Aunt Dimity and the King's Ransom

by Nancy Atherton

  “Very,” I said.

  “Then you must visit St. Mary’s in Rye,” he said with quiet enthusiasm. “It has one of the oldest functioning turret clocks in England. If you climb up to the bell chamber, you’ll see the midsixteenth-century mechanism behind the clock face. If you climb higher still, you’ll find yourself out of doors, peering over a parapet at the very top of the bell tower. The views are splendid, but you might wish to wait for a fine day to take them in.”

  “I wouldn’t see a whole lot on a day like today,” I agreed.

  “I seem to recall a rather handsome church cat as well,” he said reflectively, “though it’s been such a long time since I made his acquaintance that he may have gone to meet his Maker by now.”

  “If he has, I’ll keep an eye out for one of his handsome descendants,” I said. “St. Mary’s sounds brilliant. It’ll be the first place we visit in Rye, after we finish exploring The Mermaid Inn.”

  “The church in Winchelsea is remarkable, too,” he said. “The stone effigies are so delicately carved that they seem to breathe. And Winchelsea is only a short drive from Rye.”

  “I’m making mental notes as you speak,” I told him.

  “I’m speaking too much, aren’t I?” he said with a self-conscious grimace.

  “Not at all,” I said. “Even if you were boring me senseless, which you’re not, I’d be grateful for the distraction. Thanks to you, I’m thinking about handsome church cats instead of my close encounter with an extratropical cyclone.”

  “You’re too kind.” He removed one of his black gloves and extended his hand. “My name is Wyndham, by the way. Christopher Wyndham.”

  “I’m pleased to meet you, Mr. Wyndham,” I said, “but if I were you, I wouldn’t shake my hand. It’s as cold as a dead fish.”

  “Here, take my gloves.” He began at once to remove the other glove.

  “I can’t take your gloves,” I protested.

  “Of course you can,” he said, thrusting them at me. “I was going to put them in my pocket anyway. My hands are overheating.”

  I didn’t believe him, but I accepted the chivalrous gesture to avoid hurting his feelings. I was amply rewarded by the warmth that enveloped my frigid fingers as I pulled on the preheated gloves. How I ever could have regarded them as sinister was beyond me.

  “Thank you,” I said. “My pinkies are dancing for joy, or they will be as soon as they thaw. I’m Lori Shepherd, Mr. Wyndham, but everyone calls me Lori.”

  “Then you must call me Christopher. Forgive my curiosity, Lori,” he continued, “but are you from the United States? Your use of the phrase ‘vacation home’ suggests that you are, as does your accent.”

  “Your ears do not deceive you, Christopher,” I said. “I was born and raised in Chicago, and my husband is from Boston, but we’ve lived in England for quite a long time.”

  “In London?” he inquired, as if he couldn’t conceive of an American living anywhere else in England.

  “No,” I said. “We live in a cottage near a very small village in the Cotswolds. We’re raising our children there—twin boys and a baby girl.”

  “How old are your children?” he asked.

  “Will and Rob will turn eleven in March,” I told him, “and Bess will turn two in February. She was a bit of a surprise.”

  “A pleasant one, I’m sure,” he said. “How fortunate Will, Rob, and Bess are to grow up in such bucolic surroundings. I live in Winchester. It’s a splendid town, but I do enjoy my escapes to the country.”

  “Was St. Alfege’s a port in the storm for you, too, Christopher?” I asked. “Or were you lured here by the needlework exhibition?”

  “I came to Shepney to visit St. Alfege’s,” he replied. “Like you, I’m fond of old churches. The exhibition would have been an added bonus if someone had left the lights on. Unfortunately”—he peered fruitlessly toward a cluster of nebulous shapes in the north aisle—“no one did.”

  “Not a problem.” I reached into my trouser pocket and withdrew a key chain from which dangled a whistle, a miniature Swiss Army knife, and a small but powerful flashlight.

  “My word,” said Christopher when I held the key chain up for his inspection. “You must have been an exemplary Girl Guide.”

