The Treasure of Stonewycke

by Michael Phillips

  “These were among the items confiscated from the Villa del Heimat. The police have no further use for them, and we were told to forward them to you.”

  It was signed, Chief Inspector Rollins.

  Hilary examined the items in the box—a few assorted mementos, some photos. Not much really, when you considered they represented nearly a century of a man’s life. A man worth millions, who had controlled financial empires, yet this was the only heritage to be left behind from that life of greed and ambition.

  Jason Channing had not built his life with the bricks that lasted beyond death. No gold nor silver nor precious stones here—only wood, hay, and stubble. A business crumbling beneath the revelation of its sordid foundation, a criminal organization now breaking to pieces from the onslaught of the law. The only guests to attend his funeral beyond Logan, Allison, and Hilary—his lifetime adversaries—were a few locals, and a handful of men who had worked for him. Not a single person he could have called a friend.

  In the end, he had lived for nothing. And now he had nothing but this small box to pass on to his daughter, who was herself facing a prison sentence. She probably did not even have the memory of his fatherly love. Not much of a legacy, Hilary thought.

  She sighed sadly, glancing at her watch. She would just have time to stop by Holloway Prison, where Jo was awaiting trial. Then she had to pick up her mother in Whitechapel and catch her train.

  Hilary recalled her adoptive mother’s reaction to the astounding news of the location of Hilary’s parents. The dear woman was simply marvelous, thrilled that the once-orphaned child could now enjoy two families!

  “But, dear me!” Mrs. Edwards had exclaimed, “what a family! I’ll want a new dress to meet them!”

  Hilary laughed. “I think we’ll both need new dresses, Mum!”

  Yes . . . her life was changing. But the things that mattered most were still constant, and would always be so. When she died, she knew that the sum total of her life would mean more than this handful of mementos left behind by a wealthy man. God had blessed her beyond all the earthly riches a person could imagine—blessed her with love, with family and friends, and with a future of eternal meaning.

  With these thoughts fresh in her mind, her fingers began again sailing over the keys. In fifteen minutes the editorial was finished. She re-read it, satisfied, then slipped the first page back into the typewriter and typed in the title she had omitted earlier: “A Lonely Shoe Box.”

  Hilary rose, gathered up her things, and walked to the door. There she paused and took one last look behind her.

  “I’ll be back soon,” she murmured, then opened the door.

  75

  The Treasure of Stonewycke

  The morning would dawn bright and fair.

  It was too much to expect, in this land of contrasts with its inclement and unpredictable weather, that on this special day the sun would shine.

  But spring had come to Stonewycke, and this day in early May looked as though it would display all its glory. The song of the wren in the budding trees could be heard in the valley. The heather on the hills was green with new life, preparing itself for the burst of purple glory four months distant. The gentle breeze was clean, with just a touch of the tangy salt from the sea and the chill from across the waters to give assurance that this was, indeed, the far north of Scotland.

  Hilary had risen early. It was only natural that she would be flooded with a sea of sleep-inhibiting emotions and thoughts. On the contrary, however, she had slept soundly, and when at five she suddenly found herself wide awake, it was with the peculiar sense of having been roused for some purpose. She dressed quickly and slipped quietly out; for whatever compulsion was upon her, she knew it was calling her outside, into the freshness of the northern morning, to be alone.

  Notwithstanding that in two or three hours the sun would be bright and high, the clean air was bitingly cold and Hilary bundled herself well. She walked first to the old garden and sat awhile on the stone bench in mingled reflection and prayer.

  The treasure once was here, she thought. Buried in this very spot by Maggie and Digory, though no one ever knew it. Hidden, yet alive, not decaying, nurturing the essential life within, like a seed under the ground, awaiting the moment when its life would again blossom with the coming of dawn.

  How could any of the hands that had possessed, or buried, or sought, or dreamed about, or moved, or thirsted after the treasure know the fullness of what it represented, both to the history of this land and to the heritage of this region?

  Slowly Hilary rose. She walked out of the garden and toward the footbridge that led across the stream and south onto the moorland which gave way in the distance to Braenock Ridge. The dawn was advancing now, and she could see her way clearly.

  The treasure was on her mind. She was full of the very essence of it, her keen mind probing, as if to discover some hidden significance they had all overlooked in the five months since its discovery.

  Slowly she walked, in no particular direction, pausing every now and then to note the progress of the rising sun behind Strathy summit to the east. Mingled in her reflections were images and faces and scenes from Joanna’s journal. She had set up a temporary office on the fourth floor of the castle, where on a clear day she might look out over the treetops to behold the valley and even the sea in the distance. There she had been working assiduously on . . . she didn’t even know what to call it! Since first reading it, some inner compulsion had said to her that the story of this family—her family now!—had to be told. Not in dry, statistical numbers and dates, births and deaths, but as a “story”—a living, breathing tale of real people, whose lives, all taken together, left a living and vital legacy—not only to their own descendants but to God’s people everywhere.

