Chapter 08

Artwork

The majority of the original manor artwork was in the dining room, the great hall, the foyer, the lounge, and the lounge alcove with some more in the family living area, lounge, and family room plus a sprinkling of paintings in the three bedroom areas for the family, guests, and staff. He decides to leave the bulk of the original paintings where they were in dining room, the great hall, the staff rooms, and guest rooms with a few of the originals in the family living area. However, the family room, family bedrooms, lounge, and foyer will have major changes due to him having a lot of their other artworks placed in them as well as the family living area. While the majority of the original paintings being displaced will go to the guest rooms and staff rooms some will go to the dining room and the great hall. Llewellyn plans to let the experts decide on what works go where for most of the manor, but he has some specific plans for the foyer, the lounge, the family room, and both of the alcove areas.

The lounge is the first special room layout of paintings Llewellyn does by resting them against the wall below where he wants them. These are all paintings he did while in the USA based on a number of photographs he has. The paintings are five feet wide by three feet high so each is a neat fit in a six foot space. While he knows what he wants in the room and the order he wants each set of paintings in he has to move them around a few times to get the final room layout he’s happy with.

The first set is of eight paintings of the farm he grew up on with a view from the hedge closest to the valley entrance and a third of the way in from the road in front of the farm with the farmhouse on the left of the scene and the road on the right. While they’re based on the photographs of the time and most are a very exacting match to the photograph, there is a little artistic license in some of them. There are three on each of the side walls with two on the alcove end wall. They are, in order from left to right as you stand in the alcove and turn to view them:

1. A late afternoon with Mary Owen standing on the farmhouse verandah as she wipes her hands on a cloth while watching an eleven year old Llewellyn playing on the grass with a baby Gwen on the grass in front of the farmhouse. Evan is walking from the equipment shed to the farmhouse with a smile on his face. It’s a happy scene.

2. Evening with the buses full of people, car, and van in the road with a few people just starting to exit the vehicles. While there is nothing in the scene to indicate anything is wrong the overall impression is one of foreboding and an expectation of something about to happen.

3. Much the same as the previous painting, but with empty buses and lots of armed soldiers in the road, soldiers going up the ramps to go over the hedge, soldiers jumping into the fields, soldiers charging in the gateway, the top section of the farmhouse roof sliding down to display the chain-gun mounted there with small flames coming from the gun barrel to show it’s firing, the barrels of the two mini-guns are also visible and can be seen firing. Also, the van and car are damaged and a number of wounded, dead, and dying soldiers are visible too.

4. Much the same as the previous painting, except the number of soldiers on the ground is much higher and many of the soldiers are in the fields while they shoot at the house with guns and some are firing rockets at the farmhouse. The farmhouse can also be seen to have a lot of damage from being hit by bullets and rockets.

5. This scene is very different due to being of the inside of the farmhouse with an obviously dead Mary lying on the floor, both of the mini-guns are damaged, and a badly wounded Evan is falling with the Browning Automatic Rifle still in his hands.

6. Is another external view of the farmhouse with many soldiers on the verandah and a few are walking in the front door with the rifles ready. Many dead and wounded soldiers are also visible in the fields. This scene is a lot brighter than the others as flames can be seen coming out of the firing slits, the front door, and the roof. There are also a lot of small balls of flame where the earlier scenes showed rocks around the farmhouse and the soldiers near the farmhouse are all showing signs of having been wounded by the exploding rocks.

7. The light level is the same as the earlier combat scenes, except for a few flames in the farmhouse with the roof collapsed into it, most of the soldiers are dead, with a few checking on the downed soldiers. In the top left corner of the painting is the top of the ridge behind the farm. The ridge has been in all of the external views, there and unchanged. In this painting a small figure of a young boy is visible standing on the ridge. The boy has a babe in a carrier on his chest, his body is facing the farmhouse with his left foot in the air as he turns away to his left, his left hand is open and a small box is falling from it, while his right hand is coming down from a salute. The body language of the boy clearly shows the respect of one warrior for another as he is leaving the battlefield.

8. The early morning scene shows a clear road and most of the fields are also clear with the police and soldiers busy removing the last of the dead from the fields. Some smoke is rising from the ruined farmhouse with the whole roof collapsed into the middle of the building. The impression is one of light dawning on the end of a dark event while people are busy cleaning up the debris. It’s clear everything is over.

