Amanda Scott (2 page)

Upon their return to the great graystone house, they discovered the rest of the family in the vast draft-ridden ground-floor with drawing room, the ladies occupied in various ways while willowy Mr. Glendower read aloud to them in his carrying voice from a book of sermons. Auburn-haired Wynnefreda, Lady Cadogan, sat with her tambour frame near the roaring fire, setting neat stitches, her needle and frame held firmly in long, slender fingers.

“Merciful heavens, Meriel,” she said, her strident but carefully cultivated tones cutting without ceremony through the chaplain’s well-modulated ones when she saw her niece and nephew on the threshold, “what an example to set for your sisters, coming into this room looking like a shag rag. And you, Dafydd, in all your dirt. Wherever have the pair of you been all the afternoon?”

“I wonder, ma’am,” said Meriel, smiling fondly at that upright dame, “if you know what a shag rag is.”

“Why, I haven’t the least notion,” said her ladyship, diverted and somewhat surprised, since she knew herself to be well-educated for a female, and was particularly proud of her extensive vocabulary. “I do know, however, that it is something one does not wish to discover in one’s drawing room.”

“No, indeed,” Meriel agreed, her smile widening. “’Tis a rag kept in a fighting cock’s bag and used to polish his spurs and beak before he is brought up to scratch.”

“My lady!”

“Meriel!”

Both the chaplain and Lady Cadogan looked properly scandalized, but Meriel, her gray-green eyes atwinkle, merely turned away from them toward the two other female inhabitants of the room.

“Are you both prepared to depart in the morning?” she inquired.

Flaxen-haired Lady Gwenyth, who at the age of fourteen was looking forward to her first trip to London with much the same air of excitement as her younger brother, fairly bounced up and down upon her brocade pouffe, the mending she had been pretending to attend to sliding unnoticed to her feet. “Shall we truly ride on a great boat?” she demanded.

“Indeed, love, all the way from Barmouth to Bristol, where Mr. Glendower will hire a post chaise for the rest of your journey to London. It will be very exciting, will it not, Eliza?” She turned to the elder of the two girls, a young lady of seventeen summers, who had closed the book in her lap that she had been reading in defiance of Mr. Glendower’s choice, and who was attempting to behave as if trips to London were quite commonplace occurrences in her experience.

Lady Eliza pushed a strand of honey-colored hair away from her gray eyes and regarded her eldest sister with a long-suffering air. “I suppose it will be pleasant,” she said, “though I shall quite naturally miss Gwilym dreadfully.”

“Dear me, why ever should you?” inquired Lady Cadogan, wide-eyed. “I am certain I never missed Cadogan, and I was married to him, after all, which will never be the case with you and young Dewlap.”

“Dewsall, Auntie Wynne,” corrected Gwenyth, chuckling. “His name is Dewsall, and I am persuaded he’s ever so much more handsome than Viscount Cadogan, for though I never saw him, you have always said he squinted like a bag of nails and had teeth which stuck out, which Bugg does not.”

“Gwenyth,” said Eliza awfully, “if you cannot keep a still tongue in your head, you will be sent to your bedchamber without your supper.”

“By whom, Miss Prim and Proper?” demanded Gwenyth. “You are not my guardian, and Meri has said nothing at all.”

“Well, I’m sure I am as much your guardian as she is,” said Eliza, “for she is nothing of the sort. Jocelyn is our guardian.”

“Fiddle. A fine one he is, I must say, off in America these seven years past, maybe even dead for all we know, and leaving Meri to manage his estates and us as well.”

“That will do, Gwen,” said Meriel evenly. “Please pick up your mending off the floor and do not speak so of our brother. ’Tis most unbecoming.”

“Well, I honor his principles, of course, though I do think he might have done better to have fought for the equality of men right here in Wales instead of running off to America to spite Papa,” Gwenyth said unrepentantly. “In any event, I do think he might have written at least once in all these years, if not before Papa died, then certainly afterward. One would think he might care something about being an earl, for pity’s sake.”

“Yes, one might,” agreed Lady Cadogan. “After all, many men go to their reward without ever having enjoyed that privilege.”

“Well, I should think they do,” said Eliza, losing her die-away air completely as she sat up straight and looked with amazement at her aunt.

