by Sandra Heath
Like her, he was muffled in overclothes to stave off the worst of the weather, and also like her, he was signally cold and desirous of reaching the warmth of his hearth. He therefore impatiently eyed the gatekeeper’s door.
“Oh, come on, Huw Jenkin, come on!” he breathed.
A hand lantern shone suddenly in the doorway of the lodge, and a man emerged, accompanied by a black-and-white collie. The gatekeeper was slight and dark, and by the unsteady light of the lantern Ellie saw that he had the delicately formed features of the Welsh. He was swathed in a heavy cloak and had an ancient blunderbuss over his arm, for he took no chances with possible robbers.
“Hurry up, man!” John grumbled.
“Nos da, Mr. Bailey,” Huw called back, relaxing as he realized who the travelers were. He nodded at Ellie and spoke to her as well, but as he used only Welsh she did not understand him. However, she did understand that he had addressed John Billersley as Mr. Bailey without being corrected.
“What did he say to me, Uncle?” she asked, holding the hood of her cloak as a vagrant gust of wind threatened to sweep it back from her head.
“He just welcomed you to Nantgarth, my dear.”
“He knows about me?”
“Everyone hereabouts knows my niece is coming to live with me.”
“Why did he call you Mr. Bailey?”
Her uncle hesitated. “All in good time, my dear, all in good time.”
Huw addressed John Billersley again and, laughing, pointed toward the inn.
“What’s he saying now?” Ellie asked, frustrated at not being able to understand.
“He’s reminding me that the Mari Llwyd goes around the area tonight, and that it is at the inn right now.”
“The Marie what?”
“The Mari Llwyd, the Gray Mare,” her uncle explained as Huw struggled to open the gate, which seemed to have jammed somehow. “It’s a sort of pagan hobbyhorse and is accompanied by a noisy company of mummers and dancers. The ancient custom is for it to visit local houses on this day to mark the passing of the darkest of winter.”
“Someone should have reminded Mother Nature,” Ellie murmured, for this had surely been the darkest day since the Creation.
Her uncle laughed. “Maybe this is her way of showing grave disapproval for such an irreligious custom. Anyway, Huw merely warned me that the procession is about to leave the Griffin, so I must either drive on quickly, or be prepared to endure the Gray Mare’s attentions.”
At last Huw succeeded in opening the gate, but as Ellie’s uncle prepared to flick the reins to move the tired pony on, the door of the inn burst open, and a riotous crowd erupted into the dismal night. Torches fluttered and smoked as white-sheeted mummers, one beating a steady rhythm on a drum, capered around a man, also in white, who carried a horse’s skull that was fixed to a pole and decorated with colored ribbons.
Adults of both sexes followed, their faces blackened, holly and ivy in their hats, and ribbons pinned to their clothes. Children dressed in animal costumes—bears, foxes, squirrels, and rabbits—ran shrieking and laughing into the rainswept darkness, and suddenly the deserted turnpike was swarming with people. Atrocious weather or not, everyone for miles around seemed to have come to join in festivities that turned time backward by hundreds of years.
Ellie shrank against her uncle as the weird procession passed by, but then became aware of one figure limping behind the others and then standing motionless near the inn. It was a youthful man, or so she thought from his lean and rangy build, and he was dressed as a spotted dog, black on white. At least ... Her eyes blinked, and in that split second he’d gone. No one with such a limp could have run off that quickly, or even slipped back into the inn! A little unnerved, she clung still closer to her uncle.
As soon as the trap was free again, John urged the pony forward. The sounds of merrymaking were soon lost in the noise of the night, and at a signpost that indicated the way to Castle Griffin, the trap turned to the right into a little upward-sloping side valley. At first the way was flanked by the cottages of Nantgarth, which was little more than a hamlet that had sprung up at the conjunction of the two valleys. There was a small school, attended by children from miles around, and a shop that provided essentials, including a twice-weekly wagon service to and from Cardiff.
The rain suddenly stopped as the last cottage was passed, but the wind continued to bluster and moan. A hundred yards farther on, at the edge of a dense mixed woodland, was a humpbacked stone bridge over the new Glamorgan Canal, the cutting of which had been demanded by local industry because the Taff was too dangerous and the roads too often impassable.