The overall impression of the paintings is one of a dark night of action and heavy combat. The most artistic license in all of the paintings is the bit showing Llewellyn on the ridge. While that didn’t happen in real life, it does show all of the emotional aspects of what did happen at that time on the night. Each is titled, in order, The Afternoon, They Arrive, Combat Commences, Heavy Fighting, Death of the Defenders, Pyrrhic Victory, Farewell, The Morning After.

Starting on the left of the wall opposite the door to the lounge is a set of ten paintings of the farm made from photographs. The first is of the land as it was when bought before any of the fence work, hedges, or building was done. The next five are of the different stages of the construction with Evan and Anne visible in them working on creating the farm. The last of the paintings on that wall and the three paintings on the wall leading to the alcove are one from each season showing the farm with Anne, Evan, and Llewellyn working at various farm tasks. They all show a happy family at work on the farm. These are all from the view of the farm while standing in the gateway beside the road.

The rest of the paintings in the lounge are of Alice and Gwen, both as individuals and as a couple, doing different activities. The short wall to the right of the alcove is left empty for now, as is the wall between the two doors into the lounge. Llewellyn is sure he’ll find something later.

The much more personal paintings and photographs are set out for display in the family room and the bedrooms on the top floor while the majority of the rest of Llewellyn’s artwork is set out for display in the family living area. That leaves only the foyer to be finished.

While there are a few of the original paintings to be displayed in the foyer Llewellyn plans to have another five placed there. The painting of Lord Daffyd will go on the wall facing the front entry on the left of the back steps and Llewellyn plans for a similar painting of himself to go on the other side of the back steps. He also wants to do four paintings of the view of the surrounding area from the towers and place them around the room. Now he just has to wait for the experts to have their say.

When Joe Murphy and his crew arrive with the original artworks the first thing they do is to take them all back to the rooms from which they came and lean them against the wall below where they were originally hung, or beside the artwork Llewellyn had placed to be hung there. The next phase of the project is to walk around every room as Llewellyn and all of the experts discuss them. They all soon learn that while Llewellyn can be convinced to move some of the artworks from where he put them they have to accept the lounge and family room layouts of his artworks are set in stone, as well as being hung on stone walls. Also, the artworks in those rooms are set closer together than in the other rooms. Luckily for them all there is enough free wall space to hang the displaced artworks and the unspecified artworks of Llewellyn’s in the other rooms.

Then the hard work of hanging them all is started as places to hang the artworks from are set into the walls and the length of the wire is adjusted to have each piece of art hanging at the correct height. Some had to wait to be hung until after their frame maker arrives with her tools and frame materials to make frames for some of Llewellyn’s artworks to match with the other artworks near them. The majority of Llewellyn’s artworks have suitable frames on them, but a few of his early works need new frames to match the other artworks. The biggest delay in this is waiting for the lady to drive her truck to the manor. After she arrives it only takes her a little over an hour to make the new frames and fit them to the artworks.

Once all of the artworks are hung the real heavy talking starts as they take a final walk through the manor checking all of the artworks.

Joe and all of his experts are very taken with the quality of the farm paintings, especially the emotions invoked by the attack paintings. What really blows them away are three of Llewellyn’s paintings in the family room. The first is of a two year-old girl lying on a blanket with her hair spread out around her like rays of sunshine and the face looks a lot like a face has been painted on the face of the sun titled My Sunshine. The second painting is two early teen girls in buckskin dresses riding Pinto horses as they race across a desert scene with their hair streaming behind them titled Running Wild. While the third is a mountain landscape with the morning sun shining through a mist on one side and a river on the other side of the mountain that runs to the middle of the painting, in each of the three distinct areas is a thick mist with a face in it of a boy in the mist on the mountain with a girl in the mist over the river and another girl in the mist obscuring the sun; the painting is titled The Rising Morning Mist, River Mist, and Mountain Mist. All of the paintings are done in a super-realistic style.

The first item of discussion is to produce a book with high definition photograph of all of the old paintings in the manor. They also want to include all of Llewellyn’s works. He finds this part hard to believe as he doesn’t see them as being worth including in a book. The second item of intense discussion is to make high definition digital copies of most of the artworks and photographs by Llewellyn to sell as limited edition copies.

In the end Llewellyn agrees to them making a thousand print copies of his artworks as limited edition high definition copies at eighty percent of the size of the originals so the copies are four feet wide and just under twenty-nine inches high. Each will be a numbered print as part of the certification of them as a limited edition. However, he insists the copies of the farm paintings be sold as three sets: the creation of the farm, the life of the farm, and the attack on the farm. Llewellyn also agrees to them doing a book of all of his artworks and also a book of the manor’s original paintings and the five he plans to do for the foyer. The last book will have to wait until he does the last five paintings before it can be printed. Joe arranges for his photographer to visit the manor to do this work.

