Shadows over Stonewycke

by Michael Phillips

  “Several months.” But even as Allison spoke the words, she suddenly realized it had been a whole year, for it was now spring again, and she had last seen Logan in spring a year ago. It was 1942. In a few months they would have been married nine years. Yet she did not even know where her husband was. Each month she received the anonymous check in the mail; she assumed it meant he was all right, assuming of course that the money was indeed from him. Without realizing it she found her thoughts drifting toward their old channels: had Logan grown so cold and callous as to let their marriage disintegrate into nothing but the sending and receiving of a nameless check month after month? She could not believe he had changed that drastically.

  Nat reached out and took Allison’s hand in his. How large and warm they are, she thought. So much like Daddy’s—comforting and reassuring. She smiled bravely at her brother. After all, this was his leave and she did not want to spoil it with her morose meditations.

  “I’m surprised ye haena gone back to Stonewycke,” said Nathaniel. “At least bein’ oot frae under the shadow o’ war would make life more tolerable.”

  “Then I wouldn’t have been here for you!” Allison tried to laugh, but it wasn’t much use. “But to tell you the truth, Nat, the shadows that are over my life would follow me wherever I went. And I suppose a part of me is afraid that if I did go, Logan might come back and think I didn’t care enough to wait for him.”

  “But surely he’d ken ye was at home.”

  “Maybe. But I doubt he’d come there for me,” she sighed. “He doesn’t feel he belongs there.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” said the young man sadly. “Why, Logan’s always been family to us, e’en frae that first day we met in front o’ Miss Sinclair’s place.”

  “I believe that deep down he knows that. But there are things going on inside of him now that he’s probably not clear about.”

  Allison still recalled vividly how confused he was that day he had left Stonewycke last spring. “But who am I to talk? If only I could see him,” she went on emphatically. “I know that now I could understand him better.”

  “Ye can ne’er say what God will do.”

  “A while back I thought I might be able to find him,” Allison said, going on to explain her sleuthing attempts with Billy and her eerie encounter with Gunther. “But I guess after that experience, I’m almost afraid to see Logan. Who knows what he might be involved in?”

  “Why do you say that?” asked Nat.

  “That man sounded so German,” answered Allison, “and there have been so many unanswered questions—”

  “What can ye be sayin’, Allison?”

  “I hate myself for even thinking it!”

  “And ye should, too,” Nat gently remonstrated. “I dinna ken Logan as weel as a wife ought to. But I ken enough to say wi’ certainty that he couldna be mixed up wi’ the enemy.” His friendly eyes flashed momentarily with the Ramsey fire. “Allison,” he went on, “if ye do naethin’ else, ye must believe in him. A man needs that frae his wife, more than anythin’.”

  “And you still a bachelor,” she teased, trying to lighten her sense of guilt. Then she added earnestly. “But such a wise bachelor!”

  “I dinna ken aboot that,” he replied, embarrassed at the compliment. “I think maybe I jist can give ye the man’s perspective. And when ye do see Logan again, he’ll ken what’s in yer heart—and the one thing he’ll want to be certain o’ is that ye love him enough to believe in him—perhaps nae matter what he’s been involved in.”

  “Love has so many aspects,” mused Allison, “almost none of which a young couple getting married is aware of. I’m learning so many ways in which it’s different than what I always thought it to be. You always think love is an emotion you feel toward another. And to now come to realize it’s not that at all but rather how you behave toward others—it’s quite an awakening, to say the least. And to think that in our eight years together, I never really loved Logan in a true sense, never really put him before myself, despite all the so-called love I felt for him.”

  “He probably never really loved you in that way either, or I doobt he’d ever hae left,” said Nat. “Love, as weel’s partin’, is always a two-way street.”

  “I wonder if we’ll have the chance to start again.”

  “I’ll not stop prayin’ fer ye both.”

  The conversation waned for a few moments, as brother and sister each lapsed into their own private musings. But time was too precious to waste on things that could wait until they were apart. Allison felt an urgency upon her to make this time together especially meaningful for them, a time of cementing the bonds that were growing between them now that they were able to relate as adults on an equal plane of relationship.

