Just over two months later, on the late evening of New Year’s Day, 1805, a pony and trap halted by the lodge at the turnpike gate at Nantgarth in the Welsh county of Glamorgan. The main road from Cardiff to Merthyr, some seventeen miles away to the north, passed along the lower slopes of the valley. So filled with ruts, potholes, and rivulets, the road was a grim prospect even in daylight, let alone at night.
It was cold and dark, and the weather was wet and windy. Collieries, iron works, and other industries scarred the otherwise picturesque valley of the River Taff, and the looming mountains were scattered with isolated farms and countless sheep, but the drenching first-of-January murk obliterated everything.
The brightly lit Griffin Inn stood just beyond the gate, its creaking sign depicting the mythical beast, half eagle, half lion, that was the badge of the local landowner, Lord Griffin. There was merriment within, laughter and singing so raucous that it could be heard above the racket of the weather.
Bedraggled curls clung to Ellie’s forehead as she huddled on the trap beside her uncle, John Billersley, whom she had managed to trace through his old friend Toby Richardson, now a successful London barrister. It had been Toby who’d informed him of her mother’s death, and who’d written urgently to John on learning of Ellie’s circumstances. She’d been aware of something odd about her uncle’s whereabouts, for Toby had declined to tell her anything about him until he’d had a response to the letter. Only then, when clearly given permission, had he divulged the address.
As soon as she’d met John Billersley on alighting from the stagecoach in Cardiff, she’d realized he was no longer a wealthy man. She also soon realized that it was no coincidence that he’d left a beautifully decorated ceramic disk on her mother’s grave, for he now depended upon the making of porcelain for his livelihood.
He had always been a talented artist, and Ellie remembered how her parents had teased him about his eccentric hobby of decorating plates. The last few hours had taught her that the uncle of the present did not in the least resemble that uncle of the past. What on earth had happened during the intervening years? She knew it must have been something calamitous.
He had no wife or children, having always been a bachelor, and his china works were, he said, very small, new, and barely productive, but he nevertheless welcomed her into his life, and for that she would be eternally grateful. So she clung unashamedly to his arm, so glad to have him that it was all she could do not to keep crying.
Her hooded traveling cloak was soaked, and she was colder than she ever remembered before. She was weary after three days of winter traveling from the Isle of Wight, and relieved that her new life had begun. Turning to look back along the turnpike, she couldn’t even see the cliff-enclosed pass where the Taff, a fine salmon river, roared south through rocks toward Cardiff and the sea, some eight miles distant.
Lord Griffin’s splendid castle home was perched like an aerie on the east cliff, but she had not seen so much as a single light to betray its presence. All she knew was that it was there, and that Lord Griffin, who had lost his wife fairly recently, was her uncle’s landlord, and famous for his stud of milk white horses. Ellie somehow pictured his lordship as a middle-aged, possibly even elderly, widower who smelled of stables and seldom removed his boots.
John Billersley was tall and thin, with slender, artistic fingers, but his sad, rather kindly face put his niece oddly in mind of a benevolent Great Dane dog. He wore his graying hair long enough to be tied back with a stiff navy blue ribbon, although at the moment his dripping hat was tugged down so low that not a lock could be seen.
Like her, he was muffled in overclothes to stave off the worst of the weather, and also like her, he was signally cold and desirous of reaching the warmth of his hearth. He therefore impatiently eyed the gatekeeper’s door.
“Oh, come on, Huw Jenkin, come on!” he breathed.
A hand lantern shone suddenly in the doorway of the lodge, and a man emerged, accompanied by a black-and-white collie. The gatekeeper was slight and dark, and by the unsteady light of the lantern Ellie saw that he had the delicately formed features of the Welsh. He was swathed in a heavy cloak and had an ancient blunderbuss over his arm, for he took no chances with possible robbers.
“Hurry up, man!” John grumbled.
“Nos da, Mr. Bailey,” Huw called back, relaxing as he realized who the travelers were. He nodded at Ellie and spoke to her as well, but as he used only Welsh she did not understand him. However, she did understand that he had addressed John Billersley as Mr. Bailey without being corrected.
“What did he say to me, Uncle?” she asked, holding the hood of her cloak as a vagrant gust of wind threatened to sweep it back from her head.
“He just welcomed you to Nantgarth, my dear.”
“He knows about me?”
“Everyone hereabouts knows my niece is coming to live with me.”
“Why did he call you Mr. Bailey?”
Her uncle hesitated. “All in good time, my dear, all in good time.”
Huw addressed John Billersley again and, laughing, pointed toward the inn.
“What’s he saying now?” Ellie asked, frustrated at not being able to understand.
“He’s reminding me that the Mari Llwyd goes around the area tonight, and that it is at the inn right now.”
“The Marie what?”
“The Mari Llwyd, the Gray Mare,” her uncle explained as Huw struggled to open the gate, which seemed to have jammed somehow. “It’s a sort of pagan hobbyhorse and is accompanied by a noisy company of mummers and dancers. The ancient custom is for it to visit local houses on this day to mark the passing of the darkest of winter.”
