Wayward Winds

by Michael Phillips

  “—I am trying to say,” struggled Geoffrey, “that I want you . . . to be my wife.”

  The words stunned Amanda with such force that her face went immediately white. All she could do was sit in abject disbelief. Had she actually heard what she thought she heard!

  She returned Geoffrey’s gaze as if mute. He couldn’t mean it! It wasn’t possible. After several long and excruciating seconds, Amanda found what little remained of her voice.

  “Geoffrey . . . are you actually proposing to me?” she stammered.

  “Yes, of course—what else could you call it when a man asks a woman to marry him? I am asking you to be my wife.”

  Again Amanda returned his words by staring back in a renewed trancelike stupor.

  Geoffrey, while one side managed to convince himself that she had to accept, another side was almost shocked that she seemed to be taking it so well. He half expected her to fly off the handle. But she was sitting there very calmly. That mere fact, notwithstanding her ashen look and non-reply, encouraged him to heightened boldness.

  “Here,” he said, “try it on.”

  He removed the ring from the box and took a step forward as if to take her hand in his and slip it on the dainty white finger himself.

  In no more than an instant or two of time, now slowly the words from the Sun article began to filter back into Amanda’s brain.

  . . . reporter’s allegiances have come under close scrutiny. According to high-placed anonymous sources at the Bank of London, Halifax was seen aboard the German gunboat—

  Wait, of course . . . sources at the Bank of London!

  How could she have not noticed it before? Suddenly it dawned on her that it wasn’t only the paper that had been planted for her to find tonight to make Ramsay look bad, the whole article had been planted in the first place! No doubt planted by Geoffrey, who was the high-placed Bank of London source! Had he been scheming toward this end all along?

  Amanda pulled her hand back and deposited it safely in some fold of her attire, then looked up and for the first time this evening took hold of Geoffrey’s eyes. He stopped dead in the tracks of his approach, his hand stretched forward, the huge diamond clutched between two fingers at the end of it.

  “You planted the article about Ramsay, didn’t you?” she said. Her voice was calm, not accusatory or angry, merely the expression of one stating an obvious conclusion.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Geoffrey replied.

  For some reason, the look on his face momentarily confused her. His expression was one of genuine shock at mention of something so long past, almost as if he had completely forgotten it. The conviction immediately possessed Amanda that he was actually telling the truth.

  “Then your father did,” she said. “It was a setup, wasn’t it, to make Ramsay look bad in my eyes? And then this tonight . . . what was it, to soften me up so you could move in for the kill?”

  “I honestly haven’t the slightest idea what you mean,” Geoffrey replied.

  Amanda eyed him without expression. An ironic smile slowly came to her lips. It was all beginning to make sense. Geoffrey’s father was the prime mover in this little plot—perhaps Geoffrey was as much a victim as she.

  “Aren’t you going to try on the ring?”

  “I don’t think so, Geoffrey,” Amanda replied. “I don’t intend to take a diamond like that until I’m sure.”

  “Don’t you at least want to see how it feels?”

  “No, I’m afraid I don’t . . . not yet.”

  “So what’s the answer to my question?”

  Amanda again smiled with the same ironic expression. A long silence hung in the air.

  “I will think about it, Geoffrey,” she said at length.

  Amanda rose. There was no use prolonging the evening.

  “Tell your parents thank you for the dinner,” she said. “It was delightful, and I am appreciative that you all remembered me on my birthday. And thank you for the rose—it was very thoughtful of you.”

  She turned, left the room, and walked unescorted to the front door and let herself out.

  83

  Acceptance

  Amanda walked away from the house in a somber mood.

  The taxi ride through the dark streets of Mayfair was quiet . . . melancholy . . . depressing. The evening’s events slowly replayed themselves over in her mind, every word of every conversation now in retrospect tinged with new subtleties of meaning in light of what had transpired.

  That ring must have cost two or three hundred pounds—more money than she had left to her name. No young woman who wanted to marry for money could do better than to marry into the family of Gifford Rutherford!

  How could she have sunk so low, that it would come to this—a marriage proposal from Geoffrey Rutherford, her second cousin? It was not the way she imagined her life progressing.

  Thoughts of the future unconsciously stimulated thoughts of the past. A brief fit of nostalgia swept through her. Her mother’s face, with a great smile upon it, rose in her mind’s eye.

  At the thought of her mother a lump rose in Amanda’s throat. She wanted to cry.

  What in the world had she done with her life!

  She had just been proposed to. Shouldn’t she be happy? And by a wealthy young man who could give her everything any young woman could possibly want.

  She was almost out of money, and now here was—

  Her own words came back into her mind. I will think about it, Geoffrey.

  Suddenly she realized what she had said. What could have come over her?

  Think about it!

  Think about marrying Geoffrey!

  The very idea was positively disgusting!

  By the time she arrived back at the Halifax house, Amanda had made up her mind what to do. And it was definitely not to marry Geoffrey.

  The following morning she told Mrs. Thorndike that she would accept her kind offer to accompany her as lady’s companion.