  “I hope my experience hasn’t soured you on the prospect of marriage, Nat,” said Allison, anxious to know more about his life.

  He grinned sheepishly. “Na, na,” he said. “Ye couldna do that.”

  “But there’s no one special?”

  “The Lord kens best what’s to come o’ my future,” he replied. “But He’d hae to go some to find a lady to match up wi’ the women I think most highly o’—oor own mother, Lady Margaret, and e’en yersel’!”

  For an instant a faraway gaze passed through his eyes. It quickly passed, however. “Oh, but there’s plenty o’ time fer that! War isna the time to be thinkin’ o’ romance. Too much can happen. I mightna live through it, ye ken.”

  “Nat, please!”

  “’Tis true. Everythin’s uncertain in war. But if I make it through, when it’s all o’er, then . . .”

  “I know you’ll find someone as special as you are,” replied Allison, and again the two fell silent.

  Allison cast a quick glance to her left and studied her brother momentarily with admiration. He had inherited his father’s tall good looks, though he was not as brawny as Alec. No doubt many girls’ hearts would throb over him, but his manner was so unassuming that he would never believe they would think of him in such a way. He had much to offer a woman; he would make a grand husband someday.

  At the thought a chill ran through Allison’s spine as she recalled his words: I mightna live through it, ye ken.

  She didn’t want to think about such things! Not now. Not ever! He does indeed have the potential to be a good husband someday . . . and he would fulfill it, she told herself. Yes, of course war was awful. But it was unthinkable that its evil shadow could extend itself even over Stonewycke.

  She glanced at Nat’s face again. The boyishness was still there. But at twenty-two, there were faint hints around his eyes of the hard edges the war had forced upon him. War, as well as difficult marriages, matured men and women more rapidly than perhaps they would have wished.

  “I suppose all our lives must wait till the war is over,” sighed Allison. “It seems such a waste of our youth.”

  “Wi’ God, naethin’ is wasted,” replied Nat. “He always uses the tragedies to make o’ us all better. Ye mind what Grandma Maggie always told us aboot her years away frae Grandpa Ian.”

  “I know. But to hear her tell the story, it always took on almost a romantic air. You forget how heartbreaking it was for the two of them. And maybe that’s why when the heartache comes to us, we forget that it’s meant for our good, for the deepening of our faith.”

  “Weel, we all saw that in Grandma and Grandpa. I jist hope we o’ the next generations can allow the Lord the same grace to do that work in us.”

  “I can see that already in you, Nat,” smiled Allison. “We’re all so proud of you. When the 51st Highlanders so distinguished themselves at Dunkirk, you should have seen Daddy.”

  “Weel, we had to live up to the standard set in the Great War,” replied Nat, beaming at the thought of his father’s pride. “The Germans called us the ‘women o’ hell,’ not kennin’ hoo prood we was to be wearin’ the kilt. It was a fine unit to be a part o’ that!”

  “Well, you were all from heaven as far as we’re concerne
d,” said Allison. “And where to now, Nat?”

  “’Tis all secret, ye ken.”

  “Secrets!” exclaimed Allison with a downcast frown. “If I hear that word one more time, I’ll scream!”

  Nat hesitated a moment, then appeared as if he was going to speak, but all at once a voice over the loudspeaker interrupted him.

  “Flight fifteen from Glasgow now approaching the runway.”

  The conversation seemed over, or at least suspended as Allison and Nat rose to walk outside to watch the landing of their mother’s plane. A cold stiff wind met them, and Allison had to hang on to her hat to prevent it from joining the aircraft overhead. They watched on the other side of the fence as the plane lowered its landing gear and made its approach.

  “I hope Mother’s flight was good,” said Allison. “She does not relish the idea of flying and only did it this time for you.”

