‘Stop, stop!’ Glenys cried, half laughing and half dismayed. ‘I can see this is going to take much longer than I had imagined. Tell me, are we going to find Griffiths all over Wales with only nicknames to distinguish one from t’other? Only I’d not realised . . .’

Mrs Hughes nodded portentously. ‘Yes, a hard task you have set yourself,’ she said. She stared curiously up into Glenys’s face, her eyes suddenly sharp behind the blue lenses. ‘You say they’re your nephew and niece; an odd thing it seems that none of you seem to know very much about your family . . .’

Glenys stood up quickly and reached for her shoulder bag. ‘Well, now we are doing what we may to change that,’ she said sharply. ‘Eat up, Mo; I want to get settled into my classroom before the majority of my pupils arrive.’

Bristling with affront, Mrs Hughes began to clear the table, and before Glenys could leave the room the landlady spoke again. ‘One rule I forgot to mention, Miss Trent. My guests are welcome to use the facilities of this house, but not between nine o’clock in the morning and six o’clock in the evening. In between those hours they must amuse themselves.’

Glenys had a hand on the doorknob, but now she spun round. ‘Oh, but Mrs Hughes, you said nothing of this.’ She glanced towards the window, at the distant prospect of rain-shrouded hills. ‘Jimmy’s very quiet and helpful; he’ll give you a hand in any way he can, and in this weather—’

‘Rules is rules,’ Mrs Hughes interrupted. ‘Different it would be if you was with the children yourself, but I know lads and I know my house. Take him with you to the infant school, for without the Welsh he’d be no use to Mr Feather, who runs the school for the older children.’

‘Oh, but—’ Glenys began, but Jimmy interrupted her.

‘It’s awright, Auntie Glenys,’ he said firmly. ‘I’ll occupy meself one way or another. I seen a nice roomy woodshed agin the privy in Mrs Hughes’s back yard, and today’s market day, so I’ve heard. I love a market I do, and sometimes a likely lad can earn hisself a few pennies, helpin’ to herd sheep or drive a pig out of a pen and into the sale ring. Don’t you worry about me, I’ll be fine.’

For a moment Mrs Hughes looked dumbfounded, but then her expression changed to one of annoyance. It was clear to Glenys that the landlady was deliberately making life difficult for them, probably because she resented Glenys’s refusal to pander to her curiosity, and the younger woman tried not to show the dismay she felt. Market day probably only came round once a week; what would Jimmy do on the other four?

But Mo, who was still eating, slid off her chair and went over to the coats hanging beside the back door, jerking her own and Glenys’s off the hooks and taking them over to the table. ‘Jimmy will be all right,’ she said reassuringly through a mouthful of toast and marmalade. ‘I see’d a barn up the road when I looked out of our window this morning – if it rains he can shelter in there. And there’s shops to look at, ‘specially if he’s earned a few pennies helpin’ at the market. Oh, aye, Jimmy’ll be just fine.’