Testimonies: A Novel (21 page)

I talked to Emyr about these things in general; he confirmed what I had thought, and I told him that at that time I had a certain amount of free capital that was doing nothing (it was quite true: I had sold out a block of Rio Tintos for the purpose) and that if he chose to make use of it he was very welcome. I suggested that the money should pay interest if and when it made profit, and I flatter myself that I sounded reasonably businesslike and avaricious. I told him also that I was a man alone in the world, with no relative nearer than a second cousin—a man far richer than myself—and that I had thought of leaving Gerallt a life interest in my little fortune before it went to my old college.

I said that this was by way of a thank-offering for their kindness to me while I was ill; that it could not cause me the remotest inconvenience, as I should necessarily be dead before the act could have any effect; and that it made no difference to my college, which was already six hundred years old and which would (God willing) last another six hundred easily, whether it received my trifling addition sooner or later.

My conscience in this was perfectly clear. I wish that all the actions of my life had been as unmixed. The first idea was to make things easier and less worrying for the farm. The investment (and I knew I should not lose by it) was something from myself to Emyr as a man, a man for whom I had a real esteem: Emyr as Bronwen’s husband did not enter into it for a moment. By that time I had succeeded in making a pretty rigid division between them. It would cause me no trouble of any sort, for I was living well below my income, and there was even money lying idle in my bank. As for the second idea, it was one that had been in my head for a long time. I would have done it anyhow, without speaking of it, but it followed naturally in the conversation. It was more selfish, perhaps, because the boy (disagreeable though he was) was Bronwen’s son, after all. But what I had said was true, and a sufficient motive: in such a case it was not so very wonderful—certainly not disproportionate when one considers how very little it must mean to me after I was dead who had my money.

Emyr’s reactions surprised me. He had not spoken much while I was talking, which was strange, because he had, to an advanced degree, that damnable habit of interrupting which you generally find in nervous people. He was very much embarrassed. He brought out his stumbling expression of gratitude with difficulty and an utter lack of grace (I had noticed before that he could not say thank you freely, and it was a trait that I regretted) and although I saw a real pleasure in him, a grasping at the idea, I was almost certain that basically he wanted to refuse the money, both the one and the other.

I had not expected that, not for a moment; particularly as he had owned that nothing would be more valuable to the farm than an extra thousand pounds of capital (I had mentioned twelve hundred): there were the current needs and a whole list of obsolete or worn-out equipment to replace, as well as new things, draining, reclamation and re-stocking.

We left the things in an unsatisfactory, undecided state, hanging in the air, and I went to bed very disappointed. Before our talk I had nourished the comfortable vision of myself as the Fairy Queen, my offers received with glad cries; and that was quite shattered. Perhaps it was fitting; but it was a disappointment.

This all happened after supper, in the parlor. I went to bed directly afterwards, and I heard them talking and talking in the big kitchen until well after midnight.

I had a strange dream. It was one of those dreams that you read—a printed page is the image—but at the same time you are not a detached reader; you are the person about whom you read. It was a very clear, complete dream, beginning, middle and end all sharply defined: it ran—

“He woke suddenly, completely; he was clear awake at once from a bottomless sleep. It was entirely dark and he could not tell which way round he was. With his two arms stiff behind him he sat up, propped up, listening. Why was he listening, and what room was this? He moved, felt with his hand for his pillow; it was not there: he tried—a separate effort—to remember the lie of the room (what room?) and where the light was. How extraordinary not to see any hint of light, no undarkness to betray the curtains. It was as if he was blind. Was he blind? He had heard of a man who had been blind in the morning, from a syphilitic gumma.

“He held his hand in front of his face and his staring eyes focused: the warmth of its nearness he felt, but he saw nothing.

“There appeared to be no wall behind the head of his bed. His tentative fingers stretched out and out into the darkness. His body was waiting. Yes, but why? And why was his mind tense? Tense to breaking, I mean?

“He did not move again for a long time, waiting for the tension to die and for everything to clear, fall into the recognized pattern: but still there was the darkness pressing against his face, pressing in all round, crowding him.

“‘Well, I’m damned,’ he said at last. Was he damned? Yes; he was damned for ever now.

yes he was damned for ever now for ever and ever now for ever and ever damned

yes he was damned for ever now for ever and ever now for ever and ever damned

yes he was damned for ever now for ever and ever now for ever and ever damned.”

And so the pages ran, turning fast, the print diminishing to footnote size, smaller, faster the repetition forever faster and the speed was terrifying.

In the morning my propositions were accepted—gracelessly on Emyr’s part, I must say—I gave him my check and we worked out a system of accounting. It was unnecessary for me to insist on its not being an obligation, but a profitable business deal, a speculation on my part; Emyr saw to that.

With Taid it was very different. The good old honest man was frankly delighted. He smiled and laughed like a man with a great impregnable wall between himself and the enemy who had been at his throat. He held the check with endearing admiration; he said he had once seen one for eight hundred and thirty pounds, but never one like that, with four figures. If it had not been for their ingrained love of secrecy I believe he would have shown it to his friends; but in that country matters touching money are kept silent, always, though there is an intense curiosity about them.

He shook my hand for a long while, lovingly I might say, and he said I was a
good
man. It is pleasant to be treated like that, and I almost forgot my disappointment.

The women were supposed to be out of this; it was not their province. They knew, of course, but it seemed to me that Nain was puzzled and undecided whether to be happy or not—now one, and now the other. Bronwen was charming, dear Bronwen; but there was something, some alloy, I could not tell.

