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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