Chapter 11 Picture Perfect
Picture Perfect
I’d braced myself to treat Rhys in a friendly but totally casual manner, but I needn’t have bothered because he wasn’t there at breakfast, and nor was Cariad, although everyone else but Timon was. Apparently Timon usually breakfasted early and then went down to the pottery.
A lavish buffet-style breakfast was laid out on the side table, along with tea and coffee.
There was also a pot of porridge on a hot plate.
I noticed that the twins, who had stated clearly that they were vegans, ignoring the tub of plant-based spread and other such options, were helping themselves to butter and cheese! Perhaps dairy didn’t count.
Today they were dressed in identical short Lincoln-green tunics and tights, with long boots, and looked like emaciated extras from a Robin Hood film.
I sat down in an empty chair next to Nerys and opposite Verity, who gave me a smile and said good morning, adding: ‘This seems to be the artists’ end of the table.’
‘Ginny’s a writer and illustrator, so has a foot in both camps,’ Nerys pointed out. ‘You could say we represent three branches of the arts: myself, fine art; you, Verity, commercial art; and Ginny, graphic art. And, of course, the twins should be included with their performance art.’
The twins, further up the table, didn’t hear this. I thought perhaps they weren’t early morning people, since they were only talking to each other, in a desultory way.
Verity, looking hurt, said, ‘Just because my work sells very well, Nerys, you can hardly call it commercial!’
‘Of course – that’s what I meant: a commercial success,’ Nerys assured her.
At the other end of the table, Kate was already wolfing down toast spread an inch thick with butter and marmalade, an empty cereal bowl in front of her, while Evie, gesturing with her toast and Marmite, was talking quietly to Toby.
My mother enjoys the company of men, she just doesn’t want one around all the time.
Toby seemed perfectly happy to talk to her and I remembered he’d mentioned at dinner, in response to something Verity had said to him, that he’d lived with his invalid mother until her recent death and so perhaps felt relaxed in the company of older women, even one as unmaternal as Evie!
And she could be very interesting on any subject.
I suspected she was drawing him out about his work.
When we had all finished – even Kate, who had given herself a total carbohydrate overload by going back to the buffet for a croissant – Nerys said, ‘We’re a small party this morning, with Timon already down at the pottery.
He will welcome anyone who wants to see over it at eleven this morning.
And Rhys has taken Cariad to Castle Newydd, because her friend Mel’s mother, Emma Prynne, who runs a riding school, is taking the girls with her to collect a new pony.
They’ve set out early so will be back in plenty of time for dinner and then the ceremony tonight. ’
‘I’m really looking forward to the Winter Solstice celebration,’ I said. ‘I’ve never really heard of anything like it before, except at Stonehenge, of course.’
‘Not a lot happens really,’ Verity said. ‘I mean, everyone just follows a group of people in weird costumes up the hill and gathers around a bonfire.’
‘Well, you needn’t go,’ pointed out Nerys, slightly tartly.
‘And it has meaning for us. I think we take it a bit for granted here, however, since it has always gone on, even during the wars, but without the bonfire, of course. It’s mostly only local people who come, apart from a handful of modern Druids.
It’s not some spectacular mystery play or anything like that, which would attract crowds of outsiders, thank goodness. ’
‘It’s obviously a privilege to join in and I wouldn’t miss it for the world,’ said Evie. She smiled blandly at Kate. ‘What about you, Kate? Will you join in?’
‘It looks a very steep climb,’ said Kate dubiously.
‘The path zigzags a lot, so it isn’t as bad as it looks,’ Nerys assured her. ‘Now, if you’ve all finished, who would like the tour of the moated grange?’
It seemed everyone did, even Verity, who had visited the house several times before, and Kate Komodo.
She said she would skip the pottery tour after it and get on with her edits, especially as last night’s talk had sparked the germ of an idea for a new book in her head and she wanted to get that down before it vanished. ‘Death at the Masque,’ she murmured.
‘Tonight’s event isn’t a masque, although I suppose the mumming or guising – from the word “disguise” – share elements in common,’ said Nerys.
‘I hope to discuss my ideas with Rhys when he returns,’ said Kate.
‘I’m afraid you will have to postpone that. He intends crashing out in his room for a few hours to catch up with his jet lag.’
