A New Dawn Over Devon

by Michael Phillips

  Gradually the passion of Jocelyn’s tears subsided.

  “I would trade anything that I am,” Jocelyn said at length, “I would trade all my own growth to have them back.”

  “Charles and George joined the navy knowing they might be giving their lives for their country,” said Timothy. “They didn’t die so you could be strong, but you will grow strong if you can trust the Father in the midst of your grief.”

  “And I just cannot help thinking there might have been something more we could have done to hasten Amanda’s homecoming.”

  “You mustn’t blame yourself. You could not have known what was going to happen. Homecoming always depends on the prodigal. The father in the Lord’s parable prayed and waited patiently, but could not urge his son home until the son himself said, ‘I will arise and go.’ Amanda could have come home anytime she wanted. She could have ended her sojourn in the far country years sooner. But she didn’t. I believe she always knew in her heart of hearts, during the darkest nights when she was alone with her thoughts, that you were here waiting to love her. But she waited. And the cost of that waiting is something you all have to bear.”

  Timothy paused.

  “But she is home now,” he added. “For that we are all grateful. Some prodigals never do return in this life. But yours has. It is a return that will always be tinged with grief, but is nonetheless a return of her heart to its home.”

  “I know . . . I know. Forgive me, Timothy,” sighed Jocelyn. “Sometimes, even now, the sadness overwhelms me. But I realize we went above and beyond trying to do what we thought was right, even though it all seemed to turn out so wrong.”

  “Not all. You mustn’t forget George and Catharine. And you did more than what you thought was right—you did right.”

  “But you must see that it is very confusing.”

  “Of course.”

  “When Amanda was gone, I wanted so badly to try to find her and go see her. I wanted to write her letters and send her packages and gifts and birthday reminders. I wanted to do so much. But I knew I had to respect her wishes to let her alone, give her freedom to live by her decision, give her the very freedom she never thought we were capable of giving her. She will never know how hard that was, just to let her go, and let her wallow in her waywardness and do nothing when everything in my mother’s heart cried out to love her!”

  Again Jocelyn began to cry, this time softly.

  “I feel so worthless and unspiritual, Timothy,” she said. “You talk about the strength this has brought me. I certainly feel none of it. I just feel helpless! How can I help Amanda through this grief she feels for her father and her brother, when I feel it too? How can I help her through the dilemma she is in about her marriage?”

  “Jocelyn, you need to just be who you are, and hang on to that lifeline that God is good. Amanda needs that more than anything—to remember that God is good.”

  “But none of this seems good!” Jocelyn said, crying again. “How can it be from God?”

  “The tragedy is not sent by God,” replied Timothy, “but it is used by him. God is our holy Father. Though this world is fallen, it is still his, and suffering and tragedy, prodigality and pain, all result because his independent, rebellious children insist on taking their lives into their own hands. But he will make all right in the end. We know that, and we must hang on to it.”

  Another pause came over the telephone line for several long seconds.

  “Every human pain, every disappointment, every tear,” Timothy added after a moment, “is specially designed for use by the Father’s hand to sculpt our characters into their eternal shape. We can trust him, Jocelyn dear . . . we can trust him to do that work within us. And if we will but yield the tool into his hand, he will mold our beings into the likeness of his own dear Son.”

  29

  Thoughtful Return

  Like her mother after the telephone conversation with Timothy, Amanda too was thoughtful that afternoon on the train as she and Catharine rode back to Devon. Little was said as they sat side by side gazing out at the passing countryside. In contrast to Amanda’s pensive mood, Catharine was even more bubbly than usual, with an occasional smile breaking out on her face, though from what cause she didn’t say. At the same time she seemed to sense her sister’s need to keep to herself.

  As the train continued along, Amanda’s thoughts drifted back to all that she and Timothy had discussed on the previous afternoon, especially allowing seeds from the garden of her father’s nature to sprout and blossom in the soil of her own life. Then her thoughts came to dwell on his final comments about her future.

  Thinking about what lay ahead was new for Amanda. For years, especially during the months since leaving Vienna, merely getting through the present had been challenge enough. All of a sudden Timothy had put the notion in her brain that life could be good again. It was almost too overwhelming a thought to take—that even now, after all this, her life might actually amount to something.

  She had had such dreams and plans when she was young. How shortsighted they all seemed now! She had changed the world, all right . . . for the worse. She had hurt so many people, herself most of all. But if what Timothy said was true and God did have a purpose for her life even after such failure, was it really possible that she might have the chance to give back a little, to help where she had hurt, to make restitution for what she had done and been?

  She knew she could never make it up to her father. That realization would pain her for the rest of her days. So restitution would have to come in other ways. She could try to make it up as best she might to her mother and Catharine. And perhaps, as Timothy said, she could help other girls and young women, that healing might grow in their families out of the soil of her own mistakes.

  She smiled as she remembered Timothy’s analogy. That’s what she had made of her life all right—manure! Yet perhaps she could put that manure of failure to work to help cause good things to grow in other people’s lives.

