A New Dawn Over Devon Page 6

  “Indeed I do,” replied Maggie, handing each of the girls a cup of tea.

  “I had a pretty sour disposition, as I remember,” said Amanda. “Of course back then I think I always did—”

  “Not always,” interjected Catharine. “We had a lot of fun together. I have very happy memories of playing together.”

  “That is kind of you to say, Catharine,” said Amanda, turning a smile toward her sister. “But I often was grumpy, and I’m sure Grandma Maggie remembers even if you do not. But what I was saying is that your speaking of the mystery of the kingdom that day, and the passage from Mark 4, had a double meaning, didn’t it? You were trying to help me see the mystery of the kingdom of God. Yet there was also the mystery of your bureau and what was hidden inside it.”

  “Which even I hadn’t an idea about at the time,” said Maggie.

  “And how this cottage passed out of the family and to the bishop,” Catharine added.

  “Which I have put right in my will,” concluded Maggie. “Do not forget, girls, that when I die, this cottage will again belong to you and your mother.”

  “Please, Grandma Maggie,” said Catharine, “don’t you talk of dying. You are as healthy as ever and will be with us at least another thirty years.”

  “Ah, Catharine, my dear,” Maggie chuckled, “when a body gets to my age, one begins to feel that moving on to the next life isn’t such a worrisome thing. Speaking for myself, I do not want to live another thirty years! In any event, all I ask is that once in a while the two of you enjoy a cup of tea together here and remember your grandma Maggie and grandpa Bobby, and that they loved you and your brother and your dear father and mother as if you were all our own.”

  “Oh, Grandma Maggie,” said Catharine, “that is so sweet. Of course we will always remember you. We could never think of Heathersleigh Cottage and its beautiful growing things everywhere without thinking of you along with it.”

  As the girls rode away from the cottage an hour later, Amanda remained quiet. After some time Catharine glanced toward her and saw that her older sister was crying.

  “Amanda dear,” she said, “what is it?”

  “You can’t know the grief I feel, Catharine,” replied Amanda, “what it is like to realize I have spent a lifetime seeing only through the eyes of self, and how much hurt I have caused. It’s so hard, like nothing I have ever known. Even such a simple thing as watching how close you and Grandma Maggie are—I am not envious, I think it’s wonderful . . . but it brings a stab to my heart to realize all I threw away. And I feel such guilt that I will never see Grandpa Bobby again. The rest of you were all here when he died, to spend his last days with him. But I was on another continent, not even knowing. What grief it must have caused him to die never seeing me again. Now it’s too late. It is something I can never undo.”

  Catharine remained silent. There was much she wanted to say. Yet she knew that Amanda was right. She herself couldn’t fully understand. She had never faced what Amanda was feeling. Therefore, she would give her no advice without considering her words carefully.

  “I’m so sorry, Amanda,” she said, reaching across a tender hand.

  “I know, Catharine,” replied Amanda, forcing a teary smile. “Thank you. But sometimes I don’t know how I will ever be able to forgive myself.”

  “I’m certain the Lord will show you when the time comes.”

  Amanda nodded. “You know,” she said, drawing in a deep breath, “I think I need to be alone for a while. Maybe I’ll just . . . I don’t know, ride into the village or out into the country. I need some time to think.—Do you mind?”

  “Of course not,” replied Catharine. “I’ll see you back at the Hall.”

  ————

  Elsbet heard footsteps approaching at the end of the street outside. She set down the cooking fork in her hand and hurried from the stove. She opened the door with an eager smile to greet her father.

  The sight that met her eyes was not what she expected. He was running along the street faster than she had ever seen him move, with a frantic look on his face, an expression one did not see on a strong man who knew how to take care of himself.

  He called out the instant she appeared, “Get away, run Elsbet—run from the house!”

  She stood in the doorway confused.

  “Get away . . . run,” he panted as he lumbered toward her.

