If Clem or Morley had been about, if anyone had witnessed the fiasco, Matthias would have died of shame. Feeling exceedingly foolish he drew another pail of water and carried it into the kitchen with more care than was necessary. Rosie was not there, her shoes were in the hearth and presumably she had gone to change into a dry skirt and hose. Thankfully Kenver could be heard in the next room busy about his crafts. Only Alice and Jessica were in the kitchen. Jessica was putting her rag doll to sleep beside the curled-up purring fat body of Scrap, the cat, in a wooden toy cradle made by her Uncle Kenver. Alice was arranging the flowers in a tall clay pot crafted by the same hand. She greeted Matthias with a cheery smile.

‘Hello, Preacher,’ she said pleasantly. ‘This was very kind of you.’

‘Is Rosie cross with me, Alice?’ he asked worriedly.

‘Cross? For giving her these lovely flowers? Why on earth should she be cross? If I was her I’d be over the moon with delight.’

‘Well, she might not want me making such gestures, she hasn’t been very friendly lately, but what I really mean is, is she upset that I tipped water all over her feet?’

‘Well, it did rather spoil the moment,’ Alice smiled, ‘but it was an accident. Rosie’ll understand and it’s just the thing she needs to bring her out of her sulky moods, a bit of romance.’

‘I hope so. Oh, Alice, I hope so.’ He felt a little shaky and sat down without waiting to be invited.

‘That’s right, make yourself comfortable.’ Alice sniffed at the vanilla fragrance of a heliotrope blossom and looked at it thoughtfully. ‘You really took Rosie by surprise.’

‘Oh dear, I didn’t mean to, I just wanted to…’

‘Don’t you worry now, you’ve made your feelings plain and that’s the hardest part over with. The family will be fair pleased, particularly Clem. He’s been trying to shove the two of you together for over a year but it was a devil of a job to get either of you to notice one another. Now, at least you’ve noticed her.’

Matthias lifted Jessica up on his knee to stop her staring at him. She didn’t understand the conversation her mother and Uncle Matthias were having but he looked a bit excited today and she wanted to know why. He kept ducking his head from her so she began earnestly to rearrange his tidily combed dark brown hair and this he happily succumbed to.

‘Do you think she likes me, Alice?’ he asked, peering anxiously under Jessica’s armpit. ‘Do you think she’ll mind me calling on her?’

‘I don’t see why not. It’s high time the maid got married.’

Alice gave the embarrassed young man an old-fashioned look.

‘And it’s high time I got married, Alice?’