For Marion and for most of the others in the village, their religion was no more than a part of the constant struggle for the influence of good in their lives. ‘Good’ meant big harvests, fine weather, health, babies (preferably other people’s) and death to rats and crows. It was a kind of insurance against disaster. She was aware that in return for this unreliable protection she would have to behave in certain ways, but she had no particular sense of guilt or sin, nor did she feel any need to examine her mind or repent anything before going to Mass. Nor did she feel it behoved her to behave any differently after the sacrament. It did not put her into any awareness of God. As long as she attended Mass it was up to God to look after her and her family in a benevolent way.

There were Commandments and everyone knew there were ten of them, but they were not enumerated, and when asked for details Father John was as vague about them as anyone else. Some confusion prevailed. Marion understood that she must not swear, but she did not distinguish swearing from common speech. She knew one must honour one’s parents, but of course one looked after the old things. One must not kill people – well, of course not, everyone knew that. One must not lie with others outside marriage – it was difficult to do so in the village anyway except that everyone wondered what went on in the Hall in the long dark nights and the servants of both sexes in the straw under the tables. One must not accuse people falsely – Marion would never do so. One must not steal, but stealing was not an easy thing to get away with in the close village life, and one must not work on Sundays. This Commandment did not affect Marion for no one ever considered that this prohibition concerned women’s work. In fact women did not have ‘work’, they had ‘duties’ and it was their nature to fulfil them.

Marion would not have doubted that she was a virtuous woman, although she rarely considered the matter. She sometimes fed a couple of eggs to her children from the dozen that she knew should, by tradition, be given to the Hall, and she told Rollo in the Hall that the hens were not laying as they should, but she never felt any guilt at the lie, nor did she think she might be ‘stealing’ her own eggs from the Hall. On a more positive side, she knew she helped old people in the village, not only her own father at the Mill. She had done her share in caring for orphans when they occurred, too – she had breast-fed one of the Fletcher babies for two months after Fletcher’s first wife had died. She had always worked hard to feed her family, and had had many babies, and it was hardly her own fault that so few had survived. She was faithful to Peter, in fact she loved him, she had been a dutiful daughter, but mostly she had been too busy for introspection.