  In fearful uncertainty she backed inside and stood waiting.

  Seconds later he bounded up the three steps and yanked the door closed behind him in exhaustion.

  He stumbled into the room, glancing about desperately. All the while the bewildered girl stared up at him silently.

  “It’s too late to get away now,” he gasped. “They will see you—into the garret with you.”

  He now turned toward her, trying to calm himself. He stooped and gazed earnestly into his daughter’s face. His eyes flashed with unmistakable terror.

  “Elsbet,” he said, still breathing heavily and looking into her face seriously, “I want you to get into the garret . . . quickly!”

  With big eyes, at last growing afraid from what she saw in her father’s eyes, she nodded.

  “Go, now,” he said, rushing her to the ladder, “—that’s a good lass, up you go. Close the door behind you and don’t make a sound . . . not a peep, do you hear, Elsbet—not a peep.”

  Within seconds she had scrambled into the loft. With a great heave, Sully shot the ladder into the opening behind her.

  “Lower the door,” he added, “close it tight. Good girl . . . be still, not a whisper.”

  She let down the door.

  “Papa,” she whimpered through the final crack of disappearing light from the room below as she began to cry. “Papa, I love you.”

  But he did not hear the poignant words. Already he had turned and was making for the street to continue his escape.

  It was too late.

  Before he reached it, the door burst open with a terrible crash, and instantly the small flat was filled with angry voices. In terror Elsbet lay down on the floor, peering through a narrow slit between two ceiling boards. She recognized two or three of her father’s worst companions.

  Terrible yelling and fighting and accusations broke out.

  “Let’s have it, Conlin!” shouted one.

  “I had nothing to do—!”

  “It’s no use lying. We saw you with him!” A violent curse filled the air.

  The man suddenly cried out in pain from a blow delivered by Sully’s fist cracking his jaw. Two of his companions surged forward. The burly sailor stumbled back, splintering the table on which his daughter had been preparing to set his breakfast, and crashed onto the bed behind it. The two pounced on top of him. One pulled a pistol from his pocket.

  The next instant a great explosion sounded. From where she watched, Elsbet leapt out of her skin at the deafening sound. As the echo from the gunshot faded, none of the men below heard the terrified shriek above them that had accompanied it.

  “Now you’ve done it—let’s get out of here!” cried the ringleader through his broken jaw. Footsteps bounded across the floor even as the dying echo of gunfire reverberated off the walls.

  For several long seconds Elsbet waited.

  “Papa,” she whimpered at length.

  No sound answered.

  “Papa,” she called out again a little louder. Still he did not answer. A terrible coldness, as of an icy hand, gripped the girl’s heart.

  She sat up and raised the door of the loft. With great effort she managed to drag the ladder across the boards, lift one end and maneuver the other through the hole. It took all her strength to lower it to the floor without dropping it. When the bottom was securely on the floor, she climbed down. It did not take long for her to see the horrible truth of what the dreadful sound had been.

  Shock at the horror of the sight silenced her lips. She crept forward and reached out a tentative hand toward the warm pool of blood that drenched her father’s chest.


  She had never seen death before this moment. But she knew from the empty stare of his open eyes that her father was no longer the man she had known, and that her life with him was over.

  The silence of her tongue lasted but a moment. At the touch of the blood upon her hand, suddenly the streets for blocks rang with the despairing shriek of the little orphan.

  The days of innocence for Elsbet Conlin were gone. Though she had never before felt such an emotion toward others of her kind, hatred now rose within her toward the men who had done this evil thing. Through clenched teeth and with a heart of stone, she vowed that she would kill every one of them if ever she had it in her power. She would remember their faces, their voices, and when she was older she would return and find them.

  But she could not tarry long. They might be back. And she could not kill them now. Impulsively she pried apart her father’s fingers and withdrew what they had clutched in the last moment of his life, cast one last tearful look into his face, then stole carefully out the door. Looking to the right and left, she bolted along the street and away from the house that had become a place of death. Behind her the slice of meat slowly curled into smoky blackness on the stove.

