Tomorrow's Treasure (55 page)

Near the end of the school year came the emergency that Evy had been expecting. The letter was from Vicar Osgood:
Your beloved aunt is quite ill. Dr. Tisdale has concurred with me that it would be wise if you came home as soon as possible
.

Evy wasted no time packing her portmanteau and boarding the train for Grimston Way. She had sent a wire to Dr. Tisdale asking that he inform Mrs. Croft of her arrival.

Mrs. Croft was waiting in the jingle when she arrived. She appeared haggard and discouraged.

“It's that nasty business with the lungs, dearie. Doctor says she has pneumonia.”

Evy's heart grew even heavier when she saw Aunt Grace, who was feverish and delirious.

“She has congestion and inflammation of the lungs.” Dr. Tisdale's grave tone and countenance told Evy more than she wanted to know. “This is serious business, my dear. I would not have asked you to come home if it were just another of her colds.”

Evy nodded and knelt beside the bed, taking Aunt Grace's hand in both her own. She searched her feverish face anxiously. “I'm here, Aunt Grace.”

Aunt Grace's eyes fluttered open, and she tried to focus on Evy's face. She managed a faint smile, to reassure her, Evy was certain, that she would be all right. How like her aunt. Unselfish to the end. A woman who had stood by her sister—and her sister's child—through thick and
thin. A woman who had wanted children of her own, had been denied them by God's providence, and had opened her arms to embrace Evy as her very own. She had worked to help support Evy, had been a faithful vicar's wife, had been stout-hearted to the end.

“Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all,” Evy whispered in her aunt's ear, quoting from the last chapter of Proverbs. Although Aunt Grace was too ill to answer, Evy sensed that she had heard.

The next days were some of Evy's unhappiest. To see Aunt Grace lying there, propped up with pillows, her skin hot and dry, her eyes glazed … It was almost more than Evy could bear. It came to her then … the sad truth that her aunt's chances of recovery were as feeble as her body. Evy prayed, as did all their friends in the rectory. Mrs. Croft stayed with her, helping to care for her aunt's needs and lending loving strength to Evy as well, making sure she had her soup and enough rest.

“It was bound to come to it, child,” she said more than once. “Miss Grace's been on borrowed time from the Lord some years now. She knew it too, but she tried to keep joyful for your sake. If it weren't now that the Lord was going to bring her home, it would be next winter, or the winter after that. She's been sick like this before, but never this bad.”

Aunt Grace's eyes opened. “Is … that you, Evy?”

She came quickly to the side of the bed. “Yes, Aunt, I'm here.”

Mrs. Croft murmured she would put tea on and left them alone, closing the door behind her.

“Evy, I am going home to be with our heavenly Father … and dear Edmund …”

Sorrow choked Evy's throat. “Oh, Aunt, try to get well. You must! What will I do without you? I have no one else … no one.” Tears trickled down her face as she clutched Aunt Grace's hand. She suddenly felt alone, abandoned, an orphan once more. She was losing everything she cared about. First her Uncle Edmund, then loyal Derwent, and even Arcilla was gone … silly, spoiled Arcilla, yet her dearest friend. And now Aunt Grace. What would she do alone?

“You must be strong …” Her aunt's voice was firm for all that it was
weak and thready. “God is a very present help in trouble. You can trust Him to provide, dearest … His plans are well laid … all for your good.”

“Don't talk, Aunt, you must save your breath and rest. You'll get better. This will pass.”

She shook her head, and Evy could see what the action cost her. “Not this time … I know. There is something I must tell you … about your mother.”

Evy stiffened and met her aunt's fevered gaze. Aunt Grace reached a hand toward her as if to touch the side of her face. “Rogan came to me … months ago … He asked, and I told him the truth. I could do naught else. I sinned in not telling you, but I did not want you unhappy … You were so proud to be the daughter of missionaries—martyrs—that I kept it from you …”

Evy swallowed, her throat suddenly dry and raw. She leaned closer, catching every syllable. “What … truth?”

“Clyde and Junia … They were going to adopt you …”

Evy clutched her aunt's hand. “Adopt?”

“Your mother was a van Buren … Katie … Sir Julien's ward …”

Evy felt unable to catch a breath. Her heart pounded in her chest as she struggled to absorb those words. Her mother … not the wonderful missionary she'd always believed? But a van Buren? How could this be?

“My mother is … Katie van Buren?” Saying it out loud didn't help. She couldn't believe it.

But Aunt Grace's weak nod told her it was so. “She ran away. From Sir Julien … because he took you from her. She tried to find you … to get you back. But she was killed. At the mission station. With Junia.”

Evy swallowed again as understanding began to dawn. “Then it was Katie—my mother who took the prized Black Diamond? When she ran away?”

Aunt Grace closed her eyes, as though the effort to speak had drained all her energy. She moistened her cracked feverish lips. “That, I do not know … only that Katie was your mother … I know not who your father was.”

Evy laid the side of her face against her aunt's hand and let the sobs
come. “It matters not,” she said over and over again. “
You
are my mother, dear heart. The only mother I've ever known. Do not fret.”

Aunt Grace looked at her with pleading eyes and managed another weak smile. “You mean that?”

Evy buried her face against her aunt's thin chest. “Oh yes! I love you, Mum.”

