Treasure of the Celtic Triangle

by Michael Phillips

  He dismounted and again entered the cottage. Everything was just as it had been the day before. Yet in his mind’s eye, it now glowed with the luster of the love blossoming in his heart. But alas, the bloom had flowered too late!

  God, he prayed silently, what do You have for me to see? Why have You led me here? Guide my steps, my thoughts, my eyes.

  Moving slowly through the rooms as he had the day before, a sense of anticipation, of something at hand, filled Percy’s mind.

  His thoughts full of Gwyneth and what he had read the night before, he left the cottage. As he prepared to mount Red Rhud, he turned back.

  There, several yards to the right of the door, partially obscured by several overgrown rosebushes, stood a small stone sign or monument with words carved into it: MOR BHAIRNE A INBHEAR DÉ.

  What could it mean? It was clearly Gaelic, that much he knew. But the words conveyed no hint of meaning.

  He remembered seeing it many times before but had never thought to ask what the Gaelic words might mean or why that particular name had been given to the cottage. He must ask Steven.

  With a new mystery added to all the rest, thoughtfully he rode away from the cottage.

  THIRTY-SIX

  The Meadow

  Instead of returning to the village as he had on the previous day, Percy found himself leading Red Rhud east into the hills and toward the peaks of Snowdonia. He hardly knew where he was bound at first. But gradually he knew. Would he be able to find the place without Gwyneth to guide him?

  He rode up and inland for an hour, stopping many times to assess his position, often uncertain yet sure he was moving steadily closer to his destination.

  At last he began to recognize the granite cliffs and the shape of several peaks. Certain of his bearings now, he led Red Rhud a short time later through the jagged opening to his left where the shoulder of a projecting ridge opened between one hill and the next, then up the rocky incline, round the large cluster of boulders, and finally to the overlook where he was again able to see the tiny lake of blue-green far below.

  Its surface shone like glass. Near the water’s edge, several deer were drinking from the lake and nibbling at the surrounding grasses of the meadow.

  With a momentary pang of sadness, he realized that he would hear no haunting ethereal melody on this day from the lake creature of Gwynedd. He saw no sign of the wild horses. After a few moments, he urged Red Rhud on.

  Soon he was descending steeply through a rocky ravine surrounded on both sides by fir and pine, with granite cliffs looming high above. When he judged he had come near the place beyond which Gwyneth would not let him go, he stopped, dismounted, tied the reins to a tree, and walked on gently and quietly.

  In the clearing beyond the wood, a half dozen deer grazed upon the carpet of green while a dozen rabbits scurried among them. Behind lay the shimmering emerald surface.

  He stood in silence for ten minutes. Quietness reigned in this place. Gwyneth’s spirit surely hovered over it.

  Suddenly a sound disturbed the hush of peace. Within seconds the deer and rabbits disappeared into the surrounding trees. Percy wondered if he had caused their flight.

  Then it came again, from high above him on the other side of the valley … metallic noises and the sounds of horses. Then he heard voices … men’s voices.

  He looked all about. There they were, three or four men on horseback high above the lake on a projecting ledge on the far side. They were unloading equipment of some kind.

  They were too far away to see clearly. But though he could not hear their words distinctly, their voices echoed off the rocks.

  As he watched, one of the men now set up a surveyor’s tripod and transit. Another pulled out a sketch pad and began to draw the lake and valley.

  With stealthy and careful step, Percy retreated deeper into the safety of the pine and fir wood until he could retrace his steps to Red Rhud. If he had heard them, surely they would soon enough be alerted to his presence as well. He led Red Rhud back the way he had come as slowly and quietly as possible. Once on the high path again, he remounted. For several minutes he took great care to lead Red Rhud quietly, then increased his pace and made for the manor with greater speed than he had ridden up into the hills.

  He tied Red Rhud in front of the house and went to find his aunt. “Aunt Katherine,” he said, “do you know that small lake in the mountains to the northeast?”

