Back in the tack room, he used the water to wash, then to shave. He had procured a mirror from Muriel the evening before, having plucked up the courage to enquire after one when she had emerged from the cellar and unceremoniously handed him the ewer and bowl. She had tutted and muttered under her breath before disappearing back through the door tucked under the stairs, returning a short time later with a small mirror of mottled glass. She wiped away the sticky string of cobweb clinging to its wooden frame.

‘That’ll have to do,’ she said, her expression sour.

‘It’ll do well, thank you,’ Jack had assured her, but she proved immune to his gratitude and with a huff had inched past him to retrieve her coat from the hook in the kitchen, leaving the house without so much as a backward glance.

The housekeeper is already in situ when he enters the kitchen now with Jim. She is standing at the range before a frying pan lined with bacon and glances up at them as they come in. Offering no greeting, she cracks the egg in her hand against the rim of a second pan of spitting fat, which hisses angrily as the egg slumps in.

Jack pays no heed to the housekeeper’s lack of welcome, instead he stumbles over his greeting to Gwen, who is sitting at the side of the table, her bandaged foot resting on a chair. She waves away his concerned enquiries.

‘It’s fine … absolutely fine. It doesn’t even hurt much. I wish you’d have let me help with the milking, Dad. It would have been no trouble – I’d have been sitting down anyway, for goodness’ sake!’

‘Sitting down to milk, but then you have to carry the pail to the scales and the cooler, then walk back to do the next cow … and what if one of my feisty ladies takes a hoof to you? No, you’ll do as Muriel says and keep that leg up until the swelling’s gone down.’

‘I hate being idle.’ She stretches across the table to pour ha’penny-coloured tea into the waiting mugs.

‘Then you can help with my accounts. God knows I could do with some assistance in that department.’

After breakfast, Jim instructs Jack on how to clean out the parlour so it is ready for the afternoon’s milking. Once he has convinced the farmer he can manage alone, he sets about shovelling dung from the shallow gutters that run behind the stalls, loading it into the barrow before wheeling it out across the yard and down the far side of the buildings. He guides its wobbling wheel along the wooden plank set against the pungent midden and upends it at the top.