  “That is wonderful, dear!” exclaimed Mrs. Thorndike. Mrs. Halifax smiled at the development. She had been certain Amanda would come around.

  The next day or two around the house were ones of great enthusiastic planning and preparation. Mrs. Thorndike was almost beside herself. Amanda, however, seemed noticeably subdued. A voyage to the Mediterranean did not excite her. Nothing excited her.

  Almost the moment the decision was made, Amanda found herself thinking of Devonshire. And now as she recalled them, a certain quiet melancholic nostalgia drew itself around her thoughts.

  As on the ride back from her birthday dinner, it made her want to cry, though she did not know why. Did she actually . . . miss the country?

  The fits of nostalgia increased over the coming days. Perhaps she ought to go back for a visit to Heathersleigh before leaving. She really ought to see her mother one last time.

  That same evening she told Mrs. Halifax that she would be leaving for a few days.

  “Where are you going, dear?”

  “I want to see my mother before I leave.”

  Mrs. Halifax took in the information with inward frown.

  “Do you think that is such a good idea, Amanda?” she said. “As things presently stand between you and your parents, it seems that such contact might be too painful for you.”

  “I just think it is something I should do,” replied Amanda.

  “I see,” nodded Mrs. Halifax. She did not like the idea. Parental involvement at this stage could prove dangerous to their plans. There must be no reconciliation, no creeping in of past fondnesses. The distance and alienation must be preserved.

  But there appeared nothing she could do at present. She would just have to make sure nothing came of it, and that Amanda returned to them unscathed.

  84

  The Black Hand

  The grimy tavern in Belgrade was a far cry from the upscale coffeehouses of Vienna, where the man who had just entered would have preferred to be right now. But important business had brought him
here.

  He had spent some of the fondest times of his student years in two or three of Vienna’s fine cafés, and had loved the city ever since.

  Unfortunately, the Serbian capital of Belgrade was not Vienna. The city had felt the effects of centuries of Turkish, Hungarian, and Austrian overlordship as well as the recent years of strife from the two recent Balkan wars. Its Moorish name, Darol-i-Jehad—the home of wars of the faith—was not altogether inappropriate.

  He glanced up from the dark corner where he sat with his second cup. At least the coffee here was tolerable, a lingering legacy to the Turks, who, whatever else might be said of them, could still finesse the world’s strongest brew from the energy-giving aromatic beans.

  His dealings with the underground organization had begun during those heady days in Vienna when socialism, talk of revolution and independence, and new alignments in the world were all new and exciting. There was no such thing as Die Schwarze Hand then. But his contacts and friends from those days, among them several Serbian nationals, had later become involved in its inception after the Bosnian crisis of 1908.

  He had kept contact with them through the years. And now with tensions rising between Serbia and Austria-Hungary, gradually he found himself drawn into the activities of the terrorist organization.

  It was not so much that he believed in what they were doing—certainly not with their ethnic fanaticism. It began merely to help a friend. But the danger possessed a seductiveness of its own and could not but draw him. The politics of the different sides were less interesting to him than that they were exciting, dangerous . . . and lucrative. He had nothing against the Austrian government any more than he did the Russians or anyone else.

  Actually, had he reflected on it to any depth, he probably didn’t have many good reasons for involvement other than the chance to travel and the secret thrill of playing both sides of the fence with his double life, coming and going respectably in society, no one knowing what he did when he was away. Sometimes he thought of himself as a modern-day Scarlet Pimpernel, even though he knew he was but a minor player in a vast network he knew little about, and without quite such a noble cause to fight for as the legendary English dandy. But these were modern times. All so-called causes now had strings attached.

  He glanced at his watch and took another sip from his cup, its contents growing lukewarm as he waited.

  A minute later two figures entered. He raised a single black-gloved hand slightly to signal his friend from the shadows. The two approached. The Serb and the Englishman greeted one another.

  “This is Princip,” said the Serb. The young newcomer nodded at the coffee drinker.

  They sat down and ordered two pints of dark ale.

  The Englishman did not like the look of his friend’s accomplice. The bulge under his coat likely concealed a gun. He appeared unbalanced, although, he sometimes thought, so did half the people in this country.

  “My friend may need transport out of the country,” said the Serb.

  “It can be arranged,” replied the Englishman. “When?”

  “That is yet to be determined. We are awaiting the right opportunity.”

  “For what?”

  “You will know when that moment comes.”

  “It was my understanding the house in Vienna was the safest retreat.”

  “If all goes well, perhaps. But that could only bring added danger. Our kind are increasingly at risk in Austria.”

  He paused and chuckled lightly.

  “Besides,” he added, “during our last visit, my young friend here was a bit more vocal than is sometimes advisable. I fear he may have given some offense.”

  “I see,” replied the Englishman. “If you do require my services, it may not be possible for me to attend to it personally. My movements are more closely watched these days . . . since the trouble in—”

  “Don’t mention it, my friend. If you can assist us with arrangements, we will see that you are not compromised.”

  “But your friend Princip here . . . what is his game?”

  “No game, but deadly serious business,” rejoined the other. “We intend to bring down the entire Austrian government.”

