Home From The Sea: The Elemental Masters, Book Seven (35 page)

“Let him,” Mari said dismissively, then beamed at all of them and all but clapped her hands with glee. “This gives you another reason to keep visiting me all winter, at least so far as the constable is concerned—if you are my friends, wouldn’t you want to be sure that I am not left too much alone with this man I do not like?”

Nan blinked. “Great Harry’s ghost, you’re right! Good idea, Mari!”

Mari’s eyes sparkled. “This is so much of a better solution than saying he is a sailor who Da knows!”

Sarah nodded. “I’m glad you think so. Nan and I really worked very hard to think of a solution that would make Constable Ewynnog leave you alone.”

Idwal chuckled again. “Well,” he said, “The weather will do that soon enough. I do not think even one so deluded as he is likely to wish to spend his time in cold rain, sleet, and snow, just to watch the cottage.” He turned to Mari. “I will be going out with Daffyd come winter, do not fear. Nothing will happen to him while I am with him, and as long as I—and possibly even some of the others—are about, he will make his catch, and be home and safe quickly. In fact, he may be out after breakfast and back at luncheon.”

Mari bit her lip. “Well, and while I love my da… I am not
altogether
sure I wish to see that much of him…”

That got a laugh even from the birds.

Daffyd Prothero was enthusiastic about this new plan, as was Rhodri. Daffyd, probably because it was going to allow him to use his acting skills, which he always enjoyed, and because he would be tweaking the nose of the constable, who he had come to despise. And Rhodri approved not so much because of the plan itself as the fact it meant Nan would still be coming to the cottage on the shore.
Nan still had mixed feelings about
that
part, although she was getting fonder of Rhodri all the time. Nevertheless, the main thing was to make sure that they created their little plot as tightly as they could, the better to foil the constable.

“So…” Daffyd rubbed his hands together. “The first thing I must do is arrange the reading of the banns.” He counted on his fingers. “We’ve missed the first and second Sunday of September, so two readings of the banns in September, and one in October, and we can be having the wedding the second Sunday of October.” It didn’t seem to concern him that Idwal hadn’t actually
asked
if he could be wed to Mari, but perhaps the main thing on his mind, understandably enough, was the Bargain, and the fact that Mari was willing to take
any
of the Selch before winter came. Then his brow creased with a sudden concern. “Idwal, you
can
cross over a church threshold… ?”

Idwal laughed. “Aye, no fear of that.”

Daffyd relaxed. “Well then! And with these two kind misses, we have our two witnesses, though doubtless that pesky constable will be in attendance.”

“Da, you don’t think he’d object when the banns are read, do you?” Mari asked in sudden alarm.

“He has no grounds,” Sarah reminded her. “And he won’t have time to dig up any. And anyway… well, if we must, we’ll appeal to Lord Alderscroft.”

“That would be chancy,” Daffyd brooded. “Then the blackguard would be all over questioning why his lordship got himself mired in such a little doing. No, if he decides to snoop even further, I think we’ll have to depend on authorities seeing no reason to accommodate one little interfering constable in a tiny town in Wales.”

“Daffyd, you are getting a bit ahead of yourself,” Nan corrected him. “The very first thing that must happen is that Idwal must come openly into Clogwyn and come looking for you.”

Daffyd snapped his fingers in annoyance. “True enough. And just how is that to happen? He can’t walk up from the beach, nor swim in on the tide!”

“Ah now, you just leave that to us,” Sarah said. “You’ll see. We want you to be genuinely surprised. Just make sure you’re in Clogwyn tomorrow afternoon.”

The next afternoon, one of the bigger fishing boats, one with a full crew of four, came sailing into Clogwyn harbor. It put in at the shore, where a rough and surly fellow asked in oddly accented English where he could find Daffyd Prothero. Since Daffyd was selling part of his catch not thirty feet away, there were plenty of people who could point him in the right direction.

Daffyd appeared surprised to see this man, but oddly, also appeared to know him. Daffyd took the stranger into his little coracle—which could hold two, though only just—and they sailed down the coast toward the cottage.

This caused enough of a to-do that several of the locals felt the need to question the sailors before they put out again.

“We’re from Criccieth,” the sailors said, and when offered a drink before they left “to stave off the chill on the water,” they proved to be willing to answer more questions. No, they didn’t know who the fellow was; he’d turned up at the docks, looking for a passage to Clogwyn, and paid well for it. Who had he
said
he was? Oh, well that was different, he said he was kin to Daffyd Prothero, and had business with him. No, he hadn’t said anything else, a close-mouthed fellow he was, but he couldn’t speak a word of Welsh, nothing but that sing-song English, which was nothing like anything
they
had ever heard before.

And there was Constable Ewynnog, hard-eyed, frowning, taking notes in a little book.