  “There are an abundance of small lakes in Snowdonia, Percy.”

  “It’s between here and Burrenchobay Hall, but east and surrounded by high granite cliffs.”

  “It could be any of several—I really cannot say that I know for certain the one you are speaking of. Why, Percy?”

  “I just came from there. It is a place I ride occasionally. I first heard about it from Florilyn and Courtenay. They said it was the home of a water kelpie.”

  Katherine laughed. “I have heard those stories as well. Gwberr-niog I believe he is called.”

  “That’s him! I had forgotten the name. But after hearing about the lake, Stuart gave me directions so I could find it for myself. I rode up there again today. I saw some men there with surveying equipment—Englishmen as far as I could tell from their accents, though I couldn’t make out what they were saying. I wondered if the lake was on Westbrooke property. Are you having surveying done?”

  “No,” answered Katherine with an expression of concern. “My surveying for the new house was completed months ago.”

  “They definitely had surveying equipment. I saw that much.”

  “I don’t know that I like the sound of this,” she said rising. “I will have a talk with Stuart to find out exactly where this lake is and if it is on our land.”

  Keenly aware that he had been neglecting Florilyn since his arrival and concerned for her feelings, Percy spent the afternoon with his cousin. They had a long ride and talk together. Percy even dared suggest a race on the beach with their two favorite mounts again, Grey Tide and Red Rhud, and was happy with Florilyn’s acceptance. Her feelings of guilt over the accident involving Gwyneth seemed at last to have faded completely into the past.

  The delightful afternoon reminded him why it had been easy to love her. That love had now turned to respect and admiration. He was now more certain than ever that she was right and that he must discover what might be the depths of his other love.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  The Drawer

  The following morning found Percy again in his uncle’s study. On this occasion he took more care than had been possible with a mere cursory search. He spent the entire morning examining the contents of the desk drawers and cabinet and safe. Most of the papers he found were of little apparent use, many of the files predating his uncle altogether—personal correspondence, business records, journals and ledgers from the various factors who had worked for the estate dating back centuries.

  He did, however, locate a brown envelope with the single word LITCHFIELD in ink on the flap. It appeared more recent than the others he had opened. The letters from one Lord Coleraine Litchfield contained no particular significance as he perused them. Yet they clearly concerned the potential sale of estate lands. He knew his aunt should be made aware of them, if she was not already.

  Percy found his aunt reading in her private sitting room. “Aunt Katherine,” he said, “I found an envelope containing some letters to Uncle Roderick from a few years ago. You might know all about it, but it seemed important enough to ask you about.” He handed her the envelope.

  Katherine removed the letters. As she read one after another, Percy saw her internal temperature beginning to rise. At length she began shaking her head. “I don’t know whether to yell or cry,” she said. “No … I had no idea Roderick was engaged in this correspondence. Apparently he was planning to sell some of the estate’s land. I cannot say I am surprised,” she added with a smile. “He was always short of cash, always trying to talk me into giving him money for one of his schemes. I am sorry to think that mone
y came between us. But the sad fact of the matter is, it did.”

  “You don’t know what came of this, then?”

  Katherine shook her head. “I cannot imagine that anything did,” she said. “Technically as viscount, Roderick could have sold estate lands without my permission. But surely I would have known. The fact that Hamilton Murray has never mentioned it convinces me that nothing came of it. These are all dated six years ago. However …” she added thoughtfully, “this man Litchfield was here visiting only a couple months ago—ostensibly because of Courtenay’s eventual role in the House of Lords. I wonder …” Her voice faded away. She shook her head but did not complete the thought.

  “Would you like me to leave the letters with you?” asked Percy after a moment.

  Katherine sighed. “No, take them back to the study. I don’t want them,” she said. She returned the letters to the envelope and handed it to Percy. “Where did you find them?”

  “In the cabinet of files.”

  “If I should need them, I’ll know where to find them.”

