Molly did not look back. There would be too much between them, too much pain in his eyes. So she told him as gently as she knew how, and not without regret, ‘Then it must be without me.’ She felt his fingers grip into her shoulder, and, for a moment, she was afraid that he meant to swing her round to face him. But then his hand slid away and she was free to go.

Without another word, Molly walked on, away from the barge where she had spent many happy hours, away from a man who was both good and sincere, and along the wharf until, at the far end, she turned. She had thought to see his strikingly handsome figure standing astride the deck, with his passionate brown eyes seeking her out. When there was no sign of him, it was as if a lead weight had filled her heart. ‘God bless and keep you, Mick Darcy,’ she murmured, ‘wherever you go.’

As she turned away, realizing that she might never see him again, Molly wondered at the feelings she had experienced in his arms. Warm and wonderful feelings that left her still trembling. But she could not accept that it could be love. ‘I’m lonely,’ she told herself, ‘that’s all.’ Then, with a surge of anger, she said through gritted teeth, ‘Jack, you bugger! It’s high time you came home.’ In fact he had been gone so long that, if he were not home by the time she had served her three months up at the big house, she would make it her business to track him down.

Molly loved the clinging, flowery smell of beeswax; as she polished the lovely walnut dining table, its particular perfume filled the air and made her think of spring sunshine. Of a sudden she was softly humming a tune, every now and then peeping out of the window to stare across the lawns towards the summerhouse. Little Sal was sitting there, browsing through a picture book that Nelly had lent her.

Seeing the deep and contented look on her daughter’s face, Molly paused in her labours to gaze a while longer. Outside the sun was shining and there was no breeze at all. There on the sundial was perched a tiny robin redbreast, dipping his head this way and that, and occasionally letting out a thin, piercing chirp. There was a freshness about everything, and a wholesomeness that lent a deal of content to Molly, who was lost so deeply in the wonder of it all that, when the door was flung open, she gave a small cry and swung round with her black eyes big and fearful. ‘Oh, Miss Nelly!’ she cried, visibly sagging with relief.

‘Heavens above, gal!’ retorted Nelly. ‘Yer nothing but a bag of nerves.’ She sauntered to the window where Molly had been standing until, upon Nelly’s arrival, she had quickly resumed her polishing. ‘It ain’t like a December day, is it, eh?’ she said, gazing at Sal who had caught sight of her and was frantically waving. ‘More like spring, I reckon,’ she said, cheerily waving back.