Aunt Dimity's Death

by Nancy Atherton

  “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 ail 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.

  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.

  While Bill was busy with the correspondence, I continued to pore over the manuscript, testing my memory against the written text. All too often, my memory fell short, and the ways in which it did were disturbing. I clearly remembered the very large man who had stepped on Aunt Dimity’s foot at Harrod’s, for example, but what happened next had somehow been edited from my recollection.

  With profuse apologies, the very large man turned to Aunt Dimity and offered her his very large arm. “I am so very sorry, Madame,” he said, in his very large voice, “but the crush is quite impossible today. Won’t you take my arm? Perhaps we can make better progress if we face the crowds together.”

  And Aunt Dimity did take his arm, and they did face the crowds together, and he escorted her to the train afterward and said a cheery farewell. And, although she left without the torch, the bright memory of the kind man lit the way home.

  All I had remembered was her squashed foot. It was as though I had twisted the story to fit an entirely different view of the world, one which was harsher and more harrowing, and the same was true of almost every story in the collection. Disquieted, I said nothing of it to Bill, but I wondered—when had I grown so bitter?

  When I had finished the stories, I made a careful search of the cottage, starting with the utility room and going from there through every cupboard, cabinet, drawer, and shelf, looking for the missing photographs, a personal diary, anything that might help us figure out what had happened to Dimity. I went so far as to try tapping walls and floorboards to discover hidden recesses—a procedure that amused Bill no end—hut my hunt proved fruitless.

  I used Bill’s index to cull from the correspondence all of the letters related to the stories, then used them as an excuse to drive into Bath. I told Bill I was going there to find a photocopy shop, and he agreed that it made sense to work with copies of the letters rather than the originals. It was a plausible story—I believed it, too, until I found myself browsing through the dress shops. That’s when I decided that I had really gone to Bath to find something to wear to tea on Saturday. After all, it was my duty as a hostess to show up in something more presentable than jeans and a sweater.

  So, after wandering through the splendid arcades and elegant crescents of the prettiest of Georgian towns, and after duly copying the letters, I did a little shopping. Maybe more than a little. Once I’d found the dress—a short-sleeved blue silk one, with a dainty floral print—I had to find the shoes to go with it, and then came all the bits in between, and by the time I was finished, I had squeezed my supply of personal cash dry. Why I didn’t ask Bill for an advance was a question I avoided like the plague.

  I tiptoed upstairs to stash my new clothes in the master bedroom, then floated innocently back down to the study, photocopies in hand. When Willis, Sr., called, late in the afternoon on the fourth day of our hiatus, I greeted him with the self-assurance of someone who knows that all the bases are covered.

  “What’s it to be this time, Mr. Willis? Do you want to know about Aunt Dimity’s adventures at Harrod’s? Or maybe we’ll stick closer to home—Aunt Dimity setting aside a patch of garden for the rabbits.”

  “I am heartened to hear the enthusiasm in your voice, Miss Shepherd,” said Willis, Sr. “It is reassuring to know that Miss Westwood’s wishes are being carried forward with such zeal. My question, however, has to do with Aunt Dimity’s experiences at the zoological gardens. Can you recount for me the original version of that story?”

  “Aunt Dimity Goes to the Zoo,” I murmured, leafing patiently through the photocopies. “Let’s see. That should be here somewhere… .” But it wasn’t. I double-checked Bill’s index, but the end result was the same: there had been no reference to the zoo in any of Dimity’s letters. Reluctantly, I admitted as much to Willis, Sr. “I don’t know what to say. There doesn’t seem to be an original version of that story.”

  “Precisely, Miss Shepherd. Thank you very much. Have you had an opportunity to look about you yet? Though your work comes first, of course.”

  “As a matter of fact, we’ve been having some pretty wet weather since we arrived,” I said. “It’s cleared up a bit today, though, and I think I may get a chance tomorrow to use the map you gave me.”

  “I envy you, Miss Shepherd. England in the springtime is not a thing to miss. I would suggest a longer outing, but, alas, the work needs must be done.” And with a pleasant goodbye, he hung up.

  I put the receiver back in the cradle, then turned to Bill, who was still laboring over his list of names. “Why didn’t Dimity write to my mother about the zoo?” I asked. “She talks about Berkeley Square and that rabbit-faced lieutenant, but in all her wartime chatter there’s not one word about the zoo.”

  “Another uncomfortable memory?” he suggested. “Your mother did find her there, wandering about in a daze.”

  “As though whatever happened had happened recently,” I said. “And Dimity went there … why?”

