‘Thank you, Aunt Hannah,’ she said to herself, grudgingly admitting that the reason she at least knew how to do the sowing this way was once more due to her aunt. How was it, she mused to herself as she walked up and down the fields, casting the seed from side to side as she went, that she could not bring herself to think of her aunt with any shred of affection? Yet she was forced to acknowledge that all the learning and the know-how she was now drawing on in her lone struggle to survive, she had acquired from her aunt. Even her stubborn resilience – going to bed each night to sleep the sleep of the exhausted and rising still as bone-weary to face another lonely day – had been fostered by her aunt’s harshness. Esther had survived a loveless childhood and grown the stronger for it. But having known love, Jonathan’s love, and for that matter Ma Harris’s friendship, it was harder now to live without affection. She had the farm, Esther told herself sternly when weakness threatened to overwhelm her. She had Kate and always, she had Will. He still came each week, as faithful and uncritical as ever.

Esther never spoke of Jonathan to anyone – was never able to say his name aloud. Not even to Will, for whilst he stood by her, defended her sometimes in the face of the censure of those around, she knew that even he had disapproved of her love for Jonathan.

Her heartache and her loneliness had to remain locked silently within her own heart. The days stretched ahead, unendingly desolate. She would face them – and she would survive – but, oh, how she missed the feel of Jonathan’s arms around her!

On a bright summer morning in 1917, Esther woke with a sense of foreboding. It stayed with her through milking. The animals were restless and obstinate, and later, in the dairy, the heat of midday affected the milk and the butter would not come. She churned and churned until the sweat prickled her armpits and ran in rivulets down between her breasts.

‘Mrs Hilton, Mrs Hilton.’

‘Now what?’ she muttered, passing the back of her hand across her damp forehead. Giving the churn one last vicious turn, and then letting the handle swing loose, she stepped out of the pantry, through the kitchen and out of the back door into the sunlight. She screwed up her eyes against the glare and shaded her face with her hand trying to see who the caller was. A dark uniformed shape stood before her, thrusting a white square of paper into her hand.

‘It – it’s a telegram, missus.’ The young man’s tone was apologetic.

Esther stood staring at it, not moving, until he thrust it towards her again, anxious to be gone before she read what awful news it must contain.