  But there was so much to tell! So many people were an intrinsic part of the legacy, some for good, others for ill: James, Anson, Atlanta, Talmud, Andrew, Thomas, Robert . . . so many stories . . . so many lives. And then of course Maggie, Ian, and Joanna, and even Eleanor’s part, unknown to her . . . Alec . . . her own parents, Allison and Logan.

  Oh, thought Hilary, it is so huge! It’s a legacy that cannot be told! In despair she had risen dozens of times from her typewriter in the last few months, vowing to cease her futile effort of attempting to put the story down on paper.

  Yet something always brought her back, just as something had called her out on this chilly morning. He would not let her rest. It was, after all, not her story, not Joanna’s story, not Maggie’s story. It was His story! It was a legacy He had been building into the lives of men and women since the creation of His world, a legacy He had built into the very nature of the ongoing family structure—father passing his heritage on to his son, who passed it on to his own son, and on, and on throughout time; mother giving life to daughter, who in turn gave life to granddaughter, and down through the years, from generation to generation . . . the life of God passing from parent to child, spreading out, deepening, extending itself in wider and wider circles, transforming the world with the news and the impact of God’s love and mighty character.

  What a heritage! thought Hilary. The people of God passing on His life throughout the world! And what a family I am part of . . . a family in which that life can be witnessed again and again, blossoming in fullness in one generation, spreading out, influencing many lives, perhaps being lost sight of for a season, then re-surfacing to grow and deepen again. Thank you, Lord, for the faithfulness of my own forebears whose lives and whose prayers for their posterity are so responsible for implanting the seeds of your life into me. Thank you, Lord, for those seeds of faith that never die!

  “It’s just like the treasure,” Hilary pondered. “Hidden . . . yet always alive, waiting to be rediscovered by every successive generation. The life of God hidden within the human heart—implanted in many cases by prayers and faithful obedience of a righteous ancestry—awaiting in every new generation the discovery by each individual soul whom God, in His timing and in
His own unique way, calls into relationship with Him.”

  Hilary sighed. The treasure . . . the individuals she was coming to know out of her own descent. God had indeed bestowed upon her a rich legacy!

  She had been so deep in thought that she had been paying little attention to the direction of her steps. She glanced up. In the distance a figure was approaching.

  ———

  Allison, too, had risen a great while before day. The same compulsion had fallen upon her, driving her from her bed. She, too, had needed on this day to be alone with her Lord, the God of her ancestors.

  She had long ago made peace with God in the quietness of her heart. And she had made peace with the circumstances, painful though they were, of her life. Out of necessity she had neither thought nor prayed much during the years of her middle age about the passing of life on to future generations. She had grown to accept her lot as a mother without a child to build her life into.

  Now suddenly all was changed. Now she found herself standing, as had those who preceded her, as representative of the elder generation of Stonewycke women, to whom had been entrusted the passage of the legacy left to her by the likes of Atlanta, Maggie, and her own mother. Now it was hers to transmit to her daughter—that it might continue beyond her present life.

  A formidable responsibility . . . an awe-inspiring blessing!

  Like her daughter, Allison had found herself mingling thoughts and prayers concerning the recently discovered treasure with those about her ancestry. She, too, had been walking now for about an hour, though she had left through the front gate and wandered in a large circle to the point where she saw Hilary walking in her direction. She waved, and picked up her pace. How fitting, she thought, that we should meet out here on this, Hilary’s wedding day—alone, just the two of us. This is, after all, the traditional day when the hearts of mothers and daughters are often drawn closer than at any other time.

  As she walked toward her daughter, she looked upon the face that was smiling back to her in greeting. The sun had just risen, and from behind Hilary now sent its bright morning rays radiating through her amber hair. Around her head a glow encircled her face, as if the light were coming from the auburn locks themselves.

  “What a beauty!” murmured Allison to herself. “My own daughter—and so lovely! What a blessing she is, Lord. Thank you! She is more to me than any treasure could ever be! She is a treasure!”

  With the revelation, suddenly Allison caught her breath in a short, involuntary gasp. “Of course!” she exclaimed inaudibly. “That’s it! That’s why you wanted me out here, isn’t it, Lord? You wanted to show me what it all meant!”

  ———

  As her mother came forward, Hilary beheld anew the face she had so grown to love, radiant now, both with the morning sun and with a beaming smile of love. Hilary thought she would never tire of gazing upon that face, not only because there were so many years of loving it to be regained, but also because in that face seemed to be embodied the very essence of all the faces she could only imagine in the eye of her mind when reading the journal. But this—her mother’s—was a living, dynamic, loving face, a countenance that reflected both the heart of a mother and the glory of God. All the others, whose faces she had not been able to know, lived on in this wondrous face she did know. And she even hoped, in some small measure, the face of her mother would live on . . . in her.

  Now upon Allison’s face she saw a great smile. Her mother was running toward her with open arms.

  Suddenly into Hilary’s heart broke a stunning truth which in an instant, in the single flash of a moment, unified all the thoughts she had had since arising on this most special of all days.

