Page 64 of The Christmas Retreat
In the refectory we found that the twins had brought down the fruits of their morning’s labours and laid the finished masks out on one of the smaller tables. Everyone gathered round to have a look.
There were pairs of identical whole masks, half masks and eye masks, some painted a matte white or black, others decorated with fine green translucent bubble wrap, like strange seaweed, or fronds of green tissue paper. The general effect was weird, each mask having a mirror-image twin.
Leaning against the wall beside the table was a very tall empty mirror frame, like the portal to some cut-price Narnia. Toby, a screwdriver in one hand, was standing next to it and now pulled out two hinged legs from the bottom half of the frame and stood it upright.
Pearl smiled at him, a smudge of green paint on one cheek. ‘Thanks for putting that together, Toby,’ she said.
Nerys stared at it. ‘Is that what you had in that ski bag you brought with you, a dismantled frame? I thought skis were a bit pessimistic, since the chance of snow is small.’
‘We pretend it’s a mirror, with one of us on either side mirroring the other,’ Opal explained.
‘I’d sort of worked that out for myself,’ Rhys said in a low voice right in my ear and I jumped. I hadn’t heard him come in.
‘Your performanceartdoes seem to run on one theme, doesn’t it?’ said Kate. ‘Not so much a niche market as a hairline fracture in the wall!’
Opal showed signs of taking umbrage at this, but Nerys said brightly, ‘Here’s Tudor with the soup – and it does smell good! Come along, everyone.’
It seemed we’d all had a productive working morning in one way or another. Nerys said she’d taken Cariad over to CastleNewydd, where she was staying over till tomorrow, then had gone down to the pottery. She had left her studio to the sole occupancy of Verity who, finding Pompey deeply and obliviously fast asleep on the window seat, had seized her chance. Pausing only to quietly place a pot of Paper White narcissi from the hall table on to the window seat behind him, she had first taken lots of photographs, sketched and done some studies.
‘And then I got worried he might have died,’ she said, ‘he was so still. So I prodded him with the end of my paintbrush and hescratchedme and ran out.’
She exhibited a patch of plaster on her wrist. ‘I put antiseptic on it straight away, of course, because I believe cat scratches can make you seriously ill.’
‘I sincerely hope so,’ someone muttered, although I don’t know who. It might have been Evie, who had a low tolerance threshold for stupidity.
‘Well, at any rate, you got what you wanted first,’ Nerys said brightly.
It seemed that the rest of us had worked away quietly in our own rooms, a good morning all round. Just as well because I suspected that at least Toby, like me, was feeling the first fevered stirrings of Christmas excitement.
*
After lunch, Evie set off in her car for St Melangell, while the rest of us piled into the minibus, with Rhys taking the wheel.
We dropped Verity and Kate outside the garden centre, which was in the grounds of Castle Newydd, and then drove back a little way up the road towards Seren Bach, before Rhysturned the minibus up a signposted single-track lane to the quarry.
A little ticket hut at the entrance with a turnstile was all locked up, but a side gate was open and there our guide awaited us: Max Prynne, who ran the garden along with his wife, Tansy.
He was stocky, with a broad, ruddy face, very light blue eyes and white-gold hair. As we followed the others downwards, Rhys told me that all the Prynnes looked the same, although Max was the only son, and they and their spouses were all engaged in one or other of the many Prynne enterprises.
Max was certainly knowledgeable and enthusiastic about the making and planting of the quarry, many of the rare shrubs having been grown at Castle Newydd.
I really now wanted to see the rare shrub nursery at the garden centre, but I thought perhaps I’d better get a garden to plant things in before I went anywhere near something as tempting as that!
There were lots of paths that meandered up and down the various levels, with unexpected benches, bits of statuary, fountains and sundials, and after the guided tour we were free to wander around for an hour.
Rhys seemed to have constituted himself my personal guide, telling me that due to the conformation of the shoreline St Melangell itself was very sheltered and the quarry even more so, tucked into the side of the hill, so even subtropical plants tended to do well there, with a bit of care.
We came upon the twins and Toby at the bottom of the quarry, where a large pool lay, covered in flat waterlily leaves, under which could be glimpsed big gold and silver fish.
Opal was standing next to it, raptly gazing at her reflectionin a patch of clear water and saying, ‘I’d never thought of the mirroring effect of water before … although those plants would have to be cleared out of the way.’
Behind her back I saw Pearl exchange a look with Toby, casting up her eyes, and he grinned back.
‘I don’t somehow think Max would agree to that,’ Rhys said mildly. ‘But there’s the pool in the oak wood above Triskelion, of course. The temperature at this time of year is a lot colder up there than it is down here, however.’ Then he added: ‘Come on, we’d better start back so we can join the others at the garden centre for tea.’
*
The Bay Tree Cafe was a large glass-roofed building, like a huge greenhouse. Verity, Kate and Evie were already there.
