Suddenly, she felt weary. She sank down on to a square of hay and leant back against the rough brick wall and closed her eyes. Already the sun was slanting deep shadows across the yard. She’d been most of the day with the sow without realizing how the time was passing, so intent had she been on saving the piglets. She had not eaten all day.

‘All dead, are they?’

Her eyes snapped open to see Sam standing over her.

‘Take a look,’ she invited and watched as he moved to the door of the sty and looked in. He glanced back at her and then swiftly away again, back to the sow and her litter.

‘One of her tits is a windy one,’ Esther told him. ‘But with only ten young, she’s plenty to feed ’em all. One didn’t live, but not – ’ she added pointedly – ‘because she ate it!’

Sam stood looking at the litter as if weighing the piglets she had saved for him against the milk she had lost. He made no comment but as he turned towards the house, over his shoulder he said gruffly, ‘Like a bite o’ summat, would you?’

Esther grinned as she levered up her tired limbs to follow him. It was the closest a man like Sam Brumby would ever come to a ‘thank you’.

Four

ESTHER spent another night in the hayloft, but the following morning, she made sure she was up very early. She had already brought the two milking cows to the byre by the time Sam appeared in the yard.

‘’Morning, Mester Brumby,’ she called cheerfully. His only reply was a sniff and a deepening of his permanent scowl. But at least this morning he hadn’t told her to ‘clear off’. Instead he seemed to be leaving her to do the milking, for she saw neither Sam Brumby nor Matthew the rest of the morning.

After finishing the dairy work, she attacked the dust and grime of years in the kitchen. She found a long-handled broom and swept the ceiling and then she washed down the walls. As the dirt came off she found the plastered walls were painted a deep red.

Next she scrubbed the wooden table and one by one she cleaned the pans from the hooks on the wall. Then she washed the piles of plates, cups and saucers from the two shelves at one side of the kitchen. There were four huge hooks in the ceiling for hams, but only a storm lantern was hanging from one of them. Perhaps the half-grown gilt was being fattened for killing?

A torn lace curtain was the only covering on the kitchen window and Esther took it down carefully, spluttering as the dust tickled her nose and throat. She would wash and mend that later.

If I’m still here, she thought ruefully.