Testimonies - Patrick O’Brian

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It would be a good thing for Emyr, everybody said, because her father owned the farm of Cwm Priddlyd, and even if her brother Meurig married, Bronwen would still have an interest in it. Armin Vaughan was all for it, and so was old Mrs Vaughan. They both wanted the very best for Emyr (it was a pity for him they loved him quite so much, I thought) and Armin Vaughan’s father had worked at Cwm Priddlyd, so they knew everything about the land there – a small farm; but very good, and with fine 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 unfavourable 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 Caernarfon accent she had) she pretended not to know a word every now and then, and used an English one instead. She had a way of looking round when she got into a house, looking sharply at the furniture and other things; and at Mary Owen’s she dusted her seat before she sat down. Anyone could see that she and Bronwen did not like one another, but there were many people who blamed the family, and Bronwen as one of them.’

      ‘I see,’ said the other. ‘Thank you very much; now I have a clearer picture of the background. This brings us up to the time with which I am principally concerned. I should be glad if you would tell me about the cottage you have mentioned, and Mr Pugh, who took it.’

      ‘Hafod, the cottage, is on the quarry road, above Gelli. It is only a very small, old-fashioned place, but summer visitors liked it and took it almost every year. Mr Pugh took it at the end of one summer. I heard that he was an English gentleman from Oxford; I did not learn exactly what he did there, but I understood he was a tutor at the university. At that time I did not see him, except in the village, but I heard all about him.

      ‘I was surprised to hear that he had taken it permanently the next year and that he was going to live there all the time, winter and summer.’

      ‘Why were you surprised?’

      ‘He seemed too young to retire, and anyhow, it was only a summer place for his sort. It seemed a queer thing for a man to do. I thought perhaps there was something funny about him, but Armin Vaughan said he thought he was a good man. That was at the beginning.

      ‘I met him there one evening – at Gelli, I mean – and we had some talk. I invited him to my house, and I went to his; but I am afraid I was not grand enough for him, and I did not see very much of him. I thought he was quite a respectable gentleman, but I did not like his airs. I know I am only a plain man, but I am B.A. and I know something about my country, so I do not like to be told I am wrong when I am right. Oxford is a very fine place, and a very respectable place, I am sure, but that is not to say that every man who comes from there knows everything. A village schoolmaster may know better sometimes indeed.

      ‘Yes, I must say I did not like his airs, though I did not take it seriously then, and it was always Good day, Mr Lloyd, Good day, Mr Pugh, when we met in the village or in Llan. But I did not go and push myself on him; it would not have been right, even if I had liked his airs, me being so much an older man, and with a certain position in the neighbourhood, and he did not come to see me. It was not until he fell ill in the autumn and was taken down to Gelli that I saw much of him. I visited him when he was ill, and when my cousin Pritchard Ellis, the well-known preacher, came to stay there I often went in the evenings to hear them talk. This was when Mr Pugh was better again but was still lodging at Gelli.

      ‘It was a real pleasure to hear them talk. I did not like him very much then, but I admired the flow of language he had, and certainly he was very well informed: of course, he had no chance with Pritchard Ellis, the best talker I have ever heard, in Welsh or English. It did give me a kind of satisfaction, too, to hear him worsted: it showed we could stand up for ourselves in Wales, even without all the advantages. Once or twice he seemed to get the better of it, but Pritchard explained to me afterwards why this was; and once he became really violent about some political argument – I was not attending – and the discussion had to be stopped. No; in general he had no chance against Pritchard Ellis.

      ‘Well, that was my opinion of Mr Pugh at that time. I did not care for him, nor did Pritchard, but he seemed to be an honest, respectable, quiet man, though proud and conceited.’

       PUGH

      That spring my uncle Caley, the lawyer, died: I had not seen him for twenty years and I had never liked him (an angry starched white prig) any more than he liked me, so I was not much affected by his death. However, he died intestate: I was his heir-at-law, and I felt a certain compunction in taking his money – he would so have disliked my having it. He was not a real uncle, but a cousin of the older generation.

      It did not take me long to overcome these

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