A New Dawn Over Devon by Michael Phillips Read Free Book Online

metallic sound of a lock releasing.
    Below the drawer, the back wall of the desk gave way and opened toward her. A hidden panel swiveled smoothly down on embedded pivots, revealing a faceless shelf. On it lay a single folded sheet of heavy paper.
    Maggie removed it, brought it out to the light, sat back down in her chair, and unfolded it.
    Some time later Maggie still sat, shaking her head in disbelief. To think it had been here all along—the key, the lock, the hidden drawer—in front of her very eyes—and the answer to the mystery that had given rise to so many stories and rumors for over half a century—how the cottage of the Heathersleigh estate had come into the hands of a poor local peasant family with hardly two shillings to rub together.
    In her hands, Maggie held the deed to Heathersleigh Cottage—this very cottage, sold, as was written on it, in the year 1849 from Henry Rutherford, Lord of the Manor of Heathersleigh Hall, to one Arthur Crompton.
    What could its significance be but that to which her grandmother was referring as the sale of the birthright of the Genesis passage? Further documentation seven years later, in the year 1856, apparently upon Crompton’s death, recorded the transfer of the deed to Orelia Crawford, Maggie’s own grandmother, to be passed to her descendents after her, or, absent heirs, to the Church of England. The stamp of the solicitors’ firm Crumholtz, Sutclyff, Stonehaugh, & Crumholtz attested to the legality of the 1856 transfer.
    She had discovered the legal origins to the long-concealed mystery . . . but still not the why .
    Gradually sleep returned. Maggie extinguished her light and went back to bed.
    The next day, at the earliest possible hour, she was bound for the parish church in the village. The ancient journals and parish records were produced for her examination. It did not take Maggie long to locate what she wanted—the connection between the deed she had discovered and the fateful night of Eliza’s death.
    Not only was Arthur Crompton at the Hall that night, her grandmother, the only midwife in the region, must have been too. That was the connection between vicar and midwife. Whatever secret had been hatched that night, they had clearly shared it.
    But as Maggie left the church to make her way home, a feeling of unease began growing within her. She had nothing against the Church, but it seemed the Cottage ought to belong to those for whom it rightfully had been intended.
    She would consult the solicitors’ firm whose name was on the deed. She could not undo what had been done years before. But she could at least, if it lay in her power legally to do so, put her home back into the hands of the true heirs of the Heathersleigh birthright.
    And she must write down what she had discovered and leave new clues and information explaining it. She also must make a will.
    To that end, on the very next day, she boarded the train in Milverscombe, to the amazement of the entire village, and traveled to Exeter to visit the offices of Crumholtz, Sutclyff, Stonehaugh, & Crumholtz, where she concluded her business and left the necessary documents in the hands of Bradbury Crumholtz, senior partner of the firm.
    Several months later, after Charles’s death and funeral and Amanda’s return, and sensing that her own remaining years couldbe few, Maggie explained to Jocelyn, Amanda, and Catharine what she had learned, telling them how the cottage had come into the hands of her family, and that she had drawn up a will that would give it back to them when she went to join her Bobby.
    At last the mystery of Heathersleigh Cottage appeared to have been solved. Temporarily the four women all felt a great sense of relief.
    But in time the two younger girls, who had, like their brother, been given curious, thoughtful, and inquisitive mentalities by their father, realized that the family Bible was still missing.
    And that the older mystery of the