A New Dawn Over Devon

by Michael Phillips

  When at thirty-nine years of age he married Eliza Gretton in 1822, he was already becoming frantic to sire a son. When she did not give him one within a year or two, his rage toward her mounted.

  Then came the fateful night of February 11, 1829, when suddenly the barren womb of Lord Henry’s wife burst into fruitfulness with two Rutherford heirs, giving Henry the son he had so long desired.

  Alas, poor Eliza did not live the night.

  Local midwife Orelia Moylan, who had known Henry all her life and, in spite of her God-fearing heart, despised him, tended both the births and the death, and witnessed the transaction between the lord of the manor and the parish vicar, one Arthur Crompton, who was paid for his silence as she watched from above.

  But Orelia’s conscience would not let her rest with what she knew. Two weeks later, in the dead of night, she sneaked back into the Hall. She knew its passages and corridors well from much time spent here when her father was under the employ of old Lord Broughton.

  She crept into the tower, where she had often played with one of the young maids. She knew where the keys were hidden and also about the secret passage her father had helped build. Using both, and creeping through the blackness with care, she made her way through the narrow hidden corridor to the library on the second floor of the east wing.

  It was but the work of a minute or two to locate the large family Bible on the sideboard. She opened it and added the clue she hoped would one day bring the events of recent days to light.

  To hide the Bible, her father’s craftsmanship again came to her aid. Soon the great book was resting in the secret chamber of the secretary her father had made to match the one in their own home.

  She closed the secret panel, slid in the drawer that hid its lock from visibility, then pocketed the key, took it with her as she left the library, and returned through the secret passage to the old stone tower, where she placed it on the ring with the key to the door into the passageway she had just used connecting the two regions of the Hall.

  Returning home, she added similar clues to the pages of her own Bible that hopefully one day would lead curious eyes to retrace the very steps she had taken this night. In the margin of Mark 4, next to the words To you is given to understand the mystery of the kingdom, she made the notation “There is a mystery, and the key is closer than you think. The key . . . find the key and unlock the mystery.” Beneath them, in tiny letters, she added the reference “Genesis 25:31–33.”

  Only a few more clues remained to be noted. She turned to the familiar passage in the holy text’s first book, and beside the thirty-third verse, she carefully noted in the margin “Proverbs 20.” This she followed back and forth through her Bible, with no little work, to locate the appropriate selections, until the message was complete.

  The references made, she could now rest.

  ————

  The passage of years proved more fortuitous for Vicar Crompton than for either the lord of the manor or Orelia Moylan.

  Crompton rose in the Church to the position of bishop, while Henry Rutherford’s financial affairs went from bad to worse. Knowing nothing of his uncle Broughton’s secret, he was forced to take extreme measures to save himself from bankruptcy.

  A certain highly lucrative but questionable scheme kept him from ruin. His invisible partner in the affair, however, was none other than Crompton himself, who promised continued silence regarding both matters in exchange for the donation and sale of the gamekeeper’s cottage his uncle had built half a century earlier. Though he was reluctant to part with it, his finances and threat of exposure gave him little choice. His son Ashby’s standing, in addition, must be preserved. The transaction was consummated in 1849.

  It was when aging Bishop Crompton happened upon old Orelia Moylan in the streets of Milverscombe two years later that the fateful encounter took place that would add still more mysteries to the growing string of rumors surrounding the Heathersleigh estate, and would perplex many local inhabitants for decades to come.

  The former midwife was now sixty-five and her own daughter Grace had two children—the eldest a thirteen-year-old daughter by the name of Margaret—and was even then with child in preparation for a third.

  The two now elderly former colleagues in Henry Rutherford’s deception both recognized one another as they walked along the street near the old stone church where Crompton had once presided as vicar. They had not seen each other since that fateful night at the Hall.

  Already Crompton’s conscience had begun to whisper to him concerning many things he had done, as well as the manner of man he had been. A gradual decline of his health contributed to this waking. The unexpected encounter deepened the force of those pangs. Yet he could not quite bring himself to answer them. The voice of conscience, when heeded, makes one humble and one’s manner tender. That same voice, while yet its demands are resisted, makes one surly. With a stiff nod of acknowledgment, therefore, he tried to continue on past her.

  But Orelia, who had been thinking of that night more frequently of late and asking God what she should do with what she knew, stopped and spoke to him.

  “I know why you are in Heathersleigh Cottage,” she said.

  Crompton now paused as well, then turned.

  “Yes, and what is that to me?” he said. His unease, in the absence of steps yet taken toward restitution, caused him to vent his anger at himself on the woman, whose sight goaded his conscience all the more.

  “Just that there you are with plenty to eat, while me and mine have nothing but gruel to keep us alive,” she rejoined. “You received fifty pounds and the house. What have I got to show for my silence?”

  “What do you expect me to do about it?”

  “I have a married daughter who now has two young ones of her own, and another on the way. It’s all any of us can do to put food down our throats. These are evil times, Vicar, especially for one who knows what I know. Surely a man such as yourself is not beyond feeling compassion for the likes of us.”

