Wayward Winds

by Michael Phillips

  “No I don’t,” he retorted. “Even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you.”

  Forgetting that she had come here to seek refuge, Amanda was quickly getting angry. She sighed and glanced briefly away. Geoffrey always had been capable of arousing the most profound irritation within her. Now he was at it again!

  Misreading her hesitation as a sign she was weakening, again Geoffrey stepped forward. This time he attempted to take her in his arms.

  “Geoffrey, what are you doing!” cried Amanda, half stepping, half leaping backward as if she had touched a snake.

  “Just trying to comfort you in your time of distress.” He did his best to make his voice sound smooth and suave, as he perceived was called for by the situation. He succeeded, however, only in making himself seem all the more oily and conniving.

  “Comfort me!” repeated Amanda, almost laughing. “Since when have you ever tried to comfort me?”

  “I have always cared about you, Amanda. Why won’t you let me help you?”

  “Why should I?”

  “Because . . . because we are—”

  “Because we are what, Geoffrey?” Even as the words came out of her mouth, Amanda wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the answer.

  “Can’t you let me offer you a moment’s consolation—”

  Geoffrey paused and removed something from his pocket.

  “—for old times’ sake, Amanda dear,” he said, now jingling a small set of old-fashioned keys in front of her.

  Amanda’s eyes narrowed as she gazed forward. Suddenly recognition dawned.

  “Those are the keys from the tower room at Heathersleigh!” she cried. “How did you get them?”

  “Don’t you remember the day a long time ago when a very naughty little girl locked her cousin in that tower?”

  “I can’t believe . . . do you mean—”

  Amanda could hardly get the words out for her renewed rage at her weasel of a cousin. Whatever Geoffrey’s motives for showing her the keys at this precise moment, if he thought doing so would win her sympathy or endear her affections, he was seriously mistaken.

  “No wonder they’ve been missing all these years,” she cried. “Give them back, Geoffrey! They’re mine!”

  She reached forward. But Geoffrey was too quick for her and jumped back. A look of glee spread over his face. Quickly he repocketed the keys.

  “We’ll see whose they are in the end!”

  “Give them to me!”

  “I might consider doing so . . . after you and I are married.”

  “Ugh!” Amanda shrieked. “That’s disgusting. Never!”

  “You think you’ll do better?”

  “Anything would be better!”

  “Ha—no one would marry you!”

  Amanda turned and ran from the room. Behind her she could hear Geoffrey’s voice laughing. The mischievous boy had briefly gained the upper hand over the wealthy financier, the debonair suitor, and as he viewed himself, the handsome winner of women’s hearts.

  As soon as Amanda was out the front door, however, her cousin calmed. The smirk on his face disappeared. He stole to the window and probed at the edge of the curtain with his fingers, opening a crack to peep at her as she walked down the street away from the house and out of sight.

  It was a good thing his father wasn’t home, Geoffrey reflected, or he would be furious. He may have just loused the whole thing up.

  Well, one thing was certain. Amanda would never tell anyone what had just happened. And he still had the keys. And now that Halifax had shown himself the cad Geoffrey had always known him to be, Amanda was certain to come to her senses eventually.

  Maybe it wouldn’t turn out so bad after all.

  Having no idea that Geoffrey’s eyes were glued on her back, before Amanda was half a block down Curzon Street her eyes burned with tears. What was happening to her? It seemed that in just a few hours all her life had crumbled at her feet.

  What should she do? Now she really had no place to go! In a few short hours she had succeeded in alienating herself from every possible source of refuge.

  66

  Happy Day

  As Amanda tearfully wandered along Curzon Street, across Park Lane and into Hyde Park, confused, angry, filled with a hopelessness and despair she had never before felt in her life, her mother and sister were busily engaged in the kitchen of Heathersleigh Hall with plans that would culminate late that same afternoon. It was Charles’ fifty-third birthday. The Blakeleys and McFees, and, they hoped, Timothy Diggorsfeld, would be on hand for a magnificent high tea scheduled for five o’clock.

