Chapter 17 Mirror, Mirror
Mirror, Mirror
The rest of the party, except for Timon, who I suppose had already left for the pottery, was already seated at the long table and eating when we went in. All heads turned towards us and I felt my face, already glowing from the warmth of the house after the cold outside, go even pinker.
Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who is the pinkest of them all?
‘We wondered where you’d got to,’ said Verity. ‘I mean, I know you like to go out early in the mornings, Rhys, but we assumed Ginny was having a lie-in after last night’s excitements. Did you take her for an early walk?’
She made me sound like Snookums.
‘It turns out we’re both larks, up and about early,’ said Rhys, easily, ‘so Ginny helped me cut the mistletoe for the house. It’s in a sack in the hall, ready for Tudor.’
‘Tudor’s ace at doing the greenery decoration at Christmas,’ explained Nerys. ‘The swags are mostly artificial ones on a wire net base that you can push fresh greenery into as well, but of course we need bunches of mistletoe hanging up from the ceiling here and there, too.’
‘I’d have come to cut the mistletoe with you too, Daddy, if you’d asked me,’ said Cariad, aggrieved.
‘It would have taken me an hour to get you out of bed,’ he said, ruffling her tangled mop of brown hair as he passed her on his way back to take his seat, porridge in hand. ‘Last time you told me to go away, then just turned over and went back to sleep.’
‘Well, I expect I was much younger then,’ she said with dignity.
‘Yes, it must have been all of a year ago!’
‘It’s odd how during every retreat I’ve been to here, at least one or two guests seem to discover they enjoy early morning walks, isn’t it?’ Verity said. ‘It must be something in the air. But so annoying for you, Rhys, when I know you like to be alone at that hour.’
‘That entirely depends on the company,’ he said pleasantly.
‘I am not an early riser,’ stated Kate, lavishly buttering a roll and then reaching for the honey jar. ‘This is early for me. But then, I often work into the night.’
‘Then you must be an owl,’ said Evie.
‘Is she?’ Cariad said, looking at Kate with more interest. ‘What kind? Hoot, screech or barn?’
‘It is just a figure of speech,’ Kate said stiffly.
‘I can work any time,’ Evie announced. ‘And anywhere.’
‘I think I’m a lark,’ said Toby, ‘in that I like to sit and write in the mornings, but then, I often wander around in the afternoons, seeking inspiration.’
‘If you wander in our direction later today, then you can hold the camera for us while we perform on the hill where we were last night,’ suggested Opal. ‘The ceremony gave us some ideas and it would be good to do some preliminary poses in the trees and around the tomb.’
Then she added, in an annoyed voice, ‘If only we’d known about the masks before we came, we could have brought some with us, because the concept of hiding our faces, or half of our faces, in mirroring poses would be very powerful.’
‘I don’t know that it would,’ said Pearl, unexpectedly speaking up, to her sister’s evident astonishment. ‘I mean, we came here to try and think up fresh directions for our work, but that would be just the same old thing, only hiding part or all of our faces …’ She tailed off uncertainly.
Cariad had been wrong about who the other Gorgons were, for Opal now cast her twin a look that should have turned her to stone.
‘It’s entirely different,’ she snapped. ‘I ordered some masks from the minute I got to my room last night, but I doubt if they’ll get here before Christmas.’
‘If you like, I’ll see if I can find anything like that while I’m out today,’ promised Nerys generously. ‘I’m taking Cariad and her friend out shopping and there’s a good art shop with lots of craft materials in town. You could give me a little list of anything you want me to look for.’
Opal thanked her and began to jot down a list on a bit of paper Toby had torn out of a pocket notebook for her.
‘Cariad and I won’t be here for lunch, but will see you later. What are the rest of you going to do?’ Nerys asked.
‘Work,’ said Toby. ‘I woke in the night thinking about my novel and I can see the way forward a little now.’
‘That’s often the way,’ said Rhys. ‘A short break and doing something different seems to give your ideas a chance to reshape themselves even though you don’t realize they’re doing it.’
‘What about you, Ginny?’ asked Toby.
