The Treasure of Stonewycke

by Michael Phillips

  Creary’s eyes strayed to the closed coffin sitting beneath an awning to protect it from the rain.

  Life, despite all the changes, had to go on. Lady Joanna never pined for the past, and she had as much cause as anyone. But Lady Joanna understood what was truly important in life. Perhaps that was why her passing was so deeply mourned.

  Rev. Macaulay closed the graveside services with the Lord’s Prayer. When the last words had died away, the family began to file past the coffin on their way to the waiting cars.

  Creary watched a moment, then filed slowly out through the black iron gate with the other silent townspeople. Halfway across the adjacent field he paused to glance back. The rain was coming down more earnestly now. The ancient cemetery with its moss-encrusted gray stones and markers would soon be still once more. As he took in the scene he noticed a stranger pausing beside the coffin.

  “Who d’ye suppose that is?” Creary’s wife whispered, leaning toward him.

  The woman was tall and slim, in her early thirties, and her black cashmere suit was well-tailored and fashionable. Creary couldn’t manage a good look at her face, shadowed as it was beneath a floppy-brimmed black hat, but the hair flowing out from under it was the color of a haystack in a field catching the last rays of an amber sunset. It was an unmistakable attribute, even in this dismal weather. She walked with grace and assurance, and you could tell at first glance that she was a woman who knew what she was about. But what could she be doing here? he wondered. He had never seen her before, and he knew every person in Port Strathy.

  “I dinna ken,” Creary whispered in reply.

  “No one o’ the family is she?”

  “They didna seem to be takin’ no notice o’ her.”

  “’Tis muckle odd,” mused Creary’s wife.

  As they looked, the stranger paused only a moment at the casket and laid on top a lovely red rose she had been carrying. Then, just before walking away in the opposite direction from the family, she appeared to say something. But Creary was too far away to hear.

  Indeed, the words she spoke were barely audible, intended for no ears other than those who could hear earthly voices no longer:

  “If only I had come sooner. . . .”

  2

  Hilary Edwards

  Hilary Edwards was the sort who thrived on the activity generated from being part of an organization on the go.

  The rhythmic clicking of typewriters beating out their cadence, indifferent to the unbroken ringing of phones and the hum of a dozen different conversations, was to Hilary the one constant of this place. She liked the sound, found it relaxing, as another might the steady breaking of waves on a shore or the unremitting fall of rain upon an attic roof.

  Granted, tomorrow was deadline, which made the appealing noises about the place more frantic than usual. If the editors, typesetters, layout and graphics people, and advertising personnel of The Berkshire Review were going to loaf, this was not the time for it. Putting out a monthly magazine with a short staff on a thin budget left little time for goldbricking; and if a momentary breath could be inhaled for a couple of days after tomorrow, it would only be succeeded by the immediate renewal of activity brought on by the next month’s assignments.

  Hilary glanced out the glass walls enclosing her private office and could not resist a smile. She loved the accelerated pace of approaching deadline. It was at just such times that every feature of good journalism had to fit together.

  As editor-in-chief, she was proud of her magazine and her staff. This crew in particular was the best she’d had in a long time, and it told—not only in increased circulation, but also in growing acclaim from some of the other literary journals in and about London.

  After a brief lapse into such musing, she quickly returned her attention to her typewriter, where the next issue’s editorial still reposed half finished.

  “East End Redevelopment: Who Really Benefits?” read her caption.

  It was a familiar story: old neighborhoods torn down and replaced by high-rise buildings where the rent ended up being three or four times more than the old residents could afford. “It’s called ‘cleaning up the slums,’” she typed, “but the only ones who clean up are the Slum Lords.”

  Hilary’s colleagues had warned her away from the cause. “It’s yesterday’s news,” they insisted. “Who cares anymore—especially among our readership? They want highbrow causes. Who is going to care if a hundred-year-old, rat-infested tenement house is torn down?”

