Wayward Winds

by Michael Phillips

  Whatever guilt or pangs of conscience she may at one time have felt from such a posture toward one who had shown her such kindness, Amanda now did her best to squelch. The disillusionment of recent events steeled her heart against such feelings. Slowly a coldness became apparent if one looked deeply enough into her eyes. The onetime smile did not spring as quickly to her lips. The exuberance of the child who had once been thrilled by sight of a simple daisy and the excitement of the big city would now look upon the same sight with hardly a flutter of interest. What did daisies and dreams matter anymore . . . what did anything matter?

  Whether she was growing it would be difficult to say. But she was certainly growing up. The hardness of toughened adulthood gradually could be seen in her visage. A few lines gradually etched themselves around the edges of her eyes. Whatever fragments of the innocence of her childhood that might have remained had been dashed to the ground and swept away along with the bits of porcelain on the British Museum floor.

  Doubts assailed her about many things, though she kept them to herself. As yet she refused to look squarely at them and inquire what they might be trying to tell her about her values, her outlook, and where she was going in life. She only began to feel a gradual unrightness about things which she could not rationalize with the romanticism that had driven her to London in the first place.

  When word of the Titanic’s sinking reached London in mid-April, Amanda took in the dreadful news with placid expression, turned without a word, walked upstairs to her room, lay down on her bed, and inexplicably cried for the next hour. She could not even have said why. What unknown place in her heart had been struck, she hadn’t an idea. She knew not a soul aboard. No disaster had affected her so before. Now suddenly she found herself devastated, nearly unable to eat for two days.

  Another shattering of innocence had intruded unbidden into her life. What was wrong with the world when such things could happen? What did her former ideals amount to in a world where the best ship in the world sunk on its maiden voyage? What was there left to depend on?

  Such questions set off a chain of further reactions to the most unrelated of occurrences, causing Amanda to reflect yet the more deeply and personally on the militancy advocated by Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst. She had wanted to do good, to change the world. She had hated her father for not trying to do so.

  Yet what good had she done for the past three years? Bombs were being set and houses burned down and businesses ruined and the government disrupted, all in the name of right and truth.

  Right, truth . . . bombs and arson and destruction! It was all upside down and wrong.

  Two months after the Titanic, Amanda read a brief notice in one of the papers about a bombing incident reportedly instigated by the W.S.P.U. in which an innocent ten-year-old boy had been blinded and lost his leg. This news was even more devastating than the sinking of the great vessel. This was close, personal. She had been part of the W.S.P.U. She had spoken on its behalf, and thrown her own share of stones.

  Again Amanda sought her bed, this time sobbing for two hours. The poor boy . . . the poor boy! she cried to herself, over and over. Never in all her life had Amanda Rutherford felt such feelings as on that day. She felt as if she herself had ignited the fuse.

  As she lay weeping, the image came back to her of Rune Blakeley’s drunken cruelty to his son Stirling that day so many years before in Milverscombe. The vision was followed by shouts of her own voice, lashing out at her mother in cruel accusation. It still made her angry knowing her parents cared nothing for poor Stirling. What good were money and title if you didn’t use them? She had been so furious that her mother would do nothing. Yet now the very cause in which she had been involved had created even greater suffering in the life of another innocent boy.

  How could her own ideals have slipped so far? She had been part of causing the very thing she once had hated. She came to London to change the world—what had the city made of her? What kind of way was this to help anyone?

  When Amanda rose from her bed that afternoon and at last dried her tears, the cold pessimism had penetrated yet deeper. The idealism that had brought her to London was dead. And no more fertile soil than disillusionment exists in which can grow new loyalties, allegiances, and perspectives.

  Aware of the tensions and doubts within their houseguest, Mrs. Halifax shrewdly planted subtle seed after subtle seed, to grow and bear fruit in their due season. Amanda never recognized them as such—a stray remark at breakfast, a chance comment to Mrs. Thorndike, which their hostess was careful that Amanda should overhear, certain periodicals and papers left open for Amanda to stumble upon.

  Amanda never realized the imperceptible ways in which her former desire to change the world, leavened by disillusionment, now slowly shifted in socialist directions. As she continued to express doubts and frustrations, her points of view and ways of looking at things were skillfully manipulated without her slightest awareness. At the very center of this process continued to sit the division with her parents, which Mrs. Halifax was only too happy to exploit along with the rest. For no disillusionment is so powerful as that in the forming of alternate loyalties, and in making attractive the kinds of new ideas to which Amanda was now exposed. Doubt sows its seeds, mistrust provides the sun, disillusionment sends its rains, and thus do many spiritual weeds flourish in the fertile soil of a discontented soul.

  The first time she overheard Amanda speak of the Halifax house as her home, Ramsay’s mother quietly smiled to herself.

  The girl was nearly turned, she thought. All that was left now was for Amanda to begin calling her Mum.

  73

  A Visit and a Conversation

  When the invitation from her aunt and uncle Wildecott-Browne arrived, Amanda took it in stride, not pausing more than a fleeting moment to reflect upon how they came to know her whereabouts or what might be their purpose in suddenly contacting her out of the blue. She took it, as she did most things these days, as a matter of course. At Mrs. Halifax’s urging, she accepted.

