01 - Aunt Dimity's Death

by Nancy Atherton - (ebook by Undead)

  The parlor walls were now plain whitewashed plaster, but the furnishings were eccentric, to put it mildly. The television sat atop an antique and worm-eaten altar, and the coffee table was an intricately carved wooden door overlaid with glass. A pair of elegant Louis XIV chairs faced a plain-as-dirt horsehair sofa, and a Chinese black-lacquered desk held a Victorian globe lamp, a brass pig, and a human skull. “Derek comes home with all sorts of things,” Emma explained, “and we thought that the family room should be furnished by the family.” She pointed to the television. “That’s Derek’s little joke, and the chairs were Nell’s idea. I don’t know who brought the skull in here, but Peter chose the desk.”

  The parlor reflected an active family life. It was littered with books and magazines, a forgotten shoe peeked out from under the couch, and a bowl half-filled with cherry pits graced a marquetry chest beneath the windows. When I saw the chest, I realized that I had forgotten to ask Emma about the missing photo album. When I put the question to her, she nodded thoughtfully.

  “Nell was working on a project for school last spring, something about the role of women in the Second World War. Dimity loaned her some pictures for it, but I thought she’d returned them.” She glanced toward the hall. “But let’s make sure.” With Ham galloping ahead, we went upstairs to what I thought was a second-floor bedroom. When I hesitated, Emma said reassuringly, “We’re not about to invade my daughter’s inner sanctum. This is the children’s study.”

  In marked contrast to the parlor, the study was sparely furnished and orderly, with heavy-laden bookshelves, filing cabinets, and a pair of desks facing opposite walls. “I’m happy to say that the children take their schoolwork very seriously. They may make a shambles of the rest of the house, but they’re neat as a pin in here. Nell’s half is on the left.” Emma scanned the bookshelves on that side of the room while I went through the drawers in her daughter’s desk. Five minutes later, Emma came up trumps.

  “Is this it?” She handed me a brown leather photograph album labeled 1939-1944.

  Too excited to speak, I nodded, then opened the album on Nell’s desk and flipped rapidly through it. There were three or four pictures on each page, all of them affixed with black paste-on paper corners. Dimity had written brief captions beneath each of them: names, dates, places. I turned past pictures of Dimity posed alone or with groups of other women in military uniform, catching my breath when my mother’s young face appeared in the crowd, until I came to the end.

  “Damn,” I muttered, “there’s nothing missing.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If the photograph from Pouter’s Hill came from this album, there’d be an empty space somewhere. But there isn’t.”

  “Oh, I see.” Emma half sat on the edge of the desk, her arms folded. “What a shame.”

  “No, wait. Maybe I’m just jumping the gun again.” Sitting in Nell’s chair, I switched on her desk lamp, reopened the album, and began going through it slowly, spreading it flat at every page. “I used to work with rare books, and one of the things I had to check for was vandalism—theft, really. There’s a big market for old woodcuts and engravings.”

  “Like those framed botanical illustrations you see in antique stores?” Emma asked.

  “Right. Some come from books that are too far gone to salvage, but some…” I turned the fifth page, spread it flat, and stopped. “Some are razored out of perfectly sound volumes. Like this.” Emma bent low for a closer look as I thumbed a series of quarter-inch stubs, all that remained of twelve black pages.

  “You don’t think—” I began, but Emma shook her head decisively.

  “Not Nell. Not in a million years.”

  I sighed, closed the album, and brought it back downstairs to the kitchen, where Reginald eyed me sympathetically and Emma looked once more at the photograph of the old oak tree.

  “There’s still hope,” I said wistfully. “Maybe Bill’s father will find the missing pages.”

  “I wonder who could have given this to your mother,” Emma mused. “The couple we bought this place from passed away several years ago, and I don’t know of any other… May I read your mother’s description?”

  I had told her about it earlier. Now I dug out the letter and handed it to her. She read it intently.