  Hilary was not deterred. If they didn’t care, then they ought to, and she would make them.

  So she’d visited the place, taken a room, stayed three days, interviewed people around the neighborhood, and talked to the residents. Certainly they cared, even if they were but a handful and hardly the kind of people the rest of the public paid much attention to. Yet these folk, soon to be displaced from their homes, were citizens too—and had a right to be heard. If their representative to Parliament was deaf to their appeals, at least The Berkshire Review was not.

  After two weeks of investigation, Hilary had uncovered some interesting, even startling facts. Excitedly she’d tackled the story after arriving home from her trip, relishing the discomfort this month’s issue of the Review was going to cause several highly placed individuals.

  The phone on her desk rang. She paused, tucked the receiver under her chin, then returned her fingers to their resting position on the keys of her IBM, as if still hoping—even in the midst of a conversation—that inspiration was suddenly going to strike.

  “Hilary Edwards,” she said, then paused to listen. “No, I can’t come now, Murry,” she went on after a moment. “Sure . . . of course I want to see it. But I’ve got to be over—” She glanced at her watch. “Oh no! I didn’t realize it was so late. That press conference starts in fifteen minutes! I have to go. I’m anxious to hear what you’ve found, but you can update me later.”

  She hung up the phone, switched off her Selectric, and jumped to her feet. Where had the morning gone? She’d been at the magazine since seven a.m., and had been confident she’d have no problem getting to the interview at Whitehall. But a dozen unexpected things had cropped up. Now she’d barely make it.

  As she rushed toward the door, she took a minute to make sure her gray linen suit was in order and that her blue silk blouse was properly tucked in. She quickly freshened her lipstick, gave her nose a powder and her pale amber hair a quick pat. The effect was well spent, but by no means necessary. Hers was the kind of beauty that needed no such assistance. In fact, had she depended too heavily on such devices, she might have detracted from, rather than enhanced, her natural attractiveness.

  At thirty-two Hilary Edwards had a fresh, almost girlish look that stood in sharp though not unpleasant contrast to the high-pressure, cut-throat world of journalism. Well-defined cheekbones, full lips, and luminous blue eyes tended to offset the vulnerability of her pale skin and hair. The combined effect was interesting, occasionally enchanting, and to the unsuspecting, even a bit deceptive. For however girlish her appearance may have been, she had succeeded in her career by her incisive, unrelenting, determined nature. At first glance she may have looked like a college co-ed, but she could hold her own in any company.

  From a London working-class family that lived not far from the neighborhood whose cause she now espoused, Hilary was no stranger to hard-fought victories. She attended the university at a time when that ancient, tradition-bound world still belonged primarily to men, working her way through as a waitress, a department store clerk, a governess, and a handful of whatever other menial jobs came along—and managed to graduate near the top of her class.

  After that came a string of newspaper jobs, her apprenticeship for what lay ahead. The Birmingham Guardian, The Manchester Times, and two obscure London sheets were found on her list of credits when The London Times hired her. In that capacity she met Bartholomew Frank, publisher of the flagging Berkshire Review. Back then the Review had been a scholarly, often stu
ffy, decent quality but little appreciated magazine, offering highbrow treatises on current events, which drew its limited readership from Britain’s intelligentsia.

  Frank offered Hilary the position of chief editor and, though the magazine was likely to fold in six months barring a drastic turnaround, she took the job. It was too great a challenge to resist. Neither of them had anything to lose, so Frank gave her carte blanche, and she proceeded to revamp the publication. Her inaugural issue showcased an upbeat yet still intelligent style that, while it continued to appeal to the dons and scholars, made a successful bid to capture the interest of a wider range of the public.

  She continued to broaden the Review’s base, brought in several key people who shared her vision of what the magazine might become, and in a year had doubled the circulation while at the same time fearlessly tackling many controversial topics.

  That was five years ago. Today The Berkshire Review was making a profit, and she had insured herself a place of respect among her peers.

