Aunt Dimity: Snowbound

by Nancy Atherton

  “It’s kind of you to say so, madam,” said Catchpole. “My mother taught me to cook. Had to turn my hand to every sort of work in Miss DeClerke’s time, on account of there not being a full staff.”

  The old man’s boots thudded heavily on the corridor’s pine floorboards. The gloomy, low-ceilinged passageway was lined with doors that led to a warren of service rooms. Catchpole named some of them as we passed: scullery, boot room, lamp room, still room, servants’ hall—the empty shells of what had once been a vital support system. Each door was shut, each room cloaked in silence. The corridor that had served as the main thoroughfare for a bustling army of servants was now a seldom-used back alley. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see weeds sprouting between the floorboards.

  Catchpole opened a door at the end of the corridor and we stepped into a high, square entrance hall that stopped me in my tracks. Nothing had prepared me for its splendor. The oak-paneled walls rose to a coffered ceiling dotted with brightly painted armorial medallions, and the oak staircase’s gracefully turned banisters ended in a pair of exquisitely carved rosewood angels. One heavenly figure plucked a harp and the other blew an uplifted horn, as if heralding the arrival of Ladythorne’s honored guests.

  “Holy cow,” I breathed.

  My awestruck gasp seemed to please Catchpole. He held his lamp high and guided me to the center of the hall. His boots were silent on the encaustic tile floor, as if his very footsteps expressed his reverence for the great house beyond the service corridor.

  I gaped like a guide-toting tourist, gazing wide-eyed at the finely crafted furnishings. A pair of tall Chinese vases filled with peacock feathers rested atop bloodred marble plant stands in the shadowy recess beneath the stairs, and a curlicued brass chandelier hung from the coved ceiling on a chunky chain. To my left, a gold-threaded tapestry hung above an altarlike console table that held a large, hand-beaten copper bowl and matching candlesticks. Directly ahead of me, a three-part stained glass window pierced the wall above a heavily carved door that would never have succumbed to Wendy’s pry bar. Every object seemed flawless, every surface gleamed—there wasn’t a cobweb in sight.

  “I took the others up the back way,” Catchpole said, “but I thought you might like to see what Miss Gibbs has done with the abbey. Wall panels were rotting away till she took charge. Replaced ’em all, from one end of the house to the other. Had to pull up most of the floors, too, and have ’em relaid.”

  “Amazing.” I looked askance at the old man. “You don’t have to do the dusting, do you?”

  The pedestrian nature of my concern brought a faint twinkle to Catchpole’s eye.

  “Chars come in once a week,” he informed me. “They were here yesterday—dusted, hoovered, aired the rooms. It’s a good thing, too, because they won’t be back till the plows get through.”

  I was oddly comforted by the notion of a troop of cleaning women rattling about the place and easing the old man’s sense of isolation.

  “It must be nice to have the company,” I commented.

  “I keep an eye on ’em,” Catchpole growled. “Turn your back on those women for a minute and they’ll steal the carpet from under your feet.”

  My rosy vision of chummy chats around the mop bucket popped like a soap bubble.

  “Your room’s on the first floor, madam,” said Catchpole, and he led the way up the broad oak staircase.

  “Tessa ought to get a medal,” I declared as we ascended. “Or a knighthood or a . . . a damehood. Anyone who saves an historic building should be rewarded in some way. She’s preserved a national treasure.”

  “She’s done Ladythorne proud,” Catchpole agreed. “The furniture’s still pretty rough in some of the rooms, but that’s to be expected. Rome wasn’t built in a day, my mother used to say.”

  I raised a hand to cover a yawn. “Sorry, Catchpole. I know it’s only six o’clock, but I’m pooped.”

  “The others felt the same way,” he told me. “I expect they’re asleep already.”

  I hoped my fellow castaways were sound asleep because I didn’t want anyone to overhear the little chat I intended to have as soon as I reached my room. While Bill made inquiries on his end, I planned to make use of my own, less orthodox, resources to find out more about the DeClerkes, and whereas a telephone conversation required no explanation, I’d have to plead insanity to explain a conversation with Aunt Dimity.

