‘Possibly?’ It was Merlin’s turn to be uncertain.
‘Okay; almost certainly.’
‘Almost certainly. That’ll do me. So? What was it you came to see me about?’
Carys took a deep breath. ‘I came to sound you out on something.’
‘Brilliant.’ He rubbed his hands in anticipation. ‘I knew you’d be the one to come up with ideas for me to invest in. Ask away.’
‘How do you feel about allotments?’
His eyebrows shot up at that one. ‘Allotments.’
‘Yes. On Eden Farm. For people of the village to grown their own fruit and veg.’
He scratched his head. ‘Well, sure; it might not be quite what I was expecting, but it sounds a good community project. If you think anyone in Pont-ar-Eden would bite.’
‘It only takes a few to start with then others will follow. Allotments are such a big thing, and there aren’t any available near Pont-ar-Eden. I asked. And everyone is saying they miss the Sullivans’ veg boxes.’
‘True.’ He was still sounding less than convinced. ‘But won’t that take custom from the existing shops in the village, if people are growing their own?’
‘Well, that would only be part of it.’
‘Aha.’ There was a gleam in his eyes. ‘I had a feeling there might be more. Besides, you don’t strike me as a woman whose ambitions stop at a single allotment.’
‘Thank you,’ said Carys, not quite able to hide her pleasure in the compliment. She took a second deep breath. Any more of this, and she’d be turning dizzy. ‘I was thinking of part of it being run as a business. My business. I’d take over the polytunnels and the old kitchen garden, and try to carry on where the Sullivans left off, providing local veg to local businesses for people who don’t grow their own. If Plas Eden is turned into some kind of hotel or tourist centre, I could try and supply them, too. I’m not asking you to invest in me,’ she added, hastily. ‘I wouldn’t have the cheek. I don’t have much experience behind me, and I’d have to drop my college course, so I wouldn’t have any qualifications. I’ll have some money to invest in the business, and to support me for a year, maybe eighteen months. By that time I should know if I can make some kind of an income, or if I need to apply for my old job back again.’
‘That sounds like a risk.’
Carys swallowed, hard. She had spent all night wide-awake, her mind rushing feverishly through every possible permutation of disaster, edged with the tempting safety of a full-time job back at Tylers. She had spent the morning trying not to think about either, on the principle that safety might win.
‘This could be my one chance,’ she said, at last. ‘I don’t want to spend the rest of my life regretting that I never even tried. Okay, if I fail, at least I’ll know I’ve tried, and I just have to grow up and get on with my life. I’ve done a business plan,’ she added, fishing a folder out of her shoulder bag. ‘Financial projections, cash flow. Marketing strategy.’
‘You don’t hang around,’ he remarked, smiling. ‘So, if you don’t want me to invest in your business, what do you want me to invest in?’
‘The land. Oh, not for me. But for the people of Pont-ar-Eden. That way, a bit of Plas Eden would always be a part of the village. A place where people can grow food, keep chickens. Where the kids could learn, too. Besides, I can’t afford to buy the land around the farm, and any allotment holders would need some kind of stability.’
He was watching her thoughtfully. ‘You don’t want to buy the whole farm, then. Be a part of Eden?’
She shook her head. ‘No. And, in any case, David was talking about not selling the cottage, so Rhiannon can have a home.’
He nodded. ‘That makes sense. And if Rhiannon is going to be living so close, you don’t think she would object to your plans?’
‘No. At least, I don’t think so. Obviously she’d need to be consulted first, if David offers her the cottage. The allotments would need to be at a distance, and the kitchen garden and the polytunnels don’t overlook Eden Cottage, in any case. If David doesn’t want to sell the land, he might agree to some kind of lease.’ Her nerves were beginning to jump again. ‘Even a ten-year lease would give me a chance to establish something and see if it might work.’
‘So you’d be a tenant, along with the rest.’
‘Yes.’ She frowned at him. ‘I know it couldn’t be mine. I don’t really want it to be mine. I’d pay rent, of course. That’s only fair. And if I can make a go of it, I could save up and buy somewhere of my own, when I’m ready.’
