The Treasure of Stonewycke

by Michael Phillips

  Lady Margaret often confessed that she felt this love for the land flowed in her blood as if it were part of her cellular makeup itself. Then a look would come over her, and I could almost imagine that she was Maggie again, not my seventy-five-year-old grandmother who had been through so much—a look would come over her of such innocent happiness. She would say, “It is something like the love one has for a child”—and I knew as she spoke, for her eyes said it, that she was thinking of me. “You love that child with all your soul. Yet at the same time you realize she is a gift from God. And surrendering her to Him, your love is not reduced, but made something even greater.”

  Then again her years would become visible in the far-off gaze of wisdom and maturity in her eyes, and she would say, “It is only as we grasp our possessions to ourselves, without giving Christ lordship over them, that they become millstones instead of blessings. That’s why the heritage of Stonewycke never could really pass to my father. He never knew the true Source of life. That is why I have, for these last twenty years, never ceased praying fervently that those who come after me would never lose sight of God’s work in and through this place. That, and not we ourselves, is the life that passes down from generation to generation.” And at such times I could not but wish I had known her, really known her earlier. Yet God’s ways are for the best.

  As Hilary paused in her reading, she sighed deeply. Is not that my own response? she wondered. If only I had known all this sooner . . . if only I had known her sooner. How perfectly Joanna’s reflections on her grandmother Lady Margaret now expressed Hilary’s feelings toward Lady Joanna! Now she was following in her grandmother’s footsteps, making this pilgrimage back to the land of her birth, having no inkling what future awaited her.

  The land, passed down from generation to generation through a line of stalwart women—still it remained, immovable, silent, enduring. Atlanta was gone. Maggie was gone. Now Lady Joanna was gone. But the land remained the one constant in the turbulent history of this Scottish family. Now she was going there.

  But no, Hilary thought suddenly. That wasn’t true. The land wasn’t everything. Lady Joanna had made that clear in what she had written. The land was merely an external manifestation of something deeper. The land, no matter how much it was loved, served only as a stage upon which life was lived and choices were made. It was that life and those choices, as they progressed down through time, adding one upon the other, from son to daughter, from grandmother to granddaughter, which led to Life, or away from it. The ongoing daily choice through the years to live in obedience to God’s ways, and to make Stonewycke a citadel to preserve a witness to His goodness—this was the true driving force behind this family.

  Lady Joanna’s faith was clearly evident. Yet it could be seen as an ongoing expression of the faith of Margaret and Ian Duncan, perhaps even owing a good deal of its vitality to the faithfulness of their prayers. Before them had come Anson Ramsey, of whom only a little was said in the journal, but who seemed a bulwark in the family’s fortress of belief in God. There had been ignoble ones, too, who had carried the name Ramsey and Duncan. But as bent as some of them had seemed on assaulting the walls of faith, God seemed always to pull the family up and forward through His obedient ones.

  What of her own parents? Hilary wondered. Do they, too, carry the lineage of godliness in their veins? She knew that politically Logan Macintyre was reputed to be a man of integrity and uprightness. Now that she thought about it, hadn’t she read a profile on him somewhere about his being a Christian too, occasionally outspoken concerning his beliefs?

  Suddenly Hilary thought of her own walk of faith. It was not altogether impossible that she was sitting here as a Christian herself, able to grasp the spiritual significance of Lady Joanna’s words, because of something deep within her she had never realized existed. There was certainly nothing in her childhood to have stimulated her toward the Lord and His ways. The belief of her adopted parents was nominal. Her father had been a good man, but he had never attended church or thought about spiritual things. His not uncommon view was that religion was for women. Her mother went halfway regularly to Church of England services, but her motivation came from tradition rather than from any hunger toward God in her heart. If she believed in a personal way, the only indication came at times of stress. There was nothing in Hilary’s early home life to have planted the seeds of true personal belief in her heart.

  But something had always drawn Hilary toward, and never away from, God. Even when she branched out, left home, and entered the highly secular university world, and later the active, modern world of London business, there was always a tug in her heart that spoke of a deeper life. She could not remember a time when she had not believed, though over the years that belief matured as she grew—from a vague childlike sense that God cared for her to the firm adult conviction that the Lord was her intimate friend, guiding the direction of her life.

  When those occasional times of doubt and insecurity had come, God had always faithfully provided people to help and support her at the crucial moment.

  Was it possible that not only the physical but the spiritual blood from the Ramsey and Duncan lines flowed through her veins? Could it be that the pull of her heart toward God, the hunger she had always felt to make Him her friend and live according to His ways—could those desires be the answer to generations of righteous lives and prayers offered up by her predecessors in this unusual family?

  Did God really work that way? she wondered. Could life in the spirit be passed on? No, she thought, that could hardly be. Every individual is accountable to God for himself. The choices I make must be mine alone.

  Yet . . . there might be some internal predisposition toward or away from God. What about the blessings and curses of God extending to the third and fourth generation? What about the time-demolishing power of righteous prayer? Was it not a fact in God’s kingdom that time was of little consequence, and that prayer was not bound by it?

