Wild Grows the Heather in Devon

by Michael Phillips

  Amanda stood and slowly walked across the room. Before mother or father could utter another word, she was out the door without so much as a glance in the direction of either of them.

  The room fell silent as a tomb. The two parents remained stunned, unable for several minutes to move or speak.

  “What passage were you going to read?” asked Jocelyn softly at length, through the tears which were flowing freely down her cheeks.

  Charles looked down at the Bible, still open to the page to which he had turned. “Listen, my son,” he read, “and hear the instruction of thy father, and do not forsake the teaching of thy mother, for they shall be an ornament of grace upon thy head.”

  “It is exactly what she so desperately needs to hear!”

  “I’m afraid she will never hear it if it comes from me. She simply will not listen.”

  “Oh, Charles, what is to become of her?” said Jocelyn, crying now in earnest. “There must be something we can do.”

  “I am afraid all that is left us now, Jocie, is to continue to pray.”

  90

  Another Letter and Its Result

  The letter addressed to Amanda arrived exactly a week following the visit from Hubert Powell and Lady Holsworthy.

  For two days—ever since the explosive argument between Amanda and her parents—silence had reigned at Heathersleigh Hall. Two visits had been made by Amanda’s parents to the cottage in the woods and a lengthy letter penned to Timothy Diggorsfeld in London.

  Everyone at Heathersleigh knew of the incident, but none of the servants dared speak of it. Amanda had been seen by no one. When she ate, or if she ate, no one knew. Neither Charles nor Jocelyn was inclined to press her about anything just now. They feared enough for what they might have done already.

  The evening after the letter arrived, however, Amanda presented herself to both parents in the drawing room at Heathersleigh. It was the first time in five days that Charles had laid eyes on his daughter. He did his best to hide his shock at first sight of her. She appeared two years older than when he had last seen her.

  “I received a letter from Sylvia Pankhurst today,” Amanda announced with a formality that intimated to both Charles and Jocelyn the nature of what was coming. “I know you have not wanted me to correspond with them. But they consider your restrictions as unjust as I do. We have therefore continued to stay in touch despite your objections.”

  Amanda drew in a breath as her parents listened.

  “The Pankhursts are moving to London and have invited me to come live with them and join in the movement,” Amanda went on. Unable to look either mother or father in the eye, she therefore alternated her gaze between the floor at their feet and the wall behind them. “I have decided to accept their offer.”

  The words fell like an unexpected thunderclap into the room. A heavy silence followed.

  “I . . . this is—you must realize this comes as quite a shock,” Jocelyn at last managed to say. It was certainly no secret that Amanda had been on a different life’s road for some time, and that she was angry and dissatisfied with her life at Heathersleigh. But never had either Jocelyn or Charles anticipated—not even after this week’s events—that she would do something so drastic as to leave. “Surely . . . you must—” Jocelyn continued, “we need time to think it over.”

  “I told you years ago, when father resigned from Parliament,” Amanda went on stiffly, “that I was determined to make my life count for something. I said I wanted to make a difference. I told you a few days ago that your beliefs were not mine. It therefore seems best that you be rid of having to worry about me further. This offers me an opportunity. The world is changing. The Pankhursts are in the middle of it. I want to be part of it too.”

  She sounded so much older than seventeen, so distant, so self-assured. This was a side of their daughter they had hoped would soften, yet this week it had come suddenly to stare them in the face. They had implored her to listen to their voices of counsel and instruction. During the days since their talk, she had apparently listened instead to the voices of pride and independence.

  “Do you really think you are old enough to leave the protection of your parents’ home?” asked Sir Charles quietly.

  “I do,” she answered, coolly confident.

  Another brief silence.

  “This is a mistake, Amanda,” he said.

  “In your eyes, perhaps. But can you not trust me enough to know that I would never do something I consider wrong? Why can’t you trust me for a change? Why do you insist only that I trust you? Doesn’t trust run in both directions?”

  “You are young. And we are your parents. The sides of the fence are hardly identical. Young people are supposed to trust their parents. There is no injunction in the other direction.”

  “Do you have any idea how ridiculous and old-fashioned that sounds to me?”

  Charles did not answer her question. Amanda’s voice was so superior. She was talking to him as if he were a child.

  “You are making a serious mistake, Amanda,” he said, his voice yet softer than before.

  “Not in my eyes.”

  “Your blindness won’t make it less wrong, nor protect you from the consequences of it.”

  “You have both always treated me as a child since before I can remember,” said Amanda with haughty disdain . . . and no apparent awareness of the illogic of her own statement. “You cannot seem to give me any credit for being grown up, for being able to think on my own, for being able to take care of myself. When your beliefs changed, you assumed I agreed with them. When you decided politics was not for you, Father, you assumed I would share those feelings.”

  She paused and took a breath.

