Aunt Dimity and the Lost Prince

by Nancy Atherton

  As Bree observed, it’s not beyond the realm of possibility. Her comments regarding Russian émigrés are, by and large, correct. A number of dispossessed landowners sought sanctuary in England during and after the Bolshevik revolution. Some came with nothing but the clothes on their backs. Others managed to salvage a few mementos. A handful arrived in style and continued to live much as they had in the old country, minus the serfs, of course. I would, by the way, hesitate to characterize the Bolsheviks simply as “wicked men.” Their methods may have been deplorable and their goals debatable, but they were attempting to restore balance to a society that had become distressingly top-heavy.

  “It was a turbulent time,” I said. “But even if Mikhail survived the 1917 revolution and somehow made it to England, he’d be dead by now, wouldn’t he?”

  A second wave of Russian immigrants arrived in England during the Second World War, before the Iron Curtain was raised. Many were Russian nationalists who’d fought a losing battle to restore their country’s pre-revolutionary way of life. If Mikhail came to England at that time he could still be alive, though he would be a very old man indeed.

  “Did you know many Russian émigrés?” I asked. “Did any of them live near Upper Deeping?”

  Members of the Russian émigré community tended to keep themselves to themselves, Lori. A number of them were involved in plots to overthrow the Soviet government. Naturally, secrecy was their byword. Even those who avoided such entanglements were bound together by ties of language, religion, and culture. The few I met at social functions lived exclusively in London. If a Russian family lived near Upper Deeping in my lifetime, I was unaware of it.

  “Daisy hasn’t left us an easy puzzle to solve,” I said with a heavy sigh.

  Easy problems are hardly worth solving. Where does your investigation stand at the moment?

  “Bree used Bill’s desktop to find out everything she could about Amanda’s employers,” I said.

  Clever girl. What did she discover?

  “Mrs. MacTavish was telling the truth when she said ‘nothing but the best’ would do for Amanda,” I replied. “Daisy’s mother polished silver in some pretty impressive country houses.”

  There are some fine estates not far from Upper Deeping.

  “The owners like their privacy,” I said, “because Bree couldn’t find out much about them apart from their names and addresses. The addresses helped her map out the route we’ll take tomorrow and the names helped her choose which house we’ll visit first.”

  Which house would that be?

  “Hayewood House,” I said triumphantly, “because Hayewood House just happens to be owned by a couple named Madeleine and Sergei Sturgess.”

  Sergei is a Russian name, I’ll grant you, but Sturgess couldn’t possibly be more English.

  “It’s the closest thing we have to a lead,” I grumbled. “Don’t spoil it.”

  Sorry.

  “Sergei is the only Russian name Bree came across,” I went on. “The rest don’t even come close. And she didn’t find a single Mikhail.”

  Mikhail might be a former employee rather than a homeowner. As I explained earlier, some Russian émigrés came to England with few possessions. They would not have had the wherewithal to purchase small houses, let alone large estates. Mikhail might have become a cook or a gardener or an odd-job man for a well-to-do family. His employers might have allowed him to continue to live on the property after his retirement. If so, his name wouldn’t necessarily be listed with the homeowners’.

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” I said, “but now that you mention it, it makes all kinds of sense. As a charwoman’s daughter, Daisy would be much more likely to meet up with a retired gardener than with the head of the house.”

  Which means that you and Bree mustn’t limit your search to the big houses. If there are smaller dwellings on the grounds, you’ll have to search them as well.

  A smile crept over my face as I recalled Bree’s unsanctioned use of Miles Craven’s laptop. If she deemed it necessary to poke around in a cottage or two during our quest for the lost prince, I was fairly sure she’d do so, with or without the landowner’s permission.

  “We’ll manage,” I said breezily. “Bree and I are nothing if not resourceful.” I gazed into the fire for a moment, then shook my head. “Imagine a prince reduced to living in a cottage on someone else’s property. A cottage might very well seem like a dungeon to a prince.”

  I confess that I find Mikhail’s title perplexing. There were no princes in the Russian Empire. The heir apparent to the throne was known as the tsarevitch.

  “Mikhail probably thought ‘tsarevitch’ was too much of a mouthful for a little girl,” I said. “You have to admit that Prince Mikhail is easier to say than Tsarevitch Mikhail.”

