When she came out, nineteen year old Sophia had been instantly rejected by her parents and threwn out of her home. Too hurt to think clearly, for she was well thought of in many quarters and would have been willingly given bed and board by many without reproach or censure, or even thought of payment till she’d recovered from her hurt, she’d left for the city where she’d ended up living rough on the streets for eighteen months. That came to an end when her parents had died in a car crash leaving everything to her sister Abigail in a recently drawn up will that specifically excluded Sophia from inheriting anything. The will was watertight having been reluctantly witnessed by Judge Peason who had done his best to persuade the Calderwells to make provision for Sophia, but to no avail. Abi had rapidly located Sophia, who was off the streets, waitressing and living in a hostel for unmarried mothers that had a spare bed. It had been a relieved and happy Sophie that went back to the home she grew up in to live with Abi. At first that was.

There were five years between Abi and Sophia, and they had never been close, but once home Abi started to treat Sophia as an unpaid servant. Abi dressed badly and looked unattractive, as if she were twenty years older than her age, and now considered it was Sophia’s fault that she was unmarried and ignored by all their acquaintance. In consequence she gave Sophia an endless torrent of abuse for ‘stealing’ her beaux. The only reason Sophia managed to dress well and look pretty was because unlike Abi she did get on with the neighbours who were aware of how Abi treated her, disapproved and since Abi gave her nothing they did because Sophia was despite all one of them.

That infuriated Abi because she couldn’t use the neighbours’ reactions to Sophia as justification for her own failings any more. Abi only had a limited hold on Sophie because without Sophie, not only wouldn’t the animals be tended to no housework or cooking would be done and ultimately there would be no income for her to control. Sophie had called her bluff early on regarding physical force. Abi was bigger than Sophie but Sophie was the stronger from her farming work and she wasn’t afraid of her sister. She was also aware if she left her sister would be in a bigger mess than herself, and she made Abi aware of that.

To earn some money to pay for her prescription, Sophia babysat for her neighbours allowing some of them some rare and appreciated time together away from their children. She also did odd little jobs for the local women who taught her to be a decent needle woman and how to knit. Sophie’s neighbours gave her unused garments to alter, sewing paraphernalia, out grown woolens to unravel for yarn to knit and enjoyed her company in the evenings as they sat chatting whilst crocheting or sewing on their porches. In their eyes Sophia was a good girl, for she was respectful of her elders, helpful and polite.

As Georgina Clairemont said to the group of women who were making berry jam with her, “You can’t always tell, but the children can. They can spot a fake smile a mile away. They love her, and she can get Betty into her nightie, in bed and asleep in a fraction of the time Bill can. Mind the bedtime stories help. Tell you, ladies, she’s a nice girl. Gonna make some lucky boy a fine wife one day.” That was the universally agreed judgement.

Theirs was not a wealthy community, but it was a kindly one that had not approved of Sophia’s parents’ treatment of her. They had not intervened because it was her parents and not she who owned the property and thus paid the taxes, but despite the legal situation they considered Sophia had a moral right to a half share in the house and the just over ten acres it stood in.

Bit by bit Sophie became accepted as one of the neighbourhood women. It became automatic that she was invited to the women’s communal food processing activities. She took her turn organising the flowers in the church and her past became an idiosyncrasy rather than something that mattered. Her cheese was highly regarded and once it was realised that her first few batches weren’t just beginner’s luck but indicative of solid competence that sealed the matter. Men did not make cheese.

Sophia wasn’t desperate for a man, but a husband of means, or at least one farming on his own behalf, would solve her most pressing problem, having to live with Abi. Sophia was no subservient ‘little woman’ in any sense, but she did believe a good marriage was founded on both parties looking after and caring for each other. Like most of her neighbours she regarded marriage as far more than a hormonally initiated attraction referred to as love.

For her it was a contract in every sense of the word entered into for life, and sex, affection, money and one’s time were merely some of the currencies of exchange in a good marriage. She, better than most, was aware of the differences between men and women, and had no problem with the prospect of fulfilling a traditional rural wife’s rôle as lived by her neighbours, in fact she relished it because other than having a husband and children to look after she was already doing most of what it entailed.

Abi had never had a boy or a man shew any interest in her till her transition from a frump into a woman, which had only happened when her sister returned home as Sophia, a pretty and pleasing young woman with intelligent conversation and a demure demeanour that single, professional young men of means found attractive. Despite her new clothes, there wasn’t really much of a change in Abi because she was still a shrew and still unpleasantly jealous of any woman who could hold a man’s interest. Abi was cordially disliked by women, avoided by men and children were frightened of her fiend like temper. Her only mode of conversation with children involved a constant diatribe of complaint concerning their behaviour and it was at a steady roar. Abi had alienated all her neighbours. None now visited the house, and she was neither invited nor welcomed anywhere.

