‘So that’s all I have to bring this year?’ she asked, needing his confirmation for her peace of mind. He ran a finger over the notches before hanging up the stick, and said, ‘Yes.’ Grumpy, dull, sour in speech as always, but all agreed that he was mainly honest, and that was something to be thankful for. Marion sometimes wondered if it were Tom’s ever-present sharp eyes, retentive memory and passion for justice that kept sour Rollo from cheating the poorer of the villagers. No one liked Rollo.

Marion went out of the Hall and round into the yard. It was all very messy after the rain the previous month. All the heavy carts, toing and froing with grain and straw from barn to mill, from mill to yard had churned up the ground and it was now a sea of mud mixed with horse and cow dung, spilt straw and dead leaves. Marion crept round the edge as near to the Hall wall as she could to avoid the wettest parts till she reached the weaving shed and looked in. A wide warp was hanging from the beam and Hilda was crouching on the ground under it, carefully tying the pierced stone weights to the ends. Marion realized that Hilda had not heard her coming and she continued to work, her thin freckled fingers sorting, pulling, knotting with deft movements.

Marion was surprised that she had to summon up her courage to speak – and yet they were such ordinary words.

‘I’ve brought you some apples, Hilda, just a few. You and your girls,’ she could not bring herself to add Dick’s name, ‘always liked our apples at this time of year.’

Hilda stood up and came towards Marion, looked at the apples and thanked her in a rather faint voice. Marion thought her narrow freckled face looked even thinner than usual. She asked how she was.

‘I live,’ said Hilda, with a small brief smile. ‘I don’t like it. The girls are kept at work by Magda; I’m not allowed to play with them. Play is not thought seemly for the poor or the fatherless.’

As so often with Hilda’s speeches, this disturbed Marion.

‘Are they good to you?’ she asked. She knew how readily some people would grind down in slavery the poor and their widows.

‘Good – in a way. The other day Sir Hugh and Father John had me to see them – here in the weaving shed. They sent Joan off on some errand and told me I should marry again and that Tom would be a suitable husband and I should think about it.’

‘And have you?’

‘There’s nothing to think about. Apart from Tom not wanting to marry again after his wife died, and that’s sixteen or more years ago, I couldn’t marry anyone, not with all my thoughts with Dick day and night. They don’t understand at all. Sir Hugh said it was my duty. To whom? Not to Dick, not to anyone in the village – and what sort of a wife would I be to anyone when I was forever mourning for Dick?’