‘Ah. So not necessarily in Pont-ar-Eden.’
She met his eyes. ‘No. I’d originally thought of Devon or Cornwall, when I was considering setting up a business.’ Merlin, she felt, was studying her closely. ‘I’m still going to go and have a look around. But it’s going to be expensive down there. I know I couldn’t afford anything just now.’
‘You’re still thinking about settling there eventually?’
‘Maybe. But not for a while, at least. I’ve got Mam to think of, and I know I’ve loads to learn first.’
‘Hmm.’
‘You’ll think about it?’
He nodded briskly. ‘Oh, definitely. And I’d like to look through that business plan of yours. Do you have time now?’
‘A bit. I’m taking Mam to the history morning at the Boadicea in an hour. But I’m okay until then.’
‘You’d better come into the office in that case. I’m afraid I can’t offer you the hard stuff, like they do in The Godfather, on account of kids and my liver, and this being an alcohol-free zone. But I make a mean cup of tea, though I say it myself.’
‘Sounds perfect,’ said Carys with a smile, as she followed him inside.
A few hours later Buddug delivered her tray of soup and rolls to the table nearest Pont-ar-Eden’s history club’s latest – and most excitable – gathering to date, and wiped her hands carefully. ‘Those look very old, Carys.’
‘Old? They’re historic,’ exclaimed Sara Jones, her wrinkled face flushed with excitement. ‘Look, the woman in the centre: that looks like a cook’s uniform. If this is the 1920s she must be your grandmother, Buddug.’
‘She looks a bit fierce,’ replied Buddug, just a little dubiously.
‘More like determined,’ said Carys. Buddug smiled at her.
‘Exactly.’ Sara was nodding vigorously. ‘Didn’t you say she brought up nine children on her own? That would certainly take determination in those days.’
‘That’s what my mam always said,’ replied Buddug. ‘I know my grandfather was killed in the First World War, leaving her with nothing, but she managed to work her way up to cook at Plas Eden, and I know she was there for years.’ She peered closer. ‘It does look like her you know. I’ve got some old photographs upstairs. I was starting to look them out for you. She does look like the photos of my grandmother, but I’d need to have another look to be sure.’
‘I’ve made several copies,’ said Carys, reaching into her shoulder bag and bringing out a plastic folder.
‘Thanks.’ Buddug took the print. ‘It’s amazing to see them like that. Makes them real, you know? I’m sure this will have plenty more people in Pont-ar-Eden rushing to trace their ancestors.’
She grimaced as the doorbell clanged, letting in a rush of new customers, drawn in by the promise of smoked bacon and mango salad, and the aroma of courgette, garlic and wild rocket soup. ‘I’ll let you know as soon as I can,’ she called back, picking up the empty tray she had stashed by the old sofa which divided the computers from the café, and returning to rescue Alison on the till, who was a new recruit for the summer season and beginning to look faintly flustered as the Boadicea’s lunchtime rush hit its peak.
‘One of those gardeners looks rather sad,’ said Sara, abandoning the photograph of the servants to glance at the young men with their spades and wheelbarrows. ‘Lots of men left, you know, when the First World War was declared. They thought it would be something new. An adventure. A way of escaping
being stuck in such a rigid society.’ She shuddered. ‘I hate to think of what most of those poor boys were experiencing only a few years’ later.’
‘Most of them never came back,’ put in Gwynfor, joining them. ‘Many of these are probably names on the village memorial. Hopefully we can match some of them up.’
‘It’s like looking into the end of a world,’ added Haf, abandoning the single portraits to join them.
‘I think it was, in a way,’ Gwynfor replied. ‘Life would have gone on very much the same from medieval times. If not before that. And then it all changed.’
‘It must have been horrible,’ said Carys, joining Mam, and looking down at the face of Dad’s grandfather, proud in his role as head gardener.
‘And frightening,’ replied Mam.
‘True,’ said Gwynfor. ‘But then if things had stayed as they were, we would never have had the chances we’ve all had in life. Rights for women, for one,’ he added, as Edna began to protest. ‘The world these people were born into had few chances for change.’