Opal, the dominant twin, said they had also been inspired by last night’s talk and they would take the house tour, but intended skipping the pottery in order to explore the path the procession would take up the slope behind the house, looking for suitable locations for their artwork.
To my surprise, Pearl contradicted her sister, a mulish expression on her pale, pointed face. ‘But I told you, Opal, I want to see over the pottery. I’m very interested in ceramics,’ she explained to the rest of us.
‘This one only makes commercial ceramics. There’s nothing interesting about that,’ Opal said.
‘Actually, Timon is a very fine ceramic artist and has a studio there, where he produces original work,’ said Nerys, mildly.
‘There!’ said Pearl, clearly prepared to dig her heels in. I could see she was only in thrall to her stronger twin to a certain extent and then would quietly and stubbornly resist, rather like my method of dealing with Evie’s steamrollering tactics.
Opal gave her a look like a basilisk, but joined the rest of us gathering around Nerys as she launched into what was clearly her usual talk.
‘Right, everyone, since we are in what was formerly called the ballroom, we’ll begin here.
The central part of the house is very old, with various wings and rooms built on over the years, including this one in early Victorian times.
It’s big enough for several couples to dance in, but now makes a great dining and recreational area, especially useful when we have a house full of visitors.
We confine our Christmas retreat guests to six – stretched to seven this year, because of the twins – but we can accommodate sixteen, in single rooms, of course, because everyone has come here to work and, as Virginia Woolf said, you need a room of your own for that. ’
She led the way into the hall. ‘The kitchen, with the back stairs and a side door to the shrubbery via a small garden hall, are down there and also a door to the private family rooms on that side …
‘I’m afraid it is a bit of a rabbit warren,’ she apologised as we followed her down another passage that ended in a large artist’s studio, well lit and with that lovely familiar smell of oil paint, linseed oil and turpentine.
‘Originally built by my great-grandfather, the artist Cosmo Caradoc. He was very well known in his time, but has rather fallen out of favour since. Artists visiting Triskelion are very welcome to use the studio.’
There was a huge vase of flowers on a table against a swathe of bright brocade, into which the colours of the flowers seemed to melt, and a painting on an easel before them, a swirl of bold strokes, a semi-abstract depiction that was quite exciting.
Evie appeared to agree. Moving in front of it she murmured, ‘Brilliant!’
‘That flower arrangement would make a perfect watercolour,’ said Verity.
‘You are welcome to paint them, but you will have to be speedy because they are beginning to droop – they’re hothouse flowers from Castle Newydd.
I mean to complete my picture later, after the tour,’ said Nerys.
‘But then, you can always drive over to Castle Newydd and buy more, can’t you?
These were a gift, but they sell them there in the garden centre. ’
‘At a price, I expect,’ said Verity. ‘I rather specialize in floral paintings,’ she explained to the rest of us.
‘I expect you can find something cheaper there, like a pot of hyacinths or something,’ suggested Nerys. ‘Come along, everyone, back to the Grand Tour!’
Returning to the hall, she gestured to two doors on the kitchen side and told us they were the private family quarters. Then we went into the long living room, which extended right to the large semi-circular bay window at the back of the house, and looked different in daylight.
There was a view of the long sloping lawn, as from my room but without the glimpse of the sea.
The TV room, where Noel had given us the talk last night, was off the other end and then a library.
It was a pleasant room, with old leather chairs and oak shelves, a desk and tables, and a large, antique globe on a stand.
Nerys gestured to the oil painting over the fireplace.
‘This is one of the last paintings my great-grandfather did. It’s of a view near Blaenau Ffestiniog and shows how by this stage his earlier formal style of landscape painting was evolving into a much looser one with a lighter palette.’
Evie was looking at it with great interest. ‘Yes, he certainly did change his style! I’ve been researching him,’ she said. Then her eye fell on a framed sketch of a woman’s head nearby and she exclaimed: ‘Here’s a familiar face. She looks exactly like my mother!’
‘That’s a sketch of a young woman who was briefly Cosmo Caradoc’s ward in 1919,’ said Nerys. ‘It was drawn by my grandfather, Hugh Caradoc-Jones.’
Evie’s image, mirrored in the glass, was superimposed over the girl’s aquiline features almost exactly. I was certainly not the only one to notice, either.
‘But … she looks just like you too!’ exclaimed Opal, before adding thoughtfully, ‘That’s such an interesting concept, the idea of one identical face superimposed over another …’