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Laurence in the midriff. So soon to have to face this dilemma, and in his own household.
    ‘You see?’ Elizabeth looked in appeal at her husband. ‘Caroline doesn’t understand. It’s hard enough organising the church flower rota, let alone something like this.’
    ‘Your mother’s quite right. Can you imagine Mutters and Thorns working side by side? She’svery busy now, and—’
    Laurence knew he was temporising. That wasn’t the issue.
    ‘But she could make it the excuse to resign from Mrs Swinford-Browne’s Comfort Our Troops committee.’
    Elizabeth regarded her balefully. ‘Sometimes I think, Laurence, that Caroline has inherited your guile.’
    ‘No, Mother.’ Caroline was indignant. ‘My plan is common sense, and after all. Father, it’s only a slight extension of what Mrs Lake is doing on her husband’s farm.’ What a good thing she had visited Philip!
    ‘More than slight, Caroline.’
    ‘Ashden depends for its livelihood on its farms and this is the only way they can survive. Where is the extra labour to come from? It’s Ashden’s survival, not just the farms’.’ She was convinced she was right.
    ‘It is worth consideration, Caroline.’ He could hardly deny it, he realised. ‘But I insist you approach the farmers first and only when and if they are enthusiastic should you approach the women.’
    ‘Mother?’
    ‘What do you think, Laurence?’ Elizabeth turned to her husband.
    No! he wanted to shout. No. But he couldn’t. ‘If you’re convinced that Caroline is right and you have the time and are willing to help, why not?’
    ‘It’s hardly a role for the Rector’s wife,’ she said doubtfully.
    At that he had to laugh. ‘And when, Elizabeth, has that deterred you from something you felt called by Our Lord to do?’
    At last, at last, Caroline thought, as she ran down the stairs for lunch half an hour later, I have something to do. I’m on my way. She twirled the loose top of the banister at the foot before walking into the dining room where she could smell Mrs Dibble’s bacon pudding.

CHAPTER THREE
    Agnes Thorn opened her eyes. The walls of her huge bedroom at Castle Tillow looked no less bleak than they had yesterday. She didn’t feel like Agnes Thorn, she still felt like Agnes Pilbeam, despite the mound under the bedclothes which was an ever-present reminder of Jamie. Only a few weeks now; it was the middle of March, and she was due early May. Already she was ‘wriggling like a chimney sweep’, so Mrs Hay the midwife said, the first of May being chimney sweeps’ day.
    Agnes had done her best to make the room homely. The photograph of her Jamie had pride of place, taken in Dover while he’d been at Shornecliffe training to be a soldier and looking so proud of his new uniform (he’d told her later it was borrowed, there weren’t enough to go round).
    She hadn’t seen him since Boxing Day. Hewas one of Kitchener’s men, and was with the 7th Sussex in Aldershot. He wrote that he was longing for the order to go overseas. She couldn’t understand it. Why did he want to go and leave her? Now of all times—to have their baby alone and here. She felt like Cleopatra or some other ancient queen stuck in this huge bed in a vast bedroom with only a chest, washstand and one chair to fill it. Only she had no servants like a queen would have. She was a servant.
    She could see from the bed the dead embers of last night’s fire, but they were giving out no heat at all. She felt no inclination to hurry to wash in the cold water she’d brought up last night, then clamber into her clothes to go down to that barn of an old kitchen and struggle with the fire. Johnson would be nowhere to be seen, for all he was supposed to light it, and Mary who came in from the village would be late again. Miss Emily and Miss Charlotte may be eighty-seven and eighty-five respectively, but they still expected their breakfast sharp at nine.
    What was she going to do? Here she was, living in a ruin with