  When we reached the top of the staircase, Catchpole turned right and proceeded down a corridor lined with linenfold oak paneling. There were no paintings on the walls, no side tables laden with glittering ornaments, and the floor runner, although luxuriously thick, was a plain, solid maroon. The effect was severe, almost claustrophobic, and served as a reminder of the abbey’s original purpose. I was glad that Ladythorne’s long-departed monks couldn’t see me clomping through their sacred precincts in hiking boots, with a shotgun slung over my arm.

  We’d gone no more than forty paces when Catchpole stopped at a door on our left.

  “Here you are,” he said. “Miss Walker’s one door up from you. Mr. Macrae’s across the hall. Bath and lavatory are next door to Miss Walker. You’ll find clothes in the wardrobe, all spanking new. I’m sure something in there’ll fit you. Feel free to use what you like. Miss Gibbs bought the lot for her guests.”

  “Where will you sleep tonight?” I asked.

  “I’ll go back to my cottage,” Catchpole replied. “I’ve got budgies, you see, and their water’ll need changing.” He opened the door for me. “Good night, madam.”

  “Good night, Catchpole. Thanks for everything.” I stepped across the threshold, turned, and put my head into the corridor, to watch until Catchpole and his flickering lamp began to descend the stairs. I couldn’t help wondering if he was really going to wade through snowdrifts for the sake of his feathered friends, or if he’d invented the tale and planned instead to patrol the hallways till dawn, to make sure we kept to our rooms. Monks or no monks, I was suddenly quite pleased with myself for bringing the shotgun with me. The old man’s mood swings were a bit too unpredictable for my peace of mind.

  Once Catchpole had disappeared down the main staircase, I drew back from the threshold, closed the door, and turned to inspect my room. I’d half expected it to resemble a monk’s cell, but it was as different from the severe corridor as it could be. Everything in it was light and airy, from the pretty floral wallpaper to the toile coverlet on the cream-painted bed. A plump armchair and a short-legged slipper chair, both upholstered in blue toile, sat on either side of a dainty tea table before the hearth. The skirted dressing table held a silver-backed hairbrush and hand mirror, and the marquetry writing table was neatly laid out with a silver pen and pencil set as well as a supply of ivory stationary embossed with a silhouette of Ladythorne’s extraordinary roof line. A collection of Staffordshire figurines adorned the white-marble mantelpiece, and the fire burning in the grate filled the room with a rosy glow as well as welcome warmth.

  The most striking thing about the room, however, was its silence. As I placed the oil lamp on the bedside table, slid the shotgun under the bed, and dropped my day pack on the slipper chair, I couldn’t help noticing the extreme absence of sound. The refrigerator’s hum, the furnace’s intermittent rumble, the whoosh of water in pipes—all the familiar background noises I took for granted in my everyday life were missing. It was as if I’d been transported back to an earlier time, when silence was the rule, not the exception. If it hadn’t been for the wind moaning at the windows and the fire snapping in the grate, I would have tapped my ears to make sure they were still working.

  The windows overlooked the courtyard and the ramshackle outbuildings beyond. I parted the heavy drapes long enough to see great gouts of snow hurtling through the outer darkness, and closed them again, shivering. I was pleased to see that Catchpole had stocked the room with a full coal scuttle and a full box of wooden matches, ensuring that I wouldn’t have to spend any part of the night without heat or light.

/>   When I opened the wardrobe, I found enough clothing to see me through a week’s stay at the abbey. While I was sincerely grateful to my unwitting hostess for her farsighted-ness, I hoped with equal sincerity that I wouldn’t need to take full advantage of it. I hung up my jacket and took off my hiking boots, but left the long white linen nightgown in the wardrobe. I wasn’t ready to turn in just yet.

  Reginald seemed to appreciate his release from captivity. His black button eyes glittered gratefully as I lifted him from the day pack and placed him on the tea table.

  “Pretty quiet, huh, Reg?” I took the blue journal from the day pack, settled myself comfortably in the plump armchair, and held my stockinged feet out to the fire. “Emma thought solitude would be good for me, but right now I’d give twelve pots of gold to be reading bedtime stories to the boys.” I gazed wistfully into the flames for a moment, then opened the journal. “Dimity? You’ll never guess where we’re spending the night.”

  Oh, Lori, you haven’t gotten lost again, have you?

