From Across the Ancient Waters (34 page)

Perhaps all these factors explained why Percy occasionally had the odd sensation, though he had been young at the time of his visit, that his uncle was attempting to reach out to him more than he was capable of to his own son or daughter.

Percy stepped from the coach in front of Mistress Chattan’s inn and glanced around with an enormous feeling of satisfaction. It was all so familiar again!

He hardly had a chance to reflect on the sight of the main street or fill his lungs with the crisp, tangy sea air before a jubilant cry pierced his eardrums.

“Percy!”

He turned to see his cousin Florilyn rushing toward him from a waiting buggy across the street. She flew squealing to him, nearly knocking him over by her embrace.

“My, oh my!” laughed Percy, hugging her tight. He took a step back, placed his hands on her two shoulders, and looked her over from a considerably higher vantage point than before. “That is the most affectionate greeting I’ve had from anyone in years! Is it really you, my little Florilyn? When did you become a woman? Gosh, you are beautiful!”

Florilyn laughed in delight, though her face reddened with the compliment.

In truth, as Florilyn sat in the buggy with her mother and had seen the southbound coach roll up and stop in front of the inn, a sudden wave of timidity swept through her. What if Percy didn’t remember her?

That was absurd, she told herself—of course he would remember! But what if he was …
different …
aloof … sophisticated? What if he had no use for her now? Courtenay had been
so
changed when he arrived two weeks ago. He hardly spoke to any of them, just sulked around moodily and acted as if he were better than everyone else. Being away at university had changed him. What if it had changed Percy? What if he—horrible thought!—was like Courtenay? She didn’t think she could bear it.

As such reflections swirled through her brain, she saw a great lanky youth step onto the street. For a second or two she wasn’t sure she recognized him. The young man was so tall! He appeared much older than she expected. He looked so dashing in the dark blue suit. Was it really …
him?

Florilyn hesitated.

Then came a slight turn of the head. A breeze caught the corner of the light brown crop of hair in just the right way. It was all the recognition she needed.

Florilyn was out of the buggy bounding toward him the next moment. With the sound of his voice, all uncertainty vanished. He was still Percy!

True, the voice was deeper, more self-assured, no longer the voice of a boy on the threshold of manhood but of a youth well advanced toward it. But it was a voice that had lost none of its humor.

“I almost wasn’t sure it was you,” she said, “until I heard you speak. You’re so tall!”

“What about you?” rejoined Percy. “You’ve put on two or three inches.”

“You must have put on four or six! I think you’re taller than Courtenay now. He will be so jealous.”

“That’s all I need!” Percy laughed.

“And you’re just as funny as ever!”

“I’m still waiting for an answer to my question,” said Percy.

“What question?”

“When did you become so stunningly beautiful?”

Again Florilyn laughed. This time she could not hide her embarrassment. “Maybe at the same time you became such a handsome man,” she replied.

“Touché! A good one—you got me there.” He laughed. “I can see that I had better not pester you about being beautiful, though I must say … you really are! Is that your mother with you?” he asked, glancing across the street.

“Yes, it’s her.”

Percy ran across and poked his head inside the covered buggy. “Aunt Katherine!” he said, leaning in and giving her a warm hug. “It is wonderful to see you again. You look well.”

“And you, Percy,” said his aunt. “Welcome again to Wales! Roderick would have come as well but got tied up with something or another. He will be so pleased to see you. He has been talking about your coming every day.”

Inwardly Percy hoped his uncle wasn’t doing so around Courtenay. “Just let me get my bags,” he added and ran back to the coach.

Five minutes later they were bouncing out of town, Florilyn at the reins, Percy seated between her and her mother.

“I can’t believe I am really here again!” said Percy. “Everything looks the same. I can’t wait to explore everywhere—go riding and walk the beach … everything!”

Katherine laughed at his enthusiasm. “Are you sure three weeks will be enough?”

“No, it won’t! Unfortunately, it’s all I’ve got. The opportunity to tutor two young boys for the summer came up in Aberdeen. The pay was too good to turn down.”

“Then we will go riding every day,” said Florilyn.

“That sounds good to me.”

