“I don’t think the quartermaster is fully aware of how generous he’s been.”

She lets loose a glorious, unbridled peal of laughter. Looks shocked for a moment, as if it stole up on her unawares. Then laughs again, at her own laughter, and I feel prickled all over by her pleasure, and mine, and laugh with her.

Lucy, with my help, transfers herself nimbly into the passenger seat of the Land Rover. “How’s Bailey, Vicar?”

“He doesn’t need his spoon anymore,” I tell her, proud as any father.

I watch them travel up to the end of Church Walk. Then Ellen backs onto the village green and drives away, leaving with nothing but a swirling wake of water. A swirling wake of water and a man standing motionless in the middle of the icy flood, still smiling.

—

Everyone, it turns out, is grateful for paraffin stoves. My last call is on Matilda Rail at the top of the alley. She takes a while to open the door. “Oh, thank you, dear. Will you bring it upstairs for me?”

I stand the stove in the corner of her tiny bedroom, beside the chest of three narrow drawers that likely contain all her clothes. The floor is uncarpeted, a rag rug covering the bare boards by her china jug and basin. All these houses have been fitted with bathrooms, but there’s a poor thin towel on a hook next to the window. She must pour water from the jug into the basin every morning to wash her face and hands. Above her bedstead hangs a Bible verse in needlework. REMEMBER NOW THY CREATOR IN THE DAYS OF THY YOUTH. In smaller script underneath, ECCLESIASTES xii.i and beneath that, MATILDA PERRY AG’D 10 YRS, and then the date 9-X-1901.

She’s climbing the stairs behind me now, a toiling figure, grappling on to both banisters.

“Shall I light it for you, Mrs. Rail?”

“Bless you, I know how to light a gas stove.”

She reaches the room, pulls matches from her cardigan pocket, and does so. Then she straightens up and gives me a once-over, her eyes darting points of light beneath the brooding lids. “You were having a nice chat with Ellen Calvert, I saw.”

I am reminded forcefully that I live in a village.

“Calvert, did you say?” I make sure my tone is unruffled, cheerful. “She introduced herself to me as Ellen Parr.”

Matilda Rail tuts. “Parr, that’s just her married name. She was Miss Calvert, that taught at Upton School when she was young.”

“I didn’t know she was a teacher.”