Gwyneth smiled and laid her head on Percy’s shoulder. He stretched his arm around her and drew her close.
“I love you, Gwyneth Barrie,” said Percy.
“And I you, Percival Drummond. I may be your gold, but you are every girl’s dream come true.”
They sat watching the sun slowly set. The moment the final speck of its red disappeared, the sky immediately seemed to explode in color. But the brilliant sunset was short lived. It was winter and the atmosphere was too thin to sustain the colors for long. Within fifteen minutes, dark blues and purples of approaching night began to engulf them in a descending blanket of darkness.
“Just think if we could live our lives with this view all the time,” said Percy, “overlooking the sea, watching every sunset.”
“Perhaps we can,” said Gwyneth.
“What do you mean?”
“Stand up, Percy, and turn around.”
Percy rose to his feet then pulled Gwyneth up to his side. They turned their backs to the sea. There stood the outline of Katherine’s new house against the night sky three hundred yards inland from the promontory.
“Are you thinking what I think you might be thinking?” said Percy slowly.
“I don’t think Lady Katherine really wants to move to the new house,” said Gwyneth.
“She is planning to. I’ve heard her say so.”
“Only because she thinks she ought to,” said Gwyneth. “She probably thinks we will want her to after I inherit. But we would get lost in the manor by ourselves. I would feel very awkward. It will always be Lady Katherine’s home to me. The new house is not half so big. Why should we not live in the new house, where we can see the sea every day and let Katherine and Florilyn and Steven and Adela all remain at the manor.”
“Gwyneth, that is a fantastic idea!”
“I will speak with Lady Katherine. We will do whatever she wants. As long as I am with you, Percy, I will be happy anywhere. But I cannot think of anything I would love more than to wake up every morning beside you and go to bed every night with the sound of the sea in our ears.”
83
Knotted Strands
Tears came to Katherine’s eyes the next day when she realized what Gwyneth was suggesting.
“Oh, my dear girl!” she said, embracing Gwyneth with all the affection of true motherhood. “You would do that for me?”
“I would do whatever I could for you, Lady Katherine. Your happiness means more to me than anything.”
“More than your own?”
“Of course.”
Katherine shook her head in wonder. “I know you mean that with all your heart,” she said, stepping away and smiling down at the girl who had become to her as an adopted daughter. “I would love to be able to remain at the manor. There would also be more room for my parents. I only decided to build the new house because I assumed I would have to find another place to live. Once we realized that Courtenay would not inherit, I must admit wondering if I had made a mistake. Still, the manor will be yours one day. Should it not be your home?”
“I would rather think of it as yours, Lady Katherine,” replied Gwyneth. “The manor will be yours to live in and make use of as your own for as long as you wish it. If you would allow my family to live in your new house, I would be honored for you to remain at the manor.”
“Then the new house shall be my wedding gift to you.”
“To use, perhaps, but not to own,” said Gwyneth. “The new house and land shall remain yours. In your name, I mean,” said Gwyneth, “so that you will have them to pass on to Florilyn or Courtenay one day. You need to be mindful of your inheritance to them as well.”
“Perhaps you are right. We do not need to decide all those particulars just now. But you have made me very happy, Gwyneth. Thank you!”
With the arrangement between the present and future viscountesses, work at the new house continued as rapidly as the winter weather would permit. Doors, windows, cabinetry, shelves, fixtures, fireplaces and other brick- and stonework, and paneling and trim, were all completed by early February. By that time Percy, Steven, Courtenay, and Codnor were in the process of painting those rooms whose walls had been plastered rather than paneled in wood. Carpet and drapes were ordered and in place by early April. By the end of the month, though sparse of furnishings, the new house was ready for Codnor, Gwyneth, and Grannie to take up residence within its new stone walls. What remained of their furniture in the two cottages in the village, as well as what had been shipped from Ireland, was carted to the new house. Katherine added many furnishings from the manor as well. For two weeks the entire company at the manor contributed to the move. Carts, buggies, and wagons moved back and forth between the two houses and the village bearing furniture, boxes, beds, crates, chairs, clothes, wardrobes, utensils, food, wall hangings, pictures, and tapestries. The men of the manor helped Codnor outfit the new stables with tack, tools, saddles, feed, and all things needful for the barn and workshop. Meanwhile, the women remained busy in Gwyneth’s new kitchen and in making the bedrooms and other rooms of the house cozy and livable.