Sophia was welcomed wherever she went. She met any number of young men who were interested in her. Many were sons of her neighbours who lived at home, but many had gone to the city for education and had returned home for a visit, often with friends. Many of the latter considered themselves to be modern day rakes. None had interested her because she knew no matter how good a wife she was to them they were not good husband material, and she believed sooner or later they would abuse her just because she was herself, and unlike most of the local young women of her age she had no protective male relatives to step in in such an event.

Most young men were deceived by her demure politeness, and some expecting her to be an easy conquest with no male protectors to take issue with them tried hard to press their perceived advantage. However, Sophie had her own ways of dealing with over pushy males after her virtue. She agreed with everything they said, and when after a considerable investment of time they considered she was malleable enough to agree to anything they finally pressed her to meet with them alone somewhere where they were unlikely to be disturbed they were dismayed to be disarmingly told, “I’m sorry, but you’re obviously right, women have no head for anything. What was it you just said, for I can’t remember a word of it.”

It was not long before it was well known she was not a ripe plum for the plucking and the respect she was held in by her neighbours especially the women soared. Most thought it was high time some of the young men received the salutary lesson they’d had at Sophia’s hands. When Alice had put it about that Sophie had confided, “I have no intention of going to my wedding as used goods, Alice. That is fraud and I’m not going to cheat before or after I’m spoken for,” there were nods of approval even from Preacher Jones.

Abi was idle, and it was Sophia who saw to the chickens, fed the pigs, milked the three cows, kept the bees and generally maintained the property. She was a hard working young woman who was adept at all the skills a farmer’s wife would need. Thus she was the one who was well thought of by the neighbours and the one whom her neighbours sent their husbands and sons over to help because as Sarah Greenham explained to her husband, “Miss Sophie Calderwell’s fence don’t be looking too clever down by the stream. So, George, it’d be a neighbourly deed if you took the boys over and fixed it before her beasts go missing. Don’t bother calling at the house. Miss Abigail would like as not scare the boys. Just fix the fence.” That her neighbours would do anything for Sophie and barely acknowledged her just increased Abi’s ire with her sister.

That Sophie, in gratitude, would take a jug of iced tea or lemonade in the heat or one of coffee in the cooler weather and a plate of sandwiches with some fresh baked pie out to any who helped her meant she had a whole crowd of adolescent boys infatuated with her. “Thank you, Miss Sophie, I’m obliged for the sandwiches. Growing boys do take some filling. That’s a fact. Your own pickles with the cheese?"

"I helped to make them, George. There were a few of us. Sarah too."

Aproving of her modesty, George merely said, "Tasty. You bake good bread too. Is there anything else we can be doing for you?”

“Not at the moment, George, thank you. Henry has said he and his boys will organise my pig killing for me as soon as the weather cools a bit, and Peter Jeffers gelded the calf for me the other day. Unless you know anything about water taps?”

“Surely I do. How can I help you?”

“The kitchen tap keeps dripping no matter how hard I tighten it.”

“I’ll be over after supper with the boys and the right tools. It probably just needs a new washer or the seat cutting flat again. It’ll be an opportunity for the boys to do a bit of learning. We’ll finish up here and be off. Sarah said to say she’ll be expecting you Friday after lunch for the fruit canning. She said to tell you if you like come early and join us for lunch. Lucy Walker’s bringing her new forty-one quart pressure canner for the collards and there’ll be six of you, and a lot of folk coming for the barbecue and dancing in the evening.” He looked about to check his three boys weren’t listening and whispered, “My dad’s bringing a supply of his home brewed ale and some of his whisky too, so it should be a good evening. Shall I have Sarah set a glass aside for you?”

“Please, and thank you, George, and you too boys, for fixing the fence. Tell Sarah I’ve a quart of honey put by for her. I was going to bring it over on Friday, but you can pick it up this evening if you like, George.” That was a typical interaction between Sophia and her neighbours.

Sophia had met Clive whilst helping Alice Durran with the lambing in the spring. Clive was Alice’s nephew, “My sister Clara’s second boy, Sophie. The one with the brains,” and a newly qualified vet who was currently practising as a barely paid locum for an established vet two shires over.

“That’s a fine hand with the lambing you have there, Miss Sophie. There’re are not many could have turned that lamb without losing it,” he’d told her. She’d blushed and said, “Thank you, but it was the poor ewe that did the hard work not me.” One thing led to another and Clive and Sophie had been meeting regularly for three months at his aunt’s who had provided a safe meeting place for the couple out of the eyes and knowledge of Abi, though everyone else in the neighbourhood knew about the couple.

