Treasure of Stonewycke (The Stonewycke Legacy Book #3) , livre ebook

Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
© 1988 by Michael R. Phillips and Judith Pella
Published by Bethany House Publishers
11400 Hampshire Avenue South
Bloomington, Minnesota 55438
www.bethanyhouse.com
Bethany House Publishers is a division of
Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan
www.bakerpublishinggroup.com
Ebook edition created 2016
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
ISBN 978-1-4412-2980-9
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Cover design by Eric Walljasper
Judith Pella is represented by The Steve Laube Agency
Dedication
To those of God’s people who are seeking to impact history and their own posterity, by building into the generational flow of God’s dealing with man on the earth, according to Psalm 78:5–7.
“I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the sins of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations. . . . Know therefore that the Lord your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to those who love him and keep his commands. . . . Tell this to your children, and let your children tell it to their children, and their children to the next generation. . . . Let this be written for a future generation, that a people not yet born may praise the Lord.”
Deuteronomy 5:8; 7:9 Joel 1:3 Psalm 102:18
Contents
Cover 1
Title Page 3
Copyright Page 4
Dedication 5
Introduction 11
1. Mourners 15
2. Hilary Edwards 21
3. Afternoon With a Friend 30
4. A New Era 42
5. In a Dark Corner of the City 52
6. Back in London 55
7. The Dream 59
8. An Unexpected Visitor 63
9. Confirmation 72
10. Uncertainties 81
11. The Parcel 85
12. Hilary’s Resolve 94
13. North Toward Destiny 97
14. The Pan Am Red-Eye 108
15. The Bluster ’N Blow 111
16. Uninvited Thoughts 120
17. Unsought Heroism 125
18. Allison and Logan 132
19. Into the Future 137
20. A Long-Awaited Meeting 143
21. First Arrival 148
22. Altered Plans 154
23. The Oxford Connection 164
24. An Accident 169
25. Mustering a Force of One 175
26. Small Talk in the Parlor 177
27. A Visit to the Stable 183
28. Help From a Friend 188
29. Postponed Interview 193
30. Snowy Rendezvous 197
31. Fortuitous Encounter 201
32. Afternoon Tête-à-tête 210
33. Stadium Appointment 218
34. Another Arrival 223
35. Suspicions Aroused 229
36. Hidden Complexities 236
37. Of Ovid and Aristocrats 239
38. A Visit to Town 249
39. Late Tea 257
40. Hostilities 267
41. Duplicity or Veracity? 272
42. The Old Garden 276
43. Aborted Voyage 282
44. Detour and Diversion 286
45. Astonishing News 295
46. The Gallery 302
47. Outside the Ballroom 308
48. The Rakes O’ Glasgow 316
49. The Oxford Don 320
50. Conspiracy Uncovered 327
51. Flight 332
52. Faraway Alliance 335
53. Time of Reunion 340
54. Confirmation of Intent 344
55. Loose Fragments and Plans 352
56. A Ride 358
57. Lady Joanna’s Quest 363
58. Pieces Fall Together 373
59. Parental Vile 380
60. Father and Daughter 386
61. The Hook 394
62. Final Gambit 397
63. The Professor and the Assassin 402
64. Contact Is Made 411
65. In the Spider’s Lair 417
66. L’Escroc’s Curtain Call 423
67. Malice Unhinged 430
68. Reunion Out of Time 433
69. Final Stroke 440
70. The Truth 444
71. Vintage ’36 454
72. Trail of the Reliquary 459
73. Escape 467
74. The Berkshire Review 476
75. The Treasure of Stonewycke 480
76. Celebration of Love 485
Epilogue 490
About the Authors 494
Fiction by Michael Phillips 495
Books by Judith Pella 496
Introduction
From the earliest beginnings of time, God uniquely ordained the family as the primary human organism to transmit His life. The entire structure of ancient Israel was founded upon family. Chief among the commands of Moses to those under his charge was: “Teach these things to your sons and daughters.”
The Scriptures make abundantly clear that God’s intent when He created the family was that His life be carried down through time, through the family, forever—for a thousand generations. Each individual was designed to be nurtured by roots which reached deeply into the soil of the past, giving strength, which then in turn extended into the future.