Aunt Grace smiled and reached a trembling hand to Evy's tumbling hair. She caressed it gently, and Evy recognized the action for what it was. A farewell.

Aunt Grace died in the night during the prayer vigil led in her room by Vicar Osgood. Prayers and scriptures were read, while candles flickered and cast trembling shadows on the cream walls beside the bed. Evy was silent, remembering all that they had been through together, well aware that she now trudged the futures path alone.

Grace Havering was buried in the churchyard at the rectory on a summer day in late June, next to the grave site of Vicar Edmund Havering. No gray day, this. The sky was a cloudless blue, and the birds sang merrily.

Only Evy's heart still felt the grief of winter. What would she do now? This was why she had gone to music school, of course … to work as a music teacher and support herself through the years. Her aunt had sacrificed financially to make sure of her education. But would she be able to finish her final year?

To represent Rookswood, and in fond memory of Vicar Edmund's wife, Lady Elosia came to the funeral. To Evy's surprise, Rogan stood with her in solemn black. Mrs. Croft and the sexton were there too, and Meg and Emily and their families. Even Dr. and Mrs. Tisdale came.

But Evy was aware of little else except her sense of sadness tempered by the Christian hope of being united once more with loved ones who had gone before. The words of Christ echoed in her mind, bringing consolation: “I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.”

Mrs. Croft returned with Evy to the cottage to spend the night. “You ought not to be alone,” she said.

Evy was grateful for her company. The cottage was empty and too quiet. She went to her bed and tried to rest, for she was exhausted. At last she slept and awoke to drink the strange tasting tea that Mrs. Croft gave her.

“A sedative from Dr. Tisdale,” she explained.

Evy did not awaken until midmorning the next day. The song of birds filled the room with hope. Life went on. Summer went on. Her heavenly Father was sovereign and reigning on His throne, her future in His hand.

The future, however, did not share its secrets with her. It only stared at her blankly.
I am the daughter of Katie van Buren.
The thought rattled around in her mind until it was joined by another.
Then … I must be related in some way to Heyden van Buren!
She shook her head.
And my father? Will I ever know who he is?

Then, as though stepping from the mist of her memory, she saw again the stranger in Grimston Woods … remembered the look of sadness in his eyes as he had scrutinized her. What had he seen that made him so sad? Could he actually have been some distant cousin of Lady Camilla's, as Evy had been told? John … that was his name, wasn't it? Had he really gone to Australia?

And on the heels of that thought came another. Lady Camilla had been sure that her husband, Anthony Brewster, had fathered a child in secret. Evy's heart pounded at the question that nagged at her: Was it possible there was truth to this, after all … and that Evy was that child?

Her blood thundered in her ears. She sat up in bed and stared at the fluttering curtain. She pressed her trembling hand against her forehead, and her eyes closed as she tried to make sense of all the ideas tumbling about in her mind. Of course it could be true! Anything could be true now that she knew her mother was Katie van Buren, Sir Julien's ward. Sir Julien Bley! No wonder he had searched her face the way he did that
day in the tearoom with Lady Camilla. Was it he, then, who had covered all this up? And Heyden van Buren—he had wanted to tell her something about her mother, but had suddenly vanished from her life. Why? Sir Julien again?

Evy tried to quiet her emotions. She must be calm and not jump to conclusions, though the truth appeared to be staring her in the face. She must give her heart time to adjust.

She forced her thoughts away from her parents. It was still too new and painful to ponder for long. The truth would be there tomorrow. There was time to let things settle, to let the shock ease a bit. Instead, she looked to the future. She supposed she would return to school in September, but that would depend on finances. She had known little about them; Aunt Grace had managed the purse strings. Evy knew she would have to look into what she had to depend on. Her aunt always kept their money in a small metal box hidden away in a trunk that held her and Uncle Edmunds mementos. Evy slipped from bed, dressed, and went to find the trunk. She removed the metal box and opened it to count the contents.

There was ten pounds in it. She was shocked. She would have expected at least a hundred. And making matters worse, now that Aunt Grace was gone, her retirement wage for faithful service to the vicarage would not continue. Even the cottage had been theirs to use only because Lady Elosia had awarded it to Aunt Grace because of Uncle Edmund. Evy had benefited, but now that would all change. She did not think those at Rookswood would immediately ask her to go, but she would need to leave sometime, and probably soon.

Ten pounds. Evy sat down hard on the ottoman. How had her aunt possibly believed she could attend her final year at Parkridge if that was all she had?

I will not be able to go back. That's clear. I must make careful use of this money. It will be some time before I can make any on my own.

Yes, she would need to find work by September, either here in Grimston Way or in London. This revelation coming on top of her sorrow made the burden far heavier to bear. For a moment she was tempted
to give way to self-pitying tears.
No.
She clamped her jaw. There was no other recourse than to find work. She would be unwise to spend what she had knowing there would be no more until she earned it.

Still, she consoled herself, she had nearly three years of training, enough to possibly get a position as music teacher—if not at a prestigious girls school, then certainly she could find young private students in London.

Evy took her Bible and found solace in reading the Psalms and Isaiah. She prayed for guidance and strength, to be wise and trusting. Over and over, verses that told her to fear not seemed to jump out at her. “Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God.… Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name.”