. It really needs two people. I can’t bring in a new apprentice. You are only just qualified yourself, and that without serving out your time. I can’t put an apprentice to work under you, and I can’t ask a qualified milliner to accept you as head of the department. The only solution seems to be to bring in someone else to run the department with you as her assistant. I appreciate that that may not be the ideal answer as far as you are concerned. In a few years you will be more than qualified to run a department, either here or in another store – or to set up in business on your own account. But for now it has to be as I have outlined. I hope you are not too disappointed.’

May was struggling to assimilate what he had said. ‘I … no. I mean, I never expected to run the department. I don’t mind working with someone else. Who will it be?’

‘I don’t know yet. I shall have to advertise. I’ll let you know when I’ve appointed someone. But there is another aspect to the situation that we need to discuss.

‘Oh?’