The Treasure of Stonewycke

by Michael Phillips

  Breakfast offered no break from the mundane schedule. The Macintyres were unusually taciturn, and Allison appeared more pale than usual, with dark rings encircling her eyes. Hilary wondered aloud about the ankle, but Logan said it was on the mend.

  Throughout the meal it seemed all were content left to the privacy of their own thoughts. The clanking echo of silver against china became nearly as unbearable as Jo’s usual banter about the table.

  Hoping to nab Logan immediately after the meal, Hilary was foiled when he was called away to the telephone and did not return. Dispassionately she agreed to join Allison and Jo in the solarium, which, since Jo’s coming, had been converted into a small studio. But after they took up where they had left off the previous afternoon on a still life, Hilary grew restless.

  “Would you like to try your hand?” asked Jo cheerily. “I’ll set you up with a canvas and palate.”

  “I don’t think so,” she declined.

  “It’s fun, Hilary,” urged Allison, “although I think I get more paint on my hands than the canvas.” Her voice sounded hollow as she spoke. She did not look well.

  “But you remember what I’ve told you—artistry doesn’t worry about neatness,” laughed Jo. “Come now, Hilary, how about it?”

  Hilary shook her head and excused herself. The only way she could paint pictures was with words.

  She set out for the library, hoping Logan might be there. When she walked in she saw him sitting at his desk in one corner poring over several documents. He smiled when he looked up, but it quickly faded once he saw her solemn expression.

  “What is it, Hilary?” he asked with sincerity. “Is something wrong?”

  “How can you ask such a question?” she snapped, all the frustrations of the day gathering in her sharp tone. “Everything is quite wrong, and I see no change in sight. I can’t stay here forever. I have a magazine to run. This whole thing is beginning to look hopeless.”

  “I understand,” he replied sympathetically.

  “Do you? My whole life has been turned upside-down, and I have no idea what I’m supposed to do to right it.”

  “I do understand, Hilary,” he said again. “Though it may be hard for you to believe just now. And it may not help knowing this, but there are others whose lives are also in a state of confusion over this.” The rebuke in his tone was gentle, fatherly, even kind.

  Hilary was silent a moment. She knew he was right.

  “I’m sorry,” she said at length in a calmer tone. “I didn’t mean to be so blunt. I just don’t cope very well with being in limbo like this.”

  “Nor do any of us,” sighed Logan. “We each have our own ways of hiding the frustration, the uncertainty. But I think we are all feeling the strain.”

  Hilary nodded with a sigh, then turned away to glance over the books on a nearby bookshelf. The titles on the spines, however, did not even register to her brain as her eyes scanned them, for her thoughts were far away.

  “Perhaps it would help for you to be assured that I am taking action,” Logan went on, trying to sound upbeat. “I have some excellent men in London on it at this very moment. I have taken other steps also. But I realize you do have responsibilities. I cannot force you to stay here.”

  “Please don’t take me wrong,” said Hilary, turning back to face him. “It’s not that I don’t appreciate your dilemma, or the efforts you are making. I realize the delicacy of the situation, especially for someone in your position. But . . . perhaps it might even help if I returned to London. It would ease the pressure on everyone around here. Jo and Allison could do their painting without having me underfoot, and you . . . well, at least you wouldn’t have to worry about entertaining me. Maybe I could even put some of my own resources to work to help sort this out.”

  A cloud passed over Logan’s face. Now it was his turn to avert his gaze momentarily, looking down at the papers on his desk. Somehow the thought of Allison and Jo spending even more time alone together painting did not reassure him. But he could not voice his reservations aloud. What we need is a diversion, he thought to himself. An event. A ball . . . an open house . . . a live concert—something to get the focus off the problem. He looked back up and sought Hilary’s eyes.

  “Do what you feel you must,” he said finally. “But if you could find it within yourself to give it a couple more days . . .” He hesitated. “I would like you to stay,” he went on earnestly. “Consider it, if you will, a personal favor to me. If nothing has been resolved . . . then at least we will have done what we could.”