‘And Victorian women had no legal status of their own, remember,’ put in Sara Jones, white head nodding vigorously. ‘They belonged to either their father or husband. No divorce, no property rights. For years, even if your husband divorced you, you lost your children and any income you earned still went to him.’
‘Typical,’ muttered Edna, feelingly.
‘It is still quite extraordinary, having such a clear picture of the past,’ Gwynfor was saying thoughtfully. ‘I’m sure we could get heritage organisations interested. This could really make a difference to Plas Eden, you know. People flock to places like Erddig, that National Trust estate near Wrexham where you can see how ordinary people lived. David and Huw might at least consider it.’
Conversation started up again around them as the heads grouped round different prints, exclaimed over the total lack of cars in the high street, and look, there was Pendragon’s Hardware shop, didn’t it look smart, and look at that one of the kitchens at Eden – could you ever imagine cooking huge dinner parties on a range like that?
‘It’s the blacksmith’s that gets me,’ said Gwynfor, picking up a photo of a shadowy interior, complete with furnace and anvil, and the blacksmith looking up as he replaced the shoe of a huge shire horse. ‘That’s my grandfather, you know. Blacksmiths had a special status in the past. Goes back to the sword in the stone from the King Arthur story. That’s where the story came from: blacksmiths working with metal when it was a new and magical material. They’d pour the liquid metal into a stone mould, and when it cooled the mould was broken open and bingo – there you have it, a sword pulled from a stone. So forget that white beard and flowing robes malarkey: Merlin the magician was probably a blacksmith.’ He rubbed his hands in enjoyment. ‘I like it.’
‘Dad’s mother must be amongst the servants on the steps,’ said Carys, seeing Mam was beginning to grow drowsy at this talk of the village and blacksmiths. ‘I’m sure Dad said she was a maid at Plas Eden before she was married. We were trying to work out which one she could be, weren’t we?’
‘Yes, that’s right, dear,’ said Mam, growing alert again. ‘But she doesn’t seem to be there. There don’t seem to be any photographs of your grandmother when she was young, which is such a pity.’ She smiled. ‘Your granddad always used to say when you were little that you were the spitting image of her, Cari. Never mind, I expect we’ll come across some, one day. I’m sure there are all sorts of things hidden in that attic still.’
‘I’m sure there are,’ replied Carys, smiling affectionately at her mother. It was good to see Mam entering so wholeheartedly into the spirit of things. Mam’s walking still might be a bit of a struggle at times, but at least her mind appeared to be speeding back into full working order.
And talking of things hidden…
Carys hesitated a minute, then reached into her bag once more. ‘There’s this photograph, too,’ she said, placing the picture of the woman and child on the table. ‘We weren’t quite sure about who they could be.’
There was a murmur of conversation, as the little group gathered around. Mostly, Carys saw, they were shaking their heads as if none the wiser.
‘May I see?’ Across the table, Sara Jones reached out her hand for the photograph.
Carys turned the image to face her. ‘We wondered if anyone might know who the child is?’ she ventured.
Sara shook her head. ‘I’m not sure. I’d have to ask my Alun about that one. He might have more of an idea, being older. But I know who the woman is, all right.’
‘Really?’ said Carys, eagerly.
‘Oh yes. I remember her, from when I was a girl. Scared the living daylights out of me, she did. Not a woman you’d ever want to cross. There’s no mistaking her. That’s Blodeuwedd.’
‘Blodeuwedd?’ Carys stared at her. Sara might not be in the first flush of youth, but there was nothing doolally or fey about her, and she’d never claimed to know a character from the Mabinogion before. All the same…
‘Nainie’s mother. Hermione Meredith. The one who made the statues.’
‘A woman made the statues!’
‘Oh yes,’ said Sara, nodding vigorously. ‘Didn’t they tell you about her in Pont-ar-Eden Primary?’
‘No,’ admitted Carys.
Sara clucked. ‘Memories are so short, nowadays. So short. Taught herself, she did. Sculpting from stone that is. To make the statues for the garden. That’s what she’s holding in her hand, see. That chisel thing of hers. You used to see her with her hands all bandaged. That’s what my mam used to tell me. Until she got the hang of it, that is. But Mam said you could still see the scars on her hands, years later. One determined woman, that one. She could do anything she set her mind to, they used to say.’ Sara grinned, impishly. ‘She could show the men a thing or two and all, if you ask me.’
