Born of Woman by Wendy Perriam

down. I’ll say this for your mother-in-law. She had a picky child on her hands. He didn’t even sleep through the night until he was almost eighteen months.’
    Jennifer stared at Nan’s gnarled and bony hands. Could Matthew ever have been sickly, ever have been a bairn at all—all six-foot-steel of him with his computer-brain and that everlasting sceptre in his hands?
    Molly was chopping onions for a home-made soup. ‘ I remember Matthew. He was fourteen when he left here and I was eight or nine. He wasn’t small then. I was secretly in love with him. He was very tall and lanky with dark hair.’
    â€˜What made him leave?’
    â€˜What had he to stay for?’ Nan was tackling the saucepans now—six or seven of them. ‘He’d lost both his parents. Hester had married his father just before he died. I doubt if Matthew approved of that. He was quite a little snob, you know. She hadn’t much time for him, anyway, once the new bairn was born. And the farm was a write-off, more or less. Money was short, the house was dark and cold. I’d have had him here, but Hester wouldn’t hear of it. In the end, one of Thomas’s fancy relatives turned up from London and took Matthew off her hands. Offered to pay his fees at boarding school—even kept him in the holidays. No one saw him up here after that.’
    â€˜Did Hester … mind? I mean, if she’d looked after him since he was a baby—fourteen years or so, then surely she must have …’
    Nan rested her dish-mop for a moment. ‘I doubt if she’d time to mind, she was that busy. She had debts, you see, and it was quite a struggle to pay them off and run the house and … She made extra cheese and butter and sold them in the village. And you should have seen her eiderdowns! Real hand-quilted jobs stuffed with feathers from her own ducks. She never asked enough for them, considering how many hours of work they took her. No one saw her much, to tell the truth. She was always stuck at home, sewing or scrimping or cooking. We tried to help, of course, but she cut herself off more or less completely. My husband even offered to buy the farm—combine it with ours and offer her security. She wouldn’t even discuss it, so when she went ahead and sold the place to the Forestry, my John lost patience. After that she fobbed everybody off and lived like a recluse. We worried about the lad—your Lyn. We hoped he’d stay and make a go of it up here. But he went Matthew’s way.’
    Molly was crying from the onions. She mopped her eyes on her pinafore. ‘He had to, Nan. There was nothing for him here. No job, no future—not for someone arty.’
    Nan sniffed. ‘Arty’s not what I’d call it.’
    â€˜Is it hard to get jobs up here?’ Jennifer steered the conversation away from Lyn again. ‘I mean, suppose I wanted a job. Do many women work?’
    â€˜We never stop,’ grinned Molly, straining scum off the stockpot, then turning back to peel and chop some carrots.
    â€˜No, I mean jobs outside the home.’
    â€˜There aren’t any,’ snapped Nan. ‘And just as well. A woman’s got enough to do without …’
    â€˜It’s funny, though,’ Molly cut in. ‘We may seem far less liberated than you London lot, but in a way, we rule the roost up here. The men can’t manage without us—well, not the farmers, anyway. A woman can almost make or break a farm. That’s why Hester was so important. Thomas would have more or less gone under without her to support him. She helped with everything—lambing, calving, milking, gardening, making bread and jams and butter, even cheeses. I don’t know anyone else who makes their own cheese now. It’s too damned fiddly. The skill must have died with her. And then there was all the paperwork. The women often took that on as well. My mother worked every bit as