  Where she ran she hardly knew; only that she ran until her lungs ached. Still she ran. The streets and the houses of the town grew farther apart. On she ran, not knowing where. Gradually she left the town behind. When she slowly became aware of herself, an hour or two had passed and she was alone, without human habitation in sight, on a lonely moorland overlooking the sea.

  She paused to catch her breath, then stared out at the water below.

  She had no destination. All she could think were her father’s words, “The sea is our friend . . . find the sea . . . follow the sea.”

  With her father gone, the great expanse of blue he had loved was now the only link to her life with him. Movement gradually again came to her legs, and slowly she continued on. No thoughts or plans entered her mind, only an impulse to keep the sea in sight. If the sea had taken her mother, maybe it would now take her. She must remain near it.

  4

  A Little Girl Named Chelsea

  Amanda rode into Milverscombe, tied her horse, and absently walked into one of the town’s few shops. She had nothing on her mind to do other than distract herself from the unpleasant reminders that the visit to Maggie had stirred up within her. She did not necessarily want to avoid the thoughts—she knew this time of growth was necessary—but did not want to be alone with them.

  “Hello, Miss Rutherford,” said the shopkeeper warmly as she entered. “Is there something I can help you find?”

  “No, but thank you, Mrs. Feldstone,” replied Amanda. “I just thought I would look at some of your fabric.”

  Amanda wandered through the few bolts of cloth the shop had on hand and toward the back of the store. But in her present frame of mind nothing here was of interest. She smiled at the round-faced woman and left, continuing along the street in the direction of the station.

  Suddenly she heard footsteps behind her running along the boarded walk. She turned and saw a girl of eleven or twelve whom she did not recognize running toward her. The moment she saw Amanda turn, the girl stopped.

  For an uncertain second or two they stared at one another. At last the girl spoke.

  “You’re Amanda Rutherford,” she said excitedly.

  “Yes . . . yes, I am,” replied Amanda. “How did you know?”

  “Oh, I know who you are. My mother told me how you went to London to join the suffragettes. It was so exciting. I always wanted to be like you.”

  The sting of hot tears filled Amanda’s eyes and she looked away. She could not hold the gaze even of a little girl for the shame of what she had just heard.

  After a moment she turned back, brushed at her eyes, and knelt down.

  “What is your name?” she asked.

  “Chelsea . . . Chelsea Winters,” said the girl.

  “Oh yes,” smiled Amanda, “now I remember . . . I know your mother.” She paused, looking earnestly into the girl’s face. “Chelsea,” she went on seriously. “I am going to tell you something I hope you will remember and think about.”

  The girl’s eyes returned Amanda’s stare with wide silence.

  “I am not a person you should want to be like, Chelsea,” Amanda went on. “When I was your age I did not know how much my parents loved me. I did not pay enough attention to what they told me, and it landed me in a great deal of trouble.”

  The awestruck expression on the face gazing back at her sobered.

  “Do you understand, Chelsea?”

  Slowly the girl nodded.

  “Be a good girl, Chelsea, not a proud and selfish one like Amanda Rutherford was.”

  Amanda felt her voice beginning to fail her. She rose and walked away, leaving little Chelsea Winters silently staring after her.

  ————

  Somehow the day passed. When shadows of evening began to lengthen, Elsbet’s stout little legs were easily fifteen or twenty miles along the coast away from the town she had never set foot outside of before that day. Even had her father’s murderers known they had been observed, they could never hope to find her now.

  Night gradually fell. Fear mingled with her hatred for the evil men, and Elsbet knew she must find a place to hide for the night. She began to look for a crevice in the hills along the water.

  She crept into a cave and lay down in exhaustion. Weariness was her best friend on this most dreadful first night, for it dulled her brain and made her drowsy. With the sounds of the waves lulling together in her mind with memories of her father, she finally cried herself to sleep.