  Percy returned upstairs to the study. Again he sat down at his uncle’s desk. One at a time he opened its drawers. As he pulled out the bottom drawer, he heard a sound, as of something shifting. He stooped and peered all the way to the back but saw only the papers and envelopes he had looked through before. Puzzled, he gave the drawer a sharp jiggle. The sound came again. Examining the back of it more closely, he saw what now looked like a false back to the drawer.

  He pulled it all the way out toward him. A thin block of wood had been wedged across the width of the drawer. He tried to dislodge it with his fingers, but it held fast.

  The next moment he was outside and making for the workshop to find a small hammer. Five minutes later he sat down again, reached into the back of the drawer, and gave one edge of the piece of wood a light rap. Then again. The wedge of wood gave way. Percy removed it, set it aside, and reached all the way now into the true back of the drawer that had not been visible before.

  His hand fell on something. He pulled it out and saw that he was holding a black lacquered box about eight inches by six inches and perhaps three inches deep. He lifted it out of the drawer and set it on the desk.

  The latch for the lid had no lock. He unfastened the latch and lifted the lid back. Inside were a few five and ten pound notes—not exactly a fortune—several pens, a bottle of ink, and a few other odds and ends. Most interesting of all, however, was a key ring containing perhaps a dozen small keys.

  Why had his uncle kept these keys here, nearly impossible to find unless one were looking for them, instead of with the others on the ring behind the door?

  Percy looked them over. Suddenly he remembered. The drawers in the safe!

  He was out of the chair and across the room in an instant. Quickly he unlocked the safe as before, threw back the door, and fumbled with the new set of small keys.

  The first four accomplished nothing. The fifth, a small brass key scarcely two inches long, slid effortlessly into the lock of the bottom drawer to the right of the inside of the safe. Percy turned the key, heard a slight click, and then pulled the drawer toward him.

  There sat a pile of letters, still in their envelopes … unopened.

  He reached into the drawer and removed them. He did not immediately recognize the names to whom the letters were addressed. But he knew his uncle’s hand well enough, as well as the return address: WESTBROOKE MANOR, LLANFRYNIOG, GWYNEDD, WALES. Every letter had been sent to a town in Ireland. Every one had been returned, unopened, stamped with the words, MOVED WITHOUT FORWARD. The yellowed age of the envelopes indicated that they were old. Percy squinted and could faintly make out the postal stamps. All had been sent in 1842.

  He drew in a long breath and exhaled thoughtfully. Letters in his uncle’s hand that predated his 1847 marriage to Aunt Katherine.

  He closed the safe and returned with the stack of envelopes to his uncle’s desk. He sat down and set the letters in front of him. To read them seemed almost a sacrilege. But he could not show them to his aunt. There was no one else to read them but him.

  He glanced through them all again. Folded between the envelopes was a newspaper clipping, the paper old and brittle. Carefully he unfolded it. The small headline read: GOLD FINDS ON INCREASE WEST OF WICKLOW.

  He began to read the article.

  “It has been assumed for years that the 1795 gold rush had spent itself well before 1820. But sporadic new finds continued to rekindle interest throughout the 1830s, and even more recently. Gold was first discovered in County Wicklow in what was subsequently named the Gold Mines River in 1795. The boom continued until 1830, during which time it is estimated that eight thousand ounces of gold were extracted from alluvial gravels of the region. Simultaneously, this period also witnessed the greatest coal mining and slate production episode in Ireland. All this activity also prompted a boom in shipbuilding in eastern Ireland, most notably in the seaport of Arklow, south of Wicklow …”

  Percy continued to peruse the article. But the letters held far more interest. He glanced through them again. All bore the destination Laragh, County Wicklow, Ireland.

  Wicklow … where they had been mining for gold!

  He scanned the newspaper clipping again. He could find no mention of the date when the article was written. Was it gold that had taken his uncle there?

