Heathersleigh Homecoming

by Michael Phillips

  His every instinct was to rush out immediately and board the first train for Devonshire. He must be with poor Jocelyn and Catharine at this horrifying time of tragedy.

  The telephone line was silent for several long seconds. It was Jocelyn who finally broke it.

  “Timothy,” she said. “Mr. Churchill tells me Amanda is in the city.”

  “I didn’t know she was back from the north.”

  “What north?” said Jocelyn, confused. “Do you mean in Britain? I had no idea she had come back to the country.”

  “I was with her just three days ago.”

  “You were with her!”

  “She had just arrived from the Continent,” replied Timothy. “She came to me immediately. Mr. Churchill needed her to go to Yorkshire with him. She had information about a spy network.”

  “What . . . Amanda . . . spies!”

  “The people she was involved with,” explained Timothy, “—all that business with the Fountain or whatever it was called. I intended to telephone, but I thought I should wait until she returned.”

  “But Amanda . . .” began Jocelyn, then her voice trailed off.

  “Yes, she must be told,” said Timothy for her.

  “Mr. Churchill said he would notify her at the hotel the minute he arrived back in the city.”

  “She needs to hear it from a friend. I will take care of it.”

  Again came a long silence. Now finally did the tears in the pastor’s eyes begin to flow.

  “Jocelyn . . . my dear, dear Jocelyn,” said Timothy at length, “—I cannot tell you how sorry I am.”

  “I know, Timothy. He was your friend as well as mine.”

  “How is dear Catharine taking this dreadful news?”

  “Much as I am. She is sick and can only weep. But she is strong, Timothy. Thank God for that—she is a strong young lady.”

  “God bless her—I will come as soon as I am able. I promise, I shall be there as quickly as circumstances allow. And I will find Amanda.”

  “Thank you, Timothy. You are a true friend.”

  Timothy put down the telephone and slumped as one lifeless to the nearest chair, and wept as he hadn’t since he was a boy.

  He tried to pray. But not only no words—not even thoughts of prayer would come.

  Why, Lord . . . why! was the only prayer his devastated brain could form. He knew the words were not uttered by a heart of faith. He could not call them words of prayer at all. They were the cry of a grief-stricken heart to the great unknown of the universe that men and women have been crying out to in their seasons of agony since the beginning of time.

  Why . . . why . . . why!

  He could not say that he was angry at God . . . but so very, very confused. Horribly confused. How could this be!

  How, Lord, could you allow such a thing! suddenly burst from his lips.

  The next instant he thought to retract the faithless outburst. But he could not. He was devastated and confused, and the words mirrored what he felt.

  His only thought was that he had to comfort Jocelyn and Catharine. He must get to Heathersleigh without delay.

  His mind suddenly returned to Amanda. What was he waiting for! He had to go to her. This was no time to worry about the past or what she thought of him. Nor to wallow in his own grief. If ever Amanda needed someone, it was now.

  Timothy was out the door before the realization struck him—he had no idea where Amanda was staying!

  But Mr. Churchill knew. He had said as much to Jocelyn. He would go straight to his office.

  Thirty minutes later, Timothy walked into the office of the First Lord of the Admiralty for the second time that week. On this occasion the receptionist recognized him and gave him a cordial smile and greeting.

  “I am Rev. Diggorsfeld,” said Timothy. “I must see Mr. Churchill.”

  “I am sorry, Rev. Diggorsfeld,” she replied. “Mr. Churchill had pressing business in Devon early this morning. He left at dawn and has not returned.”

  Of course, what was he thinking? thought Timothy—the First Lord couldn’t possibly be back in the city yet. Jocelyn had called him only half an hour ago.

  “When do you expect him?” he asked.

  “I really don’t know,” the lady replied. “Not until much later this afternoon, if at all. I do not actually know whether he will return to the office. We have lost another one of our battle cruisers, you see—”

  “Yes . . . yes, I know,” replied Timothy. “Thank you very much.”

