The Diary Of Pamela D.

So much for simply being content to live under the same roof with the man!

As the weeks went by, a curious thing began happening to her. She was becoming emotionally stronger, bolstered by the people she had come to love, to think of as her very own family, yet weaker at the same time, unable to control her moods, especially where Theo was concerned.

Winter had lost its harsh sting and was just beginning to show signs of abating when one morning, as the women were serving breakfast to the field workers, they ran short of eggs. It was a strange sort of morning; more like a sepia photograph or an old memory than waking reality. Things moved in a fluid, slow-motion sort of way, like the cloying, wraithlike mists that floated grudgingly across the moors, clinging to the sweeps of gorse as though possessing tendrils.

'Pamela,' Ellie said as the girl took a fresh loaf of bread out of the oven and set it on the counter to cool, 'would you mind very much fetching some eggs, please? We're all out, and I've got my hands full at the moment.'

Pamela, Ellie and the other women members of the staff were wearing brand-new uniforms which they themselves had made only days before. The material was still crisp and new-smelling, and they were dove grey and white, trimmed with a deep burgundy. Of course, all of the women were loath to allow anything to stain, tear, snag or otherwise mar their new and illustrious attire, so they were more than a little stiff and careful in their movements, where before they had been far more loose and casual. This fact stood out in Pamela's mind, momentarily, as though nothing else mattered in the world. It was as though she were laying on her bed, her vision filled by nothing except a vision of a crisp, new uniform.

But that was nonsense. Where was she? Oh, yes, she was putting on her wellies, which waited for her on a rubber mat by the back door. Pamela then hitched up her dress on one side with one hand and, carrying the wire egg basket in the other, made her way to the chicken coop. She didn't mind this chore in the slightest. To get free-range eggs in their freshest possible form caused a childlike wonder to stir within her, and she went about the task dutifully, talking at the chickens as though they were all familiar old friends-

'Well, if it isn't Miss Prissy Pants.'

Startled, Pamela almost dropped the basket. 'Albert! What are you doing, lurking in the dark back there! You almost gave me a heart-attack.' Though she had been startled, the moment seemed somehow rehearsed, as though she had gone over and over it in her mind, until she had got it just right.