New Artwork

During the first several weeks Llewellyn is living in the Manor itself he takes a lot of photos from the top of the Manor towers as well as from different parts of the grounds. He also buys a drone similar to the one Serge has then Llewellyn uses the drone to get images of the Manor and grounds from above them. He then uses the photos as the basis for several paintings with the first four being views from the Manor in each direction then a view of the Manor from the upper plateau. He also does several paintings of his family then he has Joe Murphy back to take photos of the new artwork to finish the books and collections Joe is making to sell.

The two that really impress Joe are the one done from a 1902 photo of a carriage arriving at Owen Manor but with the grounds as they are now, and the one Llewellyn does of himself in court dress from the mid 1200s with the sword and dagger from the Lord Daffyd painting. The painting of Llewellyn is the same size as the one of Lord Daffyd and it’s hung on the right of the back steps to balance the one of Lord Daffyd as both are facing the front entrance.

Joe asks Llewellyn, “How did you get the court dress to look so good and hanging right?”

Llewellyn grins as he shows him a photo while saying, “That was easy as I had some people who know about old dress make me a set then I put it on to have a photo taken for me to paint from. I had to copy the sword from the older painting, but I’ve the dagger so I had that to wear.”

Slowly shaking his head Joe says, “That will do it. However, I wonder how you have the dagger and not the sword. It makes me wonder if the sword is here in the Manor as well.”

“If it is it’s well hidden as Serge stripped the Manor to the stonework to do the cleaning and changes.”

“When this place was built it was common to have hidden places to put valuables, so you need to look for them if you’ve not found them.”

Llewellyn thinks on what Joe says while they talk about some of the artworks they no longer have on display due to the lack of space to put them out without looking cluttered. Some are the original Manor items and some are earlier works of Llewellyn’s he doesn’t mind selling. By the time they finish Joe has twenty-four paintings and photos he can take to his gallery to sell, so he’s very happy about the outcome of the visit.

However, while Llewellyn is happy to be selling some of the artwork he’s not happy about the talk of hidden places as he realises Joe is right, there has to be some hidden storage places in the Manor, but he can’t think of where they could be. He eventually decides to have an expert in with equipment to scan the walls and floors.

In the months following Joe taking the artworks for sale he sells them all for a lot of money each. Also, the books and prints of the artworks sell very well to make both Joe and Llewellyn a lot of money.

Note: In the following years Llewellyn continues to take quality photos and to paint a lot of images. Some are kept, some are given to friends, and some are sold by Joe. One that takes pride of place in Llewellyn’s office is the painting he does of the girls and himself in 13th Century court dress after he has suitable clothing made for the girls and he has a photo taken of them in the clothing.

Staffing the Manor

Friday morning Llewellyn is up and ready early then he goes to work in the stables and its attached storeroom to tidy them up while making sure everything in them is set out how he wants them to be set out. He does manage to do this, but by the time he’s finished it looks odd as all of the spare furniture is stacked in the stalls for the horses, for now. It’s mid-morning so he has a snack then moves on to set up the workshop beside the stables the way he wants it. This is mostly a case of moving the machinery and tools to where he wants them on the benches and walls, with a few large items set up in the room with work spaces around them.

Mid-afternoon he’s interrupted by the arrival of some guests come to look at the manor who walk into the workshop. Will, Miss Lillian, Jackie Moore, and another woman. Jackie introduces him to Francine Wills. The five of them take a walk through the entire manor with Miss Lillian and Will discussing the way it looks while Jackie and Francine talk about how much work would be involved in looking after it all. They look through all of the rooms off of the courtyard then go through the kitchen, down the stairs, through the basement rooms, up the stairs to the office, across the great hall, the foyer, the dinning room, up the stairs through the guest area, then the staff rooms, up to the roof where they stop to view the grounds, across the roof walk to go down the other rear stairs to the family room where they stop to look at the artworks, then the family bedrooms, down the stairs to the family living area, into the lounge where they spend a lot of time discussing the paintings of the farm, then back down the rear stairs to walk in the back door, to go out the front to look at the gardens. While walking around the gardens most of the talk is by Jackie with Francine and Miss Lillian while they discuss how many staff are needed to properly care for the manor and the residents.

Llewellyn does worry about the costs and the housing when the list they all agree on is for three cooks to allow for rests and time off along with a group of five general workers to be maids as well as cleaners and kitchen helpers plus three grounds staff with them all under the control of a majordomo as the senior staff member. Then the ladies start talking about who to employ in which position as they all have to get on well due to living on site. Llewellyn wisely keeps out of these discussions.