  I smiled as the familiar loops and curls of royal-blue ink unfurled across the blank page, and thanked Bill silently for suggesting that Aunt Dimity accompany me on my grand day out.

  Emma gave you a map, didn’t she? I’m sure she told you to keep to the path.

  “True,” I acknowledged, “but she did not tell me about the blizzard.”

  Has there been a blizzard?

  “The most blizzardy blizzard in the past one hundred years,” I announced with a flourish. “If they were giving prizes for blizzards, this one would win Best in Show. It’s closed down the whole country, so you can hardly blame me for losing my way in it. We’re snowbound, Dimity. We’re snowbound in Ladythorne Abbey.”

  Ladythorne Abbey? You astound me. Is it still standing? I thought it had fallen to bits years ago.

  “Nope,” I said. “It’s in fine shape. You should see the entrance hall. It’s stunning. I’ll tell you, those monks knew a thing or two about interior decorating.”

  What monks?

  “The monks who built the abbey.”

  Ladythorne wasn’t built by monks, my dear. It isn’t a real abbey. It never was. It’s a Gothic-revival Victorian imitation.

  “No monks, then?” I said, mildly disappointed.

  Not one, unless someone was playing at fancy-dress. Gothic architecture was enormously popular in the nineteenth century. Those who could afford to built faux castles and priories and abbeys—anything that smacked of the romantically medieval.

  “When was Ladythorne built?” I hunkered down in the chair, fascinated.

  The abbey was built in 1874 by a man who’d made his fortune supplying unmentionables to Her Majesty’s armed forces. He started life as Grundy Clerk, but changed the family surname to DeClerke when he took up residence in the abbey. I imagine he wanted his name to reflect his rise in the world.

  “In other words, he was a self-made Victorian snob,” I said.

  To the contrary: by all accounts, he was a good and decent man. He gave generously to charities, ran his business ethically, looked after his older workers, and remained married to the same woman for fifty-seven years. Grundy and Rose DeClerke raised four sons, but three of them, alas, were killed in the Great War. Only one survived, young Neville DeClerke. Neville inherited everything upon Grundy’s death, including, I’m happy to say, his father’s integrity.

  “He was an ethical businessman,” I commented.

  He was, but I’m speaking of integrity on a more personal level. Neville’s wife died of the Spanish influenza only a month after giving birth to their only child, a daughter. Neville must have longed for a son and heir, but he never remarried. He remained faithful to his first love until his own tragic death in the early days of the Blitz.

  “What was his daughter’s name?” I asked.

  Lucasta. Lucasta Eleanora DeClerke. She’s a somewhat unusual woman. Though it grieves me to say it, I wouldn’t have expected her to allow you to take shelter in the abbey, however terrible the blizzard.

  “She didn’t.” I paused before adding gently, “What I mean is, I’m sorry, Dimity, but Lucasta DeClerke died two years ago.”

  Oh, dear. The firelight quivered as a faint breeze wafted through the room, the ghost of a sigh. Poor Lucasta. The DeClerke name died with her, I’m afraid. Such a brief flowering. Withered away in only three generations . . .

  I waited in respectful silence while Dimity absorbed the sad news, then looked sharply toward the corridor. Had a floorboard creaked, just outside my room? A tiny finger of fear trailed down my spine. If a floorboard had creaked, it meant that someone had stepped off of the luxuriant runner to stand close to my door.

  “Wait,” I said, under my breath. “I think someone may be listening.”

  We’re not alone? Who else

  I closed the journal and set it next to Reginald on the tea table, crept toward the door, and pressed my ear to the white-painted wood. The creaking floorboard had gone silent. Whoever had trodden on it had evidently moved on.

  “Catchpole,” I whispered, and resentment flared.

  In my head, my husband’s voice quietly enumerated the reasons why I should shove the slipper chair under the doorknob, climb into bed, and cower beneath the covers, but his sage advice was drowned out by clamoring indignation. My blood boiled as I pictured Catchpole with his eye to the keyhole, hoping to catch a glimpse of me slipping into the linen nightgown. If he thought his role as caretaker gave him the right to play Peeping Tom, he was in for the shock of his life.

