The Treasure of Stonewycke

by Michael Phillips

  She set down her cup and strode across the room, turning sharply when she reached the far wall. That she was agitated was clear, but her reporter’s blood had begun to flow once more now that the shock had subsided a bit. “Surely you can’t expect me to accept what you say on such, if you’ll excuse my candor, such flimsy evidence. In my business we have a saying: one source, doubtful; two sources, perhaps; three sources, confirmation. You have a name, nothing more.” She did not think it necessary at the time to give the details of her dream. “I would need something far more substantial.”

  “You have no desire to become acquainted with your real family?” Hilary tried for the moment to ignore the wounded tone in Lady MacNeil’s voice.

  “It’s not that,” answered Hilary with added sensitivity, remembering her earlier resolve not to hurt the lady. “I just haven’t given my real family, as you put it, much thought. I have a family I have considered my own for almost thirty years. They love me and I love them. I’m content with my life. And now you are asking me—well, you couldn’t possibly understand.”

  “Perhaps I might, more than you realize.”

  “How could you? How can you know what it’s like to find a grandmother—a family—you never knew existed?”

  An odd look flitted across Lady MacNeil’s face.

  “I know this must be difficult for you,” she said at length. “I can think of no way to make it easier. But for my part, you must see that I can’t simply walk out and forget the whole thing. It has taken me thirty years to find you.”

  Hilary sighed, turned away, stared out her window for a moment, then said, “I’m sorry. I suppose I’m not making this easy for you, either. It’s just that it comes as quite a shock.”

  She shook her head, drew a hand through her hair, turned back toward the room and began pacing behind her desk. She hadn’t wanted to remember. The dream had been so terrifying, yet even as a child she had somehow known that it was the bridge to her old life. And if her old life had been so hideous, who could blame the child in her for wanting to forget?

  In her subconscious childhood pain and confusion, there had always lingered a vague sense that she had been deserted by her parents when she had needed them most. The little girl in the dream had cried so frantically—alone, bewildered, afraid . . . yet no one came to help her. As an adult, Hilary possessed the intellectual capacity to analyze and understand childish misconceptions. Still, it was no easy thing to transfer that logic to the seat of her emotions and unlearn the deepest hurts of life. Though her mind was capable of telling her one thing, her heart did not always readily go along.

  Suddenly her hand went unconsciously to her throat.

  She had almost forgotten the one small link she had always had to a family . . . to a past life she had begun to think never really existed.

  Her eyes darted toward the lady. For a brief instant, Hilary entertained the notion of not mentioning it. It could only complicate the matter.

  But why be so deceptive? What was she afraid of? Wasn’t seeking the truth the very thing she had dedicated her life to as a journalist?

  In almost a sudden defiant response to her silent self-interrogation, she worked her fingers under the collar of her blouse. In another second or two she lifted out a delicate gold chain—one she had bought to replace the original, which had broken when she was ten. On it hung a heart-shaped locket.

  The moment it rested between her fingers, there came the sound of a thud and splat as Lady MacNeil’s cup slipped from her hand and crashed to the floor. Hilary stared, then hurried to the coffee table, where she grabbed a serviette and stooped down to clean up the spill.

  She had not even finished wiping up the coffee when she felt a slim, aged hand reach down to her head as she knelt on the floor, and gently caress her hair. She froze, then slowly turned and lifted her eyes to meet those of the old woman’s.

  “It’s true, then?” Hilary said in a barely audible whisper.

  “The locket belonged to my grandmother, Lady Margaret Duncan, and it has been passed down to succeeding generations of women in our family. My daughter, on the day of the train accident, bidding what she thought would be just a short farewell, gave it to her daughter.”

  Quiet tears flowed from Hilary’s eyes.

