Aunt Dimity and the King's Ransom

by Nancy Atherton

  Since Bill wasn’t due to meet with Sir Roger Blayne until midafternoon, we took our time driving south. We had breakfast at our favorite café in Moreton-in-Marsh and rummaged through a secondhand-book store in Woodstock before hopping onto a busy dual carriageway (“highway,” in American) that made relatively short work of London’s far-flung suburbs.

  As soon as we broke free from London’s grasp, we resumed our unhurried pace. A series of scenic byways took us past orchards and vineyards, thatched cottages and rambling farmsteads, a few castles and a great many stately homes. By mutual agreement, I quelled the urge to check in with Willis, Sr., every fifteen minutes, and Bill resisted the temptation to touch base with his firm.

  It felt positively luxurious to travel in a clean, uncluttered car—no teething rings, no science projects, no long-forgotten juice boxes—but the farther south we drove, the darker and more threatening the sky became. We were enjoying a leisurely lunch at a picturesque riverside pub when the heavens finally opened.

  “A bit drizzly?” I said, eyeing the downpour. “Even the swans are running for cover.”

  “If we were afraid of rain . . . ,” Bill intoned.

  “We wouldn’t live in England,” I finished for him. I smiled wryly, then leaned closer to the window beside our table. “Does the river look high to you? Those willows have their toes in the water.”

  “It does look as if it might be rising,” Bill agreed. “Maybe we should take off before the parking lot turns into a lake.”

  We finished our hazelnut tarts with regrettable speed, paid for our meal, pulled on our jackets, and made a splashy dash for the Mercedes. Once we were on our way, Bill turned up the heat to dry our damp trousers, and I surveyed the countryside through windows streaming with rain.

  The foul weather accompanied us all the way to Blayne Hall. The wind snatched at Bill’s jacket when he got out of the car, and a spray of raindrops smacked me in the face before he could shut his door. To keep the rest of me dry, I clambered over the gearshift lever to take his place behind the wheel.

  I could tell that my husband was having second thoughts about my solo journey to Rye, and I was having a few of my own, but we kept them to ourselves. Bill had criticized my driving skills once too often for me to accept a sensible suggestion from him to stay put, and I would have eaten raw liver before I admitted to him that I was cowed by the storm.

  “I’ll call you as soon as I get to The Mermaid Inn,” I shouted to Bill through my closed window.

  “I’ll see you there,” he shouted back. “Keep the bathwater warm for me!”

  I gave him a cheerful thumbs-up that did not accurately reflect my state of mind.

  A faithful retainer emerged from Blayne Hall armed with an enormous black umbrella that immediately blew inside out. Seemingly unfazed by the mishap, he bowed formally to Bill before escorting him into the manor house. I felt slightly bereft as the unflappable servant with the flapping umbrella closed the door behind my husband, but I gathered my courage, turned the car around, and drove back through the puddles pooling in Sir Roger’s graveled drive.

  When I came to the end of the drive, I hesitated. Bill had explained to me that a right turn would take me to what passed for a major road in East Sussex, while a left turn would keep me on smaller back lanes. To avoid the weather-related traffic jams that were sure to clog the bigger and busier road, I turned left.

  The optimist in me believed that the storm wouldn’t get worse. The pessimist in me chuckled mirthlessly when it did.

  I’d driven no more than five miles when the rain, which had been falling steadily, began to come down in buckets. The drainage ditches on either side of the lane were soon filled to the brim, and though my windshield wipers worked overtime, I could scarcely see roadside signs, much less read them.

  The storm didn’t deafen me with thunder or blind me with lightning, but I was concerned that it might try to drown me. Whenever I dared to look up from the road, I saw ponds forming in freshly harvested fields, sheep seeking higher ground in waterlogged pastures, and trees flailing wildly in the wind. Gusts battered the car so mercilessly that I had to slow to a crawl while maintaining a white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel.

