She looked in at the pigs and then wandered round the side of the house past the pond with the huge weeping willow tree bending over and trailing its fronds in the water and round to the front of the house which faced westwards. She stood a moment among the fruit trees laden now with the fruit which usually she helped to pick.

This year she would not be here.

She gazed out across the flat fields beneath the huge expanse of sky. Stooks of corn stood sentinel in the fields waiting to be collected and brought to the farmyard to be stacked. She would not be here to hear the familiar cry, ‘Harvest home, harvest home’, when her mother placed the last sheaf on the last load. She would not be able to join the gleaners who scoured the fields for every last wisp of corn.

She turned away and went back through the yard and out into the lane. She stood for a moment poised on her toes, holding her breath. She glanced back over her shoulder but there was no one in the yard. Then she began to run.

‘I’m sorry, lovey. Danny’s not here. He’s at work.’

‘I was afraid he might be. I – I came to say goodbye.’

‘Oh,’ Mrs Eland said. ‘Oh, I see.’ She was looking at Kate with her brown, sad, eyes. Her black hair was drawn severely back from her face into a bun at the nape of her neck. Already there were wisps of grey at her temples even though, Kate guessed, Beth Eland must be a similar age to her mother, – only in her early thirties.

Returning the woman’s steady gaze, Kate thought – and not for the first time – that Danny’s mother could be really beautiful, as striking as her own mother, if she were to take a little trouble over her appearance. She had a lovely face, with high cheek-bones and dark eyes fringed with long black lashes. Her figure was a little too buxom to be fashionable, but to Kate it made Mrs Eland seem all the more warm and motherly. She was reaching out now and touching Kate’s face in a gentle gesture. ‘Tek care of ya’sen, lovey.’

Kate nodded and said flatly, ‘I’ll see you at – Christmas.’ It seemed an age away and though Danny’s mother said, ‘It’ll soon be here,’ even her tone lacked conviction.

At the cottage next door, Kate found herself swept against Grannie Harris’s ample bosom. ‘Eh me lass, we’ll miss you, all on us. ‘Specially Rosie. There’s nobody like Kate Hilton in young Rosie’s eyes.’

Kate’s summer had been spent with Rosie. The child had been her constant companion.

‘Let’s go and find her. She’d never forgive me if I let you go without seeing her.’