They rattled onto the cobblestones of the grounds and toward the great mansion. Behind the barns and stables, Percy immediately saw and heard banging and hammering from the work in progress. They had no sooner come to a stop than he was running off toward the scene.
“Percy, my boy!” boomed his uncle as he saw him running up. “You’ve become a big strapping fellow since I saw you!”
“Hello, Uncle Roderick!” said Percy as the two shook hands warmly. “Wow, this is some project you’ve undertaken.”
“I plan to make them the finest stables in Wales,” rejoined his uncle boisterously, “with horses capable of competing for the largest purses in Britain. Right now, as you can see, we’re in the process of hoisting up the roof timbers.”
“Do you need some help? I’ll get into a different set of clothes and you’ll have another set of arms.” He hurried off.
His uncle watched him go with a fond yet wistful expression. Courtenay had shown not the slightest interest in the project, nor since his return even once offered to help. Percy hadn’t been here two minutes and was already eager to pitch in with the laborers.
That evening the talk around the dinner table was more animated and spontaneous than the festive board at Westbrooke Manor had been in a very long time. That fact was due to two related but opposite facts—Percy’s presence and Courtenay’s absence.
“Do you remember when I was here before,” Percy was saying, “on that first night? Florilyn, you were trying to bait your father and me into divulging ourselves closet atheists.”
“I was not!” laughed Florilyn.
“You were, too,” rejoined Percy. “You were chiding your father for not paying attention in church and trying to get me to say I didn’t believe in heaven and hell. You were terrible! Aunt Katherine, you were having a fit.”
By now Percy had his aunt and uncle and cousin in stitches at his depiction of a meal they all remembered very well.
“By the way,” he went on, “as I recall, that whole conversation was prompted by the discovery of a body on the sand by the harbor. Was the murder ever solved?”
“Actually, no,” replied the viscount. “The curious thing is that there continue to be occasional reports of strangers in the village asking about the man, unsavory characters by the sound of it, though I’ve never had occasion to be present at such times.”
“Why don’t you and I disguise ourselves and go down to Mistress Chattan’s for a pint or two?” suggested Percy, looking at his aunt with a twinkle in his eye. “Maybe we could learn something.”
“Goodness, Percy—what an idea!” she said, though she could not help smiling.
But her husband seemed to take the suggestion seriously. “Not a bad idea,” he mused. “Though we would never pull it off. They would be certain to recognize me.”
“We’ll wait two or three weeks, of course,” said Percy, feigning the utmost seriousness. “I didn’t mean immediately. We’ll grow beards and pull caps down to cover half our faces … and wear old grungy clothing, of course.”
The viscount continued to mull the idea over as if seriously considering it. “I shall have to talk to Lorimer about it. He is baffled about the affair as well.”
“Speaking of the magistrate, Florilyn,” said Percy enthusiastically, anxious to get off the subject of an idea he had simply made in jest, “how is my old friend Rhawn Lorimer? Are she and Courtenay engaged yet?”
He was surprised as the atmosphere around the table went suddenly quiet. A few silent looks were exchanged.
“I must have stumbled into some uncharted waters,” laughed Percy nervously.
“She and Courtenay have not exactly been on the best of terms since Courtenay got home,” said Florilyn.
“Oh, yeah … why not?”
“Rhawn has been playing around,” replied Florilyn bluntly.
“Goodness, Florilyn!” exclaimed her mother. “Must you be quite so outspoken?”
“It’s true, Mother. Everyone knows it. When we were in London for the season last year,” she went on, turning once more to Percy, “there were all kinds of stories. After we returned to Wales, the next thing we knew she had taken up with Colville.”
“I thought it was you who had eyes for Burrenchobay,” said Percy.
“Me?”
“You can’t have forgotten the incident at market day where I got pummeled to save your honor.”
“That was Colville’s doing, you know that.”
“And you told me that there was more to it.”
“What’s all this?” interjected the viscount. “Is there something about your row with Colville we haven’t been told, Percy, my boy?”
“Oops, I forgot!” said Percy. “Sorry, Florilyn, old girl. It just slipped out.”
“That’s all right. Percy got into a fight with Colville that day, Daddy,” she said, turning toward her father. “Colville tried to kiss me. I slapped him. And Percy came to my rescue. I later told Percy it was my fault, which it was.”
“So you and Burrenchobay are no longer seeing each other?” said Percy.
“Good heavens, no. He and I parted brass rags ages ago, even before he began showing Rhawn his attention. Or, I should say, she began showing him hers.”
“Ah … at last Courtenay’s situation clarifies.” Percy nodded significantly. “A little rivalry between friends! When the cat’s away, eh? But I thought Burrenchobay was at university, too.”
“He took a year off,” said Florilyn. “He has been around for the past year, and Courtenay’s been at Oxford. But …,” she added, then paused and gave Percy a wicked look of fun, “Rhawn is very anxious to see you.”
“Oh boy! That’s just great! Maybe I should just shoot myself now and get it over with. But after what you say about her escapades in London, what could she possibly see in a country bumpkin like me?”
