‘Oh, Grandad!’ Kate giggled and wriggled her fingers against the old man’s ribs to tickle him, but she could not feel his body beneath the thick coat he wore. Although spring had arrived, it was still cold riding on the front of his cart in all weathers when the wind whipped across the flat Lincolnshire fenland. Kate loved her grandfather. As long as she could remember, he had spoilt her and could be relied upon to take her side, even against her mother. He always looked so smart, Kate thought looking up at him now, with his black trousers and pin-striped jacket and matching waistcoat, a gold watch-chain looped across his narrow chest. She only had to ask for him to pull the watch out of his pocket and hold it to her ear to listen to its tiny tick-tick-tick. And his boots, resting on the foot-board, shone so that she could almost see her face in their hard, rounded toe-caps. She liked it in summer when he wore a rakish boater-shaped hat, but today he still wore his winter cap against the cold. His smooth hair was almost completely white with only a few strands of the ginger colour it had once been still showing. Will Benson’s old eyes twinkled down at her and he wiggled his white moustache. ‘You’ll be losing yar playmate then, eh, Katie?’

Remembering suddenly, the smile fled from her face.

‘Grandad – ya’ve got to speak to me mam. She’s going to send me away. To boarding school. Ya won’t let her, will ya, Grandad?’

Will Benson slapped the two horses with the reins and above the rattle of the cart’s wheels he asked, ‘What? What’s that you say?’

Raising her voice, Kate repeated, ‘Me mam’s sending me to boarding school in Lincoln, come September. I dun’t want to go, Grandad. I’ll hate it!’

‘Huh!’ Will made a disapproving noise and muttered something that sounded like ‘We’ll see about this’. Above the noise of the cart-wheels, however, Kate could not be sure exactly what he had said.

But she was sure the moment he opened the back door of the farmhouse and stepped into the back scullery.

‘Esther,’ he bellowed. ‘You here, Esther?’

‘In here, Dad,’ came her mother’s voice. Kate followed her grandfather into the kitchen.

Esther Godfrey was standing at the large kitchen table. A thick blanket was spread upon it and an old sheet, worn to transparent thinness, on top of that. Two flat irons were heating on the range while she worked with a third ironing the previous morning’s wash. From the wicker cradle in the far corner came the baby’s mewling.

‘Oh, there you are, Missy! And just where did you disappear to?’ her mother began and Kate was sure she added under her breath, ‘As if I need to ask!’