  “I call it my earthquake survival kit,” I said, lowering the key chain. “I put it together after a quake rattled me in New Zealand, and I never travel without it. It won’t keep me from being buried in rubble, but it just might help me to get unburied.”

  “Have you ever had to summon help with the whistle?” Christopher asked interestedly.

  “Not yet,” I said, “but I use the knife and the flashlight all the time.”

  “I, too, travel with a torch,” he said, “but I foolishly left mine in my hotel room. Are you a needlework aficionado?”

  “I am,” I said. “A little old lady in my village makes the most exquisite quilts. I never get tired of looking at them. I’m not much of a quilter, but I used to know my way around an embroidery hoop.”

  “Used to?” he queried.

  “I put my needles away when the twins were born,” I explained. “I found it too easy to picture Will and Rob with identical puncture wounds.” I turned on the flashlight and stood. “My hands are toasty, my legs have stopped shaking, and we have a light source, Christopher. Shall we feast our eyes on the exhibition?”

  “We shall,” he said, getting to his feet. “Follow me.”

  The nebulous shapes in the north aisle turned out to be upright, glass-fronted display cases. The first one we reached held a nineteenth-century altar cloth richly embroidered in metallic threads. The threads glittered spectacularly in my flashlight’s bright beam.

  “Wow,” I said in an awed whisper. “Just look at those stitches. They’re perfect, and you can take it from me that metallic thread is a pain in the neck to work with. It ties itself into knots if you so much as look at it the wrong way.” I shook my head. “Whoever embroidered this masterpiece must have had the patience of a saint.”

  “I find that craftsmen and craftswomen often do their finest work for their places of worship,” said Christopher. “To embellish an altar cloth is a form of prayer for such people. I have no doubt that they derive personal satisfaction from creating beautiful objects, but I believe that their ultimate goal is to glorify God.”

  “It must be,” I said. “No one would work that hard for a lousy paycheck.” I stepped forward to examine the altar cloth more closely. “Though I suppose some of them just liked to show off. If I could handle metallic threads as skillfully as the woman who praised God with those stitches, I’d have to confess to the sin of pride once a day and twice on Sundays, or risk going straight to hell.”

  Christopher’s robust chuckle sent another round of echoes through the church. He stifled his mirth, then said in a voice still quavering with laughter, “I’m sure your honesty would guarantee your entrance to heaven, Lori.”

  “Now who’s being too kind?” I retorted.

  We gazed at the glittering altar cloth for several minutes, then moved to the next display case. It held a kneeler cross-stitched with an apple tree occupied by a red-eyed serpent and flanked by Adam and Eve, whose hands and arms were strategically placed to conceal their respective genders. Though the kneeler was worn and faded, the cross-stitched image was so well executed that I was glad to see it under glass instead of under imminent threat of being squashed by a churchgoer’s knees.

  “What a treasure,” Christopher murmured.

  “It doesn’t have to glitter to be gold,” I agreed.

  We were about to move on to the third display case when a siren’s wail sounded overhead. As we wheeled around in alarm, every light in the church came on, a door near the altar banged open, and a boy in a bright yellow slicker dashed down the center aisle.

  A man in a matching slicker strode afte
r the boy, calling, “Be careful on the stairs, Trevor! You know how uneven they are, and they may be wet!”

  The boy disappeared through the door to the bell tower, but the man stopped halfway down the center aisle to wipe rain from his face.

  A moment later, a bell began to toll frantically.

  “Oh, dear,” said Christopher, gazing upward. “I believe there may be a problem.”

  Four

  I turned off my flashlight and returned the key chain to my pocket, wondering if the man in the yellow slicker was a rector, a vicar, a verger, or a sexton. He couldn’t be a casual passerby, I reasoned, because a casual passerby wouldn’t have access to the church’s light switches or know about the bell tower’s uneven stairs.

  The man was tall and slender and several decades younger than Christopher. When he lowered his hood, I saw that he had close-cropped brown hair and a lean, clean-shaven face.

  “Good afternoon, Phillip,” Christopher called above the combined clamor of the wailing siren and the tolling bell. “Is there something going on that we should know about?”

