Testimonies: A Novel (11 page)

No, at first I would not quarrel, and in those days Emyr was so kind that we never wanted to, much.

Q
. You did not think Emyr was so fine as his parents did. What was it that made you think that way?

A
. I saw his faults, I suppose; and they did not think he had any.

Q
. What were they? What could an enemy say truly of him?

A
. He did not treat his parents right. That was the thing I saw first. He loved them, of course, but he said what was to be done and he worked them hard. He worked very hard too and they thought it quite natural that they should, but they were old, and I hated to hear him say to his father, “No, this year we will have oats in Cefn Bach,” or “You will build up the wall by Hafod if I go to the sale this afternoon, isn’t it?” He took the nice jobs, like going to the sales: he did that much better than the old man (he was a far better judge of sheep) but the old man loved to go, and meet his friends and talk. I did not like that: and I had never heard a young man contradict his father before. Then Emyr was mean: he knew it and tried hard to overcome it sometimes, so that he spent more or gave away more than was necessary. But it was the real meanness, not like his father, who had been so frightened by not having money that a pound to him was like twenty to another man (when he started farming there was nothing if you failed, and in a hard year it could really be the workhouse or starvation, and the old ones of those days did starve sometimes). With Emyr it was something different and worse: I could see it in his face, over a sixpence perhaps that the servant thought he should have, or over some little thing broken. His voice would change, and he looked horrible: I was ashamed to see him then.

The other thing was with animals. He was as tender and gentle with them as a woman nearly always; very good with sheep and horses, and he physicked them as carefully as children. And he would stay up all night with a cow to help her with the calf, and he would sit with a bitch although there was nothing he could do for her and although he knew that the next morning he would have twenty miles over the mountain with the sheep to the wintering. But he was no good with the sheep dogs: he had not the patience for them, to form them. In my home we had good dogs, and my father and Meurig worked them with hardly a sound, far up on the mountain, almost out of sight. Emyr you could hear shouting and whistling every minute: his dogs did not work well; they would bite the sheep, and often Emyr would get outside himself. Then he would beat the dogs. He did it much too hard.

Then when the pig was to be killed, or even a chicken, he would be excited and talkative in the morning—I did not understand it at first—and he would do it. He did it very well and cleanly, but he said he did not like doing it, and I know he did like it.

That was different from the old man, too. The old man loved the killing of the pig, but it was different. His face was honest and happy when the blood spouted: Emyr’s was not.

But poor Emyr: he
knew
that there was something, and he worked against it. It was the same about when he was mean; he knew that he should give with a good heart, but there was this thing inside him, and even if he did beat it, the giving was no satisfaction to him—money, not things; he would give things. It was the same when he ought to say thank you. He could not bring himself to it, but you could see him working to try to bring it out. He would pay a kindness back, five times over perhaps, but he would not say thank you at the time.

Q
. Was it those things you quarreled about?

A
. No: not them.

Q
. Did you ever speak to him about them?

A
. Only one thing I told him about: I told him straight and plain that if he contradicted his father again with other men there he would do wrong. The other things I could not talk about, except to joke a little about him being near with the money.

Q
. What did you quarrel about, then?

A
. It was in two ways. At first it was before Gerallt was born. Emyr was a big, strong man: he had a great deal of blood, his mother said. It was winter, and there was not much work to do on the farm—rain and rain all day. I could not—we quarreled then.

He was angry against me and against himself and everything in the world. That was how we quarreled first; but that was not the real thing.

It was after Gerallt was born and I was well again. He had been queer and cross for a day or two, and it was the day of the sale at Llan when the man was gored in the market. He came home excited and queer, and that was the first time he was like
that
with me. Every other time it was when he had done something mean, or when he had been beating one of the dogs. He knew it was evil: he would not speak in the evening, and he would never look at me when he put out the light. He hurt me so.

I hated him then. Hated and dreaded him. I cried and cried: I hated him. He would be so gentle and kind, and so ashamed and he would try to make it right with me; but I hated him.

His mother never knew, of course. Of course she never knew; but she saw me hating him and afraid of him, and then she hated me too, for his sake, although she was so gentle.

We never spoke of it, Emyr and I. We could not. Between times (and it was long between times) we might be friendly together—he would be loving. But I would see his face, and it would be no good.

I behaved badly then. I could have helped Emyr perhaps; but I was afraid of him.

There was something that made it worse. Gerallt slept in our room and the servant on the big landing. I could not cry out and it was quite dark—he drew the curtains tight together. He was terribly strong, I cried all day then sometimes, when I could get away into the hayloft. Once I escaped when I saw it in his face; I lay all night on the mountain, in the fern above Hir Gardd. He came for me before the light and called to me and swore he would not touch me ever, and brought me back, and he was crying. Poor fellow: he could not help it. It was a devil.

But I hated him. I seemed to be alone with him in that house, and no one in the whole valley I could turn to.

Q
. Was it often like that again, after?

A
. It was again, but it was long, long between and I could almost forget it, it was so long; except in the back of my mind it was always there, and even when we were kind and friendly somehow I was half-watching him.

Q
. Go back to the old people. What did Emyr’s father think?

A
. He never knew anything about it at all. If I cried he thought it was just a woman crying—a headache, something—and he would talk soft and tread quietly, but he never knew anything. Nain—we began to call the old ones Nain and Taid after Gerallt was born—Nain must have told him how bad I was, but he was always kind to me.

Q
. And old Mrs. Vaughan?

A
. It went against her nature to hate me, and she was so good in all her other ways that once I almost told her. But once she had seen me hating her son, not bearing to touch him or even give him a word (I could not help it; I felt like a wild animal the next day) she turned against me with all her might. She would not have stopped to kill a man who threatened her son, I know.

