Treasure of the Celtic Triangle (28 page)

Thus it was, one warm day in mid-July, that Colville Burrenchobay presented himself at the door of Westbrooke Manor. He had come, he said to Broakes, to pay his respects to Lady Florilyn.

Florilyn’s first thought was to turn around and retreat to the safety of her room. But it was a grand day, and Colville’s smile and invitation for a ride seemed genuine enough. She accepted.

By day’s end, she was delightfully surprised at the change that had come over him. He had behaved as a perfect gentleman.

“I must say, Colville,” said Florilyn as they parted, “you have changed since we last rode together.”

“I am a reformed young man,” he said. “My foolish ways are behind me. I may even resume my studies and secure an advanced degree.”

“My, oh my!” exclaimed Florilyn laughing. “Colville Burrenchobay, the scholar and academic.”

“I doubt I would go that far.”

“In any case—I enjoyed myself today. Thank you.”

“The summer appears a fine one. Perhaps we could see one another again.”

Florilyn nodded with a smile, and Colville left her.

Elsewhere on the grounds of Westbrooke Manor, Steven Muir continued his supervision of the construction of Katherine’s new home on the promontory. Stone masons and carpenters had all been employed, some from Chester, others from Shrewsbury, still others from as far away as Cardiff. Their presence was straining the limits of Mistress Chattan’s inn, though some of the workers were also put up in the servants’ quarters at the manor. Huge wagons of stone and mortar and other supplies rumbled past Llanfryniog almost daily from all over England and Wales. The outer walls of granite had begun not merely to rise but to significantly alter the landscape. Slowly but surely the formidable outline of the house moved from drawings to reality.

Steven was at the site every day and reported progress to Katherine. Mistress and factor consulted together almost daily about whatever situations happened to arise. Katherine rode or walked down to the site, sometimes several times a day, as her enthusiasm mounted daily to see her house taking shape before her eyes. Her enthusiasm, however, was bittersweet. She loved the manor, and thoughts of the new house could not fail to be accompanied by reminders of the reason for its necessity.

Thinking little more about the ride with Colville than that two childhood friends had renewed their acquaintance for a day, and certainly anticipating nothing more coming of it, Florilyn was altogether unprepared for the invitation to Burrenchobay Hall for dinner that arrived several days later. Her own reaction surprised her almost as much as the invitation itself.

She showed her mother the letter that had come in the post. “It sounds like fun,” said Florilyn.

“I have never cared for Colville Burrenchobay,” rejoined Katherine. “I don’t like your seeing him, Florilyn, especially after a young man as nice as Percy.”

“Percy’s not here, Mother,” rejoined Florilyn a little testily. “What do you expect me to do, sit around and become a spinster?”

“I thought you and Percy—”

“It’s over between Percy and me, Mother,” said Florilyn. The frustration that had been fermenting in her subconscious that even she was unaware of at last bubbled to the surface. “He stayed all of three days and didn’t even tell me where he was going,” she went on. “That ought to show well enough what he thinks of me.”

“His leaving had nothing to do with you.”

“Maybe, but even when he was here, we hardly saw one another. I’m sure it is a relief to him to be away from me.”

“Florilyn—goodness! What has put such thoughts in your head? You know better than that.”

“Do I, Mother? Do I
really
know what Percy thinks of me? Sometimes I wonder if I ever did.” She turned and walked away.

Katherine stared perplexed after her.

Alone later, Florilyn regretted her words. She knew well enough that she had broken it off with Percy, not him with her. Why had she taken her own uneasiness over what
she
had done out on her mother? She had been agitated ever since market day, for reasons she could not identify. For some peculiar reason, Colville’s invitation came almost as a relief. It gave her an excuse to recall the childish attraction she once thought she had for him. Maybe he
had
changed. At any rate, it gave her something else to think about.

There was no denying that Florilyn had begun to worry about her future. The invitation sent a tingle of renewed hope through her. She would not think for an instant of actually marrying Colville Burrenchobay. But it was nice to have someone show some interest in her.