  At the moment Sarah Minsterly was vigorously sifting flour and sugar in preparation for fruit scones, Catharine was checking what promised to be a delectable mint pork loin roast, which had been in the oven for some time, while Jocelyn beat up the eggs for a lemon pound cake. The other two servant girls were occupied cleaning upstairs and in the dining room. The guest of honor himself, who was not about to take a day off from the labors he loved for something so insignificant as his own birthday, was at present occupied with George, Rune, and Stirling on the other side of Milverscombe attempting to repair a malfunctioning generator, which was a key component of their local electrical network.

  “George and Father are going to love this!” said Catharine. “I can’t wait to see their faces light up.”

  “There’s nothing so much fun,” remarked Jocelyn, “as cooking for hungry men who enjoy their food.”

  “I just hope no mice show their heads,” laughed Sarah.

  “Why would you think that?” asked Catharine.

  “Don’t you remember when the three mice came scampering out of the meat grinder?” said Jocelyn. “No . . . of course you don’t remember! What am I thinking—you were only three at the time.”

  “Tell me about it, Mother.”

  Jocelyn did so, and a great deal of laughter followed.

  “I haven’t made paté since!”

  Within an hour, the whole west wing of the house had begun to fill with the pleasant and festive aromas of baking. Sarah left to supervise Kate and Enid at their duties, then to attend to the day’s washing. Mother and daughter were left alone in the kitchen to finish up the preliminaries for that afternoon.

  “What would you think, Mother,” said Catharine as she worked, “if I was to say I would like to go to university?”

  “I would say . . . wonderful! My, but you are becoming a modernist, just like your sister.”

  “Not a modernist, Mother. But learning is one of the most valuable things in life. It seems I ought to pursue it if I have the opportunity. Maybe I am getting a late start, but I’m coming to enjoy learning and reading as never before. I might even write a book someday.”

  “Ambitious too! But isn’t this from out of the blue?”

  “I’ve been thinking about it for a year or two. Maybe I am a little like Amanda in wanting to do something permanent and significant. And I love books and learning.”

  “University is still a man’s institution. Have you thought of the difficulties you would face?”

  “Oxford has four women’s colleges. Times are changing.”

  “Which college would be your preference?”

  “Probably Somerville or Lady Margaret Hall.”

  “Do you have any other big dreams you haven’t told me about?” laughed Jocelyn.

  “Only one—to sail around the world.”

  “What!” exclaimed her mother. “I can’t believe it. Now that is ambitious. According to the paper there are still tickets left for that huge new ship that is sailing from Southampton to New York next month. That would be a good start.”

  “The Titanic—no, that’s too big,” replied Catharine. “I read about it too—more than two thousand passengers. I was thinking of something much smaller and more exciting.”

  “Well, I’m not certain of that, but let’s at least talk to your father about educational possibilities. I’m sure he will be delighted.”

  “Do
you really think so?”

  “Of course. There’s nothing that gives him more pleasure than helping another person reach his dreams and potential. That’s one of your father’s greatest ambitions in life.”

  “Wouldn’t Amanda say he kept her from her potential?”

  “She might,” replied Jocelyn. “But her perceptions were backwards. We wanted . . . we still want the best for her, and for her to reach her potential and achieve her dreams, just as we do for you and George. But that doesn’t mean we support selfish dreams and ambitions, which Amanda’s were at the time she left. A parent isn’t supposed to give a child anything and everything he wants, but those things that genuinely contribute to the reaching of the potential that God has in mind for him.”

  “Do you think university might be that for me?”

  “It well could. We will pray, and talk to your father, and then see in what direction the Lord leads. But I have to admit . . . I would miss you!”

  “I would be back,” replied Catharine, setting down the spoon, wiping her hands on the apron tied around her waist, then giving Jocelyn a warm daughterly embrace.

  “Promise?”

  “I promise,” said Catharine, returning to her work.

  “You might go away and fall in love and that will be the last we shall ever see of you.”

  Catharine laughed. “That will never happen,” she said. “Remember what I told Hubert Powell. And even if I do someday fall in love, I will bring my husband back here to live.”