  The Englishman eyed his friend, then let his gaze drift toward the fellow called Princip. He looked more like a madman than a politico.

  “Well,” he laughed, not more than half believing his friend, whose bold ideas he had been listening to for ten years, since their first meeting in the Kaffe Kellar. “At least when you do, I will have rights to the inside story.”

  “The whole world will know it then.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “We are watching the movements of certain Austrian nobles. A trip is planned through Sarajevo in a few months. Can the arrangements be made from there?”

  The Englishman took in the question thoughtfully, not sure what to make of it.

  “I never know what to think of you hot-blooded revolutionaries in this part of the world,” he laughed after a moment. “But yes, I have friends in the region.”

  “Good. It will not be long now.”

  The Englishman rose, downed the dregs from his cup, grimaced slightly, then set the cup down on the table.

  “You know how to contact me,” he said, then left. He had to get back to the official business which he had arranged for to bring him here.

  85

  Return

  As the carriage wheels crunched along the gravel approach to Heathersleigh Hall, the sound seemed too loud, as if it were disturbing a peculiar sense of quiet that had descended over the whole region. No words were passed between Amanda and the coachman she had hired from the village, a man relatively new to Milverscombe who knew nothing of who she was.

  In another minute or two they drew up in front of the stately stone mansion.

  Only a moment Amanda waited, glancing back and forth with the strangely altered vision that adulthood brings. She did not want to be pensive just now. She took the man’s hand, stepped down, paid, thanked, and dismissed him, then walked toward the front of the house.

  She could not help but be nervous. She had struggled the entire train ride with many conflicting emotions, having no idea what most of them even meant. But she had determined not to let them show.

  She was certainly not so nervous as she would have been had she been thinking any moment to encounter her father. She probably wouldn’t have come at all had he been here. But she had Cousin Gifford to thank for the tidbit of information that he would be in London all week. By the time he returned, she would be gone. That fact could not eliminate the nervousness, but at least she could relax in knowing she didn’t have to face him.

  No sign of life was apparent. Where was everyone? she wondered.

  The inner hush deepened as she approached the front door. She felt that she was reliving some dream from far away, in a scene hazily familiar yet unreal. Mingled memories of childhood rushed in upon her, along with the peculiar sensation that she had never been here before, but that the girl in her mind’s eye had actually been someone else.

  Amanda reached the front door, paused only briefly wondering if she should knock, then set her hand to the latch. It opened to her touch, swinging silently back on well-oiled hinges.

  The simple motion of the door brought an involuntary smile to her lips. She had never thought consciously of it in her life, but suddenly she was reminded of her father’s penchant for keeping things operating efficiently.

  The entry into Heathersleigh Hall was not the only door that opened in that moment. An invisible but momentous change began to grind into motion, though Amanda did not perceive its import. It was the first infinitesimal movement toward rather than away from the one whose being was the most important doorway through which she herself would have to walk in order to discover the Fatherhood of God.

  He was always trying to make things the best he could, she thought to herself.

  The realization followed that such had also been the case with people. Whate
ver might be done to make someone’s life more pleasant, even in some trivial way, that would her father do.

  Though not for her. She shook her head to dispel the warm thoughts of her father that were trying to intrude. But she could not prevent them, and subtly smiled again.

  She had never noticed the fact before now. As she grew she had become preoccupied with, as she thought, his inattention to her needs and those of his fellow man in the community and the world. But now dozens of incidents involuntarily sprang up in her memory, including one time many, many years before when she had seen him, oil can in hand, lubricating these very hinges.

  With such insights about her father came a few drops to loosen the rust from the doors of Amanda’s own heart. Years of character direction had silently, invisibly begun to reverse, though Amanda scarcely knew it. Nor did it dawn on her that it was the first memory in years of the man she had called father not accompanied by a rousing of angry emotions.

  Her own inner door would not swing back and forth quite so freely as this at which she stood for some time yet. But a good beginning is the most important step toward all eternal objectives, and that beginning had just been made.

  Still smiling, and unaware of the deeper implications of the memory, Amanda walked inside.

  The sound of her footstep on the tile floor of the entryway brought a figure to the landing above.

  The eyes of mother and daughter met. A moment—a second, an eternity—followed. What words could convey the tidal wave of emotions which struggled to gush forth in each, yet which were kept back behind gigantic dikes of uncertain reticence.

  “Amanda!” said Jocelyn at length, in questioning, fearful, joyous disbelief.

  “Hello, Mother,” said Amanda.

  Jocelyn was already on the stairs, not exactly running but hurrying briskly down them. Her pounding mother’s heart twisted in a hundred directions before she reached the bottom. Her eyes were already filled with tears and the tidal wave was about to burst forth.

  But at the last instant, lingering uncertainty prevented it.

  She could not quite overcome the strain of previous encounters, nor forget Amanda’s harsh words. Her arms ached to throw themselves around her daughter in that most natural of all human impulses—the urge toward oneness with our fellows. Yet she was not able to risk the fear of being rebuffed yet again. She slowed her step, then approached indecisively, arms clinging unwillingly to her side.