“It was then that my parents gave up Montclair. I had no objections because I was haunted by the memory of my brothers running up and down those staircases or racing in the long gallery. The house had become unbearable for me.
“After Reed’s marriage, Jack, the boys, and I went to India and visited whenever we were home. Margie came up with the idea of building a stone-wall enclosure. She hired some local lads from the village to collect the stones. After hundreds of stones had been collected, Reed and Margie began to build the wall, which was only about four-feet high. He believed that as long as he was within the wall, he was safe, even if Margie wasn’t with him. This was so important because it allowed Margie to go into the village and to have some time for herself.
“It was such a success that additions were made. They built the wall so that it ran down to a nearby stream. Now Reed could go fishing, which was something he loved to do. After they added a gate, Reed felt comfortable enough to walk down to the road.
“In 1936, Margie was diagnosed with cancer. Reed knew something was wrong, and he told Margie he would now take care of her, which he did to the best of his ability until her death early in ’37. By this time, both of my parents were gone, so my Uncle Jeremy stayed with Reed until I could get home from Argentina. I practically got on my knees begging him to come live with us at Crofton Wood, but he told me he was going to stay right where he was. He said, ‘Although Margie is gone, this is my home.’
“The boys and I spent most of the summer with him, and James and Michael helped Reed add rocks to his wall. They thought it was a game and great fun. I was supposed to go back to Argentina in September, but I couldn’t leave. My gut told me to stay in England. I visited frequently that autumn, and he was doing all right. But once the colder weather came, I again asked him to come to Crofton to stay with Jack’s parents and me until spring, as the cabin was absolutely freezing. Reed assured me that he had made arrangements for coal to be delivered from town.
“Mr. Lachlan and I spoke once a week. In November when I called, Mr. Lachlan told me he had good news. When delivering Reed’s grocery order, Reed had given him a sketch of a glen on the far side of the stream. In order to make that sketch, Reed had to have gone outside the stone wall. The next week, Reed went out to the glen again. Mr. Lachlan warned him that the weather was getting too cold for him to be out and about on his own. With the shorter days, if he got lost or hurt, he would die from exposure.
“Shortly after his warning, Mr. Lachlan was awakened by Reed’s dogs barking. After checking the cabin, he immediately returned to the village and got some of the men to help him look for my brother. It wasn’t difficult, as the dogs led them right to him. He had been making sketches of the glen at sunset. He had all of his sketchbooks and pencils with him and a kit containing his lunch and a thermos full of tea.”
After trying to control her tears, Beth brought her hands up to her face and started to cry in heartbreaking sobs. Jack said nothing but wrapped his big arms around her. I saw at that moment what Rob so admired about the English after having lived among them during their darkest hours. After a few minutes, Beth took out her handkerchief and dried her tears.
“I know what people think about Reed,” Beth said after regaining her composure. “But I don’t believe it. He found the courage to go beyond the stone wall, which meant he had at last beaten back the demons that haunted him.”
Jack was staring at me, afraid I would say something that should not be said. I went and sat next to Beth, “I don’t believe it either,” I said, hugging her. “I’ve always imagined heaven as a place where we exist in God’s grace with all those we have loved, so Reed and Margie, your brothers, and your parents are together again.” Beth nodded, and Jack looked at me with relief and thanks.
Running her hands over imaginary wrinkles in her skirt, Beth stood and took me by the hand. “Now I would like for you to meet my family and Jack’s. I want you to think of them as they were when we were so blest, before that awful war.”
On a rear table in the study were numerous family pictures, including a photograph of Jack’s parents. If a casting call had gone out for a butler and housekeeper in the early part of the twentieth century, the Crowells would have gotten the parts — stoic, resolute, and capable. There was a picture in a dark brown leather frame of Tom Crowell in his Army uniform. He was even more handsome than his brother, and there was a look about him that let you know he was proud to be serving in the Sherwood Foresters Regiment.
Hanging above Jack’s desk was a family portrait painted at Montclair in 1923 of Jack and Beth and their two little boys, who were dressed in sailor suits. On the opposite wall was a portrait of all the Edward Laceys dressed formally for the Christmas holidays. Beth and her mother sat in chairs in elegant evening gowns surrounded by the men of the family. There was a look of command in Lady Lacey’s eyes, and Sir Edward Lacey looked every inch the country gentleman. Reed, who was about fourteen at the time, had his hand on his sister’s shoulder, a shoulder he had probably leaned on most of his life. Looking at Trevor, there was no doubt why all the girls were after him; he was as handsome as any Hollywood movie star. Matthew had steel gray eyes and a look of absolute determination. It was almost as if he was trying to intimidate the photographer.
After that, Beth showed me a photo of Reed and Margie at their wedding party. Margie was short, with curly brown hair and crystal blue eyes, and Reed, the tallest and thinnest of the Laceys, towered over his new wife. His arms were around Margie, not so much hugging as clinging to her.
In an upstairs room, where Beth and Jack had sorted through all of the many documents, diaries, and letters, was a long table covered with a white linen cloth. On it lay a dozen or more miniatures of all the people I had been reading and hearing about since I had first met the Crowells.
The first two miniatures were of the golden-haired beauty, Jane Garrison, when she was about twenty-five years old, and her husband, Charles Bingham. Except for slightly bulging blue eyes, he was handsome, with curly reddish hair and a very kind look about him.
Mary Bennet was as plain as Jane Austen had described her, with light brown hair pulled back in a severe style, and she wore no jewelry or any ribbons to soften the look. Beth had said that no portrait existed of Lucy, but there were four miniatures of Lucy’s children. Antoinette and Marie were light-haired beauties, and the two dark-haired Edwards boys were as stocky as their half-sisters were slender.
Beth was right about Celia. She was beautiful, with her blonde hair encircled by a dark green ribbon and with long curls falling onto her bare shoulders. She must have been newly married to Tyndall Stanton. But I disagreed with Beth when she said her portrait showed a lack of intelligence. When Celia sat for her portrait, she was looking off into the distance to a place where her French lover was.
By this time, I had run out of table and portraits, but where were Lizzy and Will? We walked down the hall to one of the guest bedrooms, and in there, hanging on the wall over a large fourposter bed, were replicas of the portraits of Elizabeth Garrison and William Lacey that had once hung in the gallery at Montclair.
“When Montclair was sold,” Jack explained, “the life-sized paintings of Elizabeth Garrison and William Lacey were put into storage. Once we bought this house, I had these smaller portraits painted as a gift for Beth. The Catons sent the originals to London for stretching and repairs, and just last week, they hung them in their original positions at the top of the staircase, and they are now on loan to the Catons.”