Esther pursed her lips. Their secret was well and truly out now. Not that she cared, but she was very afraid of the effect it would have on Jonathan. Already he felt guilty for seducing the wife of a soldier at the front, a man who was one of his comrades. And he liked and respected the Harrises. What would he do now?

They led the horses up the lane towards where the boat-house lay amongst the dunes. As if reading her thoughts, Jonathan said quietly, ‘She’ll tell her mother, won’t she?’

‘Aye, an’ anyone else who’ll listen. An they’ll all be only too willin’ to listen.’

‘Esther – I’m sorry . . .’

‘Don’t be,’ she retorted swiftly. ‘’Cos I’m not. And don’t let it spoil things between us.’

‘But your daughter, little Kate, we shouldn’t have left her alone.’

Even in the middle of all this, Esther was gratified to notice that he said ‘we’ and not ‘you’. How readily he shared the blame. She loved him all the more for it, if that were possible.

More gently, she said, ‘No, no, we won’t leave her any more. You’ll come into the house . . .’

‘No, Esther, I –’

‘Oh, I’m not asking you into me bed,’ she said swiftly, knowing that Jonathan would flatly refuse to go into the bed Esther had shared with her husband. She smiled in the darkness and there was coyness in her voice. ‘There’s a nice soft peg rug in front of me hearth.’

‘Oh, Esther, you’re the giddy limit!’ She heard the responding laughter in his voice and knew he could not resist her any more.

When Esther returned home a little while later she opened the back door to the sound of her child still crying.

‘Oh no!’ she breathed. Had Enid gone home and left Kate alone again, even though she had promised to stay? Esther ran through the kitchen and up the stairs, Kate’s wails growing louder to her ears.

In the gentle glow from the night-light, Esther could see her child sitting up in the narrow bed, tears coursing down her red cheeks, her eyes tightly screwed up, her small hands balled into fists beating the patchwork counterpane. Enid was there, sitting on the bed, trying to take the child in her arms to comfort her. Kate was hysterical.

‘I can’t do nowt with her, missus. I’ve tried.’

‘It’s all right, Enid. It’s not your fault.’ Esther sighed. No, she thought, it’s all mine.

She sat down on the side of the bed and wrapped her arms around the child and rocked her and soothed away her night terrors. Kate was wet and frightened and lost. She had cried out and her mother had not come.

‘I haven’t even been able to change her bed, missus. She won’t let me . . .’