  “Because she’d been happy there? Because it reminded her of better days?”

  “What a shock it must have been to find it deserted, boarded up… . Yet she used it as the setting for one of her most cheerful stories.” I riff
led through the manuscript. “You know, Bill—Dimity said she wrote these for me and for my mother. I’m beginning to wonder if she wrote them for herself as well.”

  *

  **

  I rose early the next day, showered, then put on a pair of shorts, a T-shirt, heavy socks, and my hiking boots. I tied the arms of a sweater around my waist, in case the sun decided to hide its face again, and tucked the topographic map and the photograph in my back pocket. After a light breakfast, I was ready to face the great outdoors.

  Bill, on the other hand, didn’t look ready for anything more strenuous than a stroll across a putting green. He met me at nine o’clock in the solarium dressed in his usual tweed sport-coat, button-down oxford shirt, and corduroy trousers. The only thing out of the ordinary was the absence of a tie.

  “Don’t you have any other clothes?” I asked.

  “You sound like my father,” he said, shifting impatiently from foot to foot.

  “You should listen to your father. But I’m not talking about matters of taste at the moment. I’m talking about survival.” I looked doubtfully at his smooth-soled leather shoes. “Even a pair of sneakers would have better traction than those, and I think you’re going to swelter in that jacket. Didn’t you ever climb any hills when you were in Africa?”

  “I had a Land Rover,” Bill replied evenly. “Besides, Emma said there was a path.”

  “A rough path, in a roughly vertical direction.” I poked the bulging canvas bag he’d slung over one shoulder. “What’s in there?”

  “A few necessities. Let’s see….” He opened the bag and rummaged through it. “A bottle of water, a loaf of bread, some cheese, a few bars of chocolate, the emergency lantern from the car, a throw rug, a trowel from the utility room, a camera—”

  “We’re not going on safari,” I protested. “Trust me on this, Bill—that bag is going to weigh a ton before we get to the top. You’re going to wish you’d left some of that stuff behind.”

  “You let me worry about that.” Throwing open the solarium door, he strode out into the garden. “What a glorious day!”

  He was right about that much, at least. It felt so good to be outside that I had to restrain myself from taking off at a run. A sheep meadow stretched green and serene to the west, the oak grove stood to the east, and ahead of us rose Pouter’s Hill.

  We crossed the sunken terrace of the back garden, then went up the stairs and through the gate in the gray stone wall and out into a grassy meadow. A graveled path led us between the pair of redbuds I had seen from the deck, to a willow-shaded brook that ran along the foot of the hill. The rustic bridge that spanned it practically pointed to an opening in the trees. We consulted the map, decided it was the path Emma had pointed out, and started up. I fell silent, saving my breath for the climb, but Bill spent enough for both of us.

  “Birdsong, bluebells, and bracken,” he rhapsodized. “Soft breezes to speed us on our way. Good, honest sweat, the heady scent of spring, and a winding path beneath our feet.” He paused to take off his sportcoat and mop his brow. “Ah, Lori, it’s wonderful to be alive.”

  “Right,” I said, and kept on walking. As the good, honest sweat began cascading down Bill’s face, his lyric interludes grew fewer and farther between. Halfway up, there was no sound from him but labored breathing, and he began muttering something about chainsaws when the pretty, soft little plants that had invaded the lower part of the path were replaced by great hulking thornbushes.

  Three-quarters of the way up, I had mercy and took the shoulder bag, but by the time Bill had dragged his scratched and aching body up the last stretch of path, he was muddy, sweaty, and pooped and seemed to have a very clear idea of why it was called Pouter’s Hill. He looked ready to sulk for a week.

  Until we saw what lay before us.

  The path had deposited us in a glade that overlooked the land beyond the hill. A wide valley opened out below, a patchwork of bright yellow and pale green and deep, rich brown; of freshly planted fields and newly turned earth crisscrossed with low stone walls and woven together by the meandering course of a stream which glinted silver in the sunlight. Sheep grazed on distant hillsides and a pair of hawks soared in wide, sweeping arcs across the flawless blue sky. It was the clearing in the photograph, come to life.

  “My God,” Bill murmured, his voice hushed with awe.

  The scene below looked as though it hadn’t changed for a hundred years. I sensed a stillness in the clearing, in myself, that I had never felt before, a tranquillity as timeless as the hills that rolled away to the horizon. I knew as surely as I knew my own name that whatever terrible thing had happened to Dimity hadn’t happened here.

  I took the photograph from my pocket and held it up, glancing at it as I moved slowly across the open space. “This is where the picture was taken,” I said, coming to a halt.

