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‘He doesn’t despise you. I saw him in tears the night you left for France though I never saw him break down for Mother’s death or Miriam’s. He’s had a lot to deal with, poor man, but I think he’s achieved some sort of peace now with dear Lowri. What a treasure she is, though she still refers to him as Mr Ifans and I am often Miss Catrin however many times I correct her. Christ promised that the meek should inherit the earth, didn’t he, though she’s only inherited Father and that little madam, Mari Elen. I was cruel to her mother, Tom, did you ever hear about that? Yes, I met Miriam once in the chemist’s in town and I followed her out and gave her such a mouthful. It’s an episode that still grieves me, though I suppose she had much worse to put up with, even her aunt turned against her, I heard. And yet she was once a highly respected school teacher. Her funeral was a very quiet almost secret affair of course, but the very first village meeting afterwards was really all about her, one person after another wanting to tell everyone how much she did for them; her pupils thought the world of her. Teachers in our elementary schools are usually not much brighter than the pupils they try to teach, but she was very highly regarded. And she is still talked about, so Teifi Griffiths, a former pupil who became a journalist on
The Tivyside
, said in her obituary. She certainly wasn’t an ordinary woman and I misjudged her.’

‘Of course you did. You were only conscious that she had broken up our family. I felt quite as strongly about it as you did.’

‘And at that time, I knew nothing of the power of love…. Well, aren’t we having an elevated conversation? Let me bring it down to earth and ask you whether you have a sweetheart. Miss Rees seems to think you have. I must confess I knew nothing of it, which shows how very distant we always were.’

‘I still cherish the memory of a very charming girl I met before I was sent abroad. But I only mentioned her to Nano because she seemed to need something to think about in those dark days when Mother was dying. I hear from her from time to time, and perhaps a bit oftener, but I won’t expect to hear from her again after I tell her my news.’

‘Tom! What a very poor opinion you have of women. I would have gladly given my life to looking after a wounded Edward if only I’d had that chance. Anyway, you must invite her to visit us here. She may be very glad of a few peaceful days in the country and some good country fare. Things are terrible in London, it seems. I look forward to meeting her. Though Nano may not be with us to toil and cook for quite some time, Lowri and I will do our best to make her feel at home. We’ve both been trained by Nano, you know, so I’m sure we’ll manage excellently between us. And Lowri says Maud and Lottie are good girls too. What do you say?’

‘I’m not sure. I don’t think things have gone as far as that. But I’ll think about it.’

‘And don’t take too long about it or someone else will get there before you. Oh, I can hear Graham’s motor car in the yard now. I wonder why he’s so late?’

Catrin went out to the porch to meet her husband.

In the quiet days that followed, Catrin heavy with child, she and Tom found a friendship that had always been denied to them as children.

‘I was always jealous of you,’ Tom confessed. ‘You were Father’s favourite and I couldn’t put up with that. I knew I was Mother’s favourite but that never meant so much to me. I worshipped Father and could hardly bear it when he left us. It’s only now that I can see him as an ordinary man with the usual human frailties. It’s a strange thing Catrin, but I had to go to France before really appreciating my own family and my own country. I love Wales. Not only her peaceful beauty but all her ordinary, poor people. I mean, Davy Prosser, for instance, who works every day, sometimes until very late at night out of some feeling of loyalty to our family. What have we ever done to deserve such loyalty? We pay him a pittance, the amount a senior farm labourer is always paid, I suppose, and he seems ready to give us his entire life in return. Can you imagine Prosser being spiteful or mean to any one of us? No, he always gives us his best and I intend to put his wages up in the autumn and every autumn from now on. I’m determined to make the farm pay, not to make money for myself for improvements to the house and land and so on, but so that I can be a decent employer, trying to pay back the men for their labour. I want to wipe out the memory of Mother’s grandfather, old Thomas Morgan, who cheated and stole from the little men, lending them money and snaffling their
smallholdings when they couldn’t repay the loans. Pray God, I have none of his blood in me. How I wish I were able-bodied so that I could get up at six every morning and get started on the work. But there, if I were fit I’d still be in that hell hole in France among the rats and the rotting corpses.

