Heathersleigh Homecoming (29 page)

 53 
Becoming a Daughter

All the following day, Sister Gretchen prayed for Amanda. She had detected the subtle shift in spirit. That evening they were all seated around the fire with books or needlework in their laps. After some time, Gretchen broke the silence.

“Tell us
your
story, Amanda,” she said. “What circumstances led you to the train station where I first saw you?”

“Oh . . . you wouldn't be interested.”

“Surely you know us better than that by now. That is the reason we are here, the reason we bring people to be with us. We ask the Lord to send us people who have lost hope.”

“So, you think that about me,” snapped Amanda sarcastically.

Several of the sisters glanced up. Eyes met as they seemed of one accord to sense a sudden dropping of the spiritual barometer.

“I was not referring specifically to you, Amanda dear. I did not mean to offend you. Although I must say,” added Gretchen, “when I saw you in Milan, you had a look of hopelessness such as I have rarely seen.”

Amanda sat in silence. As is the pattern with many, now that the unpleasant circumstances in which she had found herself earlier were alleviated and the temporary crisis past, she had begun again to consider herself an island who neither needed nor wanted anyone else's help.

“Our mission in life is to give hope by encouragement and hospitality,” Sister Hope now added. “We try to help people to see that however bleak their circumstances, they yet have a Father who loves them, and is doing his very best for them.”

At the word
father
, Amanda bristled yet more. Her unsettled annoyance was growing more pronounced by the minute.

Both Gretchen and Hope saw it clearly enough.

“Amanda,” Gretchen began after a moment or two, “I would like to tell you a story about a young lady who was here at the chalet a number of years ago. She had been the most compliant little girl in the world growing up. She hardly ever did anything wrong and never needed to be spanked.

“But deep inside this girl carried a secret. More than just a secret—it was a secret
sin
. One of the worst sins imaginable. It was the kind of sin that rarely hurts anyone else because it is a very private sin. But if it is allowed to remain, it can destroy the person herself. And it almost destroyed her.”

Amanda wasn't interested, but she supposed she didn't have much choice but to sit and listen. She sensed that the sisters were closing in on her. It had begun to feel like years before at home.

“This little girl positively
hated
being told what to do,” Gretchen went on. “She did what was expected, but always on her own terms. She had a temper, too, but she learned to control it. She pretended to be obedient, to smile at the right times, and to wear a mask to hide what she was feeling down inside. In her own way, I suppose, she wanted to be good, but she didn't want to be
told
to be good. All the while, as she grew, she became more and more determined to get away from her parents at the first opportunity, so that she could be free of their rules and ways of doing things. More than anything, she wanted to dictate her
own
affairs. She wanted to make her
own
decisions. She never wanted anyone telling her what to do again.

“That's what made it such a serious sin—because that kind of attitude can prevent a person's entering into the relationship with God we're supposed to have. This girl thought about God sometimes. She even prayed. But she never realized that her independent spirit prevented God from being able to say anything back to her.

“Finally when she was twenty-one she had the chance she had been looking for. She was offered a job as a professor's secretary. You see, this girl was very intelligent and had made the most of her education. The pay was very good, and she could easily afford to live on her own as she had dreamed of doing.

“She left home and worked at the new job for three years. But inside she was not as happy as she had always expected to be. Then she met another young lady several years older than herself. Immediately they became close friends. But the independent girl of twenty-four realized her friend had something she did not have.”

“What was that?” asked Amanda, gradually finding herself interested in the girl of the story.

“A meaningful relationship with God,” answered Sister Gretchen. “The younger girl saw immediately that it was much different than her own shallow belief. Her new older friend had invited her to come and live with her one summer when the professor in the city did not need her. She came to assume that the idyllic surroundings of her friend's country home must be the cause of her peacefulness and spiritual maturity. If she could just stay there forever, she thought, she would eventually develop the same faith her friend had. The more she was around her friend, the more she hungered after intimacy with God too. Yet she didn't know how to attain it.”

“Why didn't she ask about it?” asked Amanda.

“That is exactly what she did. But her friend's answer surprised her. Actually, at first it made her a little angry.”

“What did her friend say?” asked Amanda.

“She said that living in a peaceful setting would not bring her close to God.”

“‘Why?' the girl asked.

“‘Because there is something wrong in your soul,' answered the other, ‘something preventing the intimacy you seek.'

“‘What could that possibly be?' asked the first.

“‘A spirit of prideful independence,' answered the older.