  “But this doesn’t say anything about a couple,” she murmured. “It only says ‘two of Dimity’s neighbors.’ ‘Elderly… not terribly coherent…’” Suddenly she looked up, her eyes sparkling. “I think I know who you’re looking for.”

  17

  “The Pym sisters?” I exclaimed. “The sock-knitting Pym sisters? Are they still alive?”

  “And kicking,” Emma replied. “Decorously, of course.” She went on to say that Ruth and Louise Pym were the identical twin daughters of a country parson. No one knew how old they were, not even the vicar, but most guesses placed them over the century mark. They had never married and had spent all of their lives in Finch. “I think they know more about what goes on in the village than most people would like to believe,” Emma concluded. “I’m sure they’re the ones who gave the photograph to your mother, and if they didn’t, they’ll know who did.”

  “How do I get to meet them?”

  “Invite them to tea, of course. They’ll be dying to meet you. I’ll ask them for you, if you’d like.”

  “Yes, please. And you’ll come, too, won’t you?”

  “Why don’t I come early to help you set up?”

  “That would be terrific.”

  Emma accompanied me to the mudroom, where I donned my jacket and gave Ham a last few pats.

  “You’ll have to come over when the sun is shining so I can show you the grounds.” Emma held Ham’s collar while I opened the door. “Be sure to let me know if you find out anything about those missing pages, and I’ll call as soon as I’ve set things up with Ruth and Louise.”

  I unfurled my umbrella, then reached out to clasp Emma’s hand. “Thank you. I don’t know if you realize how much this means to me, but—”

  “I think I do.” She smiled. “Derek and I loved Dimity, too.”

  * * *

  Bill was asleep in the study when I got back, his feet up on the ottoman, the date-filled notebook dangling from his fingertips. I woke him up by dropping Reginald in his lap, then sat on the ottoman and repeated everything Emma had told me that morning. I showed him the stubs in the photo album and he shared my disappointment, but agreed that Willis, Sr., might come through for us yet. He was delighted by the thought of meeting the Pym sisters, but the mention of tea made us both realize that we were ready for lunch. Greatly daring, I tried a spinach soufflé. It was flawless.

  I couldn’t bring myself to face the correspondence after lunch. The things I had learned about my mother had spooked me and I shied away from learning any more. True to his word, Bill soldiered on in silence while I returned scattered archive boxes to their proper places on the shelves. I was sitting at the desk, paging through the photo album when he spoke up.

  “Listen!”

  “I don’t hear anything.”

  “That’s what I mean. It’s stopped raining!”

  I could scarcely believe my ears. The steady drumming of the rain had been replaced by a stillness as heavy as Devonshire cream, and when I leaned forward to look through the windows I saw that a dense fog had settled in the storm’s wake.

  Bill closed the notebook and put it in his pocket, then walked over to have a look for himself. “Ah, the glories of English weather.”

  “I’ll bet it’s a big relief to Derek and the vicar. You think it’ll clear by tomorrow?”

  Bill shrugged. “Something tells me that we’re going up that hill tomorrow even if it snows. You have many virtues, my dear Miss Shepherd, but patience is not one of them.”

  “I’m always halfway up the block before I know where I’m going,” I admitted. “My mother used to say—” I broke off and looked out at the fog again. “I’ve been meaning to thank you, by the way.”
>
  “For what?”

  “For believing me when I told you about the journal, even before you’d seen it with your own eyes. If you had come to me with a story like that, I would have—”

  “Wait,” said Bill. “Let me guess.” He put his hands on his hips and his nose in the air and launched into what I feared was an accurate imitation of me at my indignant worst. “‘Bill,’” he said with a sniff. “‘What kind of a fool do you take me for? I don’t believe in ghosts!’” He relaxed his stance, then raised an eyebrow. “Did I come close?”

  “A direct hit.” I winced. “I’ve been pretty impossible, haven’t I?”

  “No more than I,” said Bill, “and you had a much better excuse. Finding yourself alone in a very strange situation, I can understand why you’d be on guard.”