  Had Maggie’s and Joanna’s prayers reached across time and space and thirty years of separation and . . . touched her?

  The very thought was too incredible to fathom—that she, all her life, had been, without the slightest awareness, affected in a daily and significant way because of the prayers and spiritual disposition and progenetive strength inherent in the lives of people she had never known!

  Hilary sighed again. It was indeed too much to comprehend. Was it possible that during all those years God had been preparing her for this moment? Preparing her for . . .

  The half-formed thought trailed away as she let herself be distracted by a scene out the train window. A boy was herding a small flock of sheep over a little grassy knoll, probably heading for the stone byre in the distance. It seemed as if the twentieth century had hardly touched the place. Yet they could not be more than two hundred miles from London.

  Then Hilary noted the descending sun. She had been traveling most of the day, so intently reading and deep in thought that she had hardly noticed the passing of miles and hours. She would be in Edinburgh in several hours, and from there it would be north to Aberdeen.

  She took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. When a porter called for dinner, she decided to eat on the train rather than wait. She rose, walked to the dining car, and there enjoyed a meal of broiled perch, squash, and boiled potatoes. She was hungry and did not even mind her talkative table-companion, a retired schoolteacher from York who miraculously managed to keep up a nonstop conversation and still consume a hearty meal.

  “Bound for Scotland, you say?” said the woman, dabbing the corners of her mouth with the linen napkin. “Beautiful country, I’m sure, but a bit . . . ah, rustic, is it not? Even nowadays. What did you say was taking you north?”

  “Well . . . family, I suppose you would say,” answered Hilary with an uncertainty her companion took no note of.

  “Funny, you don’t have a Scottish accent—though there is a bit of something in your voice that’s not entirely London. I’ve got rather
a cunning for this sort of thing. I was in Bangkok last year on a Far East tour and met a couple from America. I guessed right off they were from Pennsylvania, and they were astounded!”

  Hilary smiled, and the woman seemed to require no further encouragement to regale her with another half-hour of stories from her travels. Hilary could not help wondering what the touring schoolteacher would think of her story—a classic Dickens tale of a poor East End girl who suddenly discovers herself of noble parentage.

  Hilary finally took her leave. When she returned to her own car and walked to her seat, there was the journal, as if it were waiting patiently, allowing her the distraction of dinner but then persistently bidding her return.

  Within two hours she had made her northbound connection and was seated again, alone with her thoughts. Outside, the dusk deepened, gradually enveloping the speeding train. Hilary read on.

  How clearly I remember that day Dorey invited me to his house—The House, as we were accustomed to calling it—for tea. I was escorted into the banquet hall where the great, long table was all decked out with silver candelabra and bowls of the loveliest of spring flowers, along with the finest china and glassware. And there sat Dorey, looking in some respects so lonely and forlorn, yet, dressed as he was in formal attire, I could immediately see this was no mere gardener. That noble look I had caught in his eyes once or twice now returned full force. . . .

  I unfastened my grandmother’s gold locket and held it open to him. “This is you, isn’t it?” I asked through a knot in my throat. Tears formed in his eyes as he wrapped his fingers around the precious reminder of his youthful love.

  “At least there’s one thing,” he said. “There’s you. Perhaps it is true that God is merciful. I thought she was dead. That is what they told me. She, along with the child . . .”

  Then the truth began to dawn upon me, though it should have long before this, as it had with Dorey. It was more than I could have dared hope for when I had set foot on that ship in New York harbor as an innocent young girl cast adrift into the world. But I knew in my heart it was true, that here—thousands of miles from what had once been my home—I had found my grandfather!

  Quite unexpectedly Hilary found tears rising in her own eyes.

  So Lady Joanna did know what she herself was experiencing! Joanna, however, had come to Scotland seeking her roots; Hilary, on the other hand, had stumbled unwittingly, even unwillingly, upon them.

  How cruel her ambivalence must have seemed to her grandmother! How desperately Hilary wished she could now repent for all that. Of course, it was too late. Though her present journey would perhaps make up for it somewhat, and in some measure fulfill Lady Joanna’s final quest, it would never gain back those precious lost days and hours.

  Continuing through the manuscript in her grandmother’s careful hand, Hilary learned that Joanna had had many years with her grandparents to recapture lost time. It was clear they were rich years too, for Maggie and Dorey were not only noble in the aristocratic sense, but they carried noble hearts in their breasts, abundant with godly wisdom. For a long span of years Stonewycke stood like a light on the hill, spreading beams of goodness and caring throughout the Strathy Valley.

  Even during the depression of the thirties, a kind of peace had pervaded the financially suffering valley. With the recounting of those years, Hilary began to read the story of Allison and Logan.

  She read on, not without some trepidation. All of a sudden she herself was part of this compelling saga. She could no longer maintain a distance as she found herself swept up in the drama surrounding Logan’s past life and his activities during the war. As with so many who had come before him, he too had felt the peace which dwelt at Stonewycke, eventually surrendering his life to the Creator of that peace. Nor could she keep from a strong identification with her mother—strong-willed, arrogant, confused about her place in this noble family—and it was with not a few tears that she read of Allison’s finding her peace too, and of the renewed commitment of love in her parents’ marriage following what they assumed to be their only daughter’s death.

