CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FOUR

Henry wakes to the infernal chattering of birds. With a groan he tosses in the bed, tries to ignore the steely fingers of a headache which has started to tap like an incessant woodpecker at the crest of his skull.

He feels, quite frankly, like death. No wonder, too, considering the past few days; last night was the first decent night’s rest he has had for some time. Indeed, his head scarce hit the pillow before he succumbed to sleep, but somehow he does not yet feel rested. His body aches, his mouth is dry as sand. He can taste the staleness of port on his tongue. With an effort Henry opens one crusting eye. The light reaching from the gap between the curtains is not so bright that the sun could have risen too high in the sky, and with difficulty he reaches across to the bedside table for his pocketwatch.

Just past eight.

Henry presses the lid shut, rubs his thumb over the engraved H and T . If he could sleep longer, he would, but Henry Talbot has never been one to shirk his duties – it is something he prides himself on most diligently – and with a sigh he rises from the bed, stumbles in his weariness over to the window. Clutching at the heavy silk-lined curtains he parts them, and for a long moment stands there, taking it in.

Though his landlady in London kept his rooms beautifully, the views from the windows there were decidedly less picturesque. The road outside was always muddy or flush with dust and there was not one single tree in sight. It is quieter here, too – no bustle of carriages, no hawkers shouting out their wares. Only that birdsong, the distant bleat of sheep. Something else too, Henry thinks, a noise he cannot place.

He exhales, his breath leaving a lung-shaped fug on the glass.

The difference truly is astounding. Here, Henry is greeted with a vast valley spotted with grazing sheep and, beyond those, sparsely settled mountains rising like ramparts that seem to touch the clouds. The mountains are all green and lush, except for a smaller one that almost encroaches on Plas Helyg which has no trees at all. Henry opens the lead-lined window, leans out to get a better view. Skeins of curling smoke rise from its stony banks, and he identifies now the sounds of men at work, of pickaxes on stone.

The mine, Henry realises.

Strange, that it should be so close to the house. He thinks of the gold-flecked stone in Julian’s cabinet downstairs. It was the first we found in the mines. Near thirty years ago now.

At that moment a gentle breeze whips past the window. On its pass, Henry detects a faint sulphuric smell. He is just about to close the window when there comes a sharp rap on the door, the creak of it opening. Henry turns to see the butler, Powell, enter the room carrying a jug of steaming water, a cloth over his arm.

‘Good morning, sir.’

Henry wipes the rheum from his eyes.

‘Good morning.’

The older man carries the jug to the washstand, sets it down, the cloth next to it.

‘Thank you,’ Henry says.

The butler does not respond. Instead he turns, begins a brisk walk to the door.

‘You speak English,’ Henry calls out as he reaches it. ‘You and the housekeeper. I had not expected that.’

Powell pauses, turns back around to face him. He is still as stony-faced as he was the night before, with a strong jaw that seems disinclined to smile.

‘His lordship desires it,’ the butler replies, clipped. A pause. For a moment Henry does not think he will say anything further, but then – as if realising more is needed – Powell continues. ‘It is his wish for all the servants to address him in English.’ Another pause, this one distinctly disapproving. ‘Hardly any of the gentry speak the language here, though they are of Welsh stock.’

Henry frowns. Julian admitted to his lack of knowledge in the native language last night, but why would the Welsh gentry not know the language of their country? He wants to ask, but something in the butler’s cold manner makes Henry suspect no more information will be forthcoming.

‘Where is your mistress this morning?’ he asks instead.

‘The Lady Gwen is still abed, sir,’ comes the reply. Powell says the word ‘sir’, it seems, with a modicum of resentment. ‘Miss Linette wakes early. She is already down at the gatehouse, assessing the damage.’

The gatehouse. In his exhaustion Henry had forgotten.

Destroyed, Linette Tresilian had said. The windows and doors ruined, the inside too, so she seemed to think. But how strange! Is such destruction of property commonplace around these parts? It would appear not, if her reaction was anything to go by; Henry remembers clearly the look of shock on her flushed face as she stood on the threshold of the study, dressed in those ill-fitting garments. He thinks of the way she spoke to both himself and her cousin – so hard and impolite – and the way she looked at him, her gaze altogether too direct and superior, anchored with dislike. He frowns, the memory of Julian Tresilian’s words forming in the chamber of his mind:

Linette truly is a wildling.

