A Christmas Visitor

by Anne Perry

  Henry was grateful to be helped; it would be hard enough. “I went to Kendal and spoke to Mr. Overton. I know now what Judah learned. Is that what he said to you that evening?”

  “Yes.” Findheart added nothing, but he kept smiling, his blue eyes infinitely gentle. It was a confidence he was still not going to break. Henry would have to spell it out.

  Henry sighed. “He learned that Ashton Gower was innocent, and the estate really did belong to him. Judah was going to give it back, wasn’t he?”

  “Yes. It was the only honorable thing to do,” Findheart agreed. “Do have some more tea. You must be cold.”

  Henry accepted. “Did he ask you to care for Antonia, and her son, if he should be unable to?”

  “He did. But of course that will only be necessary should they carry through Judah’s wishes.” He did not make it a question, but in effect, it was.

  “Yes, they will,” Henry said softly. “They are Dreghorns, too. But it will leave them all without means. Benjamin will have to give up his archaeology in the Holy Land. Ephraim will not be able to go back to Africa, and Naomi too will have to remain here in England. I am not aware if Nathaniel left her with anything, but I imagine it would be only what income he had from the estate. And of course there are Antonia and Joshua. They will be without a home or means of any sort.”

  “I know,” Findheart said. “I have given it much thought. The answer seems to me quite clear. I have served in this church for thirty years, and loved it dearly, but it is time for me to retire. I am getting old.” He smiled ruefully. He must have been long past eighty. His eyes were bright but his skin was withered and his hands were veined in blue. “I have not the strength for the pastoral work that I used to have,” he went on. “The people need and deserve a younger man, one better able to ride to the sick in the outlying farms and dales, one who can answer their call for the frightened, the sick and the lonely, the grieving and the troubled, at any hour. Benjamin Dreghorn is ordained to that office. He may take my place, and serve God here.”

  He lifted his hand in a small gesture. “The vicarage is large and warm, well suited for a family. There would be room for Antonia and Joshua, and for Ephraim, too, if he wishes, and for Naomi. It would shelter them all. There are vegetables in the garden and fruit in the orchard, if anyone will labor to make it yield.” He smiled apologetically. “It is not the new and exciting botany of Africa, but it will feed the people, and to spare. And there is honey in the hives, and fish in the stream and in the lake.”

  Henry was grateful, and amazed at the simplicity of it. In a bolt of memory like a physical shock he heard again Naomi’s words that the garden where Mary Magdalene recognized the risen Christ was not a physical place, but one of the mind, and of the spirit.

  “Thank you,” he said aloud. “I will tell them.” He was unsure how to say to this gentle, generous-hearted man that they may find the loss too profound to be graceful about it for some time yet.

  Findheart nodded. “Of course,” he agreed. “Of course. But I shall make it all ready for them, at least for Antonia, if that is what she chooses. You are a good friend, Mr. Rathbone. Your presence will make it less difficult for them than it might have been. Judah Dreghorn was a man of the utmost integrity of heart. No other course is open to those who would be his heirs.”

  Henry found his throat suddenly constricted and his eyes prickled with tears. Sitting in this quiet vicarage with the fire burning gently in the hearth and the snow drifting pale flurries outside, he was more truly aware of how much he missed Judah, not just his company, his laughter, but the certainty of honor in him, that truth inside which was never tainted.

  He sat for another half hour, learning more about the church and the vicarage and what abundant room it offered for all of them. Then he thanked Findheart, put on his shoes, now nearly dry, and his coat, scarf, and gloves, and set out to retrace his steps, already vanished in the snow.

  It was nearly eleven in the morning by the time he was back in the house. Benjamin met him in the hallway. He looked tired, as if he had slept little.

  “Yes,” Henry said immediately. “Judah went to Findheart.”

  “What can Findheart do? He’s the vicar of a village church, and must be closer to ninety than eighty.” There was despair in Benjamin’s voice, edging on bitterness.

  Henry plunged in. He was aware of Antonia coming down the stairs with Joshua on her heels.

