‘I’ve seen him; that’s why I’m here,’ Glenys said quickly. ‘I was on my way to meet someone, and I was hurrying because I was late and Sam was trying to catch me up. I think he must have been running because I didn’t know anyone was behind me until suddenly someone grabbed me round the waist and it was Sam, bubbling over with excitement. Oh, Nain, I knew at that moment what a fool I’d been . . .’

Mo’s voice broke in on Glenys’s explanation. ‘Was you a fool because you didn’t come back to Weathercock Farm, or because you went away? Nain said you’d gone to get experience, wharrever that may mean, and I were afraid you might never come back, though Jimmy was sure you would and he’s usually right, isn’t he?’ She grabbed Glenys’s hand and pressed it to her cheek. ‘Well, he was right this time, wasn’t he? You have come back, and if you promise never never to go away again I’ll let go of your hand so’s you can drink the tea Nain is pouring and have a buttered scone.’

‘And you must let Glenys sit down,’ Nain said, pouring tea into two large enamel mugs. ‘My goodness, wait until the others see you. Taid always said I was wrong to let you go and I was beginning to fear he was right, but now he’ll have to admit I knew what I was doing.’

Glenys had seated herself at the table, and now she raised her eyebrows. ‘Let me go? What do you mean?’

Nain chuckled, but continued with the task of splitting and buttering scones on which she had been engaged when Glenys had entered the room. ‘I knew you and Sam had quarrelled, and while I won’t say I have second sight – though Taid always insists that I do – I suddenly knew that you would run away from us, because nothing in your life had prepared you to understand the emotions of a man like Sam, who has had the dreadful experience of losing a loved one. He was trying to be both mother and father to his children, yet I could see, even if you could not, that he was . . . well, more than fond of you, my dear.’ Her glance slid to Mo and a smile crinkled her eyes as she addressed her granddaughter. ‘I saw you nick that scone, you little monkey! And now we must let Glenys tell us what’s been happening to her.’ She turned back to Glenys. ‘I can see you have all the self-confidence you lacked when you left us, and that is thanks to the ATS, of course. But I’m more interested in the social side of your life. Do you have a young man? Friends of both sexes?’

Mo gasped. ‘Nain, you said a bad word,’ she said accusingly. ‘You said sex; our teacher says that’s a bad word.’

Glenys giggled. ‘It’s not a bad word, darling, it’s just another way of saying boy or girl,’ she explained. She looked back at Nain and thought guiltily that the other woman had aged in her absence. She hoped to God it had not been worry over her which had caused the additional wrinkles and the trembling hand. But Nain was still watching her expectantly. ‘Well, there have been a couple of fellows,’ she admitted. ‘But truly, Nain, they really were just good friends. And of course the person who ran away from Sam and the farm is entirely different from the person who works on the ack-ack site, spotting enemy planes so that the gunners can shoot them down, and, in short, is in command both of her duty and of herself.’