A New Dawn Over Devon (33 page)

 55 
Letter Home

Hope Guinarde sat at the writing desk in her room of the Rose Garden Hotel.

She didn't know how much longer she would be in England. Perhaps she would get home before this letter reached the chalet. But her heart was so full that she had to find expression for her thoughts.

Dear Sisters, she wrote, my beloved Gretchen, Luane, Anika, Galiana, Agatha, Marjolaine, Clariss, Regina, and dear Kasmira (I am so pleased to be able to list you as one of our family!):

So much has happened since I came to England I hardly know where to begin. To think I was anxious, even afraid, hardly seems possible, for now I am full of more contented thoughts and feelings than I will ever be able to convey. Your gifts helped so much. Every one was so lovely, personal, and thoughtful, and whenever I grew anxious or lonely they gave me a delightful distraction. I laughed and cried halfway across France.

I was fearful when I actually got to London. The feelings of my youth tried to overwhelm me. But I faced them one at a time—and now am feeling much better, because the old fears have been put away for good.

I have been to the mission board. There were many memories but no regrets. It only made me happier for all the Lord has done in these latter years of my life. London is all so very different now knowing I have a family to return to. I looked up Mrs. Weldon who first befriended me. She is quite elderly and a widow now, but she
remembered me, and we shared a fond visit and a laugh or two about my first dreadful days at the mission.

After arriving in London I went to Heathersleigh, Amanda's home. It is a lovely country estate. We had no idea who Amanda was. Her father was an M.P. some years ago. Amanda is so changed I almost did not recognize her as the same young woman who was with us, as indeed she is not. She was in a dark cocoon when she came to us, but now she is a beautiful moth. She reminds me of the stunning and colorful moths we saw in the jungles of New Zealand. But a moth, not a butterfly, for a slight sense of night, a hint of sadness, seems always to cling to her beauty. I recognize the look of grief from when I lost my husband and baby.

As she wrote, a fresh wave of sadness briefly overwhelmed her at the reminder, and hot tears filled her eyes.

“Goodness, Lord,” said Hope when the tears were spent, “where did that come from?”

And then there is Betsy! Hope wrote as she continued with her letter.

She is a darling girl of about fourteen whose father was recently killed and who found her way to Heathersleigh, Amanda's home. The moment I laid eyes on her I felt she to be the reason the Lord sent me to England. I think he may have her in mind as the chalet's next guest. I have said nothing to her or Amanda's mother yet. But I am so excited when I think of it, for she is such a dear. I told her about you, Galiana. She loves animals.

Hope set down her pen, her mind full of Betsy.

She rose from the writing table and left the room. She needed to walk . . . and think . . . and pray about this opportunity she had to give a girl the kind of life she had always dreamed of.

She found herself an hour later on the familiar street outside the orphanage where she had spent so many of her own early years, a multitude of thoughts and emotions swirling undefined through her.

Is this where Betsy could ultimately end up, she wondered, or someplace just like it? She could not stay at Heathersleigh forever. Eventually Jocelyn would have no choice but to inform the authorities, and then she would become a ward of the state. What would become of her then?

Memories flooded Hope's heart and brain. How good God had been to her. How he had watched over her all her life. He had brought
her out of this dark, cold, granite tomb to the most beautiful place in all the world and given her the lovely chalet built by her husband's father.

She almost laughed aloud to think of the contrast between her past and her present life.

He had protected her all these years, giving her the name
Hope
, knowing that he would fulfill her name and her childhood dream of having a place to belong.

And now she was in a position of being able to do that for another. No . . . not she—he.
He
could do that same thing for Betsy, who, like her, had no mother, no father, no place to call home.

She wished she could take all the girls here back with her. But she knew such a thing was impossible.

She gazed up at the tall, cold stone walls, hardly able to imagine Betsy having to move to such an institution.

As her thoughts and prayers continued to gather themselves around the memory of Betsy's face in her mind's eye, she thought of her own daughter, the precious little one who had not even lived twenty-four hours.

“Lord,”
Hope began to pray,
“is Betsy
meant to be something more than simply a visitor, a guest, a sister at the Chalet? Is she—”

She could not complete the prayer.

Again her eyes filled with tears as she turned and began walking away from the orphanage. But the power of its memories could no longer touch her, and her heart swelled with joy at what God might intend.

 56 
Amanda's Unwelcome Proposal

In the cottage Amanda sat at Maggie's kitchen table with her mother and sister and Maggie, the recently discovered family Bible, Maggie's Bible, and her sheets of handwritten notes, open and spread out before her as she explained her visit to the church and the clues she had found. She had just completed reading the various passages noted in the three sources.

