Treasure of the Celtic Triangle

by Michael Phillips

  Conversation and laughter in the room was lively. Once Katherine had enlisted everyone, except Courtenay, in her plan, there was no more time for the intrusion of sadness. Occasionally Edward broke into song. He was immediately joined by the rest, usually in three- or four-part harmony, such that by nightfall, weary and content with their day’s work, they had sung nearly every Christmas hymn or carol in the hymnary.

  Early in the evening, Mrs. Drynwydd and Mrs. Llewellyn slipped away. Half an hour later the rest took a break and went downstairs to enjoy the brief repast the two faithful ladies had set out—meats, breads, pies, cakes, and cheeses. Then again they returned upstairs and went back to work.

  Conversation lasted late into the evening. Gradually sleepiness overtook the company. One after another rose, said good night, and retired in anticipation of the big day ahead of them on the morrow.

  Steven and Hollin were in the barn by ten on the morning of Boxing Day hitching all available means of transport, which included the large and small carriages and two buggies. Percy soon joined them. By eleven the four horse-drawn vehicles stood outside the manor’s front door. Soon a processional was in progress between the upper room of preparation and the front of the house, while two or three of the men loaded the buggies. Several boxes were also loaded containing bottles of sherry and port, each tied with a ribbon. Knowing that most of the villagers would take the opportunity to sleep as long into the morning as possible, they did not begin their first excursions down the drive until just before one.

  They reached town and split in four directions. With hampers or bottles in hand, each member of Katherine’s immediate family—herself, Edward, Mary, Percy, and Florilyn—began knocking on the doors of the cottages to personally deliver their gifts. Within an hour, the whole village was abuzz. No longer were knocks required. Doors were thrown wide in greeting before they reached them. At each home they found themselves enthusiastically invited in for drinks, sometimes for tea, occasionally for something stronger. With every visit their progress slowed. The villagers were beside themselves with eager gratitude to reciprocate with whatever means of hospitality were available to them. Had they allowed it, every home would have kept their visitors for an hour!

  Meanwhile, Hollin, who had accompanied them to town, returned to the manor with the largest carriage, where Mrs. Drynwydd, Mrs. Llewellyn, Steven, Adela, and Broakes were all ready to load it with the second round of provisions. It was a bone-chilling day of gray skies that portended snow. But never are human hearts warmed more than when engaged in service, ministry, or goodness to others of their kind.

  The busy transport and delivery of hampers and drink and monetary gifts continued all afternoon. Few at the manor or in the homes of the village even noticed the cold. Those homes Katherine visited personally considered themselves as honored as if the queen herself had appeared on their doorsteps. When the last hamper was delivered, and she, Edward, Mary, Florilyn, and Percy rode back up the hill to the manor in the deepening dusk, all five were exhausted from constant visiting with exuberant villagers.

  The only difficulty presented by the day was the question of whom to deliver bottles of sherry to Madame Fleming and Mistress Chattan. None of the three women felt comfortable entering either of their two establishments. Edward therefore paid a brief call on the enigmatic Fleming, while Percy, confessing a begrudging fondness for her, delivered a bottle and the best wishes of the viscountess to the proprietress of the inn.

  Late that evening, the vicar and his wife retired to their own room. Edward slipped his nightshirt over his head. “A long and tiring but satisfying Boxing Day, wouldn’t you say, my dear?” he said.

  “Extraordinary is how I would describe it,” rejoined Mary. “The humble gratitude and hospitality of the people in town was like nothing I have ever seen. It’s not something one witnesses with regularity in Glasgow. They truly love your sister.”

  “It warms my heart to realize it,” nodded Edward. “Especially after the loss of her husband.”

  “I’m certain the holidays were difficult for her. She was probably thinking of Roderick. I noticed a quiet about the place this morning on the part of others as well. I felt that there was much sadness mingled with the joy of the day.”

  “Christmas always brings memories and often disappointments. As blessed as we are now to be able to share the holiday one in heart with our son, I remember the pain of those Christmases when he was estranged from us. I ache for those who find Christmas a sad and lonely time. Katherine is now facing a double sorrow. Courtenay is certainly not being a true son to her in her time of need.”

  “On Christmas Eve, he was rolling his eyes and had a sour look on his face when you were talking about Christmas and God’s fatherhood. Poor Katherine—how it must grieve her heart.”

  “Yet in spite of it, she was thinking of what she could do to make the season special for others.”

  Mary nodded thoughtfully. “I was thinking that very thing all afternoon,” she said. “I admire your sister more than I can say. She did not let her own feelings keep her from reaching out to the community. She may not have felt the joy of Christmas in her own heart, but she lived what Christmas means—giving life and love to those around us. It was a memorable day. Katherine is indeed an amazing woman.”

  It began to snow about midnight. By the first light of the following morning, all Gwynedd lay under a blanket of white.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Farewell

  Edward, Mary, and Percy Drummond prepared to depart Westbrooke Manor for their return to Scotland on the second of January of the new year, 1873.

  Percy found Florilyn alone in the sitting room after breakfast.

