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Back Plough the Furrow
Chapters (53)
  1. Cover
  2. Title page
  3. Dedication page
  4. One
  5. Two
  6. Three
  7. Four
  8. Five
  9. Six
  10. Seven
  11. Eight
  12. Nine
  13. Ten
  14. Eleven
  15. Twelve
  16. Thirteen
  17. Fourteen
  18. Fifteen
  19. Sixteen
  20. Seventeen
  21. Eighteen
  22. Nineteen
  23. Twenty
  24. Twenty-one
  25. Twenty-two
  26. Twenty-three
  27. Twenty-four
  28. Twenty-five
  29. Twenty-six
  30. Twenty-seven
  31. Twenty-eight
  32. Twenty-nine
  33. Thirty
  34. Thirty-one
  35. Thirty-two
  36. Thirty-three
  37. Thirty-four
  38. Thirty-five
  39. Thirty-six
  40. Thirty-seven
  41. Thirty-eight
  42. Thirty-nine
  43. Forty
  44. Forty-one
  45. Forty-two
  46. Forty-three
  47. Forty-four
  48. Sow the Seed
  49. Reap the Harvest
  50. About the Author
  51. ALSO BY MARGARET DICKINSON
  52. Acknowledgements
  53. Copyright page

So some of her burden eased, at least some of the physical hardship, now that Matthew did not need quite so much help. Yet the farm work still lay fully on her shoulders. Matthew made no effort to do even the simplest tasks. He just wanted to spend his days with the children, and when they were at school, he would sit by the range or near the pond and gaze into nothingness.

Although Esther gave thanks for Matthew’s steady recovery, in her innermost heart Jonathan was never far from her thoughts.

She still slipped away to stand on the end of the Spit, to put her face up to the sky and the wind, to close her eyes and let the peace of the place surround her. This time of solitude she allowed herself was her only way of renewing her strength of purpose. Her iron resolve would not let her do any other than what she had vowed to herself to do; to turn her back on dreams and face reality. She would care for her sick husband and she would not let her longing for Jonathan eat away at her and destroy her. Her pledge renewed, she would turn away from the place where the sea and the sky and the land seemed to meet and once more take up the burden of caring for Matthew and Kate and running the farm single-handed.

With the coming of spring came a surprise for Esther. Suddenly, there were willing hands to help with the late ploughing and the spring sowing. Labourers from neighbouring farms appeared unasked and unheralded, sheepish grins on their faces. ‘Thought you could use a hand, missus, just till yar man’s well again, like.’

Esther held back the bitter retort that she had desperately needed their help during Matthew’s absence, but she knew that the reason they had stayed away towards the end of the war was solely because of her association with Jonathan. Now they had come back and she was far too sensible to turn away their help, however much her prickly pride might have liked to do so. Maybe they had talked it over amongst themselves, or maybe they’d just drifted back automatically now that her husband was home and the soldier gone. She had no way of knowing and she was certainly not going to ask.

Matthew made no effort to help, not even with light jobs that in Esther’s opinion he could have managed now. He sat in the spring sunshine or outside the pub on a bench and watched the rest of his little world at work or at play, apparently apathetic, locked in his own private existence.