  Now her mother laughed. “It doesn’t work that way.”

  “Otherwise I won’t get married at all.”

  “It sounds like you ought to be the suffragette. Modern, ambitious . . . and stubborn!”

  “Mother!”

  “I’m only teasing. I think your idea sounds delightful. Whether you will ever find a man to go along, now that is another matter! But how does coming back here to live fit in with sailing around the world?”

  “This will always be home—but that doesn’t mean I can’t have adventures too!”

  Mother and daughter continued to talk and laugh as they worked side by side for the rest of the morning.

  George and Charles arrived back about three o’clock to clean up and relax before their guests arrived. Rune and Agatha Blakeley, along with their son Stirling, drove up to the Hall in their carriage about twenty minutes before five.

  “Look who we found at the station,” said Rune as they greeted Jocelyn at the door.

  “Timo—” Jocelyn began to exclaim.

  “Shh!” interposed Diggorsfeld, quickly bringing his finger to his lips. “I want to surprise Charles! Where is he?”

  “Up in his study,” replied Jocelyn.

  Diggorsfeld hurried inside and up the stairs on tiptoe. Two minutes later a great shout of surprise erupted overhead in Charles’ voice, and they all knew the minister’s surprise had been successful.

  Bobby and Maggie arrived at the front door ten minutes after that, Bobby puffing heartily from the walk through the wood and across the fields.

  “I’m gettin’ a mite old for this sort o’ thing, Lady Jocelyn,” he sighed, his red face and bald head perspiring freely. He sat down briefly in a nearby chair.

  “I told you we would have been happy to fetch you in the buggy.”

  “Ay, but I thought the wee walk would do me good,” replied Bobby, coughing once or twice and still struggling to catch his breath. “I haven’t been feelin’ quite me same spry self lately, and I was determined t’ get some good o’ the fresh air and the exercise.”

  “Determined!” repeated Maggie. “Stubborn is more like what he is. Bobby, I keep telling you, we’re old folks now, and we’ve got to let the young ones give us a helping hand now and then.”

  “Young ones . . . did I hear someone talking about me?” laughed Charles, now descending the stairs to welcome the new arrivals, his minister friend a few steps behind. “I’m fifty-three today, and are you still calling me young!”

  “You will always be young in our eyes, Sir Charles,” said Maggie.

  “I don’t suppose that can be helped.—But come in and join the others.”

  Fifteen minutes later, the Blakeleys, the McFees, the Rutherfords less one, Timothy Diggorsfeld, along with Sarah, Hector, Kate, and Enid all sat around the large oak table in Heathersleigh’s formal dining room.

  Ever since their conversion, both master and mistress of Heathersleigh Hall had been training themselves to see things differently than was their custom before the divine imperative of childship had been infused into them. This self-training had by no means always been easy or pleasant, for it involved death to their own right of self-rule. One principle Charles had learned, however, was that the last shall be first and the first last, and that he who would be great must be last of all and servant of all. Moreover, Charles Rutherford had discovered the daily joy of living in the midst of this great truth. This being Charles’ birthday, therefore, he would not be waited on by servant, wife, or daughter, but would himself serve family and guests. He had just finished setting everyone’s plates before them, pouring each a small glass of birthday wine, and then taken his own seat at the head of the table.

  “Do ye mind, Master Charles,” said Bobby, “if an old Irishman offers a wee toast in honor of his host?”

  Charles roared with laughter.

  “No, Bobby,” he answered. “I heartily give my consent, so long as you keep any kindnesses you might be inspired to utter . . . that you keep them short and not unreasonably laudatory!”

  “I’m not ay certain I can oblige ye in that, Master Charles,” replied Bobby with a twinkle in his eye, “but I’ll keep yer caution in mind.”

  “Then proceed, Bobby! I might as well face the music.”

  The table fell silent as Bobby rose to his ancient, and on this particular day, weary feet. He picked up his glass and lifted it toward Charles.

