79 
Jocelyn and Stirling Blakeley

Jocelyn and Stirling walked down the stairs and left the house through the rear doors. When they were beyond the trim lawn northeast of the Hall and were starting across the wide expanse of grassy meadow between it and the wood where lay the McFee cottage, Stirling spoke in a more serious tone than before.

“I am so sorry about Amanda, Mrs. Rutherford,” he said. “I think of her often at university.”

Surprised, Jocelyn turned her face toward him questioningly.

“You are wondering why I would think about Amanda?”

“Yes,” replied Jocelyn, “I admit, that is what I was thinking.”

“You see,” said Stirling, “it seems that so many of the young men in the lodgings where I live in Oxford complain about their parents, how they don’t send them as much money as they want, or that they pester them about not studying hard enough. But mostly they just complain about what seem to me trivial matters. It reminds me of some of the terrible things I have heard Amanda say about you and Sir Charles. And yet people who live in the village, especially such as myself and my parents, see you in a completely different light. It seems to me that you have given your three children nothing but love, just as you have shown to all the rest of us. I can’t imagine any two people being more loved than you and Sir Charles. And it is because you always give so much of yourselves.”

“Thank you, Stirling,” replied Jocelyn as they walked slowly along. “You cannot imagine how much your words mean to me.”

They walked awhile longer, when the young man broke the silence again.

“Mrs. Rutherford,” he said, “do you remember the day when Amanda tried to come to my rescue in the village? It was a day when Papa had been drinking.”

“Yes, I remember, Stirling. It seems that is when Amanda began to despise me. I am afraid it is not a good memory.”

“That is too bad—I’m sorry. It is a good memory for me. She seemed like an angel. I’ll never forget how she threw herself between Papa and me to try to protect me from his blows. It wasn’t long after that when he stopped drinking—thanks even more to Sir Charles than Amanda.”

Jocelyn smiled and nodded.

“It puzzles me how Amanda can be like an angel in my memory, and yet have become so hurtful and critical toward you. I find myself wondering what made her change. And that makes me wonder what the young men at school would think if they knew how my papa had once behaved toward me. Yet now I love him more, it seems, than they love their own fathers, who never did anything like what Papa did when he was drinking. It is all very puzzling.”

Again Jocelyn nodded.

“It is interesting, is it not, Stirling,” she said, “how people view things so differently? That day you speak of was a very hard one for me. Amanda was furious with me for not stepping in and stopping your father from hitting you. She said when she got older she would stand up for people’s rights more than I did. I think that’s why the suffragette movement so appealed to her. But I knew anything I did to come between you and your father might interfere with the relationship Charles was trying to establish with your father.”

She paused thoughtfully.

“I suppose, as I look back now,” she went on, “it may be that we were too strict in some ways. But at the time you never know exactly where the balance lies. You do the best you can, trying to weigh the constantly shifting needs of leniency and discipline. You’ll find out just how hard that balance is when you’re a father, Stirling.”

He laughed. “That’s hard to imagine, Mrs. Rutherford,” he said. “I’m barely old enough to figure out how to be a grown-up. I can’t envision myself as a parent.”

“How old are you now, Stirling?”

“Twenty-four, ma’am.”

“Hmm . . . the same as Amanda—though she will be turning twenty-five this spring. But the years will go by faster than you realize, Stirling, and one day before you know it you may just have a family of your own.”

“If you say so, Mrs. Rutherford,” laughed Stirling.

“Well, we are to the edge of the wood—here is where I will turn around,” said Jocelyn. “It has been wonderful to see you, Stirling. Give my love to your parents.”

“I will, Mrs. Rutherford. And—”

He paused and glanced away briefly.

“And if I could just say, ma’am,” he said after a moment, looking back into Jocelyn’s face, “thank you for being such a friend to my mother. I know you mean a great deal to her, in the same way Sir Charles does to my father.”

“Of course, Stirling—thank you.”

They shook hands, then Stirling turned and limped off a few steps, then turned back once more.

“I still pray for her,” he said. “Amanda, I mean.”

“Thank you, Stirling.”

He continued on in the direction of the cottage in the descending dusk and was soon lost to Jocelyn’s sight.

A remarkable young man for all he has been through, thought Jocelyn.

She turned and began making her way back to the Hall, whose windows were lit in the distance across the meadow.

“I still pray for her too,” she whispered with a smile as she went. “I still pray for her too.”