Will notices Llewellyn seems a bit worried about the number of staff so he takes him aside and says, “Don’t worry about the costs, Lew, as you can easily pay for it all from the main trust investment interest.”

“What about housing them all?” is Llewellyn’s only question on staff.

“I’ve already told Serge to build a five bedroom house and storeroom onto the barn just behind the manor that I’m planning to have all of the grounds staff live in. The ladies know that.” Llewellyn slowly nods in agreement while he also raises an eyebrow as a question to Will so he adds, “One of the grounds staff will be looking after the horses we have on agistment as well as the general welfare of the main grounds while one will be a gardener and the third will be a general handyman helping as required. I’ve also arranged for a local farmer to till the land in sections and seed it with suitable grasses for grazing horses and other stock. He’ll also plant some grass he’ll harvest as hay for us.”

Jackie turns to Llewellyn and says, “Don’t worry about it, Lew. We’d decided on the three grounds staff during the week. They’re a family group who want to work together outside of the city. They’re easy to get on with, although I’ll doubt you’ll have much interaction with them. We also have a couple in mind as the two senior staff, he’ll be the head cook and his wife will be the majordomo. We also had the other two cooks on the approved list. The only real question we had was the number of other staff to do the cleaning and other tasks. Now we’re discussing who will work well with who to fill the five general staff positions. We’ll sort it all out for you and have them come out to see if they get on with you and your girls. Will the girls be here tomorrow?”

Llewellyn nods as he smiles and says, “Yes, along with some of their friends from school. I expect to see many of their friends here at times.”

Francine says, “Thought that might be happening, which is why I was asking if we need five or six other staff. We’ll start with five and see how it goes. As it is, if who we’ve selected are all employed you’ll have a staff bedroom free as some of our choices are couples who’ll stay together.”

When the ladies come to an agreement on who to employ as staff they all return to Will’s SUV and drive back to Rivers to talk to the people.

After they leave Llewellyn tidies up, locks up, then drives to the school to collect the girls and a few friends when school finishes for the day. The rest of the day is spent looking over the finished manor and the artworks on display. After a pizza dinner in Wood Valley the evening is spent in talk about the manor and the proposed number of staff.

Saturday

Saturday morning Llewellyn and the girls are walking in the garden discussing what changes they would like to see when Jackie and Francine arrive in a minibus with the proposed manor staff. Introductions are made then they all go inside to look over the manor before they sit and talk in the lounge, due to it having the most comfortable lounge chairs for a group to sit in and talk at length. They all get on well and the new staff like their workplace and quarters. The outside staff will use guest bedrooms until their new house is ready for them.

While they talk Llewellyn learns why Jackie was so sure the staff would get on so well. The majordomo, Jenny, is married to the head cook, Frank, with twin daughters, Jan and Jill, who’ll work as general house staff while the other two cooks are her nephew, Tim, plus his wife, Nora, with Nora’s two sisters, Sarah and Rhonda, as two of the general house staff and Nora’s brother, Mark, is the last of the house staff. The outside staff are another family group of Jim as the handyman with his wife, Nancy, as the gardener and Nancy’s sister, Lorna, as the other outdoor worker looking after the horses and grounds. All of them have mild learning disabilities that affects how they interact with people since they can’t handle pressure from others. However, the small community of the manor is well within their capabilities, especially with Jenny being the one to handle any staff problems and most communications for them.

The new building only takes three weeks to be ready to move into as much of it is modular units that are trucked to the site and put together then a well insulated extra exterior cladding is added to the building.

Security

A week after the staff move into Owen Manor Serge’s crew is at work finishing the building for the outside staff to live in when Llewellyn sees a new crew arrive and start preparing a building site just inside the front gate of the Manor. Curious about it he goes to see what’s being done. Mark, the crew leader says, “Morning, Lew. Will ordered more housing and a security centre to be built here. It’s basically two four bedroom houses with the security centre between them. We’re having some special concrete bricks made to mimic the stone work of the Manor so it will fit in and look like part of the original building work.”

Llewellyn replies, “Thanks for the info, Mark. I best ring Will to see why, as no one told me about it.” He calls Will and they talk for quite some time.

What none of them had considered was that the security Llewellyn has being put in will need someone to regularly check it. This is because both Will and Llewellyn thought a computer providing them with an alert would do the job, but the security expert convinced Will it wouldn’t, so now they have to employ people to supervise the system. So four people, two couples of retired Army security specialists, are now on the payroll to monitor the security system.

