A New Dawn Over Devon (46 page)

 82 
How Can I Forgive Myself?

The afternoon several days later was sultry and still. Little work was being done inside the cottage, and the heat seemed to take everyone's energy.

After lunch Amanda wandered outside. She walked toward the new road through the woods. She saw Stirling, shirt off, chest dripping from the heat, chopping at a foot-thick pine that had to come down. He paused and wiped the sweat off his forehead as she approached.

“Working alone today?” asked Amanda. “Where is your father?”

“He left a little while ago,” replied Stirling. “He had some things to do at home. Now that we've got the stable roof finished and the sheathing over the rafters—thanks to you and your sister—we plan to start thatching the barn and stable tomorrow.”

“You look hot—would you like some lemonade?”

“That sounds as wonderful as anything I can imagine!”

“I'll be right back,” said Amanda. She turned and went back to the cottage, returning five minutes later with a pitcher. “I brought you the whole thing,” she said, pouring out a tall glass. “I have the feeling you'll need it by day's end.”

She handed the glass to Stirling, who drained it to half in one swallow.

“Positively delicious—thank you!”

“I'll put the pitcher over here,” said Amanda.

She turned and left him to his work. Stirling watched her go for a minute or two as he slowly finished the glass of lemonade. It was obvious something was on her mind. She seemed quieter and more distant than usual.

Amanda found herself walking unconsciously toward her father's prayer wood. As she went she continued to think about Stirling. How could he be so at peace with himself and who he was? How could he enjoy such closeness with his father when he had had it far worse than she? Never a word of complaint had she heard from his mouth. Why had
she
been so angry with her father, when
he
had all along been able to accept his father, flaws and all? Was a young person's attitude toward such things not so dependent on his or her parents at all but upon one's own attitude toward life? Why had she been so angry, so irritable, so argumentative, so challenging, so full of hostility toward authority? Maybe it had had nothing to do with her father at all. Would she perhaps have been just the same had he never placed a single restriction upon her independent nature? And yet . . . there was Stirling—whose life had been hell compared with hers—who had grown up with a sweet disposition, content with his lot in life and without an ounce of resentment toward anyone.

How could it be? What was the difference between them? Where had the anger and irritability come from that had so characterized her nature for twenty years? And where had Stirling's gentleness originated?

Had they each perhaps
chosen
their opposite paths of personality,
chosen
them in a thousand tiny invisible ways every day,
chosen
to react differently? Had she chosen her anger without even knowing it? Had he chosen his gentleness, perhaps equally without knowing it?

The face of Rune Blakeley came into Amanda's mind. When and how had the change, so evident now, come upon him? He had been around nearly every day since they had moved to the cottage. She had become so accustomed to his presence as to mostly forget what he used to be like. She had come to take his presence for granted. Yet how different he had once been. She had considered him a cruel tyrant.

How did Rune Blakeley cope with
his
memories of the past? Amanda wondered. If
she
struggled with her guilt . . . how much worse must be his!

She was still thinking of the father and son as she entered the wooded sanctuary and sat down on her favorite large stone. It was quiet and still. Amanda felt like the only person in the world. She tried to pray but could not. Her prayers were silent. God was silent. If she was going to move on in life, she had to put this obstacle she was struggling with behind her . . . but how?

At last she rose and began the return walk the way she had come.

Where could she go for help? Who could understand the mental torment of the words that had once come out of her own mouth—horrible words, biting and cruel words—constantly stinging at her memory? Words that would never go away no matter how many times she asked for God's forgiveness. Even if God had forgiven her, the words were still there, words of anger, hatred, bitterness toward her father.

As she went, it began to come on her that there might be only one person who could really understand what she was facing, and perhaps who had even felt what she was feeling. Memories of her past association with him flooded back into her mind. The very thought of going to see him filled her with dread. But once the thought came, she knew she had to face him no matter how hard it might be.

Rather than return to the cottage, therefore, she continued along the ridge of a low hill just north of the cottage, winding her way at length back down into Milverscombe. Minutes later she was at the Blakeley's door.

Agatha Blakeley answered her knock.

“Hello, Amanda . . . come in.”

“Hello, Agatha—is your husband at home?”

“Yes, dear,” answered Mrs. Blakeley slowly, looking at Amanda with a questioning expression, “—he is working out back in the barn.”

“Do you think he would mind if I went to see him?”

“Of course not,” replied Stirling's mother, still uncertain why Amanda would want to see her husband. “Come this way, I'll let you out through the kitchen.”

Amanda followed. Moments later she was walking across the grass behind the house toward the small barn. The door stood open. Agatha left her and returned to the house.

It was cool and dark as Amanda entered. She heard Rune pounding away on a piece of machinery at the far end. She walked across the
hard-packed floor toward him. He sensed the approach, put down his hammer, and turned. Amanda stopped as he faced her.

The two looked at one another for a moment, the one surprised to see this unexpected visitor, the other intimidated now that the moment had finally come when she was standing before the man she had once both hated and feared. This was not an encounter either would have anticipated.

