A Character a day: (12) David, Martha’s only husband

Tom Rhys Harries might play David rather well......

David is almost too good to be true. As Martha’s first love and only husband, he figures prominently in the first two volumes of the saga, and then he is gone — murdered in cold blood during a Cnapan game on Traeth Mawr, Newport. But before his death he fathers Martha’s first four children and he is a devoted parent and a passionate husband — and Martha loves him dearly.

But he is a man who is deeply traumatised by the fire that killed his parents and three of his siblings right at the beginning of the story — so we don’t know what he might have been like, were it not for that fateful event. Even worse, be blames himself for the fire, and will not be budged from that conviction no matter how hard Martha tries to reason with him. Of course, it was not his fault at all, but neither Martha nor David, nor the reader, knows that……….

Martha is stronger than him, in spite of her wild swings of mood, and he knows it.  The young couple have a number of squabbles, but he knows when to stand his ground and when to back off.  He’s well educated (Eton and Oxford), but is by no means as erudite as his grandparents, and he adapts very quickly when he suddenly becomes the master of the Plas Ingli estate. He takes his duties — and his responsibilities to his servants and tenant farmers — very seriously indeed, and makes a range of important decisions under the guidance of Grandpa Isaac.  he starts to rebuild both the house and the estate.    He is also committed to looking after Moses Lloyd and making a man of him — but after a number of episodes in which his patience is tested to the limit, he dismisses Moses and makes an implacable enemy of him. He had enough enemies already, with the Watkins, Rice and Howell families plotting endlessly for the downfall of the Plas Ingli estate. Although he is young, he stands up to the three villainous and overbearing squires, and wins Martha’s admiration in the process. And there is no doubting his reckless courage — he is a famous and skilful player of Cnapan, and when the French Black Legion invades the Fishguard district in 1797 he is the first to leap to the defence of his country, showing great courage in hand-to-hand fighting and rescuing Lord Cawdor from ignominy. That creates a debt which has a great bearing on the later developments in the story.