“So if you put it all together,” Amanda was saying, “and read only the faintly underlined portions, in order, from the family Bible, it reads . . .” She paused and glanced at one of the papers. “‘ . . . there were twins in her womb. And the first came out . . . daughter: . . . the elder was . . . And after that came . . . brother out . . .'”

She set the paper aside and pulled Maggie's Bible toward her, with the sheet on which she had written its clues.

“And then, if you read the words underlined in your Bible, Grandma Maggie,” Amanda went on, “in the sequence that I looked them up, the same message is repeated in more detail: ‘An inheritance may be gotten hastily at the beginning; but the end thereof shall not be blessed . . . we have none inheritance in the son . . . It is false . . . If a man die . . . ye shall give his inheritance unto his daughter . . . thine elder sister.'”

Amanda stopped and glanced around the table at the other three.

“Do you see it?” she said. “I think the message is as clear as can be.
Cynthia
was really the first born of Henry Rutherford's twins, and Daddy's father, Ashby, was born
second
.”

The words sank in around the table, though seemed to strike no one with as much force as Amanda had expected. None of the others yet appreciated where the revelation was leading.

“Exactly as I thought,” said Maggie, nodding her head after a moment. “I knew the vicar had been paid off for something. That must have been it, and he helped cover it up.”

“But why?” asked Jocelyn. “Why reverse the birth order?”

“Because old Henry didn't want a daughter to inherit,” said Maggie, her blood beginning to run hot.

“They falsified the order so that Henry's
son
could inherit,” added Amanda. “You almost had it solved, Grandma Maggie, just not this one final piece.”

“It was no secret how old Henry came to hate his wife,” Maggie went on. “He wanted a son; everyone knew it. I thought there was something suspicious about the old villain. So he inverted them in the parish register, just like Jacob and Esau, switched the birthrights even as his wife was dying, and got the vicar to be part of his lie with him, leaving his
true
heir, Cynthia, out of her inheritance. It was a scoundrel thing to do.”

“But who left all these clues?” said Jocelyn again.

“Maggie's grandmother, who attended to the birth and would have known what happened better than anyone,” answered Amanda. “Afterwards she must have wanted to leave some clue that would point to the truth. That's when I think she made these notations in the family Bible.”

“But how did she get to the Bible in the Hall?” asked Catharine.

“I think I can answer that,” said Maggie. “She had been there often with her father, who was the carpenter for the lord of the manor. With her lifelong connections to the place, she could easily have got in, written down that reference in the birth record and underlined those words that you found, Amanda, then hidden the Bible in the secretary she knew about because it was just like her father's.”

“What about the parish record?” asked Catharine.

“The handwriting looked different to me,” said Amanda.

“That clue must have been left by Crompton—the initials A.C.,” said Maggie. “What did you say was the date?”

“July 16, 1855.”

“Just a year before his death, when this cottage was transferred to my grandmother.”

“It is puzzling,” said Jocelyn. “Why would he make that notation so many years later?”

“And what I haven't been able to understand,” added Amanda, “—if he was going to alter the parish record, why he didn't simply change the original entry?”

“And why didn't my grandmother just tell someone what had happened,” added Maggie, “such as my mother, or even me?”

“We may never get to the bottom of some of the mysteries about Heathersleigh,” said Amanda.

As she spoke Jocelyn glanced over and saw that Maggie had grown pale and was clutching the table.

“What is it, Maggie?” she said in alarm.

“Nothing, dear,” replied Maggie, her breathing shallow. “I think the excitement over old Henry wore me out, that's all. I am still not myself. I get tired too easily. Sometimes I think I am—”

“Nonsense,” interrupted Jocelyn. “You just need a little rest. Let me help you over to the divan and you lie down. You will be able to hear everything we say.”

“Thank you, dear.”

Amanda rose from the table. “Would you like some water, Grandma Maggie?” she asked.

“Yes, dear . . . thank you.”

“I wish Charles were here,” sighed Jocelyn a minute or two later, once she had Maggie comfortably resting on the couch. “I wonder if he knew anything about all this. Even with all you have discovered, Amanda, we still have no actual proof all this is what happened.”

“But don't you think it is likely . . . more than just
likely
—undeniable?”

“It does seem so,” replied her mother. “I admit it is difficult to put any other construction on those underlined passages, even though such deductions as you've made would probably not stand up legally or in court.”

A long silence followed.

“This is all very interesting,” said Catharine at length. “But what difference does any of it make? Cynthia and Ashby have been dead
for years. Who cares who was born first? What do legalities and courts have to do with it, for heaven's sake?”

Amanda and Jocelyn looked at one another. Jocelyn had at last begun to apprehend a portion of why Amanda was so serious and why she had been crying earlier. She thought she knew what Amanda's thoughts were pointing toward, though she did not yet see all that had come to Amanda in the prayer wood.