  The thought sent a surge of hopefulness through her heart. She realized she had not felt hope for longer than she could remember. She had been so discouraged for so long, thinking that life could never again contain happiness. She had almost given up altogether, resigning herself to living out her existence in a dreary continuum of enduring one grey day after another. She had forgotten what hope and optimism, enthusiasm and joy, even felt like.

  Amanda smiled to herself. It was a smile that contained both sadness for the past and new hope for the future. Perhaps, she thought, the way God’s people were meant to change the world was by being men and women of goodness and character, being true sons and daughters of God, rather than by changing things about the world itself. She had had it all backward when she was young.

  Her father understood that principle, she thought. The realization led him to step aside from the world’s politics in order to carry out a work in a much different realm—a realm she did not have eyes to see at the time. The very characteristics that used to bother her about him were nothing more than the natural result of his trying to live—really live!—by the principles of the Sermon on the Mount. He was trying to be a man of spiritual character. He had come to recognize the requirement she had for so long been unable to see—the need to change, not the world, but oneself.

  I am sorry again, Lord, Amanda breathed to herself. And I am sorry for not seeing your work in my father for what it was. But, Lord, I want to submit myself now to your transforming hand. I always thought I wanted to become someone of importance in the world. Now I ask you to truly make a lady of me—your daughter. I want to make a difference in the world, Lord—but for you and your kingdom. I ask you to carry out your work in me. And if there is anything you can use to help other girls, as Timothy said, then please do so. I was not a good girl. I was too selfish for good qualities to grow within me. But I ask you now, Lord, to take what is left of my life and make a virtuous woman of me. And if the story of my prodigalness can help anyone else, then I will be glad. I a
m willing for you to do what you want with me.

  She closed her eyes and sat back as the train continued to bounce along, at peace with her thoughts. Gradually she dozed off. When she came to herself an hour later, the train was slowing down and they were nearly home.

  Almost as if in answer to her conversation with Timothy and her own prayer, as they left the Milverscombe train station, Amanda saw Chelsea Winters on the sidewalk. She smiled and stopped.

  “Hello, Chelsea,” said Amanda. “How have you been? I haven’t seen you for a long time.”

  “Hello, Miss Rutherford,” replied Chelsea. “I saw you come out of the station, but I didn’t know if you would remember me.”

  “Of course I remember you, Chelsea,” rejoined Amanda. She glanced around, but the girl was apparently alone.

  “Where is your mother, Chelsea?”

  “I came to town by myself.”

  “Have you thought about what I told you before?”

  “Yes, Miss Rutherford.”

  “I hope you are not thinking any more about going away to London to be a suffragette like a foolish girl named Amanda Rutherford.”

  “I don’t know . . . sometimes I think I would like to do something exciting like that.”

  “It is not exciting at all,” rejoined Amanda, “but a way to get yourself into a great deal of trouble.”

  Amanda paused momentarily as a thought struck her.

  “Why don’t you come to the Hall with Catharine and me,” said Amanda. “Would you like to do that?”

  “Yes, Miss Rutherford!”

  “When is your mother expecting you home?”

  “Not for two hours.”

  “Good—we will have tea and biscuits and then take you home after a little while. Have you met Betsy?”

  “Who’s Betsy?” asked Chelsea as she began walking between Amanda and Catharine to where Hector sat waiting for them with a horse and two-seater buggy.

  “A girl about your age who is staying with us.”

  “Why is she staying with you?”

  “Because her daddy was killed, and God sent her to us.”

  “Did God really send her?” asked Chelsea.

  “I think so.”

  “Why would God send her to you, Miss Rutherford?”

  “I don’t know, Chelsea. Perhaps so that she could learn some things she needed to know.”

  “What kinds of things?”

  “I don’t know yet. Sometimes we are not able to see all that God is doing. Maybe one of the reasons is so that you and she could become friends.”

  30

  The Greater Victory

  Later that same night, Amanda lay in bed recalling the events of the afternoon.

  She could hardly believe what had come out of her mouth when she was talking to Chelsea and Betsy. The comments, when they came, were so unexpected that she hardly had time to stop and ask herself how she could have had such words to say in the first place.

  ————

  Was your father really killed?” Amanda overheard Chelsea ask Betsy when the two girls were alone for a few minutes after the others had gone into the next room.

  Amanda and Jocelyn were in the corridor just outside the open door. They had not been able to get Betsy to utter so much as a word about what had happened, so when they heard Chelsea’s question, they could not help pausing to stand out of sight and listen.

  A barely whispered “yes” prompted Chelsea’s next question. “How do you know? Were you there?” she persisted.

  “Uh-huh,” Betsy said almost inaudibly.

  “Were you scared?” they heard Chelsea ask.

  “Oh yes,” Betsy spoke up. “I thought they would kill me too.”

  “What happened? Did they have a gun?”

  “Yes, and they came in after my father, yelling at him, and I was hiding in the loft where he had just put me a minute before. Then they argued, and they shot him.”

  Jocelyn’s eyes were already filling with tears as she and Amanda listened from the hallway. It was obvious from the quiver in Betsy’s voice that she was about to cry. What the poor child must have been through!

