‘Oh – I’ve not really looked at them properly yet,’ said Herbie, ‘but they’ll fetch a lot of money. Rich folks with money to burn buy that sort of stuff.’

‘I’d like to buy them,’ said Freddie.

‘You couldn’t afford them, Freddie. Come on. What d’you want ’em for anyway? Stick one on the front of your lorry!’ Herbie gave one of his wheezy laughs that went on and on until it ended in a coughing fit.

Freddie thought about his savings. He’d done well with the haulage business and was planning to buy a second lorry. To blow it all on two stone lions would be foolish.

Herbie was leaning forward, his eyes looking curiously into Freddie’s soul. ‘So tell me – why do you want them?’

‘I’m interested in carving. I’ve watched you a lot,’ said Freddie. ‘I’d like to do it myself.’

‘’Tis hard,’ said Herbie, ‘a hard, dusty old job. Makes me cough. And look at me hands. You don’t want to do that, Freddie. You stick to your lorry, if you take my advice. Anyway, I doubt whether you could do a decent stone carving; it’s not as easy as you think.’

‘I could,’ said Freddie with unexpected passion. ‘I know I could.’

‘So what do you want to carve?’

‘An angel.’

‘That’s about the hardest thing you could choose.’

‘I know I could,’ insisted Freddie, thinking of Kate’s beautiful bewitching young face. ‘I can see it in my mind exactly.’

Herbie’s eyes looked thoughtful under the bushy brows. He began moving the blocks of stone around as if searching, and heaved out a big lump of sandstone from the Hilbegut gateposts.

‘I’ll tell you what, Freddie. This here, this is Bath stone, and it’s easy to carve. If you like, I’ll give you this block, and I’ll bet you can’t carve an angel out of that ’cause I couldn’t.’

Freddie’s eyes lit up. The angel inside the stone shone out at him. He could see its curved wings, its praying hands and flowing hair, and the tranquillity of its gaze.

‘How much d’you bet then, Herbie?’

‘A pound.’

‘Right. You’re on.’

The two men shook hands, their eyes glinting at each other. Together they heaved the block of Bath stone into the back of Freddie’s lorry.

‘You got any tools?’ asked Herbie.

‘A few.’

‘Chisels?’

‘No.’

‘I’d better lend you some.’ Herbie rummaged in his workshop and came out with a wooden box full of chisels. ‘I don’t want ’em back, Freddie. I got plenty.’

‘Thanks,’ said Freddie. He itched to take the chisel out and begin to carve the angel still shining in his mind. He had another job to do, hauling timber, and then he would go to Hilbegut.

‘For goodness’ sake, Kate, stop that crying,’ said Sally briskly. She stood very upright, dressed in her best navy blue dress and hat, the breeze ruffling a few wisps of grey hair that had escaped from her tightly coiled bun. ‘We’ve got to make the best of it.’

‘I’m trying to stop,’ said Kate.

‘That’s my girl.’ Bertie gave his daughter a fatherly pat on her proud young shoulders.

‘I’m not crying,’ gloated Ethie. But she was. Inside her mind, a weather front was coiling itself into a hurricane with storm force winds and rain, just waiting to come sweeping across her new life.

Together the Loxley family stood on the jetty, watching the ferry boat chugging towards them with its load of passengers. The brown waters of the Severn Estuary swirled with fierce energy, the tide sweeping the boat sideways as it reached the middle of the river. And Bertie said what he always said when they were in the queue at Aust Ferry.

‘Fastest tide in the world, they say, except for one in South Africa,’ he said. ‘I’ll warn you girls now. Never, ever go swimming in the Severn. If the mud doesn’t get you, the tide will.’

‘Look at that boat,’ cried Ethie. ‘It’s having a real fight to get out of the current.’

‘Now it has,’ said Sally, seeing the boat turn and head for the jetty, sending a wide creamy brown wave fanning across the calmer water. ‘Come on now, Kate, you usually enjoy the trip.’

Kate nodded. Her throat felt dry and sore from unaccustomed crying. She couldn’t believe they were leaving Hilbegut. Everything there was so dear to her. The swing in the barn door, the happy chickens, the sweet-smelling haystacks and the shady elm trees. The beautiful avenue of copper beeches where she’d skipped and played on her trips to deliver milk to the Squire. The home paddock where white Aylesbury ducks, geese, sheep and chickens pottered happily under the branches of the walnut tree. Her lovely bedroom with its window peering out under a brow of thatch where swallows and sparrows nested under the eaves.

She’d been used to leaving home and going to boarding school, but home had always been there for her to come back to. Now, unexpectedly and with merciless speed, it was gone. Her father was suddenly jobless, homeless and in poor health, her mother stoically trying to hold them all together. The only person who seemed intact was Ethie. But Ethie, Kate thought, hadn’t got a boyfriend to leave behind.

Kate was breaking her heart over every single duck, chicken and cow. All had gone to auction, except for Polly and Daisy who were loaned to the farm next door until they could be transported to Gloucestershire. Bertie had insisted on the four of them travelling together in a friend’s motorcar, and Kate had been terribly sick all the way to the ferry, giving Ethie another opportunity to say scathingly, ‘For goodness’ sake, Kate, can’t you stop being sick?’ It was either ‘stop crying’ or ‘stop being sick’ or ‘stop mooning over that BOY.’

Nobody knew how Kate felt about Freddie. Since the day on the hills she’d respected the depth of his artistic soul, the determined pragmatism that had driven him to save his money and build a business, and her admiration for him had grown. She’d found herself longing to be looking into his eyes. They reminded her of the sea, so blue and sparkling, but so deep and so full of immense perception. Freddie hadn’t had an education like she’d had, yet she felt he knew so much more, and when he looked at her she felt a steadiness and a kindliness, a feeling of guardianship, as if Freddie was a harbour and she a boat coming home from a storm.

Kate was seventeen, and she loved to flirt and laugh with the local lads on the farm, but she had boundaries. Her sexuality felt to her like a secret jewel she must not wear. She made sure that no man touched her, and if they tried she would deflect them in a firm but humorous way, and she felt confident of her ability to do that. It was something Ethie didn’t understand. Ethie ragged her constantly, berating her for being a flirt and a shameless hussy. Kate rarely reacted. She felt sorry for Ethie who seemed cursed with unpleasantness both in her dour appearance and her mood.

Freddie had only held her for a few moments, but Kate had heard his deep slow heartbeat, and smelled the tweed of his jacket, and sensed the gentleness of his big hands on her back, holding her as if she were a fragile shell. She’d felt a tiny movement as his fingers explored the curls at the ends of her hair, and that had been strangely electrifying, as if her hair itself was sensitive, as if he was touching her whole being. Wary of the intensity, she had pulled away. Now she wished with all her heart that she’d kissed him.

The throbbing engine of the incoming ferry boat had a finality about it, yet on previous trips it had excited her and set her dancing around on the quay. Something else was pulling at her mind. Kate didn’t want to be a cheese-maker and a farm girl. She wanted to be a nurse. Sally had taken her one day to Yeovil Hospital to enquire about training, and the matron had liked her and said to come back when she was seventeen.

The boat was pulling in to the jetty, with much hauling of ropes and shouting.

‘Stand back. Stand back. Let ’em off,’ shouted the pier attendant, as the ramp was lowered and the first passengers disembarked. Next came the motorbikes and bicycles.