  Within less than fifty feet from the water’s edge, the fatherless girl managed to pass a fitful night.

  Elsbet Conlin awoke to the same rhythmic sounds of water slopping and sloshing at the rocks that had lulled her to sleep outside the mouth of the cave. As she drank in the sound, her first few moments of wakefulness were peaceful.

  Suddenly the terrible nightmare crashed back upon her. She wept the bitter tears of the motherless who was now suddenly fatherless as well. With renewed horror, visions of the previous day returned, adding tenfold to her sense of isolation, and a hundredfold to the hatred digging itself deep into her soul.

  Elsbet shivered. In the chilly morning, the coldness of life overwhelmed her. She was damp to the bone with the sticky, clammy, salty dew of the sea.

  She rose and left the cave, seeking movement and activity as the sole antidote for her grief. The morning was grey and still, the sun not yet up. At last she had begun to feel pangs of hunger and was very thirsty. She knew her temporary shelter offered no hope of satisfying either.

  She soon quenched her thirst in a small stream tumbling down the rocks into the ocean a half mile farther on. With no destination in mind, she continued in the direction she had been walking, moving along the shore itself and occasionally on the bluffs overlooking the sea, her father’s cryptic words the sole motivating force pushing her steps along.

  The sun rose, the day warmed, and still she walked. By midday, hunger had asserted itself more vigorously. The birds overhead and an occasional rabbit or squirrel brought interest to the day and gave her something alive to talk to and share her struggle with against the elements.

  By afternoon the conclusion had grown obvious that she was unlikely to find anything to eat on her present course and that food and water would be more accessible inland. Thus she gradually turned away from the sea into a region of desolate countryside.

  Even legs that are small make good time when they keep moving, and by the evening of the second day of her sojourn she had indeed covered a good distance, probably forty or more miles from the place she once called home. Without knowing anything of the borders of the land, she had by now left Cornwall behind and was walking through the county of England called Devonshire.

  Despite her hunger, sleep came that night more easily. Dusk had scarcely fallen when her legs fai
rly collapsed beneath her in the hollow of an open field.

  The next day she continued on again, drinking from streams but still finding nothing to eat but some berries that only succeeded in giving her a stomachache. She began to encounter a few cows and sheep, but was afraid of the people she saw in the fields tending them and kept out of sight. What if they were all killers?

  By nightfall she was famished. For a third night since her departure from the town, darkness closed around her.

  She trudged on. The night deepened. At length she saw a building ahead. She knew she was now in a more peopled region and that it might not be safe to sleep in the open. The few drops of rain that had begun to fall added to her resolve. As she approached the building, she heard the familiar sounds of animals. She was not afraid of them!

  She continued forward. The door was unlocked. She pushed it open and from inside came the homey smells of horseflesh, grass, and feed.

  She crept inside the dry barn and was soon fast asleep on a pile of hay.

  5

  Hector’s Surprise

  Hector Farnham, longtime faithful groom and servant to the Rutherfords of Heathersleigh Hall, awoke, as was his custom, an hour before the rest of the household.

  He rose, dressed, went downstairs, and ambled out into the kitchen, where he stoked the coals in the stove and added two fresh chunks of oak to make the fire ready for the housekeeper, Sarah Minsterly, and Lady Jocelyn when they awoke. He put water on for his own tea, then left the house by the kitchen door and made his way toward the barn to give the horses their first installment of breakfast, two fresh piles of fragrant alfalfa hay.

  He moved more slowly than in previous years. But even at sixty-one he still put in nearly as long a day as twenty years ago, and was more devoted than ever to his mistress and her two daughters now that the war had taken their men from them.

  He opened the barn door and entered. The familiar aromas and a few snorts and stamps of waiting hooves greeted him, the very sounds and smells of heaven to one who loved these majestic beasts as Hector did.