In the end, when it had shaken down into perspective after some days, I asked myself whether I was glad or not and I decided that I was, certainly, if it was only for the pleasure of seeing Taid happy.

But I could not understand the others. I seemed to have distorted the old fabric still more, where I had wished to restore it. It is true there was a greater deference and a wish to please: but if I had purchased that, I had not bought back our former peace.

“N
ow, Mr. Lloyd, would you tell me about your cousin, Mr. Pritchard Ellis?”

“Yes indeed: there is no man I would rather speak about than Pritchard Ellis. I was very proud to be related to him and to have been able to help him at the beginning of his career.

“I have heard many preachers, but none to touch Pritchard Ellis. He was younger than me, but for years before that I had looked up to him. There was a sad time in my life when I was tempted with doubts, and he solved them for me: after that time he was always my spiritual adviser, and if ever I had any difficulty I went to him. He was very much in favor of confession as it was used in the primitive church, and he encouraged anybody to come to him for advice. He was a great comfort to Emyr Vaughan, I believe.

“He was as modest as could be for himself, although he had a high respect for the character and dignity of a minister. His life was very pure, and he expected other people to be as pure as he was; if they were not, he did not spare his words. The most terrifying sermons I heard him preach were on the occasion of some impurity that was discovered in Llanfair, when there was mixed dancing there.

“Sometimes he told me privately of the terrible things that went on in the Rhondda when he was minister there—it might have been the cities of the plain, it was so bad—and he said how painful and disgusting it was for him to have to go into such things.

“As you can imagine, he was very much respected in our valley, being so famous outside it. He could have had his choice of a dozen pulpits at any time, and we considered ourselves lucky to have him to preach in our chapel once a year.

“He was a long-suffering man, slow to form a bad opinion of anyone. He often told me how much pain it gave him to believe evil of any other person. But once he had made up his mind he was firm, very firm. He had not made up his mind about Mr. Pugh until just before he left Gelli and came to stay at my house. He told me the first evening, with great sorrow (he was very much disturbed), that he was forced, against his will, to find that Mr. Pugh was a wicked man.

“I was shocked to hear this and I asked him why. He would not tell me for some time and then not until he had offered a prayer.

“When he got up he said, ‘That man is carrying on with Bronwen Vaughan.’

“I did not know what to say; I could not find any words to answer. He went on, ‘The woman is an adulteress and the man who calls himself Pugh is a fornicator. There is terrible wickedness at Gelli, and perhaps we do not know the worst.’

“I said I hoped he might be mistaken; but it was just something to say. I knew how sure he must have been to have said a thing like that. Then he told me how he knew. He had suspected it first from their way of talking and he had watched them. There were a great many little things he had seen: she was always the one to go into his room, and she always shut the door behind her; when she came out she would be smiling and happy, whereas she was rather sulky as a rule (I had noticed that, too). She was always correcting Gerallt in case he should annoy him with his harmless play. ‘We should never trust a man who does not love little children,’ Pritchard Ellis said. There was her rudeness to Mr. Ellis because Mr. Pugh did not like him: Pritchard Ellis was very fair; he said that he did not mind the rudeness—we cannot command our likes and dislikes, and she had never liked him—it was the
cause
of the rudeness. Then he said he knew that Emyr was not happy, not happy in his marriage, for certain reasons. But that was not enough; that was only the beginning. He had still hesitated, but then he saw them together. He told me exactly what they did; it was terrible. I do not know how it came about that he saw them; he did not like to speak of it any more, and it was very delicate, indeed.

“He said it must be stopped. I asked him how; whether Emyr should be told, whether he would speak to Mr. Pugh or Bronwen? He said he was not sure yet. He would think about it while he was away, but before he went he would preach a sermon in the chapel about the sin and the damnation that certainly followed it unless there was repentance in time, and he would pray that any man or woman guilty of that wickedness in Cwm Bugail might repent before it was too late. He said if that did not answer before he came back he might be able to find another method then—he was to return for his annual engagement in a few months.

“Later he said he would have a word with Armin Vaughan and Emyr, not to tell them what he had told me, but to see what was in their minds and perhaps to suggest to Emyr a way of teaching Bronwen her duty.

“He saw them the evening before the sermon, but I do not know what he said. Emyr looked very strange, I thought.

“The sermon. He had never preached with such fire: it was terrible to hear. He began by a long silence, and before he spoke he groaned: very quietly he began, but when he reached his denunciation his voice was so loud it filled the chapel. He always used a great deal of action in his preaching, and when he came to the torments of adulterers in hell it was like a drama: the people were groaning, and Mrs. Evans, who had been rebuked twenty or thirty years before, was crying nearly to hysterics. I looked at Bronwen’s face. It was dreadful to see that she was not moved, not moved at all by such goodness for her; such a hardened sinner not to be moved by such unction and delivery. She looked to be thinking of something else. He was more than two hours preaching. At the end he was exhausted and went to bed at once after tea: he had to get up early in the morning for his train.

“One thing that had surprised me when at first I reflected on the terrible thing that Pritchard Ellis had told me, was that I had never until that moment heard any whisper of it. I never listen to gossip, of course, but these things fly about a village, and a man in my position hears everything, whether he wants to or not.

“It was because they were so secret, no doubt, and they had the perfect opportunity; if he had not been lodging there it would have been noticed long before. Or perhaps it was that I had not paid enough attention before: it was probably that, for a very little while after Pritchard left I did hear rumors. It was Mrs. Kate Williams, Yr Onnen, who told my housekeeper that they were doing it.