On the far side of the waterway, hidden among tall evergreens, was the small china works upon which her uncle, once so well-off, now depended for his existence. The silhouettes of two bottle-necked kilns rose against the background of woodland, and as the trap crossed the bridge, Ellie saw a cobbled way leading down a little wharf, where a barge was visible in the swinging light of a lantern on the corner of an outbuilding.
There were other lights too, those of Nantgarth House, John Billersley’s modest double-fronted dwelling attached to the china works. Ellie would soon learn that the road continued past the house to a fork about a quarter of a mile farther on. One branch crossed the valley and ascended the opposite side to Castle Griffin; the other was little more than a bridle way that led up to the inconveniently isolated parish church, high on the bleak mountainside a mile or more from its nearest parishioners.
The trap drew to a halt by Nantgarth House’s garden gate, and Ellie saw her new home for the first time. Whitewashed and neat, it faced south toward the road, along a clinker path that was flanked by tiny square lawns and bare flower beds. In daylight it would obviously have splendid views across the valley, but right now everything was so dark it was impossible to see anything. And all the time the wind howled through the nearby trees like the wild hunt itself, arousing images of the Mari Llwyd, and the young man dressed as a spotted dog.
“Here we are, my dear,” her uncle said as he alighted to make the reins fast to a holly tree overhanging the garden wall. The gusting air rustled through the wet leaves, making them glint in the darkness, and now and then Ellie caught the exhilarating smell of the surrounding mountains, a mixture of springy turf, heather, and sheep.
The wind was a living entity, whispering to her through the eaves of the house and among the swaying branches of the trees, and filling her with the certainty that at last she was close to her proper place in the scheme of things. Somehow she had never truly belonged at Rutherford Park; however, she belonged here, maybe not at Nantgarth House itself, but certainly among these mountains.
The door of the house opened, and a plump middle-aged woman in a dark blue gown, floppy mobcap, and crocheted shawl looked out anxiously. Ellie guessed she must be the housekeeper, Mrs. Lewis. The guess was confirmed a moment later when Ellie’s uncle raised a reassuring hand.
“We’re here safe and sound, Mrs. Lewis. I hope you’ve already suffered a visit from the Mari Llwyd?”
“Oh, yes, sir. Some hours ago.”
The woman’s lilting English came as a huge relief to Ellie, who’d heard little but Welsh since leaving England behind.
“Thank heavens for that,” John replied. “Did you keep your promise to be about making dowset and cacen gri to welcome my niece?”
“Of course, Mr. Bailey. You didn’t think I’d forget, did you?”
“I’ve never known it yet, but I’m so damned cold and hungry tonight that if you’d let me down, I think I’d eat you instead!”
Mrs. Lewis threw up her hands and laughed. “I’d be too tough by far for your soft English teeth,” she replied, then disappeared into the house, calling in Welsh for her son, Gwilym.
Ellie shivered as her uncle assisted her down from the trap. “What’s dowset and cacen gri, Uncle?” she asked.
“Bacon pie and sweet griddle cake, my dear,” he answered, “and very nourishing and tasty both are
too.” He paused. “I know what you’re thinking.”
“You do?”
“Yes, my dear. That such fare is a world away from the grand dishes I enjoyed in times gone by.”
She smiled. “Actually, I was about to express surprise that I am not to eat toasted cheese every day from now on, as I have been given to understand that the Welsh eat nothing else.”
“A rare bit of toasted cheese is a favorite, I grant you, but don’t believe for a moment that the Welsh have nothing else, for I vow you’ll eat better from now on than you ever did before. Good, healthy food—none of your fancy French twiddles.”
He’d spoken amusingly, but then became more serious and spoke of something rather different. “Eleanor, are you quite, quite certain no one at Rutherford Park knows you have come here?”
“Absolutely certain, Uncle. I was very careful to observe your wishes. When I left the Isle of Wight, there wasn’t a soul alive who knew I was coming here. Except you, of course.”
