Wayward Winds (58 page)

 121 
Secret Business

There was one more item of business Maggie McFee knew she must attend to as well, just in case the Lord chose to take her to follow Bobby sooner rather than later.

The next day, therefore, to the amazement of all in the village who chanced to observe her at the Milverscombe station, wearing the finest dress she owned, Maggie boarded a train for Exeter.

No amount of expostulation, however, either that day or in the weeks to come, was sufficient to persuade Maggie McFee to divulge the nature of her business.

Somehow it was later discovered that the errand which had taken her to the city had to do with a certain solicitor's firm.

More than that was never known, Maggie's business in fact concerned two documents which thereafter lay in the solicitor's files for safekeeping. One was a letter she had written, which would not be opened until those eyes to whom it was addressed, and who also was the chief subject of the second document, were ready to know the truths which it revealed.

The general conclusion of the matter in Milverscombe was that Maggie's appointment must have had something to do with her husband's passing. That no one ever learned what might be the nature of that business only deepened the mystery surrounding the unknown antecedents of the old couple of Heathersleigh Cottage.

All the way from Exeter back to Milverscombe on the train, Maggie's heart was full of Amanda.

“We've got to pray,” she said to herself. “We've got to pray like never before. Master Charles, her dear mother, myself, Catharine, George, all who know her . . . we've all got to pray. I feel that Amanda's in danger. But I know she's coming home. She might even be on her way right now.
—O Lord,”
she said, breaking into whispered petition even as she sat gazing out the windows at the passing countryside,
“protect her and
guide her footsteps. Keep evil people who would try to
harm her away from her, Lord. Wrap your arms around
her. Encompass her about with a hedge of thorns against
the enemy. Send her to people, and send people to
her—your people, godly men and women, to help her
, point her toward truth, and bring her home.”

 122 
Waiting

In Vienna's Südbahnhof the time dragged slowly by.

Amanda felt her head drooping.

No! She couldn't doze off! She might miss the train. She must remain alert.

She shook herself and glanced about.

Why did it seem everyone was looking at her with suspicious glances? Suddenly she felt very, very
English
. Everyone must know the fact . . . and hate her for it. If only she had a dirndl now!

What would happen when she boarded the train, or tried to cross the border?

The passport of Gertrut Oswald listed her nationality as Austrian. Whatever broken German she could manage would give away in an instant that the passport wasn't her own.

She would have to keep her mouth shut and hope no one asked too many questions.

She was
so
tired. But she had to keep watch along the station corridors and the tunnel entries.

She looked up at the clock. Its two hands pointed to the four and the eight. She tried to make the face of the clock register in her weary brain. The four and the eight . . . twenty after eight.

No! It can't
be!
she thought to herself, jumping to her feet. She had fallen asleep! She had missed her train!

Quickly she glanced around in panic, then back at the clock.

Stop . . . what was she thinking? Her brain was playing tricks—the
little
hand was between the three and four. It was only three-forty! Was she going crazy in the midst of her exhaustion?

She sat back down with a sigh. Forty more minutes. The train should pull in anytime. Then she could board, find a seat . . . and wait.

Amanda sat for another ten or fifteen minutes, glancing along the track for any sign of her train's arrival. At length she rose again. She would go to the washroom one last time. A splash of cold water on her face might wake her up.

 123 
Final Encounter

Ramsay ran into the station glancing to his right and left. A minute later his mother and Hartwell Barclay followed him inside.

“I don't see her,” said Ramsay. “We'll have to split up and check the three platforms. Mum, you take one through three—that tunnel's closest. I'll check four through six. The Paris line—no, that border would be closed. But Innsbruck leaves from five—she's probably making for Innsbruck! That's as far west as she could get directly from here. But, Barclay, just to be safe, you check seven through nine.”

Immediately they hurried off in the direction of the three tunnels to the trio of platforms.

Feeling temporarily better from the cold water on her face, Amanda gave the attendant a few
groschen
coins, for which she was thanked by a scowl and grunt, then opened the door to return to the station.

She gasped in terror. She would know that white head of hair anywhere!

Hartwell Barclay stood with his back to her, less than twenty feet away! He was looking about the platform area!

Amanda shrunk back inside the small room. Another lady bumped and crowded past her with a rude remark Amanda couldn't understand. As the door opened and closed, she saw an engine followed by eight or ten coach cars slowing on the track facing platform nine where she had been waiting.

It was her train!

With a final screech the locomotive and cars came to rest. The doors opened and the departing passengers poured out.

And there stood Barclay between her and her way of escape.

What time was it—4:09 . . .

She pushed the door open a crack and peeped out. Barclay had wandered off along the platform, but not nearly far enough that she could yet risk leaving the bathroom.