  But all at once a hardness came into the girl’s voice that prevented the tears.

  “I hate them,” she said. “When I grow up, I will go back to Looe. I will find them and kill them myself. I hate them, I hate them!”

  At this outburst, Chelsea fell silent.

  Jocelyn and Amanda looked at each other in shock. They had never heard Betsy say such a thing. Mother and daughter hesitated only a moment before Amanda left her mother’s side and walked into the room.

  Chelsea stood motionless—momentarily cowed into silence—an expression of fear on her face at Betsy’s vehement declaration.

  “There is something even better than killing your enemies that you can do to repay them, Betsy,” Amanda said calmly as she approached.

  “What!” retorted Betsy, glancing around, her voice still angry, her dark hazel eyes afire.

  Amanda waited a moment before answering, hoping Betsy would calm down. She put her hand on her shoulder and slowly sat down beside her. Chelsea came and stood on the other side.

  “You can forgive them,” said Amanda at length.

  “I will never forgive the men who killed my father!” shouted Betsy.

  “Then you will one day become just as bad as they are.”

  “No I won’t!”

  “Hate is hate, Betsy,” said Amanda, speaking slowly and calmly. “It was hate that made them shoot your father. If you hate them in return, you have become just like them. The only way to win, and have victory over both those men and the memory of what they did, is to forgive them.”

  Betsy seemed hardly able to take in the idea. Perhaps it was the thought of gaining victory over her father’s murderers that temporarily silenced her.

  “You see, Betsy,” Amanda went on, “sometimes hate is justified. This can be a terrible world, and sometimes bad things happen. It was an evil thing those men did. They are bad men. No one would blame you for hating them. No one would say you were wrong to hate them. It is natural to be angry with those who have done us wrong, or have done wrong to someone we love. But God wants us to lay down our anger and our hatred so that he can grow something better in its place in our hearts.”

  “What?” asked Betsy, her voice calming.

  “Love,” answered Amanda. “God wants to help us love those who have done us wrong.”

  “How could I possibly love them?” said Betsy, more in disbelief than anger.

  “God loves them.”

  “I could never love the men who killed my father.”

  “I think perhaps you will one day, Betsy. And you will be happier for it.”

  “I don’t want to love them. I want to hate them.”

  “God will help you want to love them,” replied Amanda. “Then he will help you forgive them so that you can love them. It is not something you can do all by yourself. None of us are able to love very well. Do you know, Betsy, I did not even love my father as I should. So in that way, I am even worse than you, for I am sure you loved your father very much, didn’t you?”

  Betsy nodded. “My father was a good man,” she said, “and sometimes I cannot stand it.” She began to cry.

  “I’m sure he was,” replied Amanda, drawing the girl to her tenderly. “I wish I could have known him. But, Betsy, my father is dead now too. That is something you and I share. And though you hate those men who killed your father, I actually hated my own father for a time, even though he was a good man. Hatred was inside me, Betsy, and it nearly ruined my life. I also hated God. All that hatred that was in me I am now finally learning to get rid of. It is hard because, as my dear sister told me not long ago, the person I need to forgive most of all is myself. I feel terribly guilty and unworthy of God’s love, for I was a very unkind and selfish girl. But I know that forgiveness will heal my guilt, though it hasn’t done so completely yet, just as it will heal your hatred. I hope you
will get rid of your hatred too. Jesus will help you, if you will let him.”

  Amanda could hear her mother quietly weeping in the hallway as she softly hurried away to her room.

  ————

  Amanda lay in her bed, eyes open, staring into the quiet blackness of the night as the memory of the day’s incident receded.

  Something had changed for her. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but a sense of peace had slowly begun to steal upon her—a peace she hadn’t felt in a very long time—a peace, now that she thought of it, she had perhaps never felt before. And with it came the growing conviction, still vague and undefined, that Timothy was right, that she indeed had something to offer girls such as Betsy and Chelsea.

  “Thank you, Lord,” Amanda breathed quietly. “I think I am beginning to know—really know—that you love me . . . thank you.”

  31

  Be a Good Girl

  Alone in her own bed, Elsbet Conlin also lay awake.

  The reliving of her father’s murder followed by Amanda’s words had triggered a memory she had till then all but forgotten. If this was the season at Heathersleigh for remembering a father’s words, the Spirit-prompted activity was not limited to the daughter of Sir Charles Rutherford.

  Betsy had been overwhelmed these last few weeks with the knowledge that her father was dead. But now for a few moments her father was alive again in her thoughts. Just when this incident she was remembering had taken place she wasn’t sure. She was probably nine or ten.

  ————

  “Betsy,” said Sully Conlin, sitting his daughter down on a wooden chair and gazing intently into her eyes. “If anything ever happens to me, I want you to be a good girl.”

  Betsy stared back, not exactly alarmed to hear him talk so, but sobered by his tone and expression. He looked weary and suddenly older than she had ever seen him. How could she possibly understand the world he lived in, and his occasional worries if something went wrong?