Chapters (53)
- Cover
- Title page
- Dedication page
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Thirty-three
- Thirty-four
- Thirty-five
- Thirty-six
- Thirty-seven
- Thirty-eight
- Thirty-nine
- Forty
- Forty-one
- Forty-two
- Forty-three
- Forty-four
- Sow the Seed
- Reap the Harvest
- About the Author
- ALSO BY MARGARET DICKINSON
- Acknowledgements
- Copyright page
Esther turned and blundered away before anyone might see her tears. She picked up her skirts and ran and ran across the marshland and along the Spit. Running, running until she felt her lungs would burst. At the end of the Spit, close to the water’s edge, she picked up a handful of stones and hurled them one by one into the water.
Angry tears blurred her vision.
Why was she being punished for having loved Jonathan? When at last she’d tasted – oh, so briefly – real happiness, it had been cruelly snatched away. Now, even her tender memories were being soured by the condemnation of those around her.
Down the years, in brutal mockery, came the echo of Beth’s curse.
‘You an’ yours will never know happiness.’
Thirty-one
IT seemed incredible to all of them that the war had been going on for over two and a half years. Mothers dreaded the passing of the months as their sons who were still at home grew older, nearer and nearer the age when they could volunteer, or be called up. Esther heard – through Enid – that Peter Harris, now fifteen, was already planning to volunteer. Esther shuddered and, despite Ma’s present coldness towards her, she prayed that the woman who had once shown her such friendliness would not lose yet another son to the war.
As men were killed and went on being killed in their thousands, the Military Service Act had been passed the previous February and all men between the ages of eighteen and forty-one who did not have special exemption were being conscripted. Wives feared that any day their husbands, who had believed themselves too old, would have to go too. Would Robert Eland and maybe even Mr Harris and Tom Willoughby be next? Esther wondered.
She dragged herself through the weeks and months, through the ploughing, through the spring sowing. Now no one came to offer to lend her their machinery, horses or manpower. Whether it was because they were no longer able to offer the help or because they no longer wished to help Esther Hilton of Brumbys’ Farm, she did not know. She managed most of the ploughing with her own pair of horses, but the seed drilling was beyond her strength and she was obliged to go back to the old way of broadcasting the seed from a carrier hung around her neck and shoulders.