“Yes, sir.” Matthew Harley bowed respectfully and turned to leave.
“Harley,” Sir Hector said. “Well done. I will not forget this. Neither will Lady Stella.”
“It is a pleasure to be of service to you, sir,” Harley said.
Chapter 26
“WELL, Wyvern.” Sir Hector Webb spoke heartily and rubbed his hands together as he paced to the library window at Tegfan and gazed out at lawns and trees. “It seems we are close to the end of this madness of rioting and gate smashing.”
“You think so?” Geraint sat back in the chair behind the desk, his elbows on the wooden arms, his fingers steepled together. “One hopes you are right, Hector.”
“This reporter from The Times,” Sir Hector said. “I daresay he will print the truth and enough soldiers will be sent here at last. The rebellion will be crushed and the ruffian who calls himself Rebecca will be caught and suitably punished.”
“It is an outcome we must hope for,” Geraint said. “But I have heard that Foster has interviewed Rebecca and some of the people. Perhaps he believes what they have said.”
Sir Hector turned his head to look over his shoulder at Geraint. “But who are the people who read the newspapers, Wyvern?” he asked. “And who among their readers would advocate granting rebels what they demand? Pretty soon every commoner in the country would be demanding something and destroying property and harassing law-abiding citizens. There would be anarchy. No, the reporter’s articles will only help our cause, mark my words.”
“It seems likely,” Geraint said, “that a commission of inquiry is about to be sent down here, Hector. Thomas Foster says so, and letters I have received from London confirm it. They will talk to everyone, rich and poor. I suppose it will be for them to decide if the Rebecca Riots are justified or not and if anything should be done to redress the people’s grievances.”
“It sounds,” Sir Hector said, his eyes narrowing, “as if you may still be in sympathy with the rabble, Wyvern.”
Geraint looked directly back at him, eyebrows raised. “I am merely saying,” he said, “that if and when the commissioners arrive, the matter will be out of our hands, Hector. And out of Rebecca’s too. The issues will be judged by impartial observers—we must hope. We must hope too that some just settlement will be made. We do not, after all, wish to oppress the people who are to a certain extent in our care, do we? Just as we do not want to be terrorized by a mob. Though they have behaved with remarkable restraint so far.”
Sir Hector was watching him with pursed lips. “Well,” he said, “you have always spelled trouble for my wife’s family, Wyvern. I don’t know why I would expect anything to change now. I shall take myself off to have a talk with Harley. About sheep. I assume he is still in charge of the business of your farms?”
Geraint inclined his head and watched his uncle stride from the room. Perhaps he had been unwise. Perhaps until this whole matter was settled it would be better to pretend to think in harmony with the other landowners and not to breathe a word about fairness or justice.
But he was tired of pretending. And that was all he seemed to have done for several weeks. With Sir Hector and the other landowners and with his own people when he was not wearing disguise, he pretended to be the mindless aristocrat, guarding his wealth and his property and his consequence at all cost. With the followers of Rebecca he pretended to be the people’s champion, one of them but with the strength and the courage to lead them. With Marged . . .
Geraint sighed and locked his hands behind his head. He was tired of pretending. And pretense was not even a recent thing with him. For years he had pretended that Geraint Penderyn had not existed before the age of twelve. He had pretended that Tegfan did not exist or Glynderi or the rudely thatched hovel on the moors. Or Marged . . .
He was tired of pretending. Geraint Penderyn was a real person with a real lifelong history. His roots were in Tegfan and the vast estate surrounding the house and park. The Earl of Wyvern was also a real person and had grown through hardship and adversity and stubborn will into the man he now was. And even Rebecca was real. Rebecca was not the mask, but the man behind the mask. And the man behind the mask had been shaped by all the experiences of Geraint Penderyn and the Earl of Wyvern and had come to confront the peculiar set of circumstances that had met him on his return to Tegfan. Rebecca, one might say, was the culmination of everything that had shaped him throughout life.
Rebecca was his destiny.
Three persons—Geraint Penderyn, the Earl of Wyvern, Rebecca. And yet they were one, all inextricably woven together. And he wanted to be that one person. He wanted to be done with pretending and be himself—his final, complete self—with everyone he encountered. He wanted to be done with masks, both real and figurative.
He was going to ask Aled to arrange a meeting with the committee, Geraint decided. He was going to suggest that the Rebecca Riots in this particular part of West Wales be suspended until they saw how Thomas Foster and the commission of inquiry could help them. Perhaps they could make a public declaration through Foster that they were doing so as a gesture of goodwill.
And Marged. Perhaps he could bring himself to go to her and tell her the truth. She was both his lover and his love. He owed her the truth perhaps more than anything else. She had loved Geraint Penderyn until she was sixteen and he was eighteen. She loved Rebecca. She hated the Earl of Wyvern. It was impossible to predict how she would react to hearing the truth. Would her fond memories of Geraint and her love for Rebecca outweigh her hatred for the earl? At one moment he thought that they must. She loved so totally and so passionately—his loins ached at the very memory of her passion. But at the next moment he was less sure. She blamed the Earl of Wyvern for her husband’s death and there was no doubt of the fact that she had loved her husband dearly.
But fear of her reaction must no longer stop the truth from being spoken, he thought with a sinking of the heart. He was going to have to tell her. It was very possible, even probable, that he would lose her as a result, and the thought of losing her—again—was frankly terrifying. But it was a risk that must be taken. He owed her the truth. Besides, he was sick of pretending.
Always pretending.
They talked about sheep for a while and about horses and about crops, all in the hearing of other people. And then they strolled out across a lawn and in among the trees, where they could safely discuss other matters. It was almost dark among the trees. The clouds above were heavy with the promise of rain.
“Any further developments?” Sir Hector asked.
“Yes, sir.” Matthew Harley’s tone had changed from businesslike to excited and conspiratorial. “I spent a long time scouting around after returning from Pantnewydd yesterday. I found the bundle—and inside it a white gown, a white wool hood and mask, and a blond wig. The bundle was in an old gamekeeper’s hut on the northern boundary, one that is no longer used. I was on the brink of having him arrested after all, but I waited for your visit and your instructions.”
“Good man,” Sir Hector said, pausing to shake the steward by the hand. “But it still cannot be done. Anyone could have hidden the things there, Harley. Even their discovery in Tegfan park and your eyewitness account may not be sufficient to convict Wyvern. And we certainly do not want him to slip through our fingers when we are so close. No, we need a little more patience and a little more planning. And there is still the difficulty that he is fast becoming something of a folk hero.”