“Sudden anger rose up within the younger of the two.
Pride . . . independence
—how dare her friend say such things! You see, beneath a very calm exterior, she still possessed her silent temper. She did not like to be criticized any more than she wanted to be told what to do.”

“What did she do?” asked Amanda.

“She stormed off,” Gretchen answered. “She smoldered and pouted and was silent for days. Eventually, of course, she calmed down. Actually, she was a little ashamed of herself. So she went to her friend and apologized. Then she said she was ready to listen.

“The older of the two young women became very thoughtful. ‘Are you certain you want to hear what I have to tell you?' she asked. ‘It may be painful.'

“The younger said she was certain. She was ready to grow, she said, no matter what it took.

“So the older spoke very bluntly. ‘You have been resisting authority all your life,' she said. ‘When you were younger and you could not
run away from it, in your heart you silently resisted your parents, doing things your own way even though you pretended to obey.'

“‘How do you know that?' asked the other.

“‘Am I right in what I say?'

“‘Yes, but how could you know?'

“‘It is not so hard to see. You still carry the same spirit. For those with eyes to see such things, it is as plain as the nose on your face. I see it all about you. Until it is dealt with, it will forever keep you distant from your heavenly Father.'

“‘What should I do?' asked the younger.

“‘You must learn what you should have learned as a little girl. You must learn to rejoice in being a child so that you can learn to become God's daughter.'

“‘Surely . . . you don't mean I should go back to
live
with my parents. You don't mean literally . . . a
child
.'

“‘I mean a child in spirit, one who does not resent authority over them—parents or anyone.'

“‘I am a grown woman. I have not lived with my parents for over three years.'

“‘Twenty-four is not really so very old.'

“‘But do you actually suggest that I . . . go back and live with them?'

“‘That is not for me to say. Whether with them or alone, somehow you must put right within yourself what you refused to learn early in life. You must learn to be happy and content under authority. Only then will you be able to discover the true independence of adulthood—the humble freedom of maturity rather than the prideful independence of childhood. It is what being God's daughter is all about.'”

Sister Gretchen paused thoughtfully.

“What happened? What did she do?” asked Amanda.

Gretchen remained quiet for another few long moments.

“I quit my job and went back to live with my parents,” she replied at length. “I remained with them for five years, seeking to honor them and submit to them in my heart as I should have many years before. Believe it or not, they were the happiest years of my life. My parents treated me respectfully like an adult, yet I was able to honor them in a new way, even serve them and help them far more than I ever had when I was younger. I tried to live for
them
, rather than only for
myself. My mother and father became true friends. My pride and self-centeredness gradually fell away—or, I should say,
began
to fall away. And I found myself beginning to understand many things about God in a new light. My dear friend had been right—the doorway to intimacy with God was through my very own parents. Not because of anything they did or said, but because of the change God wrought within me as a result of my decision to put myself willingly under them.
My
heart was wrong, and it could only be made right as I dealt with my wrong spirit toward authority. After five years, with my parents' blessing and encouragement, I went back to live with my friend, and I have been here ever since.”

She smiled at the other sisters, though Amanda was silently beginning to fume at the trick she now felt had been played on her.

“I would have been content to remain with my parents even longer,” Gretchen continued. “But by then, I think I was ready to leave. And, of course, this time I sought their counsel in the decision. They, too, thought it was time for me to establish my own life apart from them, now that I had discovered what I had been put under their care and authority to learn in the first place. I now visit them every chance I get. Along with the sisters here, and my own sister Elsie, my mother is my best friend. My father is old, and if he should die, my mother will come to live with us here.”

“Why didn't you tell us it was about you all along?” said Amanda stormily.

“I wanted you to hear my story,” replied Gretchen. “I thought that was the best way of telling it.”

Amanda rose and walked off under a cloud.

 54 
Against Entreaties and Persuasions

The next evening the sisters gathered again in front of the fireplace for the second installment of
Robinson Crusoe
. They had seen little of Amanda all day. She had been down for lunch but had not participated in any of the day's chores, keeping to herself all afternoon in her room. She had not spoken a word at supper.

When the dishes were done and the kitchen clean and a nice fire crackling, they all took chairs in the big room. Amanda sat to one side, expressionless.

Sister Gretchen picked up the book, opened it to where they had left off, and began to read.

My father, who was very aged, had given me a competent share of learning, as far as house-education and a country free-school generally go, and designed me for the law; but I would be satisfied with nothing but going to sea; and my inclination to this led me so strongly against the will, nay, the commands of my father, and against all the entreaties and persuasions of my mother and other friends, that there seemed to be something fatal in that propensity of nature, tending directly to the life of misery which was to befall me.

