Heathersleigh Homecoming (53 page)

 110 
Glimmers

It was not until some time had passed, and they were having tea together, that the subject of Bobby arose. Now for the first time did Amanda become aware that there was yet a third beloved Heathersleigh man she would never see again. The realization stung her heart anew and deepened her grief that she had delayed her homecoming so long. In the midst of fresh tears, Amanda thought of Maggie, and knew she must see her without delay.

In less than thirty minutes the three Rutherford women were on their way to the cottage for a visit.

“I'm surprised you haven't widened this path to Maggie's so a car could make the drive,” said Amanda as they rode along the well-worn carriage track.

“Actually,” replied Jocelyn, “your father considered that very thing.” She paused, and the quiet was broken only by the steady
clomp-clomp-clomp
of the single horse ahead of them. “But he decided it would take something away from the wood and the setting of the cottage by assaulting it with the disruptive sounds and smells of an automobile.”

Having no idea they were on their way to see her, Maggie, meanwhile, was on her knees in the middle of her garden. As if stimulated yet the more by Amanda's homecoming, though she yet knew nothing of it, her earlier agitation had heightened as the day progressed. Her thoughts had come to gather about a time several months earlier when she had risen from a sound sleep with her Bobby's words about a hidden legacy in her brain, and now in her mind she relived the discovery she had made that night.

————

Whether Maggie had read every word in this Bible was doubtful. Some of the law and history books of the Old Testament had never infected her with particular interest. Theologians might find meaning in the lists of names and tassels and cords on the tabernacle, parbars westward or killings of bulls for the altar. Her interests had always been along more practical lines.

But of one thing she was sure—she
had
read every word of the New Testament. And the Gospels more times than she could count. She had pored over every word of them, especially the words from the mouth of the Savior himself. And now on this night she paused again here, as she had many times, in the eleventh chapter of Mark's Gospel to ponder the words underlined by her grandmother, in the Bible her own mother, Maggie's great-grandmother, had given her.

“To you is given to understand the mystery of the kingdom. . . .”

There were the words, faint now with the passing of years, added in the margin in her grandmother's own hand—words as familiar to her as this Bible itself. She had seen the brief note most of her life, thinking it merely a reference to the importance of the verse. She had tried to impress that importance on young Amanda one time long ago right here in this very cottage whose origins and history were now on her mind.

She read the words over again, then a third time, puzzling over the strange handwritten annotation.

There is a mystery
, her grandmother had written in the margin,
and the key is closer than you think. The key . . . the key . . . find the
key and unlock the mystery
.

Suddenly the words jumped out at Maggie with new meaning she had never seen.

Might this mean what she was now thinking! Was the late hour and silence of the night playing tricks on her brain!

A key!

How could she not have made the connection before now?

There was a small, old, peculiar key that had been kicking around her entire life in the drawer of the secretary. No one knew what it was for.

Could its purpose be connected to her grandmother's words!

Below the note had been added another reference, even tinier. All it said was “Genesis 25:31–33.”

Why had she not investigated it before? thought Maggie.

What did it matter—she would do so now!

Quickly she flipped back to the halfway point of the sacred volume's first book, scanned down the heavily underlined and annotated page, which also must have been among her grandmother's favorites, judging from the use the text had received. Her eyes stopped on the thirty-first verse.

“And Jacob said,” she read, “Sell me this day thy birthright. And Esau said, Behold, I am at the point to die: and what profit shall this birthright do to me? And Jacob said, Swear to me this day; and he sware unto him: and he sold his birthright unto Jacob.”

What could it mean? thought Maggie.

What birthright?

What had her grandmother been trying to convey? Were her marginal notes a cryptic message to someone in the future about this key . . . a mystery . . . a birthright?

Who were Jacob and Esau?

Again Maggie flipped back to the Gospel of Mark. There were the strange words again.

Find the key and unlock the mystery . . . Genesis 25:31–33

Suddenly her mind began racing feverishly.

Could what had just occurred to her really be possible?

The key . . . the mystery . . . the sale of the birthright.

The fantastic thought was so incredible that for a moment she sat reeling in disbelief.

Maggie rose, set her Bible aside, and walked to the ancient secretary, built, as her mother had told her, by her grandfather, Maggie's own great-grandfather. As she approached, she eyed it with eyes alive to sudden new possibilities.

With trembling hand she lowered the lid to the secretary portion. Above the desk was a small nine-inch-wide drawer. Carefully now she pulled it out. The drawer was small, only four or five inches deep. Inside her eyes now fell on the key she had seen resting there all her life.

“What is it for?” she remembered asking her own mother.

“Something about the secretary, I think, dear,” Mrs. Crawford had replied. “My mother used to speak mysteriously about it, but I never saw a lock anywhere about the cabinet, and never knew what it was for.”

“But if Grandmother said—”

“She was old by then, Maggie dear. She may have been mistaken.”

And there the key had lain all these years.

Maggie now removed it and turned it over slowly in her fingers. A tingle went through her. Something was here, she was sure of it.

Find the key and unlock the mystery. . . .

She was now convinced that the words her grandmother had written carried a meaning underlying that of the Scripture itself.

