The Treasure of Stonewycke

by Michael Phillips

  Galvez sat back and scowled at the whole scene. He took a long swallow from his glass of beer, all the while thinking that his grimy, poverty-ridden little village was looking better and better.

  6

  Back in London

  Hilary was back in London from Brighton a little after six-thirty. After making their way through traffic, Suzanne dropped her in front of her office building, and at 6:57 she walked through the doors of The Berkshire Review, intending merely to check her mail and go right home for the evening.

  Suzanne had pegged her correctly, and her surprise at Hilary’s leaving the magazine at the busiest time of the month was well justified. Though she had a competent staff, she was not the type to easily leave the work to others. Delegation was perhaps the most difficult aspect of her job. She always wanted to be fully apprised of every facet of the magazine’s progress, from research to copy-editing to typesetting to production to promotion to sales.

  As she entered, the earlier frenzy of the office had quieted considerably, but several staff writers were still busily engaged at their typewriters or phones. They threw her friendly greetings, no one appearing particularly concerned that she had been absent the entire afternoon.

  Hilary exchanged a few words with her personal secretary Betty, and her hand had just touched the door latch to her office when one of her writers, hurrying through the pressroom, called out to her.

  “Perfect timing!” he exclaimed, his compact frame of about Hilary’s own height hurrying toward her. “I’m glad I didn’t miss you.”

  “I just got here myself, Murry.”

  “I know. I saw you come in just as I got off the elevator. Do you have a minute?”

  “Of course, come on in,” Hilary replied.

  Murry opened the door for Hilary, then followed her into the office. The young man was Murry Fitts, an American expatriot who had attended the University of London, and had decided to make his home in England where a promising job awaited him. Now four years out of the university, he was an enthusiastic and skilled writer, as well as a daring investigative reporter. He possessed a reputation for his somewhat flamboyant style and received not a little criticism from his more conservative colleagues for his shoulder-length hair and bushy beard. But he was just the kind of employee that had helped turn The Berkshire Review around, and Hilary had never had cause to hold his particular “style” against him. Besides, long hair and other seeming “oddities” were almost the norm in these days of Magical Mystery Tours and “feelin’ groovy.” Whether you were straight or wore your anti-Establishment prejudice on your sleeve, you were less likely to look twice at long hair and funny clothes than you might have in ’64. And to Murry’s credit, he made a point of usually wearing a sports jacket and necktie to assuage his more narrow-minded peers. But Hilary wouldn’t have cared if he had dressed in a Nehru jacket and beads. He was a solid young man, forthright and sincere, and, in addition to being a friend, was an ace reporter. He and Suzanne had a lot in common, and Hilary wondered why she had not yet gotten around to introducing the two. She made a mental note just before she spoke.

  “What is it, Murry?” she asked after they had seated themselves, she behind her desk, and he in one of the other two chairs in the small cubicle which was her office.

  “I’ve got a couple projects I need input on.”

  He paused, took his notebook from his pocket, flipped back several pages, and began again.

  “I haven’t had much time, but at this point I’d stake some pretty heavy odds that there might be more to this East End affair than meets the eye.”

  “Like what?”

  “Code violations, unjustified evictions, possibly even collusion with building officials about the redevelopment.”

  “Do you have anything solid?”

  “Not quite. It’s just a sense I get. I think it definitely bears further investigation.”

  “Hmmm,” mused Hilary. “Must have been providential that I decided to call off the story for this issue.”

  “Come on, you’re not going to start giving me that stuff again about God leading you! This is the 1970s, Hilary!”

  “I’ve told you before, Murry, and I’ll tell you as often as it takes to sink into that liberal, semi-open brain of yours—God does lead His people just as much today as when the Jews were wandering across the desert with Moses. His ways just appear more subtle now, that’s all.”

  “Okay, okay,” laughed Murry. “You’ll make a believer of me yet! But you’re right, I think it would be wise to hold on to your story and see what happens. I want to poke around a bit more.”

  “What do you have?”

  “Probably nothing more than the proverbial gut feeling.”

  “The reporter’s most valuable stock-in-trade,” said Hilary.

  “Maybe they’ll have plausible explanations for everything,” Murry went on, “but I have to ask the questions anyway.”

  “Anything else?”

  “You probably heard about the fire out there a few days ago?”

  “Vaguely, yes. Is that tied in?”

  “Again, who knows? But it’s just too coincidental for comfort, so I looked into it—just for fun. The owner of the building stands to profit a cool two hundred thousand pounds from the insurance company.” Fitts made his final statement with pointed emphasis.

  “Well, keep at it,” said Hilary. “What was the other project you needed to talk about?”

  “It’s the antiquities piece.” Murry scratched his head sheepishly. “It’s going a bit slow.”

  “The piece or you, Murry?”

  “Well . . .”

  “You’re one of my best writers, Murry, and I hate to waste you on something you have no interest in. But it is your turn to do the intelligentsia beat, and you know how important it is that we keep open these contacts and do a museum article now and then.”

  “I know, but history was never my strong point.”