  Along with Mistress Chattan’s words, he now remembered, on his deathbed, his uncle’s words, “I was young and foolish and had dreams of making my fortune. There were rumors of gold, and that was enough to fire my imagination.”

  Percy knew he had to read the letters. But he could take no chances of his aunt discovering them. Closing all the desk drawers, locking the safe again and keeping the small ring of keys with him, then carefully taking the stack of letters and slipping them beneath his shirt, he left the study and hastened up to the privacy of his own room.

  Before he lay down to sleep that night, Percy knew that fulfilling his uncle’s commission must next take him to Ireland. He must attempt to accomplish, even if it were thirty years later, what his uncle had not been able to with these letters.

  If he failed, no one need ever know.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Departure

  The next morning at breakfast, Percy broke the news to Florilyn and Katherine. “I am afraid I must take my departure sooner than I had planned,” he said.

  Mother and daughter looked at him with surprise.

  “Why … Are you going home so soon?” asked Florilyn.

  “I’m not going home. There is something I have to do.”

  “Where are you going, then?”

  “I would rather not say.”

  Florilyn’s face registered obvious disappointment. “But … you’ve only been here a few days,” she said.

  “I know. I am sorry,” said Percy. “I can see that this has come out of the blue. I realize I haven’t spent as much time with you as I had hoped. I will make it up to you when I return—I promise. But there is something I have to do. I don’t think it can wait.”

  “Does this have to do with what Roderick asked you to do for him?” asked Katherine.

  “It may, Aunt Katherine,” replied Percy. “I can’t be certain.”

  “Did you find something in his study?”

  “I may have. Again, I cannot say for certain. I am sorry, but I just cannot say more. Actually, Uncle Roderick did not give me specifics. I am nearly as much in the dark as you. I hope you can trust me.”

  Again his aunt and cousin stared back with expressions of bewilderment.

  “Of course we can, Percy,” said Katherine after a moment. “When will you leave?”

  “Tomorrow, I think.”

  The rest of the breakfast passed somewhat somberly. Percy knew that Florilyn was not merely disappointed. He could tell that her feelings were hurt, as much that he did not feel himself able to confide in her as that he was leaving.

  He spent the rest of the morning in his room
, again perusing the letters he had found as well as completing David Elginbrod.

  After lunch, he invited Florilyn for another ride, this time into the hills. Her mood was obviously subdued.

  “I was embarrassed to tell you when I came,” he said after they were well away from the manor and climbing toward Rhinog Fawr, “but I hadn’t yet finished the MacDonald book. I knew it was important to you, but school was just too hectic. I finally did so last night and this morning. I think I see everything you were saying to me last Christmas.”

  Florilyn nodded.

  “It was hard to hear at the time,” Percy went on, “but the wisdom of it is growing on me.”

  “Does your leaving have anything to do with Gwyneth?” asked Florilyn. “Mother said you went down to her cottage.”

  “Not really,” answered Percy. “I just wanted to look around. There was nothing there.”

  “So you’re not leaving because you have some new idea where she went to.”

  “Nothing like that. It has nothing to do with her.”

  “Does it have anything to do with me?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Are you … disappointed with me?”

  “No, not at all. Why would you think that?”

  “I thought maybe that you … I don’t know … that you found it awkward or didn’t want to be with me anymore.”

  “Oh, Florilyn—that’s not how I feel at all. I’m sorry if I—”

  “It’s not you, Percy,” said Florilyn. “It’s only that I feel … It is just hard sometimes. I miss you, that’s all.”

  “I know. The feeling is mutual. I’ve had bouts of sadness, even depression, these last six months … you know … wondering about it all.”

  They rode on for several minutes in silence.

  “What about the book?” asked Florilyn at length.

  “I now understand about Hugh and Margaret,” replied Percy. “Whether their story has to do with me … with us … that I still do not know.” He paused a moment. “Are you …” he began hesitantly, “are you still at peace with what you did?”