What mystery could this key be meant to unlock?

————

Suddenly sounds interrupted Maggie's reminiscences. Her reflections were cut short as she glanced up to see a familiar carriage approaching along the lane through the wood.

 111 
Grandma Maggie's Embrace

The moment Maggie saw her visitors, she stood up in the midst of her garden. When she realized Amanda was with them, she began nodding to herself.
“I should have known it
, Lord,”
she said quietly.
“Now I know what you
were saying this morning. I don't know why it
wasn't the first thing to come to my mind. I suppose I'm getting a bit thickheaded in my
old age.”

She walked forward, tears already on their way. Again Amanda leapt from the carriage before it had stopped and ran forward. Amanda went straight to her arms and was swallowed in the grandmotherly embrace.

“I am so sorry about Bobby,” said Amanda softly. “I only learned of it a short while ago.”

“My season of heartbreak is past,” said Maggie. “I am now able to rejoice that the dear man's in his new home. So don't be sad for me.—Oh,” she said, now stepping back to arm's length as she held Amanda's shoulders and gazed upon her, “just look at you. It so gladdens my heart to see you, Amanda dear! I have prayed for you night and day all these years.”

“I know you have, Maggie,” said Amanda, “and for the first time in my life I can tell you how appreciative I am that you and dear Bobby didn't give up praying for me. I was very stubborn, but I am finally home. Thanks to the prayers of all of you who kept loving me.”

Catharine and Jocelyn now came forward, and additional greetings and hugs, kisses and tears innumerable followed.

“Oh, but my heart is sore for the three of you,” said Maggie, looking at each of her visitors with such depths of compassion. “My Bobby lived a full life and was ready to go, but poor Master Charles and Master George—”

Maggie's voice caught in her throat. The three gathered around her, the bereaved offering comfort to their friend. After a few tearful
moments in a fourway embrace on the edge of Maggie's garden, they gradually moved apart. Then at last did a few smiles slowly begin to brighten the Heathersleigh landscape.

“Come in . . . come in,” said Maggie. “We'll have some tea. I want to hear all about my dear Amanda. I can hardly believe you are actually here, my dear! You have grown into a lovely woman indeed.”

The smile on Amanda's face, and accompanying tears, was so different than any expression Maggie had seen on her countenance before. Amanda appeared years older, and, as much as might be said under these painful circumstances, more at peace with herself than Maggie had seen her.

Thirty minutes later, as Jocelyn sat watching Maggie, Amanda, and Catharine talking together around Maggie's kitchen table for the first time ever like grandmother and two grown-up granddaughters, she quietly took in the features of her two daughters.

Maggie was right, thought Jocelyn—Amanda was indeed a
woman
now. The eyes of her motherhood could hardly fathom it. Though Catharine was larger than all three of them, at twenty she still displayed the signs of youth. Her animated gestures and boisterous laugh and infectious energy curiously reminded Jocelyn of Amanda as a girl. How strange, yet how marvelous, Jocelyn thought, that in a way they had reversed personalities. Now it was Amanda quietly watching, listening, and absorbing, while Catharine chattered freely away. It was Amanda who sat with face slowly moving back and forth, smiling and responding, yet more reluctant to speak than before, taking it all in with the eyes and ears of mature adulthood.

Amanda's face had thinned, and both high cheekbones and jaw were more pronounced, lips, even in this difficult time, more inclined upward toward a smile than in past years, and evenly spaced white teeth not bashful to reveal themselves. The overall effect was of a woman's not a girl's face, and a pretty one, thought Jocelyn, thin and—strange as it was to think it—peaceful. Amanda's brown hair, lightly curled, was shorter than her mother remembered it, framing a full forehead, whose lines revealed thought and intelligence at last pointed in the right directions. She looked out upon the world from green eyes that seemed somehow larger than before, and more perceptive and awake, as if searching for meaning. They bore just the hint of a few lines at their edges, showing that youth was giving way to maturity, lines that may have come to her eyes four or five
years ahead of their time, but whose pain would do its work and thus serve her character well. She walked slowly now, not always rushing ahead, even hanging a step or two behind Catharine, displaying a new reticence of nature that became her with grace.

Jocelyn could hardly prevent tears at the sight. She had never known whether to hope for such a day, and now here it was. Her reverie was interrupted by the sounds of Amanda's voice.

“As I see the two of you,” said Amanda to Catharine and Maggie, “talking about so many things and such good friends, I realize how much I have missed out on by being away all these years. I only wish . . .”

Her voice faltered. She stopped and looked away.

“Don't fret, my dear,” said Maggie, reaching out and placing a warm hand on top of Amanda's. “The Scriptures say that the Lord will return to us the years the locusts have eaten. I believe he will give those years back to you as well.”

“But—”

“Yes, I know we've suffered our losses. And our earthly eyes cannot see how good can come of it or how those years can possibly be restored. But the Lord will see to all that too.”

Dusk had begun to descend as Jocelyn and her two daughters rode back to the Hall several hours later. They had not been back for long when Timothy telephoned, saying he would be out to Devon the next day.