Treasure of the Celtic Triangle (37 page)

“But if he was dying,” said Gwyneth, “why would it matter so much to him?”

“Because according to the terms of his viscountcy, she would be his legal heir, not Courtenay.”

“But she was a girl, laddie,” said Grannie. “How could that be?”

“Every peerage is unique,” explained Percy. “They are established according to terms that must be legally followed in perpetuity unless the peerage is abolished. The particular viscountcy my uncle inherited from his father must originally have been established by a progressive and far-seeing man who determined that a firstborn daughter, and her own children who followed, was equally deserving of the rights and privileges of the title as a son. I have been studying law, you see, Grannie, and I looked into it as much as I was able. It is extremely unusual, but those are the terms. No doubt it will ultimately have to be decided in court. But my uncle was certain enough of the legality of the terms to commission me, as I thought, to find his daughter. He knew she was the rightful heir by his first marriage.”

“Did you find her, laddie?”

“I am afraid not, Grannie,” replied Percy. He turned toward Codnor Barrie. “Perhaps you should explain the rest of it, Codnor,” he said.

Barrie nodded. The others waited as he collected his thoughts then turned toward Gwyneth. “I always told you, lassie,” he began, “that you were born across the water from where we lived—that you were born here in Ireland. But you never knew why I was here. There came a time, you see, when the mine in Wales had to close. Parliament was trying to improve on safety everywhere, and the labor movement was gaining strength. So they closed the mine to make changes and make working conditions safer than before. I was a young man at the time, not as adventurous as some but with my own share of the adventurous spirit. There was talk of work in the shipyards of Arklow on Ireland’s east coast. So I came here for the work. In the shipyards, I met an Irishman who had come south to the town for the same reason when his family fell on hard times in the years before the famine. He had brought his family with him, though that was years before I met him, which included his mother-in-law and her granddaughter. The girl was the man’s niece. She was a beauty, with bright red hair and white skin that looked like an angel’s face, tall and slender. She stood five inches above me, and I fell in love with her. She was your mother, lassie, and she was the best woman in the world. Her name was Morvern.” He paused and smiled sadly as he remembered. Slowly he sighed as he allowed his thoughts to linger fondly over the memory. Then he continued. “But Morvern’s grandmother didn’t like me,” he said. “She did not want us to marry.”

“Why, Papa?” said Gwyneth with the simplicity of a devoted daughter. “Who would not like you?”

“It was because I was a Welshman,” Codnor replied. “Morvern’s father, you see, was also a Welshman, and he had deserted them after she was born. That’s why Morvern lived with her grandmother, because her own mother died when giving birth, and her father promised to come back to provide for her and take care of her but never did. Then they fell on desperate times, and she became yet more bitter at the father for leaving them in such straits.”

“What did you do, Papa, if Mama’s mother didn’t like you?”

“Morvern and I married in spite of her,” Barrie replied. “Maybe it was wrong. Perhaps we should have waited. I was young, and sometimes the young are not as wise as they think. But I determined to be the best husband and father a man could be and to win Morvern’s grandmother over. I would prove to her that I was a good man and wasn’t like the man who had married her daughter. I would provide for her granddaughter, and for her, too, if she would let me. A year later you were born, Gwyneth. But your white hair frightened people. They thought a curse was on you. It was only the curse of goodness, though that was the last thing they could understand. They began to say cruel things about you and about me. Even my friend, Morvern’s own uncle, said that I had brought evil to their family. I couldn’t let my wife and daughter be spoken of in that way. By then the mines were operating again in Wales. Morvern and I made plans to sail from Ireland and begin a new life in my own country where we would be free from people thinking evil of us. So you and I and your mother sailed for Wales. But a terrible storm came up in the Celtic triangle on the day of our sailing, and your mother was swept overboard—”

He drew in a shaky breath and looked away, wiping at his eyes. “I never forgave myself for sailing that night.” He struggled to go on. “I was only twenty-five at the time, heartbroken with grief and left alone with an infant daughter. When we arrived in Wales, there was nothing I could do but try to make the best of it for you. If I had gone back to your Irish kinfolk, they would have hated me all the more for bringing Morvern’s death upon her. The poor family—they lost two daughters who married Welshmen. What else could they do but hate the Welsh? So I stayed where we were. I tried to be a good father—”

“You were the best father a girl ever had, Papa,” said Gwyneth, rising and going to him. She knelt beside him and took his hands in hers.