  The fears and confusion of her childhood, and her mature struggling to come to grips with her own identity, had by no means hardened her heart. As she knelt there at the gentle woman’s feet, it was almost as if the little girl in the dream had finally been found . . . rescued from the horror of the unknown. The part of her that had always, however subconsciously, felt like a stranger; helpless, and reaching out for something to fill the emptiness only an orphan can know, was now—suddenly and unexpectedly—comforted. Here was her own grandmother, a woman who could surely love and protect a lost little child. The tears that ran down her face were the tears she had been waiting thirty years to shed.

  At the same time, another piece of Hilary’s complex self remained hesitant, fearful of returning the older woman’s loving gaze. The mature young woman she had become was real. She was a child no longer. She had adult anxieties and confusions of her own. She could not hide herself in this lady’s arms and forget who she was. She already had a family, a life, a job, a future, and she hadn’t been looking for any other. She had dealt with her past by putting it behind her. What was she to do with a past she had never known, now that it had come seeking her against her will?

  “Hilary,” asked Joanna softly, as if she had read her granddaughter’s thoughts, “why are you afraid?”

  Hilary brushed her fingers across her wet cheeks. “I suppose I’m afraid of change,” she said.

  She smiled ironically. “I’ve a friend who is fond of pointing out my vast inconsistency in this area,” she went on. “‘Hilary,’ she tells me, ‘you want to change the world, but you fight personal change ruthlessly.’ To tell you the truth, I don’t know why I’m like that. All my life I’ve had this feeling deep inside that I had to make it on my own. An independence, I guess. Maybe it’s common to orphans, I don’t know. I’ve never been comfortable unless I was in control of my surroundings, in control of my own destiny, so to speak. And now to find everything so abruptly turned around, so . . . so . . . beyond my control—it’s hardly a pleasant feeling. It’s going to take some getting used to.”

  “What makes you think we would expect you to change?”

  “I’m not from your world. I’m not even sure I want to be.”

  Joanna nodded in understanding but was silent for some time.

  Hilary pulled herself to her feet, despite shaking knees, and took a seat beside Joanna.

  “It’s all going to take some getting used to,” she finally repeated with a long sigh.

  “Would you like to know who your parents are?” Joanna asked. Her tone, though free of expectation, held quiet entreaty.

  “Did they send you?”

  “They know nothing of my quest.”

  “I merely assumed that they—”

  “I made the decision when I first began this to keep it to myself until I was sure. I spoke briefly with my son-in-law to begin with, but shared with him only some of my concerns with, shall we call it, the situation as it then stood. But I wanted to explore the mystery before saying anything to them. It turned out to be a wise decision, for there have been many dead-ends, and my feeling of hopelessness after each failure has been . . . well, you can imagine. I sometimes began to think I had dreamed up everything, or was remembering events and places and landmarks incorrectly. I am getting on in years. I even wondered if senility was starting to creep in!”

  “And now you will tell them?”

  “You do not wish me to?”

  “Of course,” replied Hilary, defensively again. “What kind of person do you think I am?”

  She rose, turned her back on Joanna, and began pacing the small room again. After a moment, she turned around slowly, her face clearly reflecting that she was torn between her a
dult fears and the deep hopes of a little orphan child. “I’m—I’m so sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to sound that way.”

  “Think nothing of it, child,” replied Joanna. “I do understand, as difficult as that may be for you to grasp. I hope someday to have the opportunity to tell you just how deeply I understand what you are going through—and why.”

  Hilary smiled, tears again beginning to fall. “What are their names?” she asked in a soft, shaky voice.

  “My daughter is Allison—Allison Eleanor MacNeil. That is her maiden name, of course . . .”

  But Hilary hardly heard her last words. The moment she heard the name a strange sensation swept over and enveloped her. Allison . . . the mother who had borne her, given her life, cradled her, and then wept over her and grieved for years after her supposed death.

  “ . . . you resemble her, you know,” Lady MacNeil was saying when Hilary became again conscious of her voice. “ . . . the hair and eyes. I knew I had found you the moment you walked in. It was all I could do to keep from shouting hallelujah! and rushing to you!” She gave a little laugh at the thought.

  Hilary returned her smile.