  “Master Charles,” he began, “ye’ve been a man for everyone in all Devonshire to respect an’ admire. And we who’re privileged t’ be sittin’ around this table with ye today are especially proud to know ye and t’ call ourselves yer friends. Ye’re a man worthy o’ praise because ye’ve made yerself the servant of all who cross yer path . . . and we’re honored t’ be here t’ celebrate this day with yer family. God bless ye, Master Charles!”

  He lifted the glass once more in Charles’ direction, then to his lips. A few Here, heres! followed, and sips around the table, as Bobby resumed his seat.

  Now Charles stood.

  “Thank you, Bobby,” he said reflectively and seriously. “Your words are humbling indeed. I don’t know what to say other than to thank you one and all.” He glanced about the table. “I don’t feel I deserve what Bobby has just said, but I am deeply appreciative nevertheless.”

  A pause followed.

  “It seems there is nothing left to do,” Charles went on, “but offer thanks to God. So I suggest we do just that.”

  He paused again briefly, then began to pray.

  “Father in heaven, you are indeed good to us. We thank you for life, for health, for provision, for friends, and for days such as this to help remind us of the bountiful blessings you bestow. I thank you for these fifty-three years you have given me, and for your watching over me and bringing me into life as your child. We remember, too, our dear Amanda on this day. Keep her in your care, and bring her back to us—and to you . . . in your time. We thank you. Amen.”

  67

  Refuge

  By the time Amanda found herself on the street walking toward the familiar house she had left that morning, she was in nearly as bad a state as the day before. She had been wandering about the West End all afternoon.

  Amanda knocked at the door of the Halifax home just before teatime.

  Mrs. Halifax, who had been more than half expecting her, answered it.

  “Come in . . . come in, my dear,” she said, in words that sounded more soothing and comforting than any Amanda had heard all
day. “Don’t you worry about a thing,” she added. “We have your room all ready for you.”

  Ramsay appeared behind his mother a moment later. The mere sight of his face caused Amanda to break into tears.

  “I . . . I didn’t know where else to go,” she sobbed.

  He approached and took her in his arms. She cried a minute as he held her, stroking her hair gently and whispering soft, comforting words into her ear. As he did so, he glanced with an imperceptible nod toward his mother. She closed the door, then turned and left them alone.

  “I’m so sorry, Ramsay,” blubbered Amanda. “I’m sorry for the dreadful things I said. Can you ever forgive me?”

  “Of course,” he whispered tenderly. “We will not speak of it again.”

  “I’m so sorry I doubted you.”

  “You were upset and confused.”

  “I can’t imagine what I was thinking.”

  “I understand . . . don’t worry, everything will be fine now.”

  They stood another moment or two in silence. Ramsay stepped away. With his arm around her shoulder, he led her into the dining room, where Ramsay’s mother awaited them along with a well-spread tea. By the time Amanda lay down two hours later—after a satisfying meal, another relaxing bath, and many reassurances on the part of Ramsay and his mother—in the same bed she had slept in the night before, it seemed as if a week had passed.

  Physically and emotionally exhausted from the ordeal, Amanda remained in bed most of the next day. On the day following that, the activities of her sister-colleagues in the fight for women’s rights proceeded without her.

  When news of it reached her, Amanda could scarcely believe she had so recently been part of such outlandish activities. In light of the continued escalation of suffragette tactics, aided in no small measure by Ramsay’s article, published later in the week without his temporarily tarnished byline, police interest in the apprehension of Amanda Rutherford quickly disappeared.

  Midway through the afternoon of Amanda’s second day in the Halifax home, Amanda, Mrs. Thorndike, and Ramsay’s mother sat down to enjoy a leisurely cup of tea. Amanda had sent for her things from the Pankhurst home, thinking no one but the servants would be home because of a scheduled demonstration before the Houses of Parliament. Her two or three bags arrived save and sound. The demonstration, however, turned out to be a ruse. News of the event had been so widely publicized that thousands of spectators gathered throughout the day about the square and along the nearby streets. By afternoon as many as three thousand policemen were on hand to prevent a riot.