Well. It is indeed clear that she is a woman of uncommon independence, for no lady of a grand house such as this would wear men’s clothes nor venture out alone in the wilderness, day or night. Yet despite all these brief observations, Henry did not mark any peculiar indications of mental weakness.

But then, even the sanest-looking people can be mad.

‘His lordship wishes to see you at breakfast before he leaves for London,’ Powell says now, interrupting Henry’s musings. ‘He awaits your pleasure in the dining room.’

‘Ah.’ Henry plucks at the collar of his nightshirt. ‘Well, then. I’d best be getting on.’

The butler inclines his head, and the flaps of his uncouth wig swing forward over his broad shoulders.

‘Very good, sir,’ he says, and promptly he shuts the door behind him with a pronounced and heavy click .

In his tired stupor Henry did not pay much attention during the journey up to his room the previous evening and so it is that when he steps out into the hallway, he finds himself blinking in surprise.

He stands in a long gallery filled with portraits. They line the panelled walls, the faces of Plas Helyg ancestors of centuries past looming down at him like stern sentinels. Henry looks up at them with interest, recognises the changing fashions of Jacobean through to Restoration, through to the earlier years of this century, from the flouncing frills of rococo to the silk and brocades of five decades before. A little further down the hall (and as Henry turns his head he detects the faint scent of vanilla and beeswax) another portrait much larger than the rest catches his eye. It shows three sitters: a beautiful blonde woman seated, with two dark-haired men standing behind her. One of the men rests his hand possessively on her shoulder while the other – Julian, Henry recognises – stands a little further back, as if observing them.

The other man must be Hugh Tresilian. Which means the woman can only be his wife, Gwenllian.

It is a strange portrait, Henry thinks, staring up at it, surely not one likely to be found in a Welsh country seat, for each of the sitters wears what seems to be Middle Eastern costume. Gwen Tresilian has her hair pinned high, a circlet of rubies crowning her forehead, and is dressed in an elaborate style of jewel-coloured skirts intricately detailed in the echo of foreign climes. She looks boldly out from the canvas, a small almost seductive smile playing across her lips.

Henry shifts his gaze to Hugh Tresilian. He is a tall man, broad-chested, handsome in his oriental robes. He wears a gold and crimson turban on his head so Henry cannot make out the colour of his hair, but from the shade of his eyebrows he suspects Hugh shares the same colouring as his cousin. Julian Tresilian is dressed similarly but wears instead an odd ornate headdress made of what looks to be ivory adorned with dark feathers. He looks very like Hugh – both of them strikingly handsome with hawk-like eyebrows and an aquiline nose.

He steps further back, cranes his neck. The composition of the painting itself has something distinctly odd about it, something unsavoury. It is reminiscent of a Gainsborough Henry saw once, yet it lacks the mellow romance of that artist’s style. This portrait is more striking, more severe. In the foreground are the trappings of wealth – gleaming coins, precious gems, swathes of grapes, wine goblets on carved pedestals. A skull nestles between a hoard of sapphires and a gold dagger. Behind the Tresilians a dark curtain sweeps across the canvas, shielding in the corner what looks to be a temple pillar, a stone plinth, torches with glowing flames.

Henry shrugs off a feeling of unease. He has never had much taste for the superfluous frivolities of the gentry. It is a world far removed from the blood and sawdust of surgery, the plain comforting simplicity of lodging in tiny annexes. Henry turns away, only to pause once more.

Below the portrait stands a curio cabinet. Inside are two locks of hair – one brown, one blonde – a pair of tiny shoes, a silver thimble, a small finely carved wooden rattle and a Bible. Not dissimilar from the tome in Julian’s bookcase, it is very large, covered with thick boards embossed with ornate patterns of religious persuasion pressed into handsome brown leather, its paper edges gilded. The corners of the cover are encased in brass, attached to which are large filigree clasps that bind the cover shut. Henry’s landlady owned one very much like this – she kept it on the dresser in her parlour and read from it every evening before supper. A family Bible, in which were listed the names of all the children she had lost.

A noise makes him look up. The dog from the night before stands looking at him, head inquisitively cocked. Henry reaches out his hand.

