“As Peggy Ellis watched the bonfire burn, she could think only of her mother, and while she’d refused to so much as shed a tear since the news had come from London, it was as if Mr Evans had seen inside her head. She felt the weight of his hand on her shoulder, and though she shrugged him off sharpish, she was glad of it.
Mr Evans said, 'I daresay we shouldn’t be having a fire tonight, and we'll put it out before long and be done with it for another year, but the way I see it is the world is changed enough and some things need to happen like they've always done.’
Peggy said nothing, making a statue of herself, and Mrs Evans snapped, 'Just leave her, Emrys,' and the farmer did as he was told and left them at the edge of the field on his way to say something stern to the Jenkins girls, who were larking about too close to the fire.
With Mr Evans gone, Peggy nearly said it, nearly saying, ‘Why did you take me if you were just going to hate me?’, but she didn’t because, with her white hair, black shawl and bent back, Mrs Evans scared Peggy half-to-death. Besides, she wouldn’t give the old cow the satisfaction and knew the answer to her own question right enough: one night, not long after she’d first come to Cwmllan, and with Mrs Evans all but refusing to say Peggy's name, Mr Evans sat himself at the end of Peggy's bed to talk about his daughter, saying, 'I thought you coming here would help us.'“
