Stranger at Stonewycke

by Michael Phillips

  The girl was a paradox, that much was certain! At times she could be so warm and loving and affectionate, especially toward her great-grandmother. Then suddenly, without warning, an altogether different mood could sweep over her, during which she was cold, even embittered, toward those she loved most.

  Joanna rubbed her eyes as if finally noticing the headache which had been threatening for the last two hours. Well, a new dress for Allison was simply another burden to add to the steadily growing pile. And was there a small twinge of guilt because she didn’t have the money to buy her daughter the dress she wanted? Would the dress perhaps convince Allison that . . . ?

  No! Joanna quickly put a stop to that seductive train of thought. Even if they had the money, she could never allow it to be spent irresponsibly. And it was a moot question regardless. There was absolutely no room in the present accounts for such a costly dress.

  Indeed, the fairy tales never specified just how much money it took to run a castle. Of course, there were no Depressions in fairy tales, either. The color red was showing more and more often in the ledger these days, and last year they had begun opening the House for public tours to bring in a little additional cash. To further conserve funds, without at first realizing the consequences, they had stopped maintaining the little-used east wing of the house, with the result that it had practically gone to ruin. A carpenter had recently informed them that if something was not done—and done soon—to save the roof, it would be lost and could bring down a good portion of the adjoining wing with it.

  When they had enacted Anson Ramsey’s Transfer Document twenty years ago, turning over a large part of the estate to the people of the valley and drastically reducing their yearly cash income, they had never foreseen what a problem money would one day become. However, the people of Port Strathy, and the sons and daughters who had inherited the good fortunes brought upon their families by the current two generations in the Ramsey line, had never forgotten. They loved Lady Margaret and Lord Duncan and Lady Joanna and Lord Alec with a love enjoyed by few in their position. Consequently, when the net of hard times began to draw itself about the valley, the people pulled together—commoners and landowners alike—to help see one another through. Many were the small offerings of fruit and produce and fish brought up the hill “t’ the Hoose,” as it was still called. And with the first news carried to the village that the east wing of the castle was in need of repair, a hundred men were on hand shortly after daybreak the following morning.

  Perhaps, sighed Joanna as she reflected on it, the loss of Stonewycke would work for Allison’s ultimate good. Perhaps it was because she had always had too much that she now came to think wealth and privilege a right.

  Yet at the mere thought of losing Stonewycke, a deep pang of despair swept momentarily through Joanna. She could not imagine life without Stonewycke. For good or ill, the place was woven deeply into her very being. Homeless and alone she had come to Scotland that day so long ago. Now she had been grafted into the years of her family’s heritage and was an intrinsic part of the ongoing flow of Stonewycke’s history. Yet times were hard, and growing harder every year. Who could tell what they might be called upon to do?

  If only they could hang on to the estate until the old folks were gone! She and Alec could be happy anywhere. She knew that. She sometimes wondered if Alec would prefer living the simple life of a country vet rather than as the laird of a great property. He still refused to let anyone call him “the laird” in his hearing. He would always be just plain Alec to the people of Port Strathy. Could it be for the best to let Stonewycke go? Joanna wondered. Could that be what God wanted?

  “Dear Lord,” Joanna murmured aloud, “you mean more to me, to any of us, than this parcel of land and trees and stone. I would gladly give it all up to do your will, to serve you and these people you have given us more fully.”

  Joanna paused. Whenever she turned to the Lord in prayer, her thoughts unconsciously strayed to the daughter who tugged so constantly on her heart.

  “Oh, God!” she cried out, “I would give up Stonewycke, even my own life, if somehow by it you could reach Allison!”

  Joanna bowed her head, but no more words came from her lips. Only her heart silently cried out, interceding where her tongue and conscious mind could not.

  “You have it in your hands, don’t you, Lord?” she said after another few moments of silence. “In my mortal mind I am unable to see how you will work it out. But somehow you will provide for my daughter’s needs, and also for this land. Somehow, you will bring an answer . . .”