  “Is there a message you would like to leave?”

  “Uh . . . no . . . no, thank you,” mumbled Timothy, stumbling out. He wandered in a new stupor toward the stairs, tears filling his eyes again. How was he going to find Amanda!

  Once outside, no thought of a cab came to his mind. He had to walk. He would walk back and try again to come to terms with this devastating news, which all at once seemed yet the more crushing in that now he had nothing before him to do.

  What was he going to preach on during tomorrow’s service? he thought. How could he possibly preach at all!

  On he walked, hardly conscious of direction . . . thinking of Charles, thinking of Amanda, thinking of Jocelyn, and vaguely continuing to despair from the hopelessness of attempting to preach in a mere twenty-four hours.

  How could he possibly take the pulpit and offer anything to his people, when his own faith was so shaken, and when he was filled with such turmoil?

  100

  The Streets of London

  Amanda slumped to a chair in her London hotel, face ashen, the thin yellow paper falling out of her hand to the floor. It was the same communication that had been delivered hours before to her mother at Heathersleigh Hall.

  Winston Churchill had just left.

  How long she sat in a stupor, Amanda had no idea. Finally she rose and stumbled in a daze out into Saturday afternoon London.

  Somehow—she could not have said how—the rest of the day passed.

  Timothy Diggorsfeld sat despondent in his study. He had not eaten so much as a half dozen bites of Mrs. Alvington’s supper.

  “Lord, how can I possibly face tomorrow?” he said to himself for the fiftieth time. “It is hopeless. I have nothing to offer my people, because I have nothing to offer myself.”

  All afternoon and evening, the smiling, laughing, exuberant face of his friend Charles Rutherford had loomed in the eye of his brain, suddenly so much larger than life—such a true friend and man who had had such an effect on his own life and ministry.

  Dear, dear Charles! he thought, eyes filling again with tears that refused to stop.

  What could he do in remembrance of Charles? What legacy could he leave his friend?

  Suddenly came the idea. Why should he not preach the very sermon Charles himself once gave from his pulpit?

  He had asked Charles, after he had been a Christian for some time, to speak a message that was dear to his heart. With fondness he recalled the long talk they had had about intimacy with God and how such closeness could be attained between men and their Creator. At the time, Charles had been reflecting on much that had been in his own heart prior to his conversion.

  In a sense it had been Charles’ own personal testimony of faith couched within the structure of a sermon. As Timothy recalled, the message had been hard-hitting and direct. That was the sort of man Charles Rutherford was—forceful, straightforward, intellectually honest, and unafraid to look himself in the eye.

  He would deliver it again, thought Timothy. Tomorrow . . . in remembrance of Charles!

  The resolve that some tiny good might come from this hour of such intense personal agony enabled Timothy to take a deep breath—his first of the day.

  Where Amanda’s feet took her as afternoon gave way to evening, she hardly remembered.

  She walked miles through streets and parks, her mind senseless. She was unable to think, unable to focus her brain on anything definite.

  Motion became the sole determinative feature of her bein
g. Movement did not console her, but it kept her limbs busy enough that she did not have to confront that most dreaded enemy which had suddenly begun to make its true nature known—the Self she had almost begun to look at after arriving in Switzerland.

  But she would be able to hide from herself no longer. Suddenly everything was changed.

  Tears had not yet come to Amanda’s eyes. She was too deep in shock to cry.

  She would weep in time. When she did, bitter indeed would be the sting from the hot tears down her cheeks. For they would be the anguished tears caused by the eye-opening truth that she had never been a true daughter to her father . . . and that her chance to become one was now gone forever.

  The telephone in Timothy Diggorsfeld’s study rang. He leapt for it.

  “Rev. Diggorsfeld?” said a familiar voice.

  “Yes.”

  “It’s Winston Churchill. My secretary told me you were in earlier. I am sorry for not getting to you sooner, but it’s taken some doing to track you down. I apologize for ringing so late, but I’m afraid I have some terrible news.”