  Squirming behind his collar, Crompton managed a few moments later to conclude the awkward interview.

  But for weeks the woman’s words plagued him. He could not deny them to be true. He had all his life enjoyed plenty. She, whose need was greater, possessed next to nothing.

  Yet what could he do?

  Perhaps, he said to himself, the question ought to be, what should he do?

  A Bishop’s Restitution

  1855–1856

  Bishop Arthur Crompton’s health continued to decline as his age advanced. And still further did his spirit awaken. He retired from his official position, took up permanent residence in his wooded cottage in Devon, which had from the moment of dubious transfer belonged to him rather than the Church.

  About a year later his health took a sudden serious turn. He knew immediately that he was dying.

  As eternity beckoned, his conscience—which was in reality his Creator-Father’s voice speaking into his innermost regions—became all the more imperative. More importantly, he finally began to heed its whispers.

  He saw all too clearly that he had not lived a life worthy of his calling. He could not undo what he had done, but he could at least acknowledge his childness toward his heavenly Father, and live out his final days in His care. And what did lie in his power to do by way of Zacchaeus’ restitution, that much at least he would undertake to do.

  To that end, before his strength failed him altogether, he paid a visit to his former church in the village. Knowing well enough where the records were kept, and knowing that the case was never locked, he added a new entry to that he had made twenty-six years earlier. To have simply altered the entry would have been easier, though it would surely have aroused suspicion. And he must uphold the sanctity of the records, even if he knew their falsehood. He would leave his clue in this manner and hope its truth would be uncovered one day.

  To further this end, he also arranged for a visit to the Exeter solicitors’ firm of Crumholtz, Sutclyff, Stonehaug
h, & Crumholtz. When his business was concluded, two documents were left behind with his signature, where they would remain in the possession of his longtime friend Lethbridge Crumholtz and his firm for as long as circumstances demanded.

  The first was a newly executed will, the chief provision of which would, upon his death, transfer the deed to Heathersleigh Cottage that he had purchased from Henry Rutherford—and which document he gave to the firm for safekeeping—to Orelia (Kyrkwode) Moylan. Upon the deed was added the somewhat unusual provision that the property should pass to Orelia Moylan’s heirs until or unless it came into the possession of a final heir with no clear descendant, after whom it would pass to the Church of England.

  The second document was a letter, written in his own hand the night prior to his journey to Exeter, in which he detailed exactly what had taken place on that winter’s night in February of 1829, how he and the midwife had been drawn into Henry Rutherford’s lie, as well as what he had done in 1849 to originally purchase the cottage, concluding with his motives now for its final disposition. Truth, he realized, demanded that a full disclosure be made. He was concerned no longer for his own reputation. But lest any repercussions of a damaging nature should accrue to Orelia Moylan or her heirs, his final instructions indicated that this letter of disclosure should not be made public until the same condition was fulfilled as specified on the deed—the decease of her last remaining heir. At that time, and only then, should the principals of Crumholtz, Sutclyff, Stonehaugh, & Crumholtz open it and divulge its contents. The terms of his will by then would have long since already been carried out.

  With these burdens at last lifted from his conscience, his final months were the happiest of his life. They were marked by his discovery of the joy of that greatest of all secrets that so few in the human race ever find, the mysterious wonder that he was a child who was cared for in every way by a good and loving Father. That the discovery came late in his life may have been unfortunate, but it was not too late to make a man of him in the end.

  When Bishop Arthur Crompton died early in the year 1856, all those for miles around Milverscombe were baffled by the irregularity of an unmarried man who had risen so high in ecclesiastical circles leaving his home to an aging local peasant woman whom not a single individual could recall once seeing him with.

  They would not have considered it strange had they heard the words feebly whispered from his dying lips that January night: “My Father, it has been a life too much wasted loving myself, too little given to listening to you and doing what you told me. I cannot help it, for this life is done. I shall serve you more diligently in the next. Forgive my foolishness. You have been a good Father to me, though I have been a childish son. Perhaps now you will be able to make a true man of me. In the meantime, do your best with this place. Make good come of it, though I obtained it by deceit. Bless the woman and those who follow. Give life to all who enter this door. May they know you sooner than I.”

  He paused, closed his eyes in near exhaustion, then added inaudibly—

  And now . . . I am ready . . . take me home.

  None heard the words, save him to whom they had been spoken.

  Arthur Crompton was discovered dead in his bed the following morning, a smile on his lips, according to the lady from the village who came in to cook for him, and who entered that day when he did not answer her knock.

  Most vexed of all by the curious turn was Henry Rutherford himself, the aging Lord of the Manor of Heathersleigh Hall, who, now that his fortunes had again reversed, would have done anything to resecure the property and oust the old woman. But he had no legal recourse. The will, brought forth by Lethbridge Crumholtz of Exeter, was legally irrefutable.

  There were now only two alive who knew the connection existing between man of the cloth and the woman of swaddling clothes—Orelia Moylan herself, and the lord of the manor whose secret both had sworn to protect. It was a secret she never revealed, as originally planned. She could not but conclude in the end that perhaps, as in the verses she had noted in both Bibles, the blessing had indeed been passed on as God intended.

