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T here was utter chaos when they arrived back at the farm; as if some semaphore had sent word of their happy reunion ahead. Bess hurtled out of the house, clasping Ophelia and Silas in a warm hug.

“I’m so glad you’re both back,” she said into their shoulders.

“Glad to be home,” Silas had said with a laugh. “How’ve things been here? No more news from the inspector, I hope?”

“Nah, he’s stayed away, though we’ve just received notice of his visit in two weeks,” said Hannah from the kitchen doorway. “Glad to see you both back,” she had added and shot Ophelia a look that said “we’ll talk later.”

Mrs. Darling hustled them all inside and pushing Silas and Ophelia into their chairs at the table, began pouring tea and passing out plates laden with scones.

She placed a jar of plum jam and the butter dish on the table, saying, “’Tis good to ’ave you all back where ye belong.

Eat up now, we’ve a mountain of work to make up for. ”

Ophelia didn’t think she had ever felt more at home or happier at the prospect of work.

Mrs. Darling had patted her hand across the table and began to fill her in on the drying wheat she and Silas had cut from the first field.

After eating, they all walked down to check on the harvest, and Ophelia had been relieved to see it standing tall, moving gently in the breeze, the green heads beginning to swell after three months of growth.

She tried to remember what the field had been like when Silas first joined them, all rubble and weeds, and how they had fought off the birds and waited out the weather so that they might now look out over this promise of a harvest. She reached for Silas’s hand and slid her fingers into his.

Back at the barn, she greeted Samson and Delilah.

“Hello again, fellow,” she had murmured to Samson over his stall door.

He flicked an ear, hearing her, but not lifting his head from his pile of hay.

His heavy jaw worked as he took in mouthful after mouthful, tail swishing away a fly every so often.

She opened the door and went to stand next to him, petting his warm flank and down his thick neck.

Samson stamped a hoof but kept eating, and Ophelia lowered her head to his warm side and let herself relax into his steady bulk.

The horse’s solid body tethered her to her own, to this farm and these people, and she was more grateful for that than she expected.

After checking on Delilah, she returned to the house to unpack and trade her skirts for her uniform once again.

That evening after chores had been done and animals tucked away, they all gathered in the living room to talk over the last few days.

Ophelia and Silas shared the outline of what had happened at Wood Grange, leaving out their promises to each other, though Ophelia saw Hannah taking in her ring on Silas’s finger.

She would share that later, she thought, when it didn’t feel quite so private.

Silas rose to bring the teapot and refill everyone’s cups while Bess shared the news from dairy and Hannah read aloud from the latest edition of The Landswoman .

Silas, having filled cups and replenished the biscuit supply, settled himself back on to the settee next to Ophelia.

“So what is that you think you’ll do about the estate then?” Hannah asked.

“I’m not entirely sure yet,” Ophelia admitted. “Mr. Bone is finalizing the will, so for the moment I’ve closed the house up. Silas’s mother and Samuel will continue on with their farm as usual, and I suppose when I hear from Mr. Bone I will have to make some kind of decision.”

“That’s a great deal to consider on your own, Ophelia,” said Mrs. Darling, soberly. “Though I have had words with him in the past, I’m awfully glad you have Casper to guide you. He is honest, above all else.”

“When all this is over, the WLA, the war”—Bess gestured, encompassing it all—“perhaps you could go back to live there? Seems a shame for it to lay empty.”

“I don’t think I would ever live at the house again,” Ophelia said after a pause, thinking aloud more than speaking.

“I don’t know that it was ever really my home .

..” The others waited for her to finish.

She turned to Silas, aware that they hadn’t had a chance to discuss this aspect of things.

“Do you think we might live in one of the smaller houses? I mean, would you like to, could you see yourself being happy there?”

He took her hand and smoothed it over his knee, tracing each finger there.

“I think it would be perfect. I’d live under a toadstool if it meant I could be with you.

” Then whispering “excuse me, ladies” to the others, he cupped Ophelia’s face in his hands and kissed her, his mouth moving over hers possessively, perfectly.

Bess whooped and Hannah whistled, while Mrs. Darling laughed and herded them out of the room.

Alone again at last, Ophelia sighed into his mouth and Silas deepened the kiss, drawing her into his lap.

Outside the sitting room window, a perfect indigo evening rose against a sliver of summer moon, neither of which they saw.

The following week passed in a steady rhythm of much work and little rest, bringing them to the end of June. Ophelia had received a letter from Mr. Bone and sat lost in thought, paper on the table in front of her.

“What are you mulling over, Fee?” Silas asked, coming in from the yard.

“Just trying to understand what inheriting this actually means ... for us, of course, but also for the estate. It seems unreal, honestly. I mean, I knew that my father was entirely too free with money, but I had no idea that he had beggared the coffers so entirely. The house can’t be sold, but I suppose I might rent it out.

There’s a new society that I’ve read about that cares for ancient houses, maintains them.

Perhaps I might put it into their care?”

He was quiet for a long moment, looking out of the window. “What you said when we were there, about making something better, what did you mean? What would you do if you could make Wood Grange into anything you wanted? Or would you still walk away from it all, as you intended?”

