“Where the general was killed.”

“I do not even know he was in the battle.”

“No?”

“It’s more than I know.”

“Must have done something.”

“Says you,” she said. She looked at him, one-eyed, as a blackbird looks at a worm. They grinned at each other.

“What does he say then?”

She shrugged. “He asked if I had eaten a fig.”

“And have you?”

“I have not,” she said.

“Have you even seen one, Nell?”

“What? A fig?”

“Yes.”

“Why should I want to see a fig?” She was laughing now, light-headed.

“Well, I have seen one,” said Tom. “But I didn’t eat it.”

“Who did then?”

“I think it was Briffit.”

“Briffit!” For a moment she let herself imagine it, Briffit the pig-killer eating a fig! Ugly-face Briffit! Her eyes were tight shut. Tears of laughter spilled down her cheeks. He could kiss me now, she thought and be done with it. Then she sobered and opened her eyes. She looked to the window.

“You would go and look for him, Tom, if he was not back in an hour?”

“I will go if you wish me to.”

“He has the dog with him.”

“That’s good.”

“He said the war was very hard on horses.”

“On horses? Yes. I believe it.”

He came back before anyone needed to search for him. He came in trailing the cold, his face very white. He was shaking slightly. When she said she would bring him up some hot milk and brandy he nodded, went up the stairs, paused halfway, then went on, as if with the last of his strength. She made his drink so quickly she scalded her hand. In the room he was sitting in the armchair with his eyes shut. The dog looked pleased with itself. There was mud in its fur. It smelled of the river.

She woke him and made him take a mouthful of the drink. Then she got his gaiters off and his boots, stoked the fire and left him to sleep. She went outside and pressed her scalded hand in the snow. The fall was very light now. A few flakes settled on her shoulders, the linen of her cap. She thought of the widows Tom had mentioned, and in particular the Widow Coombes who had an interest in a quarry, and only one child, a girl of ten or thereabouts who hardly spoke a word. If they married—and there was nothing unpleasant about Widow Coombes, nothing at all—the house could come to life again. She would cook for a family, and the widow’s money could buy back the fields. There would be visitors, lights in the windows. They would go to church on a Sunday, sit in the old box pew. The front of the box still had the Lacroix arms on it, though so faint now the griffin might almost be anything—a fox, a hare, a hare on its hind legs. But a man could paint it back in a day—a dab of blue, a dab of gold. It only needed the giving of an order. All any of it needed was a little attention, a stirring-up.