“You will be interested in Roderick’s latest project,” said Katherine. “He is building new stables.”

“
He
is building them?” asked Percy in surprise.

“He is having them built, I should say. He designed the structure and is supervising the construction.”

“What is the purpose? Have you added more horses?”

“Daddy’s going to raise race horses,” said Florilyn enthusiastically.

“Really!”

“That is his dream,” said Katherine. Her voice betrayed skepticism. She had been through too many of her husband’s schemes to have much optimism concerning this latest one … especially as her husband’s schemes could not budge an inch beyond the dream stage without
her
money. She was already beginning to regret allowing herself to be talked into funding the stables project. She would certainly think twice about letting him use any of her money to buy expensive thoroughbreds from Spain or Arabia. Let him find investors to go in on it with him. She had no desire to see her money go down a rat hole.

They rattled onto the cobblestones of the grounds and toward the great mansion. Behind the barns and stables, Percy immediately saw and heard banging and hammering from the work in progress. They had no sooner come to a stop than he was running off toward the scene.

“Percy, my boy!” boomed his uncle as he saw him running up. “You’ve become a big strapping fellow since I saw you!”

“Hello, Uncle Roderick!” said Percy as the two shook hands warmly. “Wow, this is some project you’ve undertaken.”

“I plan to make them the finest stables in Wales,” rejoined his uncle boisterously, “with horses capable of competing for the largest purses in Britain. Right now, as you can see, we’re in the process of hoisting up the roof timbers.”

“Do you need some help? I’ll get into a different set of clothes and you’ll have another set of arms.” He hurried off.

His uncle watched him go with a fond yet wistful expression. Courtenay had shown not the slightest interest in the project, nor since his return even once offered to help. Percy hadn’t been here two minutes and was already eager to pitch in with the laborers.

That evening the talk around the dinner table was more animated and spontaneous than the festive board at Westbrooke Manor had been in a very long time. That fact was due to two related but opposite facts—Percy’s presence and Courtenay’s absence.

“Do you remember when I was here before,” Percy was saying, “on that first night? Florilyn, you were trying to bait your father and me into divulging ourselves closet atheists.”

“I was not!” laughed Florilyn.

“You were, too,” rejoined Percy. “You were chiding your father for not paying attention in church and trying to get me to say I didn’t believe in heaven and hell. You were terrible! Aunt Katherine, you were having a fit.”

By now Percy had his aunt and uncle and cousin in stitches at his depiction of a meal they all remembered very well.

“By the way,” he went on, “as I recall, that whole conversation was prompted by the discovery of a body on the sand by the harbor. Was the murder ever solved?”

“Actually, no,” replied the viscount. “The curious thing is that there continue to be occasional reports of strangers in the village asking about the man, unsavory characters by the sound of it, though I’ve never had occasion to be present at such times.”

“Why don’t you and I disguise ourselves and go down to Mistress Chattan’s for a pint or two?” suggested Percy, looking at his aunt with a twinkle in his eye. “Maybe we could learn something.”

“Goodness, Percy—what an idea!” she said, though she could not help smiling.

But her husband seemed to take the suggestion seriously. “Not a bad idea,” he mused. “Though we would never pull it off. They would be certain to recognize me.”

“We’ll wait two or three weeks, of course,” said Percy, feigning the utmost seriousness. “I didn’t mean immediately. We’ll grow beards and pull caps down to cover half our faces … and wear old grungy clothing, of course.”

The viscount continued to mull the idea over as if seriously considering it. “I shall have to talk to Lorimer about it. He is baffled about the affair as well.”

“Speaking of the magistrate, Florilyn,” said Percy enthusiastically, anxious to get off the subject of an idea he had simply made in jest, “how is my old friend Rhawn Lorimer? Are she and Courtenay engaged yet?”

He was surprised as the atmosphere around the table went suddenly quiet. A few silent looks were exchanged.

“I must have stumbled into some uncharted waters,” laughed Percy nervously.

“She and Courtenay have not exactly been on the best of terms since Courtenay got home,” said Florilyn.

“Oh, yeah … why not?”

“Rhawn has been playing around,” replied Florilyn bluntly.

