Esther sighed. ‘Poor Ernie and poor young Rodney Marshall, too,’ she added as a dutiful afterthought. She glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece behind which there were now three postcards from her husband. They came about every five or six weeks, always with just the same brief message and whilst Esther had toiled painstakingly over her letters in reply, asking questions, telling him news from home, he had never once answered any of her direct comments.

I wonder, Esther thought to herself, if Matthew is still alive or whether somewhere, sitting on someone’s desk, is a telegram waiting to be sent to me?

Ma Harris accepted the news of her son’s death in the stoic manner with which she met all life’s tragedies.

‘I knew when he went, lass,’ she told Esther sadly, ‘that I might never set eyes on him again. I love all my bairns, lass, all seven of ’em – an’ even the two babes in the churchyard that died before they scarcely drew breath . . .’

Esther hadn’t known before of that particular heartbreak in Ma Harris’s life. But now was not the time to be asking.

‘But Ernie was me eldest. The man of the family – after his dad. I’ll miss him.’

‘We all will, Ma, truly we all will.’

There was a memorial service held in the church for the squire’s son, Rodney, and where the newspaper had given only two lines to Ernie Harris’s death, Mr Marshall, even amidst his own grief, was more generous. He gave explicit instructions to the vicar that the service should give equal recognition to both young men and he sent his own carriage to take Mr and Mrs Harris and all their family to the church.

For the first time in her life, Esther warmed to a member of the gentry, whom she had always believed cared little or nothing for her and her kind. Squire Marshall, his wife and one remaining son sat in their family pew, the empty place beside them a poignant reminder.

Mrs Marshall’s sobs could be heard throughout the service. She left the church clinging to her husband’s arm, her face, covered by a black veil, buried against his shoulder. By contrast, Ma Harris, though there was deep sadness in her eyes, seemed to be the mainstay of her family, shushing the weeping little girls, Enid amongst them. Taking her husband’s arm, she walked down the aisle and out of the church with dignified pride. Her indomitable spirit was battered but certainly not broken.