Mrs. Maloney nodded, again glancing uneasily toward the other two.
“So let me introduce my two friends,” he said. “This is Father Halliday, priest in Laragh, where you were born I believe, isn’t that correct?”
She nodded.
“Father, this is Vanora Maloney.”
“I am pleased to meet you, Mrs. Maloney,” said Father Halliday.
“Is Father O’Leary still living?” she asked.
“Yes, he is,” replied Father Halliday.
“If you see him,” said Mrs. Maloney, attempting another smile, “would you give him my greeting. We should have told him where we were going and why we were leaving.”
“I will indeed. I am certain it will make him happy to know that you remember him.”
“And this young man is Mr. Percival Drummond,” Father Abban added, now turning toward Percy. “He is from Wales and came to Ireland last year hoping to locate your sister’s daughter. At last finding where you are living, with Father Halliday’s help, he hopes that you will not mind answering his questions. Mr. Drummond believes that he is the nephew of your sister’s husband.”
“Hello, Mrs. Maloney,” said Percy, rising from his chair and extending his hand. “I very much appreciate your agreeing to see me.”
She nodded, again forcing a nervous smile.
Percy resumed his seat.
“I don’t know what I can tell you,” said Mrs. Maloney. “It’s been years since we left Laragh.”
“The first thing is simply to confirm that your sister was indeed Avonmara O’Sullivan?” asked Percy.
Mrs. Maloney nodded.
“The same Avonmara O’Sullivan who married Roderick Westbrooke?”
“I believe that was the man’s name.”
“And they had a daughter?”
Again she nodded. “Her name was Morvern,” she said. “But whatever happiness there might have been at her birth was short lived. My mother and I both knew, for we were at her side through the birthing, that Avonmara was weak. She had never been strong, you see. All her life she was not sickly exactly, but not strong. Though she was two years older, I was bigger and taller and stronger and faster from the time we were wee lassies. We both had bright carroty hair just like our mum, though mine’s starting to fade, you see,” she added, running a hand over her head. “All the O’Sullivan women had bright red crops, you see. But Avonmara was a beauty. Even frail like she was, there was a mystery about her. She was a quiet girl. When she looked at you, and smiled her mysterious smile, her eyes went straight through you. When the young Welshman came, he was smitten with her. And she was taken with his good looks and flair. She was too young to marry. Mother warned her. But Avonmara was in love, and she said that when love comes, you couldn’t wait. You couldn’t think that love would come again if you didn’t take it when you had the chance.
“Those were hard times in Ireland. Our family wasn’t poor, you see. We weren’t of peasant stock, but times were hard for everyone. I don’t know what the man told her about himself or if he thought he would take her away somewhere, but we all thought he had money and he told her that she would never want for a thing. So she didn’t listen to anyone’s cautions. She married the man, though she was but eighteen. He didn’t take her away, and we were happy about that. They stayed there in Laragh, though I don’t know what he did. He never seemed to work, but they had all they needed. When Avonmara knew that she was to be a mother, she was so happy. For a year she was happier than we’d ever seen her. Mother and Father began to think perhaps they had misjudged the man. He seemed to be a good enough husband. But then as her time drew near, I knew she was weakening. Her face was pale, and she did not put on the weight she should. Her face and cheeks were thin. I knew Mother was worried, too. She never spoke about it, but I could see it in her face. Then little Morvern was born, with a healthy crop of O’Sullivan orange hair, but within a day poor Avonmara was gone.” Mrs. Maloney took a deep breath and looked down. She blinked hard, and her hand went to her eyes.
The three men waited.
“It didn’t take long for us to know that Mum had been right about her husband,” she went on after a moment. “For all his dash and good looks and all the rest, he fell apart. He hardly kept control of himself at the funeral. Maybe it showed how much he loved her, but he wasn’t much of a man about it. Naturally Mum and I took care of the baby. That went without saying. She was Mum’s granddaughter and my own niece, and Avonmara’s husband was just a boy of twenty himself. What could he do to take care of a child? He didn’t even give her her name, didn’t attend the christening at the church. We would not see him for days at a time. Then came a day when he came to the house and told my mum that he was leaving Ireland, that he had to go home to see about his father. He promised to return when he was able to take care of the baby. But we never saw him again. That was the last time any of us ever saw him.” Again she stopped, her hands folded and her eyes in her lap. Reliving the grief from the past had clearly not been easy.
