She was anxious. The spun wool was most of last winter’s work, and its acknowledged delivery should entitle her to extra blankets or extra tanned leather when needed.

‘Don’t drop any on the way,’ she added, but she guessed she was fussing.

Left alone with Alice, Marion went round the side of the cottage where what remained of the firewood was piled up. Stacked against the wattle all the winter, it had made the wall much more windproof, but now most had been burnt, and she would have to be very economical with what was left. She had burnt up quite a lot yesterday, doing the bread, and she worried about that. She wondered if she should go up to the forest now and pull home any fallen branches. She was not permitted to do so, but perhaps no one would see her. She wished she did not feel so very tired. She worried about that too.

She looked into the oak flour-chest, lifting its heavy lid. Peter had made it when they were married and she knew she was fortunate in having an almost mouse-proof container. There was not much flour in it – a fact she well knew, and was annoyed with herself for probing her anxiety by looking in the depleted chest again. She banged the lid shut. A gust of wind, blowing in through the half-door, whirled the wood ash from the fire about and some of it settled on the milk in a wide wooden bucket. She went to close the half-door, but instead leant her aching head against the doorpost and looked down the garden and up into the steep forest beyond.

Above the hazels and the briars, now in small leaf, the forest floor rose in sheet after sheet of misty bluebells, and with every gust of wind their sweet refreshing scent blew to her nostrils. It was a sight so brief, so immense, so familiar, and yet every year so unbelievable, that she stood there staring at it. She considered that the bluebells were some kind of special blessing visited on Down the Common cottagers – for all the other advantages Rockwell had, there were no bluebells in their woods. A brief easing of anxiety filled her mind.

She wandered down the grassy path of the garden. The apple tree in the hedge by the Common was in rich blossom, fat round flowers, thick along the branches, pure white inside, rich pink outside. In spite of the wind, the bees were plentiful. The ground where Peter had been digging and planting was lined with rows of little green shoots where the peas were coming up. Some, she noticed, were eaten by slugs. She felt suddenly nauseated by the sight.

Perhaps she was tired after the long energetic day she had spent yesterday. She had agreed with Hilda and Molly, both her close neighbours, to clear a path to the old bread oven, light it, and they would each make a fine batch of loaves. They did this once or twice a year.