  Bill came over to where I was standing, looked down at the photograph, and pointed. “There’s the ridge Emma’s son fell from. And there’s the tree.”

  The gnarled old oak tree stood by itself at the edge of the clearing, and we walked over, drawn to its cool circle of shade. I set the bag gently on the ground, not wishing to disturb the stillness, and Bill dropped his jacket on top of it, then gazed out over the land below. He turned, startled, when I uttered a soft cry.

  A heart had been carved into the old tree. It was darkened with age, and the bark had grown back over some of it, but the initials it encircled were still plainly visible.

  “RM & D—” I looked at Bill. “RM and Dimity Westwood. RM. Who’s RM?”

  “Someone who came up here with her,” Bill guessed, “and took pictures to commemorate the day? Maybe someone who went to the zoo with her as well?” He traced the heart with a fingertip. “Clearly someone she loved.”

  I sank to the ground at the foot of the tree, and Bill sat beside me. He took the water bottle from the bag and we each had a drink. Pouring some water into his cupped hand, he cooled his face, then recapped the bottle and put it away. He sat with his back against the rough bark while I watched the hawks glide gracefully through the air.

  Whose hand had carved that heart? What had happened to him? I closed my eyes and sensed … something. A dream of distant laughter, a memory of voices, a whisper of sweet words echoing down through time; the stillness at the center of a raging world.

  “Lori?”

  Bill’s voice came to me from a long way off. Closer, much closer were those other voices, low voices murmuring, whispering, echoing, then snatched away by a roaring wind. I strained to hear them, but the roar of the wind was followed by silence. I felt a sadness, an intense longing, a sense of loss so powerful that it struck me like a blow. Who had come with Dimity to this still and peaceful place? Whom had she lost to the chaos that surrounded it?

  Bill put his hand on my shoulder.

  “A soldier,” I said, unaware that I was speaking the words aloud. “RM was a soldier, a boy Dimity loved, who joined up early and was killed.”

  “Was he?” said Bill.

  “I … I don’t know.” I opened my eyes and put a hand to my forehead, squinting against the sun’s sudden glare. “I don’t know, but I thought I heard … Did you hear it?”

  “All I hear is the wind in the trees,”

  “The wind …” The wind of death had silenced the voices in the clearing, as it would one day silence all voices. I rubbed my eyes and tried to shake the cobwebs from my mind.

  “RM—a soldier?” Bill mused. “It makes sense. There was a lot of dying being done in those days, and a lot of hearts were broken. It would explain why Dimity was so shaken when your mother met her. It might even explain why she never married. But why would she get rid of the photos? If she loved him, why would she try to erase his memory?”

  I ran my fingers along a twisted root, still touched by a sorrow that was, and was not, my own. “Sometimes it hurts to remember.”

  Bill let the words hang in the air for a moment. “It hurts worse to forget. Because
you never really do, do you?”

  “No,” I murmured, “I suppose you don’t.”

  “Dimity didn’t. If we’re guessing right, she may have tried to forget, but …” He looked up at the heart on the tree. “RM wouldn’t leave her alone. She’s still hurting, still in pain over … something that requires forgiveness. I don’t understand why she would need to be forgiven for the death of someone she loved.”

  “I do,” I said, in a voice so low that Bill had to lean forward to catch my words. “Sometimes you feel guilty after someone dies.”

  “For what?”

  “For … all sorts of things. Things you did and things you didn’t do.”

  “Like suspecting a perfectly innocent man of playing ghost?” said Bill archly.

  “Something like that.” I glanced at him, smiled briefly, then plucked a blade of grass and wound it around my finger. “My mother used to do that—say silly things to pull me out of a lousy mood.”

  “Did she?”

  “She used to tease me all the time, the way you do. I was pretty impossible with her, too.”

  “I find that hard to believe,” said Bill.

  “It’s true, though. She never said anything about it, but …” I shook my head. “I don’t think I grew up to be the daughter she had in mind.”

  “Who do you think she had in mind?”

  “Someone who wasn’t stupid enough to study rare books, for one thing.” I began to shred the blade of grass into tiny pieces. “Someone who could manage to keep a marriage together. Someone who wasn’t so damned pigheaded. But I’ve always been that way. That’s why …”

  “That’s why what?” coaxed Bill.

  “Nothing.” I tossed the bits of grass to the wind. “We’re supposed to be talking about Dimity.”

  “We’ll come back to Dimity. Right now we have to talk about something else. That’s why what, Lori?”