Heathersleigh Homecoming (3 page)

 2 
Out of Vienna

On a train increasing its speed as it bore south out of the great Austrian capital of Vienna, Amanda Rutherford Halifax sat back in her seat with eyes closed, trying to steady her nerves, calm herself . . . and think.

Her heart was pounding like a hammer on an anvil.

The image and voice of her husband of less than a month, Ramsay Halifax, still rang in her ears crying after her in angry defeat as the train pulled out of the station.

“Amanda . . . Amanda!”

The echo of his shouts reverberated in her brain. She had never seen such a side of him before that moment. The look of wrath in his eyes pierced through her as if he was glaring at her even now, as in truth he was, though all he could see was the back of the last car of the train.

She could never go back to him, thought Amanda, not ever again. Not after what she had learned. Not after realizing what he was, and how she had been used.

The sickness gathering in her stomach right now was not about politics. It had nothing to do with conflict between nations. At this moment she was not thinking of the fact that the world was at war. Her personal anguish concerned no ideologies.

It was about another woman. Amanda felt dirty.

How
could she have been so foolish as to marry Ramsay!

She thought she knew him. But she hadn't known him at all. She had only seen the surface, what he had wanted her to see—the suave, confident journalist, so dashing and charming and worldly-wise. She had never paused to look beneath the smiling veneer, to ask herself what Ramsay might be like inside.

Now she was far from home. Reminders of the war were all around her—the propaganda posters lining the station walls, soldiers
everywhere en route to the nearby battlefields in Belgium and France. She was trapped in a foreign country that was fighting against her homeland, alone behind enemy lines.

Tears gradually filled Amanda's eyes.

They were not quite yet the tears of contrition, but rather tears of mortification at having been so blind. But at least she had awoken from the stupor that had landed her in this fix. Therefore, the tears were beginning to wash the cobwebs from her brain. Her heart would come in for its share of that same cleansing in time. When it did, full healing repentance would not be far behind.

But right now Amanda's thoughts were on the present.

How was she ever going to get back to England!

If the little money she had stolen at her mother-in-law's house in Vienna didn't run out, surely someone would hear her accent and get suspicious.

If she could just get across the border into neutral Italy, and then maybe into France.

But how!

Oh, God
, she moaned silently,
help me!

Even as Amanda sat frantic and afraid, though temporarily out of reach of her husband in the southbound train out of Vienna, Ramsay Halifax stood on platform nine of the Südbanhof, peering into the distance where the train had disappeared from sight seconds earlier. He could still faintly make out the dim clacking of its iron wheels receding along the tracks.

Within seconds his mother hurried up, followed a moment or two later by their white-haired colleague Hartwell Barclay. Though puffing, his face showed no sign of red. He was, in fact, boiling over in a white wrath. Mrs. Halifax's eyes, too, glowed with a fire into whose origins it would be best not to inquire. Their collective fury at that moment might have been enough to cause any but the most stouthearted angel to tremble.

Neither of the two older members of the triumvirate was accustomed to being outwitted, especially, as they judged her, by such a lightweight as Amanda. She had been so easily manipulated and brainwashed in the beginning. It never occurred to either that she would actually summon the gumption to resist them, much less make a run for it. They had turned her to their cause with so little
effort, they had never considered the possibility of her defection. They had also underestimated the faculty her father had honed in her for vigorous
thinking
. Indeed, even Amanda was unaware of it. But in time the mental vigor that Sir Charles Rutherford had trained into all three of his children would find its muscle, and enable this wayward child to discover her way.

Now she was gone. All three who stood on the empty station platform knew that if Amanda was allowed to get to the West, she could seriously threaten their subversive spy network.

Barclay turned to Ramsay.

“You fool!” he seethed. “Why didn't you see this coming?”

“Look, Barclay, don't play your power games with me!” young Halifax shot back. “It won't work. You don't intimidate me.”

“How could the two of you let her out of your sight!”

“I told you before,” rejoined Ramsay, “the two of
us
happened to be gone at the time.”

“You should never both have left!” persisted the elder statesman of the three. Though an Englishman, he had cast his lot with the German and Austrian cause. He knew perhaps better than either of the others how much they stood to lose if Amanda divulged what she knew to the right people in London.

“Be that as it may,” Ramsay shot back, “you were the only one home when she bolted. Why didn't
you
stop her?”

“Please, please!” interrupted Ramsay's mother. “This is no time for argument. We still have to stop her.”

It fell briefly silent. Barclay calmed.

“Who do we know in Trieste?” he said at length.

“I believe we do have some people there,” replied Mrs. Halifax.

“Wasn't Carneades planning to stop over there for a few days on his way back to Rome?” said Ramsay.

“That's right!” exclaimed his mother.

“We need to send a telegram,” said Barclay. “There's no time to lose!”

