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river. He saw right into the heart of them. The flimsy romance novel she carried in her pocket, the frog’s bone and lucky rabbit’s foot in Nellie’s purse.
    ‘We have to collect the jugs,’ she said. ‘So if you have finished, Mr Ferier, then we’ll leave you to get back to your work.’
    She grabbed her sister’s arm, but Nellie was staring as if the man might turn into something else at any moment, something extraordinary, a feathered fish or a fur-covered snake.
    ‘Nellie?’ Vivian raised her voice. ‘Come on. We must go.’
    By the time they joined the gang of women returning to the farm with empty jugs and baskets, and Vivian looked again, the men were all cutting willow canes and she couldn’t make out which one Joe was.
    A week later, Vivian and Nellie stood in the garden together. Nellie heaved armfuls of the vicarage sheets into the washtub, her face calm and steady.
    ‘I saw him again.’
    Vivian scrubbed at a sheet. She, too, had seen him.
    ‘Who?’
    ‘Joe Ferier. I saw him in the hay fields.’
    Vivian had seen his tent pitched half a mile down the river. He liked to stand beside it, painting, with an easel set up. Whoever heard of a hired hand painting watercolours?
    Rainbows appeared in the soap bubbles that rose up and floated around them. Nellie caught one in her hand and popped it. Vivian put the paddle down.
    ‘I’ll make a blancmange for tomorrow,’ she said, wanting to change the subject. She stamped on a bubble as it landed on the ground beside her. Nellie giggled. She whipped up the soap suds with her hands, sending more bubbles flying around them.
    The sisters danced round the washtub, their clothes soaked by their splashing, a strange kind of excitement taking them over. Nellie shrieked and stamped her feet. Vivian scooped handfuls of soapy water from the tub and launched them at her. She ran towards the orchard, Nellie chasing her. They ran until they sank to their knees in the long grass.
    Vivian looked up at the sky, catching her breath, blades of green tickling her face. She turned her head to stare into Nellie’s grey eyes, so like her own. Her sister’s good, strong face was starred with brown freckles. Vivian would have the same freckles too if she didn’t use a chemist’s cream to make them fade.
    Nellie threw her arms back, revealing the sweat-marked pits of her blouse, and Vivian breathed in the familiar musky scent of her.
    ‘I had the strangest feeling when we met Joe Ferier the other day,’ Nellie said. ‘I thought I might fall in love with him.’
    Vivian sat up. ‘Oh, Nellie. No. Be careful. And not him. He’s uncouth. We know nothing of his family, his parents.’
    ‘We don’t know our parents either.’
    ‘We know they were good people.’
    ‘Don’t go getting in a bother about it. It was just a feeling, that’s all. It went away as fast as it came.’ Nellie turned on her side, a thoughtful look on her face. ‘Do you know where swallows go in winter?’
    ‘Swallows? They migrate to Africa. Why?’
    She fell back into the long grass. ‘I just wondered.’
    ‘I’ll make a blancmange,’ Vivian said again. She was glad Nelliewas talking of other things now. ‘I’ll make enough for tea and for breakfast too. We can eat it in bed together if you like.’
    She picked a dandelion and squeezed the milky stickiness from its hollow stem. The harvest would be over soon enough. Joe Ferier would be gone for good, and she and Nellie need never think about him again.

Three
     
    Yellow butterflies drifted in the late afternoon light and the air was heavy and hot. Nellie walked along the riverbank. She was going to swim and wash off the dust that clung to her from a day spent turning hay. She stopped and undressed under the willows, slipping into her swimming clothes. She had stitched lead weights into the hem of a cotton farm smock to keep it from lifting up in the water, and wore two pairs of black stockings for modesty’s sake.
    Nellie loved the Little