“She has never lost her fascination for you. I think part of it is that you were the only boy in the world who didn’t fall all over her.”
Percy laughed briefly. His expression then faded into an odd smile. Quickly he recovered his aplomb. “So what about you, my dear Florilyn?” he said. “You are so beautiful—and I don’t just say that to flatter my favorite cousin—after a glamorous coming out in London, where I’m sure you caught the eye of every eligible young bachelor between twenty and thirty. Surely you must have a stream of suitors lining up at the door outside to ask your father for your hand.”
Florilyn threw her head back and laughed with abandon. “Percy, you are too funny!”
“I would wager ten gold sovereigns that you have had at least two marriage proposals since I saw you last. What about it, Uncle Roderick?” he added to his uncle.
“You will not find me taking your bet, Percy, my boy!” rejoined the viscount. “In truth, she has had three.”
“Three! There—I knew it. Young men from all over England and Wales are no doubt asking one another even as we speak for directions to Westbrooke Manor in Snowdonia.”
“And I will tell Papa to tell them the same thing he told the others,” said Florilyn. “That is that I am not interested.”
“You don’t want to marry? What … is there something you are keeping from me, Florilyn? Are you considering taking holy orders and joining a convent?”
Florilyn could not help laughing again. “It’s not that,” she replied. “Of course I want to marry. I am just waiting for the right young man.”
53
An Old Friend
Dinner concluded, Percy rose to excuse himself. “I am sorry not to be better company,” he said. “But suddenly I realize that I am very tired. I suppose the trip—and that work on the stables, eh, Uncle Roderick!—took more of a toll than I realized. I may read for a while and get an early start on a good night’s sleep. Oh, Aunt Katherine,” he added, turning to his aunt, “my father and mother let me bring along their copy of the new MacDonald. I started it on the way down on the train.”
“Which one?” asked his aunt eage
rly.
“It’s called Robert Falconer.”
“Oh, I have it, too. I read it several months ago. I consider it his best so far. What masterful characterizations.”
“I’m just at the part about the kite. What about you?”
“I am reading a new one of his called A Seaboard Parish. It’s the sequel to Annals of a Quiet Neighborhood”
“I didn’t know Annals had a sequel!” exclaimed Percy. “My dad loves that book. Ministers are alike, I suppose. He says, ‘How could MacDonald know exactly what I am thinking?’ I wonder if he knows there is a sequel.”
“And now you are at Aberdeen,” rejoined Katherine. “What is it like knowing you are walking the same cobbled streets and byways and halls that MacDonald probably walked twenty-five years ago?”
“I hadn’t thought of that.” Percy nodded. “It’s rather an amazing thought. Well,” he added, turning to his uncle and Florilyn, “good night to you all.” He paused and smiled. “I cannot tell you how good it is to be here with you again,” he said. “I have really missed you!”
The two women smiled in return.
The viscount seemed a little discomposed by the depth of Percy’s sincerity. He offered a few awkward comments about the feeling being mutual and their being delighted to have him again.
Then Percy left them. As he crossed through the entryway hall on his way to the central staircase, he glanced absently down the corridor leading toward the east wing.
A girl he took for one of the servants was walking toward him, a stack of linens in her hands. Halfway down the corridor at a distance of some forty or fifty feet, at sight of him she stopped abruptly.
Percy arrested his movement at the same moment. He paused as his foot fell on the first step of the staircase. His eyes had just drifted up to the painting on the landing of his uncle’s grandmother then back again. The lines of his forehead wrinkled as his head cocked in question. For two or three seconds he returned the girl’s stare then slowly brought his foot back down to level. Something about the girl was oddly, wonderfully, confusingly familiar. His brain was racing.
Why was she standing so still? She had turned into a gold-haired statue.
Percy’s eyes squinted imperceptibly. Was her hair gold? Or was the thin light of the corridor playing tricks on him? Was it actually a lighter shade of … nearly white!
The next moment his steps were hurrying along the tiles. “Gwyneth?” said Percy as he slowed and approached, in mingled recognition and disbelief.
She looked down shyly then up into his eyes.
The moment he saw their blue, all doubt vanished. There could be no mistaking the eyes he had once taken for those of an angel.
Her countenance was still timeless! And yet … she had aged. Hers was the ageless countenance of a child no longer, but the delicate agelessness of the woman-child that had grown up since he had last seen her.
“Is it really you?”
She smiled. “It is me, Percy,” she replied in a bashful voice.
“But … but what are you doing here?” said Percy. “Oh, this is brilliant! It is terrific to see you!”
“And you, Percy,” said Gwyneth. The voice had changed. If possible, it was yet more serene, slightly deeper of timbre, and surely no longer that of a child. “To answer your question,” she said, “I am Lady Florilyn’s maid.”
“I can’t believe it. That is wonderful!”
“Lady Florilyn has been very kind to me.”
“I am so glad!”
“I knew you were coming,” said Gwyneth. “But I did not know when. You have grown so tall. You are a man now, Percy.”