“I am very sorry for the pain you and your family suffered,” said Percy after a moment. “As Father Abban told you, Roderick Westbrooke was my uncle. He died a year ago. Among his last thoughts were reminders of your sister, his first wife, Avonmara—”
“So he remarried, did he?”
“Yes, ma’am,” nodded Percy. “I am his nephew by his second marriage.”
“What is his wife’s name … his second wife?”
“Katherine, Mrs. Maloney. She is my aunt. But as I say, he was thinking, too, of your sister, for she was the love of his youth. He asked me to try to find her family—you and your mother, though I understand she is now gone, and of course his daughter. He hoped I would be able to convey something of his sorrow at having deserted you all after Avonmara’s death. He was full of remorse for leaving as he did. I realize that is small consolation, but he wanted you to know. He also wanted you to know that he eventually returned to Laragh and made considerable effort to locate his daughter. But he could not find where you had gone.” Percy pulled from his pocket the envelopes addressed in his uncle’s hand both to her mother, Mrs. O’Sullivan, as well as to herself. He handed them to her.
Slowly she looked at them one by one then smiled sadly. “So he came back after all, did he?” she said. “I am surprised … but maybe not altogether surprised. He did love her—that much was plain. But it came too late to do his daughter much good. She never saw her father in her life.”
“I know, Mrs. Maloney,” said Percy. “I feel the sadness with you. But perhaps it is not completely too late for him to be a father to her … in a manner of speaking. I don’t know how much of my uncle’s background your family knew. I don’t know what he told Avonmara and your parents. But my uncle was an important man. There is not a great deal of money involved. But more than money is at stake. Your niece Morvern, if we can prove that she was indeed his daughter, would be my uncle’s firstborn. The terms of the inheritance are independent of gender. A daughter can inherit as well as a son. That is why I must find her. She is in all likelihood the heir of my uncle’s estate.”
Mrs. Maloney stared back at Percy with a blank expression.
“That is why I urged Father Abban to ask you to allow me to speak with you. So where is the girl now?” asked Percy. “I realize by now that she is a grown woman. Does she live around here?”
“Mr. Drummond … I thought you knew.”
“Knew what?”
“I am afraid Morvern is dead.”
FIFTY-FOUR
A Bargain Struck
Early that same morning, Courtenay Westbrooke saddled his mount and set off on the northern road to meet his future colleague and business associate at a small hotel in Bronaber on the north-south inland road through the region of Gwynedd. It was a ride of fifteen to eighteen miles. Though Bronaber was a small and out-of-the-way village, Litchfield had wanted to stay in close proximity to his upcoming acquisition.
In two weeks, thought Courtenay with
satisfaction, he would finally and officially be known as the Viscount Lord Snowdon. There was no need to pretend any longer or play what petty games had been necessary to keep his plans from his mother. His sale of the land to Lord Litchfield would be finalized the day following his birthday. He had therefore given Litchfield leave to begin moving equipment into the area in order to begin constructing the road into his new property. His mother could do nothing to stop them now.
Thus it was, as Percy Drummond sat in the home of Vanora Maloney in the shipbuilding center of Arklow on the eastern coast of Ireland, that on a remote corner of his late uncle’s estate in North Wales, his cousin and the mining entrepreneur, Lord Coleraine Litchfield, along with several assembled experts from near London, made their way through the remote hills of Snowdonia. Courtenay still had no idea of Litchfield’s ultimate ambitions. Litchfield merely identified his colleagues as construction consultants.
It was the prior-arranged responsibility of Litchfield’s assistant, Palmer Sutcliffe, to engage Courtenay sufficiently in conversation, drawing him away from the rest, that Litchfield and his “consultants” might confer more easily with the scruffy man beside him, most of whose teeth were gone and who had apparently made no acquaintance with a razor or a bar of soap in a good while. As they went, Litchfield made pretext of looking about as though with nostalgic thoughts of his boyhood while considering the best potential location for a home in the Snowdonian mountains. He was not, however, thinking of the scenery but rather about the fortune that lay beneath it.