  “On guard, maybe, but not hostile,” I said. “I don’t know—maybe I acted that way because I was confused. I didn’t understand why you were being so… friendly.” I dusted an invisible speck from the edge of the desk. “To tell you the truth, I still don’t understand it.”

  “Can’t you just accept it?” he asked.

  “It’s hard for me to accept something I don’t understand,” I said.

  “Like your mother?” he said gently.

  I planted my hands on my hips and shot a fiery glare in his direction, then realized what I looked like and sank back in the chair, deflated. “Yes, like my mother.” I pointed to a picture in Dimity’s album. “That’s her. That’s my mom.”

  Bill put one hand on the back of my chair and watched over my shoulder as I paged through the rest of the album. It was filled with pictures of my mother, in uniform and in civilian dress, her dark hair pulled back into a bun or braided in coils over her ears. “She wore it that way to keep her ears warm,” I said. “She said that coal rationing in London during the war meant chilly offices. She had beautiful hair, long and silky. She used to let me brush it before I went to bed, and every night I prayed that my curls would straighten out and that I’d wake up in the morning with hair just like hers.” I ran a hand through my unruly mop. “It didn’t work.”

  “You have her mouth, though,” said Bill. “You have her smile.”

  “Do I?” The very thought brought a smile to my lips. It had been a long time since I had talked to anyone about my mother, and now it seemed as though I couldn’t stop talking about her. “Yes, I guess I do. See this one, where she’s making a face? She used to make that same face at me, wrinkle her nose and cross her eyes, and it killed me every time, just laid me out flat, giggling. We used to have pillow fights, too, and she’d chase me all over the apartment until Mrs. Frankenberg banged on her ceiling with a broom handle. She’d made up this whole set of holidays. I was in kindergarten before I realized that no one else celebrated Chocolate Chip Tuesday.” I turned the page. “Other mothers seemed like cardboard cutouts compared to her.”

  “Were you in any of her classes?” Bill asked.

  “Never. She knew what kids could be like, so she enrolled me in another school entirely.”

  “PTA nights must have been tricky.”

  “Tricky? Try being in two places at once sometime. But she always managed to take care of everyone.” I closed the album and sighed. “Everyone but herself.”

  “Lori—” Bill began, but the telephone cut him off. He snatched it up before it could ring again.

  “Yes?” he said. “How are you, Father? Good, good. Of course I’m behaving myself. You don’t think I want to go through that again, do you? Yes, in some ways she’s very much like my old headmaster, though she lacks his little mustache, of course…. Yes, she’s been hard at work on the correspondence.” Bill glanced at me, then turned away. “I’m sorry, Father, but I don’t think she can come to the phone right now. Would it be possible for you to call—”

  “It’s all right, Bill,” I said. “I’ll take it.”

  “One moment please, Father.” Bill covered the receiver with his hand and said to me, “This can wait.”

  “I know. But I’m all right. I’ll talk to him.”

  Bill gave me a measuring look, then spoke into the phone again. “You’re in luck, Father. She’s just come down. Here, I’ll give you to her now. Yes, I will. Good to speak with you, too.” He passed the phone to me.

  “I’m so glad to have caught you, Miss Shepherd,” said Willis, Sr. “I looked into the matter we discussed yesterday, as you requested. There are photographs with Miss West-wood’s papers, but I regret to say that none of them were taken before the year 1951. They are official portraits, having to do with her role as founder of the Westwood Trust.”

  “That’s a shame,” I said, shaking my head at Bill, “but thanks for checking it out.”

  “You are most welcome. My son tells me that you’ve made great progress in your reading. Since that is the case, I wonder if I might trouble you to answer a few of Miss Westwood’s questions?”

  “Questions? Oh—you want to ask about the letters,” I said, tapping Bill’s breast pocket. I had forgotten all about our question-and-answer sessions. If I’d been attending to my research, it wouldn’t have mattered, but as it was, I was relieved to see Bill pull out his notebook and open it, poised for action. “Why, certainly, Mr. Willis. Fire away.”