“You know perfectly well that she is referring to Lord Cadogan and not to men in general,” Meriel said, hiding her amusement with difficulty. It was a sore point with Lady Cadogan that her husband had had the misfortune to predecease his father and thus had failed to come into the earldom that would have made her a countess instead of a mere viscountess. She had behaved bravely however, not mentioning her misfortune above once or twice a week since her removal from London to Plas Tallyn the previous year. Her duty at that time had been clear to herself if to no one else. With Cadogan dead and yet another year of mourning stretching before her, she had been unable to think of a better way to spend it than in looking after her orphaned nieces and nephew. If she had been grateful to find that Meriel had things well in hand at Plas Tallyn, she had said nothing about it, preferring to make gentle suggestions as to how things might be improved, without lifting a finger herself to improve them. She had found an ally in Mr. Glendower, her late brother’s chaplain, who had encouraged her to believe that her grief was great and that she ought to seek solace under his spiritual guidance. Until the weather had begun to clear, bringing thoughts of the forthcoming London Season to her mind, she had been content.

Now she recalled a continuing grievance and looked askance at her eldest niece. “I do not know how you can think of going off to France and leaving me to deal with all these children on my own, Meriel. Such an impertinent lot. I cannot think they will behave if you are not by.”

“They will give you no difficulty, ma’am,” said Meriel, glancing from one to the other of her siblings. “They know their duty.”

“Yes, no doubt.” Lady Cadogan looked at each one much as Meriel had done, but finding no comfort in what she saw, she sighed, looking first at Mr. Glendower, who was regarding her sympathetically, and then back at Meriel, who was not. “I daresay you do not wish to discuss it further at present, for you will wish to rid yourself of the dirt you collected on your precious mountain,” she said, sighing more deeply yet. “’Tis the unnatural freedom you enjoy here at Plas Tallyn, I suppose, that puts such hoydenish notions as this journey into France into your head. But I shall say no more. Marwyn will be announcing supper at any moment, and you will certainly not sit down looking like a … like a Gypsy,” she finished triumphantly.

“No, ma’am.” Meriel smiled down at the boy, who had been standing beside her, an interested but silent spectator of the scene. “Come, Davy. You will dine with us tonight.”

He shot her a grateful glance, then turned with a tiny smirk to inform his other sisters that he too had climbed Cader Idris. “All the way to the top,” he added smugly.

“Yes, well you look it,” said Eliza, unimpressed. “Do go away and change, Davy, there’s a good boy.”

The look he gave her was anything but angelic. Meriel, intercepting it, felt an urge to warn him to do nothing foolish, but she held her tongue. It was her policy, whenever possible, not to interfere. Not that it was always possible, despite her good intentions. Which was why she was going to France. A glance at her aunt showed clearly that that topic was anything but finished.

Indeed, they had scarcely seated themselves at the supper table before Lady Cadogan said shortly, “I have received word from Lord Uxbridge that he will have your passport, French money, and some useful letters of introduction ready for you when we reach Barmouth, Meriel, but he agrees with me that you ought to have a footman by you as well as your maid, and he recommends going no farther than Rouen. He mentions the state of the political situation, but he does not go into detail, so I do not know what he can mean. Still, he is perfectly right. You’ve no business to be traveling alone.”

“I shall not be alone, ma’am,” Meriel said equably. “I shall have Gladys Peat with me, and my pistol as well.”

“A female with a pistol,” wailed Lady Cadogan. “Whoever heard of such a thing?”

“Well, it will be far more use to me than a footman, who would have to be a stranger, for none of our men-servants would go. Nor would I wish to take any of them. Gladys and I shall do very well. As for the political situation, since we are now at peace with France, I cannot think there will be any danger there.”

“Perhaps we are no longer at peace,” suggested Lady Cadogan. “It has been weeks since anyone here saw a newspaper, after all, and any letters we have received have contained only gossipy news.”

“Come now, ma’am,” Meriel said, smiling, “you know we should certainly have heard if England and France were at war again. Uxbridge merely expresses a typical male belief that women need men to protect them. I have learned better these past years, I promise you. My sole concern has been for the children, but with them safe under your capable wing, I know I need only enjoy my journey. And so I shall, thank you.”

“You needn’t think to get round me with cajolery,” Lady Cadogan said tartly.

“I don’t cajole, ma’am.”

Davy and Gwenyth laughed, and even Eliza allowed herself a smile.