  The young man stiffened, then swung around to face us, looking thunderstruck.

  “B-Bishop Wyndham?” he stammered. He opened his mouth, then closed it and sidled hastily toward us between two rows of chairs.

  “Bishop?” I said, with a questioning look at my fellow needlework enthusiast.

  “Retired,” Christopher said quietly. “I try to keep a low profile. If I don’t, conscientious young clerics like Phillip think they’re on parade.”

  The conscientious young cleric finished his sideways shuffle and stood staring, dumbfounded, at my new friend, the bishop.

  “Lori Shepherd,” said Christopher, “please allow me to introduce you to Phillip Lawson, the rector of St. Alfege’s and the energetic lead minister in a team ministry that serves three other parishes. Like you, Phillip prefers to be addressed by his Christian name. Phillip, may I present Lori Shepherd? Lori was on her way to Rye when the storm forced her to seek refuge in your church.”

  The rector glanced at me distractedly, saying, “I’m pleased to meet you, Miss, er, Mrs.—”

  “Lori,” I put in. “Just Lori.”

  “Lori,” he said before turning to the bishop. “Forgive me, Bishop Wyndham. If I’d known you were coming to Shepney, I would have—”

  “You would have made a fuss,” Christopher interrupted. “I’m not terribly fond of fusses, Phillip, but I had every intention of looking in on you and your delightful family after evensong. I believe I saw your son Trevor run past us a moment ago. My goodness, Trevor must be”—he paused to consider—“ten years old by now?”

  “What a remarkable memory you have, Bishop Wyndham,” said Phillip. “Trevor turned ten in April. As my eldest, he has the privilege of ringing the alarm bell, and he guards his privilege jealously.” He grinned. “It’s the only time he’s allowed to run in church.”

  “May I ask why Trevor is ringing the alarm bell?” Christopher asked.

  “It’s a village tradition,” the rector explained. “In Shepney, a church bell has always been rung in times of crisis. We installed the siren two years ago, but it hasn’t gone down well with some of the older members of our congregation. They claim that they hear the bell more clearly than the siren. I’m not quite sure I believe them, but it’s better to be safe than sorry. Apart from that, ringing the alarm bell gives Trevor a sense of civic responsibility, which is never a bad thing.”

  “No indeed,” said Christopher. “But why, my dear fellow, is Trevor ringing the alarm bell now?” He glanced at the raftered ceiling. “I presume it has something to do with the weather.”

  “It has everything to do with the weather,” Phillip said. “We’ve had two major storms since August, and rain almost every day in between. The same thing happened last year and the year before, so we know what to expect. It’s the result of climate change, of course. All over the world, hundred-year floods have become annual events.”

  “And in this little corner of the world . . . ?” the bishop prompted.

  “The wind should ease off by midnight,” said Phillip, “but the ground is already saturated, the river is rising rapidly, and the flood defenses are holding on by a thread. Even as we speak, families from outlying farms and hamlets are evacuating to Shepney.” He looked at his wristwatch and asked, “Would you excuse me for a moment?” Without waiting for a reply, he jogged over to the bell tower, leaned through the open door, and bellowed, “That’s enough, Trevor! You can come down now!” When the bell continued to ring, he roared, “Privileges can be revoked, Trevor! Come down this instant! Carefully!”

  The bell rang once more, then fell silent. A few minutes later, the boy joined his father at the bottom of the stairs and they both made their way down the north aisle to the spot where the bishop and I stood. Unsurprisingly, Trevor was tall for his age, brown-haired, and as lanky as his father.

  “Hello, Trevor,” said Christopher. “I don’t know if you remember me, but—”

  “You’re Bishop Wyndham,” Trevor broke in eagerly. “You told me the story about the executioner whose eyeballs popped out when he beheaded St. Alban.”

  It was a story that would have delighted my bloodthirsty sons. Bishop Wyndham, I decided, was a man who knew his audience.

  “This is my friend Lori,” Christopher said, tilting his head toward me.