‘I think I mentioned I was going to turn all the sketchbooks and other material I compiled during my ten years at my cottage in Bedfordshire into a series of non-fiction books. I want to plan them out a bit more. There will be one for each year. I’ve brought all the material with me, so I’ll make a start by spreading it all out and deciding what’s going in and what to leave out. ’
‘It sounds as if you might need some extra workspace, like Evie did,’ Rhys said. ‘I’ll find you a small trestle table after breakfast and take it up to your room.’
‘That would be great, if it isn’t a bother. If I spread it all out on the floor I’d have to keep putting it away, I suppose.’
‘It’s no problem.’ He smiled at me. ‘I’ll drop it off on the way to my room. I need to do some work this morning too. I’ve got a late January deadline for a poetry anthology.’
‘My work is going to take me out for most of the day, I think,’ said Evie.
‘Noel’s leaving his assistant in charge of the bookshop and taking me into St Melangell to meet his friend who runs the local history museum, where I hope to find out more about the artistic colony there, especially between the wars.
I’m treating them both to lunch at the local pub, as a reward afterwards. ’
‘I’m going into St Melangell too, although after lunch,’ I told her. ‘But I’ll walk by the cliff path. I need to do a bit of shopping.’
‘And if there’s a hairdresser, get your hair cut,’ she suggested.
‘You’re not going to have it cut short, are you?’ said Rhys involuntarily, then flushed slightly. ‘I mean, it’s your hair, but I was just thinking that when the light’s on it, it looks like a waterfall of molten caramel.’
‘Very poetic!’ said Nerys, sounding amused, and he grinned.
‘Yes, anyone would think I was a writer!’
I felt myself go faintly pink again and said, ‘No, not short. I’ve got used to it long. It’s just I’ve been trimming the ends myself and Evie thinks it looks like a rat’s been nibbling it.’
‘If that’s all it needs, I’ll ask Bronwen to cut it for you after breakfast,’ Nerys said. ‘She does mine. It’s hardly worth going to a hairdresser when you have long straight hair.’
‘No problem,’ said Tudor, who had come in with more fresh warm rolls topped with poppy seeds, which he put on the table. ‘I’ll tell her. Come into the kitchen when you’ve finished, Ginny.’
‘I too have been inspired by last night’s events, my interest in the theme of masques and mumming having first been stirred by Noel’s talk,’ said Kate, ignoring these mundane arrangements.
‘I must continue to expand my outline for a new novel, Death at the Masque, while it is all fresh in my mind, before I can carry on with my edits.’
She looked hopefully at Rhys. ‘It would be so useful to discuss them with you, Rhys, when you are free. Perhaps this afternoon?’
‘I’ll see,’ he said evasively. ‘I’ll have to return all the costumes to the vicarage later, where they are stored. It’s a huge old building, so they have plenty of room for them.’
We’d all finished long before Verity had stopped her mouse-like nibbling on a slice of toast and I helped Tudor clear the table around her.
In the kitchen Bronwen whipped out a large pair of scissors and sat me down on a chair, newspaper spread below, and swiftly chopped the end of my hair off, watched with mild interest by Snookums and Pompey.
‘There, just an inch or so off and it’s straight across now,’ she said, brushing bits off my shoulders. When I thanked her she said it was nothing; she did it all the time for Nerys, who hated going to the hairdresser.
Then she gave me her wassail cake recipe on the strict understanding I would never share it, and I promised to write down my Christmas cake one and give it to her later that day.
*
When I got to my room I found a small trestle table had already been set up at right angles to the desk. And sitting on it, in a tiny, white porcelain jar, was a sprig of mistletoe …
Was there any significance in that, I wondered, or was it just a friendly gesture? I hoped the latter, for although I was glad we were on a friendly footing, I wasn’t about to make a fool of myself over Rhys Tarn ever again.
After my experiences with Will, I’m certain nature meant me to be a single woman … with cats.
*
I was lost in the world of Wisteria Cottage until jerked back by the distant banging of the lunch gong.
I met Toby on the stairs and he said he’d been so immersed in his work, he’d no idea where the time had gone.
‘Me, too, although my project is more of a nostalgia trip,’ I said, noting that Tudor had already added sprigs of mistletoe to the decorations and a large bunch now swung from a hook in the ceiling just inside the front door.
As we reached the hall, Verity appeared from the long passage that led to the studio and said brightly, ‘Have you two been getting better acquainted?’
‘No, we’ve been working and just met on the stairs,’ I said. ‘Isn’t work what we’re all here for?’