“I don’t see why any of us need go anywhere,” that young lady said. “Dolgellau is town enough for me. And here we sit in a magnificent house at the foot of one of the world’s most beautiful mountains, in the midst of our particular friends—”

“
O, Liza, dal dy dafod!
” said Gwenyth rudely as she helped herself from a plate of grilled trout. “Our particular friends, indeed. Only Bugg Dewsall, that’s who. And he’s no particular friend of mine, or of Meri’s, or of anyone but you.”

“Gwenyth,” said Meriel calmly, “if you must request that your sister hold her tongue, pray do so in a civil manner and in English. To be flinging Welsh expressions about at a London dinner table where they will not be understood will never do.”

“Stuff,” said Gwenyth, wrinkling her nose. “Welsh is a perfectly good language. Moreover, I shall not be allowed to dine in company in London.”

“Very true, my dear,” said Lady Cadogan, “but when you get to l’École de Bonté in Rouen, you will not want to blush for your manners, you know. The French are most particular. And as for your friend Mr. Dewlap,” she added sternly, turning to glare at Eliza, “we must certainly hope that in London you will quickly come to see the error of your ways, my dear. Entirely unsuitable, I assure you.”

Before Eliza could speak the words that had clearly leapt to her tongue, words that must have seen her banished from the table, Meriel said in her soft-spoken way, “He is quite unsuitable, Eliza. You know he is. His father is little more than a coal miner. Jocelyn will never permit the connection.”

“Gwilym’s father owns three slate mines,” Eliza said defiantly. “Even Jocelyn owns but two.”

“That is quite a different matter,” Lady Cadogan said, peering at one of the dishes before her, then looking directly at Eliza. “Your brother is not dependent upon the income from his mines for his well-being. Mr. Dew-whatever is. What is more important, his son is not quality.”

“I don’t care,” said Eliza stoutly. “You will soon be made to see that even separating us by thousands of miles will not quell our deep passions!”

With a ponderous laugh Mr. Glendower observed from the foot of the table that Lady Eliza had not seemed to grasp the geography lessons he had so carefully prepared for her perusal. “For I daresay that London is not quite so far as a thousand miles from Dolgellau, you know.”

“Dear me,” put in Lady Cadogan, “it is certainly no more than three hundred and fifty. If you know what the foolish child is nattering about, Mr. Glendower, I wish you will tell the rest of us. Meriel, do you follow her meaning?”

“Indeed, ma’am, she has been reading more of those foolish books of hers. Truly, Eliza, people do not fall head over ears in love upon first seeing one another. Moreover, love has little to do with marrying suitably, since one simply must live according to one’s station in life.”

“Joss didn’t,” Davy said. “He left everything behind.”

Meriel looked at him for a moment, then said gently, “Our brother Jocelyn was carried away by local sympathy for the French republic, my dear. You will not remember, but many people left Merioneth for America then because times were hard and the common people blamed the landowners, much the way the French peasants did before their revolution. Joss took their side, engaging in one dreadful row with Papa after another, all of them over stupid matters of politics. In the end he went off in high dudgeon to join the others. He may have found what he was looking for, or he may not, but he will discover that he cannot elude his responsibilities here forever. One way or another, he must deal with them.”

“Then why have we not had word from him?” demanded Gwenyth. “Two years, for pity’s sake, since Papa’s death. Is Joss dead too, do you think, Meri?”

Meriel did not answer the question immediately for the simple reason that she could not offer a flat denial. Her first letter had been followed by several others, one of which, at least, he must have received if he was still alive.

“I cannot answer you with certainty, Gwen,” she said at last, softly. “Somehow I know he will be with us again one day, but I have no proof other than my own belief that he is not dead.”

“You have had no news,” said Lady Cadogan, signing to the footman to clear her place. “Had he died, I assure you that someone would have written to inform you of the fact.”

She had used the same argument before, and as always Meriel took comfort from it. But knowing that her brother had emigrated to the colonies with a band of Welsh dissidents caught up in a cause she had never truly understood or sympathized with didn’t encourage her to believe anyone would have taken time to send word home if Jocelyn had died. And although letters arrived in Merioneth from the New World occasionally, she knew that most of them were brief requests for money. Any gossip they contained was mostly family news, and no other Trahernes had sailed with Jocelyn. Nor would he have expected his father to send him money. Lord Tallyn had cut the connection upon Jocelyn’s departure, and had there been a way to disinherit his son, Meriel had no doubt he would have found it.