He drew her gloved fingers to his lips. “And now that you are here, you are to forget the name Billersley, do you understand? To everyone here, including Lord Griffin himself, I am John Bailey.” He spoke quietly and urgently, and was obviously very anxious for her cooperation.
“I ... yes, of course, Uncle.”
Seeing her anxiety, he squeezed her gloved fingers. “I will explain directly, my dear, when we are in the dry and can talk in comfort.” He was about to usher her along the path when something on the mountainside behind her caught his attention.
Ellie turned and looked in the same direction, but saw nothing. “What is it, Uncle? What have you seen?”
“I thought I saw a lantern, but probably imagined it. Only a madman would be up there on a night like this,” John replied, and ushered her through the gate and along the clinker path.
At last they stepped into the welcome warmth of Nantgarth House’s narrow entrance passage, where a mixture of fire and candlelight flickered from a room on the right. A staircase with a door at the bottom led up from the far end of the passage, and there were other doors into the dining room and kitchens. A longcase clock stood against the wall, just inside the entrance. Ellie noticed it particularly because its face was an unusual diamond shape. The pendulum swung slowly, tick, tock, tick, tock—a sound that somehow seemed to be part of the building.
She threw back her hood at last and took off her wet bonnet, and her hair immediately tumbled in rats’ tails down about her shoulders. Just then, Mrs. Lewis hurried from the kitchens at the back of the house, driving her lanky, redheaded son before her. The youth had a limp. Ellie was immediately riveted to the spot, for she knew, just knew, that she had seen him earlier in the spotted dog costume. Limp or not, he must have run like the wind itself to be here before the trap.
“Attend to the pony, Gwilym,” Mrs. Lewis said to him in English, then saw Ellie and halted as if confronted by a ghost. Her son stared as well, his lips apart on a silent gasp.
Ellie was embarrassed. Was it so shocking here in Wales if a lady’s hair fell from its pins? “Forgive me, I ...” She caught her damp locks and tried to pin them up again, but Mrs. Lewis recovered quickly and hastened to reassure her.
“Oh, it’s not your hair, Miss Rutherford. It’s just that you remind us of someone.”
John was curious. “And who might that be, Mrs. Lewis?”
“Oh, just my cousin, sir. She passed away just over two years ago, immediately before you came to Nantgarth.”
“I’ve never heard you mention her before,” he replied, turning for the housekeeper to take his soaking outdoor clothes. What he wore beneath was plain and unremarkable, a nondescript gray coat and fawn breeches that once would never have found their way into his possession. As for his sturdy, well-worn top boots, well, they were certainly not the work of Hoby’s of St. James’s.
Mrs. Lewis nodded at her son again. “Attend the pony, there’s a good boy.”
“Yes, Mam,” he replied dutifully, then stole another glance at Ellie before turning to take his coat down from the row of hooks on the wall.
“What’s this, Gwilym?” Ellie’s uncle asked. “Time off from the castle stables?”
“Yes, Mr. Bailey.”
John could read between unspoken lines. “Never mind, lad, for it won’t be long before Lord Griffin returns, and then all will be well again.”
“Oh, I hope so, Mr. Bailey, truly I do.”
Before the youth could leave the house, Ellie suddenly spoke. “You must be one of the fastest runners in Nantgarth, Gwilym.”
“Runners, miss?” He turned, his face puzzled, but his eyes saying something else.
“You were down on the turnpike, dressed as a dog, a white dog with black spots.”
Mrs. Lewis laughed. “Oh, dear me, no, Miss Rutherford. Gwilym has been here with me all evening.”
Ellie looked at her, then back at Gwilym. “I’m sorry, I’m clearly mistaken,” she said, knowing full well that she wasn’t. She watched his rather ungainly progress toward the door, which to her astonishment suddenly flew open before him. He went out, and it slammed behind him, again apparently of its own accord, for he had not touched it once.
Then the longcase clock stopped ticking too, and a great shiver ran down Ellie’s back.
Chapter Six
A door that opened and closed on its own? Ellie was so shaken that she took an involuntary step backward. No, it was impossible. She had imagined it. She was at the end of an arduous journey, and in need of food and a rest. But when she glanced at the clock, she saw it had indeed stopped. That, at least, had nothing to do with tiredness and imagination.
