Aunt Dimity and the King's Ransom

by Nancy Atherton

  I didn’t want to add another chore to her already considerable workload, but I didn’t want ride out the storm in the Mercedes, either. As Christopher had pointed out, a car wasn’t the safest place to be during a cyclone.

  “I can do the dusting and the excavating,” I said readily. “I have three children, Mrs. Hancock, and two of them are ten-year-old boys who can turn a room upside down faster than a force-nine gale. I’m no stranger to housework.”

  “Why don’t you look at the attic before you make up your mind?” Mrs. Hancock proposed.

  “Excellent,” said Christopher, as though the matter were settled. “I’m very grateful to you, Mrs. Hancock.”

  “Don’t thank me yet,” she cautioned.

  “With faith we can move mountains,” he replied serenely. “Have you altered this evening’s dinner schedule?”

  “We’ve had to do a little juggling,” Mrs. Hancock acknowledged, “but we haven’t changed your reservation, Bishop Wyndham.”

  “May Lori join me?” he asked. “If Shepney’s emergency plan calls for strict rationing, we can share my portion.”

  Mrs. Hancock laughed. “We won’t have to ration the food supply, Bishop Wyndham. We’re surrounded by some of the most fertile farmland in England. Most of our evacuees are farmers. They bring enough provisions with them to feed the entire village for at least a month.”

  “It sounds as though Shepney is preparing for a siege,” he marveled.

  “We are,” Mrs. Hancock said firmly. “The waters usually recede after two or three days, but it can take much longer to repair the roads and to clear them of debris.”

  “How much longer?” I asked, wondering if I’d make it home in time for Christmas.

  “It depends on the amount of damage and debris,” she replied with unassailable logic. “However long it takes, you won’t go hungry. The inn’s larders are full and our backup generator will keep spoilage at bay when the power outages start. Our goal during any emergency is to feed as many people as we can seat. It reduces the pressure on the community kitchen in the village hall. Shall I add your name to the bishop’s reservation, Lori?”

  “Yes, please,” I said, “but only if he allows me to return his gloves!”

  I held the black leather gloves out to him. He accepted them meekly and pulled them onto his pink hands as he stood.

  “I’ll meet you in the dining room at eight o’clock, Lori,” he said. “Until then, you’ll find me at St. Alfege’s, assisting Phillip Lawson. I doubt that he’ll allow me to carry sacks of grain, but I can at least relieve him of his obligation to conduct evensong.”

  “Will you come back in time to tell us a story?” Jemima inquired. Her brother gazed at Christopher with wide, hopeful eyes.

  “Of course I will,” said the bishop. “I’ll tell you all about St. Alfege.”

  He thanked Mrs. Hancock again, then left the office. She got to her feet and rummaged through a desk drawer until she found an ornate iron key.

  “It looks like something out of The Count of Monte Cristo, doesn’t it?” she said, displaying the heavy key in the palm of her hand. “A locked door is the only thing that keeps guests from wandering into the attic by accident. Heaven knows what they’d make of the dust.” She slipped the key into her pocket and turned to the children. “Lori and I are going to the attic. Want to meet us there?”

  Jemima and Nicholas bolted from their chairs and galloped past us like a pair of frisky yearlings released into a pasture.

  “They’ve been stuck in here since lunchtime, poor things,” she said. “They need to stretch their legs.”

  “Aren’t you worried about them being trampled?” I asked.

  “They’ll take the staff staircase,” she replied. “It won’t be as busy as the central staircase.”

  She tapped the children’s artwork into a neat pile and began to clear the desk of crayons.

  “They seem very fond of the bishop,” I observed.

  “We’re all fond of the bishop,” said Mrs. Hancock, depositing crayons in an empty biscuit tin. “He used to stay at the rectory when he visited Shepney, but since his retirement, he’s chosen to stay with us.” She gave me a knowing look. “I think he grew a little tired of being treated like a national treasure.”

  “How do you treat him?” I asked.

