Tess giggled. She felt quite faint with relief. ‘Just keep your fingers crossed she doesn’t expect you to go through with it,’ she observed. ‘The feller – the doctor, I mean – might get nasty.’

‘I don’t imagine he will, since Pamela’s been writing to him and it seems he’s written back.’

‘And you aren’t involved in any way, except as some sort of stalking horse?’ Tess asked incredulously.

Jonty stood up. ‘Oh, go on with you! That’s right, and now let’s change the subject, because I’m tired of it. Will you come up to the attic and help me get the decorations down?’

On the day following the ruby wedding celebrations Tess and Jonty got up early, meaning to decorate the kitchen and parlour as well as the sizeable tree which one of the farm hands had brought in the previous day. As they ate their breakfast they discussed the party, which had been a great success. There had been dancing in the big barn, and a wonderful supper, to which most of the guests had contributed, had been served in the farm’s enormous kitchen. It had been after midnight before the last guests left and now Jonty and Tess eyed each other blearily across their breakfast porridge. ‘Last day before you go home,’ Jonty said miserably, then brightened. ‘But since I’m coming with you – just to do some extra special Christmas shopping, you know – we don’t need to say cheerio just yet. What do you want to do today?’

Tess began to reply that they ought to start putting the Christmas decorations up, but Mrs Bell cut across her words. She had been eating a round of toast, but now she shook a reproving head at her son. ‘Putting up them paper chains you made when you was kids won’t take more’n half an hour or so, ’cos we leave the drawing pins in the picture rails year after year,’ she said. ‘I reckon Tess deserves a day off . . .’ she beamed at Tess, ‘because I don’t know how we could have managed the party without her.’

‘Oh, Tess enjoys farm work . . .’ Jonty was beginning when he caught his mother’s disapproving eye and hastily changed what he had been about to say. ‘But on the other hand, there’s the big Christmas market at King’s Lynn; why don’t we go along to that? There’s every sort of stall you can imagine, including lots of folk selling hot food, and if we wait until the market’s beginning to close prices will drop and we can get real bargains.’ He grinned at Tess. ‘Would you like that, queen?’ he said in a very passable imitation of the Scouse accent.

‘I’d love it,’ Tess said eagerly. She could think of nothing she would like more than to spend her last day at the farm in Jonty’s company. She did not think he loved her, was not at all sure that what she felt for him was love, but now that he had admitted Pamela Davies was just a friend you never knew. He might suddenly realise that Tess was the only girl for him . . . Tess’s toes curled at the mere thought. Across the table, their eyes met, but instead of lighting with love Jonty’s merely looked questioning.