CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

After Henry left, Linette returned to the kitchen and peeled the last of the carrots. When she was done, she helped Angharad move the prepared foodstuffs into the cold store and covered them with muslin cloths so they would keep until the following evening, and found herself quite dismayed when Mrs Phillips said after that there was nothing left for her to do.

‘You’ve been a great help, Miss Linette,’ she said kindly, setting the hare into a pan of water, ‘but we can get on with the rest. Be off with you, now.’

It is strange to be dismissed by one’s own servants, strange for Linette to find herself so at a loss. She feels untethered, driven by despondency and anger. Alone now in the vestibule Linette childishly stamps her foot, and the sound reverberates through the stone and up into the vaulting ceiling. In response Merlin whines. Linette rubs her eyes. There is nothing else for it. What best keeps her distracted when her thoughts begin to overwhelm, as they so often do?

She retreats to her study, opens her ledger at its most recent page and looks down at its columns. Linette heaves a troubled sigh. Yes, the estate does well enough … just about. But in truth, the numbers filling those narrow columns should be far higher than they are.

I did warn you about the risk of spending so much on your tenants.

It vexes Linette to admit Julian might be right. No matter how much she resents his intrusions, he is a man of business. Thoughtfully she nibbles the end of her quill. Are there other ways around this? Could she compromise? She will not lease the land to anyone except Welsh tenants – Linette is quite set on that score – but pride can only take her so far. Would it really be so very awful to open the house up to visitors, to advertise Plas Helyg as an ancestral jewel of Meirionydd? The mansion needs maintenance to be sure; how long has her home sat neglected, the ballroom left in cobwebbed shadow, its rooms dark and empty except for Linette, her mother and the servants? How long before Plas Helyg does indeed begin to founder? She raises her head, stares at the other ledgers packed tightly on the bookshelves opposite. The only way to know for sure is to look back, to compare one year with the next.

It is a thankless job. It takes Linette nearly two hours to sift through one ledger from last year alone. Tiredly she sits back in her chair, twists her neck from one side to the other. Her shoulders ache, her eyes feel dry in their sockets. Through the open window the remaining black hens squawk. Merlin’s ears flap and twitch.

‘ Na , Merlin,’ she sighs. ‘Have you not tortured them enough?’

Merlin looks up at her, cocks his head, and there comes then a rumble, like the roll of distant thunder but louder, more resonant, and Linette rises from her seat.

‘What on earth …?’

She rushes to the open window, looks out over the sill. The horses shriek and buck in their stables and Rhys appears at the doors, a bag of feed in his hand.

‘What was that noise?’ she calls out.

‘Sounded like it came from the valley, miss,’ he replies, just as Dylan and Aled appear over the rise of the footpath that leads down to the east of Plas Helyg’s lands. They speak together in a tumble of tongues, gesticulating wildly, and Linette beckons them.

‘What is it? What has happened?’

‘We saw it, miss!’ Dylan says in a rush, eyes round in his moon-like face. ‘We were chopping wood and saw it happen. The sky filled with a great dark cloud like dragon’s breath!’

‘A waterfall of dust,’ Aled adds, breathless with awe, and Dylan nods in agreement.

‘For heaven’s sake,’ Linette says in frustration, gripping the sill so hard her fingers sting. ‘Tell me what has happened ?’

The two groundsmen look between each other, back at her.

‘The mine, milady,’ Aled whispers. ‘There’s been an explosion at the mine.’