When at last the small Barrie family left the manor one evening after a great supper and prepared to spend their first night in their new home, it seemed as though some portion of the glory had departed. And indeed, life seemed dreary for a time in both houses. Even Gwyneth in the new house, notwithstanding her daily view of the sea, found it perhaps a little too quiet. But she saw Florilyn and Steven and Katherine and Adela daily. The path between the two houses was already well worn. Stuart Wyckham had planted a boxwood hedge and other shrubs alongside it. Gradually life returned to its old channels. Gwyneth ministered to Grannie and her father as she had in Ireland. Steven and Codnor continued to work on what interior details remained to be completed at the new house. Life between the two homes was soon flourishing as if they were one.
Percy spent much of the spring in Glasgow with his parents, taking up again his occasional legal work, and made a trip to Aberdeen to assess his options for resuming his law studies. Whenever he was in Wales, he took up residence in his former room at the manor.
Steven and Florilyn were married the following August. Percy stood beside Steven as best man, with Courtenay beside him. Gwyneth and Rhawn served as Florilyn’s two maids of honor. Steven and Codnor, along with their work on the new house, and with the help of several able carpenters and joiners, had remodeled a portion of the wing of the manor that had been used in former times as servants’ quarters. They had transformed it into an expansive apartment of seven rooms, occupying two floors, including a newly outfitted kitchen. It was ready by the day of the wedding. After a week’s honeymoon by boat north through Scotland’s western isles, the wedding couple took up residence in their new east-wing quarters.
Percy and Gwyneth were married a year later, in June of 1876. Percy would have chosen his father to be his best man had he not been officiating for the service. Those who stood before the proud vicar were the same six from the previous August. Edward’s own son, however, was now the bridegroom. The ceremony was conducted on the flat plateau between the new house and the promontory of Mochras Head. The entire village was invited, and nearly every one of its number attended. Percy had always been a great favorite. And now, even if belatedly, those of the community embraced his new bride and their future viscountess as if they had always secretly known that she was something beyond the ordinary. A great feast and celebration was held afterward on the grounds of the new house. As the day was bright and warm, it lasted most of the day. The bride and groom did not depart in their honeymoon carriage—which would take them that night to Barmouth, thence to the Lincolnshire resort village of Cumberworth—until after six o’clock.
One of the surprise guests of the day was Colville Burrenchobay. He and Rhawn spent most of the afternoon together. He was even seen a time or two in the midst of the festivities engaged in what appeared to be cordial conversation with Styles Lorimer. Drawn together by their mutual grandson, the Lorimer
and Burrenchobay families had been visiting with increasing frequency. How much the people of the community knew was doubtful. The truth was not long in coming out, however, when Colville began calling at the Lorimer home later that summer. A few buggy rides followed. After some time, these began to include young Amren. With unhurried wisdom, Rhawn allowed the two men in her life to become accustomed to one another slowly. By the time their engagement was announced the following year, Amren had begun calling Colville “Daddy.” Colville and Rhawn were married and eventually had three more children. They took up residence in Burrenchobay Hall, which Colville inherited at the passing of his parents. As true as it is that most people do not change, anyone who wants to change is easily made capable of it by that desire. Influenced primarily by what he observed in Rhawn and Florilyn, a spark of that desire began to flicker to life within the heart of Colville Burrenchobay. He never stood for parliament, and though no one would have called him a saint, he turned out to be a surprisingly good father and was faithful to Rhawn for the rest of his life.