  I began to get seriously nervous when I stopped on a bridge to observe a river that ran through a level stretch of farmland at the base of a broad, flat-topped hill. The raging torrent had not yet burst its banks, but it looked angry enough to smash the bridge to pieces. When six cars crept past me and turned onto a lane that appeared to climb the hill, I followed their taillights. I didn’t know where I was going, but it seemed like a good idea to go up.

  The mystery lane ascended the hill until it reached the top, where it became a cobbled high street that split a village in two. Knots of scurrying pedestrians brought the vehicles ahead of me to a standstill, so I turned in the direction of a church tower I spotted a short distance away down a side street. After my nerve-racking drive I wanted nothing more than to ride out the storm in a sturdy building.

  “Sanctuary,” I said under my breath as the church proper came into view. I parked the Mercedes on the grassy verge beside the churchyard wall, switched off the engine, and bellowed a brief but potent prayer of thanksgiving for my safe deliverance. All wasn’t exactly right with the world, but it was better than it had been before I’d climbed the hill.

  I was about to release my seat belt when my cell phone rang. I pulled the phone out of my shoulder bag, thankful that a call hadn’t distracted me while I was wrestling with the steering wheel. I was entirely unsurprised to see Bill’s name on the phone’s little screen.

  “I’m okay, Bill,” I said, preempting what I knew would be his first and most urgent question. “I got off the road about five minutes ago. I’m not sure where I am, but I’m about to enter a church in a hilltop village, so I should continue to be okay. Do you know what the heck’s going on with the weather?”

  “I do,” he replied, “and it’s not good. According to Sir Roger, an extratropical cyclone is skirting the south coast.”

  “What’s an extratropical cyclone?” I asked.

  “Think of it as a hurricane,” said Bill. “Blayne Hall is under its outermost bands, but you’re closer to the core. If the storm keeps moving, you should be all right. If it stalls, things could get tricky.”

  “Lucky me,” I said. “I guess we should’ve checked the weather forecast before we left home, huh?”

  “We will next time,” he said grimly. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “I’ll be better when I’m inside the church,” I said. “The wind is rocking the car a little.”

  “I’m coming to get you,” he said.

  I glanced at the rain and thought fast. I had no intention of allowing my knight in shining armor to ride to my rescue through an extratropical cyclone.

  “How?” I demanded. “You don’t know where I am. Even if I could give you my precise location, you wouldn’t have to come and get me, because I really am okay.”

  “Lori—” he began, but I cut him off.

  “I’m fine, Bill,” I insisted. “I’m not floating in a life raft in the middle of the ocean. I’m in a village with shops and houses and at least one church. If I need help, I won’t have to send up a flare. I can just knock on a door.”

  “All right,” he said reluctantly, “I’ll sit tight for now. But call me as soon as you figure out where you are.”

  “I will,” I promised. “In the meantime, ask Sir Roger to pour you a large whiskey. You need something to steady your nerves.”

  Bill gave a grudging chuckle and we ended the call.

  I sank back in the driver’s seat, feeling as if I’d dodged a bullet. I couldn’t blame Bill for worrying about me, but the thought of him losing his life in a needless bid to save mine was too terrible to contemplate.

  The car shuddered again, so I set the emergency br
ake, released my seat belt, returned the phone to my shoulder bag, and flexed my tired fingers while I braced myself for the race to the church. It was only then that I noticed a large, hand-painted sign fixed to the churchyard wall almost at eye level.

  The sign informed me that I’d arrived at the parish church of St. Alfege, where an exhibition of ecclesiastical needlework was currently on display. I was glad I hadn’t seen the sign sooner. I had no idea who St. Alfege was, but I doubted that many churches were named after him. If honesty had compelled me to reveal the church’s unusual name to Bill, he would have figured out where I was and come running after me, which was exactly what I didn’t want him to do.

  The car rocked again and a flurry of raindrops pelted the windscreen. I needed no further inducement to zip up my jacket, pull up my hood, pick up my shoulder bag, and sprint up the path that led to the church’s south porch.

