‘I never said better. I said as good. After all, people who lived in out-of-the-way places in the old days they couldn’t get a doctor, could they? They sickened and they got better with the help of what was to hand. The old ways are mocked at now, but take this penny-sillin they make so much fuss of; nothing but a mould, they say, and everybody that knew anything knew that a good bread poultice should be made of bread gone blue with mould. My mother always had a piece, in a special crock, blue and green, in case of accidents. But get me talking about the old ways,’ she said with a smile, ‘and I could talk the leg off an iron pot. I expect what you really want to know is when is Ethel getting back to school. The truth is, she could come tomorrow if she wasn’t so silly. It’s her left hand that’s out of use and her legs and ears are all right. Juliet Reeve is the trouble.’

Miss Mayfield, looking at Ethel, saw a bright flush of colour run over her pallor.

‘She’s so sarky, always showing off and using long words. Not so long ago she said I was accident-prone. I said, what do you mean by that, and she told me. It meant you couldn’t thread a needle without it pricked you, or cut a slice of bread without you slashed your finger or hammer in a nail without banging your own thumb. So I ain’t – I am not coming to school wearing this.’ She twitched at the sling and slumped lower on the sofa, her face set in a mutinous, sulky expression.

Miss Mayfield’s mind went back to the ill-treated children in Alchester; she remembered their obvious dread of their parents, the parents’ truculence, the squalor of the surroundings. Nothing here was in any way akin. Ethel’s manner indeed bore out Miss Benson’s opinion; she was behaving like a spoilt child.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘in that case I suppose school must wait. Actually, I didn’t come to ask about that. I brought you a cake – cherry. I hope you’ll like that kind.’

‘It’s my favourite,’ Ethel said. ‘Could we have a piece now? And I tell you what, Gran; a glass of your cowslip’d go with it nicely.’

‘It’d take Ethel to think of that,’ Mrs Rigby said with fatuous pride. ‘Ethel’s the one to think of things, I must say.’

She rose and went to a corner cupboard, which would have been worth a considerable sum in the right market, and took out three glasses, shaped like tulips, on long stems.

‘You’ll take a glass, Miss. It’s sound and wholesome.’

‘Won the Women’s Institute prize,’ said Ethel, raising herself again. ‘Not just Walwyk, the whole county. Anything Gran put in for, she win every time.’