Grannie lived in the new house and was honored by the families and staff of both houses as matriarch of the extended clan of Westbrooke Manor and the new house. She lived to be ninety-seven and died in her own bed in the new house with Gwyneth and Adela at her side. Her passing was mourned by the entire village that had once scorned her.
Percy and Gwyneth spent three school terms in Aberdeen while Percy completed his law degree, returning with great joy to Wales every summer.
Gwyneth inherited the title of viscountess and all the property of the Westbrooke estate on her twenty-fifth birthday. The day-to-day affairs of the estate continued to function as they had. All the people of the village and manor addressed both she and Katherine either as “Viscountess” or “Lady Gwyneth” and “Lady Katherine.”
Gwyneth’s only order as the new first lady of Snowdonia was that someone from one of the two houses—she or Katherine or Percy or Steven or Florilyn or Courtenay or Codnor or Adela—should visit the village every day, whether for a pint of Mistress Chattan’s ale or a visit to one of the shops or even simply a ride on horseback through the main street. She was determined that everyone should have easy and unrestricted access to the viscountess and her people and know that their concerns would always be listened to and their needs attended to.
Steven continued as factor for the entire estate and all the affairs concerning both houses. He attempted to make Codnor his co-factor and spoke to both Gwyneth and Katherine with the request to formalize the office and pay Gwyneth’s father accordingly. But Codnor would have none of it. The humble man would happily serve as his nephew’s assistant and his daughter’s willing servant, he said, but would accept no title nor pay for his services.
Percy apprenticed for two years under Hamilton Murray, riding into Porthmadog weekly, then established his own law practice from an office in the new house on Mochras Head. More than half the local cases that came his way he performed gratis. The new viscountess was determined to serve her people, not profit from them. Percy’s gradually expanding reputation throughout Snowdonia and north Wales, however, along with regular referrals from Hamilton Murray, kept his legal practice mostly in the black.
The earl and Mrs. Drummond moved to Westbrooke Manor and lived out their days with their daughter attending lovingly to their every need. They died within a year of one another, both aged eighty-eight.
Though an invitation was sent them, Vanora and Daibheid Maloney declined to attend Gwyneth’s wedding. Now that Gwyneth knew the details of her own personal history and of the sufferings the O’Sullivan and Maloney side of her family had endured, she longed to know her Irish relatives and see the Welsh and Irish strains reconciled. She was conscious, however, that not all the suffering had been accidental. It was clear that Daibheid Maloney had inflicted his own share of grief upon others. Nor could she seek to win the man’s favor on the basis of what she had become. True reconciliation must be based on a recognition of her father’s character and a desire on the part of Maloney to make amends with the man he had scorned and rebuffed.
Gwyneth and her father, therefore, planned a trip to Ireland and a visit to the home of Vanora and Daibheid Maloney. Vanora was cordial but concerned about her husband’s reaction. After humble apologies by Codnor for his contribution to the family rift, a gradual thaw began in the heart of Daibheid Maloney toward his former friend and coworker. Several more visits over three or four years culminated in Gwyneth at last revealing to Daibheid Maloney the full truth of her inheritance. Her aunt Vanora rejoiced, wept freely at last to have it out in the open, and embraced the daughter of her beloved sister. Gwyneth’s desire was to help the family financially to the extent Daibheid Maloney’s pride would allow. It was the least she could do for her mother’s family. All she was able to accomplish, however, after consultation with her father, was to turn over the deed to the house and land on Lugnaquilla. As the purchase had originated as a gift from the late viscount, Daibheid Maloney accepted the gift more freely than would have been possible had he considered it charity from Gwyneth’s hand. Friendship with several of Gwyneth’s Irish cousins in future years, and their children with her children, followed.
