Wayward Winds (28 page)

 53 
Light . . . Or Darkness?

Charles turned from the window and picked up and scanned again the letter which had arrived in today's post.

Today's communication from Hartwell Barclay was quite different than the invitation to his ball in Cambridge several weeks earlier. This was no invitation. In these words Charles could feel more of what was perhaps the man's true nature than he had previously allowed himself to reveal.

My dear Mr. Rutherford, it began.

I confess to deep disappointment that you neither attended the gathering last month at Heathwood Green, nor felt the courtesy of explaining your decision to be appropriate. No doubt you had your reasons. However, our cause moves forward. Times are dangerous. The future we seek approaches, and dedicated individuals such as yourself are needed. We must know whether you are with us. Opportunity will not last forever. The future of your nation is at stake. Consider your course well. Opportunity is always double-edged. A new order of Light will soon emerge. Will you be part of it?

Earnestly,
H. Barclay

The words were couched in cordiality and friendliness, but an unmistakable message lay hidden between the lines.

It almost seemed to carry the ring of an ultimatum. Who was Hartwell Barclay anyway? Was he truly about their nation's business . . . or his own?

As on that day fourteen years ago, though in an entirely different way, Charles felt again that his future lay before him, that much depended on his response to this letter, more even than he was aware.

“Lord, show me
what you would have me do,”
he whispered.

For several more minutes Charles sat thinking. If he wrote and expressed what was on his heart, and his words were misconstrued . . . who could tell what might be the consequence? Perhaps that was a chance he must take in order to stand for light and truth. Not Mr. Barclay's version of so-called “light” but for
true
truth.

He went downstairs to seek Jocelyn. He showed the paper to her. She read it through twice, then glanced up with puzzled expression.

“What do you think, Jocie?”

“I haven't even met the man,” she said, “but he would frighten me. I see why you felt reluctance before. Something strange is at work here. I would very strongly urge you not to become involved further.”

Charles nodded seriously as she spoke, weighing her words carefully.

“Something is wrong,” Jocelyn continued. “I can sense it. It feels like some kind of political factionalism is involved here, almost conspiratorial.”

“That is a strong statement.”

“Secret objectives they are reluctant to share, taking offense when questioned or opposed, which I read so clearly in Mr. Barclay's letter—those are classic symptoms of schism groups. Such movements are always dangerous.”

Charles nodded, took the letter, and returned to his office. Jocelyn's confirmation was all he needed. Her instincts were usually sound on such matters. He should have asked her advice more directly before allowing himself to become involved even to the limited extent he had.

He sat down at his desk, took out a sheet of paper with his letterhead, and began to write. Thirty minutes later he again returned downstairs and handed a single sheet to his wife.

Dear Mr. Barclay, she read.

As much as I appreciate the interest you have shown and the apparent confidence you have in me, I must say that none of the questions which have concerned me about further involvement with
you have been satisfactorily addressed. I love my country, and I am concerned for its future. It has been my experience, however, that truth, as you claim to love so highly, is rarely produced by methods of stealth and secrecy. I have attempted to be straightforward, direct, honest, and sincere with you. But I have not found such open disclosure concerning your goals and objectives and background to have been reciprocated. I am sorry to be so blunt, but I cannot help feeling you are hiding something, hoping to win my loyalties before revealing exactly what you envision for the so-called new order. I must therefore decline any further contact with what you call the Fountain of Light.

I am, Mr. Barclay,
respectfully yours,

Sir Charles Rutherford,

Heathersleigh Hall, Devonshire

Jocelyn looked up, then nodded slowly.

“It's direct,” she said, “but I think you are doing the right thing.”

 54 
Hugh Wildecott-Browne

Hartwell Barclay read the letter he had just received for a second time.

Anger rose up within him. Not violent anger, but of the quiet, seething variety. Of the sort compelled to exact revenge.

He was not used to being rebuffed by individuals he had gone to such lengths to befriend. And spurning his kindness with such pointed and openly critical words!

This was no longer a matter of mere recruitment. Rather than joining them, by the words of this letter Rutherford had pitted himself
against
them. Such an outright challenge could not be allowed to stand.

“Redmond,” he said across the room, “it is time I had a personal chat with the relative we were speaking of before—the brother-in-law.”

“Browne . . . er,
Wildecott
-Browne?”

“Right, the wife's sister's husband. It may be we will have to get to the man through his wife.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Make contact, however seems most appropriate. Divulge nothing concerning our motives. If he is a solicitor, we may need more information about him before telling him of the Fountain. But we can see how he is disposed toward the family. In the meantime, get me all the information we have about the estranged daughter.”

————

When Hugh Wildecott-Browne walked into the comfortable lounge a few weeks later, he did not expect to find six or eight individuals awaiting him. The invitation from the professor who said he was a friend of the Rutherfords had said only that a matter would be discussed about which he might be able to help.

Introductions, pleasant food, expensive wine, and stimulating, though vague, political conversation followed. By the time the discussion at last arrived at that for which the invitation had been sent, Jocelyn Rutherford's brother-in-law, warmed and relaxed by the wine, and his ego and receptivities skillfully massaged by a lounge full of experienced experts, was in a congenial and responsive frame of mind.

