‘Give an extra slice to a man for his old mother,’ said Dame Margaret, ‘and he’s eaten it before you can say knife. Give it to a daughter and you know the old ones will be looked after.’ Some people looked a bit sheepish as she said this, but no one would dare contradict Dame Margaret. Milly standing by her, her peevish heavy face glistening with melting butter, was replenishing the table from her wide basket of scones. Marion heard Dame Margaret’s crisp commentary as she worked.

‘You’re Nick’s boy, aren’t you? Here you are, no, one each. Tell your sisters to come and get theirs. Magda, take that empty mug from Hal – give it to Tom to refill. Where’s Cecily? I’ve not seen her this morning. Milly, give Loppy a proper piece, do you hear? I won’t have him palmed off with a burnt crust – there, take it away, Loppy. Ah, Polly – yes, I’ll give you something for your old folks. How is Old Fletcher now? Ed-me-boy, take this basket to Father John, under the tree somewhere with Old Sarah and old what’s her name Hodge, see they all get enough – where are all the Rockwells? Milly, do some more scones, the Rockwells are coming over. Magda, keep Jix tied up, I told you before … ’ and so on, all amiable, no hint of dues unpaid, of labour days evaded, of leverets taken by night from the Hall’s lands, of missing Mass, of being found drunk at the side of the fields. On this day of festivities, business would not be discussed.

Tom was dipping a tall jug into the barrel and filling from it the three green glazed pots that the Hall possessed. They were passed round among the villagers with Milly following each pot’s progress and nagging at those she felt were drinking too long. Joan brought along a basket of fresh buttered scones, many with sprigs of watercress or peppermint picked on the stream’s edge and pressed into the butter.

Marion saw her brother, Simon, and his family approaching the oak tree from near Peter’s workshop, and the Rockwell families slowly crossing the Green towards them. The sun was bright and hot on their pink or sunburnt faces, and Marion looked at them all with a sure sense of contentment. Simon, her elder by many years, a stocky man with dark hair and beard, always dusty white from working at the Mill, waved to her, his eyes narrowing with his smile as they always did. Betsy, his wife, waved too – enviable Betsy, always strong and in good health. Marion remembered how she was when she was first married, a plump girl with pale coppery hair falling about round her pink and white apple-blossom face, always with a laugh in her voice and a bounce in her walk. Now, after bringing up five children, the coppery hair was dusty and the face had florid purplish patches, the body had solidified and the bounce had become a lurch, but the laugh was still as ready and the air of health and strength undiminished. She had been a Rockwell girl and her handsome wellbeing was, Marion considered, the result of having been born there. Two of their children were with them – Gib, their second son, a gawky fair-haired sunburnt boy in a very short tunic, and Kate, the youngest. Marion thought how suddenly a fifteen-year-old girl grows up. A lanky thin girl had replaced the dark shy child that Kate had been as recently as last Christmas. Marion observed how her eyes narrowed like Simon’s as she spoke, and that she had a look of much tenderness when she smiled. Her dark hair was tied back with a length of white wool and she wore a necklace of pink clover.