The Treasure of Stonewycke

by Michael Phillips

  “So did you get it?” asked Hilary excitedly.

  “Yes, yes! But not without having to pry apart Maggie’s poor stitchery once again!”

  By this time they had reached the drawing room. Entering, they saw Allison sitting on the divan, manuscript pages on her lap, tears streaming down her face.

  “I couldn’t help myself, Logan,” she said. “I had to read Mother’s words. Oh, it’s so hard to have to live through it all again! But I suppose it’s good for me too, for the Lord is working healing in my heart in so many ways already. I want you to read it to them . . . aloud.”

  Logan nodded, then walked to his wife, kissed her tenderly, and took the pages from her hand.

  “Hilary, come . . . please,” said Allison. “Won’t you sit beside me for this?”

  Hilary walked forward, sat down, and Allison took her hand. “Now then,” said Allison, “we are ready.”

  Ashley found a seat. Then Logan took up the pages written in Joanna’s fine script and began to read.

  . . . whatever truth He chooses to reveal to me. What I am to do, He will make clear in His time. One thing I do know, that the Lord our God surrounds and protects and delivers them that are His people.

  “That section makes little sense,” said Logan. “It was apparently a continuation of something that came before.”

  “I am sure it continues just as it is from the end of the last page that I have,” interjected Hilary. “Shall I go get it from my room?”

  “Not now,” answered Logan. “We can compare them later. The most important section—indeed, the reason I believe Joanna hid this portion of her journal—is still to come. I think she was fearful of the result should this have chanced to fall into the wrong hands.”

  “But she knew we would find it eventually,” said Allison. “I know she knew, dear Mother! But go on, Logan. I want them to hear it.”

  “The next entry is dated September 16,” said Logan. “But after that there are no more dates and the story flows together.” He paused, took a deep breath, and began to read.

  I could not have anticipated that the small act of opening a door could so alter the lives of so many. But when, on the evening of August 27, a young woman stepped out of the past and into our home, many unforeseen changes were immediately thrust upon us. Logan and Allison’s daughter, as we had been told a week before, was suddenly come to life in the person calling herself Joanna Braithwaite. Our dear, lost Jo was suddenly restored to us after almost thirty years!

  Oh, what a day of joy it should have been. And I cannot say I was not swept up in the exuberance at first. The atmosphere about Stonewycke was positively buoyant for days. I scarcely think I had seen Allison so happy in memory, especially when she and young Jo began to do things together—ride, paint, walk in the garden. I was happy for them, yet something began to eat away in my spirit, something I was reluctant to identify at first. The change came over me gradually. I might not have even noticed, or might have brushed it aside as irrelevant, except for that day—that single moment—in which a single unguarded look escaped from Jo’s well-schooled demeanor.

  Allison had pressed me to recount for Jo some of my experiences when I arrived in Port Strathy, also a stranger, after a long absence. I had been reluctant. In fact, since Jo’s very coming I had been hesitant to share with her about our family history. I didn’t know why; it was such a peculiar reaction for me to have. I never did mention my journal to her. But on that particular day Allison was persuasive, and I gave in and began to tell Jo about the events of that summer when I arrived at Stonewycke.

  She listened attentively until I arrived at last to that fateful day of the town meeting in the meadow when Dorey came miraculously through the crowd to my side, and Alec galloped to our rescue a heroic knight, and how I gathered my courage to walk forward and denounce Jason Channing to his face, while Palmer Sercombe slunk away unnoticed. At that moment in the tale, I chanced to glance up at Jo, and the look on her face nearly struck me speechless. In her dark eyes flashed the venom of hatred. And as often as I recall the incident, I have not been able to account for it. Allison was seated so that she could not have seen it, and even had I attempted to describe it, I doubt Allison would have believed it possible. I might not have myself had I not been witness to it. Somehow I managed to finish the story, and by that time Jo was, to all appearances, back to normal.