  But that’s my point. There was no tsarevitch named Mikhail. The last tsarevitch was Alexei Nikolayevich, the only son of Czar Nicholas II. Sadly, young Alexei was summarily and brutally executed with the rest of the Russian imperial family in 1918.

  “Turbulent times,” I murmured, shuddering.

  I suppose Mikhail could have invented his royal title to impress Daisy. Either that, or he belongs to a lesser dynasty. The Russian Empire was a patchwork of minor principalities. Mikhail might be a prince in name if not in power.

  “If I find him, I’ll ask him,” I said. “In the meantime, I’d better get some shut-eye. Bree and I plan to tackle Hayewood House right after the school run tomorrow.”

  I like the thought of you and Bree riding to Mikhail’s rescue.

  “In a canary-yellow Range Rover,” I said, smiling. “It does make for a memorable image.”

  What I mean to say is: I’d like nothing better than to be proven wrong about Daisy Pickering. Find the lost prince, Lori. Prove me wrong.

  As the curving lines of royal-blue ink faded from the page, I lifted my gaze to the silver sleigh and tried to imagine the kind of life the lost prince had left behind.

  “If you exist, Mikhail, I’ll find you,” I said under my breath. “I can’t let Daisy or Aunt Dimity down.”

  Eleven

  While Will and Rob were getting dressed for school on Wednesday morning, Bree burst into the kitchen bearing a shoe box filled with what she called our “journalist essentials.” These included two mini tape recorders, two digital cameras, two small spiral notebooks, and an assortment of ballpoint pens. I didn’t recognize a single item.

  “Where did you find this stuff?” I asked as she tipped the box’s contents onto the kitchen table.

  “I brought it from home after I closed my windows last night.” She struck a pose, hand on hip, head thrown back dramatically. “Please note that I’m wearing professional attire as well: posh blouse and trousers instead of jumper and jeans.” She gave my sweater and jeans a haughty glance and wagged a finger at me. “I recommend that you smarten yourself up before we leave, madam. First impressions, you know.”

  I wondered what impression her flaming red hair and her nose ring would make on Madeleine and Sergei Sturgess, but kept my thoughts to myself.

  “One more thing,” said Bree. She reached into the neat black purse she’d tucked under her arm and produced a business card. “While I was at home, I ran up a few of these on my computer. If anyone wants to know where we work, we pull one out and say—”

  “Country House Monthly,” I broke in, reading aloud the words printed in bold type on the fake business card. “We work for Country House Monthly magazine? Never heard of it.”

  “That’s because I made it up,” she said. “I settled on Country House Monthly because it’s generic enough to be believable. It sounds like all of those slick, dull magazines designed to make the landed gentry feel good about themselves.”

  “But you put your real name and address on the card,” I said in dismay. “Is that wise?”

  “I may be a fraud,” said Bree, “but I’m an honest fraud.” She swept her share of journalist essentials into the black purse and snapped it shut.
“Who knows? I may write an article based on our experiences and submit it to a real magazine one day. For now, though, let’s use the cards only if we have to.”

  “Agreed.” I heard the thunder of little feet on the stairs, stuffed the rest of the journalist essentials into my pockets, and pointed imperiously toward the pot of porridge bubbling on the stove. “You’re in charge of breakfast, ace reporter. I have to smarten myself up.”

  • • •

  Before we left the cottage, Bree refined her disguise by donning a crisply tailored black trench coat. I followed her example and slipped into my old beige trench coat, wishing I had a fedora to complete the look. Instead, I pulled on a rather fetching brown velvet beret I’d picked up for a song at a church jumble sale. Though the sun smiled down on us as we herded the boys into the Rover, it wasn’t quite warm enough yet to go outside bareheaded.

  “Why are you dressed as spies?” Will asked as he climbed into the backseat.

  “Because it’s fun,” said Bree, which was a much better answer than any I had in mind.

  “Can we play spies after school?” Rob asked.

  “Absolutely,” said Bree. “I’ll show you how to write in invisible ink.”

  “Cool,” the boys chorused.

