At the end of the table, Katherine Westbrooke hardly tasted the food on her plate as the meal progressed. Listening to what came out of her daughter’s mouth was mortifying and humiliating to her sensitive mother’s ears. She excused herself with the pretext of a headache when the meal was over, declining coffee and dessert, and apologized to her brother’s son for her departure.
17
Westbrooke Manor
Percival, only son of Edward and Mary Drummond of Glasgow, had visited Westbrooke Manor but once prior to this in his life. That was so many years ago he scarcely remembered other than hazy recollections of the place. The last time he had seen his Welsh relatives was five years before in Scotland.
Lord Snowdon’s estate spread across the sloping incline up from the moorland plateau above the sea toward the inland hills. From the house, therefore, one could command a view of most of the region seaward, as well as north and south for some distance. Approaching the estate from the village, as one entered the front gate the great house could not actually be seen. A thick wood lay between the gate and the manor, comprised mostly of pine and fir, as well as magnificent specimens of ancient beech, oak, and chestnut.
The drive wound through these trees until it emerged suddenly into a vast clearing. This expanse spread out on both sides, still sloping gently upward. At the far end of it, the manor rose majestically, presiding over lawns and trees and hedges and gardens. A lovelier setting could hardly be imagined. As the drive approached the enormous house, it was lined with flowering ornamentals of plum and cherry and crab apple, at the bases of whose trunks grew all manner of bulbed and perennial flowers, low-spreading lithodora, and several varieties of heather.
Reaching Westbrooke Manor, the gravel drive widened into an expansive stoned elongated circle, around whose circumference exploded at this time of year a profusion of color, from roses and azaleas to multicolored pansies, alyssum, lobelia, violets, violas, daisies, and an abundance of other blooming things, scattered and planted among one another seemingly heedless of pattern. Their diverse colors and foliage mixed and flowed together in chaotic beauty. In the middle of winter, the sight would not have been nearly so inviting. But in early June, it was a sumptuous feast for the eyes.
The house itself—of gray stone and slate, intermingled with red brick from England, here and there with iron and copper work accenting the colorful mosaic of its design—stood as an impressively beautiful estate, whose draftsman must surely have enjoyed himself. Originally constructed in the late sixteenth century after union with England had reduced the defensive requirements of the castles and great houses of Wales, Westbrooke Manor represented one of the oldest and largest such structures where aesthetics and functionality replaced solemnity and starkness as the paramount architectural concerns.
The front face—opening southward and with columned entryway inset from the remaining plane of the building—and west wing boasted perhaps more windows, larger and of unusual design, than any mansion in Wales. These afforded magnificent views, when weather permitted, of the entire coastline. The architect must surely have cherished a particular fondness for the ornamental potential of the openings he set among the stone walls of the massive building. Its windows were the eyes into the soul, if not of Westbrooke Manor’s present occupants, then surely into the man who conceived it. They were clearly the singular visual highlight of the place.
The manor’s windows represented enormous variety of size, shape, and framing material. No more than three were alike. Even these possessed tiny crafted individualities that revealed themselves only to the most diligent scrutiny. While the primary object had been to give the manor’s inhabitants a view outward, this unique architectural feature also granted the visitor a striking sight as he beheld the house upon approach.
Great double doors of solid oak planking three inches thick, each measuring four feet in width and eight in height, ornately framed and studded in black wrought iron, were overspread with a great stone plate upon which the Westbrooke coat of arms was carved. This was surrounded by miscellaneous heraldic symbols, swords, and roaring and leaping beasts from both the world of men and fairy.
Away from this entryway around to the left along the west wing and extending northward behind it, a rambling, curved mossy stone pathway led toward an area near the house, which from the position of the house relative to the sun, remained shady during most daylight hours. Among the trunks of spaciously placed sycamores, beeches, and chestnuts, grew a distinctive variety of ferns and other plants, mostly now showing off their thick foliage of green. This was the winter garden. Those of its contents that flowered—only perhaps a fourth of the whole—had been placed here for their wintry blossoms, which came into prominence when the deciduous giants above them dropped their leaves to let in the cold, thin light of the winter months.
The oak doors of the manor opened into a large hall of high ceiling. Around its tall wood-paneled walls hung guns, swords, stags’ heads, a few faded tartans, and other similar ornamentation. The effect gave a visitor at first glance more the appearance of a hunting lodge in the Scottish highlands than a family home. Full-length suits of armor stood opposite one another as silent sentinels guarding the two far corners. Two corridors extended from this entryway, one to the right and one to the left. Directly ahead a wide stairway swooped down, slightly curved though not circular, from above.
Most of the family’s more comfortable living quarters were located up this grand staircase and to the left, on the first floor of the west wing, whose windows overlooked the sea. There was no limit to parlors and drawing rooms in the west wing of the ground floor either. The kitchens and servants’ quarters occupied most of the area to the right of the entry hall, comprising the remainder of the main south wing and the small east wing.
