Peter said that when Father first took on the farm he hadn’t any idea what to do – he had no background in it and their farmworkers, especially the ploughman, Billy, used to tell Father, ‘You’ll larn.’ Verity couldn’t imagine anyone speaking to Father like that. She remembered Billy as a kind, red-faced man. Real Norfolk. Deferential but blunt. He’d saved the farm in ’30 according to Father. Then he went off to war and they turned more of the land to arable for the war effort. They’d had land girls to help and money from the Ministry for crops, but since Mother’s death, it had all languished. Verity was just one more worry. She suspected he wanted to get her off his hands and the only way he knew how to do this was through marriage. As if she exhausted him, as everything now did.

‘Where’s your brother?’ Her father was staring at her with his disconcerting, pale, heavy-lidded eyes.

‘I don’t know,’ she said, and this was true. She didn’t know exactly where he was. ‘I gave him your message.’

Her father murmured acknowledgement and she turned to go.

‘Verity,’ he said, peering past her at the door. ‘I’ve arranged a visit with the De Veres next week. For you to spend time with Richard.’

She felt her whole body tense. ‘Please, Daddy, not that again.’

He gripped the side of his chair and seemed to be about to spring out of it to strike her. But then he sank back into the leather folds and closed his eyes. ‘We don’t have a choice. The farm – the farm cannot keep you.’

‘But I’m going to university.’

He looked at her with a kind of despair. ‘It’s not practical, Verity. And what is the point of all that time and effort if you are going to marry?’ So that was it then. The reality of what she was to him now – chattel he couldn’t afford.

She looked down at the floor, her head boiling. ‘I’ll pay my way. I’ll work—’

‘It’s not just about the money,’ he spat.

‘And I’ll work afterwards. They need people like me in – in government or – the arts!’

He sighed. ‘The arts,’ he said, as if she had told him she was going to the moon. ‘And how will that help with finding a husband?’

‘Can’t it wait?’ She was wailing now.

‘It’s what your mother wanted for you. I made a mistake, giving you ideas that couldn’t—’ He was cut off by a fit of coughing, wracking his hulking form.

She ran over to him but he waved her off. ‘Daddy, please,’ she said, not sure what she was asking for. But he raised his hand wearily as if she should leave.