  “Give you his living at the church,” Henry replied simply. “You are ordained to the priesthood. You can serve God better here than unearthing the stones of the past in Jerusalem. Here you are needed. And the vicarage is large enough to accommodate you all, and with room to spare.”

  “All?” Benjamin was startled.

  “There will be no means from the estate to provide anything else,” Henry pointed out. “There is no heritage for any of you, Benjamin, except the one nobody can spend or take from you, a name of honor above that of any other I know. Judah Dreghorn was a man of integrity like a star that cannot be dimmed. There was no shadow in him.”

  Antonia caught her breath and buried her face in her hands. Very slowly she sat down on the stairs, and Joshua put his arms around her.

  Ephraim came out of the study doorway where apparently he had been listening. Naomi came from the other direction, looking at Henry, then at Ephraim.

  “Of course,” Benjamin said at last. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. Yes, we will do very well there. Ephraim?”

  It was too soon. Ephraim looked stunned, like a man who has seen darkness come at midday, and cannot believe it.

  Naomi walked over to him, and slowly his eyes met hers.

  He did not know what to do, he was so hurt.

  Antonia lifted her face. “And I’m proud that he knew we would do the same thing,” she said quietly. “He did not doubt us either, not any of us. And he was right. We will do what he would have. The land and the house and everything in it will go back to Ashton Gower, because it is his by all the moral laws. What we lose if we do this will be nothing compared with what we would lose if we did not. We would lose ourselves, and we would lose the love Judah would have felt for us, and the right to belong to him.”

  Ephraim looked at her with a sudden burning of pride, then at Naomi standing in front of him. “I can understand Gower,” he said with difficulty. “He has suffered appallingly, and unjustly. He’s a miserable swine, but perhaps in his place I’d have been no better.”

  Naomi smiled at him with a total and glowing warmth. “Probably worse,” she agreed, but she said it so gently that he blushed with deep, almost painful joy.

  The following day it was accomplished at law. They all took the train to Penrith, and with Ashton Gower present, swore to the events as they now knew them. Overton had been sent for from Kendal, and he also testified to his knowledge of Judah’s discovery, and his intentions.

  The police were advised of what seemed now inevitably to have been Colgrave’s part in it. They instituted investigations that they had no doubt would lead to his arrest for both the forgery and the murder of Judah Dreghorn.

  “A man of the utmost honor,” the magistrate said of Judah, speaking with intense feeling. He looked at Joshua, who had asked to be with them. “You have a proud heritage, young man. You can look anyone in England in the eye, and bow your knee to no one, except the Queen.”

  “Yes, sir,” Joshua answered quietly. “I knew that before.”

  “I imagine you did,” the magistrate said with a nod. “At least you believed it. But it takes a bitter test of all that he has to make a hero like your father. Sometimes we bring to a struggle or a cause the gifts we see most clearly, a courage, a strength, or a charm others have told us we have. But often we find more is asked of us than that, more than we intended or thought we possessed. We are asked to offer that which we thought dearest, to forgive what seemed unpardonable, to face what we feared the most and endure it. Sometimes we have to travel to the last step a path that was not of ou
r choosing. But I promise you this, young man, it will lead to a greater joy in the end. The difficulty is that the end is beyond our sight, it is a matter of faith, not of knowledge.”

  Joshua nodded, but he did not know what to say.

  Antonia rested her hand on his shoulder. Her face was calm through her tears, but in her eyes was a fierce pride, and a certainty of understanding.

  Ephraim put his arm around Naomi and she did not move away.

  Benjamin offered his hand to Ashton Gower.

  Slowly Gower reached across and clasped it. “He’s right,” he said with something like surprise, as if he were watching a light breaking across the horizon. “Judah Dreghorn was a man of the highest honor. I’ll say that to anyone. You all are. I don’t know that we’ll ever be friends, there’s too much hard history between us, and I’ve said and done ill by you. But by the Lord in Heaven, I admire you!” He turned and offered his hand to Ephraim.

  Ephraim took it and held it hard, even with warmth. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I spoke badly of you, and it was untrue.”

  Gower nodded. “Christmas tomorrow,” he said. “Chance to start over. Do it better this time.” And then he turned to Henry. “Thank you,” he added simply.