Ella clutched the door jamb and closed her eyes, screwing them up tightly against the hurt.

‘Esther, love,’ her grandfather’s deep voice came reproachfully. ‘I know you had a rough upbringing under your aunt’s harsh ways, but don’t do the same thing to Ella. Don’t drive her to walk out, like you did.’

Ella moved on out of the back door and walked slowly across the yard. What did her grandpa mean? Don’t do the same thing to Ella? What was ‘the same thing’?

She was tired of all the hints and innuendos about the past, her past. Ever since she had first come here, had been forced by circumstances to stay here, her grandmother had never once answered her probing questions; indeed, often, she had become angry. The words Ella had overheard just now had been like the proverbial ‘last straw’. It was time she found out what all the secrets were; high time she started asking questions and getting some answers.

But who could she ask?

Biting her lip thoughtfully, she walked round to the front of the house, squeezed through the hole in the hedge and was soon flying round the edge of the field, no longer a meadow but where tomorrow they would plant the spring wheat, and across the plank bridge towards Rookery Farm.

Grandma Eland might know. She’d ask her.

He was driving the tractor into the yard at Rookery Farm.

‘Rob,’ she called, and waved, shading her eyes against the late afternoon sun dropping low in the western sky. He parked the tractor in the Dutch barn and cut the engine. Then he leapt down and they moved towards each other.

‘I can’t come tonight,’ Ella told him, pulling a face. ‘Gran says no.’

She felt him looking at her closely, as he said, ‘There’s more to it than that. Her saying no has never stopped you before. You usually come anyway and take what’s comin’ later. So, come on – tell.’

She pushed her hands into the pockets of her trousers and scuffed at the cobbles on the yard with the toe of her plimsoll.

‘She says it’s because Grandpa’s not too well. He does seem very tired and – and I daren’t call her bluff. Not this time.’

‘Oh, well, if that’s the case, then fair enough. Besides, your gran wouldn’t say it just to stop you going.’

Ella glanced at him and smiled to herself. There he went again, sticking up for her grandmother. He’d never altered in his admiration for Esther Godfrey, ‘the Missus at Brumbys’ Farm’, and he wouldn’t hear a word said against her. Ella said nothing to disillusion him but she wasn’t quite sure she agreed with him; not in this instance anyway.

‘So you’ll tell Janice and Jimmy?’