In Satan’s devious cunning, however, he infiltrates and cuts off that umbilical cord of inner life which God implanted within the ongoing and extended family institution. When he is thus allowed to destroy family roots, this many-generational process is undone, and the result is that every successive generation or two, men and women have to discover faith anew. The ongoing vitality and strength of a permanent, life-giving root system is made impotent.
God has given us, however, a responsibility to infuse a heritage into the generations—a heritage involving both the past and the future, a heritage far broader in scope than our own mere lives. God desires permanency from His people, an ongoing fight against Satan’s ways, a continual breaking of the chains of evil from the past, even to the third and fourth generation back, and a passing on of the mandate of obedience to God to a thousand generations ahead.
Few apprehend the legacy which has been given us to pass down. We leave the treasure of God’s life buried. This parable of Stonewycke is but the universal story which God has been working to infuse within the human chain of generations with every family on the face of the earth. The heritage of God’s life within us is a legacy for all families, for all times.
This is not merely Maggie’s story, or Atlanta’s, or Joanna’s, or Allison’s. We all must step into it at our own time. Some are born into the bloodline, others (like the fictional Alec and Ian, and the Gentiles of whom Paul speaks) must be grafted in. But the life of God’s Spirit moves mightily throughout time, and every man and woman must one day face their own place in that life, in that legacy, just as do the characters in the story you are about to read. God takes us where we are—wanderers, orphans, in need of a Father, in search of our true Home—and makes us an integral part of that legacy.
Maggie “became” more than she could have been alone because the stream of God’s purpose (of which Stonewycke is a shadow, a type, an illustration) swept over her, drew her into it, and made it hers . The legacy is God’s life, not Maggie’s, but through her obedience was sublimated, and thereby passed on, into future generations.
At every time, in every era, within every human heart, the decision must be faced whether to accept one’s place within that legacy. Will we abandon ourselves to God’s plan and life for us, or will we ignore the river of the Spirit sweeping over us and let it pass without bringing us up into its inherent life? In every successive generation, every person must face the choices which will determine the impact God’s lifeblood will have in his or her own existence, and whether it will move through them into the future, or die. At every turn Satan will try to steal the inheritance which has been given us. Forces will infiltrate our families telling of false priorities, false ambitions, false attitudes which are not God’s. But we are commanded and impelled to stand firm, to walk in the calling of the one true legacy, and to pass on His heritage to those who come after us in the ongoing flow of generations.
The facts in the story of the Stonewycke Legacy may not be real. But this is a true story, in that the truths of God’s legacy within His people are real. There is a treasure, a life, a land, a home, and a heritage that is easy for earthly eyes to lose sight of. As Jesus said, the mysteries of the Kingdom of God are hid, like parables, so that only those with eyes to see and perceive may truly apprehend them. In so many families, in so many generations, the treasure is buried, hidden, sometimes for centuries. Yet that treasure forms the very strength of God’s family, and the ongoing flow of God’s life in the world. It is a treasure awaiting discovery by every family, by every man, by every woman, by every child of God in every new generation!
God bless you one and all. It has truly been our joy to experience the life of Stonewycke with you.
1 Mourners
A gray sky hung heavy over the dormant heather. But from the blanket of black umbrellas gathered at the graveyard, it appeared that the misting October drizzle had deterred not a single resident of Port Strathy from bidding their beloved matriarch farewell.
Donald Creary found himself at the front of the throng pressing in around the grave.
He clearly recalled the first time he had laid eyes on Lady Joanna, though he had been but a wee bairn at the time. He’d possessed nerve enough only to steal a glimpse from behind his mother’s dress. Yet even then, his childish intuition had sensed she was someone special. She had come with Doc MacNeil to tend his papa’s favorite sow. Of course back then she had been only a stranger in town with a foreign sound to her tongue—that was sixty years ago. But young Donald had needed no property deeds or lawyers to tell him that here stood royalty, or close enough to it.
Lady Joanna didn’t need to say so either—nor did she. He never knew a humbler soul. The reverence of the Port Strathy folk sprang from deeds, not words. Never had she put on airs, never had she acted the part of head of the region’s most important family. Why, her behavior during the Queen Mother’s visit fifteen years a