On our right were great old trees, growing thick right up to the very margin of the drainage ditch and the road. High grey-trunked beeches and the broad knobbly trunks of oaks. On the first bend the massive chestnut tree swooped its branches low over the track, the leaves spreading like fingers in their tiny greenness, bursting out of shells of buds as brown and sticky as toffee. Deeper in the woods, on little hummocks, there were tall pine trees and the scent of their rising sap made the spring air sweet, like a premonition of summer warmth. The birds were singing in the higher branches, as near to the sun as they could get, and in the depths below the trees was a rug of old leaves and bright spots of primroses and white violets.

‘These trees are all parkland,’ Will said gesturing with his whip. ‘Ornamental. They belong to the grounds of the Hall, we only fell the timber for clearing. But there’s game in them. Rabbits and pheasants, hares, deer. Ever since the estate was made into a worker’s corporation we’ve had no game laws here. The people from Acre hunt as they wish for the pot. We don’t allow hunting for sale. A few poachers come over from Petersfield or Chichester and we keep an eye out for them. We take it in turns to watch for them if it gets out of hand. But generally we’re left well alone.’

I nodded. I had a passing sense of belonging, as sweet as cold water after a day’s thirst. My mother – the woman who had called after the cart – had come here often. I could feel it. And her mother, too.

We rode in silence, I was looking around at the woodland on one side of the road and the tidy fields on the other.

‘This is the Dower House,’ Will volunteered. ‘Your family lived here until the Hall was rebuilt. It was your ma’s childhood home.’

I nodded and looked at it.

It was deserted but well secured. The double door at the front was shut tight, all the windows barred with shutters. The front garden was tidy, a flood of golden crocus under the front windows.

‘No one lives there now?’ I asked.

‘No,’ Will said. He gave me a rueful little smile. ‘The way the estate is run does not attract the gentry,’ he said. ‘We’ve not been able to get a tenant for it for some time.’

I nodded. I did not understand what he meant yet, but I was not ready on this ride to ask questions. I wanted to take the measure of this place, of these people. To see what this place was in reality that I had been dreaming of for so long.

‘It’s a good estate,’ he said tentatively. ‘Productive.’

I glanced at him sideways. He was watching the stony drive between his horse’s ears.