  “The first concerns the letter in which Miss Westwood’s cat is introduced. Have you run across it in your reading?”

  “Aunt Dimity’s cat?” I said. Bill consulted his notebook, ran his hand along the rows of archive boxes, and took one down. “Yes, that one appeared fairly early on.”

  “Excellent. Miss Westwood wished for you to explain to me the ways in which the original anecdote differs from the finished story. Would it be possible for you to do so?”

  “The differences between the story and the letter,” I said. “Let me see, now. …” Bill located the letter and handed it to me. I scanned it, then closed my eyes and ran through the story in my head. “The story is more detailed, for one thing. The letter doesn’t mention the cat overturning the knitting basket or spilling the pot of ink on the window-seat cushions.”

  “Yes,” said Willis, Sr., with an upward inflection that suggested I wasn’t off the hook yet.

  “And in the letter, the cat is named Attila. In the story, he’s just called ‘the cat’.”

  “Very good,” said Willis, Sr., but I got the feeling that I was still missing something. I put the letter down and tried to concentrate.

  “In the story,” I said, “the cat is a monster. Honestly, he has no redeeming qualities. He’s played for laughs, but he’s—Just a moment, please, Mr. Willis. What?” This last was to Bill, who was waving wildly to get my attention. He had opened the manuscript of the stories and was now pointing urgently to a page.

  “Wrong answer,” Bill whispered. “Look—right here.”

  Still holding my hand over the phone, I bent down to skim the page. It was the conclusion of the Aunt Dimity’s Cottage

  and as I read through it I realized that I had gotten it wrong. Confused, and a little shaken, I straightened and spoke once more to Willis, Sr.

  “That is to say…” I cleared my throat. “What I meant to say is that the cat has no redeeming qualities at first, but then, when you get to the end of the story—and the letter—he turns out to be kind of a sweetie. I mean, he still does all sorts of awful things and he still makes Dimity lose her temper, but he also amuses her, and he… he keeps her feet warm in bed.”

  “Thank you, Miss Shepherd,” said Willis, Sr. “If you have no further commissions for me, I shall ring off. I have no wish to impede your progress.”

  “No, no further commissions. I’ll talk to you again soon.” I hung up the phone and looked down at the story. “I don’t understand this…. I thought I remembered every word.”

  “Did Dimity change the ending?” Bill asked.

  “No. That’s what’s so strange. As soon as I began reading it, the words came back to me, exactly as they’re written on the page.”

>   “So your memory slipped up a bit. I wouldn’t worry about it.”

  But I was worried. I had been utterly convinced that I knew these stories inside out, but it seemed as though I had been wrong. I felt disoriented, bewildered. What else had I forgotten? I turned to the beginning of the manuscript and began reading.

  18

  We were fogbound for three days.

  Emma swore she had never seen anything like it. She dropped by to let me know that Ruth and Louise Pym had accepted my invitation to come to tea on Saturday, and to reiterate her warning about Pouter’s Hill. “It may not be Mount Everest,” she said, “but it can be just as hazardous in weather like this.” I confounded Bill’s expectations by agreeing with her, and confounded them further by postponing the trip for another twenty-four hours after the sun finally appeared on the morning of the fourth day. I figured it wouldn’t hurt to give the hill a chance to dry out—a path mired in mud would be no easier to climb than one covered in fog.

  Our time wasn’t wasted, though. Bill finished a first read-through of the correspondence and handed me a complete index of letters that related in one way or another to the Aunt Dimity stories. I was amazed at the speed with which he had completed his reading, but he shrugged it off, saying that it was a breeze compared to reading contract law.

  He failed to find so much as a hint about Dimity’s problem, but he set to work compiling a list of the people mentioned in her letters, everyone from Leslie Gordon of Starling House to Mrs. Farnham, the greengrocer’s wife. If Ruth and Louise Pym didn’t pan out, we would go down the list until we found someone who did.