  After that it seemed my eyes were opened. I began to see so clearly through the facade that Jo presented so expertly. I began to wonder if those odd forebodings only hours before her arrival had been God’s way of warning me, or at least preparing me for this terrible intrusion into our lives at Stonewycke.

  But what could I do? Allison had completely accepted Jo as the daughter lost to her for thirty years. I could not blame her for that. All the documents had been verified. I hated myself at times for my suspicions. But just as I would be on the verge of thinking I had made up the reasons for my doubts, then I would see that flash from Jo’s eyes again, as if warning me against causing a stir. There was something in her look I seemed almost to recognize, but I could never put my finger on it. Sometimes I even wondered if for some twisted reason, Jo purposefully revealed her true nature to me in these subtle ways, perhaps to encourage discord between myself and Allison and Logan, which it did in fact accomplish before long.

  Finally, I could live with my doubts no longer. I approached Logan. I hoped I could reason with him. And I could not blame him for becoming upset. I had no facts, only the vague feelings of an old woman. Everyone—the maids, the neighbors, the village children—was taken with Jo. I stood alone with my doubts. But I knew as long as they plagued me, I could not live with them. I knew at last that I must find proof of some kind, either that she was or she was not who she claimed to be. I had to know.

  That was when it occurred to me that the best proof—if indeed Jo was not their daughter—was to find the real daughter. If Jo had documentation stating that she had lived through the crash, then perhaps the real daughter was alive. I knew that the whole charade could have been made up and that it could turn out that my granddaughter really had died as we had long thought. Yet Jo had so many facts correct that cast no small amount of truth upon her tale. It certainly seemed to bear investigating.

  Where was I to begin? I had no knowledge in such matters. Therefore I spoke one day, using only generalities, to our local constable—a man whose discretion I could trust, especially after I swore him to secrecy.

  “How does one go about finding a missing person?” I asked him.

  “Weel, m’lady,” he said, “they ought to be missin’ for twenty-four hoors afore the police can do anythin’. But in yer case, perhaps—”

  “It has been much longer than that.”

  “That bein’ the case, I can fill oot a report.”

  “I’m afraid it has been many years,” I said. “I doubt a report would be of much help.” I could not help feeling rather sorry for him trying to make anything of my cryptic explanations. “I’m not even sure the person is alive,” I added.

  “Hmmmm . . . ’tis a puzzler, to be sure, m’lady.” He paused and scratched his stubby beard. “Noo, on the television,” he went on, “they’re always hirin’ them private investigators—private eyes, ye ken.”

  I smiled. “I hardly watch much television these days.” The mere thought of me, at eighty-one, traipsing all over who knows where with someone dressed like Humphrey Bogart was too bizarre. Especially when I was looking for a needle in a haystack—a needle that might not even exist.

  But in the end I found myself asking for his advice in securing such a man, as silly as I felt to do so. He put me in touch with a friend of his from Glasgow, a good man who had been a policeman but retired early because of an injury to his foot, taking up the less demanding occupation of private detecting. We arranged our first meeting in Culden. I had Logan drive me there to visit a friend, and at my friend’s house, I first met Caleb.

  Logan paused to smile at t
he memory. “Why, the cagy old fox!” he said to himself. “She put that over on me but good!” He then went on.

  If ever God directed my steps in this old-age adventure of mine, it was in the finding of Caleb Boyle, a faithful and trustworthy friend. He could instantly upon hearing my story have written me off as a senile old woman. Sometimes I even had doubts about my sanity myself! But Caleb took me seriously, believed in me, and worked like a stout horse on my behalf.

  It was his suggestion that we forget for the time being trying to discredit Jo, and concentrate instead on discovering whether another daughter—the true daughter—was indeed still alive. To do this I had to take us back thirty years and relive that awful nightmare of the day our little Joanna was lost. It was not easy for me to keep making excuses about my unexplained absences, and the travel was taxing, but I felt I had to go back in time myself, and lay my eyes again on the places involved, hoping something—miraculously—would present itself that we had overlooked before.

