Eh, it’s been a while! It’s good to see you, lass!’

Jed Morton clasped his daughter Sarah in a fulsome hug.

‘You too, Dad.’

Sarah hadn’t seen her parents since she’d started work as a maid for the son of a mill owner in Manchester. It was too far to travel on her fortnightly Sunday afternoon off. She was only here now because her employer and his family were being sent to India to oversee cotton production there, and the house was being shut up.

She’d have to find another job in due course back in Manchester – there was nothing in this remote part of the world. But something in her mother’s letters had given Sarah the sense that all was not entirely well at home, and she’d reckoned she had enough put by to take a few days’ grace and see for herself.

The porter carrying her box coughed, waiting for a tip, and she fumbled in her purse for a coin. Their grey cob stood patiently as Sarah and her father loaded the box into the trap, Jed grunting with the effort.

On the drive to their small hilltop farm, Sarah filled her lungs with the fresh spring air and her senses with the beauty around her, so green after the greyness of the city. The banks of the lane were embroidered with violets and primroses, and down where the river