Ophelia rubbed her fingers over the creases in the paper and thought about his question. What would she like to do? What had she always wanted to do and had that changed since joining the WLA? Since falling in love with Silas? Since meeting Hannah and Mrs. Darling and Bess?

“When I started my training at the WLA, I was rubbish ... no, truly,” she said when Silas tried to interrupt and correct her.

“I was, but I am not anymore and that is because I had a place to learn and women to teach me, show me. Mrs. Darling, and even Hannah and Bess, let me stumble, but made me get up and keep going. I think if I could do anything with the estate, I would make a place for women to learn to farm, to cultivate gardens, not just arrange flowers. A place where they could learn all the things that men know from experience and education and sharing information. Somewhere that they are taken seriously and not treated as anomalies or unnatural creatures infringing on men’s work.

” She took a deep breath, realising she was just getting started, the thought of what she was saying lighting her up inside.

“The estate could be a place where students might billet if they didn’t have the support of their families, a safe place where they could learn in community and be with other women, and perhaps men, who shared their commitment to equality and education.

Imagine what it could mean to communities all over the country if there were qualified farmers who wanted to stay in their villages and make a living from the land?

I know it would be complicated for women to acquire farms or to convince family members of their merit, but the chance to be educated would be such a magnificent start, don’t you think? ”

Silas was smiling at her, happiness and pride sparking in his eyes. “It’s bloody brilliant, Fee. Yes. Yes, to all of it.”

It felt right, already half-formed in her mind. Excitement thrilled through her at the possibilities.

She laughed, then sobered. “But what about what your plans, Silas? Have you an idea of what you would truly like to do?”

“This country has wallowed about under the old guard for far too long, and I’m a product of that as much as anyone,” he said, gesturing to his leg.

“I’ve had my fill of destruction. I want to build something new, something good .

.. now that I’ve seen my family settled, I’m not sure exactly what that is.

I would like to do something for the men that I met in convalescence or for men like me, coming home to a life they don’t recognize.

It would have meant a great deal to me to have had someone to speak with when I returned. ”

Ophelia felt her heart clench at the thought of Silas, alone and injured, unsure of what his future might hold. “That’s a brilliant idea, Silas. I’m so sorry you were alone during that time.”

He kissed the top of her head. “I wouldn’t change it for anything; after all it brought me here ... to you.”

Ophelia and Silas looked at each other and smiling, Silas said, “Tell them what you’re thinking of, Fee.”

That night at dinner, Ophelia broached her idea for the estate with the other women.

Describing it a second time hadn’t been as hard as she had expected, and Ophelia had the strange feeling that voicing her idea was slowly giving it solidity, the first steps to making it a reality.

She was beginning to see how it all might work in her head, could almost imagine the halls of the house echoing with the sound of many feet, the gardens alive again.

Mrs. Greene had done an admirable job of keeping the house habitable in the face of her father’s miserly allowance, but it was clear the building was not truly being used.

To have so much land and living space laying fallow seemed the height of waste, especially in the face of so much sacrifice by so many.

Making the house productive was the only way that Ophelia could see to make things right.

She outlined her idea for an agricultural college, a place where women might study and be welcome even without the support, financial or otherwise, of their families.

Hannah immediately expressed interest, suggesting there might be classes in basic chemistry or soil cultivation, then more cautiously mentioning the possibility of teaching self-defence or a woman’s rights under the law.

Ophelia nodded, feeling buoyant with possibility.

This might really work . With help, I might really make something of this.

The wheat was coming waist-high, the whiskers of its heads scratching at the backs of Ophelia’s hands as she stood just inside the planted edge of the field.

The abandoned piece of land was hardly recognizable now; the brambles and weeds nowhere in evidence, the uneven ground now almost flat, the dark earth barely visible under the haze of new wheat.

They had lost a fair amount of the new crop to birds, but with reseeding and fabric streamers tied to poles throughout the field, they had managed to shepherd most of it to this moment.

Ophelia turned at the sound of voices coming up behind her.

Mrs. Darling, Silas at her elbow, and the whippet-lean figure of the War Ag inspector crested the edge of the makeshift field.

Hannah and Bess followed at a distance, arms linked, heads bowed in conversation.

When they had received notice of the committee’s plan to inspect their work, Ophelia had wanted to check the field herself before they arrived.

Standing there this morning, the sun warm on her back, the long list of farm work still to be done after this meeting, and the knowledge that they would face this inspection together, filled her with a sense of calm purpose.

She knew they had met this challenge, that she had met this challenge.

There was, of course, still the matter of getting the increased yield cut and threshed, but she knew that they would face that when they came to it.

Kissing Silas in the kitchen hallway before she headed to the field, he had said, “We couldn’t have done it without your work, Fee.

You’ve proved yourself up to the task, over and over. I’m so proud of you.”

“I have, haven’t I?” she said, feeling herself pinken slightly, shy to take the compliment. “I’ve finally found my place, I think ... with you, with this work.”

She thought of his words again, watching the breeze move through the wheat, listening to the voices draw closer, and knew she was home. It wasn’t a place, she realized, but inside herself.

They passed the inspection. Mrs. Darling would keep her land. They all whooped and laughed after the dour inspector had taken his leave, Silas swinging Mrs. Darling about in a dizzy waltz. Ophelia smiled until her cheeks hurt and thought she had never imagined happiness could look like this.