  “The moment I see her she’ll ken hoo much I appreciate it,” said Nat. “I never know when I’ll be back, or if—”

  He broke off suddenly, ashamed of himself for almost voicing his fears to his already burdened sister. “You both will never know how much it means to me to be able to see you now,” he finally added.

  Allison reached up and placed her arm around him, giving him a loving squeeze.

  “Oh, Nat,” she said, “forgive my selfish outburst before. I don’t care where you’ll be or how many secrets you have. I will be praying for you every day.”

  “Thank you, dear sis,” he said. “You know Grandma always said that we ought to pray as specifically as possible.”

  “Yes . . . I remember.”

  “Weel, maybe I ought to give ye some help in that particular area . . .”

  He paused and smiled. “I’d like ye to ken, Allison. I canna tell ye anythin’ exactly. But I can say that for the next several months, I’ll nae doobt be eatin’ lots o’ spaghetti.”

  “Italy?”

  “Ye didna hear it frae me,” he replied with a wink. “Noo, you hae a secret to keep! And I’m glad ye ken. I willna feel sae alone noo. The Lord will be wi’ me, and I always ken that. But I think He understands my meanin’. ’Tis nice to share that kind o’ thing wi’ someone close to ye.”

  “I wish you didn’t have to go, Nat,” said Allison. “I wish we could go back to the time we were all just ‘wee bairnies’—running on the sand, exploring the Dormin. . . . Oh, I don’t know! You shouldn’t have to be going off to . . . who knows what!”

  She looked up at him and touched his cheek with her hand. There was hardly even a stubble of beard. Yet something deep in his eyes said he was fully a man, coming of age too soon.

  “It doesn’t seem fair, dear, gentle Nat—”

  Her voice broke down and tears rose in her eyes.

  Nat bent down and gave her a kiss on the forehead. “I love ye, Allison. Ye’re a dear sister. Things may be lookin’ a mite dark noo. But I ken they’re gaein’ to improve, especially for you. Logan will come back, and the war’ll be over one day, and the two o’ ye will hae the kind of marriage that will match both o’ yer wonderful hearts. Especially wi’ all ye seem to be learnin’ frae the Lord’s hand. In na sae very long, we’ll all be sittin’ together wonderin’ why we were so untrustin’ and downcast during these times o’ trial.”

  His last words were spoken with almost a distant tone, as if he were trying somehow to convince himself too of the hope of his words in the face of his coming assignment.

  “And noo,” he went on, “we better dry oor eyes, or Mother will wonder if we’re na glad to see her.”

  The plane touched down, and when Joanna debarked and walked through the gate, there followed a tender reunion of a mother and the children from whom she had long been separated as poignant as such a gathering can be in a time as fearul and uncertain as wartime.

  Allison’s were not the only tears that flowed.

  46

  House of Cards

  It had been a nerve-wracking five-hour train trip from Paris to Reims, only eighty miles.

  Logan knew the French railway system had deteriorated drastically since 1939, no thanks to some of his own operations in recent months. But he had not expected to spend half the day traveling.

  Then in Reims he had run into some difficulty contacting the local Resistance cell that had promised a vehicle to carry them the final leg of their journey, the twenty miles to Vouziers. They now had less than an hour to get there and set up their radios in time to catch the European wavelength broadcast of the BBC.

  As the old bakery van jostled and bounded along the rutted dirt road through forested terrain, Logan tired to relax by reviewing the important particulars of this current assignment. But the moment he tried to concentrate, the van bounced with a horrible thud into a huge pothole.

  “Can’t you keep out of some of those holes, Claude!” he shouted over the deafening roar of the ancient engine.

  “Not if you want to get there by seven!” rejoined the surly Claude sharply.

  “It won’t matter if we break our necks in the process, or attract a Boche escort.”

  “Never satisfied, Anglais!” Defiantly Claude jammed on the brakes.

  Lise, who was seated between the two men, flew forward, and had her reflexes been a fraction of a second slower, she would have smacked her head into the windshield. However, her hand grabbed the dashboard in time to prevent disaster.