  Still reluctant, it was a long pause before Hilary answered. “I suppose another day or two won’t hurt,” she said finally.

  “Thank you,” he said. His tone carried in it the sound of relief. His eyes held hers for a long moment; then he went on in a lighter, friendly voice. “Please feel at complete liberty to use our phones as often as you need. I know you have business concerns. And if you wish, you are perfectly welcome to call upon the resources you mentioned even while you are here.” A restrained smile played at the corners of his lips. “You might well do better than my West End lawyers!”

  “Thank you very much. I’m sorry to have grown surly.”

  “The tension is telling on us all. Everyone could no doubt use a break.” He mused upon his words for a moment. “Yes,” he continued, “I will definitely have to give that some serious consideration.”

  ———

  That afternoon, while they sat enjoying an informal tea in the family parlor, Flora entered with the announcement that a caller was at the front door.

  “I’ll see to it,” said Logan, rising.

  In less than five minutes he returned, followed by a younger man.

  “Ladies,” he said, “may I present Ashley Jameson.” Then turning to his wife, he explained further, “A colleague of Ian’s at the university, Allison.” Then to Jameson, he added, “This is my wife, Allison. And these are our two houseguests, Hilary Edwards from London, and Joanna Braithwaite from Baltimore.”

  Jameson nodded politely to each, then smiled wanly, directing himself toward Allison. “It seems I have made rather a fool of myself,” he said. “Do forgive me for intruding on you thus. I appear to have gotten my dates rather badly confused.”

  “Apparently Ian made arrangements to meet him here,” explained Logan.

  “I was just telling your husband at the door that Ian and I had planned a bit of collaboration on that book of his. I had no idea he was back in Greece.”

  “Ian was to come here?” said Allison with noticeable enthusiasm, “ . . . again? He was home only three weeks ago for the funeral.”

  “Well, that’s no doubt where the confusion comes in. I spoke with him then and there must have been a mix-up somehow. He always told me when we were working together at Oxford, ‘If you’re ever in the north of Scotland, you simply must go by the estate,’ and now it appears as though I put that rather general invitation together with mistaking the time and place of our supposed meeting, and so I show up at your door unannounced, looking like the absent-minded professor Ian always calls me!”

  “An honest mistake,” laughed Logan. “No harm done, I assure you.”

  “I tried to carry around a pocket date-book for a while. But I was forever losing it until it scarcely seemed worth the effort. My secretary tries valiantly to keep me on track. But there is only so much even that worthy soul can do.” He chuckled, and though he appeared genuinely embarrassed at his faux pas, he also seemed at ease enough with himself to take it in stride.

  “Won’t you join us for tea?” said Jo, stepping forward into the hostess role.

  “I don’t want to impose further.”

  “No more talk of imposition,” said Allison. “Any friend of Ian’s, you know. I’ll tell Flora to get a room ready immediately. You must spend the night with us at the very least. Even a day or two.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t put you out like that. You already have guests—”

  “Nonsense!” interrupted Lo
gan. “You can’t possibly think of starting back to Aberdeen. It’s four o’clock in the afternoon, and nearly dark, with snow on the roads.”

  “We insist,” added Allison.

  “That’s most kind of you,” pondered Jameson, thinking how much easier this would make his job. “It is certainly more than I had counted on . . . or deserve under the circumstances.”

  “Any friend of Ian’s is always welcome in our home,” said Logan.

  “In that case . . . thank you very much.”

  Logan pulled a chair forward and Jameson sat down between Logan and Hilary. Jo rose quickly from her own seat to pour him a cup of tea from the pot, eyeing him carefully. Her scrutiny did not pass unnoticed by Hilary. She made her own observations more inconspicuously.