“Someone should have reminded Mother Nature,” Ellie murmured, for this had surely been the darkest day since the Creation.
Her uncle laughed. “Maybe this is her way of showing grave disapproval for such an irreligious custom. Anyway, Huw merely warned me that the procession is about to leave the Griffin, so I must either drive on quickly, or be prepared to endure the Gray Mare’s attentions.”
At last Huw succeeded in opening the gate, but as Ellie’s uncle prepared to flick the reins to move the tired pony on, the door of the inn burst open, and a riotous crowd erupted into the dismal night. Torches fluttered and smoked as white-sheeted mummers, one beating a steady rhythm on a drum, capered around a man, also in white, who carried a horse’s skull that was fixed to a pole and decorated with colored ribbons.
Adults of both sexes followed, their faces blackened, holly and ivy in their hats, and ribbons pinned to their clothes. Children dressed in animal costumes—bears, foxes, squirrels, and rabbits—ran shrieking and laughing into the rainswept darkness, and suddenly the deserted turnpike was swarming with people. Atrocious weather or not, everyone for miles around seemed to have come to join in festivities that turned time backward by hundreds of years.
Ellie shrank against her uncle as the weird procession passed by, but then became aware of one figure limping behind the others and then standing motionless near the inn. It was a youthful man, or so she thought from his lean and rangy build, and he was dressed as a spotted dog, black on white. At least ... Her eyes blinked, and in that split second he’d gone. No one with such a limp could have run off that quickly, or even slipped back into the inn! A little unnerved, she clung still closer to her uncle.
As soon as the trap was free again, John urged the pony forward. The sounds of merrymaking were soon lost in the noise of the night, and at a signpost that indicated the way to Castle Griffin, the trap turned to the right into a little upward-sloping side valley. At first the way was flanked by the cottages of Nantgarth, which was little more than a hamlet that had sprung up at the conjunction of the two valleys. There was a small school, attended by children from miles around, and a shop that provided essentials, including a twice-weekly wagon service to and from Cardiff.
The rain suddenly stopped as the last cottage was passed, but the wind continued to bluster and moan. A hundred yards farther on, at the edge of a dense mixed woodland, was a humpbacked stone bridge over the new Glamorgan Canal, the cutting of which had been demanded by local industry because the Taff was too dangerous and the roads too often impassable.
On the far side of the waterway, hidden among tall evergreens, was the small china works upon which her uncle, once so well-off, now depended for his existence. The silhouettes of two bottle-necked kilns rose against the background of woodland, and as the trap crossed the bridge, Ellie saw a cobbled way leading down a little wharf, where a barge was visible in the swinging light of a lantern on the corner of an outbuilding.
There were other lights too, those of Nantgarth House, John Billersley’s modest double-fronted dwelling attached to the china works. Ellie would soon learn that the road continued past the house to a fork about a quarter of a mile farther on. One branch crossed the valley and ascended the opposite side to Castle Griffin; the other was little more than a bridle way that led up to the inconveniently isolated parish church, high on the bleak mountainside a mile or more from its nearest parishioners.
The trap drew to a halt by Nantgarth House’s garden gate, and Ellie saw her new home for the first time. Whitewashed and neat, it faced south toward the road, along a clinker path that was flanked by tiny square lawns and bare flower beds. In daylight it would obviously have splendid views across the valley, but right now everything was so dark it was impossible to see anything. And all the time the wind howled through the nearby trees like the wild hunt itself, arousing images of the Mari Llwyd, and the young man dressed as a spotted dog.
“Here we are, my dear,” her uncle said as he alighted to make the reins fast to a holly tree overhanging the garden wall. The gusting air rustled through the wet leaves, making them glint in the darkness, and now and then Ellie caught the exhilarating smell of the surrounding mountains, a mixture of springy turf, heather, and sheep.
The wind was a living entity, whispering to her through the eaves of the house and among the swaying branches of the trees, and filling her with the certainty that at last she was close to her proper place in the scheme of things. Somehow she had never truly belonged at Rutherford Park; however, she belonged here, maybe not at Nantgarth House itself, but certainly among these mountains.
The door of the house opened, and a plump middle-aged woman in a dark blue gown, floppy mobcap, and crocheted shawl looked out anxiously. Ellie guessed she must be the housekeeper, Mrs. Lewis. The guess was confirmed a moment later when Ellie’s uncle raised a reassuring hand.
“We’re here safe and sound, Mrs. Lewis. I hope you’ve already suffered a visit from the Mari Llwyd?”
“Oh, yes, sir. Some hours ago.”
The woman’s lilting English came as a huge relief to Ellie, who’d heard little but Welsh since leaving England behind.
“Thank heavens for that,” John replied. “Did you keep your promise to be about making dowset and cacen gri to welcome my niece?”
“Of course, Mr. Bailey. You didn’t think I’d forget, did you?”
“I’ve never known it yet, but I’m so damned cold and hungry tonight that if you’d let me down, I think I’d eat you instead!”
Mrs. Lewis threw up her hands and laughed. “I’d be too tough by far for your soft English teeth,” she replied, then disappeared into the house, calling in Welsh for her son, Gwilym.
