“Ah, you’re each as mad as the other,” Ned said. “Come on, I’ll ferry you across.”

On Wednesday, the lad who was hedging was taken ill, and the two women clipped and laid the hedge, standing for most of the day in thick mud or in the briny cold ditch, bending and breaking the stubborn stems, their hands bleeding from a hundred scratches.

Alys straightened up, grimacing with pain. “My back aches,” she said.

“Have a rest,” Alinor urged her. “I can finish the last bit.”

“Aren’t you tired?”

“No,” Alinor lied. “Hardly at all.”

“I’ll finish,” Alys said grimly, and bent again hacking and twisting the stems.

Friday was cheese-making day at the tide mill and Alinor spent the day in the icy dairy, churning the butter, skimming the cream, and pressing the cheese while Alys did the hard work outside. Everything was to be ready for Friday night, and Mrs. Miller would take it herself to Chichester market on Saturday morning.

When Alys had finished the morning chores she came inside and worked alongside her mother in the dairy, their hands red and raw with cold. At noon, when Mrs. Miller rang the bell in the yard, they went into the kitchen and sat at the table to eat: bread from the mill oven and curds from the cheese. They both pressed their hands together and tucked them in the warmth under their arms to bring the feeling back to their numb fingers while Mr. Miller gave thanks for his own good dinner. Richard Stoney and the other mill lad sat opposite them, their faces pinched with cold. Mrs. Miller, seated at the head of the table, had fine white bread to eat and soft cheese, her daughter Jane on one side, little Peter on the other. Mr. Miller sat in silence at the end of the table before a solitary leg of ham. He went out as soon as he had eaten to make sure that the outside workers did not take too long over their break. Richard winked at Alys, nodded his head to Mrs. Miller and Alinor, and followed him with the other lad.

“You’ll be brewing wedding ale?” Mrs. Miller asked Alinor.

“I’ll strain it and pour it tomorrow,” Alinor said. “I think it’ll be very good. Mr. Stoney is picking it up when he drives to church on Sunday morning.”

“They set a good table at Stoney Farm. You’re a lucky girl,” Mrs. Miller said to Alys, who forced herself to smile and nod. Mrs. Miller turned to Alinor. “I doubt they’d even have allowed the wedding if she hadn’t worked here so long. They know I’ve taught her well.”

“Never even have met if she hadn’t worked here,” Jane chimed in.

“Yes.” Alinor leaned her shoulder gently against Alys to make her keep silence. “We’re both grateful.”

“The Stoneys wouldn’t have trusted anyone else with their Richard,” she added. “There’s not another mill in Sussex that would be good enough for them.”

“I’ll always remember your harvest home,” Alinor said, turning the conversation. “When the two of them brought in the harvest together? That was a merry day.”

Alinor had meant to divert Mrs. Miller to pride in her harvest home but she had accidentally summoned a vivid memory of James Summer standing before her, and her own flare of temper when he said she must not dance.

She bowed her head as if she were giving thanks for her food; but in reality she was hiding a pain so sharp that she might almost think that her heart was breaking. She took a deep shuddering breath and turned her mind to the dairy and the work they still had to do. She had promised herself that she would not think about losing James, nor about how she would manage without him. She would not think of anything, until after Sunday, Alys’s wedding day. Only then, when Alys was married, and safe, would she allow herself to look clear-eyed at the ruin she had made of her life.

“I always give a good harvest home,” Mrs. Miller said complacently. “Sir William always says so. Says he would rather be at my harvest home than anywhere in the county. D’you remember, he brought the tutor, didn’t he? Mr. Summer?”

“Yes,” Alinor said steadily. “Mr. Summer. D’you want to see the butter before I set it into shape?”

Mrs. Miller rose from the table and left Jane and Alys to clear up. “You can wash the plates,” she said over her shoulder, and went into the dairy with Alinor. She closed the door behind them to keep the dairy cool, though it was already as cold as the ice house at the Priory.

“That’s doing well,” she said, looking into the churn where the butter was pale and creamy and starting to separate from the buttermilk. “It always comes so quick for you, Alinor.”

Alinor smiled. She knew it was because she worked harder and churned faster than Mrs. Miller, but the woman would never say so.

“I tell my husband, you must whisper a charm into the milk,” Mrs. Miller said. “A good charm, of course. I wouldn’t suggest other . . .”

“It’s rich milk,” Alinor said easily. “There’s no need for charming. If you’re happy with this, I’ll make squares for market.”

“Don’t make them too big,” Mrs. Miller said. “One pound each only. No point in giving it away.”

“Exactly,” Alinor said patiently.

“If it’s slightly underweight that’s better than over. They don’t weigh at the market.”

“Certainly. And I’ll wrap them.”

“And you’ll come Saturday morning to pack the cart for me?”

“Yes,” Alinor said. “And Alys will come, too. D’you want us all the day?”

“You can mind the farm and the mill while we’re at market. Low tide at dinnertime, but I won’t ask you to open the sluice and turn the wheel.”

Alinor smiled at the weak joke, as the door from the kitchen opened. “Am I to check the hens’ eggs?” Alys asked.

“Haven’t you done that already?” Mrs. Miller asked crossly. “Go and do it now, lazy girl.”

Saturday morning Alinor was up at dawn to do the final strain and pour of the wedding ale. Alys helped her mother and they both sniffed the rich yeasty aroma.

“It’s going to be good,” Alinor said with satisfaction.

Ned put his head around the brewhouse door. “I hope it’s not too strong?”

“It’s wedding ale,” Alinor replied. “It’s as it should be.”

“I want no drunkenness, and no bawdy games,” Ned specified.

“What sort of woman do you take me for?” Alinor demanded.

“You’re one that loves the old ways, and you know it. But this is to be a godly, quiet, and temperate marriage.”

“No wedding ale?” asked Alinor. “Shall I pour this in the rife?”

“Well, no wines,” he specified. “And no strong waters.”

“In that case,” Alinor said regretfully, “I shall have to beg Mrs. Stoney, for once, to stay sober.”

Ned could not stifle a chuckle. Mrs. Stoney had already impressed him with her grim puritanism. “She’s a godly woman,” he reproved his sister. “She shouldn’t be mocked.”

“I know!” Alinor replied, and gave the wedding ale a final stir, before putting on her cape to go to the mill.