  The newcomer looked to be about thirty-five, and Hilary hardly needed to be told of his scholarly background. He had academia written all over him. Already she had observed that he carried his tall slender frame carelessly, with an ease which indicated that his thoughts moved on too bookish a plane to worry about mundane pursuits like walking or dressing. His tweed jacket and corduroy trousers were hardly the most fashionable; indeed, the whole effect of his wardrobe gave the impression that dressing each morning was probably an afterthought. At the same time, however, there was a precision about the man that almost belied the bemused and distractable image he tried to put forward. It could be seen best in his sharp, probing gray-green eyes, which at times, Hilary noticed, reflecting an innately wry sense of humor. He spoke in an easy tone too, Oxfordian and refined.

  “So what do you do, Ashley?” asked Logan, once the visitor held his tea in his hand.

  “Actually, Ian helped me through during some of my rugged earlier years, and now I teach where he left off when he abandoned the university to write his book. Ancient classics . . . Grecian history, that sort of thing.”

  “What is it you and Ian work on together?”

  “Ancient Greece, mostly. He’s more the archaeologist, I the linguist.”

  Jameson’s modesty obscured the more notable fact—which subsequent conversation and Logan’s probing questions revealed—that he already had three acclaimed translations of Greek classics to his credit, and his name as a collaborator with Ian on a book jacket would do nothing but enhance the book’s prestige. Though Logan fairly had to drag any personal information from him, it also came out that Ian, who had been for the last several years involved in biblical archaeology, had in the course of his research turned up some interesting finds in Greece which he felt could benefit Jameson’s work as well. For a number of reasons, therefore, their guest concluded, they had remained in close touch with respect to their mutual projects.

  “Actually,” he said, “I was looking forward to a bit of a busman’s holiday. Ian has always said you have marvelous country up here. I’ve never been north of Aberdeen, but the brief glimpses I’ve had so far would certainly seem to confirm his words.”

  “It will all still be here next week, or the week after that, or whenever you and Ian do manage to get together,” laughed Logan.

  “Unfortunately, I won’t,” replied Jameson. “I have to be off to a conference in a few days. That’s why I was so certain Ian had said this week.”

  “Well, we’ll just have to do our best to entertain you,” said Logan, “and give you that holiday you’re after. We’ve had so many other guests lately, besides Jo and Hilary—what was the name of that chap yesterday?” he asked, turning toward the others.

  “You mean von Burchardt?” answered Jo.

  “Yes, Burchardt! An interesting fellow! Anyway, one more guest will be no problem. The more the merrier, don’t they say?”

  “Well then, under the circumstances, I accept your hospitality,” said Jameson with a smile.

  35

  Suspicions Aroused

  When Hilary dozed off later that same night in her room, she was fully clothed, and an open book still rested in her hands.

  She awoke an hour later with a shudder. Her old childhood dream had just begun to intrude upon the outer edges of her subconscious. But her sudden waking prevented its closer and more terrifying approach. She nevertheless felt the heavy discomfort of one who has been roused too soon from a nap. Her mouth was dry and tasted foul, her neck ached from the awkward position in which she had been sitting, and she was chilled to the bone.

  All at once her body snapped straight up in the chair. Was that a sound she heard out in the corridor?

  Perhaps it had not been the dream that had awakened her at all, but some noise within the castle walls! A door closing . . . the drop of some object on the stone floor.

  Intently she strained to hear. She heard nothing more. Rising from her chair, she walked quietly toward her door, placed her hand on the latch, then opened it a crack, doing her best to prevent the hinges from betraying her. Wider she opened the door, then slowly leaned her head out, glancing up and down the hallway in both directions.

  At the end of the corridor a retreating figure glided along, then rounded a corner and was out of sight!

  Hilary’s view had been so brief in the darkened passageway that she couldn’t begin to identify the late-night walker. Without two moments’ hesitation, she was in the hall. Leaving her door ajar so it wouldn’t slam shut and give away her presence, she moved swiftly in the direction of her unknown visitor.

