Anger flooded through Esther and she struggled to her feet. She stood facing Martha, her eyes flashing fire, her hands on her hips. But before she could utter a word, Tom’s booming voice rang out in the early morning light.

‘That’s enough, Martha.’ He stepped between them, but his face was in shadow so that Esther could not see his expression. When he spoke his voice was so hard and cold that Esther was shocked. ‘Ya’d better go home, Esther.’

She stood before him now, swaying slightly. This was too much. Martha’s malice she could take, but not Tom’s animosity. Never Tom’s. The fatigue of the night’s work, her own very personal misery and now this threatened to overwhelm her. Esther’s shoulders sagged and her arms hung limply at her sides. All her strength drained from her. She looked up at Tom and tears welled in her eyes as she whispered, ‘Not you too, Tom. You don’t believe I’d fire ya stack? Surely you don’t!’

Tom shook his head as if not knowing what to believe. ‘Just – go home, Esther. It’d be for the best, lass.’

Martha was quiet now, watchful and triumphant. For a moment it had seemed as if her husband was going to take Esther’s side, but he had not. Even though he had not exactly taken his wife’s side either, Esther could feel Martha’s sense of victory.

She turned away hurt and sick at heart.

One day merged into another, each the same as the last. The work she had once loved, had revelled in, became drudgery.

Where was the reason to go on living now that he was gone?

She wandered the shore, grieving as if Jonathan were already dead, lost to her for ever.

During the time that he had been with her she had attended church infrequently. It was as if she had been afraid of retribution, for her early childhood had been spent beneath the flailing arms and chest-beating, fire and brimstone preacher in the pulpit, who had instilled fear of eternal damnation into the young child, which even the maturity of later years and reasoning found hard to dispel completely.

Now she returned taking Kate with her and hoping to find comfort and understanding. Unashamedly – though only in the silence of her own heart – she prayed for Jonathan’s safety.

‘If only I could know that somewhere he is alive and safe, then I could find the will to go on living.’

She emerged from the church to shake hands with the vicar and nod to the members of the congregation she knew.