  “And your father’s name is Logan Macintyre . . .” Once again Hilary’s consciousness trailed away . . . Logan—what a solid, yet unusual name . . . the father whose manly heart must surely have softened and melted at the touch of his baby daughter, who must have smiled down at her as she lay safely in his strong and protective arms.

  These were her parents—her parents! who had lived these many years with an emptiness just like her own. Surely they had been haunted all their lives since that awful day by nightmares of their own just as she had been.

  Macintyre . . .

  Suddenly Hilary recalled Lady MacNeil’s earlier statement: The child’s father had become a rather important man in the government . . .

  Of course! No wonder the name sounded familiar! She could have written off the similarity as a mere coincidence but for that comment. Her father a politician! She could almost laugh if the thought weren’t so dreadful. The man was indeed high up—a minister in Wilson’s Labour government before the Conservatives unseated it last year . . . in the news recently for his opposition to Wilson’s Anti-EEC policies . . . bucking his own party’s stand against the Conservatives along with Roy Jenkins, the Shadow Deputy Minister. That was her father!

  The very thought was unbelievable—humorous, in a way, were the shock not so stunning.

  She knew something of Macintyre’s history. A decorated war hero who had caused a bit of a stir back in 1950 when he ran for his first term in Parliament. His opposition for the seat had tried to make an issue of his low-level criminal record prior to the war in spite of his full exoneration by the Crown. Somehow Macintyre had won the seat. It was said he had been a confidence man before the war. The question was then asked by those skeptical of his victory whether he had simply conned his unwitting northern constituents. If such was indeed true, he must be very good at it, for he had managed to retain his seat these twenty years and rise to the inner circle of power in Whitehall.

  What kind of a family have I fallen into? Hilary thought to herself with mingled astonishment and dismay. Her mother of aristocratic blood . . . her father a politician! What other thunderclaps would this day bring? she wondered in disbelief.

  “I’ve heard of him,” she said aloud, rousing herself from her reverie, but unable to keep the tremor from her voice.

  “Your father is a good man,” said Joanna, “and your mother is a kind and gentle woman.” Her words were not mere motherly sentimentalities, but were filled with conviction.

  “He’s the politician you thought I should meet?”

  “For more reasons than one,” smiled Joanna coyly.

  “Yes, I see that now.”

  “I’m aware of how difficult this must be. Some of the stands your magazine has taken in matters political are not unknown to me.”

  Hilary forced a smile, but said nothing.

  “When would you like to meet them?” asked Joanna.

  “You must realize,” Hilary hedged, “this is really quite a blow to me.”

  “I do know. Do I take it then that you are perhaps considering not telling them?”

  “No,” sighed Hilary. “They have a right to know. It’s just that—”

  She hesitated, then struggled to continue. “—it’s just that I need some time . . . to think . . . to get used to all this. This will change my—my—whole world . . . the way I’ve grown accustomed to looking at things. And not only for myself, but my mother—my adoptive mother—she must be told. I’m her only child, so you can imagine the emotional adjustments this will cause for her as well as for myself. She has given more than half her life to me, Lady MacNeil. Your daughter and her husband—I’m sure they loved me dearly, but they had their baby only three years. I realize that where a child is concerned, it is more than a matter of time, that the bloodline counts for a great deal, but you can see—”

  “I understand, Miss Edwards,” interjected Joanna with more compassionate understanding than her mere words could indicate. “How much time do you think you will need?”

  “I—I don’t know.”

  Joanna reached into her handbag and withdrew a small white card which she held out to Hilary.

  “This is how you can reach me,” she said.

  “Thank you,” replied Hilary, taking the card. “Then you will wait until I contact you?”

  “You have my word, Miss—no, that will never do,” she said in a quick aside almost to herself. “You have my word, Hilary,” she continued, “on one condition: that you will tell them in good time.”

  “I will—I promise.”

