“Where are you going, Percy?” she asked as he jogged up to her side.
“Home with you first.”
“W–w–with me!” exclaimed the girl in delighted surprise.
“I’m going to make sure Courtenay and Florilyn aren’t sneaking about somewhere waiting to hurt you. Once you are home, then I’ll return to the manor.”
“Thank you, Percy. N–n–no one’s ever looked after me like that before.”
“You’ve taken care of me twice now,” laughed Percy. “Isn’t it time I returned the favor?”
They continued out of Llanfryniog and up the rising plateau. Gwyneth felt safer with her grand knight beside her than she thought she had ever felt in all her life. She talked the whole way, explaining to Percy about every inch of the terrain about them.
33
Arrows of Prayer
Drummond concluded the remainder of his sermon quickly, endured the handshakes and smiles and well-wishes at the door, then escaped with his wife to the solace of the parsonage.
She felt the ache of his heart. She said nothing, merely slipped her hand through his arm as they walked home. The mother, too, shared the universal parental heartache of unrequited love.
“What do you think, Mary?” He sighed at length, still reflecting on his own message. “What were the father and mother doing the whole time their son was reducing himself to such foolish straits?”
Both pondered the question as they walked.
“Even as I was speaking,” Drummond went on, “I found myself considering the parable from that light, wishing our Lord had spent more time on the parental side of the tale rather than following only the son. Now that we find ourselves in such circumstances, I am hungry for a specific example.”
“What could the father and mother do but pray?” suggested his wife. “It seems all other means of parental influence were taken from them.”
“Except keeping arms ready to open themselves,” added the vicar with a sad smile.
His wife nodded.
They reached home and went inside. Mary put on water for tea. In ten or fifteen minutes, husband and wife sat down together with steaming cups in the parlor of the parsonage. Oddly, for this man and woman of God whom so many in the city looked to as pillars of spirituality, Edward and Mary Drummond were in truth lonely at such times. Their family was broken, and they knew it.
“Did we do the right thing, Mary,” said Drummond at length, “by sending Percy to the country?”
“I truly believe so,” she answered. “Here he was only becoming wilder by the day. A city’s ways are not healthy for a rebellious spirit.”
“The country can sometimes allow God’s voice to get through more directly.” Edward nodded. “I only hope our son will open himself to its influences.”
“God has people everywhere,” rejoined Mary. “Percy will come into contact with those the Lord will use to help his eyes open.”
His wife’s words caused the vicar to burst into spontaneous prayer. “Oh Lord, our Father,” he said, “we ask You to bring our dear Percy into contact with Your people. May they touch his heart in ways even he perhaps does not see.”
They fell silent for several moments.
“Your prayer reminds me of that wonderful sermon you preach from time to time about arrows of prayer,” said Mary. “It is truly one of the profound truths God has revealed to you—how we can launch prayer arrows up into God’s heart and then must trust Him to resend them down to earth where He will in His time, turn them into arrows of light and clarity in human souls.”
“Even miraculously sending the answer arrows occasionally before the prayer arrows are launched.” Edward nodded. “Our notions of time are nothing to God.” Edward became thoughtful. “Your mentioning that …,” he mused. “You know, I honestly don’t know if I have prayed that prayer for our own Percy.”
“Lord,” Mary began almost immediately, “wherever our dear Percy is at this moment, whoever he is with, whatever he is thinking, we ask that You would be there beside him, inside him—speaking, wooing, luring him to Your heart. Send arrows of clarity into his thoughts, pleasant reminders and fond memories.”
“Give us fortitude and courage to trust You to be Percy’s Father in our place,” added Edward. “Send piercing arrows of light into his heart. Accomplish Your perfect will and desire in his life.”
“And in ours,” added Mary softly. “As painful as this separation is, dear Lord, we ask You to perfect Your will in us through it. Bring Percy awake. Send bursts of revelation into his consciousness. Illuminate truth within him. Wake him to You, God—to the Father You want to be to him.”
