He kept his eyes straight ahead so that he was not looking at my clothes, hand-me-downs, of a cheaper quality than his own. There was a hole in one of the boots. ‘You know what it is like for poor people,’ he said discreetly. ‘You would not make their lives hard for them if you could choose.’

I thought about that as I rode. And I knew it was not so. Nothing in my life had taught me tenderness or charity. Nothing had taught me to share, to think of others. I had only ever shared with one person. I had only ever had a thought for one person. Will’s belief that my knowing the underside of a cruel and greedy world would make me gentle could not have been more wrong.

We rode without speaking, listening to the river which flowed clattering on stones and whirlpooling around twigs beside us. In the distance I could hear the regular slap slap and creak of a mill wheel. Then we rounded a little bend and I saw it on the opposite side of the river, a handsome plain square building in the familiar yellow stone.

‘That’s the new mill,’ Will said with satisfaction. ‘The Green family run it as their own business. They grind Wideacre corn for free but they also take in corn from the other farmers and charge them a fee for grinding.’

‘Who owns it?’ I asked.

Will looked surprised. ‘I suppose you do,’ he said. ‘Your mother got it running again, but it was built by the Laceys. The Green family came as tenants, long ago. But they’ve paid no rent since the corporation was established.’

I nodded. I looked at the trim little building and at the bright white and purple violets in the windowboxes. I looked at the pretty curtains in the windows, and the mill wheel turning around. On the roof there were white doves cooing. I thought of the times I had gone hungry, and she had been hungry too. I thought of the times we had been cold, and how very often Da had beaten me. I thought of her sitting on gentlemen’s laps for a penny, and me being thrown from horse after horse for ha’pence. And I thought that all the time, for all of that time, these people had been living here in comfort and plenty, beside this quiet river.

Will set his horse to a trot and then we went alongside the strawberry field I had seen in the morning. The lad had nearly finished the harrowing and he waved to us as we rode by. There was a little track between two fields and it brought us out on the driveway towards the Hall.

‘You’ve never been poor have you?’ I said shrewdly. ‘You’ve always worked, wherever you said it was – Goodwood – and here. But you’ve never gone short.’