A New Dawn Over Devon (59 page)

 104 
Closing of the Circle

Stirling and Amanda left the house the evening before the wedding and strolled hand in hand across the grass toward the heather garden. Behind them in the Hall, the Langhams, Timothy, Stirling's parents, Hope and Betsy, and Gifford and Martha were all enjoying tea together after a sumptuous supper following a discussion of the wedding particulars.

“Tomorrow is the big day,” said Amanda softly. “I can hardly believe the time has finally come.”

“Are you afraid?” asked Stirling.

“A little . . . and you?”

“Of course. It is a big step.”

“Any last-minute doubts?”

“None . . . you?”

“No.”

“I love you, Amanda Rutherford.”

“Thank you,” smiled Amanda. “Sometimes I can hardly believe it. And I love you, Stirling.”

They sat down on the same bench on which Charles and Jocelyn had prayed so many times.

“Do you ever worry,” said Amanda after a moment, “like you said on the day you asked me to marry you, that we are not romantic enough?”

“We are not as young as most couples who marry,” replied Stirling. “Perhaps that is the reason.”

“I have wondered if it is because I was married before. I am sorry to bring that up at a time like this, but it does concern me sometimes.”

“I am not all tingly like a schoolboy either. But we are both thirty-three years old. What I feel is so much deeper than a schoolboy falling in love. I may not be starry eyed every moment, but that changes nothing about my wanting to be with you . . . always. It's more than just a feeling. Do you know what I mean?”

“Of course. That's exactly how I feel. God has brought us together. It's not a storybook romance. It's better. It gives me even more confidence as we move ahead. But I do love you very much.”

They sat a long while in silence, each simply enjoying the other's presence.

At length Stirling rose.

“Do you want to come back inside. It's a little chilly . . . and I think my parents may be about ready to be getting back home. We've got a big day ahead of us!”

“I think I will sit here a bit longer, if you don't mind,” said Amanda.

“Then I'll be going.”

He reached down and gave her hand a squeeze.

“Until tomorrow, then.”

“Until tomorrow.”

Amanda watched Stirling go. Hope's words of the previous week had been with her constantly and now came back to her more urgently than ever. If an obstacle still remained in her heart toward being able to fully accept God's love, she didn't want to enter marriage with it still unresolved. Yet there was very little time left.

Amanda knew in her heart that the moment had finally come. In obedience she would take the final step, by faith, of accepting God's forgiveness . . . and forgiving herself.

Perhaps Hope was right and there was no great mystery to it. All she had to do was accept and receive it . . . and take what God had been offering her all along.

Amanda rose and walked deeper into the heather garden. It was getting dark. She heard the hooves and wheels of the Blakeleys' horse and buggy gently clomping and crunching down the drive toward the road. It was the last time Stirling would go home with his parents as a single man. By tomorrow at this time . . . she would be his wife.

Amanda drew in a deep breath.

“Lord,”
she whispered,
“it seems I
am always coming to you saying I am sorry for being such a slow learner. Now here I am again.
But I am at last ready, I think. Help me . . .
because this is even more difficult than knowing you forgive me. I don't know if I can really forgive
myself. So all I can do is do so by
faith. . . .”

Her prayers fell silent.

Slowly Amanda sank to her knees on the soft, moist earth.

“God, help me,”
she said softly.
“I . . . accept your forgiveness. I will take
your love all the way into my heart, far enough and deep enough inside me to allow me to say . . . yes, Lord, I will say it—I forgive myself. I
will say it again . . .
I forgive myself!
Because you lov
e her
, and because Jesus died for her, Amanda Rutherford is clean, whole, forgiven.”

At the words, Amanda burst into sobs of release and relief. She could utter nothing further.

She wept for another minute, hard, deep, aching, convulsive tears of cleansing.

At last the storm began to subside, and she knew the battle was over. A change had come. She was ready to go on . . . to a new dawn in her walk with God . . . to a new life as the wife of Stirling Blakeley.

She drew in a deep breath, then another.

“Thank you, heavenly Father,”
she whispered as she rose to her feet.
“Thank you!”

 105 
Joining of the Two

Stirling Blakeley and Amanda Rutherford were married on October 24, 1923.

Catharine was Amanda's maid of honor, Betsy her bridesmaid. Catharine's plumpness had just begun to show, but her large frame and the loose cut of the dresses they made for the occasion hid her condition from all but those who knew. The radiance on her face, however, was indication enough that she was very happy, following in her mother's footsteps, in her new life as the wife of a naval officer.