“Give us courage,” prayed Edward, “to trust You and to believe that You love our Percy far more than we do. Remind us that Your arms ache more for him than ours.”
“May we keep trusting You for him no matter how long it takes,” added the mother.
“Help us believe more deeply than our frail flesh seems capable of that You are infinitely more Percy’s Father than we are his father and mother. Help us, God our Father, to believe that You will not rest until he acknowledges himself the son he was created to be.”
Mary kept her head bowed in silent prayer. When she heard a trembling sob escape her husband’s lips, she laid down her cup and went to him.
The two wept together. Their tears accompanied the cleansing painful knowledge that they had truly given their son into the hands of the Father of them all.
What comfort it would have given them to know that their prayers were indeed already being answered. But God’s comfort, like His arrows of clarity into the human soul, He sends in His perfect time, that heartache, too, may accomplish its appointed purpose in the hearts of His faithful ones.
34
Gwyneth’s Friends
Codnor Barrie stood in the door of his cottage waiting for his child.
The moment she arrived with Percy, Gwyneth told him excitedly of the events of the day.
“I’m very thankful to you, young man,” said her father when Gwyneth paused for breath. “Surely you’ll join us for tea.”
“I only just had tea at Grannie’s,” laughed Percy. “I probably should be getting back to the manor. They may wonder about me—Sunday dinner and all. I mustn’t offend my hosts.”
“It sounds as if it is already too late for that, young man. That is if you consider the young brood your hosts as well.”
Percy laughed. “I do not. I will offend the two of them anytime I can! But my aunt and uncle are very kind to me.”
“The viscount is a decent man. I have no quarrel with him. But you’ll not leave without a thick slice of Grannie’s good bread to keep you company across the moor,” added Gwyneth’s father, taking the large loaf from his daughter.
“It smells peculiar,” said Percy hesitantly. “I noticed it on the way. What kind of bread is it?”
“Laverbread—seaweed, oatmeal, and bacon fat.”
“Hmm … maybe I should try it next time,” said Percy.
“Percy, please don’t go yet,” implored Gwyneth.
“Why not?”
“I want to show you my animals.”
“Your pets?” he said, glancing about for a dog or cat.
“My daughter has more than a few pets.” Barrie laughed. “She keeps what can only be called a small zoo. Animals flock to her like to no human being I’ve ever seen. It’s uncanny. I truly believe they see her as their master.”
Already Gwyneth had taken hold of Percy’s hand and was tugging him around toward the back of the stone cottage. Percy was surprised to see a large fenced enclosure extending far behind the cottage. In it scampered the most diverse array of creatures he had ever seen.
At sight of the girl at his side, they all scurried and scuffled and bounded and pattered toward them from inside, bursting into a cacophony of screeching, squealing, barking, chirping, meowing, and happy caterwauling. From somewhere a whirring of bird wings whisked toward them overhead.
Percy laughed at the wild and joyous greeting.
“Is it feeding time?” he exclaimed.
“They always greet me like this,” said Gwyneth simply. “They think I’m their mother.”
Percy later learned that the fence had been built merely to keep wild animals from the mountains out rather than to keep Gwyneth’s friends in. Most would have remained near the dwelling of their mistress without any enclosure whatever.
To one side, a small cluster of pens and kennels served as hospital to those animals presently being tended for injury. If such a thing as communication between species occurred in the animal kingdom, surely Gwyneth’s animal hospital gave credibility to the theory. Weekly it seemed some creature appeared with a gash on its side or with a wounded leg or broken wing or sliver in its paw, somehow knowing that this was the place where help would be given. Nor did the creatures flinch when Gwyneth approached to examine paw or wing and administer the nursing care so instinctive to her nature.
