The Treasure of Stonewycke

by Michael Phillips

  © 1988 by Michael R. Phillips and Judith Pella

  Published by Bethany House Publishers

  11400 Hampshire Avenue South

  Bloomington, Minnesota 55438

  www.bethanyhouse.com

  Bethany House Publishers is a division of

  Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan

  www.bakerpublishinggroup.com

  Ebook edition created 2016

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

  ISBN 978-1-4412-2980-9

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Cover design by Eric Walljasper

  Judith Pella is represented by The Steve Laube Agency

  Dedication

  To those of God’s people who are seeking to impact history and their own posterity, by building into the generational flow of God’s dealing with man on the earth, according to Psalm 78:5–7.

  “I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the sins of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations. . . . Know therefore that the Lord your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to those who love him and keep his commands. . . . Tell this to your children, and let your children tell it to their children, and their children to the next generation. . . . Let this be written for a future generation, that a people not yet born may praise the Lord.”

  Deuteronomy 5:8; 7:9

  Joel 1:3

  Psalm 102:18

  Contents

  Cover 1

  Title Page 3

  Copyright Page 4

  Dedication 5

  Introduction 11

  1. Mourners 15

  2. Hilary Edwards 21

  3. Afternoon With a Friend 30

  4. A New Era 42

  5. In a Dark Corner of the City 52

  6. Back in London 55

  7. The Dream 59

  8. An Unexpected Visitor 63

  9. Confirmation 72

  10. Uncertainties 81

  11. The Parcel 85

  12. Hilary’s Resolve 94

  13. North Toward Destiny 97

  14. The Pan Am Red-Eye 108

  15. The Bluster ’N Blow 111

  16. Uninvited Thoughts 120

  17. Unsought Heroism 125

  18. Allison and Logan 132

  19. Into the Future 137

  20. A Long-Awaited Meeting 143

  21. First Arrival 148

  22. Altered Plans 154

  23. The Oxford Connection 164

  24. An Accident 169

  25. Mustering a Force of One 175

  26. Small Talk in the Parlor 177

  27. A Visit to the Stable 183

  28. Help From a Friend 188

  29. Postponed Interview 193

  30. Snowy Rendezvous 197

  31. Fortuitous Encounter 201

  32. Afternoon Tête-à-tête 210

  33. Stadium Appointment 218

  34. Another Arrival 223

  35. Suspicions Aroused 229

  36. Hidden Complexities 236

  37. Of Ovid and Aristocrats 239

  38. A Visit to Town 249

  39. Late Tea 257

  40. Hostilities 267

  41. Duplicity or Veracity? 272

  42. The Old Garden 276

  43. Aborted Voyage 282

  44. Detour and Diversion 286

  45. Astonishing News 295

  46. The Gallery 302

  47. Outside the Ballroom 308

  48. The Rakes O’ Glasgow 316

  49. The Oxford Don 320

  50. Conspiracy Uncovered 327

  51. Flight 332

  52. Faraway Alliance 335

  53. Time of Reunion 340

  54. Confirmation of Intent 344

  55. Loose Fragments and Plans 352

  56. A Ride 358

  57. Lady Joanna’s Quest 363

  58. Pieces Fall Together 373

  59. Parental Vile 380

  60. Father and Daughter 386

  61. The Hook 394

  62. Final Gambit 397

  63. The Professor and the Assassin 402

  64. Contact Is Made 411

  65. In the Spider’s Lair 417

  66. L’Escroc’s Curtain Call 423

  67. Malice Unhinged 430

  68. Reunion Out of Time 433

  69. Final Stroke 440

  70. The Truth 444

  71. Vintage ’36 454

  72. Trail of the Reliquary 459

  73. Escape 467

  74. The Berkshire Review 476

  75. The Treasure of Stonewycke 480

  76. Celebration of Love 485

  Epilogue 490

  About the Authors 494

  Fiction by Michael Phillips 495

  Books by Judith Pella 496

  Introduction

  From the earliest beginnings of time, God uniquely ordained the family as the primary human organism to transmit His life. The entire structure of ancient Israel was founded upon family. Chief among the commands of Moses to those under his charge was: “Teach these things to your sons and daughters.”

  The Scriptures make abundantly clear that God’s intent when He created the family was that His life be carried down through time, through the family, forever—for a thousand generations. Each individual was designed to be nurtured by roots which reached deeply into the soil of the past, giving strength, which then in turn extended into the future.

  In Satan’s devious cunning, however, he infiltrates and cuts off that umbilical cord of inner life which God implanted within the ongoing and extended family institution. When he is thus allowed to destroy family roots, this many-generational process is undone, and the result is that every successive generation or two, men and women have to discover faith anew. The ongoing vitality and strength of a permanent, life-giving root system is made impotent.

  God has given us, however, a responsibility to infuse a heritage into the generations—a heritage involving both the past and the future, a heritage far broader in scope than our own mere lives. God desires permanency from His people, an ongoing fight against Satan’s ways, a continual breaking of the chains of evil from the past, even to the third and fourth generation back, and a passing on of the mandate of obedience to God to a thousand generations ahead.

