‘They should know by now that you can manage on your own,’ she said. ‘They should let you get on with it.’

‘Aye,’ he said. ‘Chance would be a fine thing.’ And he went out, closing the back door behind him with a bang, calling to the dog that had been waiting for him in the yard, leaving Marie in the kitchen to worry.

In the beginning she had tried to make light of the new arrangements on the estate, jollying Vic along as if he were a child with a new teacher. Now she was starting to wonder if things were so serious that they would have to think of moving. There was Cassie to consider of course. She was settled at the special school. But Marie knew that she could always care for Cassie at home and in some ways she thought of Vic as the most vulnerable of the two. Perhaps she should broach the subject of moving with Vic. He would never think of it for himself.

‘Who would want me?’ he would say. ‘At my age?’

He had been born in the valley and had never lived away from it. His father had worked at the Cadver as head gardener. Without her he would never have the imagination or the confidence to consider breaking away. She rehearsed in her mind what she would say to him:

‘Anyone with any sense would want you. You’ve been running this estate almost single handed for years. The upland and the lowland. Even now there’s only Danny Craven to help you and what use is he? You know you run the best shoot in the country.’

It was true, but would his skills transfer to somewhere strange? Here, she thought, he could walk the estate blindfold and not falter once. He knew every tree in the woods in the valley where he reared pheasants, every outcrop on the fells where the rich Italians and Germans came to shoot grouse. If he were uprooted to a quite different landscape she felt he would be lost and rather pathetic.

She stood at the sink to wash the lunch dishes and looked out at the garden where Vic worked every evening until it got dark. He had enjoyed gardening once, but now he dug and weeded with a compulsive restlessness. He knew he would not relax indoors unless he was physically exhausted. He brooded to much, she thought. That did nobody any good.

It was to stop herself brooding that she decided to have an afternoon’s baking. The freezer was almost empty and she liked to cook something special on Friday ready for when Cassie came home. She lit the oven and set her weighing scales on the table, then began the therapeutic business of sifting and mixing.