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Authors: [The Crightons 09] Coming Home
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body that looked different; the long hours spent in often painful reflection and the even longer hours in discussion and debate with his friend the priest had also left their visible mark on him. His eyes now looked out on the world with reflection, compassion and wisdom, and he was able to smile warmly, generously and even sometimes tenderly at the frailties of his fellow man.
! A stranger looking properly at him now would have found him something of an enigma. His physical appearance was that of a tough manual worker, but married to it was a depth of awareness and intelligence in his eyes that suggested a man of letters and deep reflection. But David no longer courted the approval of other people; he no longer needed either their admiration or their company.
Solitude, physical, mental and emotional, had become his chosen friend rather than his feared foe.
It had taken some months of working beside Father Ignatius before David had been able to start confiding in him.
'I have no family, no friends,' David had told him. 'If I were to go back home, they would dis-own me and rightly so. I have committed an unforgivable crime.'
'No crime is unforgivable in God's eyes,' the priest had replied firmly. 'Not if one truly repents it.'
'What is true repentance?' David had asked him, adding sardonically, 'I've never been the
!
sackcloth-and-ashes type. Too much of a sybarite, I suppose, and too selfish.'
'You say that and yet you are prepared to acknowledge that you have sinned. It takes a brave man to submit himself to the judgement of his peers and an even braver one to submit to his own judgement and God's. If to admit the existence of one's sins is the first step on the road to self-forgiveness, then to make true atonement for them is the second.'
'True atonement! And how am I supposed to do that?' David had asked savagely. 'There is no way I could ever repay the money I stole or undo the damage I have done.'
'There is always a way,' Father Ignatius had insisted, 'but sometimes we can make it hard for ourselves to find i t '
Always a way! David shook his head as he remembered those words now. If he had imagined that his leaving, his absence, had created an emptiness in the lives of those he had left behind, he was discovering how vain that assumption had been. The jagged edges of the destruction he had caused had been repaired, and in the days he had spent silently witnessing the lives of his family, he had also discovered just who was responsible for the new closeness and harmony that now per-meated their lives.
Jon, the brother he had always secretly pitied and sometimes openly mocked.
Jonathon. Only the previous evening his twin had walked so close to David's place of conceal-ment in the dusk-shrouded garden of Queensmead that by moving a few yards David could have been at his side.
His brother had changed, grown taller, or was it simply that his bearing had become more upright? As he watched him, David had been aware of how much more confident Jonathon seemed, of how much more content. Was it because he was no longer a part of Jon's life?
David hadn't always been kind to Jon or valued him as he ought to have done. It shamed him now to remember how often he had allowed their father to insist that Jonathon step back into the shadows to allow him to become more prominent, how easily and vainly he had allowed himself to be put up on a pedestal and feted as the favourite son—to his twin's detriment. How conceitedly and selfishly he had laid claim to all the virtues of their shared heritage, pinning on Jonathon the label of the one to inherit all the weaknesses. The truth was that, of the two of them, it was Jonathon who was the stronger, the purer of heart and deed.
He was beginning to feel hungry. He had very little money and no wish to be recognised by anyone. Last night he had raided Maddy's vegetable garden. Tonight...
A car was coming down the drive. Not Maddy's this time. This one had a different engine
! A stranger looking properly at him now would have found him something of an enigma. His physical appearance was that of a tough manual worker, but married to it was a depth of awareness and intelligence in his eyes that suggested a man of letters and deep reflection. But David no longer courted the approval of other people; he no longer needed either their admiration or their company.
Solitude, physical, mental and emotional, had become his chosen friend rather than his feared foe.
It had taken some months of working beside Father Ignatius before David had been able to start confiding in him.
'I have no family, no friends,' David had told him. 'If I were to go back home, they would dis-own me and rightly so. I have committed an unforgivable crime.'
'No crime is unforgivable in God's eyes,' the priest had replied firmly. 'Not if one truly repents it.'
'What is true repentance?' David had asked him, adding sardonically, 'I've never been the
!
sackcloth-and-ashes type. Too much of a sybarite, I suppose, and too selfish.'
'You say that and yet you are prepared to acknowledge that you have sinned. It takes a brave man to submit himself to the judgement of his peers and an even braver one to submit to his own judgement and God's. If to admit the existence of one's sins is the first step on the road to self-forgiveness, then to make true atonement for them is the second.'
'True atonement! And how am I supposed to do that?' David had asked savagely. 'There is no way I could ever repay the money I stole or undo the damage I have done.'
'There is always a way,' Father Ignatius had insisted, 'but sometimes we can make it hard for ourselves to find i t '
Always a way! David shook his head as he remembered those words now. If he had imagined that his leaving, his absence, had created an emptiness in the lives of those he had left behind, he was discovering how vain that assumption had been. The jagged edges of the destruction he had caused had been repaired, and in the days he had spent silently witnessing the lives of his family, he had also discovered just who was responsible for the new closeness and harmony that now per-meated their lives.
Jon, the brother he had always secretly pitied and sometimes openly mocked.
Jonathon. Only the previous evening his twin had walked so close to David's place of conceal-ment in the dusk-shrouded garden of Queensmead that by moving a few yards David could have been at his side.
His brother had changed, grown taller, or was it simply that his bearing had become more upright? As he watched him, David had been aware of how much more confident Jonathon seemed, of how much more content. Was it because he was no longer a part of Jon's life?
David hadn't always been kind to Jon or valued him as he ought to have done. It shamed him now to remember how often he had allowed their father to insist that Jonathon step back into the shadows to allow him to become more prominent, how easily and vainly he had allowed himself to be put up on a pedestal and feted as the favourite son—to his twin's detriment. How conceitedly and selfishly he had laid claim to all the virtues of their shared heritage, pinning on Jonathon the label of the one to inherit all the weaknesses. The truth was that, of the two of them, it was Jonathon who was the stronger, the purer of heart and deed.
He was beginning to feel hungry. He had very little money and no wish to be recognised by anyone. Last night he had raided Maddy's vegetable garden. Tonight...
A car was coming down the drive. Not Maddy's this time. This one had a different engine
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