Alice had made it clear she approved and also that Clive was aware of Sophie’s previous status and didn’t care. “And no more do we, Miss Sophie. Should it come to be, Henry and I would be well pleased to call you niece.” Alice had hesitated and then quietly added, “But I don’t think Henry would be too happy keeping company with your sister.” Alice had looked away and the matter had been allowed to drop.

That Sophia had a following of lovesick teenage boys fuelled Abigail’s jealousy till it knew no bounds, and she started to further change the way she dressed. Her frocks became lower across her bosom and tighter across her bottom and around her hips. It was all done in a manner calculated to attract men, and it worked, till they knew her better.

Jessica Harkness had knowingly said, “It was to be expected. An old maid’s last desperate fling. She’ll settle down to a couple of cats and a bitter looking expression permanently glued on her face in a few years, like Felicity Herbert. Nothing surer. Seen it all before I have, Alice. Lord knows what she’ll do when Miss Sophie marries Clara’s boy, for she can’t look after the place. It’s Miss Sophie that does all the woman’s work and no one will send a man round to help Miss Abi, it’s so sour and unpleasant as she is. A fool to herself that one’s been. She should have had half a dozen children by now, but I guess she couldn’t even be pleasant enough to a man to get him into and keep him in her bed. And Lord knows that’s not a difficult thing to do. A well fed and well bed man is like milk loaf dough in even a plain woman’s hands, and plain she is not. And besides it’s no chore, for a woman does need to be kept comfortable or in child so she can go about her work undistracted.”

There was a lot of chuckling at that, and Clara said, “Well you’d be the one to know, Jessica.” At which there was a lot more chuckling, for Jessica had not long since married for her third time, having lost her first man to cancer and her second to a motor car accident, and she was pregnant with her tenth.

The couple had it all planned, dinner, dancing and a night of intimacy, all in the Grosvenor hotel in the city. That is they had had it planned till Abigail had heard of it and as always had decided she needed to stick her oar in her sister’s affairs. She maintained it was to protect her younger sister’s virtue. “Abi has always been a master, or perhaps I should say a mistress, of self delusion, Clive,” Sophie told him with a wry but beguiling smile.

How Abi had become aware of things Sophia had no idea, but there wasn’t a lot she could do about it. She knew Abi just wanted to spoil things for her. Abi resented her sister possibly achieving what she herself had threwn every chance of away. She also considered that Abi genuinely believed she had a chance of wooing Clive away from her because as she put it often, “You’re just a pretty fake. I’ve got what it takes and can give a man children.”

However, Clive, whose childhood friends knew Abi and Sophie well and had told him about her behaviour since Sophie came back to live with her, had said, “It’ll be ok, Sophie, don’t worry. I’ll see to it. I don’t want your sister even if she threws herself naked at me. Oh, I’ll grant her she’s pretty enough on the outside, and doubtless would peel well. She may well be able to have children and as she puts it ‘have what it takes’, but she’s been a bitter old maid since before she hit puberty, and is every man’s waking nightmare.”

The young couple had talked about a future together and Clive had said he was interested in the old Fillerby place which though run down was one of the biggest farms in the area and though the house had been empty for two years it was habitable, “Alex at the bank took me out there and told me if I decided to settle here I’ll have no problem getting a loan to buy the place. All I need to do is tell him, and he’ll authorise it and have all the paperwork done by the time he goes home. But you’d have your time cut out with the cleaning to start with. Aunt Alice said she could organise the local women to help. Sorry. I got a bit in front of myself there, Sophie! Will you marry me, Sophia Calderwell? Please?”

Sophie had gurgled, “Of course I will. I’m twenty-one turned and need no one’s permission now, least of all Abi’s, but do get off your knees, Clive, or I’ll have to mend the knees on your trousers.” Sophie turned serious, “What about you, Clive? Where will you practise? And I can’t manage that place on my own if you’re working. It’s near to three hundred and eighty acres of ploughed land and grazing, over twelve hundred with the woodland and the water, and I don’t see the point in paying interest on something that’s not paying its way.”

Clive ignored her questions to ask one of his own, “May I tell Judge Peason to get the paperwork in order for our wedding and Preacher Jones we want the Church for the first available Saturday in October?” Sophie’s kiss was all the answer he needed. “Roger Banner over in Deepvale is retiring soon, so the area will need a vet. He’s agreed to sell me all his instruments, drugs and everything else at a reasonable price. Only thing is he’s got a nephew with a family in the city who wants out and to move back here. Roger’s getting on, been on his own for years, and his nephew’s wife has agreed to look after him if and when he needs it in return for living there. He told me he’s leaving it all to his nephew. So I’d be set up other than having somewhere to practice.