‘And now,’ he continued, ‘I must get myself up those dratted stairs that seem to be so much steeper than they used to be, to sit with Nano for a while. She’s not very cheerful, I’m afraid. She realises now that she’s had a stroke and keeps begging me to shoot her. But I tell her that Dr Andrews assures me I can still get some work out of her sooner or later, so I’m giving her a few weeks to recover. I’ve never been into her bedroom before. It was always forbidden territory, wasn’t it? She has every picture we ever painted on her walls and all the poems we used to be persuaded to write her for Christmas every year, all highly embarrassing. She does look better today though, her face isn’t as lop-sided as it was. I wish that letter from the war office hadn’t given her such a fright, ‘wounded’ would have been quite bad enough.’

‘I’ll come up with you,’ Catrin said. ‘Then she can tell me once again how to prepare for my labour. She wants me to drink raspberry leaf tea every morning and to eat hard-boiled eggs for at least one meal every day. It’s something those famous physicans of Myddfai used to recommend in the last century. She’s told me already that I’m carrying a lusty boy who’ll weigh ten pounds and look exactly like you.’

‘But with two legs, I hope,’ Tom said as they went slowly upstairs.

They found that Nano wasn’t fond of her new nurse, though she conceded that she wasn’t as rough as Mrs Griffin. ‘But she grunts and snores all night,’ she told them. ‘How is that helping to cure me? What wages are you proposing to give her? She eats like a horse and wipes her mouth on my clean towels. I can’t wait to dismiss her.’

‘You shall dismiss her as soon as you’re able to sit up and eat a good meal. That shouldn’t take you too long. You’ve always been strong.’

‘How is Lowri managing in the kitchen? Tell her that Lottie is to prepare all the vegetables and do all the washing up. Don’t let her spoil Lottie now that I’ve managed to train her. She is to clean out the range at six in the morning and scrub the kitchen floor and the dairy. It’s only what Lowri herself had to do when she was fourteen and it didn’t do her any harm. Lottie is slow but she knows her jobs, getting the eggs and churning the butter and laying the table for dinner when she’s changed her dress.’

She stopped talking for a while and lay breathing heavily, but was soon ready to start again. Her words were not as rushed as usual and her speech was a little slurred. ‘Don’t let her become slovenly; she’s got to be watched, has Lottie. And remember Mrs Ifans, God rest her soul, couldn’t put up with a slovenly servant waiting at table. “Get her to wash her face and pin up her hair, Nano,” she’d tell me. “Buy her some scented soap and a good strong comb and compliment her when she’s made an effort.” I always did. “And see that she mends any tear in her dress and buys good quality stockings even if they cost a few pennies more. Give her an extra sixpence when she buys something useful instead of spending her wages on rubbish from the tinker.” ’

Another pause, longer this time, while she gathered what strength she could still muster. ‘“Teach her your ways, Nano,” she used to say, God bless her sweet soul. Maudie is more dependable, being a bit older. You can go down now, you two. There’s no need for you to spend any more time with a stupid old woman who should have had the decency to make a tidy job of dying instead of landing up like this, a useless weight on the bed and costing good money to feed and nurse.’

An even longer pause, but when Catrin tried to make an excuse for leaving, she refused to let go her hand. ‘Remember, both of you, I’ve got my best linen nightdress wrapped up in that top drawer for a shroud and I’m leaving all my good dresses and my shoes to my cousin Mary Ann Hopkins in Tregaron, my real pearl necklace to you, Miss Catrin, and my sapphire brooch with seed pearls to Mister Tom’s wife and my three or four books to Mrs Prosser who’s a bit of a bookworm as I was whenever I got the time, which I never did. Go down now please. You’re tiring me with all this chatter.’

‘Wouldn’t it be dreadful if Lottie or Maudie left now that they haven’t got Nano to keep an eye on them and order them about. Do you think an extra sixpence a week would keep them happy Tom? What Father used to do was try to hire a really handsome young lad at Michaelmas for the young maids to fall in love with. We’ll have to do that. Tom, let’s be real friends from now on. You don’t have to look after me now, do you? I’m a respectable married woman. You used to be so bossy, so frightened that I’d turn out badly.’

‘I’m sure I was. And I needn’t have feared, you didn’t turn out too badly.’

Mari Elen had bought some humbugs for Nano and her father said she could take them upstairs to her but that she must be down in five minutes.