  How fortunate it was that Joanna depended on her Father in heaven! The eyes of her infinite God saw beyond the contrite woman praying at her desk, beyond the teenage girl poring over a fashion magazine, beyond the aging matriarch lying down for a rest after her afternoon’s walk on the beach, beyond the inanimate granite walls of an ancient castle. His all-seeing eye did not stop there. It reached beyond the expanse of the quaint northern village of Port Strathy and the valley surrounding it. It reached beyond the rugged highlands and grassy glens, to the lowlands of Scotland, and farther down, to the very heart of that chief of all cities hundreds of miles to the south.

  God’s faithful answer, as so often is the case, would come from a most unlooked-for source, from a place that Joanna, even in her most wildly imaginative mood, could never have suspected. And if she could have had a glimpse of the provision of God in answer to her prayer for her daughter and for her beloved Stonewycke, she would not have recognized it as from Him.

  Joanna’s silent cries did not float into an empty universe to dissolve into nothingness. Even before the plea had left her aching mother’s breast, it had taken root in the loving heart of God, who heard, and whose answer was already on the way.

  3

  The Sinner and the Serpent

  An ominous London fog drifted slowly in over the city from Southend as dusk made its appearance. Before another hour had passed, the streets and sidewalks would be slippery wet from the drizzle; residents walking home from their day’s employment brandishing their trusty umbrellas, all the while flatly denied that this heavy mist was actually rain.

  The young man striding purposefully down Hampstead Road behind Euston Station seemed unconcerned about the weather, for he was nearing his destination, a pub known as Pellam’s, about a block away. He did, however, touch the rim of his new felt fedora a bit protectively, hoping he’d escape the drenching which was inevitable on nights such as this.

  Looking across the street, he hailed a lad selling newspapers, removing a coin from his pocket as he did so. A newspaper should serve the purpose as well as an umbrella, which he did not happen to have.

  “Here you go, lad,” he said, flipping the coin to the boy, who caught it deftly as he ran toward him from the street.

  “Thank’ee, sir,” he replied with a grin as he handed him the paper. “Lemme gi’ ye yer change.”

  “Don’t trouble yourself,” said the older of the two magnanimously. The boy grinned again and skipped off to peddle more of his wares. He clearly believed himself to have encountered one of London’s elite, and would repeat many times over how a lord had given him a shilling for a newspaper.

  The generous Logan Macintyre would be the last to refute the lad’s misconception. And, dressed in a well-tailored cashmere pinstripe suit, silk necktie, and expensive wool overcoat, and, of course, the new fedora, he looked less the son of a ne’er-do-well Glasgow laborer than of a London lord. It was a ruse he was content to perpetuate as long as there were folks naive enough to accept it.

  He also liked to pass himself off as thirty and, though in reality but twenty-two, he was usually as successful with this chicanery as with the other hoaxes he had pulled off in his young life. His boyish features, softly rounded about the chin with a slightly upturned nose and a thick crop of unruly brown wavy hair, might have helped dispel doubt as to his age to the more discerning. But most were fooled by his finely honed air of sophistication.

>   Logan paused at a corner to allow an auto to pass, then crossed the street. Glancing at his watch, he decided it was just about time. He’d soon have his shilling back—nearly the last bit of cash he had to his name, except his stake for the game—and much more along with it. For by now his partner Skittles would have everything set up to perfection.

  Logan thought of his friend with an unmistakable touch of pride—like the devotion of a son for his father, though in truth he had never harbored similar feelings for his real father who had been in and out of one Glasgow jail after another. Whether Logan resented him because of what he was, or because he wasn’t good enough at it to elude the police, would be difficult to determine. For his friend and mentor could hardly lay claim to an upright life of veracity and virtue. Somehow though, Logan admired him, even loved him.