  “Like a cherished friend,” she replied. Her brow wrinkled as she corrected herself. “A cherished friend with an odd taste in children’s tales. The last time he was here, he told the children a gruesome story about a beheaded saint whose executioner’s eyes fell out. I’m sure he meant well, but Jemima and Nicholas were up half the night, trying to keep their eyeballs from rolling onto their pillows.”

  “Maybe St. Alfege’s story isn’t as gruesome,” I said.

  “Are you kidding?” she retorted. “St. Alfege was hacked to death by Vikings.”

  “Oh, dear,” I said, trying not to laugh.

  She closed the biscuit tin and squared her shoulders. “I’ll have a word with the bishop when he gets back from the church. I simply refuse to cope with night terrors on top of everything else!”

  I nodded sympathetically and followed her out of the office, blithely unaware of the night terrors that awaited me at The King’s Ransom.

  Six

  Mrs. Hancock and I went back the way we came.

  “We’ll take the central staircase,” she said. “If you do decide to stay with us, you should know your way around.”

  “Is there a map of the inn?” I asked, hoping to be helpful.

  She chuckled wearily. “We ran out of maps yesterday and we haven’t had time to print more.”

  “Not a problem,” I said. “I prefer trial and error. It’s more exciting than using a map.”

  As we wormed our way across the teeming foyer, Mrs. Hancock identified doorways and passageways with a speed born of familiarity. I tried to memorize her fleeting words, but the confused tangle of voices and the rain pummeling the bank of wavy windows made it difficult to concentrate.

  “Reception, dining room, pub, small parlor, large parlor, and Captain Pigg’s parlor,” she said. “That’s Pigg with two g’s, by the way, and before you ask, Captain Pigg was an eighteenth-century brigand who quaffed so much ale at The King’s Ransom that they named a room after him.”

  “A great honor,” I said. “Hold on a minute. Let me grab my bag.”

  “Don’t bother,” she told me. “I’ll have one of the porters bring it up to you—if you decide to stay.”

  The pummeling rain had only increased my determination to stay at the inn, but I happily left the suitcase where it was and stuck close to Mrs. Hancock as we began our ascent to the attic.

  It wasn’t a straightforward journey. When we reached the top of the central staircase, we had to walk down a carpeted corridor lined with guest rooms to reach another staircase, which led to another carpeted corridor lined with guest rooms. There were steps within each corridor as well, but only two or three of them at a time, so they hardly counted as staircases. Even so, I felt sorry for the poor porter who would be tasked with lugging my luggage up to the attic—but not sorry enough to run down and fetch it myself.

  As we made our way through the inn’s upper stories, I began to understand why so many of the people I’d seen in the foyer looked lost. The inn was a veritable maze. The corridors jogged to the left or to the right at seemingly random intervals. We passed landings that served no apparent purpose, windows set at differing heights in unexpected places, and several oddly shaped alcoves that were too small to accommodate furniture. Though the alcoves were prettily decorated with dried flowers and pieces of old china, the reason for their existence eluded me.

  “Your staff must have an excellent sense of direction,” I commented. “I’m beginning to wish I’d brought bread crumbs with me to mark the trail back to the ground floor.”
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  “It takes a bit of getting used to,” Mrs. Hancock conceded. “The inn is a collection of buildings that were cobbled together over several hundred years. It gives new meaning to the word ‘retrofit.’”

  As we hustled up another three-step mini staircase, I spotted Jemima and Nicholas waiting for us at the far end of the corridor. We were halfway there when Mrs. Hancock came to a halt.

  “I shall now let you in on the worst-kept secret in Shepney.” She pointed at a door on her left labeled PRIVATE. “You see before you the entrance to our flat.”

  “You live on the premises?” I said, surprised.

  “My husband and I consider it a privilege to live in a historic building,” she said, walking on. “The children love it, and it makes our job easier. We don’t encourage guests to wake us in the middle of the night, but we’re here if they need us.”

  The children were standing in front of a deeply burnished oak door that was also labeled PRIVATE. While they fidgeted impatiently, Mrs. Hancock gave me two more navigational tips.

