‘I’ll not be in debt to anyone, Matthew. An’ it’ll not make a fool of you as long as you go and pay the man. But,’ she lowered her voice and there was a threat in her words, ‘if you don’t do it – I will!’ She turned on her heel and marched back into the wash-house. Within five seconds the clothes were taking a vicious pounding in the dolly tub.

She heard Matthew leading the horses into the stable. Esther tried to calculate in her head. Would they have enough feed to last through a long, hard winter with two great horses now as well as the cows and other livestock?

In their bed that night, for the first time since before the birth of Beth’s child, Matthew took Esther roughly and swiftly, with a bitter fury, as if he bore her a deep resentment and yet he still wanted her. He could not quell his desire for her, yet he despised himself for succumbing to his physical need and for being rendered defenceless by her nearness. His young, virile body could not deny itself the pleasure which she, whilst taking no pleasure herself, never denied him.

Esther was deliberately keeping her part of the marriage bargain.

During the weeks that followed, Matthew worked long hours at the ploughing. He stayed away from the Seagull and the Point – and Beth.

Some days Esther took her turn behind the plough. She came to love the great plodding horses with their gentle eyes and shaggy manes and tails. They were strong with broad, muscular backs and massive hindquarters that pulled the plough through the hard ground as easily as drawing a knife through butter. They were a team and they seemed to know without being told what they had to do. They would turn at the end of a furrow, never faltering, plodding steadily around the rig she had marked out, seeming to slow imperceptibly whilst Esther lifted the plough, ran it along the top edge and then let it down again. Up and down the long straight furrow they plodded, one horse walking in the hollow of the furrow, the other on the unturned turf. Up and down, up and down, whilst above their wise old heads, seagulls screeched greedily and swooped down behind the plough on to the newly turned earth to search for morsels.

One morning Esther caught sight of Will Benson’s cart coming down the lane and heard the blast on his whistle to herald his approach. She halted the horses near the edge of the field that bordered the lane. As the carrier’s cart slowed to a stop she could see Will’s grinning face. He was wearing a greatcoat over his suit, for it was bitterly cold riding on the front of his cart.