Rune Blakeley stood proudly next to his son as Stirling's best man, with Terrill Langham beside him.

Martha sat in a place of honor next to Jocelyn. Betsy and Sister Hope, along with Hugh and Edlyn Wildecott-Browne, filled out one side of the front row in the Milverscombe church. Agatha Blakeley, her brother and sister from Exeter, and Rune's sister and her family from Bristol occupied the front row on the other side of the aisle. Almost from the first strains of music from the organ, Jocelyn, Martha, and Hope began to cry. All eyes turned to see Amanda in a lovely cream-colored satin dress beginning to come toward them.

Amanda had asked Gifford, as her closest male relative, to walk her down the aisle and formally give her away. As Amanda slowly came forward on his arm, the expression on her countenance was neither so expansive nor exuberant as shone on her sister's beaming face. Rather her smile spoke of quiet peace, gratitude, and contentment.
If a hint of sadness could yet be detected as a reminder of the pain she had endured growing into readiness for this day, she would have said it was a
good
sadness from which she would not shrink in order to become all that God would have her be. And in its own way, its presence somehow made her yet more beautiful.

As they went, happy faces turned toward them, all eyes upon Amanda, the girl many of them had known as a tempestuous child, watched leave home as an independent youth, and then seen return as a young lady who was quickly growing into a woman of dignity and virtue just like her mother. Among the guests, to Amanda's surprise and pleasure, she saw Gwendolen Powell and her husband, and Hubert Powell with his second wife. She gave a slight nod and extra smile as she passed them.

Stiffly Gifford did his best to retain his inexpressive poise as they walked. But even he could not help the edges of his mouth twitching upward occasionally in that most foreign of movements with which his facial muscles were unfamiliar—reflecting back the bright faces of Amanda's and Stirling's many friends with the hint of a smile.

“Dearly beloved,” began Timothy a few moments later with a great smile on his face, “we are gathered together this day to unite this man and this woman in holy matrimony. . . .”

————

A huge reception was held that afternoon at Heathersleigh Hall. Nearly everyone in town was present. There was more food and drink than any three communities of such size could have consumed in a day, accompanied by much laughter and talk and well-wishing, which even occasionally brought from the cousin once removed of the bride a moment or two of unguarded chuckle and reply.

In late afternoon the bride and groom departed in the Rutherford Peugeot for Torquay. From there they traveled through Oxford, where Stirling showed Amanda the sights of his university years and introduced her to a few friends and professors who remained.

They spent several days in the Midlands, then returned to London, and thence followed Betsy and Hope back to Switzerland for the remainder of their honeymoon.

They spent two weeks at the chalet. Many of the villagers remembered Amanda, and by the end of their stay, Stirling was a favorite throughout the entire village of Wengen. He and Herr
Buchmann hit it off in particular, with the latter almost promising to visit the newlyweds in England the following summer.

After three weeks away, they returned to Devon and took up residence in Heathersleigh Cottage.

Sarah remained at the Hall to wait on Jocelyn when she came; Wenda remained in the employ of Gifford and Martha. In his early seventies and though slowing considerably, Hector continued to occupy his room and do what he could to keep up the grounds. He was especially happy now that several of Jocelyn's favorite horses had been returned to his care.

Gifford managed under the circumstances to do his best to preserve that long-standing British tradition of the stiff upper lip. The entire household treated him as if he were master of the place. He occasionally muttered and fussed, but was generally civil and accepted the ministrations of the houseful of women with grudging acknowledgment. Hector addressed him as “my lord.” He did nothing to discourage the appellation, and occasionally could be seen briefly afterward drawing himself up a little straighter in the back and carrying himself with heightened dignity.

On most mornings, Jocelyn, Martha, Sarah, Wenda, and Hector, along with Gifford when he was not in London, ate breakfast together, after which Gifford departed for the village and the bank.

“Good morning, Mr. Rutherford!” and other such greetings could be heard addressing him as he made his way through the streets of Milverscombe almost as frequently as they had followed his son. Gifford always nodded, rarely smiled, even more rarely returned the greetings. But the hard shell surrounding the seed of life in his heart was being slowly chipped away by the generous and forgiving natures of the simple folk with whom he now must conduct his business.