‘Afore he was ill. She was all on the hanker to move, that was the first thing. After nearly fourteen years, mark you, all at once she don’t like the place, nor the neighbours, nor the house. She’s on and on about being a woman with a profession what can earn her living anywhere, a woman thass wasting her training and her skill. Now, Miss, you’re a woman with training, and you’re putting it to use. You’re sure you never even hinted to Em she was wasting her life? You might not be so wrong, at that, if you look at it squarely.’ He looked about the room. ‘Maybe you didn’t hev to say anything. Maybe the sight of you, doing your rightful job and living so nice, was enough to set Em thinking how she could hev lived and been looked up to if she hadn’t gone and married a cobbler.’

‘That is utter nonsense. For one thing, any woman who is married – even if her husband is deaf or drunk or crazy or cruel – in her heart is convinced that she is superior to any unmarried woman. For another, you’re not a cobbler; you’re a skilled craftsman. And also I have only had two conversations with your wife, both about Sydney and his education. If this other matter had ever come up, I should have said what I truly believe, that any woman who makes a home and brings up a child is doing the job God created her for.’

He gave a deep, heavy sigh.

‘Then we’re no nearer. I hoped you’d tell me something that I could put on the table and hev out with Em. You see, I know something’s gone amiss. Take this sleeping. I just happened to mention she was tossing and turning and muttering. My owd mother was a great believer in a lime pillow for bad sleeping, and there’s a lot of sense in some of them owd notions – arter all, people used to live and keep healthy without doctors in the owd days. So I said, “Come the limes in bloom, Em, and that ain’t far ahead, I’ll make you a lime pillow.” No harm in that, is there? And what happens?’ He answered his own question. ‘She go flouncing off and make herself a bed in that little place over the scullery, no bigger’n a dog kennel. My Em!’

‘Oh dear,’ said Miss Mayfield, embarrassed. ‘Still, it was the sensible thing to do, wasn’t it? It ensures that you get a good night’s sleep.’