  “Now I see, Lord!” she cried in her heart. “This is the treasure—not the box, not even the abstract heritage of Stonewycke! This is the legacy, the heritage of life passed on through the generations in this family. The box is only a symbol. The true gift, the real treasure is the life you have passed on—through Maggie to Joanna, and to my own dear mother Allison! And now you are passing on the treasure to me! The treasure is in that beautiful face of my mother!”

  With tears streaming down her face, Hilary began to run forward, arms outstretched.

  ———

  Thirty minutes later the two women approached the footbridge arm in arm. Their tears of joy and mutual discovery had by now mostly dried. The conversation just past, though unheard by any other, was one both mother and daughter would treasure the rest of their lives.

  Now what promised to be a long and memorable day was upon them. There was much to be done.

  76

  Celebration of Love

  Allison glanced around at the guests seated on folding chairs in Dorey’s lovely rose garden.

  In certain ways this gathering reminded her of Lady Joanna’s funeral seven months ago. Many of the faces were the same. But today there was the crisp brightness of a warming spring day instead of the drizzle of late autumn. And today the eyes contained smiles which looked forward with anticipation, rather than tears which lamented the passing of an era. The past was behind, the future lay ahead—as it always would. The life which was in Stonewycke and its people continued to move forward.

  Allison smiled at her friends and neighbors. They were here to celebrate with the family a grand and wondrous occasion. A lump rose in her throat when she thought that not so very long ago she had no hope of being in such an enviable position. Yet here she was today, the mother of the bride!

  The very thought still sent a thrill through her body. Then she remembered that this bride had two mothers. Allison turned and smiled at Mrs. Edwards, and patted her hand affectionately.

  Yes, it was a grand day—the day her new daughter would be married to a man of God’s choosing. What a pair they made—the imperturbable, traditionalist professor, and the progressive, firebrand journalist. Yet their very differences complemented one another.

  Just three days ago the two of them had ridden on horseback to Braenock Ridge. Allison and Logan had driven the car out as far as possible and then had hiked the rest of the way in to meet the young couple. They had come upon them unannounced and had paused a short distance off, unable to resist a few moments silently observing their daughter and her husband-to-be as they poked about the ancient stones. Both were alive with curiosity, talking furiously—not only about the original site of the treasure they were exploring, but about all kinds of things.

  It was obvious from watching them—in their blue jeans, boots, and loose-fitting shirts and jackets—that they were going to have fun together. Neither was satisfied to accept superficialities, either in relationships or—as they now displayed as they scrambled about the rocks and earth—in matters of science or history or knowledge. Where Ashley literally dug in the earth to discover the roots of man’s historical being, Hilary dug into the motives of human hearts with her literary investigations. They were, in that sense, very much alike after all. Together they would have quite an impact on the world around them.

  But at that moment the violins began the wedding march, and Allison’s attention was diverted to the front of the colorful gathering. There stood an oaken altar, bordered by large wicker vases full of roses and lilies. Rev. Macaulay appeared from the door at the side of the house and took his place at the altar. Then followed Ashley’s best man, a Chief Inspector from Scotland Yard by the name of Harry Arnstein. “Now there is a mismatched pair,” mused Allison with a silent chuckle. Arnstein appeared the perfect stereotype of the policeman—thick, muscular, with a broad homely face and small drooping eyes. How he and the lanky scholar had ever become such close friends, Allison could not guess. And to her every inquiry they had been very evasive. But again Allison’s musings were interrupted as a third man stepped from the side door.

  Ashley Jameson, styled Lord Dearden, appeared every inch the noble gentleman now, no matter how much he might choose to downplay it. The black pin-striped tuxedo suited him well; he looked even taller than usual. Even on so m
omentous an occasion as his own wedding, he walked with more than a trace of his usual casual manner. Yet Allison could note at the same time a purposefulness in his step which revealed immediately there was more to this man than could readily be discerned on the surface. Hilary would have a lifetime to discover all the fine nuances of the personality and character of this man of God who would soon be her husband and the latest of Stonewycke’s line of noble family heads.

  Allison reflected on the men God had integrated into the family heritage over the past hundred years. In a birthright where women had dominated the line of descent, the husbands of their choosing had in recent times been men of great inner strength and stature. Each added new facets to the vitality of life that passed from generation to generation. Ashley, too, would make his mark upon this posterity, infusing his own genes and character and perspectives into the family bloodstream.

  Suzanne Heywood, Hilary’s maid of honor, then appeared, her long blond hair set off by a gown of pale blue silk, the wide neckline accented with frilly lace in tones of cream and blue.

  All at once the violins struck the chord announcing the approach of the bride. A chill of pride coursed through Allison’s heart as she stood. In the seats behind her, in addition to the many neighbors and townspeople, her sister May and brother Ian were on their feet too. Behind them were Hilary’s friends from the magazine, Murry and Betty and several others. On the opposite side of the aisle, Ashley’s colleagues from Oxford were rising now. Allison could not stop the tears streaming down her face, nor did she want to. Mrs. Edwards quietly slipped a hand through her arm. When Allison glanced toward her with a smile, she saw that the dear woman was weeping too.

  At last came the processional. Many moist eyes turned to see father and daughter, arm linked through arm, begin down the aisle under the smiling blue sky.