  Bishop and peasant each carried the knowledge of their unknown alliance to their respective graves.

  Everyone said the woman’s former profession must have made her privy to some fact which resulted in the strange bequest of the former bishop’s country home. No living soul ever discovered what that secret was.

  Hints and Clues

  1865–1911

  Generations went by, and those who came and went in Heathersleigh Hall pieced together fragmentary clues pointing toward the many mysteries about the place that the passage of time had obscured.

  In 1865 a five-year-old visiting youngster from the dispossessed branch of the family tree by the name of Gifford nearly uncovered the root of strife that would later possess him when, leaving his cousin Charles, with whom he was supposed to be playing, he ventured toward the darkened bedchamber of his aging grandfather.

  He had seen the nurse leave a few moments earlier. Now curiosity drove him toward the door. He cast a peep inside. The room was dusky, for heavy curtains were pulled to keep out the sunlight. He inched through without touching the door and entered the room.

  Across the floor, on a bed between sheets of white, lay the thin form of old Lord Henry, who seemed to have left the reckoning of earthly years behind altogether. One of his thin arms lay outside the bedcovers, appearing even whiter to the youngster than the sheet, though not quite so white as what hair he still possessed atop a skull over which the skin seemed to have been stretched more tightly than seemed comfortable.

  With eyes wide in fascinated awe, the boy crept forward, unable to keep the verses out of his head that Charlie had repeated to him only yesterday:

  Look where you go, watch what you do,

  or Lord Henry will snatch and make you a stew.

  He’ll cut you in pieces, like he did that night

  when his poor Eliza screamed out in such fright.

  With his own hand he killed her, or so they say,

  and began to go batty the very next day.

  It will happen to you, no one will hear your call,

  if you venture too close to Heathersleigh Hall.

  He reached the bedside and gazed down upon the white face. No expression on the countenance indicated that life still existed inside him. All the rumors about his grandfather, along with the words of the spooky poem, went through the boy’s brain as he stared at the bed with heart pounding.

  Suddenly both the old man’s eyelashes fluttered and twitched, as if his eyes were rolling about inside their sockets.

  In panic the boy tried to flee. But his feet remained nailed to the floor. The ancient eyes opened, as if the sense of presence beside the bed had awakened him. He spied a form, yet knew it not as his grandson from London. His pupils widened and locked on to those of the boy, which returned their gaze with mute terror.

  Suddenly the thin arm shot from the bed. The grip of ancient fingers closed around the youngster’s arm with a strength they had not exercised in years.

  In abject horror, the boy’s heart pounded like a drum.

  “Cynthia . . . my dear young Cynthia,” he whispered, “—you’ve come back, just like I prayed you would. We’ll set all right now—”

  He closed his eyes and relaxed a moment to draw in a breath.

  “I . . . I was a fool . . .” he tried to begin again, “. . . they were terrible times . . . I had to protect . . . they tried to take the Hall . . . it was your mother . . . if she had only—”

  Suddenly light blazed into the room.

  “Giffy!” cried the nurse, bounding through the door. “What are you doing bothering your grandfather?”

  “I . . . I only came in for a look,” stammered the boy.

  “Don’t you know he mustn’t be disturbed!” she reproached, hurrying toward the bedside. “You stay with Charlie, do you hear!”

  She took hold of the thin ancient hand, unwrapped its fingers
from the boy’s arm, and laid it at his side on the bed.

  While the fussy nurse attended to him, chastising herself for her carelessness, the boy crept silently out, the possessor of a secret whose significance he was as unaware of as what the old man’s strange words might mean. The shock of seeing the dying man pushed the odd words for some time from his mind.

  Henry Rutherford died later that same night, speaking not another word to a living soul.

  ————

  As the years passed, along with wealth accumulated in the business world, the words he had heard as a boy, mingled with the expressed dissatisfaction of his father, Albert, continued to haunt Gifford Rutherford with the fixation of somehow laying claim to the estate where his cousin Charles rose not only to become lord of the manor but also a highly respected member of Parliament and a knight of the realm.

  Gifford was indeed of Rutherford blood. But whereas his cousin eventually manifested the spiritual inclinations of old Jeremiah, Gifford’s bent was more reminiscent of Broughton and Henry.

  Gifford passed on both his character and his greed to his only son, Geoffrey, who came close to stumbling on the key to the secret his father had nearly uncovered as a boy. During a visit of the London Rutherfords to Heathersleigh Hall in 1899, Geoffrey found himself locked in the northeast tower of the Hall as a prank at the hands of his cousin Amanda. Though terrified, the boy accidentally dislodged a loose stone in the wall, finding concealed behind it an ancient key ring. It contained that which would have enabled him to escape the tower through a secret wall-door, by means of a lock hidden behind a small sliding panel of stone, and thus turn the tables on Amanda for good. It also held a tiny key placed on the ring by none other than Orelia Moylan. It was a key which opened more than even Orelia herself knew about, for her father had been shrewd in the matter of the most secretive of all chambers he had been hired to build.