  Her room was the only one occupied in this particular part of the house—whoever it was must have known that. Jo was in another wing. It could have been she . . . but why? And if she had intended on paying Hilary a visit at this late hour, why then had she turned back? Perhaps she had been trying to come upon Hilary unawares, and her plan had been foiled by whatever noise it was she had inadvertently made. Or had someone else created the disturbance and frightened her away? It couldn’t be Allison; she had gone to bed feeling sick late in the afternoon. She doubted Logan would sneak around in his own house. One of the employees? She didn’t know in what room they’d put Ian’s friend.

  Carefully Hilary approached the end of the hallway, stopped, then peered round the edge of the wall. She could see nothing, but in the distance a faint sound, as if from shuffling footsteps, reached her ears. The figure, whoever it was, was either making for the main stairway or another part of the house. She would never catch the person now without making a disturbance herself.

  Slowly she turned and walked back to her room. Once inside she closed the door behind her, locked it securely, then found herself drawn to the window by the glimmer of moonlight coming in from outside.

  The snow had ceased falling, and a full moon reflected off the white blanket covering the ground, causing the night outside to look almost like a Scottish summer’s gloamin’. The window of her room faced west onto a wide stretch of well-maintained yard, which in late spring and summer would boast a lush, manicured green lawn. On this night, however, a thick soft covering of white stretched from the castle walls to the great hedge that surrounded the castle grounds proper. Hilary recalled Allison telling her it was this section of the grounds which boasted a fine rose garden every spring. It was out there, no doubt, where Lady Joanna had first seen old Dorey and had wrongly taken him for the gardener. Allison hadn’t detailed the story to her, but it wasn’t necessary; Hilary recalled every moment of the legendary interaction from Joanna’s journal.

  Before she realized it, Hilary found herself caught up again in memories and images from the past. Sitting at the window with a blanket over her knees, she glanced once more through the precious journal that she had recovered from its hiding place among her things. Alternately reading portions here and there, then lifting her eyes to gaze outside into the peaceful night, she let her thoughts roam back in time.

  Of all the intriguing members of the Duncan clan, the enigmatic Dorey, or Theodore Ian Duncan, seemed the most difficult to understand. As she read of his suffering the familiar aristocratic, second-son syndrome, Hilary ruefully thought how this was just one more reason for doing away
with the stifling institution. Ian’s father didn’t even pretend to care for his younger son. A wild and frenzied lifestyle had resulted, until a soft ray of hope, in the person of a Scottish lass by the name of Maggie, shone upon the lad’s troubled life. But the irony of the whole drama that followed stemmed from an age-old mythical fatalism: poor Ian proved both the catalyst and the victim of woes which, in certain measure, he brought upon himself.

  How I would have liked to know him! thought Hilary, setting down the manuscript and looking out again on the tranquil winter scene below. What an interesting man he must have been in his later years, after he had come to know both himself and God, and had been reunited with his dear Maggie! What a contrast between his youthful boisterous and shallow personality, and the humble demurring introspection of his later years. What wisdom must have worked its way into his character as a result of that transformation! And to have such a man for a great-great-grandfather. . . .

  Suddenly Hilary became aware of the folly of her wandering train of thoughts. She could no longer assume he was her ancestor!

  In the last few days since her arrival at Stonewycke, Hilary had made great efforts to distance herself from all the ties that she had previously allowed to form within her as a result of reading the journal. This was the first time in days she had given over to serious speculation of the personalities of the family and her potential relation to it.

  “I can’t think of all this now!” she said to herself. Tomorrow the call could well come from London informing Mr. Macintyre that the entire substance of Lady Joanna’s visit had been a mistake, that she had, for whatever reasons, gotten her facts and her interpretation of them badly confused, and had drawn Hilary into this little episode, though in reality she had no possible connection to Stonewycke or the Macintyres.

  Hilary wanted to keep a level, practical head about her. She simply could not allow her emotions to give way.