Ellie shivered as her uncle assisted her down from the trap. “What’s dowset and cacen gri, Uncle?” she asked.
“Bacon pie and sweet griddle cake, my dear,” he answered, “and very nourishing and tasty both are too.” He paused. “I know what you’re thinking.”
“You do?”
“Yes, my dear. That such fare is a world away from the grand dishes I enjoyed in times gone by.”
She smiled. “Actually, I was about to express surprise that I am not to eat toasted cheese every day from now on, as I have been given to understand that the Welsh eat nothing else.”
“A rare bit of toasted cheese is a favorite, I grant you, but don’t believe for a moment that the Welsh have nothing else, for I vow you’ll eat better from now on than you ever did before. Good, healthy food—none of your fancy French twiddles.”
He’d spoken amusingly, but then became more serious and spoke of something rather different. “Eleanor, are you quite, quite certain no one at Rutherford Park knows you have come here?”
“Absolutely certain, Uncle. I was very careful to observe your wishes. When I left the Isle of Wight, there wasn’t a soul alive who knew I was coming here. Except you, of course.”
He drew her gloved fingers to his lips. “And now that you are here, you are to forget the name Billersley, do you understand? To everyone here, including Lord Griffin himself, I am John Bailey.” He spoke quietly and urgently, and was obviously very anxious for her cooperation.
“I ... yes, of course, Uncle.”
Seeing her anxiety, he squeezed her gloved fingers. “I will explain directly, my dear, when we are in the dry and can talk in comfort.” He was about to usher her along the path when something on the mountainside behind her caught his attention.
Ellie turned and looked in the same direction, but saw nothing. “What is it, Uncle? What have you seen?”
“I thought I saw a lantern, but probably imagined it. Only a madman would be up there on a night like this,” John replied, and ushered her through the gate and along the clinker path.
At last they stepped into the welcome warmth of Nantgarth House’s narrow entrance passage, where a mixture of fire and candlelight flickered from a room on the right. A staircase with a door at the bottom led up from the far end of the passage, and there were other doors into the dining room and kitchens. A longcase clock stood against the wall, just inside the entrance. Ellie noticed it particularly because its face was an unusual diamond shape. The pendulum swung slowly, tick, tock, tick, tock—a sound that somehow seemed to be part of the building.
She threw back her hood at last and took off her wet bonnet, and her hair immediately tumbled in rats’ tails down about her shoulders. Just then, Mrs. Lewis hurried from the kitchens at the back of the house, driving her lanky, redheaded son before her. The youth had a limp. Ellie was immediately riveted to the spot, for she knew, just knew, that she had seen him earlier in the spotted dog costume. Limp or not, he must have run like the wind itself to be here before the trap.
“Attend to the pony, Gwilym,” Mrs. Lewis said to him in English, then saw Ellie and halted as if confronted by a ghost. Her son stared as well, his lips apart on a silent gasp.
Ellie was embarrassed. Was it so shocking here in Wales if a lady’s hair fell from its pins? “Forgive me, I ...” She caught her damp locks and tried to pin them up again, but Mrs. Lewis recovered quickly and hastened to reassure her.
“Oh, it’s not your hair, Miss Rutherford. It’s just that you remind us of someone.”
John was curious. “And who might that be, Mrs. Lewis?”
“Oh, just my cousin, sir. She passed away just over two years ago, immediately before you came to Nantgarth.”
“I’ve never heard you mention her before,” he replied, turning for the housekeeper to take his soaking outdoor clothes. What he wore beneath was plain and unremarkable, a nondescript gray coat and fawn breeches that once would never have found their way into his possession. As for his sturdy, well-worn top boots, well, they were certainly not the work of Hoby’s of St. James’s.
Mrs. Lewis nodded at her son again. “Attend the pony, there’s a good boy.”
“Yes, Mam,” he replied dutifully, then stole another glance at Ellie before turning to take his coat down from the row of hooks on the wall.
“What’s this, Gwilym?” Ellie’s uncle asked. “Time off from the castle stables?”
“Yes, Mr. Bailey.”
John could read between unspoken lines. “Never mind, lad, for it won’t be long before Lord Griffin returns, and then all will be well again.”
“Oh, I hope so, Mr. Bailey, truly I do.”
Before the youth could leave the house, Ellie suddenly spoke. “You must be one of the fastest runners in Nantgarth, Gwilym.”
“Runners, miss?” He turned, his face puzzled, but his eyes saying something else.
“You were down on the turnpike, dressed as a dog, a white dog with black spots.”
Mrs. Lewis laughed. “Oh, dear me, no, Miss Rutherford. Gwilym has been here with me all evening.”
Ellie looked at her, then back at Gwilym. “I’m sorry, I’m clearly mistaken,” she said, knowing full well that she wasn’t. She watched his rather ungainly progress toward the door, which to her astonishment suddenly flew open before him. He went out, and it slammed behind him, again apparently of its own accord, for he had not touched it once.
Then the longcase clock stopped ticking too, and a great shiver ran down Ellie’s back.