Heathersleigh Homecoming

by Michael Phillips

  With her younger sister’s thoughts drawn into similar channels, and not realizing how painful her words would be, Catharine now blurted out as they went, “Amanda, let me get this straight . . . we haven’t really talked about it other than a little the other evening, but I’m still confused. Now . . . you’re actually married, right?”

  Amanda nodded, though the reminder was like a knife plunging into her heart.

  “How will that affect what Maggie told us? The future, I mean . . . if you have, you know . . . a husband?”

  “I don’t know, Catharine,” said Amanda, shaking her head. “I’m afraid that is more than I can think about now.”

  “But then where . . .”

  Gradually Catharine began to realize the awkwardness of her inquiry.

  “What will you do?” she added after a moment.

  “I don’t know, Catharine . . . I just don’t know.”

  It was silent as they reached the ground floor.

  “What about you?” Amanda asked, trying to change the subject. “Are you really going to university?”

  “I don’t know,” Catharine replied. “Like you, I’ll have to wait and see. Everything is different now. But I think I would like to.”

  Indeed, more than any of them could realize, everything in their lives was bound to change now.

  119

  Heathersleigh’s Women

  The following morning, both Jocelyn and Amanda woke early.

  Thoughts of the previous day filled mother and daughter, reminders of Charles and the church service in Milverscombe, and also Maggie’s revelations and what they might mean to the three of them who remained.

  But strangely with the waking came a sense of anticipation rather than heartache. Timothy’s words of exhortation on Thursday evening, along with what Maggie had disclosed, combined somehow to infuse within them a sense that a new day was coming, and that the Lord may yet be able to make life at Heathersleigh a good thing.

  Jocelyn rose and began to dress.

  She glanced at herself in the mirror, paused, then smiled. In a strange way, she almost felt as if she were looking at her face—with the bright red birthmark over a third of it—as Charles might have seen it. She did not wince at the sight, but was reminded of his words of so long ago—“It is his fingerprint upon your face, Jocie. When God made you, he touched you in a unique way . . . he left that mark to remind you that he loves you.”

  Dear Charles . . . how could he always see such meaning and goodness in everything?

  He had taught her so much. He had helped her to accept herself, gently guided her into an unconditional acceptance of God’s love, and eventually to the capacity to love him in return.

  Now her dear husband and friend was gone. It was she who must be strong now. Like it or not, from this day forward, she was head of the family.

  Amanda too had risen early, not realizing her mother was also awake.

  She got up and slowly dressed, then left her room on tiptoes, not wanting to wake anyone else as she crept down the hall. She had no particular destination in mind, but wanted to feel the quiet of the morning and what it might have to speak. Her feet unexpectedly took her toward her father’s office. What drew her there she could not have said.

  She entered, walked to the middle of the room, now so still and eerily silent, and stood gazing reflectively about her. There was the portrait of her grandfather . . . the old da Vinci sketch her father had loved . . . various devices and inventions on shelves and windowsills . . . cases full of a hundred or more bound volumes . . . the telephone he had installed . . . the favorite books on his desk, including several Bibles, sitting between the ivory bookends . . . the gold-plated telescope . . . objects familiar yet new to her adult eyes, and now suddenly all so poignantly reminiscent.

  As she gazed and reflected on these objects that had, for one reason or another, been important to him in his life, Amanda realized she wanted to know her father, really know him deeply. Was it too late, as logic would suggest? In this one room he had left behind so many reminders pointing to the man he was, what he was interested in, what he thought about, what he valued, the books he read.

  He was a remarkable man, Amanda thought. She had always considered his life after politics empty and drab and purposeless. Now she saw that perhaps his greatest accomplishments, especially in people’s lives, had actually come later. Memories of his face in her mind would always bring pain, but perhaps she could learn from them too. She would not wallow in the pain, but would try to allow it to make her grow and become strong.

  “It may be too late,” she said, as if speaking to her father in the midst of this place which had been the heart and soul of Heathersleigh, “to listen to your voice and let you teach me in person. But I will look for what my memory of you can discover, and eventually I will be a daughter worthy to share your name and your heritage.”

  Jocelyn went out in the cool of the morning. A low mist hung over the countryside. She found herself walking the paths of the heather garden. Quietly she thought about Charles and their years together, reflecting on the many times they had walked here together.

  It had been a little more than a week now since his passing. She would continue to grieve, to weep. But in the midst of it, she knew she must try to begin looking forward.

  She thought about Heathersleigh and what it had always been to her. Charles had helped make it a retreat, an oasis, a place where she could just be herself and not have to think about anything or anyone.

  But she would not be able to depend on Charles as she had for so long. He had protected her from the outside world in so many ways. Now, Jocelyn thought, that season of her life was past.

  I have spent my whole married life, she thought, having this as my private sanctuary. Maybe now it’s time I no longer keep Heathersleigh to myself.

  She walked on as her inner conversation with herself continued.

  In some ways, she thought, I have been self-absorbed and self-conscious all these years, raising a family, learning who I am, and learning about life and God, about love and self-acceptance. Perhaps it is time I looked beyond that, looked beyond myself and began to ask what I can do for others. Perhaps it is time I followed Charles’ example, and learned to be strong in my own right.

