Esther nodded. ‘You run along home. Enid . . .’ she added as the girl paused at the door and looked back at her. In the dim light they faced each other. ‘Enid, thanks for staying.’

Enid nodded but said nothing and as Esther listened to the girl’s footsteps going down the stairs, she knew that by the morning, Ma Harris would be regaled with all the sordid details of the night’s events.

As she changed Kate’s nightgown and bedding, Esther felt the first real stab of guilt despite her brave words to Jonathan. Whilst she had been making love with Jonathan in the hayloft, her little girl had been crying for her. Anything could have happened, she told herself fiercely. Kate could have been sick, or choking to death – and you wouldn’t have known. Or cared. Yes, yes, I would. Of course, I care. I’m not that bad, I’m not wicked.

But, said a nagging little voice inside her, you left a small child alone in the house whilst you . . . Now you’ve been found out and you’ll have to take the consequences.

‘I can’t give him up,’ she whispered, as later she lay sleepless in her own lonely bed, ‘I just can’t.’

The following morning Ma Harris arrived as usual to collect the milk and eggs from Esther. But her manner was nothing like as usual.

‘Well, lass, this is a fine how d’ya do, ain’t it?’

Esther faced the older woman’s stare boldly. There was no point in feigning misunderstanding. Besides, Esther was never one to tell lies.

‘You don’t understand . . .’

Ma Harris nodded, her toothless mouth pursed to nothingness. There was no familiar cackle of laughter this morning. ‘Oh, yes, I do, lass. I understand only too well. I know you hadn’t the perfect marriage with young Matthew. But you made yar bed, lass. Ya shouldn’t be lyin’ in it with another, now should ya? Specially not when yar man’s away fighting the war.’

‘I didn’t want him to go, you know that,’ she replied belligerently. ‘In fact I begged him not to go – if you remember?’

‘I remember all right. I suppose the next thing you’re goin’ to tell me is that none of this would have happened if he hadn’t gone?’

‘Well, it wouldn’t, would it?’

‘Dun’t lay the blame at Matthew’s door. This ain’t his fault.’

‘Oh, I suppose you’re like everyone else around here,’ Esther responded heatedly. ‘Blaming me for tricking Matthew into marrying me. Matthew should have married Beth, we all know that now, don’t we? But wicked Esther Everatt stole him away from poor, innocent Beth. Poor, innocent Beth indeed! She lifted her skirts for him, didn’t she, let him have his way with her and bore his bastard? But of course, it’s all my fault.’