Heathersleigh Homecoming

by Michael Phillips

  “We are all prodigals together, my friends,” said Timothy. “We have made self-rule our god. As a result we have become a prodigal humanity. Thus we do not know intimacy with our Creator and our Father.

  “But we can know it. Jesus came to show us how. But we must return. We must leave the land where pride and self-rule reign as gods. We must be reconciled with our Father.

  “‘How?’ you ask.

  “God will show you. But first we must say, as Jesus taught, ‘I will leave this country. I will return to my Father’s house.’

  “That is something we can do in our own hearts. Now . . . today. We can say to him, ‘I am sorry for being a respectable worshiper of Self. I am sorry for thinking myself capable of living my life with no Father over me. No more do I want to rule my own life. I want a Father. I am ready to be a child. I am eager to become a true son, a true daughter. I ask you to be my Father.’

  “With such a prayer, we have indeed begun the journey home to our Father’s house. Reconciliation is under way. Thus only can we enter into that intimacy for which we long and for which we were created.”

  As she listened, Amanda realized there was a double message in these words for her. She had been estranged from two fathers, to whom she must arise and go.

  Yet with the realization again came the bitter truth that it was too late.

  Even as she sat on the steps, at last Amanda began to weep great tears of remorse and overwhelming grief.

  Suddenly she wanted her father!

  She longed for him, longed for his arms around her, longed to be his little girl again, and yet—bitter truth—he was gone!

  Again Timothy had stopped. Not a soul stirred from the small chapel where only some thirty or forty sat listening to the personal and penetrating message. Some remembered it from years before. Others, hearing it for the first time, recognized in it a different quality than their minister’s normal mode of address.

  “He is fashioning of us people of character and virtue,” Timothy continued again. “He is building the fiber of mature spirituality within us. He desires to make us into men and women capable of carrying out his commands and walking in this world as individuals recognized as sons and daughters of God. He will help us. His Spirit will transform our self-reliant, self-motivated wills, if only we will turn those wills over to him, lay them down on the altar of chosen self-denial . . . and become children.

  “This process of humble growth into sons and daughters begins by turning around and setting one’s face toward home, toward the Father’s house, where he rules. We must return to him and say, ‘I choose for you to rule now, not me.’ It is a journey to be made in the heart. He is waiting along the roadside to welcome us . . . but we must go to him, we must return to our Father’s house and say, ‘I will be your child.’”

  A lengthy interlude of silence followed.

  Amanda could tell the sermon was over. Some rustling followed, then the sounds of a piano beginning another hymn.

  Quietly she rose, eyes blurry and blinking back the tears struggling to overpower her, and walked away from the church.

  She walked for perhaps five minutes, when suddenly from out of the depths of her heart something cried out, “Oh, God, what am I to do?”

  The answer which stole into her consciousness the next instant was simple. It was not a mandate to change the world as had brought her to London so many years ago, but rather concerned only one person in all the universe . . . Amanda herself.

  It came in a gentle, quiet, yet definite command.

  “Obey me,” was all the voice said. “Then arise and go to your father.”

  105

  A Meeting of Friends

  Amanda did not go far.

  She walked away from the church for five, perhaps six or seven minutes. Gradually aloneness overwhelmed her. Her heart began to ache with almost physical pain for sheer despondency.

  Suddenly it dawned on her that except for the sisters at the Chalet of Hope, who were beyond reach at this moment, she had no one to turn to. She had only one true friend in the city, as much as at one time she thought she had despised him . . . and it was the very man behind her in New Hope Chapel to whom she had been listening.

  The next instant Amanda had turned and was half running along the sidewalk back toward the church.

  No logic of her mind could have explained whatever impulse compelled her feet along the walk. Her heart was suddenly so very lonely she thought it would break. The grief of her father’s death bore down upon her with a crushing weight of misery and desolation.

  She did not think she could bear it another instant.

  She needed a friend!

  As Timothy Diggorsfeld stood at the door of New Hope Chapel shaking hands with the men and women of his congregation filing out in ones and twos, it was all he could do to maintain his composure. With near herculean effort he blinked back tears and did what he could to smile and mumble words of greeting. Officiating the service, then delivering the sermon his friend Charles had written had been an enormous personal ordeal.

  But this was near agony! He was physically and emotionally spent.

  If he could just get the last few minutes of the morning over, then he might seek the solitude of his study. There he could weep one more time for his friend.

  The line was nearly done.

  Wearily Timothy glanced up as he wished Mrs. Fretwell-Phipps a good day.

  What was that figure down the block standing . . . watching him . . . just standing there in the middle of the sidewalk like a lost, forlorn human sheep!

  Suddenly he was stumbling down the stairs, leaving the remaining six or seven in line where they stood in the foyer of the chapel. He bumped past Mrs. Fretwell-Phipps on the steps leaving the church.

  He was running now . . . running as fast as he had run for years along Bloomsbury Way, presenting a sight such as those wide-eyed of his congregation could never have imagined, black Sunday robe flying out behind their normally sedate clergyman!