There wasn’t much more that the fishermen could add, and so they sailed out of the harbor leaving behind them mostly questions and a severely vexed constable.

Some of those got answered the next day, when the both of them, Daffyd and the stranger together, turned up at the minister’s house. And when they left, it wasn’t a minute before Fflur Morris, the minister’s wife, came
flying
out of the house and down to the post office and store to spread the gossip.

“Oh, such a to-do!” she said, quite out of breath, as every woman that was at the store and every woman that had seen her run there gathered about her. “Can you believe it! The banns are to be posted for Mari Prothero and that stranger!”

The babble of “What?” and “Why!” filled the store until Fflur got them all to hush so she could speak.

“Now, this is all that I know, but Daffyd was going on about how Mari
would
be there and she
would
be wed or she’d be the worse for it! The stranger—his name is Idwal Drever, have you ever heard the like!—is from Stromness in the Orkney Isles. He’s Daffyd’s cousin, and he’s to have the cottage when Daffyd dies. Mari won’t get it, and that’s a shame and a disgrace, to turn the poor girl out of her own home!”

There was a great deal of agreeing with that very thing, that it was a hard thing for a girl to be sent out and some stranger no one knew to get what she should inherit. When all that died away, Fflur went on.

“Now Daffyd wrote to this fellow, it seems, and offered to wed Mari to him, so that he’d have a civilized wife and not some wild thing, and Mari would still be able to stay in her own home. And the fellow agreed. And so he’s here to wed Mari!”

“And what’s Mari to think of this, then?” someone asked.

“From the bit that Daffyd said, and his grumbling about serpent’s teeth, I do think she’s none too pleased,” Fflur declared.

So excited were all the women that they never even noticed that once again the constable was at the back of the crowd, his frown deepening, still taking notes.

And so roused was the village by this unexpected excitement that no one paid any mind when he pedaled off on his new bicycle, heading towards Criccieth.

I
T
was the first Sunday in October, and a sullen Mari Prothero stood beside her father and the stranger as the banns were read in church for the last time. It was a small, plain, stone building, with a small, plain altar covered only with a white cloth, a pair of candles, and the Bible. This was only proper for a Methodist chapel. Sunlight streamed in the small windows, but Mari’s face looked like a storm about to break.

Constable Ewynnog sat at the back of the church, looking as sour as Mari. It was easy enough for the entire congregation to know why he was here—him, who never set foot in the chapel before, choosing to bicycle all the way to Criccieth to go to the squire’s church of a Sunday. He was not a member of this congregation, although no one would have been so unchristian as to turn him out—for there was always the chance that he would see the light. But everyone knew he was not there to worship; he was there to watch with suspicion and disapproval.

And it was common knowledge he’d done all he could to find
out something about this Idwal fellow, preferably something
bad
, and had got nothing for his pains. He’d sent letters and even three telegrams from Criccieth, and got nothing back in return. He’d tried to find people inland who recognized Idwal—preferably as one of the agitating miners. He’d done everything short of journeying up to Stromness himself, and most people assumed he’d tried to get leave to do so but had been turned down by his superiors.

Not that public sentiment was all that much in Idwal’s favor, for Idwal had remained silent and frowning every time he had gone into the village, waiting for Daffyd to do most of the talking. Most of the village was just glad that the wretched constable had found something to occupy him besides
them
, was sorry for Mari, and wondered if perhaps for once they ought to wish Constable Ewynnog luck, so that that ill-tempered stranger could get hauled away, leaving Mari to go back to her own life again.

But no one in the village was going to interfere. Quite honestly, with sharp eyes on their own daughters, every father in the village felt it was important that they be seen to favor Daffyd in this business. It was a father’s right to tell his daughter what she would do with her life, up until the moment she got a husband. Then that right went to the husband. And with both father
and
husband-to-be hauling her to the altar, well, it was her Christian duty to go there and be content with it. Their own daughters could look on this and be properly grateful that
their
das were likely to approve their choice of a lad. Mari was serving as an example of what
could
happen if a father really exercised his rights. Too bad for Mari, but likely she’d soon resign herself and grow content. At least she wasn’t going to be turned out of her own house now if Daffyd came to a bad end on the sea, and for that she ought to be properly grateful.

And for the third Sunday in a row, when the service was over, the surly man seized Mari’s hand, led her out of the church without a word of farewell to anyone, and hauled her back towards the seaside and the cottage, and no one raised his voice to object. Daffyd lagged behind, so that they were well out of sight by the time he had left the chapel grounds.

Of course, they all would have been astonished if they could have heard what Mari was saying. They’d have been even more astonished to hear the laughter in her voice.

“Oh come on, you lazy dog-seal! Can’t you pull me along any faster than
that?
No one is going to believe such a lackadaisical performance!” Mari shook her head and pretended to dig her heels in. Idwal gave a playful tug on her wrist.