110 
Glimmers

It was not until some time had passed, and they were having tea together, that the subject of Bobby arose. Now for the first time did Amanda become aware that there was yet a third beloved Heathersleigh man she would never see again. The realization stung her heart anew and deepened her grief that she had delayed her homecoming so long. In the midst of fresh tears, Amanda thought of Maggie, and knew she must see her without delay.

In less than thirty minutes the three Rutherford women were on their way to the cottage for a visit.

“I’m surprised you haven’t widened this path to Maggie’s so a car could make the drive,” said Amanda as they rode along the well-worn carriage track.

“Actually,” replied Jocelyn, “your father considered that very thing.” She paused, and the quiet was broken only by the steady clomp-clomp-clomp of the single horse ahead of them. “But he decided it would take something away from the wood and the setting of the cottage by assaulting it with the disruptive sounds and smells of an automobile.”

Having no idea they were on their way to see her, Maggie, meanwhile, was on her knees in the middle of her garden. As if stimulated yet the more by Amanda’s homecoming, though she yet knew nothing of it, her earlier agitation had heightened as the day progressed. Her thoughts had come to gather about a time several months earlier when she had risen from a sound sleep with her Bobby’s words about a hidden legacy in her brain, and now in her mind she relived the discovery she had made that night.

————

Whether Maggie had read every word in this Bible was doubtful. Some of the law and history books of the Old Testament had never infected her with particular interest. Theologians might find meaning in the lists of names and tassels and cords on the tabernacle, parbars westward or killings of bulls for the altar. Her interests had always been along more practical lines.

But of one thing she was sure—she had read every word of the New Testament. And the Gospels more times than she could count. She had pored over every word of them, especially the words from the mouth of the Savior himself. And now on this night she paused again here, as she had many times, in the eleventh chapter of Mark’s Gospel to ponder the words underlined by her grandmother, in the Bible her own mother, Maggie’s great-grandmother, had given her.

“To you is given to understand the mystery of the kingdom. . . .”

There were the words, faint now with the passing of years, added in the margin in her grandmother’s own hand—words as familiar to her as this Bible itself. She had seen the brief note most of her life, thinking it merely a reference to the importance of the verse. She had tried to impress that importance on young Amanda one time long ago right here in this very cottage whose origins and history were now on her mind.

She read the words over again, then a third time, puzzling over the strange handwritten annotation.

There is a mystery, her grandmother had written in the margin, and the key is closer than you think. The key . . . the key . . . find the key and unlock the mystery.

Suddenly the words jumped out at Maggie with new meaning she had never seen.

Might this mean what she was now thinking! Was the late hour and silence of the night playing tricks on her brain!

A key!

How could she not have made the connection before now?

There was a small, old, peculiar key that had been kicking around her entire life in the drawer of the secretary. No one knew what it was for.

Could its purpose be connected to her grandmother’s words!

Below the note had been added another reference, even tinier. All it said was “Genesis 25:31–33.”

Why had she not investigated it before? thought Maggie.

What did it matter—she would do so now!

Quickly she flipped back to the halfway point of the sacred volume’s first book, scanned down the heavily underlined and annotated page, which also must have been among her grandmother’s favorites, judging from the use the text had received. Her eyes stopped on the thirty-first verse.

“And Jacob said,” she read, “Sell me this day thy birthright. And Esau said, Behold, I am at the point to die: and what profit shall this birthright do to me? And Jacob said, Swear to me this day; and he sware unto him: and he sold his birthright unto Jacob.”

What could it mean? thought Maggie.

What birthright?

What had her grandmother been trying to convey? Were her marginal notes a cryptic message to someone in the future about this key . . . a mystery . . . a birthright?

Who were Jacob and Esau?

Again Maggie flipped back to the Gospel of Mark. There were the strange words again.

Find the key and unlock the mystery . . . Genesis 25:31–33

Suddenly her mind began racing feverishly.

Could what had just occurred to her really be possible?

The key . . . the mystery . . . the sale of the birthright.

The fantastic thought was so incredible that for a moment she sat reeling in disbelief.

Maggie rose, set her Bible aside, and walked to the ancient secretary, built, as her mother had told her, by her grandfather, Maggie’s own great-grandfather. As she approached, she eyed it with eyes alive to sudden new possibilities.

With trembling hand she lowered the lid to the secretary portion. Above the desk was a small nine-inch-wide drawer. Carefully now she pulled it out. The drawer was small, only four or five inches deep. Inside her eyes now fell on the key she had seen resting there all her life.

“What is it for?” she remembered asking her own mother.

“Something about the secretary, I think, dear,” Mrs. Crawford had replied. “My mother used to speak mysteriously about it, but I never saw a lock anywhere about the cabinet, and never knew what it was for.”

“But if Grandmother said—”

“She was old by then, Maggie dear. She may have been mistaken.”

And there the key had lain all these years.

Maggie now removed it and turned it over slowly in her fingers. A tingle went through her. Something was here, she was sure of it.

Find the key and unlock the mystery. . . .

She was now convinced that the words her grandmother had written carried a meaning underlying that of the Scripture itself.

What mystery could this key be meant to unlock?

————

Suddenly sounds interrupted Maggie’s reminiscences. Her reflections were cut short as she glanced up to see a familiar carriage approaching along the lane through the wood.