  The lost sheep began running toward him.

  Timothy slowed, tears of so many emotions he could not have counted them streaming down his cheeks. He opened his arms.

  “Amanda!” he said tenderly.

  She fell into his embrace, trembling and clinging to him like a frightened child who has found its mother. At last the gushing torrent of grief overflowed its dam, and she sobbed convulsively.

  Back at the church, what remained of Timothy’s parishioners continued to watch the strange display. Not one had any inkling that the young lady in their minister’s arms was none other than the prodigal daughter of him whose words they had just been listening to.

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

  Timothy held her close for what may have been one minute, perhaps two.

  “You cannot imagine how glad I am you came to me,” now said Timothy, stepping back and smiling. “I cannot say it makes me happy, for I doubt anything at this moment is capable of that. My heart is grievously sore. But I am very glad you came.”

  Amanda wiped at her tears, then, to the extent she was able, returned his smile.

  “Amanda . . . I am so sorry about your father and brother.”

  She nodded and began to cry again.

  “Come . . . come inside with me,” said Timothy. “We will have a talk.”

  He turned and led the way back toward the church. “We have both lost a friend,” he said. “Now we shall have to be friends to one another.”

  They met the astonished lady as they passed yet again on the walkway. “All is well . . . all is well, Mrs. Fretwell-Phipps,” said Timothy with a smile and a nod.

  They walked up the steps. Timothy paused briefly to hurriedly shake the remaining hands, then led Amanda inside and to the adjoining parsonage.

  106

  An Honest Talk

  Amanda Rutherford and Timothy Diggorsfeld had been talking for more than an hour as they had never spoken with each other before.


  Honest had been Amanda’s confessions, frank Timothy’s counsel. Nothing could be gained for either by pampering, hiding, or glossing over the truth. Too much had already been lost. The time to face serious spiritual reality had come.

  Amanda told him about Vienna and Ramsay and the sisters at the chalet, including the counsel she had received and her reaction.

  “I realize what a selfish girl I have been,” Amanda was saying. “My father tried to tell me. Sister Hope tried to tell me. Probably God himself tried to tell me, too, through my circumstances. But I wouldn’t listen. I was stubborn and selfish and independent, just like you said. I did nothing but what I wanted to do. And look what it got me. Into more and more trouble. I was not even a respectable prodigal, Mr. Diggorsfeld, as you said in your sermon.”

  Amanda began to cry.

  “But I don’t want to end up like Robinson Crusoe, Mr. Diggorsfeld,” she went on, sniffling and wiping away her tears. “I don’t want to spend another thirty years in misery. I’ve had enough misery to last a lifetime. I have been so selfish and foolish. I see it so clearly now. My father was not controlling. He was just trying to do his best to train me out of my rebellious attitude. I’m sure he saw it all along.”

  “He saw it, yes, and it concerned him,” said Timothy. “He loved you, Amanda. That is why he was willing to risk even your rejection, even your despising him for a season, to try to help you learn to lay it down.”

  “And I never learned!” wailed Amanda. “I just blamed him for my own wrong attitudes. I can hardly bear it. What a great ordeal I must have put him through!”

  Timothy said nothing for a moment.

  “I talked with him, and prayed with him over you many times,” he said at length.

  “But . . . what am I to do now!” moaned Amanda. “It’s too late to make it right with him!”

  She broke down sobbing.

  “You must do what we all must do, Amanda,” said Timothy. “You must arise and go to your father. It is how all such stories must end.”

  “But it’s too late, I tell you—he’s dead!” she wailed.

  “With God, it is never too late.”

  “But how can I go to him now?”

  “You must go to your heavenly Father first,” said Timothy. “Then he will show you how to go to your earthly father. But rest assured, reconciliation is always possible.”

  “But he is dead,” repeated Amanda.

  “Only to our sight. And that fact changes nothing about your responsibility. It still must be done,” said Timothy. “It is not primarily for the father that straying young people must return with repentance in their hearts . . . but for themselves. It is something you must do. Though your father may be gone from the earth, in your heart his memory still lives no less today than when you were young and with him every day. I am confident God will show you how to make peace with that memory.”

  It was silent a moment.

  “There is something I have not told you yet,” Timothy went on after a moment, then paused.

  Amanda waited.

  “That sermon you heard this morning . . . they were not my words at all.”

  Amanda looked at him with an odd expression. “I wondered,” she said. “They did seem . . . different somehow.”

  “Your father wrote those words, Amanda,” he said. “I once asked him to preach at New Hope Chapel, many years ago. He wrote that sermon for the occasion. He called it his testimonial sermon.”

  Amanda took in the words soberly. Again her eyes filled with tears. A rush of deep emotion welled up within her. She realized she had actually been listening to her father’s voice speaking to her, as from the other side of the grave.

  “So you see, Amanda,” said Timothy, “by responding as you have, and by taking his words to heart, you have already begun turning toward your father in a new way. The Lord has taken him from us. Yet in another way he remains with us through our memories of him, through his teaching, his character.”