  Hilary grabbed her coat on the way out of her office, then paused at her secretary’s desk to leave some last-minute instructions. In three minutes she had descended in the elevator and was outside in the chilly London air of early autumn.

  The Strand was particularly busy that noon and it took several minutes to find a cab. She wound up five minutes late for the press conference, but luckily the Members of Parliament who were scheduled as the object of the press’s attention had not yet arrived either.

  Two or three of her colleagues waved greetings as she took a seat about two-thirds of the way to the front of the crowded room.

  “Now we can get started!” one said in a jovial tone, thick with an Irish brogue. “The real muscle is here.”

  “Hardly,” laughed Hilary. “The traffic was treacherous. I’m lucky to be here at all,” she said, taking a pad and pencil from her purse.

  “You’ll have to blast the Ministry of Transportation next week, Edwards!”

  “Oh, Bert, I’m not that bad,” she replied. His only response was a hearty laugh.

  Bert O’Malley was a veteran newspaperman with The Daily Telegraph. He had won acclaim for his coverage of World War II from the front lines and had been among the vanguard of the press corps at the liberation of Paris. He was tough, boisterous, and generally a nice fellow who smoked cheap cigars and seemed to possess a singular aversion to wearing a properly knotted necktie. Everyone liked him, and Hilary was no exception.

  “What do you suppose the Parliament boys are going to pull over on us today?” asked Bert, blowing a puff of cigar smoke in Hilary’s face.

  She coughed and pointedly fanned the air with her pad. “You mean try to pull over on us?” she said.

  “That goes without saying, me dear,” returned Bert. “No one can put anything over on the press, eh?” He chuckled ironically.

  “We had better keep our guard up anyway,” said Hilary.

  “You’re not becoming a cynic, Eddie, me dear!”

  “Don’t worry, Bert. A cynic distrusts everything and everyone. I reserve my distrust for those most deserving of such scrutiny.”

  “Do you now?”

  “It’s been my experience that most cynics find their fulfillment in just being critical. They have nothing to believe in, so they make it their business to tear down everyone else’s values and beliefs. To me that’s lower than believing a falsehood. Cynicism in and of itself is nothing but emptiness. That’s not why I’m in journalism. I do have things I believe in. My motives aren’t to tear down, but to get some good things accomplished. At least I hope that’s what comes of it. I’m a believer in what I’m doing, Bert.”

  “Maybe you should be the politician, Eddie!”

  “No thanks, I prefer to be just a writer who thinks a little public scrutiny, focused with the aid of the printed page, is the best way to keep our leaders tuned in to the true interests of the people they are supposed to represent.”

  “‘Power, like a desolating pestilence, pollutes whate’er it touches,’ eh, me dear?”

  “I wouldn’t go that far.” She paused thoughtfully. “But let’s face it, Bert, too many of our officials have forgotten what it really means to be members of the human race.”

  “And if anyone can set them straight, it will be you, me girl!”

  Bert took two gusty puffs from his cigar, sending a thick cloud of smoke into the air. “Well, let ’em have it, Eddie,” he said. “Here they come.”

  Several expensively dressed men entered from a side door and strode confidently toward the front of the room. As Hilary glanced up, she shifted uncomfortably in her chair, nearly dropping her pad.

  “You all right, Eddie?” whispered Bert.

  “What?” said Hilary distractedly. “Oh, yes . . . fine. I just didn’t expect to see him here.”

  Before Bert could ask what she meant, the room grew quiet and the three new arrivals took seats behind the long front table on which sat microphones and glasses of ice water. All were Labour M.P.’s. John Gelzer and Logan Macintyre represented veteran politicians, both shadow ministers in Harold Wilson’s Opposition Labour Party since Wilson’s ouster from Number 10 Downing Street by Edward Heath a year earlier. The third man was a relatively new back bencher, Neil Richards.