He gazed down upon her, his eyes full of tears. “That’s all I knew of it, lassie,” said Barrie after a moment. “I tried to be a faithful man, and I sent what money I could to Mrs. O’Sullivan, who was your great-grandmother, until I was sent word that she had died. But I never heard anything from her or the rest of the family after that. You grew up into a fine girl. The other children were cruel to you, but you made the best of it, with Grannie’s help. I doubt it’s done you any harm. For the sticks and stones of hurtful words injure us no more than we let them. And like Grannie always told you, they make us into better people if we use them to learn to forgive.”

“They did not hurt me, Papa.”

“Then came a day,” Barrie continued, “when I received a surprise visitor at the cottage. It was the viscount, Lord Snowdon himself. He asked if he could speak with me privately.”

“I think I remember it,” said Gwyneth. “I was with my animals behind the cottage. I thought he had come for his rent.”

“The rent was the last thing on his mind that day,” her father went on. “I invited him inside, and we had a long talk. He was curious, he said, about my past. I didn’t know why. He asked if I had ever been in Ireland. I told him about my time there, that I had gone looking for work and had married there. He asked about you, Gwyneth. I told him you were born in Ireland. He asked my wife’s name. I replied that it was Morvern O’Sullivan. He seemed taken aback but then asked me where she was now. I told him she was dead. He was silent for a time, then rose, thanked me, and left.

“I thought the thing strange but could make nothing of it. Then came another visit, three or four years later. Gwyneth, by then you were growing into a beautiful young woman and you were working at the manor for his wife and daughter. That’s when the viscount came to me again when you were away from the cottage. He was more serious now. He spoke to me like we were old friends. He told me he had been thinking much about our earlier conversation. He now had something to confide in me that I must never tell another soul. I replied that I would agree so long as my conscience allowed. He nodded and added that he did not think what he had to say would place a constraint on my conscience. Then he proceeded to tell me about his own past, how he, too, like me, had gone to Ireland as a young man and had fallen in love with a red-haired Irish beauty. Her name was Avonmara O’Sullivan.”

Now for the first time, both Gwyneth and Grannie recognized the name O’Sullivan. Their eyes widened as Barrie continued.

He saw their reaction and smiled. “I see that you remember the name,” he said, nodding. “I was shocked as well. In what seems a remarkable coincidence, the child that was born to the viscount and Avonmara O’Sullivan was a girl called Morvern. She was, in fact, the very same Morvern O’Sullivan I had fallen in love with and married … my own wife … and your mother, Gwyneth.”

The room was silent as Gwyneth sat absorbing the stunning fact.

“You cannot be saying … but does that mean,” she said slowly, “that Avonmara O’Sullivan was
my
grandmother …” She paused, hardly able to bring herself to complete the thought. Unable to believe she was saying the words, she slowly added, “And Lord Snowdon was my grandfather?”

“That is exactly what it means, my child,” said Barrie tenderly.

Again the room was silent as Gwyneth struggled to take in what he had just said. “I always thought he looked at me strangely,” she said after a moment. “There were times I saw him in the village, and he simply stared at me.”

“It was one of those occasions,” rejoined her father, “that prompted his first visit to me. He suddenly recognized in your face the very face of his young love. It was after that he came to talk to me. As you grew older, and after you were at the manor and he saw more of you, the conviction grew on him all the more that her eyes, the eyes of Avonmara O’Sullivan, had been passed on to you.”

“What happened to her?” asked Gwyneth seriously.

