‘Where is Daddy?’ she asked now.

‘In bed.’

‘In bed! So what is it, Mummy? The ’flu?’

‘No. We don’t know, dear, ’til the doctor comes. But he looks bad.’

‘I don’t want to go to boarding school when Daddy is ill,’ said Kate. ‘I’ve made up my mind. I’m going to stay and look after him.’

‘No, dear. No, you’ve got to go. You can’t miss the first day, it’s so important.’

‘But Daddy is important, to me.’

‘I can look after him.’

‘No you can’t, Mummy. And you can’t run the farm on your own. Who’s going to milk the cows?’

‘Don’t tell me what I can’t do, Kate. You go up and see your father, see what he wants you to do.’ Sally looked wearily at her daughter’s assertive expression. She didn’t need a battle with her now. ‘And don’t twist your father round your little finger – madam,’ she added, in a good-humoured way.

Kate flounced up the stairs, her cheeks hot with determination. She pushed open the varnished wood door to her parents’ bedroom and swanned up to the bed.

‘Daddy?’

What she saw extinguished her enthusiasm like a candle-flame being snuffed out. The man looking at her from the bed was a pale ghost of the father she knew. The sparkle had gone from his eyes, they looked like two bubbles surrounded by shadows, and his skin was a sickly yellow. Even the whites of his eyes were yellow. He tried to smile, but it didn’t convince Kate. Obviously her father was seriously ill.

Shocked, she sat down in the green Lloyd Loom chair beside the bed, and reached for his hand, which lay limply on the satiny brown eiderdown. Her hand looked pink against his yellow skin.

‘What is it, Daddy?’

‘I don’t know,’ he whispered. ‘Not ’til the doctor’s been.’

‘I’m going to stay home and look after you. And I’ll milk the cows,’ said Kate firmly.

Her father put his arm round her as she sat on the bed, and his fingers twiddled the ends of her hair.

‘My Kate,’ he said. ‘You’re a good girl.’

‘I’ll do anything you want, Daddy, to help you get better.’

‘Now you listen to me,’ said Bertie, and his eyes shone out of his sickly face. ‘What I want, Kate, is for you to go to school. You put that smart uniform on in the morning, and you go, without any fuss, and get a good education. That’s what I want.’

‘But Daddy—’

‘No buts. And no argument, please. Ethie is going to stay, ’til I’m better. She’s older and stronger than you, Kate.’

Tears of frustration ran down Kate’s face.

‘It’s not fair, Daddy. I’m a much better nurse than Ethie. I’ll cheer you up. Ethie is so cross and grumpy.’

‘I know, but Ethie will do her best, Kate. Come on, you do your best for me, go to school and that will make me happy.’

Exhausted, Bertie sank back against the stack of lavender-scented pillows Sally had arranged for him. Kate gazed at him, her lips twitching with the conflicting feelings in her mind. She held her father’s hand tightly while he dozed, and she could feel the love and the ebbing strength he was sending her through those work-worn fingers. She felt as if she was part of him. She was the bright love and encouragement he’d given her all her life. She was the beaming smile that lived inside Bertie’s soul, a smile more powerful than the sun.

Kate had come upstairs determined to refuse to go to school. She felt old enough and well capable of nursing her father, giving him back some of that love, making him smile. She would put a rose on his breakfast tray on the snowy white cloth. She’d cover his boiled egg with a cheerful red and green cosy she’d knitted. She’d write jokes on a square of paper, fold it into sixteen triangles, and hide it in his napkin for him to find. Then she’d sit on his bed and chatter. Kate knew what her father needed, better than Ethie did. It wasn’t fair. Or was it?

Ethie had almost finished her education, begrudgingly, now she only wanted to leave school and work at home. She was perfectly capable of running the farm, making butter and cheese, making clothes on the treadle sewing machine. But she worked mechanically and joylessly, only laughing when Kate was with her.

It didn’t take Kate long to change her mind.

‘All right, Daddy. If that’s what you want,’ she said, ‘I’ll go to school. I was looking forward to it.’

Bertie opened his eyes and saw her smile.

‘That’s my girl,’ he said huskily. ‘My golden bird.’

Kate’s face lit up.

‘Tell me again, Daddy – about the golden bird,’ she begged. ‘Please, Daddy.’

‘Come here then.’

Kate snuggled onto the bed, curling her legs up, her head resting on Bertie’s shoulder. She could hear his heart going faster as he started to talk, his breath rattling a little. His voice grew stronger as he told their favourite story, his hands twined in his daughter’s wavy hair, enjoying the bright energy of her presence.

‘When you were born,’ he began, ‘here in this room, ’twas a scorcher, one of the hottest days in the summer. The cows were in the shade under the elm trees swishing their tails, and the horses were standing in the river up to their bellies. I was downstairs making cheese in the kitchen, and listening to the midwife walking about upstairs, I could hear the ceiling creaking and squeaking. It was scary, for me down there, listening. When Ethie was born, she didn’t come easy and there was a lot of noise, but when you were born your mother never made a sound. It was a surprise. I heard one scream, at three o’clock, and it wasn’t a scream of pain, it was a scream of joy.’ Bertie stopped for breath and Kate glanced up at the yellow skin of his face, thinking that already a hint of pink was returning to his cheeks.

‘Then –’ he continued. ‘The clock struck three – one – two – three chimes, the door opened, and the midwife called me to go up. Oh I went up those stairs three at a time, wiping my hands on—’ He paused, waiting for Kate to giggle as she always did at that part of the story. He looked at her bright eyes.

‘On the seat of your trousers!’ she squealed.

‘Yes,’ fuelled by her ringing laugh Bertie continued, lowering his voice as he approached the magical part of the story. ‘Well, I went in, and there you were, bright as a button in your mother’s arms and she was sitting up in bed with her face round and smiling like a dinner plate.’

‘Was I crying?’ asked Kate.

‘No. You weren’t. You were lovely. The midwife wrapped you in a cream shawl and put you in my arms. I carried you over to the window, and there, outside, on a branch of the walnut tree, was a golden bird.’ He lowered his voice to a whisper. ‘And none of us had ever seen a bird like it before. It was bright orange-yellow, sitting there in the tree, and it stayed there, singing. It stayed in the garden for the rest of the day.’

‘What was it?’ Kate asked, even though she knew the answer.

‘A golden oriole,’ said Bertie. ‘We asked old Mrs Barcussy and she knew; she looked it up in a book she’d got about birds, and showed us a picture of it. It came over from Europe, she said, and a very rare visitor, it was. So that’s why I called you my golden bird.’

‘And my name,’ said Kate. ‘Oriole Kate, that’s why.’

‘That’s why.’ Bertie closed his eyes again and the breath rattled in his chest. ‘Oriole Kate.’

They rested, each thinking about the golden bird. The effort of talking had drained Bertie, but he was struggling to tell her something else.

‘There’s a legend,’ he said, ‘that if a golden bird appears when a baby is born, it . . .’

His voice faded away and he sank deeper into the pillows, his eyes fixed on Kate’s eager face. Then the door opened and Ethie came in with a bucket. She looked sourly at her younger sister curled on the bed.

‘You shouldn’t be in here, Kate,’ she said curtly, ‘Daddy’s too ill to cope with you bouncing around.’

‘I’m not bouncing around, I’m cheering him up.’

‘That’s MY job now,’ said Ethie fiercely. ‘I’m staying here and you should be packing, shouldn’t you?’