  It was neither a particularly pleasant but neither an unpleasant evening. Amanda did her best to enjoy herself, though she scarcely knew her mother’s sister and almost did not remember her husband Hugh at all.

  Aunt Edlyn and Uncle Hugh were full of questions about her present life, and what it had been like growing up at Heathersleigh. They were especially inquisitive about her parents. Amanda gradually warmed as her aunt and uncle seemed sympathetically inclined toward the annoyances and grievances which she was only too willing to freely share.

  They parted, if not exactly kindred spirits, certainly on amiable terms, with many promises to see one another more in the future now that Amanda was residing in London.

  Mrs. Halifax was more than ordinarily interested in what had transpired, and Amanda recounted her recollection of the evening the next afternoon at tea.

  “Is your uncle—what is his name, dear?”

  “Hugh.”

  “Yes, your uncle Hugh,” Mrs. Halifax went on, “is he an influential man?”

  “I don’t know how influential he is—he’s a solicitor.”

  “What are his . . . views on things?”

  “On what?”

  “The world, government, politics, religion.”

  “I don’t know. He didn’t strike me as overly interested in any of that. We really didn’t talk about it.”

  “Is he the sort of man who is interested in making the world a better place?”

  “I don’t know—better in what way?”

  “Throwing out old outmoded systems,” replied Mrs. Halifax, probing a little more directly than she had previously with Amanda. “Equality for everyone.”

  “I’m beginning to doubt there’s any such thing,” laughed Amanda cynically.

  “But, Amanda dear,” said Mrs. Halifax, “the fact that the world has its injustices does not mean we should not do our part to change it.”

  “What’s the use? How can we change it? I tried. It didn
’t do any good.”

  “There are other ways, my dear. There are groups and political systems which are inherently based on the very sort of equality your suffragette friends are striving for.”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as systems where all men and women are equal, where no one lords it over another.”

  “I don’t see any of that in England.”

  “Change is coming, Amanda. This is not only a new century, but a new era. The light of true equality will dawn one day very soon. We will be part of it . . . you can be part of it too.”

  And thus, by many vague comments and indistinct conversations, did Amanda’s mind come gradually to be filled with new ideas and lured in leftist directions. Though she did not recognize them, doubts toward the English system of government were dropped as well, invisible seeds cunningly sown into her consciousness, which silently sprouted in the soil of Amanda’s general spirit of alienation.

  Amanda did not know she was being brainwashed. She considered the occasional new thought that popped into her head from time to time entirely her own. Perhaps, she convinced herself, she was at last growing up and starting to see the world in more of its true perspective.

  It was in measure a sardonic outlook, to be sure. But better, she told herself, a cynical realism than idealistic fancies of someday becoming the first woman prime minister.

  74

  Another Letter

  Charles found Jocelyn late one afternoon sitting in the sun-room quietly weeping. Two sheets of paper lay in her lap. He sat down beside her.

  “What is it?” asked Charles.

  “A letter from my sister’s husband,” she replied softly.

  “Hugh?” said Charles with a look of question.

  Jocelyn nodded.

  “What can he have said that is so painful?”

  “He and my sister have spoken with Amanda. This is the result.”

  She began to cry again as she handed Charles the letter.

  Dear Jocelyn, he read,

  Edlyn and I have had the opportunity to spend some time recently with your daughter. I must say Amanda is a delightful young woman whom I have every confidence will grow and mature into a wonderful lady.

  I know enough from things I have heard and from what Amanda has told me to realize the method you employed in raising your children was a complete failure. The control you imposed upon Amanda, I can think of nothing else to call than parental cruelty. You know in your heart and mind what the truth and facts are. God will not protect you just because you are obeying your husband’s demands. God never intended for a wife to live under the authoritative and controlling conditions that you have had to put up with these last twenty-five years. You will certainly not gain a loftier place in heaven because you have endured his persecution.

  Amanda explained to us of your continual lies to bolster your husband’s reputation. Edlyn was shocked, as am I, to learn of your refusal to face what must, in everyone’s eyes but your own, be his very obvious faults.

  We both honestly think you should leave your husband. But from what Amanda says, you worship the ground he walks on, so I doubt you will heed our advice. I speak for us both—Edlyn finds this whole thing too painful even to write you about. You are my wife’s sister and therefore I feel it my duty to speak up and hope that you will listen. I feel sorry for you, and for your whole family and hope that someday you will come to your senses and do what you know is right.

  I remain, my dear sister, your loving but disappointed brother-in-law,

  Hugh Wildecott-Browne

  Charles threw down the letter, not knowing whether to be furious or heartbroken, rose, and walked straight to his office. Five minutes later he was talking on his telephone with Timothy Diggorsfeld in London.

  “Timothy,” said Charles, “would it be possible for you to come for a visit after the weekend? Jocelyn and I need a friend.”

  “Of course,” replied the pastor. “What is it?”

  “It continues to be very difficult,” replied Charles. “I’m afraid we’ve had a bit of a setback today about Amanda. We need your perspective.”

