Jonty came across the kitchen and examined the cold beef joint and the jar of horseradish which would accompany it. ‘I love a cold beef dinner, but what are we having for supper?’ he asked as Mrs Bell began to dish up. ‘I hope it’s something special, being as how it’s Tess’s first day back.’ He looked searchingly at his parent. ‘You know what we agreed, Ma? That now we’ve got our farmhands back she won’t need to work. Only she’s here for just a couple of weeks, though when I spoke to her on the phone last night I tried to persuade her to stay longer. I don’t see why she won’t,’ he added in an aggrieved tone. ‘When you consider how she’s slogged at her books, first to get that dratted scholarship and then to get her School Certificate, you’d think she’d be glad of a break. Isn’t it odd?’ he continued. ‘She found the maths paper really difficult but thought the other subjects – English, history and so on – a doddle, whereas I was the exact opposite. I waltzed through maths and physics, but I had hard work with what you might call the arts subjects. So I suppose you could say Tess and I were like Jack Sprat and his wife.’ He put on a childish lisp and quoted the old nursery rhyme. ‘Jack Sprat would eat no fat, his wife would eat no lean, and so betwixt the two of them they licked the platter clean.’

Mrs Bell was laughing and exclaiming that both he and Tess were grand trenchermen when it came to their grub when the back door opened again and Mr Bell came in with Adam and the other two farm workers, Harry and Daniel, all in their stockinged feet. They slung their wellingtons under the coat rack and hung up their oilskins, for the day had begun wet, though Daniel, coming in last, commented that ‘the rain be clearing nicely; ‘twill be a sunny afternoon, I reckon, so young Jonty can wear his best to meet his girlfriend.’

Mr Bell nodded placidly but his wife gave Daniel a reproving frown. ‘She int his girlfriend, she’s just a friend,’ she said. ‘Why, you fool, Dan’l, they hant met for three years; if she were his girlfriend I reckon she’d ha’ come a-visitin’ every time I invited her.’

‘Oh, Ma, you know very well why she’s not come until now,’ Jonty said. ‘She’s been taking exams, and when she wasn’t actually in school she’s been working, so the expense of her education didn’t fall just on her gran. But the exams are over for a bit, which is why she’s agreed to spend two weeks with us now.’

‘Ah well, if she int your sweetheart, she int,’ Daniel said peaceably. He took his place at the table as Mrs Bell began to heap golden fried potatoes on a plate already generously spread with thick slices of cold beef, and licked his lips. ‘Gor, missus, that don’t only smell good, that look good, and I reckon that’ll taste good,’ he said. ‘Pass the ketchup, young Jonty.’