All the feelings—had he been another sort of young man, or from a higher social standing, that he might have looked at more closely and questioned where they might possibly lead—were subserved in his consciousness to the love that Florilyn had once carried toward his friend, Percy Drummond. Even the suspension of their engagement he assumed was but temporary. He considered nothing to be gained by it for himself other than the continued opportunity to serve his young mistress.
From the very day Florilyn began seeing Colville Burrenchobay, however, something new awoke in the heart of Steven Muir. A giant was born in the gentle young man. He knew what it was. He loved her more deeply than he had allowed himself to admit. But with the realization came the horrifying thought that his love might be born in jealousy toward Colville. If such were true, he would give Lady Katherine his notice and leave this place and never lay eyes on Florilyn again. Nothing was more hateful to him than even the merest possibility that he might succumb to such an evil emotion as jealousy.
And yet … was his concern for her future only for himself?
No, he knew it was not. He cared for her and desired her best. For her best, he would turn and walk away. Likewise … for her best he would come against any threat to her well-being. Not to possess her, but that the true Florilyn might emerge victorious over the Florilyn that Colville would attempt to control. Though she never laid eyes on him again, though she might hate him, he must still do his best for her and try to prevent her making a terrible mistake.
But how? What was his responsibility? How was he to do right for her, to do his best for her? How could things be set right again in Florilyn’s life? Could he, such as he was in her eyes, assist in such a setting-right? What was he to do?
For several more minutes he stood gazing out upon the windy night. He was too agitated to sleep. At length he turned, lit a small candle, and left his room. With quiet step he crept through the darkened corridors of the great house. A few minutes later, he found himself at the doors of the library. However strange it may seem for the hired servants in a house of ancient title and property to have full access to such regions, it was Lady Katherine’s will that everyone connected with Westbrooke Manor, from lowest to highest, consider the library his or her own personal region of dreams, rest, escape, retreat, learning, study, and imagination. Anyone might borrow any book or use the library at any time a schedule permitted.
As quietly as he could, he opened the double doors and swung them back wide enough to enter. His mother and Lady Katherine were forever talking about the author MacDonald. He was an avid reader himself, but his tastes in recent years had tended to run in different currents than were found in fiction. He knew what they all said, that MacDonald’s fiction was unlike any other. The only thing of MacDonald’s he had yet read himself was his volume of Unspoken Sermons.
He went to the shelf and stood before it. Everyone in the house by now knew where the MacDonald books were located. It was the most frequently used part of the library, and its contents grew yearly. Randomly he pulled out one volume after another, flipping through each, allowing his eyes to rest on one passage or another, hoping perhaps to discover some nugget of written gold buried within the pages between the decorated boards … something that would illuminate his way in this dark hour of his soul.
For half an hour he tried one book, then another, then another, returning to several a second, even a third time, also flipping slowly through his own favorite book of MacDonald’s sermons.
He had nearly begun to despair when suddenly his eyes fell on a passage whose words seemed to compel him, even as they spoke of the compulsion of God’s love toward the setting right of wrong in human life.
“‘He will set it right, my lord,’” he read, “‘but probably in a way your lordship will not like. He is compelled to do terrible things sometimes.’”
The words arrested Steven’s attention as if he had been struck in the face. That God would be compelled to do terrible things toward those he loves was a concept altogether new. He continued on.
“‘Compelled!—what should compel him?’
‘The love that is in him, the love that he is. He cannot let us have our own way to the ruin of everything in us he cares for!’”
The words perfectly described exactly what he had been thinking about Florilyn—that she must not be allowed to have her own way to the ruin of everything good that had been growing in her.
Steven’s eyes continued down the page.
“Then the spirit awoke in Donal—or came upon him—and he spoke.
‘My lord,’ he said, ‘anything I can do, watching with you night and day, giving myself to help you, I am ready for. It will be very hard, I know. I will do all that lies in me to deliver you. I will give my life to strengthen yours, and count it well spent and myself honoured. I shall have lived a life worth living! Resolve, my lord—in God’s name resolve at once to be free. But one thing you may not have, my lord, is your own will. You will never be free by seeking your own will, until you make your will his.’”
With a finger between the pages, Steven took the book and candle to one of the library’s reading chairs and sat down. He turned to the beginning of the chapter and read it in its entirety in order to gain more of the context of the passage that had drawn his attention. Before he retired for the night two hours later, the book lay on the table in his own room. He had completed its first fifty pages before sleep overtook him.
The single word compel remained with him in sleep. By the time he awoke the following morning, his way had begun to become clear. If love required compulsion to do what was best for the beloved and set things right, then he would not shy away from it.
58
Lugnaquilla
Percy was at the base of the mountain called Lugnaquilla shortly after daybreak on the following Sunday morning. He had been given directions and a map by Father Abban, along with precautions of the mountain treacheries if a thick morning fog or afternoon mist off the sea obscured his way.