  “Yes, yes, thank you for calling,” said Timothy. “I’ve heard. Lady Rutherford rang me earlier.”

  “Ah, I see.”

  “I am concerned for their daughter, however—Amanda. That was the purpose of my coming to your office. Jocelyn, er, Lady Jocelyn said that you—”

  “Yes, she’s been notified. I called at her hotel the moment I arrived back in the city.”

  “Can you tell me, then, where she is?” asked Timothy.

  “At the Hotel Clairmont,” replied the First Lord.

  “Right, thank you—I’ll go out and try to see her immediately.”

  “If there is anything else I can do, for you or any of the family,” said Churchill, “please do not hesitate to contact me.”

  Timothy had scarcely put down the receiver when he was out of the house again on his way to the Clairmont.

  He arrived twenty minutes later. Amanda was not in her room.

  Timothy descended to the lobby pondering what to do. He went back out into the evening air and walked briefly in the nearby streets, then returned. Still she was gone.

  By now it was getting dark. Perhaps she had gone somewhere, thought Timothy. She might not be planning to return tonight at all. Perhaps she had even left the city.

  He left a message at the desk, requesting that Amanda get in touch with him, then returned to the parsonage of New Hope Chapel.

  Amanda hardly noticed when darkness came. She continued to walk and did not arrive back at the Clairmont until sometime after ten o’clock. She had eaten nothing since lunch. She did not check for messages.

  Eventually she was swallowed up in that simplest, yet in some ways most miraculous, of the Creator’s gifts to his creatures—sleep. Now she had but one Father, and he watched over her most tenderly in these hours after the loss of the other he had given her, and blessed her with a deep and restful slumber.

  101

  Autumn Rains and Memories

  About the same time that evening when Amanda stumbled back into the lobby of the Clairmont Hotel—as one deadened to all around her—and up to the room Lieutenant Langham had arranged for her, Timothy Diggorsfeld arrived home from his unsuccessful attempt to locate her.

  As he had walked he had been thinking more and more about Charles’ sermon.

  He entered into his office before even removing his coat, went straight to his file, and quickly flipped through papers and envelopes and folders. There it was just as he remembered it—the handwritten copy of the text. Charles had given it to him at the end of the same day, saying he no longer had need of it.

  Timothy pulled it out and eased into his favorite chair. His eyes and cheeks revealed the gradual signs of advancing age. He was a few years past fifty. His hair was thinning and receding rapidly above the forehead, though he still possessed a good wavy crop up to a distance of three or four inches above both ears, and most of the top and back of his head was still moderately thatched. He had retained his lean frame through the years, for he walked a good deal, and rapidly whenever alone, conducting nearly all his pastoral calls, even occasionally to a distance of an hour each way, on foot. He tended to go through boots rather more quickly than most of his profession, but his health was robust and his face well tanned as a result.

  The mere sight of Charles’ handwriting—with various marginal notes and a multitude of scratchings and deletions and additions, then the clean-written final draft—brought a renewal of tears to the sensitive pastor’s eyes. But the hurricane of initial grief had passed, and the tears had now gradually become as a lingering quiet rain, pouring forth no longer as a flood but rather a steady, almost peaceful, drizzle.

  A rush of nostalgic reflections filled him . . . Charles’ first visit . . . the incident with the rabble-rousers . . . the sight of him as he walked into New Hope Chapel hardly knowing why he had come, his first questions about faith, their discussions, their many prayers together through the years . . . the friendship that had developed, his own many visits to Heathersleigh.

  He had seen many things in his life, thought Timothy, and been acquainted with many people. But never had he known a man so obedient, one who so resolutely determined to change the whole course of his life, whatever the cost, because of what he had come to believe.

  Most of those in his experience, Timothy reflected, overlaid their belief on top of a lifestyle that continued unaffected by it, as a coat they took on and off once or twice a week, or when a discussion turned toward matters of religion.

