Will glanced at the sky. ‘About noon,’ he said. ‘I have to go up to the Downs later to check on the sheep. The lambs are with the ewes – would you like to ride up with me? They’re a pretty sight.’

I was about to say yes, but then I remembered Lady Clara.

‘I cannot,’ I said. ‘Lady Clara is coming to see us this afternoon and I should change into the riding habit.’

Will nodded equably. ‘I’ll take you home then,’ he said turning his horse’s head. ‘Can’t keep the Quality waiting.’

‘I’ll ride alone,’ I said. ‘I know the way.’

Will paused, looked at me. ‘Pain bad?’ he asked, knowing with his quick cleverness that it had not passed as I said it would. He did not know, as I did, that this was a pain that would never pass. It was not a share of bad meat which was tearing my belly, it was the loss of her which hit me afresh, every time I laughed, every time I saw something which would have given her joy.

‘No,’ I said, denying his insight, and denying the comfort he might have given me. ‘I’ve no pain. But I can ride home alone and you can go to your work.’

He nodded and held his horse still as I rode away. I felt his eyes on my back and I straightened in the saddle and even sang a little song which the wind would blow back to him and tell him that I was light-hearted. It was the song Robert used to order when he could get a fiddler to play the ponies in. It was a song from the show. My life was still all show.

I rode home slowly, watching the high green horizon of the Downs and the little shapes of white which were Will’s flock of sheep moving slowly across it. The Downs were like a wall around this little village, they held it like you might cup your hand on something rare and strange like a butterfly or a tiny bright beetle.

I passed some people on the Common, gathering brushwood and furze. They waved as I went past and called: ‘Good day, Sarah!’ and I smiled my empty smile back at them, and called back: ‘Good day,’ and thought that I had come a damned long way still to have no handle to my name.

The path led me down to the back of the house and there was a little drystone wall which Sea popped over, hardly breaking his stride. A track led me to the back of the stables and I put him in his loose-box myself, he still did not like Sam. I was surprised that he let Will touch him.