“Goodness, Florilyn!” exclaimed her mother. “Must you be quite so outspoken?”

“It’s true, Mother. Everyone knows it. When we were in London for the season last year,” she went on, turning once more to Percy, “there were all kinds of stories. After we returned to Wales, the next thing we knew she had taken up with Colville.”

“I thought it was you who had eyes for Burrenchobay,” said Percy.

“Me?”

“You can’t have forgotten the incident at market day where I got pummeled to save your honor.”

“That was Colville’s doing, you know that.”

“And you told me that there was more to it.”

“What’s all this?” interjected the viscount. “Is there something about your row with Colville we haven’t been told, Percy, my boy?”

“Oops, I forgot!” said Percy. “Sorry, Florilyn, old girl. It just slipped out.”

“That’s all right. Percy got into a fight with Colville that day, Daddy,” she said, turning toward her father. “Colville tried to kiss me. I slapped him. And Percy came to my rescue. I later told Percy it was my fault, which it was.”

“So you and Burrenchobay are no longer seeing each other?” said Percy.

“Good heavens, no. He and I parted brass rags ages ago, even before he began showing Rhawn his attention. Or, I should say, she began showing him hers.”

“Ah … at last Courtenay’s situation clarifies.” Percy nodded significantly. “A little rivalry between friends! When the cat’s away, eh? But I thought Burrenchobay was at university, too.”

“He took a year off,” said Florilyn. “He has been around for the past year, and Courtenay’s been at Oxford. But …,” she added, then paused and gave Percy a wicked look of fun, “Rhawn is very anxious to see you.”

“Oh boy! That’s just great! Maybe I should just shoot myself now and get it over with. But after what you say about her escapades in London, what could she possibly see in a country bumpkin like me?”

“She has never lost her fascination for you. I think part of it is that you were the only boy in the world who didn’t fall all over her.”

Percy laughed briefly. His expression then faded into an odd smile. Quickly he recovered his aplomb. “So what about you, my dear Florilyn?” he said. “You are so beautiful—and I don’t just say that to flatter my favorite cousin—after a glamorous coming out in London, where I’m sure you caught the eye of every eligible young bachelor between twenty and thirty. Surely you must have a stream of suitors lining up at the door outside to ask your father for your hand.”

Florilyn threw her head back and laughed with abandon. “Percy, you
are
too funny!”

“I would wager ten gold sovereigns that you have had at least two marriage proposals since I saw you last. What about it, Uncle Roderick?” he added to his uncle.

“You will not find me taking your bet, Percy, my boy!” rejoined the viscount. “In truth, she has had three.”

“Three!
There—I knew it. Young men from all over England and Wales are no doubt asking one another even as we speak for directions to Westbrooke Manor in Snowdonia.”

“And I will tell Papa to tell them the same thing he told the others,” said Florilyn. “That is that I am not interested.”

“You don’t want to marry? What … is there something you are keeping from me, Florilyn? Are you considering taking holy orders and joining a convent?”

Florilyn could not help laughing again. “It’s not that,” she replied. “Of course I want to marry. I am just waiting for the right young man.”

An Old Friend

D
inner concluded, Percy rose to excuse himself. “I am sorry not to be better company,” he said. “But suddenly I realize that I am very tired. I suppose the trip—and that work on the stables, eh, Uncle Roderick!—took more of a toll than I realized. I may read for a while and get an early start on a good night’s sleep. Oh, Aunt Katherine,” he added, turning to his aunt, “my father and mother let me bring along their copy of the new MacDonald. I started it on the way down on the train.”

“Which one?” asked his aunt eagerly.

“It’s called
Robert Falconer.”

“Oh, I have it, too. I read it several months ago. I consider it his best so far. What masterful characterizations.”

“I’m just at the part about the kite. What about you?”

“I am reading a new one of his called
A Seaboard Parish
. It’s the sequel to
Annals of a Quiet Neighborhood”

“I didn’t know
Annals
had a sequel!” exclaimed Percy. “My dad
loves
that book. Ministers are alike, I suppose. He says, ‘How could MacDonald know exactly what I am thinking?’ I wonder if he knows there is a sequel.”