  The first blast of wet, cold air took my breath away. On top of everything else, the temperature had dropped by a good twenty degrees since our leisurely lunch by the riverside. My decision to wear wool and cashmere suddenly seemed prescient, but the big chill made me wish that I’d worn woolen mittens as well.

  I could tell at a glance that St. Alfege’s was a very old church. It was short and squat and built of flint rubble masonry with gray limestone dressing. Its roof was clad in overlapping red clay tiles, all of which seemed to be holding their own against the wind, and the stumpy square bell tower reminded me so strongly of St. George’s that a wave of homesickness swept over me as I splashed past it. I didn’t think St. Alfege’s was as beautiful as St. George’s—I preferred Cotswold stone to flint rubble—but I had to admit that no church would look its best in the pouring rain.

  I crossed the porch gingerly to keep myself from slipping on its wet flagstones, turned the handle on a stout oak door, and staggered into the church. A voluminous sigh of relief escaped me as I pushed the door shut behind me. Though I could still hear the roaring wind and the pounding rain, the wind’s roar was muted and the rain was no longer pounding on my head.

  I shook myself like a damp puppy, pushed my hood back, and looked around, but I couldn’t see very much. Since the sun was unable to show its face, St. Alfege’s was illuminated only by the red altar lamp and the flickering flames of a few votive candles set in a wrought-iron candle stand at the far end of the south aisle.

  The nave was furnished with laminated wood chairs instead of pews, which, to my eye, detracted somewhat from the timeless beauty of the round Norman arches that separated it from the side aisles. I reckoned that a door on my left was the entrance to the bell tower, but the rest of the church was so shrouded in shadows that it would have been spooky if it hadn’t felt so reassuringly solid.

  “It’ll take more than a cyclone to uproot you from your hill,” I said aloud to the sturdy old building.

  “It certainly will,” said a voice.

  That’s when things got a bit spooky.

  Three

  My heart, which hadn’t yet recovered from the strain of driving smack dab into a monster storm, nearly jumped out of my chest.

  “H-hello?” I faltered, peering into the gloom. “Is . . . is someone there?”

  A disembodied head appeared in the wavering light shed by the votive candles.

  I gasped and fell back a step, wondering if St. Alfege was the patron saint of horror films, but as the head began to float toward me, I saw that it was firmly attached to the body of a man whose attire made him seem vaguely menacing.

  He was dressed all in black—black overcoat, black scarf, black trousers, and thick-soled black brogues—and he clasped a black homburg hat to his chest with black-gloved hands. The gloves struck me as particularly sinister, and though I couldn’t hear his footsteps, I could imagine them echoing ominously in the shadows.

  Nothing, not even a black-clad stranger with sinister gloves, could have frightened me into abandoning my safe haven. I readied myself to clobber him with my shoulder bag, but when he finally came within clobbering distance, I relaxed. The man was no more menacing than a day-old chick.

  He was only a few inches taller than I was—and I wasn’t known for my height. He was slightly built, too, and his clothes, while plain, were well tailored. He had wispy white hair, a round, kindly face, and gentle gray eyes that gazed apologetically at me through small, rimless spectacles. Up close, he looked more like a leprechaun than a slasher.

  “Forgive me,” he said. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  “It’s not your fault,” I responded, thinking that Bill wasn’t the only one with unsteady nerves. “I was a little jumpy to begin with. It’s quite a storm out there.”

  “A storm of biblical proportions, I fear,” he remarked.

  “I hope not,” I said. “I forgot to pack my ark.”

  Smiling, he said, “You’re unlikely to need an ark if you’re staying in Shepney.”

  “Shepney?” I said. “Is that where I am?”

  “Yes, of course,” he replied, looking politely perplexed. “Where did you think you were?”

  “I hadn’t the vaguest idea,” I said. “I was on my way to Rye when the storm exploded.”

