‘Is it true we’re going to have cream, Aunt?’

‘Cream?’ Marion said. ‘There’s to be butter in the scones.’

‘Magda said M’Dame was having butter and cream.’

‘Magda says a lot of things are just to pretend she knows everything. There’s just a brushing of cream,’ said Marion, and made a little smiling sneer at Ellen. Ed-me-boy arrived to take the willow tray to the oven.

‘M’Dame says,’ he said, ‘that if you’ve done the scones you’re to go into the Hall to help her.’

‘Pee,’ announced Alice grabbing at Marion’s skirt.

Marion replaced the feather over her ear and lugged Alice round the corner of the Hall, and held up her dress. ‘Feet apart,’ she said, ‘wider.’ Alice peed and was brought back to where Meg and Mary sat under Hilda’s part of the table. They were instructed to mind Alice. Seeing Alice peeing had reminded Marion of her own need so she went into the yard and into that smelly corner of the cow shed where was the hole that the women could use in comparative privacy.

In spite of the shutters being open on both sides it was dark in the Hall after the bright sun outside. It seemed roomy without the trestle tables. Dame Margaret was at the high table on the platform with the first batch of little loaves, now almost cool, and a little bucket of butter before her. She was slicing the loaves one after another.

‘Oh Marion, yes, you must help or we’ll never be ready by noon. That lot’s cut, here’s a baton, smear some butter on each slice.’

The butter smelt lovely, so did the warm bread – both were treats.

‘Milly and I have been saving the butter for this for days. I think it is still good in spite of the weather,’ said Dame Margaret with much satisfaction. ‘There should be a good piece for everyone and some over.’ They worked on. Magda’s head came round the porch door, Meg and Mary beside her.

‘Mother,’ said her accusing voice, ‘is it true everyone’s going to have butter, not just us?’

‘Yes,’ said her mother, slicing away, ‘butter for the feast for everyone.’

‘There,’ said Meg, very scornfully to Magda and the three girls’ heads vanished. Marion wondered how Alice was faring. Dame Margaret sighed and muttered, ‘Those girls.’

Tom brought in another basket of little loaves.

‘It’s the second ovenful, M’Dame,’ he said. ‘Fairly cool now.’

‘I don’t want the butter to melt and run out and be wasted,’ Dame Margaret said, her hand sliding from loaf to loaf. She sliced one. ‘It’s cool enough,’ she said and handed it to Marion.

‘First batch of scones is ready,’ Tom said. ‘They look a treat, are a treat. Joan’s just putting the next lot on the grid.’

‘Don’t forget Hilda’s square ones,’ Marion said, as she went on buttering. A crust fell off, she buttered it and ate it. Jix, Sir Hugh’s small white dog, tied up to a hook on a post, whined. Tom threw him a little crust that had been stuck in the crevices of the basket he was carrying away.