Two dining rooms, a great formal banquet hall outfitted in paneling and wainscoting to resemble the hunting motif, and a smaller room, warmer of atmosphere and of floral tones, sat directly to the rear of the entry hall. It was in this latter where the family’s meals were taken. Both dining rooms looked out on the courtyard enclosed by the three wings of the manor, kept tidily manicured by the viscount’s gardener, Stuart Wykeham. A breakfast room of immaculate white walls and ceiling and black floor tile also faced the courtyard.
The second floor of the manor sat mostly unused now except for a multitude of bedrooms and storage rooms, the viscount’s private study, and an ancient armory in which he took special pleasure.
Roderick Westbrooke had not always prided himself in being master of the family estate. His father, the seventh viscount Lord Snowdon, was already old when Roderick was born and was dead before his only son reached his teen years. Whatever family fortune might once have existed, it had been unwisely invested, spent, squandered, and gradually used up in the generations prior to the present viscount’s life.
Nor did young Roderick help matters with regard to his own financial future by leaving Wales in 1830 at sixteen as a pampered aristocratic heir intent upon seeing the world, ostensibly, he said, to seek what he called his fortune. In reality all he succeeded in accomplishing was to dry up what remained of the stipend guaranteed him by his father’s will until he should come of age at twenty-five and inherit the title and property that went with it.
He was gone for five years—traveled extensively on the continent, remained a consequential year in Ireland, and returned under somewhat mysterious circumstances to Wales at twenty-one, virtually penniless and peculiarly dispassionate according to those who had known him before. At the same time, however, he was no more at peace with himself. Something ate at him. But he confided in no one.
One thing was clear upon his return—Roderick Westbrooke was a boy no longer, though still four years from becoming master of the estate. Whether he was older and wiser from his voyages, adventures, and amorous escapades or merely older would require the rest of his life to determine. His mother remained trustee of the estate until he inherited at twenty-five.
&nbs
p; He met the wealthy daughter of the Glasgow earl in 1845 when in the northern seaport on a minor matter of business. On the surface, they made an odd match—he the thirty-one-year-old man of the world, she eight years younger, well-educated but untraveled, and the daughter of an earl whose chief reputation lay in his unconventional religious views. That the religious family possessed money added in no small measure to the attractive young Katherine Drummond’s charm in Roderick Westbrooke’s eyes. Yet in fairness to his motives, she did cause his heart to beat with something resembling affection again, and he persuaded himself that he loved her. Katherine, on her part, found the nobleman from western Wales more dashing than he really was. Like many young women, she did not inquire too deeply into his character beyond what appeared on the surface. She convinced herself that she was in love with him, which she probably was, however unwise that love may have been. They were married two years later.
Their two offspring—Courtenay, cut from the same cloth as his father, now eighteen, and Florilyn, fifteen—rather than infusing the bloodline with the spiritual tradition brought into it by their mother, appeared to be going to seed along with the former Welsh lineage of their descent.
Gradually the faith of Katherine Westbrooke waned under the constant pressure of her husband’s unbelieving churchgoing religiosity. She held out hope during their early years of providing their two children some spiritual grounding. She discovered, however, that weekly church services were a singularly ineffective means of doing so, especially under the shadow of worldliness with which the viscount’s outlook on life infused the home.
Katherine continued to love her husband and made of it a good enough marriage for both. Yearly, however, her grief deepened at the realization that though they continued to attend the Church of England socially as a family every Sunday, her son and daughter were growing into pagans of the first order. What heartache must surely follow, either from the grave or more eternal regions, for those scions of spiritual families who spurn the good soil implanted into them and choose the world’s way instead.
Whatever evils might be laid at the charge of their paternal pedigree, Courtenay and Florilyn Westbrooke at least had the benefit of a maternal rootstalk of godliness to stand them in good stead as they developed. This bloodline, however, both were learning to despise. Their father’s influence had certainly been formative. But scorn of spiritual things is entirely individual. Thus, the downward spiral of character was given most of its energy by the power of their own self-willed choices. None of the three—father, son, daughter—had the slightest notion that the demon called “playing with religion” had nearly entirely taken them over.
Katherine wept in her room for an hour after Florilyn’s ridiculous exchange at the dinner table. How could they do Percy any good, she thought through her tears, with her own children adding to the problems of her brother’s son with such dreadful ideas of unbelief?
What would Edward think of her if word reached him of what faithlessness reigned in Snowdonia!
18
The Generations
A cold front blew in off the sea, keeping most of the inhabitants of Westbrooke Manor indoors for the next several days.
As Percy walked up the main staircase, returning to his room at the distant end of the west wing’s second floor, he glanced about him at the paintings on the walls. He realized for the first time that many of these people were in a way related to him, even if distantly and by marriage.
Who were they? he wondered.
He paused at the landing between the ground and first floors, his attention suddenly arrested by a penetrating look in the eyes of the portrait of one particular woman. She stood as if eternally gazing over the entry hall below with a mysterious expression.
“Having a stroll about the old place, eh, my boy?” came a voice behind him. Percy turned to see the viscount striding toward the base of the staircase.