  “Well, I did not,” she resumed. “I wanted to be involved in the world then. And I still want to be involved in it. And I want to be involved in my own way. I am an adult now and perfectly capable of an independent life, though you continue to treat me as a juvenile who is going to be satisfied staying under your roof forever. That is precisely why I have no respect left for either of you. I know you do not respect me, so you might as well know that the feeling is entirely mutual. I’m not like George and Catharine. I’m sorry I’ve been a disappointment to you—”

  “Oh, Amanda,” interposed her mother in a heartbroken voice, “you’ve not been a disappointment to us. It’s just that . . .”

  The sentence fell away uncompleted.

  “What, Mother? Say it. I have been a disappointment. I haven’t been what you wanted me to be . . . and I’m never going to be. So I really think it is time I went my own way. You don’t like me, and I can’t say there is much feeling left in my heart for anyone around here either. I hate it here. I have hated it for years. The sooner we all realize that, the better for everyone. And yes, Father,” she repeated, now turning to Charles again, “I think I am capable of taking care of myself.”

  Jocelyn looked down and tried to focus her eyes on her fingers, which were resting in her lap. She was doing her best not to cry, but the struggle was proving unsuccessful.

  Charles was at a loss for anything to say. His own daughter had taken away his right to speak, into her ears at least, with hope of being heard. He might have uttered words of fatherly counsel and experienced wisdom. He had summoned everything within him for the attempt to do so a week ago, yet she had thrown his words back into his face. Deep and wrenching was the love it contained for his daughter. He knew this decision would reap dreadful heartache. Quite apart from the practical question of how Amanda could support herself, for her to leave home with such motives in her heart could only result in pain.

  At this point, however, whatever he might say would be mere words, words that would make her despise him all the more, spiritual pearls cast before the swine of independence, and therefore less than useless. He remained silent.

  “I am asking for nothing,” Amanda continued. “I know George is the eldest and is your favorite—”

  “Oh, Amanda—don’t say such things
,” pleaded her mother, unable to contain her anguish. “You must know that we love you just as much as we do your brother.”

  Amanda drew in a deep breath of annoyance, but managed to conceal her frustration with her mother’s miss-timed sentiment.

  “I am not requesting anything from you, Father,” she repeated. “I know Heathersleigh and all that goes with it will be George’s someday. But if you do plan to give me any inheritance, I would like to ask you to give it to me now, so that I may use it to begin my new life in the city.”

  Again a lengthy silence followed.

  “Whatever you wish, my child,” said Charles at length. His voice was low. He could not keep from revealing the anguish prompted by his daughter’s request. The man was wise enough, however, to realize the futility of attempting to keep her from the inevitable pain of her destiny. At least now, he thought to himself, she had a place to go in the great metropolis.

  “Wherever you go and whatever you do,” he added after a pause, “you will forever be our daughter. We will always love you with a depth and a fullness that, I fear, you may not appreciate as things presently stand. Be that as it may, know how inexhaustible is our love. When the eyes of your heart are opened, may you realize that we will always be here when you need us.”

  Amanda did not reply. She listened to the words but was incapable of apprehending her father’s heart. She had long prevented the divine Voice access to her ears, and they had grown unhearing in consequence.

  The strained interview did not last much longer.

  Two months later Amanda Rutherford, with all her worldly possessions and a check from her father for three thousand pounds, was on her way from Devonshire to begin a new and exciting life in London.

  91

  Dawn Through the Clouds

  Charles and Jocelyn Rutherford had now been walking with God eleven years. The past twelve months, however, had taught them more about trusting him as a good and loving Father than had all the previous ten years.

  Amanda’s abrupt, unexpected, and rancorous departure sent both Charles and Jocelyn reeling emotionally in a way that neither had ever experienced.

  Weeks of doubt and self-recrimination followed for Charles, months of the same for Jocelyn. Both were forced back to the foundations of their faith. Under the strain of this great and personal crisis, suddenly their Christian beliefs seemed weak and newly fragile. Had they truly been Christians more than a decade, they asked themselves, or only a few days? With their strength so thin, the latter often seemed the case.

  Charles especially found himself rethinking the most rudimentary tenets of and the intellectual basis for his whole belief system. This process, which he found necessary every year or two, was already an intrinsic part of his nature. Because his conversion to the Christian faith had contained a strong intellectual component, he found it continually necessary to reexamine the relationship between thought, belief, and actions in order to maintain his sense of spiritual and intellectual integrity. But now his daughter’s wholesale rejection of God sent Charles’ questioning roots deeper than had any personal circumstance since the encounter outside the Jermyn Street lecture hall. This was a more severe trial, he said, even than the death of his father.

  For Jocelyn, the reevaluation did not so much concern the rudiments of being a Christian, but the nature of God’s character. Suddenly her lifelong doubts about his goodness and his love gripped her heart again, filling it with resentment and pain. She had tried so hard to be a different mother than her own, but to no avail. How could a God of goodness allow such a bitter end to their attempts toward a happy and fulfilling home?

  The day after Amanda’s departure, the entire household was hushed, as if all Heathersleigh was in suspended motion while the rest of the world went on without them. The meals were quiet. George and Catharine were quiet. The staff was quiet. Even the horses and birds and sheep in the distance seemed quiet.