The priest invited Percy to remain with him in Arklow as his guest for as long as his business made it necessary. He had been with him for three days, during which time the two young men had had many lively and informative discussions on matters of faith—discovering more points of commonality and brotherhood than either would have anticipated. In the meantime, Father Halliday returned to Laragh.
According to Father Abban, any of a half dozen sheep tracks and walking paths led to the summit of Lugnaquilla. Bogs and boulders and cliffs and ravines, however, were everywhere, and one must be attentive and vigilant. Having not the remotest idea from which direction the mystery girl he had heard about from Vanora Maloney came up the mountain on her weekly trek or when, Percy resolved to be at the top as early in the day as possible. He would remain until sunset if need be so as not to miss her.
He dressed warm and, at Father Abban’s insistence, had packed food and water. Father Abban took him to the base of the mountain by buggy shortly after sunrise then returned to town for his weekly priestly duties presiding over Sunday’s scheduled masses. As he began the assent, in his right hand Percy clutched one of his new friend’s stout walking staffs.
The way gradually steepened as he went. He made his way across boggy fields and meadows, through light woodlands bordered by a few thickly forested glades and hillsides, up and down dells and valleys, jumping a dozen small brooks and watercourses, and sloshing through several chilly, frothing streams whose waters plunged down to meet the Avonbeg River where it flowed around the base of the mountain toward the sea.
Next to one of these, his step was arrested by an unexpected sight. It reminded him that death was slowly relinquishing the earth from its temporary prison, and that the Son of liberating spring was on its way to set the captives free. So near his foot that his step nearly crushed it, in the shadow of a large stone, the tiny yellow face of a new spring primrose peeped up at him from amid its rough cabbage-like leaves.
The sight of the s
imple blossom stung him with nostalgic reminders of many things—both conscious and subconscious … of Hugh Sutherland and Margaret Elginbrod and the fir wood of their story, of Florilyn and Snowdonia’s green hills, of sunrises and sunsets and high overlooks above the sea, of angels and mysteries and floral bouquets. He paused, set down his staff, and stooped to pluck it. He stood again, drew in a deep breath of satisfaction, and slowly continued on his way.
It was not an especially steep or arduous climb. As he had been forewarned, however, he found his way long and circuitous and filled with many tracks and paths that appeared promising but that led nowhere or ended abruptly at the edge of some ravine or cliff. Thankfully, though the ground was wet, the day was relatively clear. No thick fog topped the mountain, though clusters of mist clung here and there to some of its low-lying valleys. Thus, it was after many retracings of his steps, as the spring sun rose high in the sky and began to send down what warmth it possessed in this first week of March, perspiring freely in spite of the chilly morning air, that Percy at last approached Lugnaquilla’s expansive flat summit that had been given his own name, “Percy’s Table.”
What he had expected, Percy himself could not have said. Reaching the top of the three-thousand-foot hill and finding it desolate and empty, without hint that another human being was within miles, filled him with a vague sense of disappointment.
He stopped and gazed about. Slowly he turned in every direction until he had peered into the distance toward all the 360 degrees of the compass. A few clouds of mists obscured visibility here and there. But the sea, east toward Wicklow fifteen miles distant, was easily visible stretching out to his right and left.
He strolled aimlessly about for a few minutes then found a dry bit of grass and sat down. He began his wait with an apple, a hunk of cheese, a piece of bread, and water from the canvas bag of provisions provided him by Father Abban. For the first time he now regretted that he had not thought to bring a book from the well-stocked library at the rectory.
He had arisen for his day’s quest while it was yet dark. The walk had been easy enough, but the cumulative effect had fatigued him. After his brief breakfast, with the sun beating down and warming earth and humanity as one, it was not long before sleepiness began to overtake him.
Percy stretched out on the grass and began to doze.
59
Percy’s Table
The walker whose weekly habit for two years had been to make this solitary trek did not often encounter fellow sojourners at this time of year. Heart and mind were free to wander where they would without distraction or interruption.
Her thoughts on this day, as always, were of the one she came here to remember with the tiny bouquets that would be meaningless to any other. Her mind was filled, too, with the great change that was soon to come upon her. She would not long be able to continue this weekly habit. She had set out this morning knowing that today’s journey would likely be her last. She would be married in two weeks. As another man’s wife, she could not continue paying tribute to one from her past whom she would never see again.
The one to whom she had been pledged was a good man, and she must be a good wife to him. Love found easy reception in her heart toward all of God’s creation. She could love, and therefore she would love. Her father had chosen him for her, in spite of the difference in their ages, because he knew he would be a caring husband for his daughter. She honored her father. And thus she would learn to love.
But on this day, one last time, her love would look back, not forward … and she would remember.
There came a breath of something in the west.
Percy stirred from where he lay, half rose, and looked about.
