Her resistance was crumbling. ‘All right. We can meet. But you must think really hard about the future and what it could mean. I’m going now. Goodbye.’

‘Goodnight, not goodbye! Don’t say goodbye!’

But she was already walking away from him.

Next morning, after a night during which she had hardly slept, a note for her was delivered to the store. It was signed by the agent who was in charge of selling Nan’s house.

Dear Miss Lavender,

While visiting the property to make final arrangements I found a letter addressed to you. If you care to call at my office I shall be glad to hand it over to you.

May felt a slight lift in her spirits. There was only one person who might have written to her and that was Gus. Apart from a card sent from Cape Town, she had not heard from him since he sailed and it would be a relief and a distraction to learn how he was getting on.

At dinnertime she slipped out of the store and made her way to the address on the agent’s notepaper. The letter was from Gus, as she knew it must be, and since the weather had improved, and there was a gleam of sunshine, she sat down on the steps of St George’s Hall to read it.

Dear May,

I have some wonderful news. Our father is not dead but very much alive and living here in Australia. He walked into the hotel where I have found work out of the blue yesterday. What we were told, about him being ‘lost at sea’, was not the truth, though I can understand why our mother preferred that story. In fact, he was convicted of smuggling and sentenced to be transported for ten years. He served his sentence but when he was free, because he had not heard anything from mother, he assumed she did not want him to come back, so he stayed. Of course, he had no way of knowing that she was dead.

He decided to try his luck in the gold fields and he struck lucky! A good vein of gold ran right through his concession. He’s a rich man, May! Very rich. Much richer than either of us could ever have imagined. But he hasn’t just sat back and lived on the money. He has bought some land in the Rutherglen area, north of here, and planted vines. He is convinced Australia can make wine as good as anything you can buy in Europe. Of course, it’s early days yet and you may ask what can our dad know about growing wine; but he has a partner, a Spaniard, who grew up on a vineyard in Spain and understands all the techniques.