  For the next three minutes Claude drove the van at a snail’s pace, while Logan sat, fuming at his comrade, silently bemoaning the fact that Claude was the only one available to accompany him and Lise on this particularly urgent mission.

  “All right!” snapped Logan at length, unable to stand it any longer. “You’ve had your fun, and your little joke on me. Now get moving!”

  Claude neither looked at Logan nor spoke, but merely rammed his foot to the accelerator. Instantly the old van lurched forward at its former pace, though Claude kept a diligent eye on the road ahead.

  Logan seriously wondered how they were going to pull this thing off under such uncooperative conditions. London had made the operation sound easy enough: During the next moon period they were to meet a Lysander at an abandoned airfield five miles southeast of the little town of Vouziers. It would deliver into their temporary care two important Gaullist agents. They were to tune into the BBC every evening at seven p.m. sharp to listen for the message: “On ne fait pas d’omelette sans casser des oeufs. You can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs.” When that came, they knew that night they must meet the plane. Their cover, while they awaited the signal, would be to appear as vacationers.

  The whole thing might be plausible enough at the beginning of July. The little village of Vouziers, with the Aisne River at its back door, would have enough of an influx of tourists that three more should be able to go unnoticed. That is, if no one paused to question two men and a woman traveling in a beat-up old bakery van. And if they could somehow put a veil over Claude’s foreboding features and eyes full of sinister intent.

  All at once, as if the irascible driver had read Logan’s unkind thoughts about the glare of his eyes, the van’s wheels collided with another trench-like gouge out of the road. Logan opened his mouth to upbraid him again, thought better of it, and said nothing. Only Lise saw the look on his face, and simply shook her head and sighed with impatience at these unfortunate relations between them. In all the months they had been together, one would think Claude might have modified his prejudices. But any trust that might have developed between him and Logan had been completely negated by Logan’s association with the Nazis. Back then, six months ago, his stature with them all had been on very precarious ground. . . .

  ———

  Lise found herself reflecting back to the events of the previous December. Michel had been arrested just two nights prior to the bombing at Pearl Harbor. When she had gone to meet him that first time, she had indeed felt betrayed—deeply and personally, even more than she had let on to him. On her way to the Lef
t Bank Cafe, she had fantasized that if it was true, then she would appoint herself his executioner. She tried to convince herself that the reason for her passionate initial reaction was that Michel had done something few had been able to accomplish since the war—he had won her trust. She had believed in him. For him to violate that was unconscionable. That was all. She forced from her mind all the other anguished and confused cries of her heart. There was only the Cause—she had no other feelings.

  Of course, she could never let him know any of this. She had wanted to believe in him still, and tried to give him the benefit of the doubt. She would send his message to London, and would do what it might take to back his ruse with the Germans. Because of Jean Pierre she had been willing to give him a chance. But inside, her emotions balanced on the thin line between trust and deception, and it would take some time for her to refocus her feelings. And when they met in the cafe, despite her calm, even sympathetic exterior, Michel never knew that in her purse she had carried a loaded revolver. She told herself she could have, yet even now, she did not know if she would have been able to use it on him if he had proved a traitor.

  Fortunately, she had not been given cause to find out.

  When the word of the arrest and deaths of the Gregoires came to them, she had read his eyes carefully. The anguish of his invisible tears was more real than any Nazi could have put on merely to wear. She considered herself certainly that good a judge of character. She would have no use for the revolver at present, not to use on Michel Tanant, at least.

  The others, however, took more time to convince. They had not seen his eyes. Claude still warily watched his flank, and seemed bent on bringing the despised Britisher face-to-face with some harm that would put an end to their mutual involvement once and for all.

  A tense week had followed. Michel had so desired a meeting with Henri. But the gentle old bookseller would not risk it—protecting the operation, he said. Lise knew he was afraid to look in Michel’s eyes, fearing perhaps that he might see the ugly truth of betrayal there. The strain, on both the young man and the old, was visible. The two had grown close in the months they had worked together—as close as two people could in this murderous life. And now suddenly the relationship that had been a source of sanity to both of them was gone.