  Old Skittles—whose given name was the less colorful Clarence Ludlowe—was recognized in the circles of those who knew such things as the best sharp in the business. He had earned his peculiar nickname some thirty-odd years ago, before the turn of the century when the old Queen, as he called her, was still on the throne; he ran the most lucrative Skittles racket in London. He had been able to maneuver the pins with such nimble precision that even the wariest fool could not tell he was being taken. And if the game of skittles was somewhat outmoded in this modern and sophisticated era of stage plays, talkies, cafeterias, and high fashion, the old con man still maintained the status of a legend among his compatriots.

  But the Depression had hit the confidence business, too. People were now more reluctant than ever to part with their money, and it took a more astute strategy to make a scheme succeed than in the old days. You had to choose not only your mark but also your partners with caution. But with the right decoy in place, it could still be like taking candy from a baby when a master such as Skittles went to work.

  Perhaps it was due to their mutual respect for each other’s finesse at the game that allowed Skittles and Logan to work so well together. Logan’s one regret in life was that he hadn’t been with his old friend in his early days. “What times we would have had!” he remarked more than once. For in his later years, Skittles had legitimized his enterprises somewhat, earning most of his income bookmaking, a practice—as long as he kept to the rules—that allowed him to operate inside the law. He was, however, known to take cash bets upon occasion, a procedure forbidden by law. For the most part the local constabulary did not scrutinize Skittles’ improprieties too closely, although Logan had been stung a time or two by carelessly getting too close to a couple of cash deals. Cooling his heels twice in the neighborhood tollbooth and once in Holloway for several days taught him more than all Skittles’ remonstrations about keeping his eyes open in front of him, and guarding his flank as well. At twenty-two, he had begun to learn that important lesson and had not seen the inside of a jail in more than a year. He now left the cash bookmaking to others who might want to risk it. For himself, he would stick to what he enjoyed most. And besides, swindling another man was not strictly recognized as a criminal offense. Most magistrates based their lenient decisions on the old adage, “A fool and his money are soon parted,” believing that the world will never be purged of dishonesty or swindling, and that a victim had only himself to blame for his folly. Thus, Logan committed to memory the famous quotation of eighteenth-century Chief Justice Holt—“Shall we indict one man for making a fool of another?”—to be pulled out and recited should he encounter any unenlightened bobbies who gave him a hard knock, and in the meantime he went about his activities with relish and spirit.

  In another five minutes Logan reached Pellam’s, and he turned into the establishment now crowded with workmen having a drink or two before boarding trains home. The setup was perfect! He glanced quickly around with pleasure. Not only was the swelling crowd suitable, but in addition, many appeared to be businessmen whose fat wallets and large egos concerning their intellectual prowess would play right into their hands. They would, no doubt, egg each other on in the emptying of their pound notes onto the bar better than Logan himself could.

  Skittles, with his slick-combed hair, bulbous nose, florid cheeks, and altogether friendly countenance, sat at the bar with a frothing pint of ale in his hand, his workman’s trousers and grimy leather vest completing the illusion that he was just off a hard day’s work on the job. The checkered cap sitting far back on his head seemed about to topple off as a result of the animated discussion in which he was engaged with one of his neighbors. Logan passed by, and without so much as a side-glance or the least hesitation in his voice, Skittles knew he was there. The only indication he gave of his friend’s presence was a momentary flash in his eyes which his companion took for the prelude to one more intoxicated tale of dubious factual content. Logan ordered a pint and seated himself in an adjacent booth.

  Soon Skittles’ voice rose slightly above the general din of the place. His cockney accent contained a purposefully noticeable drunken slur, but Logan knew the man was as sober as an undertaker. For far from laboring in London’s streets all day, Skittles had only just now begun his night’s work.

  “Gawd’s troth!” he said, lowering his glass to the counter with a resounding thud to emphasize his words.

  “The Queen herself?” asked the man seated to Skittles’ right, half incredulous, half concealing a laugh at the lunacy of the thought of this old drunk at Buckingham Palace.