  Hilary sighed with understanding. “I can’t have the others think I’m playing favorites. But if you don’t want the St. Ninian’s story, I do need someone to cover an item about a woman who claims to have given birth to an alien baby—”

  “Spare me! I’ll dig through the archives and keep interviewing the old historians in tweed suits!”

  Hilary smiled triumphantly. “Who knows? You might even turn up something startling—some hard news. Some of the world’s great sleuths wear tweed suits just to throw people off. You never know what might really be behind the horn-rimmed glasses and tweed of those men you interview.”

  “I’ll see what I can find. At least I’ll give it my best shot.”

  A short pause followed and Hilary took the chance to glance at her appointment book.

  “You know, Murry,” she said after a moment, “I was just thinking again about the East End thing. Maybe we ought to run out there tomorrow. Have a look at the fire locale, talk to a few people.”

  “Tomorrow’s deadline—it’s bound to be hectic around here.”

  “I know, but we want to look into this fire while it’s still fresh. A hot story—as it were—waiteth for no man . . . or woman.”

  “Then I’ll get right on it,” said Fitts, jamming his notebook back into his pocket and rising.

  “Tomorrow, Murry. Tomorrow! And I’ll join you. In the meantime, you have my permission to go home first, maybe even get some sleep,” laughed Hilary.

  Fitts chuckled at himself. “Yeah. Nothing we can do for this issue anyway.” He opened the door. “See you in the morning.”

  “Good-night, Murry.”

  After Murry had closed the door, Hilary sat back and reflected on the events of a full day. It had begun, seemingly, with that Whitehall interview, moved on to Brighton and her thought-provoking conversation with Suzanne, and finally ended with this stimulating interchange with Murry. At least there was no lack of diversion to keep her from sinking too far into morose melancholia. Tomorrow she would be busy wrapping the next issue of the Review, goin
g with Murry to investigate the fire . . . and . . . well, there were hundreds of pressing matters to keep her occupied, not including the new and unexpected.

  It was 8:15 by the time Hilary arrived at her flat that evening, after stopping by an all-night delicatessen for something to eat.

  7

  The Dream

  Hilary kicked off her shoes, put on water for tea, then sat down leisurely in her favorite chair to eat her cold cuts on bread with a side dish of vegetables. She was hardly aware of their taste, however, and when she rose to tend to her tea, she went through the motions methodically as if her mind was far away. As indeed it was. She picked up the book beside her and tried to read.

  It was no use. Somehow her discussion with Suzanne seemed bent on intruding more forcibly into her thoughts now that she was in the quiet of her living room. It wasn’t so much what either of them had said; it was the very persistence of the agitating question. As intently as she tried to steer her mind in another direction, whether she liked it or not . . . whether she was prepared to admit it or not . . . eventually she knew she was going to have to confront the nobility issue head-on. Suddenly it was far more pressing even than Suzanne suspected. Their conversation that afternoon had carried overtones that Hilary’s friend could in no way suspect.

  She tried to shake the fantasies from her mind. She liked her life. She enjoyed her independence. Why this sudden surge of discontent? She wouldn’t have to give it up. She could ignore what had happened. Why not merely go on as before? Business as usual. She wasn’t obligated to restructure her life just because some stranger happened to think . . .

  Was it indeed her visit with Suzanne this afternoon that had triggered this string of thoughts? No. Such anxieties had been pestering her relentlessly for two weeks. She had sought out Suzanne only as someone to talk with about what was already swirling around inside her.

  Hilary liked Suzanne. But their longtime friendship could not alter the reality of her friend’s aristocratic birth. It was a fact Hilary had always been aware of as one of the given parameters in their relationship. She had been comfortable with it, comfortable in who Suzanne was, and comfortable in the person she herself was.

  Until recently. . . .

  Now, suddenly, everything was changed. Suddenly she no longer knew who she was, or who she wanted to be. Suddenly all the things she had told Suzanne through the years about the differences in their stations were no longer valid. Suddenly the firm foundations of the world she had learned to rely on were all gone. She felt as one cast adrift . . . without a lifeline . . . without any sense of where the harbor lay.

  The eternal philosophical quandary—Who am I?—was suddenly a very practical and real concern.

  Hilary had always been pretty certain about the person living under her skin—until two weeks ago. And as she sat in her easy chair that evening contemplating her afternoon with Suzanne, she knew that the turmoil in her mind and emotions stemmed from more than any point her friend had raised.

  She tried to ignore the other reason, block it from her mind, hide from it, pretend she had imagined it . . . but to no avail.

  Since the funeral it had become all the more pressing and insistent. Because since coming back from Scotland, she realized that now everything was up to her.

  The decision had been placed directly in her lap. The only other person on earth who knew was now gone. She could ignore the whole episode, pretend it never happened, go on with her life, and try her best to forget it . . . if she chose to.

  Hilary rubbed her eyes wearily.

  It was ten o’clock, and she had already tackled too many emotional dilemmas that day to face another—especially this one.

  Leaving the remnants of her supper and tea on the table, she rose and went to her bedroom.