  “So you’ll soon be off,” she said. She tried to sound cheery, but without much success. “It will be dreary when you’re gone. Of course it always seems dreary after you leave.”

  “You always manage to survive,” rejoined Percy. “Just think of me—far north under piles of snow, with papers to write and endless lectures to sit through.”

  “You’ll be through, when is it—in May?”

  “May it is,” he said, exhaling a long sigh. “It seems too good to be true that I will actually graduate from the university! Who would have imagined it back when I was running through the streets of Glasgow trying to keep from being arrested!”

  “You’ve changed.”

  “As have you.”

  “Then what will you do?” asked Florilyn.

  “My first order of business will definitely be a return to Wales.”

  “Really?” exclaimed Florilyn. “Oh, that’s wonderful. I didn’t know if you—”

  “No worries. I will be back as soon as I graduate. Or possibly June. There is something I have to do for your father … and I’ll want to see you, of course.”

  “For my father?” said Florilyn.

  “I will tell you all about it when I can. And we have our own future to decide on, too, you know.”

  Florilyn looked away. The subject was still painful to her.

  “I do admire you for your courage,” he added. “What my dad said is true.”

  “Thank you,” nodded Florilyn. Her voice was shaky.

  “I am still uncertain what I am supposed to be trying to figure out,” Percy went on. “Gwyneth is gone. There is no way to find her. Even if I may have had more feelings for her once than I realized, what difference does it make now?”

  “Like I said before,” replied Florilyn, “we both have to know what is in our hearts.”

  Percy nodded then took Florilyn in his arms. Neither spoke as they embraced affectionately. After several seconds they stepped back.

  “Your decision has made me admire you as a godly woman,” said Percy. “Whatever happens in the future, you are my dear cousin and friend.”

  “And we’ll both keep reading MacDonald,” said Florilyn, forcing a smile.

  “I don’t know!” laughed Percy. “I don’t want him to get me into any more trouble.”

&
nbsp; He detected momentary chagrin on Florilyn’s face.

  “Hey, only joking!” he added quickly. “I don’t have as much time to read as you do. But I shall try.”

  They gazed into one another’s eyes. Florilyn’s were misty. Percy stepped forward and kissed her lightly on the cheek, then stepped back and smiled. Though they could not see what the future held, both knew they were doing the right thing.

  As Percy climbed the stairs one last time to fetch his bag from his room a few minutes later, he paused on the landing to gaze at the portraits of the Westbrooke lineage. His eyes came to rest once again, as they often did when he was here, on the compelling face of his uncle Roderick’s grandmother. The penetrating expression of her eyes was so mesmerizing that Percy felt that he knew her, that he had actually seen her. Yet he knew that was impossible. She had been dead decades before he was even born.

  He shook his head in perplexity then continued up the stairs.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Plans and Schemes

  Katherine did not bring up the subject of property or a new home to Florilyn again. She did not want to risk loose talk or overheard conversations. But she did not remain idle.

  She made several more visits to Hamilton Murray’s office, riding to Porthmadog by buggy and keeping her destination to herself. It did not take long after her ride with Florilyn to decide on the Mochras Head plateau as the ideal site for a future home. She knew that Courtenay had no great love of the sea. She had never seen him walking or riding along the coastline. She doubted he would miss the land in question. But she had long since given up trying to anticipate his reactions to anything. Whether he would be angry at her intentions, once they became known, or grateful for the extra sum in his account when he became viscount, she would hazard no guess.

  Keeping his name out of it, under Murray’s supervision an engineering firm from Shrewsbury was hired. It was far enough away, both he and Katherine thought, to keep local speculation from being able to dig too deeply into the matter. When the surveyors arrived on the scene, not only would they have no idea who had hired them, in all likelihood they would never have heard of Westbrooke Manor or the Viscount Lord Snowdon or his widow.

  Courtenay, meanwhile, had replied to Lord Litchfield, agreeing to the terms he had outlined for sale of one thousand acres of land on the eastern boundary on the northern quadrant of the Westbrooke estate. Now all he had to do was wait.

  Thus, both mother and son kept busy on their private schemes aimed to circumvent the difficulties posed to each by the other. Neither knew what the other was up to. But both saw an expression in the other’s eyes that spoke of secrets. Courtenay had instructed the postman in Llanfryniog to keep mail addressed to him separate from what came to the manor and to hold it for him until he called for it personally. Katherine thus remained unaware of the correspondence between her son and London.

  The two met but infrequently. Courtenay did not take his meals with his mother or sister. He regarded his present straitened circumstances as little more than house arrest in enemy-occupied territory. But he bore it with stoicism, knowing that his ship was on the horizon and was coming closer every day.

  How Courtenay occupied his time was a mystery. He rode as much as the weather would permit. Though he looked down on the villagers and miners and farmers, he was frequently seen in Mistress Chattan’s pub. In view of his future position among them, the men were deferential and friendly. The pleasure Courtenay took in hearing himself addressed as “my lord” no doubt contributed its share to his increasingly regular visits to the place. When he felt his meager supply of funds could afford it, he stood everyone a round of Mistress Chattan’s best ale. He thus gradually gained the approbation of men who had been accustomed for years to regard him as a spoiled wastrel. All the while they remained unaware that one of his first planned ordinances as viscount would be to double most of their rents.