  “The staff staircase,” she said, indicating a door opposite the oak door. “It’ll get you to the ground floor faster than the central staircase, but you might have a hard time finding the foyer once you get there.” She then opened an unmarked door in an alcove to the right of the burnished oak door. “I can’t offer you a full bathroom, Lori, but if you decide to stay with us, you can use the staff powder room. A previous owner carved out a space for it to save Housekeeping the bother of running all the way down to the ground floor when nature calls.”

  I peered into a timber-framed recess furnished with a wall-mounted towel rack, a pedestal sink, and an old-fashioned chain-and-cistern toilet.

  “It beats using a chamber pot,” I said, recalling Christopher’s comment about the inn’s plumbing. “And it definitely beats climbing out of my car in the dark to search for a place to”—I glanced at the children—“answer nature’s call. Thank you, Mrs. Hancock. The powder room will do nicely.”

  She inserted the ornate key into the oak door’s keyhole and turned it. The lock gave a satisfying click and the door swung outward on creaking hinges to reveal a flight of stairs that would not have looked out of place in a dungeon. The bare wooden steps were worn into a U shape, as if a thousand farmers in hobnailed boots had clambered up and down them, and they disappeared into a darkness that was deeply uninviting.

  “Our grand plan is to turn the attic into a guest suite,” said Mrs. Hancock. “We should get around to it in a couple of centuries.”

  She pressed a wall switch just inside the doorway. The dim light cast by a dusty ceiling lamp made the staircase seem marginally less forbidding, but no less hazardous. I let Jemima and Nicholas dash past me, waited for Mrs. Hancock to close the creaking door, and followed her up the stairs at a measured pace. Having saved my ankles from the vicious cobbles, I did not intend to sprain one on the U-shaped steps.

  “You can go in,” Mrs. Hancock called to her son and daughter, “but do try not to get too filthy, will you?”

  A pool of light illuminated a landing at the head of the stairs as the children opened a second door and let themselves into the attic.

  “We never lock the upstairs door,” Mrs. Hancock informed me, “and the light switch is on the right, between the door and the wardrobe.” She hesitated. “You do know what a wardrobe is, don’t you? Your accent tells me that you’re from America, so . . .” Her voice trailed off on a doubtful note.

  “I know what a wardrobe is,” I assured her. “I hang my clothes in one at home.”

  “I didn’t realize that wardrobes were common in the States,” she said.

  “They’re not,” I said, “but I live in the Cotswolds.”

  “I’ll bet you wish you were there right now,” she said.

  I was pretty sure that every tourist in Shepney wished they were somewhere else at the moment, but it seemed like an impolite thing to say to a woman who lived in the village, so I kept my thoughts to myself.

  “Here we are,” said Mrs. Hancock when we reached the landing. “It isn’t much, but it’s yours for as long as you need it—if you want it.”

  I’m not sure what I expected to see in the attic—a napping vampire, perhaps, or three witches stirring a cauldron—but what I did see was more appealing than it had any right to be. The overhead light filled the room with weird shadows, the curtainless dormer windows were crusted with dirt, and cobwebs hung like bridal veils from the roughly plastered walls, but the ceiling was ribbed with hand-hewn oak beams, the floorboards were as solid as a ship’s planks, and the contents, while a tad overwhelming, were undeniably fascinating.

  A rattan peacock chair in need of repairs stood between a marble-topped washstand that had seen better days and a teak bookcase filled with old books. A gramophone sat atop a stately wireless set that had in all likelihood broadcast the outbreak of the First World War. The ponderous mahogany wardrobe Jean had mentioned took up an inordinate amount of wall space beside the door, dwarfing a pine chest of drawers and a freestanding corner cupboard.

  Birdcages, reed baskets, and wooden tennis rackets hung from the crossbeams, and every level surface was cluttered with odds and ends: bamboo fishing poles, furled parasols, hickory golf clubs, lamps without lampshades, lampshades without lamps, tarnished silver teapots, china figurines, basins, ewers, and a croquet set that looked as if it had last been used at an Edwardian garden party.

  Those were merely the items I saw at first glance. A second glance confirmed that the attic was as full of stuff as the inn was full of guests.

