‘Yes. It’s really cold, though. I’ll show you where we go, if you like?’

He nodded and followed her back through the trees and along, in the same direction as the water. The river was clear and brown.

‘Does your mum work?’ he asked.

‘Oh, Mum. She does lots of stuff. Sometimes.’ Stephen didn’t like to ask what that meant.

‘Georgie wants never to leave here, but I want to go somewhere else,’ said Cass.

‘Like a city?’

‘I’m not sure yet. Paris, maybe. I’d like to go to university in Paris. Somewhere like that.’

Were there other places like Paris? Stephen wondered but didn’t ask what she meant.

‘Right.’

‘My family can be quite … well, you’ll see.’

‘They seem pretty nice. Easy-going.’

At this Cass laughed. ‘People are always easy-going when things are going their own way,’ she said.

It took a few days to fall into their rhythm. Nick asked Stephen to take over the care of the hens and collect the eggs each morning. He was set to work, also, repairing the sheep fencing at the top of the orchard. He’d been expecting long hours, but in truth these chores didn’t take up much time at all. The hens had to be let out and fed in the morning and then shut up again at night, the bedding straw replaced every few days. They only produced a handful of eggs. There was a small round ironwork basket kept by the kitchen door, for the eggs. It was a French antique, Celia told him, which was typical of the Clarkes: a nice-looking thing, but impractical. It was easy to crack one egg against another, if you didn’t put them in really carefully. The guinea-fowl didn’t chase him again but, wary, he gave it a wide berth.