She made the most of her time. ‘Miss Rees,’ she said. ‘I’m afraid your face has slipped down on one side.’

‘Yes, I’m afraid it has,’ Miss Rees agreed, rather glumly.

‘My father thought it best not to tell you, but I think it would be unkind to let you have a shock when you saw yourself in a mirror.’

‘I see what you mean.’

‘In any case, you’re not young and beautiful like Catrin, for instance. It would be much worse, I think, if her face had collapsed. Perhaps Graham would no longer want to be married to her.’

‘Oh, I hope he would. When you get married you promise to love someone in sickness and in health.’

‘I don’t think I shall get married. I think I’ll choose to stay with my father and Lowri.’

‘I think that would be a very wise move. They’re good people and will never let you down.’

‘Anyway I’ll go now, Miss Rees. You won’t worry about your poor face, will you? We’ll all still love you. Or at least I know I will.’

‘Thank you.’

‘You must remind me to visit poor Miss Rees every day,’ she told Lowri when she got downstairs, ‘I think I cheer her up.’

‘Well, perhaps you do,’ Lowri said, but without too much conviction.

Chapter three

At about three o’clock the following morning when the farm was completely quiet at last, Tom had his first nightmare. His loud screams were terrifying, those of a man at the brink of some unimaginable disaster. Josi rushed in to his bedroom while Lowri stayed to comfort Mari Elen who had been woken by the noise. Catrin was also awake and heard Miss Rees’ bell being rung.

‘It’s Mister Tom, poor soul,’ she said as Catrin went in and lit a candle in her room.

‘Great heavens, Nano you’re sitting up in bed,’ Catrin said. ‘How wonderful. Graham said that you’d soon be back to normal.’

‘Of course I’m sitting up in bed,’ Miss Rees said. ‘How could I remain on my back with no one attending to Mister Tom. Mr Ifans was so slow getting up. I rang the bell, though, because I can’t seem to get myself down again. Could you give me a good heave, Catrin, please, or I’ll be sitting here until the day of judgement.’

Catrin managed to lay the old woman down and offered her a cup of tea. ‘I would appreciate a cup of tea,’ she said, ‘if you can wait to hold the cup. I feel I’ve been to hell and back. What terrible memories came back to torment that precious boy who I held in my arms when he was barely five minutes old? Why wasn’t someone sleeping at his side to protect him from those dreadful dreams? His father should be in there with him. I’ll have to get a small bed into his room so that he’s never left on his own again. Oh, why has the Good Lord decided to strike me down at this time when I could be of such service to the dear boy? Blessed be the name of our God, but there are certain things I’d like to take him to task about.’

‘All the same, I don’t think Tom would welcome anyone sleeping in his room to protect him. He’s not a child, Nano.’

‘Bring me a cup of tea, Catrin. I want to be fit by morning. Somehow I don’t think you can manage without me.’

‘I think we’ll have to manage without you for the next few weeks, Nano. But you shall still tell us exactly what to do, I promise. You’re still in charge.’

‘A cup of tea first then and then a cup of tea for Mister Tom, and perhaps a beef sandwich. A beef sandwich with a touch of mustard gives a man great comfort somehow. Even a spot of medicinal brandy will do him no harm tonight.’

‘I’ll let him know what you say,’ Catrin said.

‘Mister Tom,’ Miss Rees said a few days later, ‘I don’t think I’ve got long to live and if you saw how Dr Andrews looked at me this morning you’d have seen that he agreed with me.’

Tom was shaken. ‘He doesn’t know how tough you are,’ he said at last, ‘I often heard Mother tell us how ill you were when you had pneumonia, double pneumonia, that time. You weren’t expected to live then, and that was many, many years ago.’

‘I am a tough old bird, yes, and I may pull through, but again I may not. And, if not, I’d like to meet that May Malcolm you once told me about before I die. There was something in your voice when you mentioned her and I’d heard that very note once before when my dear Rachel first met your father. You said that she’d written to you very faithfully and that means a lot to me. I want to meet her, Tom. I want to tell her about your dear mother as well as many stories about your early life. Will you write to her this very afternoon and tell her that it’s a matter of some urgency? When the call comes, Tom, a soul has to answer it, not plead for another few days. When she sees me, she’ll understand that there was no time to lose.’