Behind her, the voice of the irritable attendant shouted a flurry of foul words in her direction. She pretended not to hear, but knew well enough that she was being ordered off the premises now that her business was done.

She snuck another peek.

Again the door shot open. Another lady entered. A volley of angry shouts erupted behind her.

She might be safe now. She saw Barclay heading toward the tunnel back to the main part of the station. She crept out.

Suddenly he paused, then turned around for one last scan through the sea of faces. The gaze of his evil eyes probed straight in Amanda's direction. Yet something prevented recognition. Amanda spun about and tried to disappear in a crowd of passengers making their way across the floor. A second or two later she dared a partial turn of her head.

Barclay was still looking about. He seemed to know she was near. From this distance she could feel his frustration. His eyes glowed with black fire.

Then, just as quickly as he had paused a minute earlier, he spun about and disappeared into the tunnel.

Amanda darted for the train.

 124 
Toward Home

The report of all three of Amanda's pursuers was the same. No one had seen her.

Ramsay thought a moment, then ran for the ticket window. He would interrogate the agent.

Two ladies stood in line before him. He pushed past and shouted his question to the man behind the pane of glass.

But they would have none of it. A rude torrent of rebukes flew at him. He could not afford a scene—he might never get the information.

Reluctantly he walked behind the women and stood waiting.

Frantically Amanda stood waiting as the conductor examined the tickets of those ahead of her. She glanced behind every few seconds.

At last she was next in line. . . . now she stepped forward and handed the man her ticket.

He glanced at her with an unfriendly expression.

“Trieste?” he said.

Amanda nodded.

“Identification.”

She handed him Gertrut Oswald's passport.

He looked at the picture, a little more carefully than Amanda liked, then closed it and handed it back to her.

Quickly Amanda stepped up and onto the train, then hurried inside the coach to find a seat.

At last she sat down, closed her eyes briefly, and breathed deeply with exhausted relief.

Ramsay glanced up at the clock. Four-thirteen.

The second lady's transaction was interminably slow.

At last he reached the window.

It was four-seventeen.

“What trains have left the station in the last hour?” he shouted. Whatever reservoir of patience he possessed had been used up waiting for the two women, and he had none left to spare.

“Let's see,” replied the man, glancing through the glass to the schedule board posted on the wall of the station and squinting slightly, “there was the Moscow—”

“Going west!”

“Berlin—”

“No, you fool, she would never go to Berlin.”

“The southbound is scheduled at four-twenty, sir.”

“That's got to be it.”

“I am afraid you will not make it now.”

“
I'm
not going anywhere, you idiot! Did you sell a ticket to a young lady?”

Briefly he described Amanda.

The agent nodded.

“What was her destination?”

“Trieste.”

“Trieste!”
repeated Ramsay. “What in the—”

He paused a moment.

“That's it—of course! The little vixen is smarter than I thought. She's making for Italy!”

In her seat, with great relief Amanda finally felt movement beneath her. A whistle sounded. The southbound Vienna-Trieste line began to jerk and creak into motion.

She leaned her head back and glanced out the window absently at the platform lined with men and women waving to those inside the train as it gradually picked up speed.

From behind them a figure she recognized now came sprinting out of the tunnel and onto the platform.

It was Ramsay!

She pulled away from the glass. But it was too late. Somehow he spotted her instantly among all the windows with faces pressed against them.

He raced shouting toward the train. But the engine was increasing in speed. Above the metallic clacking on the tracks she could faintly make out the word she saw on his lips.

“A—m—a—n—d—a ! !”
came a great cry.

Behind him now labored two others out of the tunnel.

He pointed straight at her. The eyes of Mrs. Halifax and Hartwell Barclay followed his hand. For the briefest moment the flash of hatred from them met her answering gaze.

Then they were gone, disappeared behind the outside station wall. Suddenly the buildings of the city of Vienna rose in the distance.

The rhythmic clacking beneath her became instantly soothing and melodic.

Amanda sat back in her seat breathing deeply. At length her relief was complete. Could she dare believe that this horrible episode in her life was finally over?

Quickly the train picked up speed. Within five minutes they passed into the open Austrian countryside.

“I'm going home,” said Amanda to herself. “At last I'm going home.”

She paused briefly, then closed her eyes. This time, however, the reason was not for weariness, but to address one to whom she had not consciously spoken in years.

“God,”
said Amanda,
“help me get safely
back to England.”

As she sped southward out of Vienna she had thus begun that most important journey of the heart, whose first steps begin with the recognition, however faint, that all is not as it could be, or should be, and that there is only one place to make it right.

Though around her the world was at war, and though she was alone in the middle of a foreign land, Amanda Rutherford was indeed already more than halfway home.