  After tea that afternoon, Charles gathered the family in the library and asked Sarah Minsterly to bring the house and grounds staff to join the family there.

  “We’ve all been through a bit of an ordeal in the last few weeks,” began Charles once everyone was present. “I’m sure all of you feel awkward, as do I, not exactly knowing what to say or do. We must all admit that what has happened came as a shock, and it will probably take us some time to adjust to it.”

  The staff relaxed as he went on to explain a little more about what he and Jocelyn had been feeling.

  “I suppose, in a sense, that for a long time this household has revolved around Amanda,” he went on. “Amanda had a way of being at the center no matter what else might have been going on. Things will probably be different now. But the fact is—she has gone. She left angry. And her mother and I want to thank you all—”

  He gestured about the room as he spoke.

  “—including the two of you, George and Catharine, for your patience and long-suffering where Amanda was concerned. She made life a trial for all of us at times. Yet we love her deeply, and I know you all love her too and will miss her. Heathersleigh Hall will not be the same without our Amanda. And we will pray for her swift return.”

  He paused and cleared his throat.

  “However, Amanda was but one individual. The rest of us are still here. I want you to know that you do not have to walk about as if we were in the middle of a funeral. Talk and laughter must return to Heathersleigh Hall. There has been something very much like death in this relationship. But we will move on with our lives, as Amanda will move on with hers. We will all go forward, praying for a hasty end to this period of separation.”

  Charles now motioned for Jocelyn to come stand beside him.

  “We would like you all to join us,” he continued, “in praying for our dear daughter. I include you all because I know you care for her.”

  Smiles and nods from around the room greeted his words.

  “We would like you to pray with us now and to continue to pray for Amanda whenever the Lord brings her to your thoughts.”

  Husband and wife took hands and bowed their heads. The others did likewise.

  “Father in heaven,” Charles prayed, “we come to you now on behalf of our daughter and yours, our own dear Amanda. We can ask nothing more than that you accompany her wherever she goes, that you will be beside her and keep her in the care of your loving hands. Give us strength and courage to believe in your faithfulness . . . for Amanda and for ourselves. May she return quickly to us, and to you, with heart and mind open to our love and to yours.”

  As the weeks and months passed, in the attempt to trust God for Amanda, Charles’ and Jocelyn’s spirits were stretched into new regions of faith. Gradually, the opening verses of Romans five were impressed upon them: “We glory in tribulations also, knowing that tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope. And hope maketh not ashamed.”

  The focus of their prayers became, not the easing of their parental pain at this temporary loss of their daughter, but: Lord, make these truths alive in us. Let us rejoice in this suffering, knowing that through it you will work the character of your nature into us. Give us the hope about which Paul wrote—hope for Amanda, hope for ourselves. Accomplish the full work of your will in all our lives.

  With such prayers on their lips, how could the sun of God’s healing and restorative warmth and presence not eventually break through the clouds of their doubts?

  Three months after her departure, the first word from Amanda arrived by post at Heathersleigh. What was the motivation or prompting behind such a letter, neither of her parents could guess. But their hearts were sore, as they read, to note the cold detachment in her words.

  Dear Sir Charles and Lady Rutherford, Amanda wrote,

  Leaving Devon and getting out from under the stifling atmosphere of Heathersleigh and being with people of broader outlook has enabled me to see many things more clearly, both about you and about myself. I feel it is necessary for me to tell you that I hav
e at last succeeded in breaking the bonds of control which you attempted to exercise over me. After the change in your lives eleven years ago, you tried to force me to follow you in everything you believed. I now see more clearly than ever how wrong this was of you. I did not then, nor can I now, endorse anything about the life you have chosen.

  You will no doubt continue to live according to the narrow-minded and hypocritical ways and principles of the God you say you serve. As long as that is true, however, and until you recognize the hurt and damage you brought into my life, I see no basis for us to have a continuing relationship or friendship.

  Knowing you as I do, I can conjecture at your response to my words. But I must ask you neither to pray for me nor to attempt to establish any connection with me. Such efforts, I assure you, will be less than useless. I am not interested in your God, in your prayers, or in either of you.

  Amanda Rutherford

  Jocelyn put down the paper, laid her head in her hands, and wept bitterly. Charles, after attempting to comfort her, sought the out-of-doors for the release of his tears.

  For the remainder of the day they scarcely had words for one another, for what words could be found in light of such a communication?

  Only anguished sighs came from the hearts of the two tenderhearted and hurting parents. The knife that was thrust into their hearts at Amanda’s leaving had now been given an even more cruel twist.

  92

  Deeper and Stronger

  The morning following the arrival of Amanda’s letter, Charles found his wife in the sun-room off the kitchen. She sat staring out into the morning’s sunrise over her small terraced flower and herb garden south of the house. A cup of tea was in her hand.

  “What are you thinking about?” he asked, taking a seat beside her.

  “I’m remembering the happy times,” she replied softly. “Remembering the hours of play out there on the lawn, the laughter, the games, Amanda’s buoyant and bouncy nature.”