It was dinner time before she had finished this one room and there was still the huge black range to tackle. She surveyed the clean kitchen with satisfaction. The back scullery and the range would have to wait. Now she would try to find something to make Sam Brumby a midday meal.

She went out of the house and turned to the right. Adjoining the main house was a low building constructed in the same brick and roof tiles. The first door she opened was the wash-house. She sniffed the damp, mouldy air.

‘Sam hasn’t done much washing in ’ere lately’, she murmured, wrinkling her nose. I’ll attend to that later, she promised herself, leaving the door open to let in the fresh air. Beyond the wash-house, on the corner, was the privy. Esther turned again to the right, round the corner of the building and stepped on to grass. To her left was a pond with a beautiful weeping willow tree straggling its graceful fronds in the water. Five green-headed ducks, wriggling their tails, waddled round the edge then flopped into the water. Hens wandered freely about the yard and the grass, scratching and pecking. At the far side of the pond the gander and his geese paraded up and down. The gander held his head proudly and pretended not to notice Esther.

She moved on beyond the end of the house and round to the front. She found herself in what must once have been a well-tended front garden and orchard, but now the weeds were trying to strangle the few surviving flowers. Fruit trees grew up out of the long, unkempt grass but to one side she found a small vegetable patch which showed signs of recent digging. She fetched a fork from one of the small sheds and dug up a spring cabbage and a few leeks. She even found a turnip that had been left in the ground.

Back in the kitchen she washed and sliced the vegetables and put them together with some of the cooked bacon into a clean cooking pot on the fire in the range. Soon the aroma of a kind of stew filled the kitchen. It was a warm, inviting smell which Esther guessed – and rather hoped – had not welcomed Sam Brumby for some years.

Esther was bending over the fire ladling stew into three bowls when Sam entered the house with Matthew behind him. Wordlessly, she placed one bowl on the table in front of the chair where Sam had sat the previous day. She placed another for Matthew and sat down before the third herself.

‘By gum, this is good – a good cook as well as pretty!’ Matthew grinned.

Esther hacked off a piece of bread for herself making no outward response to his compliment, though she felt a glow of pleasure.