  The friend of Courtenay’s youth, Colville Burrenchobay, eldest son of parliamentarian Armand Burrenchobay, himself a wastrel of yet greater reputation than Courtenay, had recently returned to the family seat of Burrenchobay Hall. His return was not due to financial considerations—his father kept him well supplied with funds—but simply from the boredom of travel. He had sown his wild oats in their season, but now, as he reached his middle twenties, he had begun to think of his future. How great were his political aspirations, even he could not have said. If he had thoughts of following his father’s footsteps to Westminster, however, the settled life of a gentleman would provide a more suitable basis from which to do so.

  When Courtenay and Colville were together now, therefore, they were no longer two rowdy youths but the eldest scions of two of North Wales’ oldest families. They drank expensive brandy and went shooting for pheasants and roe, not rabbits.

  Riding back from Llanfryniog to the manor one day in late February, a strange sight met Courtenay’s eyes. Five or six men with surveying equipment were spread out between the main road and the promontory. His first reaction was bewilderment, his second anger. He dug his heels into the sides of his mount and galloped off the road and over the wide plateau toward the scene.

  “What is the meaning of this?” he said in a demanding tone. “Who are you people? Who’s in charge here?”

  The man closest to him, who did not take kindly to his tone, nodded toward a group of men across the grass.

  Courtenay kicked at his horse’s flanks and galloped toward them. “Which one of you is in charge here?” Courtenay asked as he rode up.

  “I am,” one of the men replied, turning toward him.

  “What’s going on here? What are you doing?”

  “I would think it is obvious,” said the man. “We are surveying the site.”

  “What for?”

  “I really could not say. I am a surveyor not a planner.”

  “Who hired you?”

  “The job came through a solicitor in Shrewsbury.”

  “Shrewsbury!” exclaimed Courtenay. “That’s impossible. There has obviously been some mistake. So I am ordering you and your men off this land.”

  “And who are you to be giving such an order?”

  “I own this land, you fool. I am the future viscount, Lord Snowdon.”

  “Ah yes, we were specifically told about you, that you might be troublesome.”

  “What were you told?”

  “That you might try to throw your weight around, but that you had no legal standing in the matter. We were told to ignore whatever you might say.”

  In a white fury, Courtenay stared back at the plainspoken man a moment, then wheeled his mount around and made for home. He burst in upon his mother, making no attempt to hide his anger. “Mother, what is going on down at the promontory? There are surveyors everywhere. Are you behind it?”

  “I am.”

  “I demand to know what it is all about.”

  “Just a little project of mine.”

  “What kind of project?”

  “Nothing you need worry about. I am having some of the estate boundary lines looked into.”

  “There are no boundaries down there. Our land extends for miles along the coast and inland to the north-south road. I demand to know what’s going on.”

  “That tone will get nowhere with me, Courtenay.”

  “Do you refuse to tell me what it is about?”

  “I have told you, I am having some boundary lines looked into. That is all I intend to divulge about it.”

  Far from satisfied, Courtenay left the room more determined than ever to accelerate his own plans. He did not like this new tone of determination he had noticed in his mother of late. She was becoming too independent for her own good.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Visitor from England

  Lord Coleraine Litchfield stepped gingerly from the tipsy dinghy that had brought him from the anchored yacht out in the bay and onto the concrete pier. He glanced up the street and at the poor-looking stone buildings comprising the Welsh villa
ge of Llanfryniog. He did his best not to grimace at the thought of where he would be forced to spend the next several days. Only one thing could bring him this far away from civilization. That was the thought of making money. For that he would endure it with as much good humor as was possible under the circumstances.

  Several more communications had gone back and forth between Westbrooke Manor and London, leading eventually to an invitation to the north. Commitments in London and the horrible winter’s weather had delayed his meeting with the young scion of the Westbrooke estate until early March. But he was in Wales at last.

  Before the Englishman could speculate further on the locale or his own personal fortunes, a lanky and well-dressed, though obviously rustic man approached. “Lord Litchfield,” he said with an accent so unintelligibly thick the Englishman scarcely recognized his own name, “I am Deakin Trenchard, former footman at Westbrooke Manor. I am retired now and living in the village, but Mr. Courtenay asked me to meet you and take you to the manor, where he is awaiting you.”

  “Ah, yes … uh, Trenchard. Lead on, then,” replied Litchfield.

  The man turned, and the newcomer followed him from the pier to a waiting carriage. Fifteen minutes later they were winding their way up the tree-lined drive where Lord Litchfield beheld his first sight of the estate known as Westbrooke Manor.

  A tolerable looking sort of place, he thought to himself—interesting mixture of brick and stone, although it was a bit severe to his taste. It will no doubt be a dreary time of it, but—

  Further reflections were cut short. As the carriage slowed to a crunching stop on the gravel drive, his host came from the wide front doors and bounded ebulliently toward his guest.