  The incredible story told by Jo’s solicitors contained so many details which rang true, I could only conclude that they had truly made contact with Hannah Whitley at some time after her call to Logan in London. Whether she actually changed her mind about talking to him, or else spoke to someone perhaps she shouldn’t have in an unguarded moment, I don’t know. The fact remained that poor Hannah was never heard from again, and then Jo appeared at Stonewycke with a story based entirely on Hannah’s testimony. Therefore, we began with the assumption that much of Jo’s story was true, and then went back to attempt a reconstruction of events ourselves to see if we might get on a track Jo’s people had not taken into account.

  What was always curious about Jo’s story was the lack of detail. I sat in a couple of times on discussions Logan had with the solicitors, prior to her coming. And though I said nothing, it struck me that none of the people involved knew exactly where the events following the crash had taken place.

  Thus, as Caleb and I began looking into the matter, I knew we had one fact no one else did—I had been there during the crash. If only, I thought, I could remember something that had not surfaced before!

  We went to the site of the accident. Many changes had taken place in the ensuing years. The railway now bypassed that area, running five miles to the south. I have strong doubts that Jo’s people ever located the crash site, because it took us days to do so ourselves. Over and over we rode as I scanned the surroundings. But nothing seemed familiar. All at once, Caleb thought to check with the railroad. That is when we discovered about the line being changed. We hadn’t seen anything because we were on an altogether different track! Caleb managed to uncover a thirty-year-old map of the area, and finally we drove to the site of the old ammunition dump. It was of course no longer there, but the moment we were in the vicinity, I knew we had come to the right place. What a thrill it was when we stepped out of Caleb’s automobile and walked over to the old track bed where once the train had gone, now grown over with weeds and brush.

  Two days we spent close by the crash site. Caleb applied no pressure, but drove me about, walked with me, let me look and think and remember. And gradually images of that fateful day began to come back to me. I recalled certain farmhouses I had seen from the train window just before the bombing, and then when at last Caleb and I came upon the pretty little stone bridge with the stream beneath it, and a matching stone cottage just beyond, I knew we had found the exact spot. “This is it, Caleb!” I shouted. “I remember! We passed this bridge just before the explosion!”

  It was a long shot, Caleb said (his colorful language is so intriguing!). But he began to canvas the entire area, walking to every farmhouse within sight. Most of the residents had come since the bombing. Others remembered but had seen nothing. Some had been little children at the time and their memories were garbled and dreamlike and of little use. The lady in the stone cottage with thatched roof, however, remembered the day clearly and had heard rumors from the direction of the village to the north about survivors who had been seen wandering about.

  The time came when I had to return to Stonewycke. But Caleb diligently continued his painstaking survey of the area. I did what I discreetly could to inquire how much Jo’s lawyer’s had actually learned from Hannah and whether she was still in contact with them. But in neither attempt did I find out anything new. I am, I fear, worried about Hannah.

  One day Caleb telephoned me. I will never forget his words. “I have news,” he said. “Big news. Go down to the town and call me back when you can talk.” If I hadn’t been so anxious to hear what he had to say, and had the situation not been so tense, I probably would have enjoyed all Caleb’s cloak-and-dagger precautions. But I was too nervous to have fun.

  “I found them!” he said excitedly the moment I had him back on the line from the phone at the Bluster ’N Blow. “An older couple. They knew nothing about a train wreck or a bombing. Their little farm is miles away! There is no way anyone else could have found these people! They are in the exact opposite direction from the new train line, and two miles from the town.”

  “If they know nothing about the crash,” I said, “then what have you found out from them?”

  “Just this,” said Caleb; “they woke up one morning thirty years ago to find a lost, bewildered little girl sleeping in a pile of straw just inside their barn door. They took her in, but had no idea where she’d come from. The child talked about a nurse bringing her there, but the old couple saw no evidence of anyone else, could make out nothing more of the child’s story, and eventually took her to a shelter in the town.”

