She was amazed that Peter had ever thought it possible. She said, ‘I’ve always known he wouldn’t be able to. He can’t hold things, not firmly, with his left hand. Didn’t you know?’

‘I’ve always hoped it would get better as he grew bigger, that he’d be able to open his hand as he got older. Now I’m afraid there’s no chance of that. I despair, don’t you?’

‘I don’t despair any more. I never had any hope. His thumb has just grown pressed tight against his palm. I don’t think there’s skin between them, I think the flesh is joined.’

‘He’ll never be able to plough, nor do lots of things,’ Peter repeated as if trying to convince himself.

Marion thought how strange Peter was to have lived with the sight of Peterkin’s deformed hand and foot for about six years and only now was he realizing what it implied for the boy’s future. It was almost as if he never speculated about the future, just did what was obvious, what was before his eyes, at that particular moment. As she lay on the comfy straw thinking of his strange limited character, she heard his breathing rhythm alter, then slow down, and she knew from his long drawn, rather trembling breaths that he was asleep.

The boy’s future can’t be troubling him very much at present, she thought. It must be strange to be so little aware of what goes on round him.

She would soon be asleep herself, in this delicious straw and with these warm covers, smelling slightly of hens, over her. Her left hand slid out and caressed Alice’s cold-nosed face in the cradle. An owl hooted, close to, perhaps in the ash, and another answered from further away. Catching our enemies, Marion thought, smiling at the recollection of the lesson Peter had given Peterkin that day. The owl hooted again and the thin sound in the chilly moonlit air made her bed all the more secure and cosy.

DECEMBER

Hung wi the ivys veining bough

The ash trees round the cottage farm

Are often stript of branches now

The cotters christmass hearth to warm

He swings and twists his hazel band

And lops them off wi sharpened hook

And oft brings ivy in his hand

To decorate the chimney nook

The nights were very long and very cold. It was often too cold to sleep in spite of the feathered quilt, and too dark to get up and do anything. All her life this is what December nights had been to Marion, lying long hours in the cold dark. Her nieces, Lisa, Ellen and Kate, had once told her that as girls in the Mill, they had all three lain close together and had passed the dark hours whispering to each other stories of fairies and dragons and witches that roamed in the forest, the basic folklore, much embellished by their imaginations, so half amusing and half frightening themselves, but succeeding in making the hours pass. But Marion had had no sisters to tell such stories to, and both her brothers, so much older than herself, would have scorned telling such tales to a little girl. So Marion was inured to boredom. She opened her eyes at intervals, but still unbroken darkness surrounded her. Occasionally there was a little click on the hearth, a charred log flaking perhaps, but enough to tell her that the fire was not quite out. She moved closer to Peter to share his warmth, but her feet remained icy blocks, and their cold was creeping up her legs to mid-calf. An owl moaned somewhere over the forest and was answered by another much nearer, then silence again. The long hours crept on and on. She sighed. She endured.