  “Dear old Vicky—Gawd rest ’er sowl!” exclaimed Skittles. “’Course I were but a lad then, an’ much better lookin’, if I do say so m’sel’.”

  “Incredible!” said another.

  “Why, ’tis as true as Jonah slayin’ Goliath!” returned Skittles in a wounded tone, but hardly had the words had time to sink in than a great laugh broke out behind him. He turned sharply around, glaring toward the source of the merriment being made at his expense.

  “Hey, young fella!” he called out with feigned anger. “Are you dispargin’ the word of a gent’man?”

  Logan dabbed the corners of his eyes with his handkerchief and tried to look apologetic. “I’m terribly sorry,” he said at length. “I couldn’t help myself.”

  “An’ you think I’m lyin’, or maybe too drunk t’ know me own words, is that it?” he challenged.

  “In actuality I did not hear your story at all but only caught your last remark.”

  “An’ wot of that?” Skittles had just the right edge to his voice and Logan was reminded once more of what a true pro his friend was. By now those in the immediate vicinity had begun to turn their heads in the direction of the conversation, which was steadily increasing in volume.

  “Well, sir, it was, as a matter-of-fact, David who slew Goliath. Jonah was swallowed by the whale.”

  “He’s right there, gov!” chimed in one of the men behind Logan, who was now listening intently.

  “Ow, is ’e now?” said Skittles with animated gesture. “Excuse me! I must say I didn’t know as we ’ad a bleedin’ parson in our midst!”

  His barbed ridicule of the dapper young know-it-all pleased the crowd, whose chuckles now began to spread out in increasing ripples throughout the room.

  Unperturbed, Logan humbly shored up his defense. “I am by no means of such lofty repute, my good man. I have only a layman’s knowledge in matters of a religious nature.”

  “Then you don’t claim t’ know everythin’?”

  “Well . . .” and here Logan looked away for a moment and tried to show interest in his ale, “it would be a bit foolish of me to make such a claim, wouldn’t you say?”

  “So you don’t know everythin’,” probed Skittles further, “but you think you’re a lot smarter than me, is that it?”

  “I did not say that, nor would I, old man,” returned Logan, taking a sip of his brew. “And as I have been something of a student in these matters, it would hardly be fitting for me to boast of my knowledge over a man who’s already had—”

  “So! We gots a prodigy in our midst!” declared Skittles mockingly
.

  “What’s the matter, old man?” interjected Skittles’ neighbor, himself a good pint past what was good for him, and still thinking about the sharp’s churlish claims before Logan happened in, “Are you afraid this young man knows more’n you, an’ you bein’ Queen Vicky’s friend ’at ye are?”

  “I ’appen t’ be a church-goin’ man,” boasted Skittles, “an’ I been doin’ so longer’n this wee laddie ’ere’s been alive.”

  “Here! here!” chimed in someone from across the room.

  Another laughed.

  “I didn’t mean to imply—” began Logan, but Skittles brashly interrupted him.

  “Why, if you’re such a knowin’ young fella,” he said, “I gots five quid in me pocket ’ere that says you can’t tell me the name o’ who it was wot gave Adam the apple t’ eat.”

  “I wouldn’t want to take your money so easily,” replied Logan. “And besides, everyone knows it was the—”

  “Say nothin’ without puttin’ your money on the table!” interrupted Skittles.

  Logan hesitated a moment, seemingly mulling the proposition over in his mind. Then he reached a hand inside his coat, and saying, “All right, you’re on, you old fool! Here’s my five pounds that says it was the serpent!” he slapped a five-pound note onto the table in front of Skittles.

  “I didn’t ask what it was,” said Skittles, reaching out to take Logan’s money. “I bet you couldn’t tell me the name!”

  “Not so fast,” returned Logan. “His name was Satan. There’s the answer to your question! Satan . . . the devil . . . the serpent—whatever you want to call him. I think the ten pounds is mine!”