  “I am strong!” she said aloud. “It is time I let the strength Charles helped me have flow out into more lives than just my family and friends in the village. These years have given me strength. Timothy is right. Women can be strong in inner ways. It is time I passed on what I have, and did for others what Charles did for me.”

  She recalled Amanda’s description of the chalet.

  Might you have something like that you want to do here, Lord, something you want us to give out of the abundance you have provided us?

  Amanda left her father’s office full of many thoughts and questions.

  Even if she was able to discover how to know her father more intimately, she still had to go on with her life. Heathersleigh had to go on too.

  She realized she wanted to make up for what she had done. Not knowing it, her thoughts were progressing along similar lines as Jocelyn’s. Mother and daughter were more alike than either realized, and would grow closer yet as the years passed.

  “It is time I gave back,” Amanda said to herself, “gave something into other lives.”

  The Chalet of Hope came into her mind too. As it did the question came with it—what would her father want them to do now with this estate . . . and what did God want them to do?

  Catharine slept in longer than mother or sister. When she arose and sleepily walked to her window to see what sort of day it was, she saw her mother outside below walking slowly back toward the house from the heather garden. She knew it had been her father and mother’s favorite place of prayer, and she more than half suspected that to be the purpose for which her mother had sought its solitude today.

  “Lord,” she said quietly, “give Mother a new level of your strength now that Daddy is gon
e. Help her to be the woman you want her to be. And thank you for bringing Amanda home. But we need your help during this time. I need it too. We all need your help and guidance.”

  The three went out together that Monday afternoon. They all sensed that a new dawn was about to rise over Heathersleigh. As they walked through the grounds, the heather garden, and slowly about the entire house, gradually they each began to share their thoughts.

  “With the cottage and what Maggie shared with us,” Jocelyn was saying, “who knows what significance it will have that the Heathersleigh estate is whole again, so to speak?”

  “Or will be, don’t you mean, Mother?” said Catharine with a questioning expression. “Grandma Maggie’s will isn’t in effect yet.”

  “You’re right. That’s what I mean—the effect it will have in future years.”

  “And its implications in our lives that we cannot yet see,” added Amanda.

  “Somehow God has something here that is bigger than us,” Jocelyn went on, “perhaps bigger even than your father could have known or foreseen. I am convinced of it.”

  “And the fact that the long mystery of the cottage has come out now cannot be an accident,” said Catharine.

  “Could it really be true,” Amanda asked, “like Maggie said, that the Lord will give back the years the locusts have eaten? I can’t imagine how. It seems too good to be true.”

  “I don’t understand that—what have the locusts eaten?” asked Catharine.

  “The wasted years,” replied Amanda. “For me it is these last eight years of my life. It breaks my heart to think of it. But if the Lord can restore that loss . . .”

  She fell silent.

  “Who can tell what God might have for us three women to do?” said Jocelyn. She paused. “You know, I was thinking this morning about the chalet where you were, Amanda,” she went on after a moment, “and wondering, Hmm . . . Lord, might you have some similar thing in mind for Heathersleigh?”

  “So was I,” rejoined Amanda. “I was thinking that very thing. Remember what I told you, how the Lord said to Sister Hope, if you pray they will come. We could do that!”

  “Pray for who to come?” said her sister. “What would they come here for?”

  “I don’t know,” replied Amanda. “Maybe we don’t pray for people to come necessarily, but just for God to do whatever he wants to do with us and with Heathersleigh.”

  They were in the large meadow north of the house, and gradually turned to begin walking back. Rising up before them, the sun reflecting off its roof and corners from the southwest, rose the majestic grey walls of Heathersleigh Hall. They stood a moment, then both daughters flanked their mother, placed their arms through hers, and the three began making their way back toward the house.

  “I wonder what the future will hold for this grand old place,” said Amanda.

  “Whatever is the future legacy of this family and Heathersleigh,” said Jocelyn, “it is up to us. It is our legacy now. Our men are gone. It is no longer Henry’s, or even Charles’ or George’s. That legacy has passed to us, Heathersleigh’s three women. We have to be strong, for Charles’ and George’s sakes, to honor their memory.”

  “We can do it, Mother. We will do it . . . together. Remember what Timothy said about the strength of women.”

  “Thank you, Catharine. With you to help me, I’m sure I won’t forget.”

  “Speaking for myself,” Amanda added, “I certainly don’t feel strong. But you two are. I see it in you both, just as Timothy described.”

  “Don’t be too sure that strength isn’t growing in you as well,” said Catharine.

  Amanda smiled. “I hope you are right, dear sister,” she said. “For the present, I shall have to take your word for it.”

  They approached the Hall, walking around the east wing. An unfamiliar automobile sat in front, a touring car with top down.

  “Who could that be?” said Jocelyn. “Why didn’t we hear it drive up?”

  “It’s an expensive-looking car,” said Amanda. “If I didn’t know better I might think Hubert Powell had come calling on Catharine.”

