Testimonies: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page A

buildings. And Bronwen was the only girl Emyr had ever looked at, so they wanted to close it quickly. Then Bronwen was very well brought up and a good worker: she was Church, like her mother, but thinking of the farm and of Emyr they did not mind that. Most of all they wanted grandchildren, soon.
    “It was not my place to say anything against it, in any sort of way, and when they asked me about him I gave him the best character I have ever given a young man.
    “Well, they were married and he brought her home to Cwm Bugail. I was going down to stay with my cousin William Edwards at Swansea, so I only saw her arrive and then I was away. By the time I was back she was quite established. I had taken away what you might call a neutral impression: everybody was happy, there was singing and laughing, and Bronwen was very pretty, but still I was not altogether pleased with the marriage, and I never have approved of living two generations together. And there was something about the girl—she was not our sort. I do not know how I decided it, or what I disliked about her, but there it was.
    “When I came back they told me in the village that Bronwen Vaughan, Gelli, was proud. I do not know how she had made herself unpopular; she was always pleasant to the women who went there as far as I could learn, but unpopular she was with most of the village people. Her not coming to chapel had something to do with it, no doubt, and I think there was something in what I shall try to explain. The Vaughans were doing quite well now and some other people were not; Emyr had much better luck as a farmer than his father, and he had a better head. There was a certain amount of jealousy because of that, and people not liking to say anything against Emyr or Armin Vaughan said it, or felt it, against Bronwen.
    “In a little while too I heard many other unfavorable things: I do not remember them in detail, but the sum was that Bronwen had brought too many fine things with her, and she was too high to talk in the shop at Pentref, and she was not as kind as she should be to the old people. I do not know how much there was to all this at that time, and I must say that whenever I saw Mrs. Emyr she was always polite to me in her way, and whenever I went there she made me welcome.
    “People grew more used to her in time, and liked her more I believe: at least I did not hear the remarks that had been so frequent. The women took to her more when she had her baby, and then, when she was more tied, I suppose, she left off going all the way down to the church and came to our chapel sometimes, which brought her more into the ordinary life of the valley. But then again, as the boy began to grow she offended people once more by wanting to bring him up in her own fashion. She had strong ideas. People said they were fancy. They may have been very well, for all I know, but they were not her mother-in-law’s ideas, nor the ideas of our valley.
    “Nothing that was ever said against her came from the old people. Nobody heard Emyr’s mother say a word until the beginning of the disagreement about the child, and even then it was only a very little to a close friend.
    “Emyr, as far as I could see, was quite happy. He was working very hard on the farm now that his father was older, and I saw less of him than I used to, by far, so I cannot speak very well of that time.
    “Another reason that comes to my mind for her unpopularity at the beginning was her sister-in-law Meurig’s wife. They had no children, and they were well-off for mountain farmers, with no rent to pay and the good land they had. She was a little, sharp, black sparking woman, fond of dress: her voice, a high, loud soprano, had been trained when she was young (she was rather older than Meurig, and quite fifteen years older than Bronwen) and in chapel she sang half a note in front of the other women. She had lived with her parents in Liverpool, and although she spoke perfectly good Welsh (an ugly South