  It took us twenty minutes to drive to Morningside School and another forty to drive from there to Hayewood House. Thanks to Bree’s route map and her peerless navigational skills, we didn’t take a single wrong turn, despite the fact that we were traveling in unfamiliar territory.

  Hayewood House sat at the end of a long, graveled drive lined with cypress trees that effectively blocked our view of the grounds. The house was nearly twice as big as my father-in-law’s Georgian residence, but it was built in the same style and of the same material—a golden-hued limestone commonly found in our part of the Cotswolds.

  The gardens flanking the house looked as soggy and unkempt as gardens usually do in February, but the building itself appeared to be in excellent repair. The tall windows sparkled in the morning sun and there wasn’t a chipped balustrade or a cracked roof tile in sight.

  I parked the Rover at the bottom of a short flight of steps that led to the front door, clambered out of the driver’s seat, and took a deep breath of fresh country air.

  “It’s lovely, isn’t it?” I said, surveying the house with an approving eye.

  “Nothing but the best for our Mrs. Pickering,” Bree said, mimicking Mrs. MacTavish’s Scottish brogue. “It makes a nice change from Addington Terrace. I’d give Hayewood two e’s in the middle, for being extra, extra posh.”

  “So would I,” I said. “Ready?”

  “For anything,” she replied with the brashness of youth. “Let’s go!”

  As we climbed the stairs, I prepared an introductory speech that would, I hoped, gain us access to Hayewood House, but I needn’t have bothered. Our shoes had barely skimmed the top step when a woman flung open the front door and stood beaming at us as if we were her oldest, dearest friends.

  “Welcome to Hayewood,” she said. “I’m so glad you’re here. Won’t you come in?”

  I was too taken aback to move, but Bree seized my wrist and dragged me with her as she surged past the woman into a light and airy entrance hall.

  “I’m Madeleine Sturgess,” said the woman, following us inside, “and I’m delighted to meet you at last. I hope you’ll treat my home as yours during your stay.”

  Madeleine Sturgess was a classic English beauty, tall, slender, and blue-eyed, with a peaches and cream complexion and silky blond hair wound into an exquisitely coifed French roll. She wore an attractive full-skirted dress, low-heeled pumps, and the merest hint of makeup. I thought she might be in her early forties.

  “You’ve arrived a tiny bit earlier than I expected,” she continued, closing the door, “but never mind. Your rooms are as ready as they’ll ever be.” She paused with her hand on the doorknob and an almost comical look of consternation on her face. “I should fetch your bags, shouldn’t I? Shall I go now or would you prefer to see your rooms first?”

  “I’m afraid there’s been a small misunderstanding, Mrs. Sturgess,” said Bree, taking command of the situation. “My name is Bree Pym, my colleague is Lori Shepherd, and we’re not guests. We’re journalists.”

  “Have you come to do a story about Hayewood House? How thrilling!” Madeleine released the doorknob and her beaming smile returned. “Bunny Fordyce-Triggs said you might turn up without warning. Give me your coats and come through to the drawing room. I’ll ring for tea. And please do call me Maddie. ‘Mrs. Sturgess’ is far too formal for a cozy tête-à-tête.”

  In what seemed like the blink of an eye, Bree and I found ourselves seated side by side on a high-backed mahogany settee across from Madeleine, who sat on the very edge of a Hepplewhite armchair, talking a mile a minute, while we pulled out our pens and notebooks and tried to act as though we knew what we were doing.

  “I should have guessed that you weren’t the Graham sisters from Dundee,” she said. “The Graham sisters aren’t due to arrive until supper time, but Bunny says guests tend to show up when you least expect them, so I thought you might be they. Have you interviewed Bunny?”

  “No,” I said, feeling a bit shell-shocked.

  “Oh, you should,” she said earnestly. “She’s been in the business for years and she’d love the publicity.”

  “How would you describe your business, Maddie?” Bree asked, her pen poised over her notebook.

  “Hayewood House is an exclusive, high-end guesthouse,” Madeleine informed us. “Bunny’s was so successful that my husband and I decided to take the plunge ourselves. Well, it was my idea more than his, really. My husband works in London during the week, you see, and comes home only on weekends. With him gone and the children grown and flown, I have rather too much time on my hands, so I thought I’d try running my own business.”