“Uh . . . Miss Amanda,” said Rune, nodding hesitantly.

“Hello, Mr. Blakeley,” said Amanda. “I wonder if you would mind if I talked to you for a minute.”

“Not at all, miss.” Blakeley set down the hammer and unconsciously wiped his hands on shirt and trousers, though they were covered with as much dirt as his palms and the action accomplished little by way of cleaning them. He was a tall man and sturdily built from having labored hard all his life. His round face was perspiring freely in the heat and bore a splotch or two from the back of his wrist rubbing against it earlier. His forehead had receded to the crown of his head, and thus about half his hair was gone. What remained was thin and graying. The lines and cracks about his eyes and mouth gave them what might be called a hard expression. In it, however, were mingled hints of both remorse and weariness, for he had been a difficult man for most of his life. But largely thanks to Amanda's father, he had won the battle against drink, though it had done its best to age him before his time. Behind the rough exterior that remained, his eyes now shone with life and his lips were eager to smile.

“I saw Stirling a little while ago,” began Amanda. “He was cutting down a tree.”

“The lad's a good worker, all right,” nodded his father. “I can't keep up with him no more.”

Amanda forced a smile. A brief silence fell. Rune shifted his weight on his feet a little nervously. It was uncomfortable having the daughter of the most important man and woman in the region standing in his poor little barn, and he hadn't a notion what she was doing here.

“I . . . I don't know how to say this, Mr. Blakeley,” began Amanda again. “But I am . . . I am having a hard time since my father's death . . . I feel very badly about how I treated him when I was younger, things I said, and then leaving like I did—”

She hesitated and glanced down at the floor.

“I understand, miss. He was a good man, your father.”

“Yes . . . yes, I know that now,” said Amanda. “But, you see . . . I didn't know how good he was when I was young. You probably don't know it, but I was terribly cruel to him. I said very horrible things to him and treated him very badly. I once told him I hated him, and then stood and watched with fire in my eyes, wanting to hurt him—God forgive me!—while he just sat, saying nothing, and slowly began to cry. The memory of it haunts me almost every day.”

“I can hardly imagine it of you, miss.” In truth, everyone in town knew how difficult Amanda had been, and most had seen firsthand how she treated father and mother.

“It is true, Mr. Blakeley. I was a very angry and self-centered girl. And now my father is gone . . . and sometimes I am miserable with guilt over how I was to him. I've told God that I am sorry and I try to tell myself that both God and my father forgive me. But I can't help it, I still feel so bad that sometimes all I can do is find a place to be alone and just cry.”

“I'm sorry to hear it, miss. Your father—he forgives you . . . I can tell you that for sure.”

Again Amanda hesitated.

“I don't mean . . . I don't want to be rude . . . this is very awkward, Mr. Blakeley—I don't want to pry or get personal, but—I know that you . . . I mean you know that I wasn't very nice to you either, before, you know . . . I saw how you—”

“Don't trouble yourself to say it, miss,” said Rune. “I was a bad father and a bad husband, and anybody with eyes to see for miles around knew it. You won't hurt my feelings none by saying it to my face.”

Amanda smiled awkwardly. “I don't mean to bring up the past,” she said. “But . . . do you ever think of . . . you know, do you remember how you used to be?”

“Of course, miss,” replied Blakeley. “You don't forget how you were.”

“How well I know that.”

“I remember how bad I was every day.”

“Then how do you stand it?” said Amanda. “That's what I came to ask you, because . . . I thought you might understand what it is like for me. It must be very painful for you.”

“Sometimes I
can't
stand it,” answered Blakeley. “Sometimes I got to do just what you said, and come in here, to the barn I mean, where I can be alone and I just have to cry for a spell, to get it out.”

“I'm sorry . . . I didn't mean to—”

“It's all right, miss,” rejoined Stirling's father. “How can a man like me not sometimes get overcome with memories of what he did to the poor boy? Sometimes there's nothing else to do but let a few tears out.”

The man sniffed and glanced away, sending the back of his giant wrist against cheek and eyes again, though this time not from heat and sweat.

Amanda was touched. She had never expected a man like Rune Blakeley to be so free with what was in his heart.

“I think,” she said after a moment, “that perhaps to some extent I have accepted God's forgiveness. It is hard, but I think I know that God forgives me. Do you know what I mean?”

“I think so, miss.”

“But forgiving myself is even harder,” Amanda went on. “And—”

She hesitated and looked away.

“Say anything you want, Miss Amanda,” said Blakeley. His voice was almost tender. He had never had a daughter, but if he had had one, he was now showing the side of his nature that would have loved one with the special love of a father.

“What I was going to ask,” Amanda continued slowly, “after the way you . . . you know, how you treated Stirling when he was young . . . how—”

She paused again, glancing away. She could not look directly into his face.

“—how did you ever . . . how did you come to forgive yourself? That's what torments me, Mr. Blakeley—how can I ever forgive myself? I
wanted
to hurt my poor father, and I
did
hurt him, and it torments me—”