  “I will see you in a few days.”

  75

  Another Conversation

  Jocelyn had been subdued ever since the painful letter from her sister’s husband. She and Charles had not spoken much of it, desiring to wait until Timothy was with them to let out their feelings on the matter. He arrived late the following Monday afternoon.

  It did not take long for the three friends to get around to the subject which had prompted the invitation. Charles showed Timothy the letter from Hugh Wildecott-Browne.

  The pastor read it, then set it aside with a pained sigh.

  “It is remarkable to me,” he said after a moment, “that people can be so oblivious to the true signs of character. I don’t know the man, so forgive me, Jocelyn, if I seem a bit harsh toward your brother-in-law. But it is abundantly clear that he knows neither of you further than I could throw those two sheets which he tries to pass off as brotherly concern. His suggestion is so ludicrous it merits no response. What does he mean, ‘come to your senses and do what you know is right’?”

  “I can’t imagine what he means,” answered Jocelyn. “Amanda’s been gone three years. We’ve had almost no contact with her whatever. I shudder to think what she has told him.”

  “Leave a man like Charles,” exclaimed Diggorsfeld, “—who is your brother-in-law, anyway? I take it he is not a Christian.”

  “Actually, he is a devout churchman.”

  “It gets worse and worse. What kind of mockery to truth is that! And coming from a Christian!”

  “Charles is the best thing that ever happened to me,” said Jocelyn, first to Diggorsfeld, then glancing with a smile toward her husband. “Were it not for Charles, I cannot imagine where I would be. He’s the one who helped me accept myself. I could never have learned to accept God’s love had he not helped me come to terms with who I am first. Charles’ love for me is—”

  Jocelyn glanced away, tears rising in her eyes. Charles placed a gentle hand on her arm. It was silent a moment.

  “You haven’t answered this letter, have you, Jocelyn?” asked Diggorsfeld.

  She shook her head.

  “Don’t. It is not worth it. His ears are closed, at the moment at least, to anything you might say. What does he have against you, Charles?” Timothy asked, turning toward his friend. “What in the world can account for such a bitter attitude?”

  “Honestly, Timothy,” sighed Charles, “I haven’t an idea. Until this came, I assumed that Hugh and I were on friendly enough terms. It isn’t as if we are close, or see one another with any frequency. In fact, we rarely see each other and have never had a serious and personal conversation.”

  “Ah, perhaps that partially explains it, then.”

  “How so?”

  “Accusations are often easier to make the less you know about someone. Facts tend not to get in the way.”

  “Perhaps you’re right,” sighed Charles. “But I am still shocked by his words. I always took Hugh for a decently reasonable man.”

  “An angry son or daughter who blames mother and father for every ill and inconvenience visited upon them is hardly the paradigm of balanced perspective and truth. This Wildecott-Browne is a grown man and I would assume reasonably intelligent—what is his profession, by the way?”

  “He’s a solicitor.”

  “Worse still!” exclaimed the minister. “A man who earns his bread sifting truth from falsehood. Why cannot he see Amanda’s bitterness in an instant? I return to my original question—how are some people oblivious to the signs of character?”

  “That is why I called you, Timothy,” laughed Charles. “You’re supposed to be giving us perspective to understand this.”

  “I am sorry,” replied Diggorsfeld, shaking his head, now disgusted with himself rather than the sender of the letter. “Forgive me—this kind of thing has the tendency to anger me. But,” he
went on, still trying to make sense of it, “he must know you, Jocelyn—how can he say such things of you?”

  Jocelyn laughed lightly. “To tell you the truth, Timothy, it actually feels good to have someone else be angry on our behalf. Up until now I thought this pain in my head, not to mention in my heart, would never subside. And to respond to what you said, no, I would say my brother-in-law doesn’t know me in the least. Nor does he know Charles. He hasn’t spent ten minutes with Charles in twenty years.”

  “Yet he is willing to pass judgment on the basis of Amanda’s skewed accusations.” Timothy shook his head in irritated bewilderment. Again it fell silent.

  “Why is Amanda doing this to us, Timothy?” asked Jocelyn at length. “Why does she tell people such things when we tried to do our best for her?”

  “Doing your best for people is not always what they want,” replied the pastor. “In Amanda’s case, she resented what you tried to do. She didn’t want your best. Most people don’t. They want what is comfortable. The best means growth, change, personal development. None of that comes about without a recognition and a facing of our personal weaknesses. How can we mature if we don’t come to grips with our problems so that we can overcome them? Such is the essence of growth. You both have been down that road, and it was painful at times.”

  Charles and Jocelyn both nodded and smiled. They remembered all too well their own struggles early in their mutual walk of faith.

  “When an individual doesn’t want to look at his or her problems, they do all kinds of things to try to cover them up and hide them,” Diggorsfeld went on. “It is a way to pretend they don’t exist. If they do admit their shortcomings, they blame others for them. Parental accusation is a convenient means for refusing to look yourself in the eye. Saying that your parents caused your selfish habits, blaming them for everything that is wrong in your life, is the easiest way in the world to avoid facing who you really are.”