“I think Mother was referring to what might be the consequence if news of what we have discovered fell into other hands,” replied Amanda to Catharine's question.

“Whose hands?—I don't know what you're talking about,” said Catharine. “Who would care about any of this anyway?”

“Don't you understand, Catharine?” said Amanda. “The inheritance, even perhaps the title itself—though I'm not sure it would have passed to
Cynthia
rather than Ashby—but in any event the bulk of the inheritance followed the
wrong
family line.”

“What do you mean, the wrong family line?” asked Catharine with a puzzled expression on her face. “What are you saying?”

“That had the inheritance come down through the years from Henry as it
should
have,” Amanda continued, “—that is through his eldest daughter, Cynthia—Heathersleigh Hall would now belong to Cousin Gifford,
Cynthia's
son. In other words, Father would never have been lord of the manor at all.”

“What!” exclaimed Catharine.

“That is what makes all this so important,” replied Amanda, her voice now growing soft.

The silence which fell around the table this time was long and reflective. It almost seemed dishonoring to the memory of their beloved Charles to imply that he had been an unwitting usurper to a title and estate that should never have belonged to him. The moment the words left Amanda's mouth, they fell like chilly icicles into the hearts of all these women who had loved him so deeply.

“I don't like it,” said Catharine at length. “You make it sound as if Daddy did something wrong.”

“That's not how Amanda meant it, dear,” said Jocelyn. “Your father could not have known.”

“Well, I don't even like the sound of it,” rejoined Catharine. “I don't want to think about it. Besides, none of it matters now anyway. It's too late. It's all over and done with.”

“It might not be
completely
over yet, Catharine,” said Amanda.

Catharine glanced toward her with a look of question. She did not like the tone in Amanda's voice.

“What do you mean?” she returned a little sharply. “Daddy's dead. And like Mother said, there is no proof.”

“Perhaps the only proof we ought to need is what we know is the truth, not whether it could be legally disputed or not.”

“But
why?
” insisted Catharine.

“Catharine,” Amanda began, then glanced over at her mother, “don't you see what we have to do?”

“No, I don't see it at all,” rejoined Catharine testily.

“If Heathersleigh is not rightfully ours, and never should have been, then we have no other alternative.”

“Alternative than what? You're not implying—” began Catharine, at last giving in to her mounting disbelief.

“I feel we should give up Heathersleigh,” said Amanda. Her voice was soft but firm. “It should rightfully belong to Cousin Gifford's side of the family.”

“Amanda, you can't be serious!” exclaimed Catharine.

Amanda did not reply.

“Even if it is true,” Catharine continued, “what good will possibly be accomplished by revealing what you have discovered? You can't be suggesting actually turning Heathersleigh over to Gifford! I don't believe what I am hearing!”

More silence followed.

“Mother,” said Catharine after a moment, “tell Amanda this is absurd, that what she is thinking won't help anything.”

“I don't know if it is a question of helping anything, Catharine,” replied Jocelyn. “What Amanda is saying is that we should perhaps consider it because it may be the
right
thing to do.”

“But it is ridiculous! Isn't possession supposed to be nine-tenths of the law or something?”

“I think I agree with Amanda.”

With an imploring look, Catharine now glanced over at Maggie.

“Your sister is speaking from the Lord's heart, dear,” said Maggie. “I think you should listen.”

“Mother . . . please!” Catharine said, turning back toward Jocelyn.

“Though many years have gone, that does not undo a wrong,” said Jocelyn, “restitution and truth still have to be sought no matter how long it has been.”

“Actually,” Amanda now said again, “one thing you said is true, Catharine—I don't suggest turning it over to Gifford.”

“I am relieved to hear that!”

“I think the right thing to do might be to place Heathersleigh in
Geoffrey's
hands rather than his father's.”

“Oh no—it goes from bad to worse!” cried Catharine. “Geoffrey! How does that help matters?”

“I am not sure I understand you now, Amanda,” said Jocelyn.

“It is nothing I can put my finger on exactly, Mother,” replied Amanda. “But not only must we do what is right, we also must be good stewards of what has been placed in our hands, even if originally by deceit. I don't think giving Heathersleigh to Gifford would be wise stewardship over the estate, which is the Lord's more than it is any of the rest of ours. I have the feeling he would misuse it, maybe even sell it.”

“What makes you think Geoffrey would be any better?” asked Catharine.

“I don't know, just a feeling I have. I think Geoffrey is changing. If we follow through with this and undertake to transfer the estate to him, I have the feeling he would take it very seriously.”

“I cannot believe what I am hearing! Don't tell me his proposing to you went to your head. You're not thinking of . . .
marrying
him, are you!”

“Catharine, that was years ago. This has nothing to do with that. No, I'm not thinking of marrying him. I'm not thinking of marrying anyone.”