He waited in case I should tell him something about my travelling but I said nothing and he trotted on ahead of me along the firebreak, across a marshy little stream, where Sea jinked and shied, and then in a long easy canter along a path and into a wood of tall beech trees and the occasional pine. Ahead of us was the river and I followed Will on the brown cob when he turned to the left and rode along its banks. The water was deep, dark brown in the curves and bends by the banks, but sparkling and bright in the shallows. We came out on to a cart track and then Will pulled his horse up and said, ‘There.’

Ahead of us was a high and lovely fold of hills, capped by silver birches and the ungainly growing heads of baby ferns. Over to our left the hills ran down to the river, brown with last year’s bracken but lightened with the new growth. The old heather showed as dull pewter and old silver. Before us, in a huge sprawl of a field, were straight well-planted rows of apple trees, the leaves green with soft silvery undersides as the wind rolled through them.

‘Your ma planted this,’ Will said and his voice was filled with wonder. ‘Before you were born. Your ma Julia planted it, and my cousin Ted Tyacke was here when she did it. He said it took them all day to plant it and when they had finished they were so tired they could hardly walk home.’

I nodded. For a moment I forgot my sadness and my anger as I looked at the great fertile sweep of the land and saw how the strong branches bobbed as the wind played through them.

Will’s voice was warm. ‘Ted told me that none of them had ever planted apple trees before, it was a new idea. To set the estate back on its feet after the fire and everything going bad. He said that it was one of the first things Julia ever did on her own. She worked all day on her own down here and she counted out all the trees and got them set in straight rows.’

I looked again at the orchard. I thought I could even tell that they had planted from left to right, the first two rows were a bit wobbly, as if they had been learning how to keep to the line. After that they were straighter. I thought of my mother, a young woman little older than me, trying to set the land right.