  Christopher might believe that faith could move mountains, but I had no trouble understanding why the Hancocks hadn’t yet transformed the room into a guest suite. In addition to faith, they would have needed a front loader and a crane to shift the vast amount of delightful detritus that had been dumped there.

  “It’s not as big as I thought it would be,” I said.

  “You’re looking at only half of the attic,” Mrs. Hancock explained. “The other half has its own staircase. We use it for storage, but we left this half as we found it.”

  While Jemima stroked the bristly mane of a three-legged rocking horse and Nicholas played with a toy biplane that had evidently suffered several crash landings, Mrs. Hancock cleared a path to a cream-colored iron bedstead that was buried beneath a pile of bandboxes.

  “The inn’s hat collection,” she said drily, nodding at the bandboxes. “There’s a mattress on the bed, but I can’t vouch for its condition.”

  “I’m sure it’ll be fine,” I said, though I wasn’t sure at all.

  “You’re not bothered by the dust?” she asked.

  “Not one bit,” I replied. To show that my mind was made up, I dropped my shoulder bag on an octagonal occasional table and hung my rain jacket on a hook in the mahogany wardrobe.

  “Welcome to The King’s Ransom,” said Mrs. Hancock. She returned the ornate key to her pocket. “For safety’s sake, I’ll leave the downstairs door unlocked during your stay.”

  “I wouldn’t want to fiddle with it in an emergency,” I agreed, “but how will I keep wandering guests from bursting in on me?”

  “The ‘private’ sign should do the trick,” she said. “I’ll be back in a minute with bedding and whatever else I can think of to make you more comfortable, and I’ll send up your bag. Oh, and before I forget . . .” She pointed at a dirt-encrusted window on the far side of the bed. “The fire escape is through there.”

  “Let’s hope I won’t have to use it,” I said.

  She raised crossed fingers, then headed for the staircase, saying, “Nicholas? Jemima? Come with me, please. Lori has work to do, and you need to wash your hands.”

  The children raced ahead of her down the stairs. Jemima’s exultant cry of “Apple crumble!” floated up to me before the creaking door signaled their departure.

 
The storm’s roar seemed to grow louder once I was alone, and the room’s temperature seemed to drop. I allowed myself three seconds to mourn the loss of my suite at The Mermaid Inn, then got to work.

  My excavation of the bed led to the discovery of a thin but serviceable mattress with no discernible lumps, nests, or signs of insect life. The mattress rested on woven cotton webbing rather than springs or wooden slats, and though the webbing looked as if it had been manufactured during the Industrial Revolution, it was still strong enough to take my weight when I tested it with a brief but energetic lie-down.

  I would have needed a month or more to clean the attic properly, so I let sleeping dust lie and tackled the tasks I could accomplish in a reasonable amount of time. After some vigorous clearing and shifting, I created a horseshoe-shaped room-within-a-room composed of the bed, the octagonal occasional table, a Windsor armchair, and the pine dresser.

  The pine dresser required the most effort, as the drawers were full of seashells, but I got there in the end. The finishing touch came in the shape of a rather good Turkish carpet, which had lain hidden in a pile of lesser rugs until I resurrected it and used it to fill the U-shaped space between the bed and the dresser.

  With my main goal accomplished and Mrs. Hancock nowhere in sight, I decided to call Bill. I had my cell phone in my hand when the oak door creaked.

  “I’m back!” shouted Mrs. Hancock, presumably to avoid startling me. “Sorry we took so long. We were waylaid. Repeatedly.”

  With a sigh, I put my phone back into my shoulder bag, dropped the bag onto the octagonal table, and turned to face the landing door. Mrs. Hancock entered the attic a moment later, her arms full of pillows and bedclothes. She was accompanied by a short, stocky man with flaxen hair who gripped my suitcase in one hand and a tall, battery-operated camping lantern in the other. Though a pillow concealed the lower half of my hostess’s face, I had the pleasure of seeing her eyebrows rise as she surveyed my “room.”

  “Good heavens,” she said. “You have been busy.”