  Amanda leaned forward and broke into sobs again. She sat in the chair with her face in her hands, her body shaking. The excruciating remorse was so deep she felt as if her very stomach would turn inside out.

  Timothy waited with eyes closed. Even in the midst of his own grief, he knew it was impossible for him to fathom her guilt-stricken anguish at such a moment of loss.

  When Amanda came to herself she knew a decision had been reached.

  She had all her life been nothing but what she had wanted to be, done nothing but what she had wanted to do. Self-rule had dominated her character almost since the day she was born. She had resented any and all intrusion from her parents, from God . . . from anyone.

  But how lonely had become such an existence. What kind of a life had she made for herself? She had squandered everything her father had given her—both his money and his training. Even hired maids back at the estate in Devonshire enjoyed a better life than hers.

  As if reading her mind, at length Timothy spoke softly. “Have you seen your mother yet?” he said.

  Amanda shook her head.

  “You must,” he said.

  “I . . . I couldn’t face her,” said Amanda. “Not after what I have done . . . what I have been. I am so ashamed.”

  “You do not think she would receive you with open arms?”

  “How could she?”

  “She loves you more than you can imagine.”

  That Amanda knew Diggorsfeld’s words were true only made the fact all the more heart wrenching that she had rejected that love, from both mother and father.

  “I don’t know if I can face her,” she repeated softly. “It would be too humiliating.”

  What should have been the easiest thing to do in all the world—go home—she was afraid to do.

  “So you think to add to the grief of the present by remaining estranged from her?” asked Timothy.

  Amanda took in the words almost as if she had been slapped in the face. He was direct! Yet in some strange way she was glad. She did not want to be babied in wrong attitudes any longer.

  “But how can I face her?” she wailed again in the most forlorn tone Timothy thought he had ever heard. “She must hate me!”

  “You know that is not true.”

  Amanda sat without expression.

  “You must arise and go to your father,” he urged again, “even though it may be your mother’s arms that will receive you.”

  107

  Heartache at Heathersleigh

  The day at Heathersleigh Hall had been dreary and sad beyond comprehension.

  Spring had begun to restore greenery and color to the landscape. A few species of trees were in tender leaf. Buds swelled everywhere with new life. The spring varietals in the heather garden—though not numerous—were bursting out in magnificent color.

  But there was no springtime within the heart of any man or woman for miles.

  A bleak pallor of grey dominated the internal landscape. The coldest winter of human desolation had descended upon the region.

  Their beloved Sir Charles was gone, and George with him.

  Charles Rutherford had brought such vibrancy to so many. Now life itself seemed to have departed. Sadness reigned over central Devon. Every eye at the service in Milverscombe was red on the Sunday following Saturday’s tragic news. Some of the most stoic of the men wept the most freely. Never had there been a man, they said, like Sir Charles. Nor would there ever be again.

  Jocelyn scarcely left her room in two days. She did not go out to attend the service. Catharine brought meals up, though they remained largely untouched. A few sympathizers from the village came and went. Most let their beloved Lady Jocelyn grieve in solitude.

  A more pervasive quiet there had never been at Heathersleigh. The Hall became as a great stone tomb.

  Silent . . . cold . . . empty.

  Sarah ministered as she was able in spite of her own plentiful tears. She tiptoed about, trying to keep tea warm and food available should it be wanted, as if the very so
unds of her steps echoing from floor to walls was an intrusion against the silence of mourning.

  Sunday endured. Monday came.

  The sun rose, but it brought no cheer.

  When Margaret McFee awoke on the second day following news of Master Charles’ and Master George’s awful deaths, she detected strange stirrings in her heart.

  If she hadn’t felt so full of energy, she might have thought this was the day the Lord was preparing to take her home as well. But she doubted that was it. She knew dear Lady Jocelyn needed the companionship of her closest friends at this terrible time. As much as she longed to see her precious Bobby again, she was certain the Lord would not remove her from the earth just yet.

  Then what were these peculiar flutterings within her? Something in the spirit realm was alive. She almost sensed the rustling of angels’ wings.

  “What is it, Lord?” she began to ask from the moment wakefulness overtook her.

  Jocelyn ate some toast in bed and half a cup of tea, dozed fitfully, awoke and cried some more, then tried to sleep again. But it was no use. The raveled sleeve of her care was not so easily knit.

  Sometime around noon, she decided to get up. Catharine helped her dress, for her mother was lightheaded from lack of activity and nourishment.

  Together they went downstairs to the kitchen.

  “Mother, you need to eat something,” said Catharine. “I’ll make some tea and we’ll have a light lunch together.”

  Jocelyn nodded.

  She wasn’t hungry, but at least she felt she could eat. And probably should.

  108

  Unless a Seed Fall to the Ground . . .

  As Amanda rode along in the train from London to Devon, she could feel the years tumbling away with each passing mile.

  If ever one could progress backward in time, she felt such was now happening inside her. As she bounced along, all the dreams and self-centered motives that had driven her away from Heathersleigh to London eight years earlier now fell away.