  Few apprehend the legacy which has been given us to pass down. We leave the treasure of God’s life buried. This parable of Stonewycke is but the universal story which God has been working to infuse within the human chain of generations with every family on the face of the earth. The heritage of God’s life within us is a legacy for all families, for all times.

  This is not merely Maggie’s story, or Atlanta’s, or Joanna’s, or Allison’s. We all must step into it at our own time. Some are born into the bloodline, others (like the fictional Alec and Ian, and the Gentiles of whom Paul speaks) must be grafted in. But the life of God’s Spirit moves mightily throughout time, and every man and woman must one day face their own place in that life, in that legacy, just as do the characters in the story you are about to read. God takes us where we are—wanderers, orphans, in need of a Father, in search of our true H
ome—and makes us an integral part of that legacy.

  Maggie “became” more than she could have been alone because the stream of God’s purpose (of which Stonewycke is a shadow, a type, an illustration) swept over her, drew her into it, and made it hers. The legacy is God’s life, not Maggie’s, but through her obedience was sublimated, and thereby passed on, into future generations.

  At every time, in every era, within every human heart, the decision must be faced whether to accept one’s place within that legacy. Will we abandon ourselves to God’s plan and life for us, or will we ignore the river of the Spirit sweeping over us and let it pass without bringing us up into its inherent life? In every successive generation, every person must face the choices which will determine the impact God’s lifeblood will have in his or her own existence, and whether it will move through them into the future, or die. At every turn Satan will try to steal the inheritance which has been given us. Forces will infiltrate our families telling of false priorities, false ambitions, false attitudes which are not God’s. But we are commanded and impelled to stand firm, to walk in the calling of the one true legacy, and to pass on His heritage to those who come after us in the ongoing flow of generations.

  The facts in the story of the Stonewycke Legacy may not be real. But this is a true story, in that the truths of God’s legacy within His people are real. There is a treasure, a life, a land, a home, and a heritage that is easy for earthly eyes to lose sight of. As Jesus said, the mysteries of the Kingdom of God are hid, like parables, so that only those with eyes to see and perceive may truly apprehend them. In so many families, in so many generations, the treasure is buried, hidden, sometimes for centuries. Yet that treasure forms the very strength of God’s family, and the ongoing flow of God’s life in the world. It is a treasure awaiting discovery by every family, by every man, by every woman, by every child of God in every new generation!

  God bless you one and all. It has truly been our joy to experience the life of Stonewycke with you.

  1

  Mourners

  A gray sky hung heavy over the dormant heather. But from the blanket of black umbrellas gathered at the graveyard, it appeared that the misting October drizzle had deterred not a single resident of Port Strathy from bidding their beloved matriarch farewell.

  Donald Creary found himself at the front of the throng pressing in around the grave.

  He clearly recalled the first time he had laid eyes on Lady Joanna, though he had been but a wee bairn at the time. He’d possessed nerve enough only to steal a glimpse from behind his mother’s dress. Yet even then, his childish intuition had sensed she was someone special. She had come with Doc MacNeil to tend his papa’s favorite sow. Of course back then she had been only a stranger in town with a foreign sound to her tongue—that was sixty years ago. But young Donald had needed no property deeds or lawyers to tell him that here stood royalty, or close enough to it.

  Lady Joanna didn’t need to say so either—nor did she. He never knew a humbler soul. The reverence of the Port Strathy folk sprang from deeds, not words. Never had she put on airs, never had she acted the part of head of the region’s most important family. Why, her behavior during the Queen Mother’s visit fifteen years ago had grown into legend throughout the valley. Joanna had slipped away in the early morning hours while the dear old lady still slept and had driven (herself, with no thought of a chauffeur!) halfway to Culden to take Mrs. Gordon some medicine for her ailing daughter. After helping the widow milk her cow, she had shown back up at the castle just in time for breakfast with mud and who could tell what else all over her frock! The Queen Mother’s delight was so great over the story that both women went down into the valley that very afternoon and had tea with Mrs. Gordon in her humble stone cottage.

  Memories like that, which were not uncommon, had through the years made Joanna as highly thought of along Scotland’s northeastern coast as the Queen Mother herself. Sixty years of selfless love and compassion expressed in her every act of kindness toward the folk of her land had brought out nearly every man, woman, and child in the valley to pay their respects and say their last goodbyes.

  The Rev. Macaulay had begun to speak. Donald had to turn his full attention to the voice dulled by the increasing rain and the canopy of umbrellas, not to mention Macaulay’s own personal sorrow.

  “But I would not have you be ignorant, brethren,” he read from First Thessalonians, “concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.”

  Donald ran a hand over his damp cheek. His tears mingled freely with the Scottish drizzle.

  Creary’s fond memory of Lady Joanna stemmed not merely from her ministry to Mrs. Gordon, her enthusiasm for helping her husband with his animals, nor the esteem in which she was held at Buckingham Palace. His feelings ran far deeper than that. For it had been Lady Joanna who had helped him get right with the Lord.