  Joanna rose and held out her hand in a parting gesture. This time, however, as Hilary took it she began to grasp the depth of emotion in the woman’s intense gaze—a grandmother looking upon her granddaughter, now a grown woman, for the first time in nearly thirty years. She sensed the anguish her tentative and uncertain response must have caused in the gentle, soft-spoken old woman. In an effort to somehow make up for her own seeming lack of enthusiasm, Hilary laid her free hand over Joanna’s, clasping her dainty hand between her own two.

  “I’m sorry I have been so . . . ambivalent,” said Hilary. “I guess I’m not very good at this kind of interview. But I do thank you—for finding me—for not giving up. I know I will learn to . . . to love my family . . . and to love you, the more I know you all.”

  Joanna smiled—a kindly, noble smile. Then, as if her stoic restraint had suddenly broken, tears spilled from the corners of her eyes. Before Hilary realized what she was doing, she had dropped her hands and had her arms around the older woman’s slim figure, herself weeping quietly. Joanna returned the embrace, lifting up—in the depths of her being—silent prayers of thankful rejoicing to God.

  The tender reunion lasted only a few moments. But perhaps the two women would not have fallen apart so soon had they known this was to be their first and last embrace in this world.

  Five days later, while Hilary was still struggling with the dilemma of how to proceed, Lady Joanna MacNeil succumbed to a sudden cerebral hemorrhage.

  10

  Uncertainties

  Hilary stirred a teaspoon of sugar into her second cup of tea.

  She had wandered from her kitchen and was now reclining on her sofa. She marveled at how she had forgotten not a single detail of her meeting with Joanna MacNeil. Every look, every word was by now printed indelibly in her memory . . . and upon her heart.

  She glanced outside. Everything was black. The night was still and quiet. I have to sleep, she thought. Tomorrow will be a big day. Drinking tea was probably the worse thing to be doing, but she couldn’t help it. She had to give her thoughts some company, even if it was only from a teapot.

  She could not unfocus her mind from that day in her office. It was to be the last time she would behold that loving, gentle face. How much have I missed? Hilary asked herself with
more than a twinge of sadness. But the greater part of her sorrow sprang from the painful fact that she could have had at least five more days with her grandmother had she not been so vacillating in her response.

  Yet it was foolish to lament the delay now. Her need for time had been valid, if selfish. Even now, she wasn’t sure she had fully accepted the startling revelation that had walked into her life in the person of Lady Joanna MacNeil.

  Impulse had driven her to attend the funeral. She had taken the train to Aberdeen and then rented a car for the final two-hour drive to the sleepy little village of Port Strathy. During that lonely drive, she first began to consider what she would actually do once she reached the place. She had come all this way without really thinking through her motives, giving hardly a thought to what would come once she arrived. Was she on her way to Lady MacNeil’s home to claim her long-lost family? Was she going as a relative, as a member of the inner family . . . or as an observer? The answer was far from simple.

  When she had first heard about Lady MacNeil’s death, Hilary had hoped, or feared—she couldn’t tell quite which—that her parents would contact her. She assumed that, knowing death was near, the grandmother would have felt compelled to break her word and tell her children that their daughter lived. But it seemed the suddenness of the woman’s collapse had precluded that communication.

  She now knew that if she did approach them, it would necessarily be “from out of the blue,” so to speak. How much easier it would have been with Lady MacNeil at her side! Notwithstanding the show of confidence and aplomb she was able to manifest when talking in a professional setting with important people in London and throughout Britain, this would take a kind of courage with which she was not intimately acquainted. She wished it all didn’t depend on her.

  For the first time the unthinkable idea of keeping silent began to nag at her. It was certainly a possibility now. No one would ever know. She could go on with her life unchanged. Logan and Allison Macintyre would be no worse off for her silence.

  Even as the notion came to her, however, Hilary shook it off. It wasn’t a possibility. How could she even consider such a thing? Where would her integrity as a truth-seeker be if she turned her back on one of life’s most fundamental duties: honor to father and mother? Besides, she had given the lady—her grandmother—her word.