‘Nonsense. That’s not women’s work. They should keep out of it.’

‘But she got the truth. He didn’t.’

‘It’s not right.’

‘What do you mean, “right”? We wanted to know how the fire started, she got the truth from Hoddy. The way Sir Hugh was going on at the elder boys was getting nowhere. He just frightened them.’

‘So he should. Those boys are criminals. You saw the wastage.’

‘Yes, they are, but frightened people don’t tell the truth, and it was the truth we wanted. She got it out of Hoddy because he’s too young to see where his answers were leading.’

‘It doesn’t seem right,’ repeated Peter, not really following Marion’s train of thought. ‘It was Sir Hugh’s job, or Rollo’s.’

‘Rollo would have been just the same, blundering in and frightening and confusing. He’d have been further from the truth at the end – and wouldn’t even know he was.’

‘You always like the last word,’ said Peter, affectionate and tired, and added, ‘Is there anything to eat? I’ve had very little all day.’

His remark brought her thoughts back to domesticity and the awful recollection of the wasted wool. She told Peter what had happened and this reminded her of the broken eggs and the fox killing one of the pullets.

‘Well – all that’s lost,’ he said calmly.

When they reached Molly’s cottage, Old Agnes was standing by the garden gate holding Alice.

‘We saw you coming across the Common,’ said Agnes, ‘didn’t we, Alice?’

Alice’s eyes were red and she was trembling and gasping. ‘Mam – Mam,’ she cried, holding out her arms to Marion, who took her.

‘She’s been roaring and crying all the time, poor little button,’ Agnes said calmly. ‘Don’t know what’s the matter with her. Couldn’t get her to have anything, not even a bit of honey on bread. Is the fire out? It was Hodge’s, wasn’t it?’

Marion briefly explained Alice’s crime in unwinding the wool and her own fury at her.

Agnes ignored the loss of the wool and just patted Alice’s head saying, ‘There, there, you’ll be a good girl now Mam’s come home.’

Back in their cottage Alice sat on Marion’s lap and was fed with sticks of bread dipped into the fresh milk in the smaller bucket, and almost as soon as the last mouthful was swallowed, she fell heavily asleep on Marion’s knee.

‘Poor little brat,’ Peter commented. ‘Probably thought you’d given her away and gone off yourself and would never come back. Put her in the cradle and let’s have something ourselves.’

Marion, kneeling down, put Alice in the cradle and covered her and remained there, watching her little sleeping face. How quiet, how ordinarily quiet and peaceful it was in the cottage. Tibtab, a hump of speckled fur, lay curled on the shelf by the jars, the end of the log seat was at Marion’s left hand with the star-shaped pattern of cracks across its sawn end, the hood of the cradle before her, smoothed and darkened by the pressure of so many greasy hands spread on it while their owners stood up after laying down babies. The rocker at the other end was worn smooth by her foot, rocking this Alice child, and all her previous babies, and probably her mother’s foot rocking Marion herself, perhaps by her grandmother’s foot too. The origin of such pieces of family furniture, so necessary, made to outlast generations, was not known now. Marion wondered who had made the cradle and when. Any object older than the oldest living memory in the village took eternity to itself quite easily. Next time she went to the mill she would ask the Old Man when it was made, but even he might not know, or remember.