“Yes, Uncle Roderick,” he replied. “It has been raining so steadily all day I had no choice but to get my exercise indoors.”
“Shrewd thinking,” said his uncle, climbing the stairs toward him. “The rain here can be insufferable. But it always clears, have no fear. What do you think of the old woman, there?” he added, pointing up to the painting in front of his nephew.
“She has an unusual countenance,” answered Percy. “Her stare stopped me cold as I passed. I felt like she was actually looking at me.”
His uncle laughed. “It’s my grandmother,” he said. “Well her eyes might stop you in your tracks!”
“Why is that?”
Westbrooke lowered his voice mysteriously and leaned close to his nephew. “They say she possessed the second sight,” he said into Percy’s ear.
An involuntarily shudder swept through Percy’s chest at the words. “What’s that?” he asked.
“A Scotsman like you … never heard of the second sight, my boy? But I forgot, your family’s religion probably disavows the existence of such fancies. It’s the Celtic blood of the ancients that still lives in these hills. Surely you know of our great old Welsh ruler, Rhodri Mawr, and our warrior king who fought the English in the early fifteenth century, Owain Glyndwr.”
“I’ve heard of them, that’s all,” replied Percy.
“Great men if you believe your history,” rejoined Westbrooke. “Legends abound of their mystical powers. It’s a power that lives on, especially here in the north in Gwynedd and Snowdonia. They roamed these very hills, you know—Mawr and Wyddfa. They say it occasionally gets into folks even today, the second sight, I mean. They say it enables them to see things other people can’t see. Some say they can even predict the future. Runs in family lines, they say.”
“Do you have it, Uncle Roderick?”
“Me—good heavens, no!” The viscount laughed with a shudder at the thought. “No one around here lays claim to such clairvoyance. Well,” he added with a chuckle, “other than the old hag in the village. But then she’s a different story altogether.” He glanced away briefly, as if something had distracted his train of thought. “It’s mostly all superstition,” he resumed quickly. “Nothing to put stock in. But come,” he added, “let me show you the armory.”
He led the way up the main staircase to the second floor, then to the right and into a part of the house Percy had not yet seen. “Neither Courtenay nor Florilyn have any interest in the family’s history,” he said as they entered the room. “Perhaps I shall be more successful in arousing your fascination.”
Percy glanced about. Every wall was covered with weapons and implements of battle of many diverse kinds—swords, guns, axes, knives, daggers, lances, coats of mail, leather jerkins, two more full suits of armor, ornately carved and painted shields, and a crossbow.
“It was something of a hobby of my grandfather’s,” said the viscount as they strolled leisurely about the room. “He was the husband of the lady downstairs with the probing eyes. Perhaps I have inherited his interest. What do you think?”
“It’s fabulous, Uncle Roderick,” replied Percy, gazing about at the walls.
“It’s one of the largest collections in Wales. Look out here,” he added, walking to the east window of the room. “If you are partial to mountains rather than the sea, this window affords the best view in the house.”
Percy followed his uncle to the window. The two stood side by side, gazing out for a time.
“If I’m going to make a Welshman out of you, you will have to learn to love those hills,” said the viscount at length. “Sometimes, on the clearest of days, I stand here and gaze on Mount Snowdon away up there to the north.”
“Can you really see it from here?” asked Percy.
The viscount nodded. “It’s eighteen miles and requires ideal conditions,” he said. “On most days all you can make out is mist and clouds. It’s then,” he added, laughing, “when you definitely need the second sight!”
He and his uncle chatted easily for another ten or fifteen minutes as they moved about the room.
“Come and have a look about any time, Percy, my boy,” said Lord Snowdon at length. “Feel free to explore the whole place. My house is your house, as they say,” he added, laughing.
“Thank you, Uncle Roderick. You have been very kind to me. I appreciate your generosity. Thank you.”
“However, I am afraid I need to leave you for now. I was on my way to my study when I ran into you on the landing. There is an important letter I need to answer. I hope you don’t mind.”
“No, of course not.”
Left alone, Percy wandered about a few minutes more. He then left the armory and drifted along the corridor toward the library. He had only been inside it once since his arrival and was not a great reader. But on a rainy day like this, what else was there to do but find a book to occupy the time?
He had no idea where his cousins were or how they occupied themselves when housebound. He didn’t really care. Neither had shown much interest in him. He had the feeling Florilyn was avoiding him until his anger over the incident with Grey Tide simmered down.
He entered the library. It was deathly quiet. He assumed himself alone. Slowly he wandered through the shelves lined from floor to ceiling with books.
Suddenly a movement startled him. There was his aunt seated in an alcove reading. She laid aside her book and glanced up at his approach.
“Hello, Aunt Katherine,” he said walking toward her.
“Hello, Percy.”
“I didn’t know anyone else was in here.”
“A gloomy day, is it not?”
“I suppose I should be used to it. It rains in Glasgow all the time, too. Still, you’re right, it is rather a depressing sight outside.”
“A perfect book day, that’s what I call days like this.”
From Across the Ancient Waters- Wales Page 9