  As a seasoned journalist, Hilary was attentive to the honesty of Lady MacNeil’s writing. Though every word was filled with tender love, there was no attempt to whitewash individual weaknesses or to paint a glowing but unrealistic picture of the family. Lady Allison MacNeil Macintyre had clearly been no angel in her youth. That must be where I come by my own strong will, Hilary mused with a smile. There were even those who had from time to time actually called her arrogant. Must run in the genes, thought Hilary. And she was certainly confused about her place in that same family. Maybe her mother would be able to empathize with her struggles in a way no one else could. And now, after reading of her coming to Scotland, Hilary realized how deeply Lady Joanna must truly have grasped her conflicting emotions, much more than she gave her credit for during that first meeting. If only . . . Hilary thought, but the rest of the thought was cut short as she reached up to wipe away the lone tear that had begun to fall.

  Before long a porter came down the aisle and offered Hilary a pillow. She took it, but any thought of sleep was far away. Nevertheless, as she stuffed it behind her head and leaned back against the window, the alertness of her brain began to flag, succumbing to the effects of being emotionally keyed up all day.

  The train droned on, the hours of the evening passing with a kind of dreamy quality—the reality of the journal mingling with snatches of dreams that invaded Hilary’s subconscious as she dozed and reawakened over and over.

  But always the words of Lady Joanna’s Journal drew her back without fail. Page after page she read until, coming abruptly to a sheet that did not even seem to complete Lady Joanna’s thought, she realized there was no more. With a deep sense of disappointment, almost of loss, and wondering what had happened to the rest, if there was more, Hilary placed the book in her lap, then laid her head back and closed her eyes.

  14

  The Pan Am Red-Eye

  The dusk was an hour later to descend over Heathrow than it was upon the express coach that sped north from Edinburgh to Aberdeen. Nevertheless, as he made his way across the concrete walkway to the waiting white plane, the solitary traveler shivered as if night had already fully come.

  I’ll be glad to get out of this miserable hole! he thought. Fog and rain and cold . . . I hate the place!

  As well he might, judging from his attire, which seemed almost comically out of place. Amid veteran London flyers who pulled heavy wool overcoats, mufflers, and gloves more tightly about them to fend off the November chill, he made his way clad only in a thin white linen suit and a straw hat, which would have done little to keep an August breeze off his graying blond head, much less a bitter winter’s blow. Small wonder he was cold. Rather than cursing the weather, one would think he might have dressed more warmly.

  The climate would change soon enough, however. He knew that by the time he reached his destination it would likely be 80° or more. It would, in fact, be summertime, and by noon might even reach 100°. Then it would be his turn to laugh at these ridiculous limey businessmen in their tweed overcoats. How they ever won the war, he would never know.

  The thought did not console him, however. Rather, it served as a reminder that when the plane touched down, it would be not midday but three or four in the morning, depending on how long their layover in that African vermin preserve lasted.

  No wonder they called this the “Red-Eye.” Every time he took the idiotic flight, it took him days to recover. How bitterly he resented that they always booked him on such low-budget crossings. Sure, he had to make the commute several times a year, but what would a first-class fare hurt once or twice? If anyone might afford it, his boss could.

  Carrying only a small metallic briefcase, which he’d declined to check into the plane’s baggage hold—”You guard that case with your life,” he had been told; “don’t so much as let it out of your sight!”—, the man walked up the portable stairway and into the forward compartment
of the jet. Without speaking to the stewardess who greeted him, he made his way toward the rear of the plane and found his seat.

  He sat down, placed the briefcase on his lap, fastened his seatbelt, then unsnapped the two latches of the case, lifted the lid, and peered inside. What all the fuss was about, he could not for the life of him imagine. How those things could have any value whatsoever was beyond him. And why his boss would entrust something of such potential worth to a couple of imbeciles like Mallory and—what was the name of that lunkhead Mexican or Colombian or wherever in blazes he was from? Chavez . . . Gervez . . . ? What did it matter? They all looked alike anyway, with their dark skin and black hair. Why didn’t he just go up to Oxford himself, meet the man they called “The Professor,” and then be about his business? Quick and simple. But no. They had to pass the stuff around at night. As if anybody would care enough to tail him!

  No doubt there were reasons. There were always reasons. As much as he might complain about it inside, he kept doing his duty, and always would. He was still a good soldier who knew which side his bread was buttered on. So though he might inwardly grouse about the system, he would not buck it, for he had become an intrinsic part of it. There were generals and there were corporals. Generals gave orders; corporals obeyed them. It was how things worked.

  So he had made his connection with the Texan and the South American and given them the goods, and then had waited. Three days later, Mallory was back at his hotel, handed him the briefcase, and said, “Here you are, pal. The report’s inside. The Professor says it all checks out—whatever that means.”

  What a fool! If he was a corporal, then Mallory was only a private. And as for Galvez—that was it, Galvez!—why, he wouldn’t even qualify as that!

  Knowing Mallory, he’d probably tried to figure out what was going on from the Professor’s report but couldn’t read it.