As yet, young Westbrooke had no idea of the exact location where his surveyors had been seen several months before. He preferred to keep it that way. The less the young fool knew, the better.
Coming into the grassy valley that lay in the hollows of the ridge adjacent to the lake, which was his object of interest, Litchfield reined in and dismounted. The others of the party followed his lead.
“Ah, yes,” he exclaimed, “it is just as I remember it!” He began walking about, to all appearances considering the most suitable options for a building site.
In the distance, the sudden sound of many hooves interrupted the tranquility of the scene. They turned to see a dozen or fifteen horses galloping up the far ridge and out of sight.
“What are those?” exclaimed Litchfield.
“There are wild horses all throughout Snowdonia,” replied Courtenay.
“Who do they belong to? They were magnificent!”
“Don’t get any ideas,” rejoined Courtenay. “The horses on any of this land are mine. They roam everywhere, but that gives you no rights if they come onto your thousand acres.”
“Whatever you say,” laughed Litchfield. “Horses are not my business.”
“Mr. Westbrooke,” said Sutcliffe, walking up to Courtenay’s side, “I realize you were interested in seeing the proposed site for Lord Litchfield’s mountain retreat. However, might I propose that you and I now return to the hotel and go over the final documents together?”
“I thought the documents were finalized,” said Courtenay.
“To be sure … yes, mostly they are. There remain just one or two details to be ironed out.”
“Can’t they wait until the final transfer is to take effect?”
“I fear not, Mr. Westbrooke,” said Sutcliffe. “Everything must be in perfect order so that the transfer occurs the day after your assumption of the title. There is also,” he added, “the matter of an additional payment.”
“What additional payment?” asked Courtenay.
“Since we are so close to the final date of closing the transaction, Lord Litchfield thought that he might advance you an additional payment toward the agreed-upon sum. I have a check for one thousand pounds made out to you at the hotel.”
“I see … Well, in that case,” said Courtenay enthusiastically, “I suggest we get back and iron out those details you mentioned … and perhaps add a clause that excludes rights of horseflesh.”
Litchfield smiled to himself as the two returned to their mounts. There were times, he mused, when Palmer Sutcliffe was worth every penny he paid him!
The moment they were out of sight, he walked back to his own horse. “All right,” he shouted. “Let’s get on with it.”
Twenty minutes later, the party of four men arrived at the high overlook. Below them the waters of a small green mountain lake glistened in the sunlight.
“All right, Bagge,” said Litchfield, inching his mount beside his scruffy crony, “it’s time for you to keep up your half of the bargain. I want to know exactly where that gold came from that you showed us in Cardiff.”
“There was some mention in our recent negotiations,” said Bagge in a gravelly voice, “of two hundred pounds.”
Litchfield smiled. “You are a sly one, Bagge. What? Don’t you trust me?”
“I trust nobody. Would you pay me if you knew what I know without needing me no more?”
“Of course, Bagge. I am a man of my word.”
“That may be, or not—I don’t really care. But you get nothing more from me until I see the two hundred pounds.”
Litchfield nodded, smiled again with condescending humor, then reached inside his coat. He pulled out ten crisp new twenty-pound notes—more money than Foulis Bagge had ever laid eyes on in one place in his life. He handed it to him.
With wide, greedy eyes, Bagge clutched the notes in his fist then held them to his leathery, hairy lips and kissed them. “You’ll get what you paid for all right,” he said. “It’s down there, under the lake.”
“What do you mean under it?”
“There’s a cave. Nobody knows the entrance but me. It’s where the gold came from. It was the year of the big draught, in ‘57. I used to know these hills like the back of my own hand. I found the cave when the water was low and the lake was nearly empty. That’s when I found the gold. When I came back for more, the rains had begun again, and the lake had filled the cave. I’ve been coming back for years. But it’s no use for the likes of me—I’m no fish. The gold’s there, but the lower parts of the cave are filled with water.”
