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her cooking. She put food on the table and expected it to be eaten. She would nod when his father patted his belly and said it was a good table she’d set for them, or she might add, “It’s entitled to be, it took me all morning.” But Kezia liked to talk about each dish, what he liked, what he thought would have been better. So Tom became used to this discussion as he ate his dinner, a meal that Kezia’s family would have called luncheon. His tea was their supper. His mother’s supper was a thick cheese sandwich after mopping the floor at ten o’clock at night, whereas Mrs. Marchant’s was likely a cup of cocoa with a slice of toast, and possibly the only meal she prepared herself each day. It was funny, thought Tom—this naming of each meal, and how it changed from here to there, whether the here and there was a division by geography or by the station of the person sitting down to eat. But one thing Tom knew—he liked to recognize the food on his plate.
    “What’s this bit?” he asked, cutting into his pie again.
    “Oh, a few sprigs of rosemary laid under the crust. Gives it a more piquant flavor.”
    “Piquant, eh? Well, it’s very nice, but it gets a bit stuck in my teeth.”
    Kezia frowned. “Hmmm, I should probably have cut the leaves off the sprig. Never mind, I’ll do it next time.”
    Tom commented on the gravy, the potatoes—fried, not mashed—and in general was well pleased with his meal. He added that he thought it would be fit for one of those restaurants—not that he would ever set foot in one, after all, you don’t know what you’re eating when it comes from a kitchen you can’t see into.
    Kezia, resting her arms on the table, looked poised to counter this opinion, but instead shared news gleaned from the village that morning. “It’s getting very tense, you know, this talk of war. I’m rather nervous about it. I mean, what will we do, if it comes to it? Mrs. Coombes said her husband went up to London last week and came back with all sorts of stories about what people are saying up there. He said it was like another planet down here, when all we think about is the hop picking, or the barley.”
    Tom reached across, took her by the arm, and pulled her to him, seating her on his lap. He wiped his mouth with a napkin; now they had table napkins, boiled white so that they might continue to match the wedding-gift linen cloth that covered the old table. Mrs. Marchant’s housekeeper told Kezia about boiling for whiteness, and adding a blue bag to the water.
    “I don’t pay much mind to it all, Kezzie. I’ve too much to do all day with the farm. Don’t worry, love, it won’t come to us.”
    “Tom, you have four men on this farm, two apprentices, and pieceworkers besides. What if they all go to war? What if you have to go to war?”
    “I’d like to see Bert try to go to war—he’s my right-hand man, and he’s too long in the tooth; they’d send him packing. Danny wouldn’t get into the army, on account of his leg, and Bill Hicks and Mattie Wright, we were nippers together—they’ve worked here all their lives, and their fathers too. As for the young lads—they’re still so wet behind the ears, it’s all they can do to lift a shovel, never mind a rifle. War’s a young man’s game.”
    “But you’re young, Tom.”
    “Come on, Kezzie, I’d better get back to work—if I linger too long, we’ll be up those stairs, won’t we?” He kissed her on the mouth. “Don’t worry about me, I’m a farmer born and bred, and if there’s anything that’ll be needed if it comes to war, it’s what I’ve got—food to put on the table.”
    As Kezia began to clear the plates, Ada came into the kitchen, a pail in her hand. Kezia blushed.
    “Anyway, this’ll never get the cows moved, will it? See you later, love.” Tom walked towards the back door, rolling up his sleeves. “Did you put something in the gravy, by the way?”
    “A little sherry, actually.”
    “Sherry? Mother