“The Fillerby place isn’t far out of town and I thought I could turn one of the smaller outbuildings into a surgery and hospital. Even to start with, I’d be earning enough to pay for at least part time help on the farm and eventually to pay a man full time. Once the farm gets going it’ll pay for several men and still turn a good profit. What do you think?” Another kiss sealed the matter, and Sophie agreed Clive should have someone sent out to glaze the broken windows and fix the back door hinges.

Sophia was happy that Clive had told her, “The place is big enough for as many children as you could possibly want and the city is full of children desperate for parents who’d love you as their mum. It’s not uncommon for people who can’t have their own to adopt four or more at once. As for having what it takes, that’s for you to decide, but it won’t be long before, if that’s what you decide you want to do, you’ll have the money to do it. It’s you as you are I love, whatever you choose to do.”

Sophie had never said anything on the matter, but she decided she was going to work doubly hard on the farm, so that she could feel she had contributed to the price of her procedures too. Having ‘what it took’ was important to her for both herself and Clive, even if Clive wasn’t concerned.

She realised Clive must have been thinking about marriage for a while to mention adoption and he’d got it all planned out. In bed that night as she hugged herself in delight, she inspected her still developing bosom and decided, at the rate the hormones were working, she would have enough of the real thing by the time of her wedding to do without anything else in her bodice. She was crying tears of joy as she thought it all through, over and over again.

She was going to be a bride, with a high status husband who loved her, be a mum with a family and run one of the biggest properties in the area which would enable her to utilise to the full all the women’s skills she had spent her whole childhood learning in secret. Her new mum and dad to be, Clara and Charles already treated her better than her own parents had done, and Clara was looking forward to more grandchildren. “Get me some granddaughters, Sophia! Eight grandsons I’ve got which keeps Charlie happy, but I want some girls so we can have some fun in the kitchen.”

Best of all she’d be away from Abi, though she was intending to give her a good offer for the livestock. Abi wouldn’t want any of it and Sophie didn’t want to start from scratch with the bees for hers were gentler than most and it would take time to breed the aggression out of a fresh strain. She’d thought about Clara’s request and though she’d said nothing to any one, not even Clive, she’d decided on a round dozen children eventually and to start with four girls.

Abi was her only worry. That she could deal with Abi she knew. Clara and Alice had been telling her for a long time if things became difficult just to move in with them. Alice had said, “Don’t bother about your things, Dear. Just you come on over. I’ll have Henry collect your things later. He doesn’t like Abigail, but he’s not in the least bit intimidated by her.”

She decided to take Alice up on her offer rather than Clara because she didn’t want to get married out of Clive’s home and Henry was going to give her away. She’d pack her things ready and have Henry collect them when Abi was out. Her only worry was how Clive was going to deal with Abi.

Abigail was completely freaked out about about what lay on the plate. The plate was fully two feet long and a foot and a half wide. On it a bright red heavily armoured creature was steaming. It not only covered the plate its legs over lapped the edges. That she was going to be expected to eat the bug with what looked like a dozen legs was making her feel sick and she was horrified and terrified at the prospect.

Sophia sniffed the air and remarked, “It smells like freshly cooked lobster. What is it and how do you get through the shell, Clive?”

Clive smiled and replied, “It's a graill. A deep water, giant isopod that only comes to the shore three or four times a year when both moons are full. The flavour is intense and better than any lobster you ever tasted, they are prohibitively expensive, but to celebrate our agreement to marry I consider we are worth it. It’s a large cousin of a woodlouse. I’ll shell it for us.” As soon as Abi heard Clive say woodlouse she put her hands over her mouth and fled. “See. I told you, Darling, I’d see to it.”

Clive reached for the tray on which lay implements with more in common with blacksmiths tools than cutlery, and in thirty seconds had the block of meat out of its shell. He dished up the graill and Sophie reached for vegetables and sauce. The couple were now much happier dining tête a tête without Abi’s inhibitive presence. As Sophie exclaimed in wonder at the exquisite taste, Clive explained that the aphrodisiac like properties of graill were well documented.

“That had better be true, Clive, and not just marketing man’s hype. Seeing that you spent so much I think it’s only fair that I provide value for money too. However, in giving you what you’ve been patiently waiting so long for I consider it only reasonable for me to expect to be provided with a considerable degree of rapture as a result.”

Clive smiled and said, “As to the price, how much would you have been prepared to pay to get Abigail off your back? And concerning your rapture, don’t worry, Darling. I’ll see to it.”