I woke so slowly and so silently that it seemed hours before I even knew I had woken. The first thing that caught my attention was the silence. There was no rumbling of carts, no shouting of London street-traders, it was so quiet that you could hear your own breath, and against the silence, sharpening it, was the twittering of birds.

I turned my head. The man who hated gin traps was still asleep, as warm as a fox cub in a burrow. His face tucked into my shoulder, his nose pressed against my skin. I smiled as I remembered him saying last night, ‘Dear God, I love the smell of you!’

I moved away from him cautiously, so as not to wake him. The sunshine was bright on the lime-washed wall. The bedroom faced east and the shadow of the lattice window made a fretwork of patterns above the bed. I raised myself on one elbow and looked out of the window.

There had been a light frost overnight and the grass was soaked and sparkling. Each blade of grass held a drop of water which shone in the sunlight. Our window was half open and the air that breathed in was sweet and cold as spring water.

I moved to sit up and at once Will’s arm came around me in a demanding, irresistible grip. He held me like a child might hold a favourite moppet – quite unconscious in sleep, quite unyielding. I waited till his grip loosened slightly then I stroked his arm and whispered: ‘Let me go, Will. I’m coming back.’

He did not wake even then, but he released me and buried his face deeper into the pillow so that his face was where my head had laid. I crossed barefoot to the window and swung it wide, I was home at last.

The hills of the Downs were on my left, higher and more lovely than I had remembered. Soaring up, streaked with white, reaching to the clouds, massively solid. On the lower slope there was a scar where timber had been felled, and then further down, the plough line where the horses could not drag a plough so our fields ended on a continuous curving line which girdled the high slopes.

I could see the pale dried fields of stubble and the rich dark fields where the earth was new-turned. The fields which were resting looked green and lush. Even the hedges looked dark and fresh where they were still clinging to their leaves. They had burned the stubble in one field and there were little black tracks where the flames had been. The ash would make the land grow. The burning had come and gone, and the land would grow the better for it.