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Back Plough the Furrow Save as PDF
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

The house was strangely quiet without Matthew, and Kate was doleful and lethargic. Esther too felt listless and tired. All the spirit and energy that was her nature had been drained out of her. The hard work and the worry she had known since she had brought Matthew home were now reaping their own toll upon her vitality and strength of will. To say nothing of the sadness locked within her own heart. There was no doubt that she had drawn on her reserves of strength this last year – and long before that too, if she were honest.

She walked along the shore deep in thought. Part of her longed to go to the place she had loved. The end of the Spit. But she could not yet face the spot where they had found Matthew’s body. She feared her special place despoiled by the tragedy in a way that it had not been by her own traumatic experience there. That, she could rise above, but with this last disaster she was not so sure – not yet.

She had not seen her husbands body in death – the men had told her she should not. In her imagination she had visualized it bloated and battered, and shuddered at the thought. To think that he had survived the horrors of the trenches only to die in the place that was his home.

Matthew had died trying, so he had thought, to save the woman he loved and his own son. But in that last split second, he had seen Beth on the bank and had known she and Danny were safe. Esther believed that was all he had wanted. He could have saved himself then, he could have jumped towards the willing arms stretched out to help him. Instead he had just stood there, gazing down at Beth. He had indeed gone back to her just as Beth had always predicted. At the moment when death was inevitable – and he must have known that it was – hers was the last face Matthew saw.

Esther sank down on to the sand and gazed out across the calm water. How deceptively tranquil and innocent the sea looked now, as if it could never have been the foaming fury that had taken Matthew.

She stayed there a long time, until the winter afternoon grew cold and dusk came creeping across the water. Then forcing her cramped legs to stand, she turned her back on the sea and lifting her head she turned homeward – back to Kate and the farm.

Always, there was Brumbys’ Farm.

Forty-two

THREE weeks after the funeral when the demands of the farm had forced Esther to return to her routine, she steeled herself to open the big doors of the barn that housed the contraption, as she still called it, which Matthew had bought in his moment of madness.