Since his visions were usually of spirit people, Freddie was surprised to see Ethie in such a way. He frowned, concentrating on the deeper meaning, and saw that Ethie was lying on her back, looking at him, trying to ask him some question that smouldered on her mind. She was floating, and the river glistened as it carried her away, her face glaring at the sky.

‘Freddie!’ Annie cried out in surprise. ‘You’re up and dressed. At last.’

He turned to see his mother emerge from the bakery, drying her hands on a towel.

‘Don’t you get cold now,’ she tried to hustle him inside.

‘I’m all right,’ he said. ‘I gotta get on with it now. Earn some money.’

Annie looked tired out, he thought, sitting with her to share a breakfast of lardy cake and cocoa at the scullery table.

‘It’s been hard for you,’ he said, ‘having me laid up.’

Annie nodded. ‘But worth it to see you better. I had enough disasters in the past so I can deal with this one. We shall get over it.’

‘Thanks.’ Freddie looked at her eyes and detected a subtle change, a shimmer of hope which hadn’t been there before. ‘Are you managing all right?’ he asked.

‘Joan’s been helping me,’ Annie said, speaking faster than usual, almost bubbling with some secret. Then she shut her mouth, brushed the crumbs from her apron, and looked at Freddie expectantly. ‘You still want to do the stone carving, don’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well – Joan made such a fuss over your stone angel, and she dragged the vicar down here to see it. Can’t say I like the man, but there – he’s a vicar. And he came in and sat down with me at this table and he ate a huge piece of lardy cake, got crumbs all over his whiskers. I’ve never seen a man make such a mess! He left me this letter to give you.’ Annie went to the dresser and rummaged in the drawer. ‘Here ’tis.’ She handed him the white envelope, her eyes twinkling like they did on his birthday, watching him unwrap her hand-knitted present.

‘The VICAR wrote me a letter? What the hell does he want?’

Freddie took a knife and slit the envelope, unfolded the letter and sat back sceptically against the chair to read it, his eyes getting rounder and rounder. Momentarily speechless he stared out the window at the stone angel.

‘Did you know about this?’ he asked.

Annie nodded and she had tears on the rims of her eyes.

‘I got a commission,’ said Freddie, incredulous, ‘to carve a statue of St Peter. And they are going to PAY me – how about this, Mother? Twenty pounds!’

Annie gasped. They sat together smiling like two children.

‘Can you do it?’ she asked.

‘I can do that standing on me head,’ said Freddie, and the joy came in a huge dollop. He threw the letter up in the air and laughed out loud. ‘I got a commission. Yippee!’

‘You should say yes, Kate,’ said Sally forcefully. ‘Have some sense, girl.’

Kate sighed. She squared her shoulders and looked back at her mother with good-humoured assertiveness. ‘I’m not going to marry for money. I shall marry for love.’

‘You might never get such a chance again,’ warned Sally. ‘Ian Tillerman is a real catch. You’ll want for nothing. And think of your children.’

‘My children, when I have them, will be loved,’ said Kate, ‘and that’s more important than being rich.’

‘Well, you know what they say. When poverty comes in the door, love flies out of the window.’

‘It’s never flown out of our window,’ said Bertie who privately thought that Kate was right. He didn’t like the way Sally was pushing her to accept Ian Tillerman’s proposal. In his opinion his beloved daughter had lost her sparkle since she’d been working at the racing stables. ‘Leave her alone, Sally.’

‘I only want what’s best for her, and for Ethie,’ said Sally, raising her voice a little. ‘And it’s madness to turn down an offer like that.’

‘Better than that lorry driver,’ hissed Ethie. ‘Anyway Kate is too young to get married. I should get married first.’

‘Who to? You’re not exactly encouraging anyone, are you?’ said Sally sharply. ‘What is the matter with you, Ethie?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Then why is it you can’t open your mouth without upsetting someone?’

It was Kate who saw the pain in Ethie’s pale eyes, and she intervened before it turned to spite.

‘I’m not going to marry anyone yet,’ she said lightly. ‘I want to be a nurse, you know that. This job is only for a bit of money, and I’m enjoying it. I love Little Foxy, not Ian.’

Ethie tutted. ‘Horses!’

Kate grinned at her mischievously. ‘You’re just as bad, Ethie – only it’s fish. You’re always down at the river. You can’t marry a fish.’

‘And you can’t marry a horse.’

Kate giggled. ‘If I did, it wouldn’t be to one of Ian’s racehorses. It would be – Daisy.’ Her voice trembled, she met Sally’s eyes and then looked down at the table. The shoreline between coping with living at Asan Farm and homesickness for Hilbegut was fragile, always shifting like the estuary sand. ‘When are Polly and Daisy being sent up here?’ she asked. ‘They’d be useful here, wouldn’t they?’

Sally and Bertie looked at each other.

‘You should tell her, Bertie. Go on, just come out with it,’ said Sally rather fiercely.

Bertie shook his head. ‘I can’t.’

‘I can,’ said Ethie. ‘It’s time she knew.’

‘She doesn’t need to hear it from you, Ethie.’

Bewildered, Kate looked from one to the other, aware that some bitter truth was being withheld from her.

Ethie digested Sally’s sharp comment huffily. ‘Oh, so my words aren’t good enough for precious little sister. Why has she always got to be cosseted? It’s not fair.’

‘Kate doesn’t go around with a face as long as a yard of pump water,’ said Sally, and immediately regretted it when she saw the dreaded flush of anger on Ethie’s cheeks.

‘I can’t help my face,’ stormed Ethie. ‘We’re not all born flawless like little Miss Perfect here. I didn’t choose to look like I do. Do you think I like it? Do you think I enjoy having pimples?’

‘That’s not the point, Ethie. Stop taking it out on Kate. It’s nothing to do with what your face is like. A smiling face is a lovely face. If you smiled instead of going round scowling at everyone, you . . .’

‘DON’T keep telling me to smile,’ shouted Ethie. ‘That’s all you ever say to me, isn’t it? Do this, Ethie. Do that, Ethie. Do all the dirty work, Ethie. And smile. I don’t want to smile; I’m not going to smile. Why should I smile? I’ll smile if I want to, not when you tell me to.’

‘Pull yourself together, girl,’ said Sally desperately. ‘It’s hard enough for us here.’

‘None of you know what it’s like to be me,’ raged Ethie. She dragged a chair out and slumped down on it, put her hands over her burning face and drew a savage breath into her lungs.

‘Ethie, stop it,’ pleaded Kate, putting her arm round her sister and rubbing her back gently.

But the kindness seemed to trigger Ethie into a final explosion, like a boil bursting. She clenched her fists and pounded the table with them. ‘You don’t UNDERSTAND,’ she wailed, then jumped to her feet and slammed out of the room, returning seconds later with another slam. ‘I’m going to feed the chickens. At least the chickens don’t care whether I smile or not.’

Kate and her parents looked at each other.

‘She’s getting worse,’ said Sally.

‘No she isn’t, Mummy, she’s always been like it. We can’t make her any different,’ said Kate. ‘We just have to look on the bright side.’

‘What bright side? She hasn’t got one.’

‘She has,’ said Kate. ‘She works so hard. And she does laugh with me sometimes, when she hasn’t got her nose in a book.’

‘Some gloomy book, I don’t doubt. What do you think, Bertie?’ Sally looked at her husband who had sat looking uncomfortable.

‘I don’t get involved in women’s disputes,’ he said calmly.

‘So what was it you were going to tell me?’ asked Kate. ‘About Polly and Daisy. I’d rather know.’