‘Hullo,’ he says, and the dog wags its curling tail, pads toward him. Its claws thrum lightly on the worn runner, and Henry realises it must have been those he heard clicking on the flagstone floor in the vestibule when Linette Tresilian crossed it the night before.

The sighthound is so large he need not bend to pet it; the dog presses its snout into his palm, and with a smile Henry scratches under its chin.

‘Who are you then, hmm?’

Large brown eyes stare up at him dolefully, and though it is of course impossible, Henry has the notion that the creature understands. It licks Henry’s fingers, trots down the gallery toward the staircase.

Henry follows.

There are three flights of stairs; by the time Henry reaches the bottom of them he feels somewhat out of breath. He has done his fair share of walking in London, of course, but the city streets were invariably flat and often Bow Street would provide him with a landau whenever they were in need of him. Henry is just tugging at his cravat to get some air, when there comes the sound of cutlery on porcelain. The lurcher ambles in the direction of a corridor off to the left, and once again Henry follows it.

The dog leads him into a richly furnished dining room, where at the head of a long table sits Julian Tresilian dressed in finely tailored travelling clothes. He half-rises from his chair to greet him, gestures to a seat on his right.

‘There you are! Sit, my boy. You must be famished.’

In truth, Henry feels too tired for food; the meal from the night before still sits heavy in his stomach but, determined to be polite, he diligently reaches for the platter laid between them on the table and takes a buttered bap. Julian has already cleared his plate; the dog – eager for scraps – snaffles loudly at his elbow.

‘Away,’ he shoos, and the lurcher’s ears flatten to its skull before sloping off out of the room. Watching it go, Julian wipes his hands on a napkin before tossing it on the table. ‘Linette bought it as a runt from one of the farmers up in the valley. It’s not a pretty beast at all, unlike Sir John Selwyn’s pointer. Pedigree stock, that one. Beautiful russet coat.’

‘ I think the dog rather handsome,’ Henry replies, and in response Julian laughs deep in his throat, twists the gold signet ring on his finger.

‘Well,’ he says, ‘each to their own. Linette would, I daresay, agree with you.’

A beat. Henry takes a bite of his meagre breakfast before speaking once more.

‘Mr Powell said she was down at the gatehouse.’

‘Been, returned, and is now belowstairs with the servants.’

He stops twisting the ring, and Henry marks that its bezel has engraved upon it, too, that strange curling symbol.

‘I’m afraid the damage to your new home is rather extensive. It’s as well you came here last night and were spared the sight of it.’

Henry lays his half-eaten bap down on the plate.

‘Is it really so very bad?’

His host nods, grave.

‘Linette has provided me with a list of what needs replacing. I begin my return to London today – I’d rather procure what is needed there than rely on local tradesmen.’

‘I assure you, there is no need for such expense.’

‘It is not a matter of expense,’ Julian returns, ‘but pride. Linette may be satisfied with quaint country fare, but Plas Helyg is a grand estate. It deserves only the best, you see.’

Henry does not see. He has never owned anything new himself, has always been happy enough with whatever was provided for him – as long as it was serviceable, it would do. But of course, Lord Tresilian is used to a certain way of living – men such as he are rarely like to give way on such matters – and so Henry says, ‘I do, sir. Of course. Might I see the gatehouse for myself?’

The question appears to take the older man by surprise. ‘I advise against it. Surely you would prefer to see it at its best?’

‘It will make me appreciate the transformation all the more, I should think?’

Julian stares. Then, unexpectedly, he stands, leaning on his silver-topped cane for purchase. Henry rises in turn.

‘Go, if you will. You’ll find the gatehouse down the pass; just turn right at the fork. I regret I cannot accompany you for my ship waits in Abermaw, and I must make haste to catch the tide.’

‘I understand.’

‘Very good.’

He reaches out his hand, clasps it in Henry’s own. The hand is cool to the touch, and Henry feels the hard club of Julian’s fingernails push into the soft skin of his wrist.

‘Farewell for now, then,’ Julian says warmly. ‘Remember what I told you about Linette? Do look out for her, won’t you? As you saw last night …’

Henry inclines his head. ‘I shall do my best.’

‘I’m most gratified.’ The older man releases him. ‘I shall see you again very soon. Very soon indeed.’