Around the outside of the pen, a half dozen deer grazed contentedly on the lush grass of the moor. Some would return to the mountains when night fell, others would leap over the fence into the compound, there to spend the night with racoons and rabbits and dogs and chickens and other of their diverse fellows of the animal kingdom.
In Gwyneth’s zoo all creatures were at peace. No harm came to any. A spell of goodness lay upon the place. For they behaved in Gwyneth’s presence as perhaps did the creature friends of that first man and woman in the garden so long ago.
“Don’t you love all the creatures God made?” said Gwyneth as they walked back to the Barrie cottage.
“I don’t know that I thought about it much before. When you live in the city, nature isn’t something you think about.”
“You’re not in the city now. Maybe God sent you to the country to learn to see what He has made.”
“God didn’t send me to the country.”
“Who did?”
“My father.”
“That’s the same thing,” said Gwyneth.
“How do you mean?” laughed Percy. “God’s not my father.”
“Oh, isn’t He?” rejoined Gwyneth, astonished that Percy would say such a thing. “What else is He then if He isn’t your father?”
“I didn’t mean it like that. I mean, of course I suppose God created everyone. I meant He isn’t my own father, you know, like my real father.”
“Grannie says I have two fathers. She says that Papa is my father so that I will learn to look up to know my real Father.”
That night as he lay on his bed reliving the day’s incidents, Percy’s thoughts came to rest on young Gwyneth Barrie.
Meanwhile, across the moor in her own cottage, Gwyneth Barrie also lay awake, eyes wide, thinking about Percy. She would not have believed it had she been told that he was thinking of her.
New sensations filled her tender heart. That another person besides Grannie, Hollin Radnor, and her papa had befriended her, stood up for her—even been attacked for her! The very notion rose so mightily in her consciousness as to render sleep impossible.
And a young person besides! Someone not her own age, yet not so very much older, she thought. Percy was the same age as many of the boys and girls in the village who made fun of her.
In Gwyneth’s eyes, the boy was not a boy at all, but fully a man, a giant eight feet tall, a prince, a warrior, a defender of the helpless. In the short time she had known him, young Percy Drummond had become Gwyneth’s hero, her knight in shining armor.
She would never fear to walk Llanfryniog’s streets again. She had as good a papa as ever lived. She had as kind and wise a grannie as ever it pleased God to give a girl. And now she had a new friend who had come from Glasgow and was afraid of nothing.
What Percy would have thought had he known himself viewed as the answer to a young girl’s prayers would have been interesting to inquire. He had for some years been in the habit of scorning his father’s spirituality. Now his new friend saw him as God’s special gift just for her.
God, thank You for Percy! prayed Gwyneth simply, then turned over and, with a smile on her face, was soon asleep.
35
Conflicting Affections
Courtenay had been so successful, he thought, in patching it up with Rhawn Lorimer on the previous Sunday that he pressed his advantage with an invitation to luncheon with his family at the manor later that week.
It was a spontaneous gesture. Only upon later reflection did the potential awkwardness, even danger, of the situation present itself to Courtenay’s suspicions. But he could hardly retract it, nor could he tell Percy to get lost for the day without in all likelihood incurring the viscount’s anger. His father had, to both son’s and daughter’s profound annoyance, developed a soft spot for his nephew. He and his sister had to be a little careful what they said in their father’s hearing.
Courtenay’s reservations would have increased tenfold had he divined Miss Lorimer’s true reason for accepting the invitation so eagerly. Having successfully ascertained the identity of the mystery boy she had encountered in the draper’s shop and learning where he was living for the summer, she was far more anxious to see him again than she was Courtenay Westbrooke, with whom the association, on her part, was more the result of proximity to her best friend than genuine affection.
Had Courtenay been a gentleman, he would have taken one of his father’s buggies to pick up his guest prior to the luncheon. But he was of the school that said let the girl come to him. And as Percy showed no sign of disappearing, he was secretly hoping that maybe Rhawn might not make an appearance anyway. She was, however, like Florilyn, an expert rider. She arrived on horseback almost exactly as the hour of twelve began to strike on the clock above the stable yard.