Of course she had been jealous from the beginning: she said it herself—laughing at first and said I must not mind because she would get better. But now, with poor Emyr trying to make it right (he meant every time never to do it again) and me flouting him so cruel, the old jealousy swelled up. I was afraid to show him any countenance: I did not want to, but I thought I ought to be even harder than I felt, to try and master him. She suffered for him, and she could not rest. Nothing I could do was right—it was her trying to attack me for him—and she would speak to me sharply all day long until at last Emyr flew out at her. I think it made his conscience even worse, seeing me used so, and he was very hard to her that day. Then she was different. She
would
do the hard work; she would not be helped, though it made my heart bleed to see her: she would say, “Bronwen says it should be like this,” or “Bronwen wants me to do that.” And it was “Bronwen’s settle” and “Bronwen’s sheets” always now, until I wished Meurig’s wife had had them all: and she spoke of their things as separate, to make me a stranger.

I tried to keep things looking ordinary: I would have put my hand in the fire rather than spoil the old man’s home.

There was one more thing. After Gerallt was born and before Emyr began to be like that, I was happy for a long time. My dear brother often came over to see him—I used to tell him he would not come to see me, but he would let the sheep look after themselves all day to see Gerallt. He promised me Gerallt should have our old home, because the doctors had said that Gwladys could not have a baby, and it made me wonderfully happy to think of my son in Cwm Priddlyd.

Emyr was very kind to me then; he was so pleased with Gerallt. Gerallt was a lovely baby: no woman could have wanted a better one. Emyr brought me a lot of books about children, and we read them. Nain and Taid loved Gerallt, but they did not think anything of the books.

The old ones were very bad when Gerallt stopped being a baby. Taid wanted him to have everything that he wanted, at once. If ever I had to correct him (and I know I was very weak in correcting him) it was as if I was a dragon. Taid said, “Never put a hurt on a child,” and he looked at me more gravely than he ever had before. And Nain said, “This is the way I brought up Emyr.”

More and more Emyr would go over to their side and kiss and hug Gerallt when he was roaring: but I would
not
give up my child to them. Whenever they had Gerallt to themselves they would put a month’s spoiling into an afternoon, and I saw him turning into a bad-mannered, ill-natured little boy before my eyes. What was so very, very much worse was that I thought I saw him being cruel, in a sly way, like Emyr was in his times. This was after the great trouble, and when he had been going about by himself for a long time in the yard and far into the fields. I would
not
give him up.

But what can you do when three grown-ups side with a child against you? If you are strict he turns from you; if you are not, you are not doing what is right. It nearly broke my heart, sometimes. I did so want him to grow like my father or Meurig, and they were making him a child I was ashamed of, apart from that thing that I feared. He was such a beautiful little boy, that was part of the trouble: even the doctor said he had never seen such a well-made, healthy child.

It made me angry every day, and in the end I found myself talking with a voice like Meurig’s wife. I suppose I should have managed it better. I was always sorry after I had put him to bed; but the next day it would be the same, and I would hear Nain say, “There. But don’t tell Mam.” Or he would do some little wrong thing and run from me to Taid or his father.

Q
. You have not spoken about the servant.

A
. We had several. They used to come when they left school and when they were sixteen they would go, because they had to be paid much more. Their parents used to like them to start at Gelli, because they knew they could not get into mischief with old Mr. Vaughan there, and they would learn to work well. The boys used to complain about the food and say they were worked too hard. They were worked hard, very hard, for growing boys, but I saw they were well fed when I cooked for them. They were good boys, most of them; Tudor Taiduon and Bleddyn from down in Llan were very good boys indeed, although Bleddyn got into trouble after he left us. The only one I did not like was Siencyn Griffiths, a nasty boy; but they all said he was very good at school and in chapel. He did not like farming, and in the end he went to train for a schoolteacher. They said Mr. Lloyd yr Ysgol paid for his training; he was always very good to his boys, and he helped several of them with their training, or things like that. Then of course there was Llew at the end, after John.

Q
. Did you know Mr. Lloyd well?

A
. Not very well.

Q
. He had a great influence on Emyr?

A
. Yes, I am sure he did.

Q
. What sort of man was he?

A
. I always heard good of him. It was a great thing for the village to have such a good teacher there. He was often offered to be headmaster in bigger places, with men under him and a better house and more money, but he stayed. He was very good to his boys: they all said that, the boys themselves; and a boy with Mr. Lloyd’s good word could get a place anywhere in Llanfair or Dinas, and he sent a lot on to the County School.

Q
. But you did not like him?

A
. I respected him very much. Everyone respected Mr. Lloyd.

Q
. Did you dislike him?

A
. No. I did not dislike him.

Q
. You have said a lot of good things for him: what could be said against him?

A
. Nothing really against him. Perhaps he liked to rule. People said that he liked everything his way. Well of course he was the best-educated man in the valley, so he knew what was best: even if he did not, he always gave a good example and helped anyone who was in trouble.

Q
. Did you ever think of speaking to him about Emyr? He had known him all his life, and he had taught him. You could have spoken in a very round-about way.

A
. Oh no. No; that would have been quite impossible. Even if I had thought of it, I know that he would not have been wise enough. He was very good and well-educated, but he was not a wise, deep man.

Q
. Did he come often?

A
. At first he did, fairly often, but less after a while. I was afraid he did not like me, although I always made him very welcome.

Q
. You did not like him, of course?

A
. No.

Q
. Now—you know I am not here to praise or blame—that I am only here to ask for the truth: it is my duty. I do not want to hurt you at all. You know I must ask you—(in the pause she waited, silent: she knew that he was giving her time to gather fortitude. Her heart broke quietly again, but when he went on she was ready to answer; only her hands were clasped tight now)—we must talk about Mr. Pugh.