Cousin Henry’s treatise on love, which Edward and Percy had read in manuscript, was finally published in book form in 1880. It became one of the best-selling and most beloved books on the Christian life ever published, and in coming decades sold an astonishing twelve million copies.
Inspired by what he had read from his young cousin Henry, and under the continued influence of the pen of George MacDonald, Edward Drummond wrote a book simply called The Commands of Jesus, urging obedience as the central and only priority of Christianity.
D. L. Moody returned to Britain between 1882 and 1884. Kyvwlch Gwarthegydd served as a volunteer for the evangelist’s meetings in Wales. Henry Drummond was again involved in Moody’s work.
Moody later recalled a memorable night during the tiring campaign.
“I was staying with a party of friends in a country house during my visit to England in 1884,” he wrote. “On Sunday evening as we sat around the fire, they asked me to read and expound some portion of Scripture. Being tired after the services of the day, I told them to ask Henry Drummond, who was one of the party. After some urging he drew a small Testament from his hip pocket, opened it at the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians, and began to speak on the subject of Love.
“It seemed to me that I had never heard anything so beautiful, and I determined not to rest until I brought Henry Drummond to America to deliver that address. Since then I have requested the principals of my schools to have it read before the students every year. The one great need in our Christian life is love, more love to God and to each other. Would that we could all move into that Love chapter, and live there.”
Gwyneth sold what remained of the chest of gold to the British Museum in London for an undisclosed sum. The research of the museum’s historians had identified the gold as from a cache at the ancient Celtic site of Dolau Cothi that had disappeared shortly after its discovery in the previous century, thought to have been stolen by pirates and never heard of again.
The actual value of the gold was impossible to determine. Seeking the advice of Hamilton Murray, Katherine, Steven, her father, and her own husband-lawyer, Gwyneth received no more from the sale than sufficient to recoup most of the losses of previous generations and thus place the affairs of the estate on a permanently sound financial footing again. Beyond that, she did not feel it right to profit from the discovery in excess of need. Rather, she considered it her duty to allow the museum to determine whatever future the coins should have, whether to keep them or sell a portion of the find as artifacts to help support the museum and finance its future acquisitions.
When Madame Fleming, a.k.a the Wolf Lady, of dubious reputation in Arklow, Ireland, died of natural causes, Gwyneth ordered her house demolished and all its contents burned.
Courtenay continued to race his
horses with somewhat regular success. He won several more events at various tracks in England, though never another at such long odds as at the Chester Derby. After great effort, he convinced Gwyneth to jockey for a few of these. Her success convinced Courtenay that he had indeed discovered the golden goose. She only laughed at his plea that she become his permanent jockey, saying that she had more important concerns on which to expend her energies. To please him, however, she agreed to ride in one race a year. Courtenay’s racing activities at last made full use of his father’s new stables at the manor. A reputation began to follow him as one of north Wales’s leading owners and jockeys. He was often seen in close counsel with Gwyneth, the two walking side by side, Courtenay towering a foot above her, picking her brain about some aspect of horse training or race preparation and strategy. It was a sight none would have expected but which made Katherine’s heart swell.
Courtenay met the daughter of a horse breeder from Barmouth at the annual Chester Derby of 1879. They were married two years later. After a year at the manor, an illness prevented his father-in-law being able to keep up with the work and oversight of his stables. Courtenay and his wife moved to the Barmouth estate, taking with them Courtenay’s gradually growing stable of thoroughbreds. There Courtenay took over the daily operation of the farm and business. He and his wife visited Llanfryniog frequently, however, bringing their children to visit their cousins and grandmother, while Courtenay slipped away to hold counsel with Gwyneth and Steven, whose knowledge and wisdom about animals and racing he respected more and more with every passing year. He was never able to bring himself to draw close to Percy, and they never formed what would be called a warm relationship. As brothers-in-law, however, Courtenay and Steven became the best of friends.
The Treasure of the Celtic Triangle- Wales Page 40