He turned quickly and led the way across the platform.

“Ramsay,” said Mrs. Halifax as they hurried back into the station, “run ahead and check on the next train south. If we make contact and Carneades is able to intercept the train, you will have to go after her yourself and bring her back. If not, we'll get in touch with Matteos.”

Ramsay nodded, then broke into a run toward the platform tunnel.

 3 
Chalet of Hope

In a large, geometrically laid-out, and nicely trimmed garden, more than half empty now and with most of its remaining contents turning brown, two warmly dressed women, by appearances in their mid-thirties, quietly cultivated the rich black dirt with hoe and rake. They paused now and then to remove the dead leaves and vines from the spent plants. Between the women a wicker bushel basket collected refuse for the compost pile.

The morning was crisp. The elevation was not so very high in this protected meadow of the Swiss Alps, only some 4,100 to 4,200 feet—higher, it is true, than all but Britain's loftiest peaks in the Highlands of Scotland. The fact that their efforts of this morning, however, had begun by scraping snow off the rows indicated plainly enough that the few hardy autumn vegetables remaining had less than another month before the entire garden would be put to rest for its season of winter dormancy.

“Sister Hope says we are expecting a guest,” said one, a Dutch woman by the name of Anika.

“Do you know the details?” asked her friend, German-born Luane.

“None are known. As always . . . we know not the day nor the hour.”

“Who do you think it will be this time—a mother with young children, a family escaping the war . . . ?”

“Perhaps another solitary young woman to join us. I remember how lost I was when I arrived.”

They continued to talk quietly as they raked and cleaned the ground. In front of them rose the Jungfrau and her accompanying sister sentinels, dazzling white now from last night's snowfall. This high sweep of peaks retained spots of white most of the summer, but now the entire range was freshly blanketed.

Anika and Luane were so accustomed to their surroundings and the spectacular scenery that they now scarcely gave thought to what a picturesque vista their home, the mountains, and even they themselves in the garden would have presented to the eye of an artist. The peaceful panorama of which they were part was enhanced all the more by Sister Galiana with a yoke over her shoulders, from which dangled two milk pails as she walked from barn to house, Marjolaine returning from the chicken coop with a basket of the morning's eggs, Regina sitting on the porch churning yesterday's milk to butter, and Clariss behind the house hanging linens on the line for what promised to be a fine bright day in spite of the chill. From the house could faintly be heard the singing of Sister Agatha's voice through the open window of the guest room, which she was airing out and making ready with clean sheets and down comforters.

On the opposite side behind the two garden workers stood the chalet which was home to the nine members of their small Alpine community. It sat at the edge of a small wood some four hundred yards down the slope from the village of Wengen. A stream ran from the wood near the house into a small pond, which was frozen over through the winter months, but around which during the summer bloomed more than two dozen varieties of Alpine wild flowers.

It was not a particularly remote locale for the Swiss Alps. Villages, hamlets, and farms were scattered about the landscape everywhere, both high and low. But the city-dwellers in the European metropolises from which most of the sisters had come would have considered it remote indeed. The nearest city of significant size was Bern, thirty-five miles to the northwest. In the opposite direction to the northeast, beautiful Luzern lay some forty miles distant. And five miles straight down to the mouth of the valley, situated between the two lakes Thunersee and Brienzersee, sat the fabled resort town of Interlaken. The entire region was known as the Bernese Oberland.

The village of Wengen itself sat perched on a delightfully isolated grassy and lightly wooded plateau almost straight above the long, narrow valley of Lauterbrunnen, at a height some fifteen hundred feet up rocky and forested slopes. The way up and down wound along a wagon trail of multiple switchbacks, which became increasingly difficult to navigate as winter advanced. Most of the villagers brought in supplies by mule and cart, in sufficient quantity to sustain them most of the winter, though a few treks were made as weather
permitted during the winter months as well. Train service ran from Lauterbrunnen into Interlaken, and was being planned one day to traverse the slopes onto the mountain plateaus. For the present, however, it was a journey which must be made by foot, cart, or wagon.

Above Wengen, sheer cliffs rose more than three thousand feet to the plateau of Männlichen and the ridge of the Lauberhorn. Wengen was thus situated approximately a third of the way up a breathtaking rise of nearly a mile straight above the valley floor from Lauterbrunnen to the Lauberhorn. It was indeed one of the most startlingly beautiful places of geographic glory to be found anywhere. And wherever one stood, from Lauterbrunnen up to Wengen, thence up to Männlichen, and all the way across the upper plateau and down the slope to Grindelwald, whether on valley floor or high on the edge of sheer drop-off of glacial granite, always the three grand guardians of the region, the Eiger, the Mönch, and the Jungfrau herself, stared down in their snowy, solemn, and majestic silence.