  “It must have been a frightful ordeal,” he said, his brow wrinkling sympathetically. He gestured toward the row of chairs nearest to us. “Would you care to sit down?”

  “I’d probably be better off sitting than standing,” I admitted. “I don’t mean to be melodramatic, but my legs are shaking.”

  “You’re not being melodramatic,” he asserted. “You’re experiencing a natural reaction to a stressful situation.” He then demonstrated his good manners by waiting until I was seated to sit beside me.

  “I can testify to the stress,” I told him. “I’ve never gone over Niagara Falls in a barrel, but I’m pretty sure I know what it feels like. I had to grip the steering wheel so hard that my hands began to get numb, so I followed some cars up a hill and took refuge in the first church I saw.”

  “A wise decision,” he said, nodding. “I suspect that St. Alfege’s has shrugged off hundreds, if not thousands, of storms. I’m confident that it will survive this one as well.” He placed his hat on his lap and sighed. “England’s weather used to be fairly predictable, with a few extremes. Nowadays it seems to be entirely unpredictable and frequently extreme.”

  “Are cyclones common around here?” I asked, eyeing him incredulously.

  “They’re becoming more so,” he replied.

  “Remind me not to buy a vacation home in East Sussex,” I said, shaking my head.

  “East Sussex has many charms,” he assured me. “I hope you’ll return one day, when the weather is less discouraging. I believe you said you were on your way to Rye?”

  “My husband will be joining me there this evening,” I confirmed. “I should probably call him. I didn’t know were I was before, but now that I do, I should let him know.”

  “Shall I make myself scarce?” he asked.

  “Please don’t,” I said, reaching for my cell phone. “My husband’s a worrier. I may need you to back me up when I tell him I’m okay.”

  Bill answered on the first ring, as if he’d been waiting impatiently for my call.

  “Where are you?” he asked without preamble.

  “I’m in St. Alfege’s Church in the East Sussex village of Shepney,” I replied.

  “Shepney,” he repeated, evidently for Sir Roger’s benefit, because there was a short pause before he continued, “Sir Roger informs me that you’re about three miles from Rye.”

  “Good,” I said. “I thought I was farther away than that, but three miles is doable, even in the dark. As soon as the storm lets up, I’ll hit the road again. In the meantime, there’s no need to worry about me. I’m high and dry and I’ve made a new acquaintance, so I’m not alone. If you don’t believe me, I can pass the phone to him.”

&n
bsp; “I believe you,” said Bill. “But no heroics, Lori. Get a room in Shepney if you have to. I can meet you in Rye tomorrow.”

  “I’ll let you know what happens, either way,” I promised.

  He groaned. “This isn’t the romantic getaway we planned, is it, love?”

  “You’d better cut back on the whiskey,” I said. “It’s making you maudlin. Never say die, my dearest. I’ll see you in Rye!” I dropped the phone in my shoulder bag, looked ruefully at my companion, and said, “If you want to make God laugh, make plans.”

  “At least God has a sense of humor,” he said. “I’m sure your plans will come right in the end. Do you visit Rye often?”

  “I’ve never been there before,” I said.

  “If you haven’t yet booked a hotel,” he said, “I can recommend The Mermaid Inn.”

  “That’s where we’re staying,” I said happily.

  “An excellent choice,” he said. “I stayed there many years ago, and I can’t praise it too highly. The building is a warren of—”

  “Don’t tell me!” I cried. I flinched as my words echoed raucously through the church, and immediately lowered my voice. “Sorry, but I’d like to discover the warren for myself.”

  “You won’t be disappointed,” he promised. “You must permit me to give you one tip, however. If the chef still has the recipe for celeriac cream soup, ask him to make it for you.” He sighed reminiscently. “Once tasted, never forgotten.”

  “I’ll put celeriac cream soup at the top of my wish list,” I said.

  “Rye is a fascinating town,” he went on. “Admittedly, it’s too popular for its own good during the summer months, but the crowds will have thinned by now. Are you fond of old churches?”