  “Pleased to meet you,” Trevor mumbled, making it transparently clear that an unknown woman couldn’t compete with a bishop who told thrilling tales about headless saints and eyeless executioners. Having observed the niceties, the boy looked up at his father and asked, “Where is everyone, Dad? They should be here by now, shouldn’t they?”

  “They’ll be here shortly,” Phillip assured him. “Why don’t you keep a lookout for them? They’ll come through the south porch.” As Trevor left the north aisle to man his post, the rector asked, “Where are you staying, Bishop Wyndham?”

  “I have a room at the inn,” Christopher replied.

  “I suggest you return there immediately,” said Phillip. “We’ve developed an emergency plan, you see. The Hancocks will want to do a head count of their guests. Once they add you to the count, you’ll be asked to shelter in place until we sound the all-clear.”

  “They’re here, Dad!” Trevor yelled.

  His announcement was still rebounding from the rafters when six men in dripping rain suits entered the church through the same door I’d used. They exchanged bellowed greetings with the rector as they and Trevor began methodically to remove the chairs from the nave and to stack them neatly in the south aisle.

  “Part of the emergency plan?” Christopher queried.

  Phillip nodded. “The church will be used to store fodder for the farm animals—pigs, chickens, goats, cows, horses, and so on. They’re being evacuated to Shepney as well, and it’s essential to keep their feed dry.”

  As if on cue, more men began to stream into St. Alfege’s from the south porch. Some were carrying grain sacks on their shoulders while others pushed wheelbarrows filled with flakes of alfalfa hay tightly covered with clear plastic sheeting. It looked as though they’d rehearsed the drill many times, because they moved without hesitation or collision to drop different types of feed in different quadrants of the church before departing to pick up further loads.

  “The first two rows of chairs will be left in place for those who wish to attend services,” Phillip continued conscientiously, “though I doubt that many will. It’s safer for everyone to shelter in place until the worst of the storm has passed.” He turned to me. “Are you staying at the inn as well, Lori?”

  “I’m not staying anywhere,” I replied in a feeble attempt to defy fate. “I’m on my way to Rye.”

  The rector took a deep breath before saying gently, “I’m sorry, Lori, but there isn’t the remotest chance that you’ll make it to R
ye today. Please believe me when I tell you that it would be dangerous to try. You could lose your life.” He shook his head. “I’m afraid you have no choice but to stay here.”

  “Where?” I said, bewildered. “The inn?”

  Christopher shook his head. “It was fully booked when I checked in earlier today.”

  “There’s no room for me at the inn,” I murmured, feeling as though I’d stumbled into a rain-drenched Nativity play.

  “Can you put Lori up at the rectory, Phillip?” Christopher asked.

  “I wish I could, Bishop Wyndham, but I can’t,” Phillip said regretfully. “It’s the emergency plan, you see. Every spare bed in Shepney has already been allocated, either to farming families or to people who work here but live elsewhere. My wife and I are hosting the Bakers—parents, grandparents, four children, two Labradors, and a cockatoo—and as you know, we have three children of our own. I’m truly sorry, but the rectory is full up.”

  “The emergency plan must include accommodations for visitors like Lori, who were merely passing through,” said Christopher.

  “It does,” said the rector, “but I checked in at the village hall—our emergency headquarters—before I came here. As luck would have it, a rather large tour group from France descended on Shepney today. Their coach should have left by noon, but for some reason their departure was delayed. They’ve taken the beds reserved for stranded visitors at the inn.”

  “A camp bed in the vestry, perhaps?” Christopher suggested.

  “The vestry’s reserved for Joe Turner and his terriers,” Phillip replied. “Once we’ve filled the church with feed, Joe’s terriers will perform an essential service. Without them, St. Alfege’s would be overrun by rodents.”

  I glanced squeamishly at the church’s unlit corners and said, “Not a problem, Phillip. I brought warm clothes with me. I can bundle up and sleep in my car.”

  Phillip looked crestfallen, but Christopher wasn’t ready to throw in the towel just yet.

  “Come with me to the inn, Lori,” he said. “Under the circumstances, I’m sure the Hancocks will allow you to stay in one of their public parlors. You’ll be safer and more comfortable there than you would be in your car.”