“You are, as we understand it,” said Barclay at the appropriate moment of opening, “a man of religious feeling.”

“I am of high standing in my church,” replied the guest.

“You care about right and wrong, and know the difference?”

“Of course.”

“What we have to tell you, Hugh,” continued the lean white-haired gentleman, “is an extremely sad story. You are well familiar with the individuals involved. I speak primarily of your niece Amanda, daughter of your wife's sister. You know Amanda is not with her parents at present?”

“I am aware of something to that effect.”

“Do you know the reason?”

“I'm afraid I do not. I have never been close to Jocelyn's family. They are—”

Wildecott-Browne cleared his throat briefly.

“—I suppose it would be said that they are not exactly
our
kind of people. I don't go in for that business of making a public show of your religion, as if you're better than everyone else.”

“We understand perfectly,” nodded Barclay somberly. “You couldn't have expressed our sentiments more precisely.”

“Religion is a good thing,” went on Jocelyn's brother-in-law, warmed by the approval, “but if you ask me, it belongs in the church. I am a man who prefers his religion not made so much of, if you know what I mean.”

Again Barclay nodded. “We do indeed. I am happy to know that we have not misjudged you,” he went on. “You are clearly a man of conscience and moral decency.”

Barclay paused and grew serious. “What you are about to hear may shock you, Hugh,” he continued. “For a public man such as Charles Rutherford, or
Sir
Charles as he prefers to be called—though if ever a man was
less
deserving of the honor I do not know of him—for such a man to be lauded by the public, when behind the doors of his own home nothing short of such insensitivity and meanness toward his own family went on for years.”

“Meanness . . . I am afraid I do not understand.”

“Even cruelty, though it is admittedly a strong word, Hugh.”

“
Cruelty
 . . . to what specifically do you refer?”

“You cannot be unaware, Hugh . . . that is to say, there
are
some things it is impossible to hide . . .”

Barclay allowed his voice to trail off, leaving Wildecott-Browne to draw his own inference. In the absence of fact, the doubt of innuendo will serve almost as well.

“You don't mean . . . the scar on his wife's face?”

“No, of course not, Hugh,” rejoined Barclay. Even in the denial, he had achieved his end, which was to place suspicion and mistrust in the man's mind. “I speak of far more subtle things. I would not like to spread rumors. All I can say is that the poor woman has suffered beyond what any woman should have to endure from a man. Suffered psychologically, I mean, not physically. No doubt she convinces herself that such is her religious duty. But no woman should have to put up with it. Yet what poor Amanda has suffered, which finally left her with no alternative but to leave home when she was old enough to be able, truly is a dreadful indictment against a man who prides himself on being virtuous above his peers.”

“They have always seemed a bit high and mighty for my tastes,” nodded Hugh. “But I did not know the girl had actually been
forced
to leave home.”

“There is nothing else to call it. Of course, they paint a different picture. No doubt your wife has been told another side of it altogether so as to lay the blame on Amanda.”

Barclay paused, shaking his head sadly.

“The poor girl, it is all I can say,” he went on. “Her father was so overbearing, even dictatorial, so as to suffocate any possibility for free expression in his home.”

The room fell quiet for a moment. Wildecott-Browne was not exactly shocked by what he heard, though it was all new to him.
The lower side of his nature eagerly lapped up the news, as most unconsciously do, just because it was negative. Already his attorney's brain was revolving the different sides to the situation.

“Tell me,” he asked, “is my wife's sister involved? You say she too has been abused by the man, but what is her relation to her daughter? Is she culpable as well? She always struck me as a gentle and reasonable woman. Surely—”

“Ah, there is the doubly sad aspect of the case. Your poor wife's sister is trapped by the situation, yet is unable, like her daughter, to escape it. Poor Lady Rutherford is the one we feel sorry for. Yet she has deluded herself into thinking her husband a great man and that, however glaring his faults, she must stand faithfully by him. Thus we hardly see what can be done for her.”

By now the eyes of Jocelyn's brother-in-law were wide and his ears even more than normally receptive. Like Charles' cousin Gifford and many relatives generally, he was all too willing to accept unsubstantiated reports about one whom, though he had not spoken twelve words to him in the last twelve years, he had always harbored a bit of a secret annoyance.

By the time the evening was well advanced, with the information added by Mrs. Halifax, Hugh Wildecott-Browne was well on his way to becoming a loyal initiate into the Fountain of Light, though he had never heard the phrase, nor possessed the faintest inkling of what these new seeming friends stood for. He convinced himself that what he felt was familial responsibility, and inwardly determined to do his best for his niece and his sister-in-law. Without knowing it, the intelligent but foolish man had become the worst kind of pawn, one who believed what he was told with no attempt to substantiate it.

“What can I do to help?” he asked at length.

“You will have to determine that for yourself, Hugh,” replied Barclay with great humility. “It might be that you will want to contact your niece. She may need an understanding ear, or even a place of refuge.”

“Of course, of course,” he replied, “I will do whatever I can.”