It was an unusual group dwelling together at the Chalet of Hope, these nine sisters who had committed to one another their hands, their hearts, their futures, and their common vision of friendship and service.

They had been set apart to singleness and to ministry, and had been brought together by mutual love of their Lord to share and encourage one another toward these two high callings. Had they been Catholic, they would no doubt be members of some convent. As most were Lutheran, however, with two or three evangelicals and one Catholic among them, their order was an unofficial one, neither sanctioned nor supported by church or denomination.

They took no vows, except in their own hearts. Many others came and went. Yet the core of the five who had been together now for nearly fifteen years had dedicated themselves to this place and its ministry.

Their future was here. They sought no other life but to do what God gave them to do each day, and to keep their hearts open to receiving the next visitor, or visitors, he would bring.

He continued to send them people in need—usually women, though not always. And now, with Europe at war, the difficulties, anxieties, and personal crises of those crossing this out-of-the-way path would surely increase.

The chalet itself had once been a hunting lodge built by a French financier from Annecy. It possessed enough rooms to comfortably house more than thirty, and an imposing kitchen with pantries and cellars and storage facilities capable of maintaining a small army. One end of the kitchen opened into an equally spacious dining and sitting room, with a massive stone fireplace set into the opposite wall. This central room could easily seat a hundred. Indeed, the place might well have been a resort or hotel rather than a hunting lodge.

At present it was neither lodge nor hotel, but served as home to the simple needs of the sisters, though its facilities were always available should the Lord require them. A large wood table where the sisters took their meals and did much of their work sat roughly a third of the way between kitchen and fireplace. Throughout what they called the great room, couches and chairs were spread about, along with potted plants, bookshelves, sideboards, and cabinets, so as to create several separate areas within the whole. The favorite sitting area, where they gathered most evenings, sat directly in front of the fireplace. Rough wooden beams spanned the whole above, supporting a second floor up to which a wide stairway of thick sawn planks led from the front entrance hall.

Light must surely have been a passion of the Zurich architect hired by the Frenchman. For despite the coldness of the winters, and belying the normal custom of the time, numerous windows everywhere had been built into the walls. Every room throughout the chalet, therefore, was bright and cheery, though occasionally such cold resulted from the lack of insulation that no amount of wood in the several fireplaces could succeed in overcoming it. But light was better than darkness, especially for such as these, and clothes, extra socks, mittens, and thick blankets were plentiful. Where light reigned, cold could not long dampen the spirit.

In addition to the expansive ground floor salon, there were any number of parlors and sitting rooms scattered elsewhere about the two floors, and no fewer than twelve bedrooms, allowing each sister to have private accommodations.

And of course there was a library, not large but well stocked with the right kind of books. The sisters were fond of literature, especially the classics, and gathered two evenings a week to read aloud.

Several outbuildings—including a barn for their cattle and goats and donkeys, which had to be kept in all winter, a workshop, an
equipment shed, and a chicken coop—were scattered irregularly about the chalet grounds.

The house and buildings were kept up by Sister Gretchen, away at present for a few days to visit a sister in Milan. A native of Bavaria in southern Germany, Gretchen was second in age only to Sister Hope, and was considered a mechanical genius in the eyes of the other women. Indeed, she was gifted with uncanny dexterity and unusual physical strength for a woman of rather typical feminine physique. However, she was not above occasionally employing one or two of the village men to assist her in maintaining the chalet and small farm to impeccable Swiss standards of tidiness.

In the Frenchman's later years the Wengen chalet had become his home. After his own and then his wife's death, it passed into the hands of the woman the others all simply called Sister Hope. The name had been well chosen, not only by her parents but by the Lord. The other sisters honored her as deeply as they loved her, which was a great deal to say on both counts.

Of doctrines they held few. Their theology was simple: to seek to do the Lord's will, and to serve whomever he saw fit to send up the path from the valley to their doorstep.

They interpreted that will—in the absence of any direct leading—as laboring diligently at what was set before them. They did not fret over receiving a new daily revelation of God's will. Instead they went about in a continual attitude of
Lord, what would you have me do?
while simultaneously applying their hands cheerfully to the thing in front of them.

They worked hard tending their two gardens, caring for their three cows, seven goats, two donkeys, and two dozen chickens, and keeping up the chalet, the farm, and the grounds. They ate well, were nearly always provided an abundance, and were happier than any of them had ever dreamed they would be.

The villagers considered the sisters somewhat a strange lot. But the fact that one of their own local Swiss was among them helped the people of the hill country accept the unusual community.

Though the Swiss spoke an intriguing mixture of Italian, French, and German, the natives who dwelt in the shadow of the Alps considered themselves neither Italian, French, nor German. They were feisty, proud of their
own
race, and not eager to open their hearts to outsiders.

That the Swiss of this region had done so with the inhabitants of the chalet said more about the sisters than it did about the people of Wengen.