“She died when your mother was born. After her death, the viscount returned to Wales. He planned to come back for his daughter. But by the time he returned, she was gone from the village where her family had lived, and he never saw his daughter again. He was devastated over the guilt he felt at having waited too long. And then, when you were older, as I say, he came to me again. He had reason to believe, he said, that you were his granddaughter. That had been the reason for his curiosity about my past. Now he realized that he wanted to do something for you. But he could not openly acknowledge that he had had a child before meeting his wife, Lady Snowdon. He did not want to hurt her or jeopardize her standing in the community. He saw no need for his past to come out. If he was to do something for you, provide for you, in acknowledgment of his love for your grandmother and mother, he must do so in secret. He was not a wealthy man, he said, but he would give us what money he could. Only I must agree to leave Llanfryniog in secret, telling not a soul the reason or where we were going. He did not even want to know himself, he said. We must simply disappear. If I would agree, then he would provide the means for us to have a good life.”

He paused briefly. “Some might say that he was trying to cover up a youthful indiscretion. There would even be some who would say that he was trying to blackmail me into silence about something he had kept hushed up for over thirty years. But I honestly felt the man to be sincere. He had no reason to confess all this to me otherwise. His heart was genuine. He wanted to do good for you.”

He drew in a breath. “For better or worse,” he sighed, “I agreed. I knew that he was offering what I could never give you. I knew also that none of us would outlive the occasional persecutions that came to us in Llanfryniog, though they had lessened over the years. I felt it my responsibility to give you both—you, Grannie, as well,” he added, glancing at his great-aunt, “a life free of that if I could. And I had to think of your future when I was gone, Gwyneth,” he continued, turning again toward his daughter. “Before he was through, the poor viscount was in tears. His grief was more than he could bear not to have seen his daughter again. By then the poignant reality was borne in upon me that I was in the presence of my own father-in-law. I was watching him weep at the memory of his first love and the daughter they had together … the very woman I had loved myself. He told me how he had gone back and tried to find his daughter. So I agreed to the terms of his offer. That’s when I told the two of you that we were leaving Llanfryniog, but that we must do so without telling a soul. If I was wrong, may God forgive me, and may you forgive me, Grannie, and you, Gwyneth dear. I did what I thought was best for us all. So we set sail and returned to the land of my former happiness. It was the only place outside north Wales I had ever lived, the only other place where I felt I could make a home.”

Barrie let out a long emotional sigh.

S
IXTY
-O
NE

Unexpected Weight of Duty

A
t length, unable to say more, Codnor Barrie glanced toward Percy.

“But then,” said Percy, picking up the story again from the viscount’s side, “when my uncle knew he was dying, apparently he changed his mind about keeping his connection with you secret.” He paused as he looked at Gwyneth. “He wanted me to find you,” said Percy. “If I could, he wanted the truth to come out at last and for right to be done.”

“Find me?” said Gwyneth. “You said before that he asked you to find his daughter.”

“I said I
thought
he wanted me to find his daughter,” rejoined Percy. “His mind was wandering by then. He was occasionally confused. He seemed to have forgotten what your father told him, that your mother was dead. He confused you with your mother. All this time, I thought he wanted me to find his daughter, when actually it was you he wanted me to find, Gwyneth. It was
you
he was thinking of on his deathbed.”

“Why would Lord Snowdon care about me?”

“For the same reason he came to talk to your father about you. For the same reason he wanted to provide for you.”

“But he had already done so, and we were gone. Why did he want you to find me then?”

“Because when he spoke to your father, he did not tell him everything,” answered Percy. “There was one vital bit of information he kept from him.”

“What was that?”

“He did not tell his daughter’s
real
name,” answered Percy.

“It wasn’t O’Sullivan?”

“Avonmara’s
maiden
name was O’Sullivan. But when she married, she became Avonmara Westbrooke. Your mother’s real name was Morvern Westbrooke.”

Grannie had been intently following the conversation. “They were married!” she now exclaimed.

Percy nodded. “In Laragh, north of here. The marriage is listed in the parish record book for 1833 … between Roderick Westbrooke, the future Lord Snowdon, and Avonmara O’Sullivan. Their marriage made your mother my uncle’s rightful heir.”

“The Lord be praised!” exclaimed Grannie.