His mind full of many thoughts, David reached the North Cliffs. He eased himself onto the thick sea grass a short distance from the edge and gazed out to sea. Sensing his master’s mood, the sheepdog tucked in beside him.
For all his soul-searching and benevolent words to the islanders about making the American woman feel welcome and giving her their support, watching Hardy disappear into the Cottage tied a knot in David’s stomach. Long-dormant resentments rose within him—toward Hardy’s father and toward the American man and woman who had divided the people of Whales Reef. Their toxic religious fanaticism had created such self-righteousness between friends that it cost the life of three villagers, including his best friend.
Now another American was in the Cottage at Hardy’s mercy.
The irony was so thick he could cut it with a knife. A tall American woman . . . returning to Whales Reef as heir to everything on the island. How could fate play such a cruel joke on him?
Unbidden memories washed over him from out of the past.
———
A ten-year-old boy, book of drawings in his hand, sprinted away from the village school, terrified at the touch of Sister Grace’s hand as she tried to coerce him to repent of his sins. His flight cost him a whipping from his father, though he had chosen that over the humiliation of returning to the school and lying to Miss Barton and Sister Grace by saying he was sorry for what he had done.
Two years later that same boy stood on the harbor wall staring out to sea, a terrific storm howling around him, giant waves pounding the shore like thunder, the wind tearing the tips off incoming whitecaps in a frenzy. Behind him a dozen men of the village, including his cousin Hardy’s father, stood stoically watching the desperate attempt to return to land by one of their fellow fishermen who had been caught off guard by the sudden storm. So deep had the exclusivity of the Fountain of Light defiled their souls that they would lift no finger to help one of their own, because he had not “seen the light.” With tears in his eyes, the boy watched the laboring Bountiful in the distance, with his friend Armund aboard, slowly sink into the deep.
The boyhood calamities that had shaped him seemed to assault his life every two years. As a young teen he stood looking out over the same water on the opposite side of the island. His tears on that fateful day had already been spent in the hour since learning that the sea had claimed another life from among the fishermen of Whales Reef. The victim this time was Angus Tulloch, the chief himself. As the youth stood gazing at the expanse of gray-green water, a cold, eerie calm descended upon the son as he contemplated throwing himself over the precipice and joining his dead father.
The fourteen-year-old, now heir apparent to the chieftainship, had not done so. But the reality and strength of the primordial urge forever reminded him that life was both precious and fleeting. In an environment as hostile as the Shetlands, nothing could be taken for granted.
———
David’s thoughts returned to the present. He had weathered those youthful storms. Though the pain of loss remained, he hoped he had become stronger from them. He had learned that God was to be found in neither prophets nor churches, but in the depths of the heart yielded to its Maker. He had lost a father, but he had discovered a Father. For that he was eternally grateful.
However, he was still a mortal man. A man with emotions, weaknesses, ambitions, dreams . . . and perhaps fears.
Now he was facing a new crisis. He found himself reliving the same question that had haunted him since the uncertainty and controversy over his uncle’s inheritance had changed the fortunes of Whales Reef: What was the right thing to do?
The American heiress seemed like a pleasant young woman. But she was utterly ignorant of all that was at stake. Hardy knew that fact as well as he did, and was not above exploiting it.
Alonnah Ford had admitted to coming to the Shetlands for the purpose of getting the property off her hands. A terrible feeling in David’s gut feared that Hardy would be the beneficiary of her unwitting generosity.
She had no way of knowing who Hardy really was. Was it his place to speak up? To do so would make him look worse than Hardy—low, grasping, greedy. The very idea was more than distasteful.
What action was demanded by right and truth when the only way to make that truth known was to divulge someone else’s evil intent?
Was silence always the right course?
When did it serve the greater good to do that which, in other circumstances, might be wrong?
How well did he really know this American called Alonnah Ford? He might tell her everything and she laugh in his face.
One fact was borne upon him with devastating clarity. The coming of Alonnah Ford to the island had complicated the dilemma of the inheritance all the more.