  “My granddaughter is alive!” I exclaimed, hardly able to breathe. “Oh, Caleb, how will I ever be able to thank you?”

  “You can save your thanks until I find her for you,” the dear man replied.

  “And what now?” I asked, hardly able to contain my joy.

  “I’m off right now to the shelter. I’m going to go through their records and follow every lead until I find your granddaughter, Lady MacNeil. I can smell it. I know we’re getting close!”

  As I hung up the phone I’m afraid I felt too much like screaming for happiness to be able to go back to the estate. Instead, I went for a walk down along the shore to collect my thoughts. It was then that I decided that I should continue to keep my quest secret, even from Logan and Allison, until I knew for certain where it would end. In due time they must be told, but not until I had the full story. In the meantime I determined to be more faithful than ever to my journal and to write down what we were learning. Whether my decision will prove to be a wise one, only time will tell.

  Logan paused in his reading to take a deep breath and glance around the room. On the divan Hilary’s head rested on her mother’s shoulder and Allison wept softly. In a voice which seemed to indicate that had he not had to continue reading, he too would likely have given way to tears, Logan continued with Joanna’s words.

  The records Caleb found were scanty, but they did speak of the child that had been found, and then documented her later placement in a London orphanage. He followed the trail to London, where the course of events became difficult to trace in that there were several orphanages involved, one of which had been closed down in 1946. Why more was not done to locate the parents of these children lost during the war, I do not know. But there was much confusion, many records had been destroyed, shelters and orphanages set up during the war were temporary at best, and in our case, because of the reports following the crash, we never even considered that our young Joanna Hilary could be alive.

  How thankful I am for dear Caleb for disproving that error once and for all! After many weeks in London, he gained the following information. First, he had surprisingly run across some scanty news of Hannah again. She had apparently been hospitalized in a delirious state in the same town to which the child had been taken. She was sent to London for more thorough care, lay in a hospital for some time, and when she was finally released was suffering from amnesia. Caleb could find out no more about her
, and everything else we know has come from the direction of Jo’s solicitors.

  Secondly, in London Caleb eventually isolated five possible candidates from the records of the final placement papers for children during the time period in question, of the right age. I interviewed two of these before the fateful moment, just three days ago, when I walked into the offices of The Berkshire Review.

  The moment I laid eyes on Hilary, I knew she was my granddaughter. I’m sure God was causing the truth to leap within my mother’s heart, yet one look in her face sent the truth shouting at me as well. There, in a glance, I could see my dear grandmother, Lady Margaret, and so vividly the features of my own daughter Allison. And yes, not a little of my own face as well! Such a beautiful young woman she was, reflecting the very heritage of which she was a part, yet which she did not know.

  If only Allison and Logan could lay eyes upon Hilary, I thought, then they would know beyond any doubts. Yet then I realized that Jo’s face, too, contains many similarities to Hilary’s—uncannily so. It causes me to wonder how long this deception has been planned.

  I want so desperately to tell of my discovery to Logan and Allison. But Hilary has asked me to wait and I will honor her wish. In the meantime, I am not sure what to do about Jo. Is she an impostor? Or is she but the victim of a regrettable error?

  I do not want to push, yet I am anxious for this affair to end and for truth to prevail. I feel more fatigued than I have in a long while. Inside there is a glorious contentment in my heart. I am joyful, exhilarated. Part of me feels young again, just in the memory of those moments of reunion with Hilary. Yet another part of me is very tired. That part of me wants only to embrace my dear granddaughter again, and then have a long rest.

  As he read the final words, Logan could contain himself no longer. Tears overflowed his eyes and he wept without shame.

  After a moment he laid the papers aside, then walked softly toward his wife and daughter. He fell to his knees on the floor before them, clasped each of their hands, and—gazing first deeply into Allison’s face, then into Hilary’s, with a huge tear-stained smile on his own—said, “Thank God! . . . Thank you, Lord, for preserving our precious heritage . . . in spite of our own weakness!”