  I flung the door wide, marched into the hall, and turned toward the staircase just in time to see a light flicker like a will-o-the-wisp in the inky blackness far down the corridor, then vanish.

  I tapped my foot, incensed by his effrontery, then ran to fetch the small flashlight Emma had tucked into my pack for emergencies, muttering grimly, “Okay, you old coot, let’s see how you like being spied on.”

  Seven

  I shielded the flashlight’s narrow beam with my hand and slipped into the corridor, closing the door behind me. My bootless feet didn’t make a sound as I trotted past the staircase to the point at which I thought the will-o-the-wisp had vanished, and a surge of triumph coursed through me when I saw a thin strip of light beneath a door on my left.

  “Aha!” I exclaimed, and burst into the room like the heroine in a melodrama, ready to point an accusing finger at the evildoer.

  Jamie Macrae looked up from his seat by the fire. He was wearing the same cobalt-blue sweater and faded jeans he’d worn upon his arrival at Ladythorne Abbey, and his oil lamp was burning steadily on a table at his elbow.

  “Hullo,” he said, in mild surprise. “I thought you’d gone to bed.”

  “Uh . . .” I lowered my accusing finger. “No.”

  “I couldn’t sleep, either—all the excitement, I suppose, and the early hour—so I went in search of the library.” He set aside the book he’d been reading and let his gaze travel around the room. “It’s lovely, isn’t it? It’ll be a pity when the electricity’s restored. Some rooms are meant to be seen by firelight.”

  Some men, too, were meant to be seen by firelight. The shifting shadows gave a liquid shimmer to Jamie’s dark eyes. The shivering flames lit ruddy sparks in his long hair and tinted his fair skin with warm peach tones. It took some effort to tear my gaze away from him and notice the room, but when I did, I gave a soft gasp of pleasure.

  Ladythorne’s library was every bit as splendid as its entrance hall. Elegant glass-enclosed mahogany bookcases lined the walls, but they seemed dull and ordinary compared to the breathtaking mosaic that filled the space above them to the ceiling. The glorious mosaic depicted Chaucer’s pilgrims on their journey to Canterbury—the Knight in his stained tunic, the fashionable young Squire with his freshly curled locks, the hearty Monk, the dainty Nun, the lusty Wife of Bath, and the rest, each character kissed and brought to vivid life by the flickering flames.

  The firelight glinted from each brightly co
lored tile, sent fugitive gleams along the lustrous mahogany, and enriched the jewel tones of the Turkey carpet covering the parquet floor. The mosaic’s brilliance added warmth to the more subtle colors of the calf-bound books and set off the simplicity of the stone fireplace. The fireplace’s sole decoration was a quotation carved deeply into the mantel shelf in Celtic script.

  “ ‘A good book is the best of friends,’ ” Jamie read aloud, following my gaze, “ ‘the same today and forever.’ A splendid sentiment credited to one M. F. Tupper, but who M. F. Tupper is, I’ve no idea.”

  “Martin Farquhar Tupper,” I said, without thinking. “A minor Victorian writer. Big on proverbs.”

  Jamie’s eyes widened.

  “I used to work with old books,” I explained, blushing. “My head is packed solid with useless information.”

  “Why is it that the only information worth knowing is deemed useless? I’d much rather learn about dear old Martin Farquhar than the workings of a computer chip.” Jamie held out his hand to the leather armchair that faced his across the hearth. “Won’t you join me?”

  I closed the hall door, stowed my flashlight in the pocket of my jeans, and sat in the armchair, wondering if Jamie was going to ask why I’d burst in on him like an avenging angel or politely pretend that he hadn’t noticed.

  “I stopped by your room a few minutes ago,” he said. “I was looking for company, but I heard you on the phone with your husband and didn’t want to intrude.”

  “It was you?” My faint blush deepened to crimson. “I thought you were Catchpole playing Peeping Tom. That’s why I came charging in here. I was going to wring his neck.”

  Jamie clucked his tongue. “I wouldn’t advise it. I’m told neck-wringing isn’t conducive to a good night’s sleep.”

  I smiled sheepishly, then cocked my head to one side. “I hope you don’t mind my saying so, Jamie, but your accent confuses me. Or maybe it’s your speech pattern. For an American, you sound very . . . English.”