Polly sat alone by the blazing fire, with her tiny baby sucking at her breast. Faint red down covered its pale and fragile pate. With blue eyes slitted, mouth rounded hugely against the nipple, it sucked stertorously, heaving great breaths into the silence. The room was darkening. A tree rattled against the window panes. Beyond the stone walls of the wild garden, the windy moors rolled away for ever.
In the kitchen bread rose in the range, tasty stew bubbled on top, the kettle steamed gently, the table was laid. Small boots and shoes lay, polished, in front of the fire. The bedroom smelt of wind and fresh sheets. Nuts and apples were laid out in the attic.
The fire crackled in Polly’s house, the baby slept in Polly’s house, the kettle simmered, the stew bubbled, the bread rose, the wind roared outside the windows of the little house of Polly, Pamela, Sue and Max.
Upstairs the twins lay asleep with their golden curls tangled on the pillows, the little furry faces of bear and squirrel peeping over the sheets beside their own rosy faces. Soon it would be time to call the boy in from the moor, where he lay waiting, watching the last birds dropping down into the tussocky grass. The baby’s slitted eyes dropped shut, her head lolled on the breast. Polly rose, crept to the crib by the fireside and laid her down gently.
She went through the kitchen and opened the back door. Gusts of wind hit her. She leaned over the rough stones of the garden wall, seeing the grass beaten by the wind; hearing it rattle and howl in the branches of the lonely elm on the rise.
‘Max. Max. Where are you?’ she called.
Inside the house the fire crackled, the baby slept, the kettle steamed and the bread rose, the stew bubbled, the small boots and shoes shone in a row.