Will explains, “Lew, the system is mostly automated with cameras on all of the border fences of the Manor and the school as well as all of the buildings and the public use areas of the Manor and school. However, the computer will sound an alert once something reaches the ’threat level’ set in the software, then someone has to view the imagery and decide if it is a threat or not. For example, a kangaroo bouncing through the camera view will trigger it, but it isn’t a threat. Unless you want to spend twenty-four hours a day watching the monitors we need someone else to do it. The people I’ve hired will do that, and they’ll also maintain the system. A side effect is they’re through a local security company and are approved as armed guards as well. This contract is different to most as we’ll have the same people living on site all of the time as only one of them need be on duty at any one time. Four of them gives a three person rotation with coverage for days off as well.”

“OK, Will. I gather they’ll alert me if there are any likely problems or actual threats!”

“Yes. That’s in their operating procedures. While they’ll be living in the new quarters being built for them they’ll also be making use of the recreational opportunities the Manor grounds provides. I believe they all have horses and like fishing, so you can expect to see them about the grounds. Also, I think some of their friends from the security company will also be visiting them on days off for some fishing etcetera.”

“I can live with that. How’s it going?”

“All of the fence cameras are in, as is the security at the front fence gateway, all of the cables are in except one. The hold up right now is the security centre itself. Once the building is up that will be another couple of days, then the last cable will be a repeater and an alert line to your office. I’m told the lot will be finished in about ten days. You’ll like it as you’ll be able to view anything from any of the cameras. I suspect you’ll like the camera views from the top of the Manor.”

“That sounds good, Will. Thanks.” They hang up and they both go on with the rest of their activities for the day.

Note: Over the course of the following weeks the work on the security system is finished, the staff are hired, and they take up residence and work in the building.

Searching the Manor

Due to the talk with Joe about hidden places Llewellyn has Will hire an expert with Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) units to conduct a good search of the Manor and the grounds. The two women who arrive with the equipment to do the job have a number of units they use. The first thing they do is to ask Llewellyn about what they’re searching for.

Llewellyn tells them, “My main concern is for hidden compartments and storage places within the Manor itself. However, I think it would be best if you can do a search of the grounds for anything that’s been buried for safe keeping first. That way we can dig up and remove anything that may be an issue before the farmers start working the grounds properly. Then we need to check all of the stone walls and floors of the Manor. During the work on the Manor they removed all of the woodwork in the residential areas then treated it to extend its life, and put it back in place. However, the outbuildings were only cleaned and sealed, so we need to check everything in them.”

The two ladies nod, smile, turn to their large truck, unload two odd looking vehicles that look like a cross between an ATV and a ride-on lawn mower then check them over. One of them says, “I’m Jenny, and my twin is Jane. We’ve a number of units that we use depending on how fine a detail of what is in the ground. We have some that will find things as small as a button, but they have to go real slow and would take weeks to do all of the land you have here. These will locate anything the size of a hardcover book or larger, but we can ride on them and go faster than with the push units. We’ll use these on the grounds and then switch to the other units for around the stone wall and inside the wall. We’ve got hand held units we’ll use for checking the walls in the buildings. Depending on what we find we should be done in a few days.” She’s finishes checking the unit and is ready to ride away before she finishes talking, so she nods at Llewellyn and rides off after her sister who just left. As she goes down the drive to leave the garden she puts a radio communications headset on, obviously to talk to her sister.

The two women spend the rest of the day riding over the grounds in a grid patterns with one doing in front of the Manor and one doing behind the Manor.

Late that afternoon they have a laptop computer with the results of their work today which they show Llewellyn as they ask about some of the things they found. He can identify the old stream beds, the cables for the security system, but not the three anomalies they found out on the grounds. One is a cavity, one is a skeleton, and one is a buried box.

Jane says, “I put a post with an orange top at the three locations in case you wanted to dig them up. We never bothered with the obvious modern work as we thought you’d know about them, and we can easily find them again if you didn’t. Before you ask, we’ve no idea how old the skeleton is, but it’s just bones and some cloth.”

Llewellyn replies, “Thanks. I’ll do some digging tomorrow, but I’ll leave the skeleton for the authorities. You may as well take a break until the staff tell us dinner is ready. I hope the Majordomo showed you the rooms to use while you’re here?” They both nod. “Feel free to wander about and look at the artwork if you want to.” They all stand and Jane takes the laptop computer while Llewellyn goes to call Will.