Litchfield nodded and glanced at the two men who had been listening behind him.
“It’s plausible enough,” said one of them to his expression of question. “Of course it means we’ll have to drain the lake or stop up its entry into the cave. But it’s possible.”
“All right then, Bagge,” said Litchfield. “Lead the way. I want to see the entrance to this cave of gold. Once I am satisfied, you can keep the two hundred pounds and go to the devil for all I care.”
FIFTY-FIVE
End of the Quest … or Perhaps Not
Percy stared back dumbstruck at the sister of his uncle’s first wife. “Dead?” he repeated, hoping he had not heard her correctly.
Mrs. Maloney nodded.
Slowly Percy shook his head dejectedly. “I guess that’s it then,” he said. He let out a long sigh then glanced at the two priests. “I suppose my search has suddenly come to an end,” he said. “I had hoped that I was about to find my uncle’s daughter. At least now I know … and I can put my uncle’s past to rest once and for all.”
Again he turned to Mrs. Maloney. “I hope you won’t mind telling me what happened,” he said. “After that I promise I will pester you with no more questions. You have been most kind, but I would like to know what happened.”
“I see no reason not to tell you,” she replied. “You have come a long way. Even if we had no use for your uncle, that is not your fault. I suppose you deserve to know.”
She took a breath, again remembering the past, and resumed her story. “As I told you, we never saw Morvern’s father, your uncle, again. Morvern grew up. Eventually I married my husband Daibheid. My father died, but my mother continued to keep Morvern with her, though we lived nearby and I helped with her on most days when she was young. But my Daibheid, you see, he wanted children of his own. He said it was no business of ours to take her in. So she remained with my mum. We had a son. He
was born when Morvern was five. Then the famine hit, and my husband was out of work. My papa was gone by then, and my mother had nothing. Daibheid had worked in the shipyards for a time, before we were married, you see. So we all left Laragh, Mum and Morvern and Daibheid and me and our little Nigel, and we came here to Arklow. We had to do something to keep from starving. Daibheid found good work again, and we’ve been here ever since.”
Again she paused. “It wasn’t until Morvern was eighteen that the trouble started again.”
“Trouble? How do you mean … again?”
“She seemed fated to go the same way as her own mother. She was beautiful, you see, just like her mother, only tall and with the same bright red hair. But then she met a Welshman just like Avonmara. He was a good man, I suppose, and a hard worker, but we all hated to see our Morvern involved with a man when she was still so young. Morvern was all my mother had by then, you see, and she was just like Mum’s own daughter. Mum never let her use your uncle’s name. She was just Morvern O’Sullivan. My poor mum, God rest her soul, she cursed your uncle for deserting his daughter, though maybe that wasn’t right now that you tell me he tried to find her. But she died hating him, which is a sad thing to say about any two people in this world.”
She glanced again at the letters she still held in her hand, again smiling sadly to see her name and her mother’s name on the envelopes. “We never knew, you see—never knew he was trying to find us … that he wanted to be a good father to her after all. How could we know? We were gone by then, you see. It might have been different had we known. But we didn’t know. Then Morvern met the other Welshman, you see, come over for the work in the shipyards, just like my Daibheid. They met at work, you see, and were friends for a time. But when he took a fancy to young Morvern, my mum said it boded no good. But young Morvern was determined to marry him, just like her mother had been to marry your uncle. The mother and daughter were just alike, you see, young and beautiful and swept off their feet, you might say. So Morvern married the man, and my mum was terrified for what would happen. My mum was always one for premonitions, you might say. By then Mum’s red hair had turned as white as snow, as mine’s doing now, you see. And when Morvern came to be with child just like her own mother, Mum was dreadfully afraid the same fate would befall her as had poor Avonmara. There was a midwife in Arklow at that time. She was a strange woman, too acquainted with evil some said. Mrs. Faoiltiarna was her name. Whether that was her real name or not, no one knew, but it could not have suited her more perfectly.”
Treasure of the Celtic Triangle Page 25