Mrs. Lewis hurried to take her cloak. The housekeeper was a very tidy person, pink-cheeked and bright-eyed, with dimples. “How dreadful a welcome the Glamorgan weather has given you, Miss Rutherford,” she said kindly. “What must you think of us?”
“I’m more than glad to be here,” Ellie replied, shaking out the crumpled, rather damp folds of the rust-colored woolen gown she wore beneath the cloak. She had been true to her word to her father, and had discarded mourning before leaving Rutherford Park for the last time.
The housekeeper took a crocheted cream woolen shawl from a hook on the wall and placed it around Ellie’s shoulders. “It’s not much of a shawl, Miss Rutherford, but I thought that after traveling on such a night you’d be in need of something warm around your shoulders.”
Ellie was grateful. “It’s very kind of you, Mrs. Lewis.”
“Not at all, Miss Rutherford.” The housekeeper dimpled with pleasure, then herded the two weary travelers through the firelit doorway and into a charming parlor, where a very welcome coal fire danced in the hearth of a surprisingly large fireplace.
Pink-and-gold lights danced over whitewashed walls, shutters were closed at square uncurtained windows, and the stone floor undulated quaintly, displaying a definite rise toward the fire. Polished brass candlesticks and ornaments shone on the sturdy oak mantel, where stood a surprisingly elegant and costly mahogany bracket clock that Ellie remembered from a childhood visit to her uncle’s then residence in the grandeur of Bruton Street, Mayfair. It was the only evidence she’d seen so far of his much more sumptuous previous life,
The parlor furniture was rustic, and included a bureau cabinet made of oak and inlaid with checker patterns. A cupboard-backed settle was at right angles to the fireplace; two upright oak armchairs had been placed opposite; and directly in front of the fire, to gain the very best advantage from the heat, was a wooden rocking chair that Ellie guessed was her uncle’s favorite seat. There were various shelves on the wall, some holding books, others examples of the exquisite soft-paste china made at the works and decorated by her uncle.
On the chimney breast above the mantel, occupying pride of place over all else in the room, was a watercolor head-and-shoulders portrait of a young man with long black curls that reached down to his shoulders. He had long-lashed spaniel brown eyes, a slightly olive complexion, and sensuou
s lips upturned in the merest ghost of a smile, and was wearing strange clothes, perhaps from somewhere in the Orient. Behind him were a wide river, grand buildings, and a tall needle-thin church spire that was unlike any she had seen before.
She went to hold her hands out to the fire. “Whose is the portrait, Uncle?”
“Mm? Oh, I have no idea,” John answered. “I purchased it years ago from a gallery in London.”
Then she noticed that the bracket clock had also stopped. It must have just happened, for like the longcase clock in the entrance passage, its hands pointed to the correct time. She turned to her uncle. “Doesn’t anyone attend to the clocks?” she asked.
John had turned to make sure the parlor door was closed. “What was that? The clocks? Oh, it’s Gwilym’s fault. There are three clocks he seems to affect, this one, the longcase in the hall, and one in the kitchen. They only work when he is actually beneath this roof. The moment he steps outside they all stop. They’ll come on again when he returns from attending to the pony. Mrs. Lewis usually puts them all to the right time again.”
Ellie stared at him. “You pull my leg, surely?”
“Not at all, my dear. I’ve long since learned that Gwilym Lewis is an extraordinary young man; in fact, I’d say he was fey.”
“Fey?” Ellie could see again the motionless figure in the spotted dog costume.
John nodded. “Yes, and his mother too, come to that. Gwilym certainly has a strange way with him. He can sometimes move things simply by willing it. I’ve seen him look at a glass marble and make it roll up and down a table. And he’s a horse charmer too, of course. He only has to whisper to them and breathe into their nostrils, and they become his obedient and adoring slaves. That’s why Lord Griffin wants him up at the stud. There’s nothing that boy cannot persuade a horse to do.” He indicated the rocking chair. “I trust you will not mind if I sit in your presence, my dear, but I’m exhausted.”