  “How enterprising of you,” I said.

  “I’m not doing it just to fill time,” Madeleine said earnestly. “Hayewood House costs the earth to maintain, so we could do with the extra income.” She waved a hand in the air to indicate the room in general. “Nothing’s ready-made, you see. Everything has to be handcrafted—doors, windowpanes, floorboards, absolutely everything. As you can imagine, it adds up.”

  “So you decided to take in paying guests,” I ventured, “to help pay for the house’s upkeep?”

  “It was a secondary consideration,” said Madeleine, “but a consideration nonetheless. The place seemed rather empty with the children gone, so I thought, why not put it to good use? We have seven bedrooms and nearly as many bathrooms and my husband and I can hardly use them all.”

  “Have you been in the B and B business for very long, Maddie?” Bree asked.

  A rosy blush tinted Madeleine’s cheeks.

  “To tell you the absolute truth,” she said, “we haven’t started yet. If you’d been the Graham sisters, you would have been our first paying guests. We rather hoped word of mouth would bring the right sort of people to our door, but so far it hasn’t brought anyone but the Grahams. Bunny told them about us when she was visiting friends in Dundee last August.”

  “Have you considered creating a website?” Bree asked delicately, as if she wished to give our hostess a hint about how to run a business.

  “A website would be a great help, of course,” Madeleine acknowledged, “but my husband has been terribly busy at work lately and I’m no good at all with computers, so we haven’t got round to setting one up.”

  “How long has your family lived at Hayewood?” I asked.

  “Let’s see . . .” Madeleine tapped an index finger against her pursed lips, then said in an amazed tone, “Gosh! It’ll be twenty-five years next December. How time flies when one’s raising a family!”

  A gray-haired woman in a maid’s uniform entered the drawing room and deposited a heavily laden tea tray on the satinwood table at Madeleine’s elbow.

  “Will there be anything else, Mad—er,
madam?” the maid asked.

  “No, thank you, Ernestine,” said Maddie.

  “Look, Lori,” said Bree, pointing to the plate of dainties Ernestine had brought with the tea. “Pecan balls.”

  “I beg your pardon?” said Madeleine.

  Bree looked at Ernestine.

  “Those round biscuits covered with icing sugar,” she said. “They’re pecan balls, aren’t they?”

  “No, ma’am,” the maid answered. “No pecans in them. They’re made with hazelnuts and Cook calls them Russian tea cakes.”

  “Russian tea cakes?” I said. “Is your cook Russian?”

  Ernestine and Madeleine exchanged amused glances.

  “Goodness, no, ma’am,” said Ernestine. “Cook was born and raised not ten miles from here. She got the recipe for the Russian tea cakes from the receipt book.”

  “What’s a receipt book?” Bree asked.

  “It’s a book cooks keep,” Ernestine told her. “They write recipes in it and hand it on to the next cook.”

  “Who wrote the Russian tea cake recipe in Cook’s receipt book?” I asked.

  “No idea, ma’am,” said Ernestine. “Our book goes a long way back, you see. Some of the recipes in it are more than a hundred years old.” She turned to Madeleine. “Will that be all, madam? Only, I promised Cook I’d help her prep for supper.”

  “Yes, that will be all, thank you,” said Madeleine.

  The maid curtseyed and left the room.

  “Ernestine is a treasure,” said Madeleine, turning to gaze soulfully at the door through which the maid had exited. “I don’t know what I’d do without her.”

  “As a matter of interest,” I said, “did a Russian family ever own Hayewood House?”

  “No,” Madeleine replied. “Hayewood House was the country seat of the Hayewood family for three hundred years until Sergei and I bought it.”

  “Sergei,” I said, taking the bull by the horns. “It’s an interesting name. Is your husband Russian?”

  “We do seem to have a theme going, don’t we?” Madeleine said, nodding at the tea cakes. “But, no, my husband isn’t Russian. His mother was mad for the Russian ballet, so she named her three sons Sergei, Vaslav, and Rudolf, after Sergei Diaghilev, Vaslav Nijinsky, and Rudolf Nureyev.” She rolled her eyes. “You can imagine how well that went over with their schoolmates.”