During the weeks which followed the Armistice, Esther grew increasingly restless. There was little she could do on the land in December, nor could she seem to generate any enthusiasm for Christmas preparations. Once again she had struggled virtually alone with her harvest, though this year she had use of the squire’s horses for a week and the loan of one of his men. Yet again, no one from the Point had offered help, nor even Tom Willoughby. And Ma Harris, whose coldness hurt more than anyone’s, kept stubbornly away from Brumbys’ Farm – and Esther.

Wandering around the farm watching the pigs, the hens, checking on the cows, Esther felt as if she were waiting for something to happen, only it didn’t seem to be happening.

She sighed and walked towards the farm gate, leaning on it and looking up the road towards the town. If only he would come walking back round the bend. But the lane was empty. There was no sign of a tall, fair-haired soldier marching towards her.

Her gaze travelled round and came to rest on the rise in the road – the Hump – beyond which were the cottages at the Point. Before she fully realized what she was doing, or had even stopped to think, she was moving out of her gate and down the lane towards the Point. She knocked on the door of Ma Harris’s cottage and stood waiting, her heart thumping. It was strange that she should feel afraid. She had missed Ma’s warmth, her chatter, her friendship so much. As she stood there she could hear the sound of children laughing and shrieking as they played on the scrubland beyond the cottage.

The door opened and Ma stood there, wiping her floury hands on her apron.

‘Oh – it’s you,’ she said, turned away abruptly and went back to her kitchen table to her pastry-making. But she left the door open. At least she had not slammed it in Esther’s face.

‘Ma – can I come in?’ This was a new Esther, a tentative, penitent Esther.

‘If ya must.’

‘Ma – can’t we be friends again?’

The older woman glanced at her and then back to her pastry, thumping it over and over, rolling it out with the wooden rolling pin. For a long time she didn’t answer.

‘Ya know what the Good Book says, “As ye sow, so shall ye reap.” There’ll come a day of reckoning, lass. Somewhere, some time you’ll be made to pay.’

An angry retort rose to Esther’s lips, but for once she literally bit back the words, pressing her teeth into her bottom lip to suppress them.