Edna was peering down at the photograph with a frown. ‘Yes, of course. That’s her all right. David and Huw’s great-grandmother.’ She lowered her voice. ‘And not quite the lady she made herself out to be, according to your mam.’
Sara clucked, louder this time. ‘Mam had very definite ideas of what a lady should be.’
‘Well, she wasn’t from London, like she claimed,’ returned Edna, primly. ‘My aunt Alice was brought up in Whitechapel, and she always said that was no London accent she’d ever heard of.’
‘Well, Hermione Meredith was hardly likely to have come from the east end, was she?’ said Sara, with a rare flash of irritation.
Edna took a step back. ‘I was only saying. And then there was that detective.’
‘Detective?’ Carys stared at her.
‘Oh, yes.’ Edna was clearly enjoying herself. ‘Private detective he said he was. Well, at least, that’s what my mam always said.’
‘Oh, so it wasn’t recently,’ said Carys, disappointed.
‘Oh, no. Mam was a little girl at the time. 1912, it must have been. She remembered it, because it was the time when the newspapers were full of all the stories of the Titanic sinking. And there was this man, asking questions. And all the children were told not to say anything to him about Mrs Meredith. Not a word. Mam said it was because of the Children’s Hospital.’
‘David’s great-grandmother did build a Children’s Hospital in Pont-ar-Eden,’ put in Gwynfor, who had left the rest of his charges and was listening intently. ‘It’s still there. It became the community centre after the last war.’
‘Well, there you go.’ Edna was triumphant. ‘And there always was something. You remember Mair, when the boys were small: that producer from the BBC who wanted to make a film about the statues?’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Mam, who had been watching this exchange with a faintly bemused expression on her face. ‘So there was. Marianne was full of it, for weeks.’
‘Until Paul put his foot down,’ said Edna, darkly. ‘The boys’ mother always got her own way, but not that time.’ She looked around at her watching audience. ‘Haven’t you seen Who Do Y
ou Think You Are?? Things like that always turn out to have some truth in them. I bet those statues have quite a story to them, somewhere. If you really looked, that is.’
Chapter Fifteen
In the little glade, the statues stood quiet and still under the last flickering of sun. A breeze stirred the leaves now and again, sending shadows racing and the branches into life, with a dry rattle of dead leaves.
‘They are beautiful,’ sighed Carys, gazing round at the blank-eyed faces with their air of neglected melancholy.
‘Whoever made them was certainly skilled,’ David said. Carys glanced at him, hearing the unease in his voice. Maybe she shouldn’t have said anything. Or at least not that bit about the private detective and David’s great-grandmother having something to hide in her past. It had seemed quite an exciting possibility at the time. A real detective story all ready to be uncovered with a bit of hunting through Ancestry.co.uk. But if it was your family, and you suspected your parents hadn’t wanted anyone to know about it and had rushed off in secret to prevent anyone ever finding out… Carys bit her lip, hard.
‘She certainly understood human nature, too,’ added Rhiannon, who was gazing round at the faces intently. She tugged at a bramble that was daring to arch over Ceridwen’s cauldron, revealing the fiercely exultant face of the old woman. ‘I wonder just how deep that understanding went. And how she came by it.’
‘I’m sure the private detective thing was just a story,’ said Carys. ‘And it was a long time ago. It could hardly matter now.’
‘I’m sure you’re right.’ Rhiannon, however, sounded unconvinced.
There was a moment’s silence. Squirrels dashed to and fro above their heads, pausing every now and then to chatter angrily at Hodge, who was busily engaged in trying to work out where his latest quarry had vanished to, and was dashing from tree to tree as if there just had to be a solution to this mystery somewhere.
‘Except that Mum and Dad were obviously trying to find out something. Something they felt might upset Nainie and wanted to keep secret,’ David said at last. He was frowning into the face of King Arthur. ‘Suppose it really was something to do with Great-Grandmother Hermione and the statues?’
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