  Yet even after changing her clothes and crawling into bed, she knew her reason for trying to empty her mind and going to bed had more to do with “escape” than sleep. She did not want to think any more about her unexpected visitor, or about the incredible implications of her words, or about the funeral, or about all the turmoil this was bound to cause in her life. Despite the churning of her thoughts, however, to her relief she soon found herself drifting away as sleep overcame her.

  ———

  Suddenly Hilary awoke with a shuddering gasp. It was the middle of the night. She was drenched with perspiration.

  It seemed her eyes had been closed a mere moment, but in reality she had been asleep for two hours. She had been awakened by the horribly real sensation of ear-splitting explosions, and the sounds still clung to the edges of her consciousness as if they had occurred just outside her window rather than in a dream of a remote and distant time.

  She found herself shaking with fear, as if she were the little girl of the dream—forlorn . . . helpless . . . alone . . . running madly away from the awful sounds in sheer panic. Running . . . running . . . crying out for help but with no one to hear . . . stumbling over a stone and falling . . . picking herself up and trying to run again . . . across the little bridge . . . away . . . away from the ugly sounds behind her.

  Hilary brushed an unsteady hand across her damp brow and groped in the darkness for the lamp switch. She squinted against the light—this time real, and so comforting after the bursts of blinding flashes in her dream. It was after midnight.

  By the time she slipped out of bed, she had for the most part regained her composure and was fully awake. She knew she would not be able to return to sleep for a good while; she wasn’t even sure she wanted to. Instead, she climbed out of bed and made her way through the darkened rooms to the kitchen. The unsettling midnight disturbance called for the eternal British cure-all—another hot cup of tea.

  While the kettle was heating on the stove, Hilary wandered out to her desk in the living room. She sat down, vaguely thinking that she might work on some of her correspondence. Who am I trying to kid? she thought after a few minutes of staring blankly ahead. Soon the whining teakettle drew her back to the kitchen.

  As she prepared the tea, images of her dream, against her will, began to filter once more into her mind. It was the same dream as always, hardly altered from when she was a child. Years ago it had haunted her more frequently. Once or twice a month she would wake up in the middle of the night screaming and would not be able to sleep again until her mother took her in her arms and rocked her, gently humming hymns into her ear.

  It was always the same . . . vague, shadowy, frightening images of light, and loud sounds, and confusion—and always the little girl running to escape, whose tear-streaked face seemed so real she wanted to reach out and dry the dampness on the terrified little cheeks. As the girl ran, farther and farther from the explosions and jumbled confusion that made up the background of the dream, Hilary was not merely watching events as an observer—she was the little girl, and felt her panic with every fiber of her being. Every time she woke up trembling.

  As Hilary grew older, the dream came with less frequency, making its unwelcome appearance mostly during times of stress. She had not thought of the little girl for at least two years. Usually she had no idea what brought it on. But tonight’s episode was a different story. She knew all too well why it had intruded into her dreamy subconscious now.

  Her only surprise was that the dream had not come sooner, the night after—two weeks ago—when she had found the unexpected caller waiting in her office.

  8

  An Unexpected Visitor

  There had been a morning interview that day on the other side of the city, so Hilary had not arrived at the office until nearly nine-thirty.

  As she thought back, Hilary wondered how different things might have been if she hadn’t come in that day at all, or if . . .

  Probably no different. The lady had been determined and would not have given up easily.

  She remembered seeing the woman seated in her private office with her back to the glass enclosure the moment she walked into the pressroom.

  “I didn’t know I
had an appointment,” she said to her secretary.

  “You didn’t,” replied Betty. “She apologized for coming without one, but said it was important. She asked if she could wait.”

  “Who is it . . . what’s it about?”

  Betty shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe she heard about your article . . .” Betty’s voice trailed off, leaving the thought to finish itself.

  “That’s probably it.”

  Hilary looked toward her office and gave the woman closer scrutiny. At first glance she did not appear the type to join a cause. Even as she sat, from her back Hilary could almost detect a kind of inbred nobility in the elderly woman. She doubted she was from the East End, after all. Her very bearing seemed to indicate another world altogether. She appeared to be about eighty, but sat with a poise and grace Hilary would not have associated with age. Her silver-gray hair was pulled straight back from her face into a bun at the back of her head. Her carriage certainly would suggest aristocratic blood. Could she be here about the last piece she’d done for the magazine blasting the nobility? No, that had been too long ago, and neither did the woman seem of the sort to make a petty protest.

  The woman’s face was turned away from the glass, but Hilary saw by the position of her head that she was studying the personal items on the office wall. She seemed to spend some time examining the photo of Hilary with the U.S. Army’s “Charlie Company” while she had been a correspondent in Vietnam two years before. Then the woman’s eyes shifted in turn to the university diploma, two journalism awards, another photo—this one of Hilary and Suzanne during their student days—and finally lingering on Hilary’s pride and joy—an oil portrait of Gladstone. Not only was the famed Prime Minister one of the few politicians Hilary could honestly admire, but the painting had been done while he lived. Only the fact that the artist was somewhat obscure had kept the portrait within her budget.

  When Betty quietly cleared her throat Hilary realized she had been staring silently for an inordinately long time.