‘Oh, yes, but it’s so easy to get distracted, isn’t it, especially at this time of year, with so much going on?
’ Then she added, as we headed for the refectory, ‘I’ve put the final touches to my flower painting, so now I need a fresh subject.
Cats are so popular – perhaps I could persuade Pompey to pose for me, although he only seems to come into the studio when Nerys is there. ’
‘I don’t think he’s the sort of cat who’ll take artistic direction,’ I said, amused. ‘But perhaps Nerys could get him in a pose you like long enough for you to take some pictures?’
‘It’s an idea, but I need to get some foliage or flowers for the background,’ she agreed.
‘Perhaps you should go and check out this garden centre at the Castle that Nerys mentioned?’ Toby suggested.
‘I think I might have to,’ Verity said. Then, as we went into the refectory, she called out, ‘Hi, everyone! Have you all had a good morning’s work?’
Kate, predictably, was already eating and the twins were helping themselves to hot soup from the buffet.
Kate looked up. ‘Yes. I’m now into an expanded outline for my new idea. But we seem to be a depleted party: there are only six places laid for lunch.’
She sounded disgruntled. Perhaps she was hoping to corner Rhys again.
‘Well, Evie, Nerys and Cariad said at breakfast they would be out, and we know Timon usually lunches at the pottery,’ I said.
I’d no idea where Rhys was – perhaps working on? But this was his home, after all, so he could go and fix himself a sandwich any time he wanted.
Opal and Pearl looked rather pale and pinched, which was probably caused by their having been out scouting for good film locations this morning in the freezing cold.
We were all very quiet over lunch, presumably lost in our own creative inner processes, but if Toby had hoped to escape back to his book after lunch, he was thwarted by Opal commandeering his services to go out with the Terrible Two and take some preliminary pictures of them posing.
Or Terrible One, perhaps, for Pearl, looking better for hot coffee and soup, protested that she was sure Toby had his own work to do, and anyway, she was still half frozen from the morning.
But Opal said briskly that it would only be for about an hour before the light began to go, and surely he could spare that?
Poor old Toby gave in and they went out together, soon followed by Kate, who was carrying a roll and cheese in a napkin in case, I suppose, her muse got hungry before teatime.
Verity was still nibbling a small bread roll as I poured myself a second cup of coffee.
‘I’m walking into St Melangell shortly to do a bit of shopping,’ I said. ‘I think I need the exercise anyway.’
‘Oh, are you meeting Rhys there, perhaps?’ she said.
‘No, why should I be?’ I replied, surprised. ‘I’ve no idea what he’s doing today, other than taking the mumming costumes back to the vicarage at some point. He’s probably going to work till then.’
‘I just thought …’ She hesitated and then laid a hand over mine on the table.
‘I hope you won’t mind my dropping a word of warning into your ear, Ginny, but Rhys, I’m afraid, is a bit of a womanizer.
And he’s so very attractive, there are always one or two women in every house party who fall for him! ’
I stared at her. ‘Really? Well, it’s kind of you to warn me, but there’s absolutely no need. I’ve just come out of one relationship and I’m not looking for another – brief or otherwise!’
‘Oh, I hope I haven’t offended you!’ she said anxiously. ‘I mean, he even made a pass at me once, his wife’s best friend. He can’t help himself. But when someone is so devastatingly attractive, combined with poetic brilliance, like Ted Hughes, we just have to forgive them, don’t we?’
‘No,’ I said tersely. ‘I don’t.’
‘Annie certainly did have a lot to put up with,’ she conceded. ‘And I’m afraid she found out about his making a pass at me, although, of course, I didn’t encourage him in any way.’
I wondered if Rhys really was that kind of man. It was what I’d assumed after that meeting at the publisher’s party, when he’d failed to tell me he was married, or ring me afterwards … but he’d explained the reasons for that well enough yesterday.
‘I can see you won’t lose your heart,’ Verity said.
‘Definitely not! I’m only here to fill up my creative well, do some work, and also enjoy the sort of big family Christmas I’ve never experienced before.’
‘Me too, as well as catching up with Cariad. I’m so fond of her,’ she said, then asked me about myself … and it was only when I got up to get ready to go out that I realized I’d somehow told her a lot more about my relationship with Will than I’d ever intended.