Hollin Radnor heard her approach and went to meet her. He helped her dismount and saw to the horse while Rhawn walked to the front door of the manor. There, next to the door post, hung a bouquet of wildflowers, tied with red. She recognized the ribbon immediately.
So, she thought, the young man’s affections were closer to home than she had realized! Was he really falling for his own cousin?
But what an odd place to leave a bouquet. Their rooms were so near one another, why not put them on her own bedroom door rather than out in the open where everyone would see them?
Courtenay had been watching the front of the house from an upstairs window. The moment he saw Rhawn riding up, he dashed downstairs to the front door. He wasn’t about to risk her running into his cousin again without him around.
Even as the echo of the bell faded, he opened the door to greet her. The smile meant for Rhawn Lorimer died on his lips as his eyes fell on the bouquet hanging almost directly in front of him.
“What in blazes is that?” he exclaimed, hardly aware of his rudeness.
“It would appear that someone in this house has a secret admirer,” replied Rhawn, more than a little surprised by the intensity of his reaction. “Hello, Courtenay—my goodness, you look like you’ve seen a ghost. Not exactly the greeting I expected.”
“Oh … right, sorry—yes, hello, Miss Lorimer,” said Courtenay, trying to recover himself, though continuing to stare at the bouquet out of the corner of his eye. “The impish little tramp!” he muttered under his breath. He grabbed the flowers and flung them across the stones of the entryway. “People like that need to mind their own business!” Again he struggled to regain his composure, laughed nervously, and led his guest inside.
“Not a very nice way to treat a gift to your sister,” said Rhawn in a humorous though confused tone. She was both bewildered and amused by Courtenay’s bizarre behavior.
“She needs no gift from the likes of that!” rejoined Courtenay. “And neither do I!”
Having no clue what he meant, Rhawn Lorimer followed Courtenay to the dining room. Florilyn and her mother were already present.
“Good afternoon, Rhawn,” said Katherine. “I am so glad you can be with us today.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Westbrooke,” said Rhawn with a pleasant smile. “Hi, Florilyn,” she added to Courtenay’s sister.
Though Rhawn was dying to get Florilyn off to one side of the room to ask about Percy out of Courtenay’s hearing, the far door opened almost immediately. Hope of further conversation was cut short by the entrance of the viscount and the object of her curiosity himself. Uncle and nephew were laughing and chatting like the best of friends.
“That’s a good one, Percy, my boy!” roared the viscount. “I’ll have to tell that to my friends in London. Nothing like Glasgow humor! Oh,” he added, glancing about, “it would appear we are the last to arrive. All here, what? Ah, Miss Lorimer,” he said, taking note of their guest, “welcome, welcome! How is your father?”
“Very well, sir. He sends his regards.”
“Good, good—thank you. Give him my best, of course. You have, I take it, met our guest for the summer, my nephew …,” he added, gesturing toward Percy.
“I … uh,” Rhawn began. With Percy’s eyes staring straight through her, she suddenly found herself at a loss for words.
Percy quickly rescued her from the difficulty. “Miss, uh … Miss Lorimer, is it?” he said, “and I ran into one another in town. Courtenay,” he added, turning toward his cousin with the hint of a smile, “you remember the day, I’m sure. Unfortunately, we were not actually introduced.”
He turned now to face the young woman directly. “Hello,” he said, extending his hand, “I am Percival Drummond.”
“Hello, Mr. Drummond,” said Rhawn, taking his hand and clinging to it an imperceptible moment longer than propriety demanded. “I am Rhawn Lorimer. I am extremely pleased to make your acquaintance … at last.”
“The pleasure is all mine, Miss Lorimer,” rejoined Percy, withdrawing his hand lest Courtenay get any ideas.
From Across the Ancient Waters- Wales Page 17
