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won’t make you work too hard, either, because she’ll know I’ll be looking out for you. And I suppose it’s true that Mari Elen is getting too much of her own way with you and me. Neither of us seems to be a match for her, but Nano has some natural authority. Tom and Catrin always behaved well when she was in charge. Poor Tom. How will we find him, I wonder. Did you know about little Sali losing her heart to him?’
    ‘No. I was told they’d taken her away because she was lonely and unhappy here. She’s always been a foolish little creature, but I half understand how Tom’s feelings must have affected her. He was so sad about his mother and about leaving Hendre Ddu that she must have felt that some of it was about leaving her. Girls can be very foolish creatures if they have no one to bring them down to earth. If I’d known how she felt I would have been able to put her right. For instance, I would have told her about this sweetheart of his, I’m sure that would have altered her feelings.’
    ‘Nano mentioned this sweetheart. Of course, I’d been told nothing about her.’
    ‘I think Miss Rees made a great deal out of hearing that some nice girl or other, a retired colonel’s daughter if I remember rightly, had promised to write to him. It was to raise poor Mrs Ifans’ spirits when she was so loath to let him go abroad.’
    ‘I was loath to let him go abroad, too. And I told him so more than once. I thought he was mad to enlist. I only hope he isn’t too badly injured.’
    The next morning a War Office letter arrived letting them know that Tom had lost his right leg at the knee and was to be invalided out of the army; an honourable discharge they called it. He’d been in the field hospital for more than a month and he was doing very well.
    Nano fainted on hearing the news but Lowri and Josi soon realised that this was no ordinary faint, she had suffered a stroke and had to be carried to her bed which proved no easy task, even for Josi and Davy Prosser between them. Dr Andrews and Catrin were called and Nano insisted that they, too, were to stay for the foreseeable future.
    Catrin and Lowri hugged each other, both terrified by what had happened. Nano had always seemed indestructible; Hendre Ddu without her at the helm was unimaginable. They sat at her side, stroking her stricken face, talking to her and listening to her heavy breathing.
    ‘Tell us the truth,’ Josi begged his son-in-law when they were back downstairs. ‘Is there any hope of a recovery? Any hope at all?’
    ‘She’s strong and healthy and her heart is sound so she’ll get a little better quite soon. She’ll soon be sitting up and trying to talk, but a complete recovery is unlikely I’m afraid. She’s suffered a major stroke. Let’s hope that Tom’s arrival helps her recover. She dotes on him, I believe.’
    ‘She dotes on him, of course she does, and on Catrin too. And she’s eagerly looking forward to the baby’s arrival, I know that. She’s got a lot to live for.’
    Catrin and Lowri made up the bed in the guest room for Catrin and her husband. ‘You should have our bed, by rights,’ Lowri told Catrin when they’d finished.
    ‘What rights are those then?’ Catrin asked. ‘My father is the head of the house, at least until Tom arrives home and you are his legal wife so doesn’t that give you a right to the best bedroom? Stop putting yourself down. When you came to be a maid here, my mother told Tom and me that you were our cousin and that we were to treat you as family and I’m sure we always did. Now why can’t you accept that, since we always have. You’re now my step-mother and I’ll respect your judgement and try to agree with everything you suggest.’
    ‘Don’t be silly,’ was Lowri’s only response. ‘And don’t let Nano hear you saying things like that. She doesn’t hold with all this equality. Oh, Catrin, what will we do if she dies?’
    ‘She’s going to get better. Perhaps she’ll never be