What had awakened him? No hint of wind caressed his face, unusual on such a peak as this. But some rustling, some far-off sound, some presence had intruded into his brain.
He sat … listening intently. It seemed that all the world was waiting in stillness for something at hand.
It came again.
Percy froze. A chill swept through his body.
A faint, far-off tune came floating up the mountain from somewhere. Someone was singing, but in no voice of this world. The sound was of some melancholy lament … haunting, mysterious, as from some ancient Celtic love ballad whose ethereal melody remained forever unresolved.
Slowly he rose to his feet, searching to detect from which direction it came.
As she softly sang, the walker stooped to grasp a handful of spring grasses and added them to the earthy bouquet clutched in her other hand. If this was indeed the last bouquet she would leave in memory of the one who lived in her heart, she was sorry it contained no flowers. But spring was still early, and she had seen none today.
She rose again to continue to the summit. As she did, she saw a figure ahead. The sight startled her.
A man stood in the distance staring at her.
Abruptly her singing stopped. It must be a vision, born in her imagination. She gazed at the figure in disbelief then slowly walked toward it.
A gasp escaped Percy’s lips.
The rays of the sun, falling on the girl’s head from behind, gave it a radiant golden hue. But as she came nearer, he saw that the wild crop of luxuriant hair was of purest white.
He stood transfixed. He could not move. He could only stare in wonder.
Closer she moved, gliding noiseless over the ground. Every line of her countenance came into focus, and he knew he was gazing at no mirage.
The eyes … deep blue-green … eyes that spoke of the sea! Changeable … depthless … radiant … liquid … alive with the light of life.
The face … the same, yet new … older, wiser, if possible more beautiful, full of mystery … and at peace.
The angel of his dreams had materialized as from out of Lugnaquilla’s mists. Was she indeed, as he once said, an angel from on high? Had she always been an angel?
As he beheld her features, seeing them for the first time in more than three and a half years and now contained in a woman’s face, suddenly all the eyes from the portraits on the landing at Westbrooke Manor leaped out at him. The truth had been in plain view all along. How could they not have seen it!
She slowed then stood before him.
“Gwyneth!” he breathed in a reverent whisper. “Is it … can it be … is it really you I have been searching for?”
For answer, she merely took another step forward, the smile on her face saying that somehow she did not find it incredible that the weekly vision she cherished in her heart had become real.
Percy opened his arms and swallowed her into his embrace. “I cannot believe that you are here,” he whispered.
“I am always here, Percy,” Gwyneth said. “In my heart, I am always with you.”
They stood long minutes in silence. Or perhaps it was an hour. On the top of Percy’s Table, for these two, time would nevermore have meaning. They were swallowed up in eternity.
“Until you spoke, I did not know if you were real,” said Gwyneth at length. “I always see you when I come here. But the real you is older than the you of my imagination.”
The spell was undone. She was the same Gwyneth of old!
Percy stepped back and broke into the laughter of pure joy. The sound of his happiness ringing out over the hilltop was as enchanting to Gwyneth as her mysterious voice of song was to him. She broke out in a giggle of delighted girlish pleasure.
“Here, Percy,” she said, handing him the bouquet of weeds and grasses. “I picked these for you.”
“Surely you meant them for someone else?” said Percy with a humorous smile.
“I come here every week and leave you a bouquet, Percy.”
“Surely you don’t give flowers to every stranger you meet.”
“Only those who are going to become my friends,” rejoined Gwyneth with a smile of her own.
“You knew that about me?”
“Of course.”
“How did you know?”
“I saw on yo
ur face the look of a friend.”
Again Percy laughed with delight to be reminded of their first meeting on the hills of Snowdonia. He turned and stooped to find the faded primrose where it had slipped from between his fingers when he had fallen asleep. “And I have something for you,” he said, handing it to her.
“A new spring primrose! Oh, thank you, Percy!”
“Gwyneth, Gwyneth … I cannot believe it! But it really is you, isn’t it?”
“I think so, Percy. I think I am me. Have you been in Wales?”
“Several times since you left. I visited your cottage. No one is living in it now. You will never guess who I saw—Bunny White Tail!”
Gwyneth smiled. “It was hard to leave the animals. I still do not understand why we had to leave. But my father said there was no other way. I know there was something he did not tell me. But I trust him to know best.”
She glanced away. An expression crossed her face that Percy had never seen before. Then she looked earnestly back into his face. “Are you and Florilyn …” she began then hesitated.
“No, we are not married, if that’s what you were about to ask,” said Percy. “But I hear you are to be.”
Gwyneth smiled and nodded. She had tried to hide it, but Percy saw that her heart was filled with complex emotions at the prospect. “My father thinks it best,” she said. “He wants me well taken care of when he is gone. Oh, my father!” Gwyneth exclaimed as if suddenly remembering. “He will be so happy to see you!”
The Treasure of the Celtic Triangle- Wales Page 27