In the days following, Florilyn anticipated the evening more than she dared let on. When the day came, Colville presented himself in his father’s finest buggy.

Steven watched them go with mixed thoughts of his own. Neither did he, any more than Katherine, like this new trend events were taking.

“So, Florilyn, my dear,” said Sir Armond Burrenchobay as they sat at the exquisitely appointed table in the formal dining room two hours later, “tell me about this cousin of yours. You were engaged for a time, I understand, but now it is off?”

“That’s pretty much it,” replied Florilyn.

“What happened? Did the two of you come to blows?”

“Nothing like that. We just decided, after Daddy’s accident, that perhaps we had rushed into it.”

“Who is the fellow, anyway?”

“You met him right here, at Davina’s birthday party—Percy Drummond.”

“Ah yes, the Scottish chap. Your father seemed inordinately fond of him.”

“Percy and my father were very close.”

“Struck me as a trifle too religious for my blood. Wasn’t his father a priest or some such? A twenty-year-old going about preaching … a bit much, what? Ah well, no harm done. Now you and Colville can get to know one another again, now that you’re no longer children. See what comes of it, eh, Colville, my boy?” he added with a wink to his son. “Someone’s got to start giving us some grandchildren before long, what? Young Davina’s hopeless.”

An awkward silence followed Sir Armond’s candid rambling. Florilyn hoped no one noticed the redness she felt in her neck and face as she glanced down at her plate.

F
ORTY
-F
OUR

Dead Ends in Laragh

F
or more than a week, Percy had been trying to locate the mysterious names to whom his uncle had written in 1842. He had discovered, however, that the name O’Sullivan in eastern Ireland was as common as MacDonald or Gordon or Campbell in his native Scotland. He met several O’Sullivans but none who had heard of Avonmara or Vanora O’Sullivan or their parents who might have lived at Pine Cottage or Dell Bank in the 1830s or 1840s.

Learning the locations of the two homes from the postmistress, he paid visits to both houses. The current residents knew nothing. The lady at the post told him to expect as much. At least six different families had lived in both places in the last twenty years, she said. To find anyone from three decades or more before was like the proverbial needle in a haystack.

Everyone said the same thing. The potato famine of 1845–48 had altered everything. Most had left. Few remained from the old times. Those who stayed saw faces and families come and go in a blur. All Ireland had been turned upside down. Thousands packed up and left without telling anyone where they were going. Most of the time they didn’t know themselves … for England, for the United States if they were lucky enough to scrape together money for the passage …
anywhere
they might find work … anywhere there was someone who might take them in.

But 1842 … wasn’t that
before
the famine, Percy asked several times. Where had these people gone? Why had these letters not been delivered?

The postmistress, a woman in her forties, was too young to remember. She gave Percy the name of her predecessor, one Danny McNeil. Percy paid him a visit.

Yes, he remembered the O’Sullivans, he said. They had a lass who married an Englishman, he thought, or some foreigner.

“Do you remember her marriage?” Percy asked enthusiastically.

“Now that you mention it, I recollect something about it. She was too young to be marrying, folks said, a mere child herself, they said. But the laddie from England, or wherever it was, swept her off her feet, folks said. Then she had a child but died giving birth.”

“After that, they left Laragh? And the baby with them?”

“Must have, now that you bring my mind back to it. Wasn’t long after—can’t remember exactly—that they were gone.”

“Do you remember these?” said Percy, showing him the envelopes of his uncle’s letters.

McNeil looked them over and shook his head. “Can’t say as I do. But aye, that’s my stamp.”

“You have no idea where they went?”

“I wouldn’t have stamped it ‘Unknown’ if I’d known where they were, would I now, laddie?”

“I suppose not. Do you remember who lived in these two cottages after Mrs. O’Sullivan and Avonmara’s sister Vanora left?”

“Can’t say I do. People come and people go. Even a postmaster can’t keep track of them all, laddie. They were terrible times. They lasted three years … five years, in some places eight or ten. The potato crops gradually came back and life went on. But by then all Ireland had been changed, decimated some would say—so many people gone and dead. The whole country had to start over.”