Percy laughed with delight. Gwyneth had not changed! And now that he saw it close, her hair was indeed more tinged with hints of red and shades of gold. Her eyes were of yet deeper and more translucent blue. She had grown several inches, though that was hardly to be compared with what had been added to his stature. Though still very short, she was no longer abnormally tiny. Percival Drummond had indeed blossomed into a fine-looking young man. At the same time, young Gwyneth Barrie—though in all the village only her great-aunt and father beheld what was taking place before everyone’s eyes—had become a girl poised on the threshold of becoming a young lady.
Gwyneth had arrived at that wonderful and delicate age hovering precariously between childhood and womanhood, showing one moment the past and, to the keen-eyed observer, the next instant the future. As yet her dawning personhood remained dormant except to the most discerning of eyes. In Percy’s mind she would remain for yet a little while the simple, kindhearted girl who had handed him a humble nosegay and called him her friend … and through whose honest heart he had learned to appreciate the God of his fathers. In truth, the nymph of Wales was no more the child of his imagination. As his eyes had been opened to nature, they would soon open likewise to the mystery of womanhood. When they did, he would see all that he was meant to see.
Percy, however, did not appear a great deal different in Gwyneth’s eyes, though she had to look up a little higher toward the sky to find his face. Because she had always seen inside the people she met, the changes that took place to their outside appearances meant less to her knowing of them than such externals meant to most people.
“Grannie will be so happy that you are back,” said Gwyneth.
Percy smiled at the delightful thought of more cozy talks in front of Grannie’s fire. “Will she remember me?” he asked.
“We talk of you often. But I should go, Percy,” said Gwyneth, glancing around, Percy thought, a little nervously. Slowly she resumed her way along the corridor.
“Do you still … stay with your father?” asked Percy, falling into step beside her. “Or do you now live here at the manor?”
“I still live at home,” she replied. “Only Mrs. Drynwydd and Mrs. Llewellyn, and Mr. Broakes and Mr. Radnor live in the servants’ quarters. I work here three days a week, alternating with the other girls who come from the village. But we are not to talk to guests.”
“I’m not a guest!” laughed Percy. “I’m just me.”
“To Lord Snowdon and Lady Katherine, you are an honored guest, Percy.”
“You must be joking!”
“No, Percy. The whole manor has been abuzz over your coming.”
Percy laughed at the thought.
“As soon as I take these linens to the breakfast room,” said Gwyneth, “I will walk home.”
They reached the stairway. Gwyneth turned to the right, Percy toward the stairs.
“Good-bye, Percy,” said Gwyneth.
“I will see you again soon, I promise,” said Percy. “I will come visit you and Grannie tomorrow. Do you work tomorrow?”
“No, not tomorrow. Only Tuesday and Thursday and Saturday.”
“Then I shall see you as early as I can get away.”
54
The Promontory
Percy returned to his room and sat down on the edge of his bed. The book he had intended to read sat on the desk. But his thoughts were too full of the changes in Gwyneth to think of Robert Falconer’s kite. He rose again and strode to the window and gazed out over the countryside. It was about seven thirty. The sun was still high over Tremadog Bay to the west.
He stood for some time, absorbed in his thoughts. He had of course anticipated seeing little Gwyneth, as he still thought of her, probably more than anyone else other than Florilyn. But though logic told him that everyone aged at the same rate, somehow he had expected Gwyneth to remain the same. He had not actually said such to himself. Yet he had expected to find her still the tiny child he had known three years before. It was clear, however, that though she was still not yet five feet tall, she had grown. And not merely in stature. Her countenance was—there came the word again—ageless!
Was she an angel after all? He chuckled to himself at the thought.
Out the window, far below the manor toward the sea, a small figure was walking toward the promontory of Mochras Head.
He watched
for some moments then turned and strode across the floor of his room. He did not pause until his hand was on the latch. After having said his good nights and professed himself too tired for further company, he was hesitant to be seen going out again.
He crept from his room and glanced down the corridor toward Florilyn’s door at the far end. He felt oddly like a sneak. It reminded him of his prodigal past, creeping furtively through the darkened streets of Glasgow. Those were unpleasant memories. Yet the compulsion to follow was too strong. But he did not want Florilyn to know he was leaving the house … or why?
He stole softly to the far end of the west wing, down the back stairway, and out by one of the side doors. Still conscious of not wanting to be seen, he made his way through the garden, around behind the stables, and onto the open moor leading down the slope toward the village and Mochras Head.
Probably when he reached the open plateau out from the cover of the wood surrounding the manor, he thought as he hurried along, the figure he had seen from his window would have disappeared further in the direction of the village. If so, he would retrace his steps back to the manor and spend the rest of his evening with Falconer and Shargar. It was too late for a visit to the Barrie cottage. But if by chance he should meet someone out for an evening walk in that wonderful, quiet, fragrant, peaceful time of the evening his native Scots called “the gloamin’,” that was a different matter altogether.
By the time he crossed the stream and was approaching the promontory, he knew he would not turn back. There she was, in her white maid’s dress, seated two hundred yards ahead of him at the very tip of the cliff face. Her back was to him, as she sat staring out over the sea in the direction of the setting sun.
From Across the Ancient Waters- Wales Page 27
