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
He lowered himself into the chair and looked down at the piled plate she put in front of him. ‘I dun’t know if I can manage all that, lass. I ain’t quite mesen for eating yet.’
‘Dun’t worry,’ Esther assured him cheerily. ‘What you leave, the pigs won’t!’
Over the following weeks Will brought news of her aunt. ‘She’s better from the ’flu, but she ain’t making any more progress. She just sits all day long and George has to dress and undress her. I dun’t reckon she’ll ever be right again.’
If the news of her aunt was hopeless, at least day by day there were tentative signs that Matthew was improving. Esther’s tender and devoted care seemed to be soothing away his shakes. He made no husbandly demands upon her and she was grateful for that, for her thoughts were still with Jonathan. At night when they lay together in bed, she would put her arms around Matthew and pillow his head against her breast, stroking his hair until the shaking stilled and he fell asleep. She would be left staring into the blackness dreaming of bright, sunlit days in a sandy hollow on the beach.
The breakthrough that seemed to set Matthew on the way to recovery came from a most unexpected quarter, and one about which Esther was not altogether happy.
For one day in the early spring, Kate brought Danny Eland home to see her father.
Thirty-six
THE two children stood in front of Matthew sitting on the garden seat against the barn wall and regarded him solemnly.
Esther, coming out of the back door, stopped in surprise and caught her breath as she saw them. Quietly she moved forward to stand a little way to one side of them so that she could observe them, but, unless they turned, they would not see her. She could see all their faces in profile and she saw Matthew staring up at Danny. His head nodded and his hands fluttered helplessly. Slowly a smile spread across the young boy’s face, though there was no answering smile on Matthew’s.
Esther saw Kate give Danny a sharp nudge in the ribs with her elbow. ‘Don’t you laugh at him, Danny Eland. Just don’t you dare . . .’
The boy turned to look at Kate, their eyes on a level, staring into each other’s.
‘I weren’t. I wouldn’t do that, Katie. I was only being friendly-like.’ He turned his gaze back towards the pathetic man sitting before them. ‘I wouldn’t hurt him for the world. He’s been hurt enough. He went to war an’ I reckon he ought to have a row of medals. You ought to be proud of him, Kate. I’d be proud of him if he were my father!’