“Was there work to be had?”

“Aye, in time. There was always the shipbuilding down in Arklow if a man was willing to work hard. Decent pay in the shipyards, too, they say, though I was happy enough in the post and never did that kind of work myself.”

McNeil paused a moment. “Now that you get my mind thinking on those times,” he went on, “seems I recall that some of the men from here went down to the shipyards when the famine hit. It was a way to keep their families alive. Men would do anything for that.”

F
ORTY
-F
IVE

Dubious Scion

E
ver since Percy had seen the men in the mountains northeast of the manor, Katherine had been silently pondering the matter. Her disquiet had grown. Lord Litchfield’s visit to Wales also preyed upon her mind. She could not prevent the foreboding sense that somehow the two events were related. She had done some investigating of her own since Percy’s departure and had discovered more about Lord Litchfield than that he had been her husband’s colleague in the House of Lords. He was also one of England’s leading mining magnates. It was no secret that Wales contained some of the richest mineral deposits in all Britain—not slate merely, but also coal and gold.

She had retrieved the letters from Litchfield to her husband that Percy had discovered in the files in the study and perused them several times. But without seeing her husband’s half of the correspondence, she could tell nothing definite. Yet more importantly, how had Courtenay’s recent contact with the man begun … and for what purpose? One thing was clear—there had been discussions about the sale of estate lands.

As if materializing out of her thoughts, Courtenay Westbrooke returned from the continent no worse for wear and with less than £500 left in his account at Porthmadog. The dramatic shrinkage of his funds was in part explained by the fact that he was leading two one-year-old thoroughbreds and a two-year-old for which he had paid at least twice what they were worth. He had transported them by train across France, by ship across the channel, and by train the rest of the way, then led them himself overland for the final ten miles of their journey. He was in high spirits and well confident that the three speedsters would make him rich within five years.

His optimism over the future was short lived. As he passed along the main road south of Llanfryniog on his way to the manor, he observed more to alarm him than mere surveying on his land—a full-fledged building project of massive scale was under way on Mochras Head! Walls of stone had grown ten feet high. He had no idea his mother was planning anything so preposterously enormous. And there was the imbecile Muir walking about with papers in his hand as if he was in charge of the thing.

Courtenay reached home in a white fury and saw his prize new purchases into their new quarters. Though his father’s aging groom knew more about horses than anyone in Gwynedd other than Padrig Gwlwlwyd, Courtenay would never trust his expensive new acquisitions with one like Hollin Radnor.

The moment the three horses were safely in their new stalls and provided with oats and water, he went angrily in search of his mother. He burst into the ground-floor sitting room like an enraged bull. “What is the meaning of this, Mother?” he demanded without word of greeting.

“It is nice to see you again, too, Courtenay,” she said, not without a little bite in her tone.

“I want to know what is going on over on Mochras Head!”

“You told me that I would no longer be welcome at the manor after you inherit. You left me no alternative but to build a new home for myself.”

“But it is on my land!”

“Not yet yours, Courtenay.”

“It will be soon enough. I can evict you from there just as well as from the manor.”

“I fear not, Courtenay. The parcel where my home is being constructed is no longer part of the estate.”

“What are you talking about? Of course it is.”

“That portion of land has been sold.”

“Sold! To whom?”

“To me. I purchased it from the estate in my own name. You can be assured that it is perfectly legal. Hamilton Murray has seen to that.”

“I will stop you. I will have the sale invalidated.”

“I’m afraid there is nothing you can do, Courtenay. It has been finalized for months. Before you complain too highly, I paid the estate more than market value for the land. Those funds will be yours once you are viscount. The whole thing will actually prove profitable to you. And while we are on the subject of land sales, I want to know what is going on between you and Lord Litchfield.”

“That is none of your affair,” answered Courtenay testily.

“It is my affair until you are twenty-five. Some men I suspect as being in his employ were seen in the mountains at the northeast of the estate. I want to know what they were doing there.”