  “Don’t even think such a thing!” exclaimed Catharine. “Didn’t you say Cousin Geoffrey had a touring car?”

  “Yes, but that’s not it.”

  They entered the front door and were met by Sarah Minsterly.

  “There is a Lieutenant Langham calling,” she said.

  Amanda and Catharine glanced at each other.

  “On business . . . something about Charles?” asked Jocelyn.

  “I don’t think so, Lady Jocelyn. He is not wearing a uniform. He asked if the young ladies were at home. He thought they might like to go for a ride.”

  Catharine and Amanda glanced at each other again, then Catharine began to smile.

  “I don’t know about you,” she said, “but that sounds like an offer I do not feel inclined to refuse. Is it all right, Mother?”

  “Of course. You’re nearly a grown woman.”

  “What about you, Amanda?”

  “That would be nice.”

  “Where is he, Sarah?”

  “In the drawing room, Miss Catharine,” replied Sarah.

  120

  What Do You Want Me to Do?

  Summer came to Devon, and with it a new sense of peace to Heathersleigh.

  Jocelyn was able to smile and laugh again. The Lord continued to infuse within the Heathersleigh women a sense of strength, though they did not know where it was leading or what that purpose might be. Anticipation for the future grew, though it remained as yet a book whose next pages they were not yet able to read. These pages would be turned in time by the Lord’s hand and according to his schedule. In that knowledge they were content.

  Life would never be the same without Charles. But Jocelyn had taken Timothy’s words at the Milverscombe memorial to heart. She did believe the Lord, and was determined to fix her eye on the glow of eternity from around the edges of the doorway that faced beyond.

  Amanda had by now been back in Devon long enough to feel comfortable and content. Heathersleigh seemed more home to her now than it had ever been in her life. She turned twenty-five without fanfare. She wanted only to quietly enjoy the day with mother and sister. They went out and brought Maggie back to the Hall for afternoon tea and cakes.

  Lieutenant Langham visited Heathersleigh on several more occasions.

  Stirling Blakeley returned to Milverscombe from Oxford. He and Catharine drew Amanda into their playful friendship, the three enjoying numerous rides about the countryside and many evenings reading together in the Heathersleigh library.

  Amanda continued to be aware of changes taking place within her. Noise and bustle and activity, which had always been her very sustenance, grew foreign to her spirit. The thought of setting foot inside London again did not remotely enter her mind.

  She became pensive, slow, given to early morning walks and reflective hours of contemplation, not anxious to make haste. She found herself especially drawn to the heather garden, though she did not know why. Jocelyn knew but said nothing. It was an answer to prayer she would share with Charles in the quietness of her own mother’s heart.

  As for the future, Amanda needed no plans. She did not fret to know what it held, for at last she was at peace with herself. Catharine’s question about her marriage haunted her, but did not diminish her anticipation for what possibilities might lie in the future. She would wait for the Lord to guide her there too.

  There remained deep sorrow in her heart. This could not be said to be a happy time, though she was at peace and eager to discover what the next chapter of life might hold. She accepted her sorrow as an intrinsic necessity of the slow transformation of her perspective, and thus allowed it to do its work in her heart. It was a well of sorrow, not a knife of sorrow, and therefore capable of being filled with the healing waters of selflessness, compassion, trust, and wisdom.

  One warm afternoon in late June, Amanda found herself standing at the window of her c
hildhood room gazing out upon the Devonshire countryside. She could not help but be reminded of the day at age seven when she had secretly followed her father to his prayer wood.

  She would do so again. She would walk along the same path as before, to remind herself what she had been, and what now, perhaps as a result, she wanted to become.

  As Amanda set out across the grassy fields and meadows on this day, how different were her thoughts and emotions from that day eighteen years earlier, and even from her visit a year ago before leaving for the Continent. The first had been filled with annoyance, the second with perplexity. Today, however, her heart was filled with quiet anticipation.

  No less today was she following her father than that day long ago, though now she was following his footsteps for the right reasons, seeking her father’s God, whom she had now made her own.

  The walk took her nearly an hour. Amanda was in no hurry. As always during this quiet season of her soul, she was making peace with many things as she went. A sense of what was coming grew steadily upon her.

  She arrived at the wood, paused briefly, then entered through the thick-growing surrounding stand of trees. A few moments later she stood inside the small grassy meadow. Yes, she thought, there was indeed a Presence here, just as she had felt a little over a year ago. At that time she had not been ready to apprehend its full meaning. It was not only the presence of her departed father she felt here in his tiny cathedral of trees.

  The presence of God was here too. She knew that now.

  Amanda walked about briefly, then sat down on one of the three large stones. So many thoughts and memories filled her heart. They deepened the sadness, yet were no less enriching, for they offered the spiritual nourishment of growth and maturity.

  After several long quiet moments, slowly she eased to her knees in the grass, exactly as she had seen her father do, bent down her face, cradled it in her hands, and began to pray.

  “Lord and Father,” she whispered, “help me not be consumed by the guilt of what I was, for my selfish past. I cannot change it. And not even guilt will bring Daddy back. So I ask you to use it to make me the woman you want me to be.