  The war that had cost him his leg had also left him embittered toward just about everything in life. In the years following he had managed to make things miserable not only for himself but also for his wife and children. Lady Joanna had not failed to visit them every day for months after his homecoming, notwithstanding her own grief after the loss of her son and baby granddaughter. But never an angry word had come out of her mouth toward the so-called fate Donald was so fond of cursing. She had taught him about hope, and gradually led him to a sustaining faith. Because of her, Donald understood Rev. Macaulay’s words today.

  He stole a glance at the family. Yes, they understood too. He saw the deep grief in their faces. After all, her death had come as a great shock. Four days ago she had been active and vital, hardly showing her eighty-one years. Then, literally, the next day she was gone, suddenly stricken with a cerebral hemorrhage. But despite the sadness in their eyes, he could tell they knew she had passed into a greater life, an even deeper vitality.

  “For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep.”

  Donald looked in turn at the faces of Lady Joanna’s offspring. All the children had come, just as they had for their father’s funeral the year before. No distance would prevent members of this family from saying their final farewells to such loved and revered parents as Lady Joanna and Alec MacNeil.

  Lady Margaret MacNeil, now Mrs. Reynolds, had come in yesterday, all the way from her home in Boston. Her brother Ian had been in Greece writing a book when he had been wired the news. He had taken the next plane home.

  And of course, there stood Mr. Macintyre and Lady Allison, the undisputed new heiress to Stonewycke now, in the forefront of them all. Donald had to admit that as new overseers of the estate, they would be quite different than Lady Joanna and Doc Alec had been. More cosmopolitan, he supposed, more modern. Doc Alec had remained a country man, notwithstanding that his son-in-law was one of the most influential members of Parliament. And Lady Joanna never lost her simplicity of spirit.

  Lady Allison and Mr. Macintyre moved to a faster pace of life. Just last year the Prime Minister himself had come to Stonewycke for a visit! And though Mr. Macintyre’s career required that they spend a great deal of time in the south, the sleepy little northern region had become, if not exactly a hub of activity, yet an area well aware of its close links to the centers of power in Britain.

  But Lady Allison and Mr. Macintyre were like their predecessors in many ways as well. They loved the land, the people, the heritage, the sense of roots no less than the older folks. That was always clear. They cared, and would do anything for you.

  Creary would never forget that night his prize bull had taken sick, and the look of grief in the Doc’s eyes when he told him there was nothing he could do. Then, a couple of days later, Donald had been down at the harbor with some of the other men, lamenting the hard times, the lack of money, and he had been especia
lly down on account of his bull. Just then Mr. Macintyre rounded the corner, alone, apparently out for a stroll in Port Strathy, though as usual he was dressed as if he’d only that moment walked out of the Houses of Parliament. He’d approached the small group, greeting each of the men warmly with a shake of the hand and a slap on the back, listening in turn to the tales each had to tell.

  But before turning to go back the way he came, he’d unobtrusively handed Donald a small folded envelope which Donald, sensing that it was meant to be private, hastily shoved into his coat pocket.

  When Creary was alone an hour later, he sat down, opened the envelope, and read the words: I hear you’ll be needing a new bull, and I always did have an urge to invest in livestock. Buy us the best one you can find and we’ll share the profits. The letter was simply signed L. M. Folded up inside the paper were two hundred-pound notes. Donald knew Mr. Macintyre had no more thought of taking half the profits than he would of dismantling Stonewycke. That had merely been his way to insure Donald didn’t try to give him back the notes.

  Even as one of the former Prime Minister’s closest confidants, Mr. Macintyre was still a con man of sorts. There were those in Port Strathy, close friends like Donald Creary and others his generosity had found clever ways to befriend, who saw through the exterior. They knew Logan Macintyre never once forgot he was one of them, never forgot he had started out as nothing more than the estate’s mechanic.

  In those days he had rubbed elbows with more than a few of the menfolk around the grimy tables at Hamilton’s, dealing a pretty fast game of cards. The years might have reformed him in that area, but he always seemed to enjoy mixing with the townspeople, no matter how important he grew in London society. And he was still not opposed to a con now and then, if by it he could do someone good without making that person feel small.

  Yes, it was a different world now—the 1970s! Changes that had been slowly coming for decades had now worked their way fully into the complete fabric of life throughout Britain, from the top to the bottom of the social scale. A nobleman couldn’t live off the land anymore, not as an aristocrat whose rents from his tenants kept him living well. Those times were well past. The common man had risen, and now those on top had to struggle to make financial ends meet just like everyone else. No doubt it cost the family a great deal to keep up the old Stonewycke place these days. Doc’s veterinary practice and Macintyre’s political career were more than mere sidelines. They were necessary to pay the bills. The gentry still played an important role in maintaining tradition, but these men were now just like all the rest of them. They, too, had to work for a living or else go broke trying to maintain an ancient estate that had become a financial albatross.