  Not Charles, he thought with a smile. He had made belief the fundamental thing, and had set out to order his priorities and relationships, his family and career, according to it. It was no cloak on top of but separate from the real him . . . his belief became the essence of the real Charles Rutherford. He was the first to admit having made mistakes in that process. But Timothy admired the effort, however imperfect, in a way that he had never admired anything he had seen a man do in his life.

  Slowly Timothy began to read the words in Charles’ hand. He reread the entire message for the first time since he had heard the words spoken out of his friend’s mouth as he stood behind his own pulpit. Even though he was the one who led Charles to the Lord, he found himself convicted anew by his words.

  Charles should have been a preacher, not a politician, Timothy thought, smiling again.

  He recalled how earnestly Charles had prayed prior to summoning the courage to deliver this message. He had, in fact, been in fear and trembling beforehand. He had spoken before his nation’s political leaders many times. But to rise into the pulpit of a small London chapel and speak to thirty or forty people about being one with their heavenly Father—that was far more fearsome.

  Who was he, Charles said, to speak to anyone else about rightness with God when he had ignored him most of his life? Perhaps, Timothy had argued, that fact, along with the additional fact that he was ignoring him no longer, gave him the right to speak. In the end, Charles had realized that he must obey the Voice.

  Timothy recalled Charles’ warning to the congregation at the beginning of the sermon that he would call on them to examine their hearts with an honesty seldom required of listeners to sermons in England these days. But, he assured them, it was by such straightforward honesty that he had himself come to believe—honesty from the mouth of their very own pastor. From him he had learned, Charles said, to ask difficult questions and to point their difficulty first of all upon himself. Thus he would examine his own heart anew with them.

  Timothy brushed away a renewal of tears. Less than forty-eight hours after his death, already the memory of Charles Rutherford’s life and faith had begun a new work which in time would impact many—that greater work which the seed falling into the ground of the faithful lives of God’s servants often produces.

  “Lord,” Timothy began to pray in the quiet chamber where Charles Rutherford had first come so many years ago to ask about what belief
meant, “may this dear man’s life live on. May his faith, his character, his obedience, and his good deeds as he walked the earth continue to draw people to you though his physical presence is gone from us. Use his life, Lord . . . and continue to use him.”

  His voice caught as he prayed, and he paused for a moment.

  “And may you somehow miraculously use the memory of his character and faith in his daughter’s life. What she was unable to see in life, may she apprehend with tenfold clarity in his death. May she truly learn to arise and go to her father, both you and our dear friend Charles. Work a miracle in her life, Lord. Do a work within her that will spread out to influence many for good. May this tragic loss in the end reap a hundredfold harvest for your kingdom.

  “Give me strength to speak Charles’ words and to forget for those brief moments my own grief. Grant that some soul, Lord, may hear Charles’ heart tomorrow, and may his words be what that individual needs at just that moment.”

  By the time he was through praying, Timothy was again weeping freely. The tears now falling down his cheeks as he gazed upon the treasured sheets in his hand were the gentle showers of a warm autumn’s evening, capable of bringing out of the human soul—as the rains of autumn lure from the soil of the earth—many fragrances too subtle to be detected during the happier seasons of blue sky and red roses when high summer reigns over the land.

  If his heart could not yet be said to be at peace, the knowledge that Charles and George were in the presence of their heavenly Father was some comfort. And he took quiet consolation in that fact.

  It is at such moments that Christians discover how deeply they believe in eternity, Timothy reflected. And perhaps the loss of his best friend shook the foundations of his own belief a little more vigorously than he might have liked. If he took to heart the words of Jesus about eternal life in their fullness, he should now be rejoicing.

  But he could not rejoice. All he could do was let the autumn rains of grief fall down upon him and drink in the subtle messages they carried from the Father’s heart, who invented life and death together and linked them mysteriously as one.