  While they were settling themselves, Hilary quickly thumbed through the notes she had penciled in her pad earlier that morning, an exercise made the more difficult that her hands were suddenly perspiring and cold. Gelzer and Richards had previously agreed to appear before the press following their recent party conference. Macintyre was a new addition, and seeing him unexpectedly walk into the room was the source of Hilary’s present discomfort.

  She wondered if his presence indicated that the Parliament members thought they were going to need more clout. After all, they represented a current faction arising within Labour that was staunchly bucking the rest of its party’s anti-Common Market stance. That summer Heath’s Conservative government had launched a blitz of sorts to win the nation’s approval for entry into the European Economic Community. Now, in October, Parliament was at last prepared to make the momentous vote.

  After some years of vacillation and pressure from the Trade Unions, Wilson was ready to lead his Labour Party in opposing Heath. But there was a solid element in his party, including some influential front benchers, who firmly backed Britain’s involvement in the Common Market. A serious split threatened within the party when, during the recent Labour Conference, Wilson and his deputy party leader Roy Jenkins leveled harsh words at one another. Hilary guessed that the three representatives now present, all supporters of the Common Market, were going to try to placate the public, not to mention their leader, Harold Wilson.

  Soon a loud hum from an activated microphone filled the room. Richards tapped his mike, nodded toward the sound men, cleared his throat, and spoke.

  “I believe we are ready to begin,” he said. “Mr. Gelzer will start things off by reading a brief statement.”

  Gelzer shuffled some papers, straightened his horn-rimmed eye glasses, and then read from one of the sheets in a practiced oratorical tone. He went on for about ten minutes with the usual rhetoric about country, party, and motherhood, closing with a five-minute pitch for the Common Market.

  Hilary had to force herself to pay attention, and sighed with relief when he finished. They would have done much better, she thought to herself, to have had Macintyre or even Richards deliver the message.

  The question and answer period proved much more stimulating.

  Cauldwell from the Conservative Daily Express pressed right to the heart of the issue:

  “Can you comment on rumors regarding the possible formation of a new Social Democratic Party?” he asked, pencil ready.

  “I can only say,” replied Lord Gelzer, “that it is news to me.”

  “What about reports that Wilson and Jenkins aren’t speaking to each other?”

  “Surely,” sighed Gelzer with great effect, “with so many vital iss
ues before us, there must be more germane topics we can discuss.”

  Hilary’s hand shot up.

  “Perhaps you’d like to comment,” she called out, “on the fact that the polls still indicate less than half the population favors Great Britain’s entry into the EEC.”

  “You are ignoring the equal number who are in favor of the Common Market,” rejoined Gelzer smugly.

  Hilary rankled at the glib reply and was about to rebut when Macintyre interceded.

  “You are voicing a valid argument, Miss . . . ?”

  “Edwards,” she replied to his questioning pause. A sudden tight, dry sensation arose in her throat.

  “The will of the people, Miss Edwards,” he went on, “is vitally important to us. The fact that the percentage you have quoted was substantially lower three months ago is still nothing to hoot about. What do you suppose we ought to do when our nation is in such a dilemma?”

  He paused, as if expecting her to answer his question. The room was silent.

  Hilary returned his gaze for a moment, as if waiting for him to continue. She tried to write off his statement as more rhetoric. But there was a quality in his tone far different from Gelzer’s. He was not delivering a pat speech; rather, he seemed to be talking to her as he might if he met her on the street. Still he said nothing.

  Finally Hilary shook her head. “I’d rather hear your answer,” she said.

  He smiled.

  “I thought you’d never ask,” he said lightly, gently dismissing the tension that had begun to build. “And in reality the answer is a simple one—so disarmingly simple that neither the public nor its leaders think of it often enough. When we come upon the horns of a dilemma such as this one, we employ a tactic that perhaps ought to be taken a little more seriously at all times in Parliament—we try honestly to assess what we feel is best for the nation . . . and then we vote our conscience. Hopefully our constituents will pardon us!”