“It seems that many young people set their sights contrary to what their parents want for them,” Regina commented. A few nods went around the room. Sister Gretchen continued.

My father, a wise and grave man, gave me serious and excellent counsel against what he foresaw was my design. He called me one morning into his chamber, where he was confined by the gout, and expostulated very warmly with me upon this subject: he asked me what reasons, more than a mere wandering inclination, I had for leaving his house
and my native country, where I might be well introduced, and had a prospect of raising my fortune, by application and industry, with a life of ease and pleasure. He told me it was men of desperate fortunes, on one hand, or of superior fortunes, on the other, who went abroad upon adventures. . . .

He pressed me earnestly, and in the most affectionate manner, not to play the young man, nor to precipitate myself into miseries which nature, and the station of life I was born in, seemed to have provided against . . . and that he should have nothing to answer for, having discharged his duty in warning me against measures which he knew would be to my hurt . . . and though he said he would not cease to pray for me, yet he would venture to say to me, that if I did take this foolish step, God would not bless me; and I would have leisure hereafter to reflect upon having neglected his counsel, when there might be none to assist in my recovery.

I observed in this last part of his discourse, which was truly prophetic, though I suppose my father did not know it to be so himself; I say, I observed the tears run down his face very plentifully . . . and that when he spoke of my having leisure to repent, and none to assist me, he was so moved that he broke off the discourse, and told me his heart was so full he could say no more to me.

Gradually Amanda was growing uneasy.

She saw the parallel clearly enough with what her own parents had tried to do in urging her not to go to London. But this was just a story, after all, she tried to reason. Let this fellow Robin Crusoe, or whatever his name was, be as stubborn and rebellious as he wanted—what was that to her?

What was any of it to her!

She had a good mind to get up and leave. Yet still she sat for a little while longer.

. . . I took my mother at a time when I thought her a little more pleasant than ordinary, and told her that my thoughts were so entirely bent upon seeing the world . . . and my father had better give me his consent than force me to go without it; that I was now eighteen years old . . . and if she would speak to my father to let me make but one voyage abroad, if I came home again, and did not like it, I would go no more, and I would promise, by a double diligence, to recover the time I had lost.

This put my mother in a great passion; she told me she knew it would be to no purpose to speak to my father upon any such a subject;
that he knew too well what was my interest to give his consent to anything so much for my hurt; and that she wondered how I could think of any such thing after the discourse I had had with my father, and such kind and tender expressions as she knew my father had used to me; and that, in short, if I would ruin myself, there was no help for me; but I might depend I should never have their consent to it; that for her part, she would not have so much hand in my destruction; and I should never have it to say that my mother was willing when my father was not.

Though my mother refused to move it to my father, yet I heard afterwards that she reported all the discourse to him, and that my father, after showing great concern at it, said to her, with a sigh, “That boy might be happy if he would stay at home; but if he ever goes abroad, he will be the most miserable wretch that ever was born: I can give no consent to it.”

“He was a true prodigal, wasn't he?” said Sister Marjolaine.

“Obstinately deaf,” rejoined Sister Agatha, “—what an apt description of the prodigal mentality.”

It was not till almost a year after this that I broke loose, though, in the mean time, I continued obstinately deaf . . . and frequently expostulated with my father and mother about their being so positively determined against what they knew my inclination prompted me to. But being one day at Hull, whither I went casually, and without any purpose of making an elopement at that time . . . I consulted neither father nor mother any more, nor so much as sent them word of it; but left them to hear of it as they might, without asking God's blessing or my father's, without any consideration of circumstances or consequences, and in an ill hour, God knows.

“The age-old story,” remarked Sister Gretchen, “—no one is going to tell
me
what to do. How well I know. He sounds just like me!”

“I realize it's only a story,” said Regina, “but why do young people like Robinson Crusoe find following counsel so difficult to heed? I know what you have shared about your past, Sister Gretchen, but I confess, I do not entirely understand it, never having felt such things toward my parents.”

“It would have kept young Crusoe out of a good deal of trouble,” said Marjolaine, “if he hadn't resented the good advice of this father.”

“How do you know?” asked Anika.

“Oh, I forgot,” she giggled. “I've read it before!”

By now Amanda had entirely had enough. She was certain everyone was thinking of her. Finally she rose in the middle of the discussion, left the room, and walked toward the stairs.

“Are you coming back, Amanda?” Marjolaine asked, glancing after her.

“No, the story doesn't interest me.”

She did not intentionally slam her door, but she made sure the others knew she had closed it tight and would not be listening to anything more that was said.