Aunt Dimity and the Lost Prince

by Nancy Atherton

  “I make a living, Miss Pym, as a consultant to those who buy and sell curiosities,” he said, “and by educating those who, like Mr. Markov, value my wide-ranging knowledge of the Edwardian era. Finally,” he concluded, his nostrils flaring, “I will attempt to put an end to your unhealthy obsession with my personal finances by informing you that I inherited most of my furniture from my mother!”

  I was ready to slink out of the room with my tail between my legs, but although Bree had the decency to look abashed, she couldn’t keep herself from pressing MIles Craven for an answer to a question he’d failed to address.

  “I’m truly sorry for misjudging you,” she said contritely, “and I hope you manage to keep the museum going because I know two little boys who will be devastated if it closes. But you still haven’t explained why you behaved so strangely when Amanda Pickering’s name came up on Tuesday.”

  Miles Craven’s anger seemed to dissipate. He blushed, plucked at his sleeve, and shifted uneasily in his chair. For a breathless moment I thought he was about to confess to having engaged in a bit of rumpy-pumpy with Daisy’s mother.

  “If I behaved oddly,” he said, “it was because I was trying to prevent myself from telling you something I’d been told in the strictest confidence.”

  “Miles is hopeless at keeping secrets,” said Alexei.

  “He’s worse than the cook your mother hired,” Mikhail agreed. “Mrs. Harper couldn’t keep a secret if her life depended on it. Luckily for us, she got her stories so mixed up that she never told anyone the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about our private lives. You’d best come out with the truth, though, Miles, or Bree will never stop badgering you.”

  “Oh, I can reveal the truth now,” said Miles. “I can’t begin to tell you what a relief it will be to get it off my chest.”

  “What truth are you talking about?” I asked.

  “The truth about Amanda Pickering, of course,” Miles replied.

  An all-too-familiar gleam lit his eyes as he huddled forward and lowered his voice to a confidential murmur. My neighbors’ eyes gleamed with the same intensity whenever they were about to impart a spectacularly juicy bit of gossip.

  “Amanda Pickering and her husband were never divorced,” said Miles. “They’re as happily married today as they were on their wedding day.”

  “Has her husband been hiding in a cupboard for the past year?” Bree asked.

  “He hasn’t been hiding anywhere,” Miles replied. “He’s been in Australia.”

  “No,” Bree and I exclaimed, astonished.

  “Yes!” Miles countered gleefully, clearly relishing our reactions. “Stephen and Amanda Pickering decided to emigrate a little over a year ago. Stephen went ahead to find a job and Amanda stayed behind to pinch pennies until he’d earned enough to bring her and Daisy over. Amanda didn’t want her employers or her landlady to know she might bail out on them at the drop of a hat, so she kept her plans to herself.”

  “She was hatching a marvelous scheme,” I said, recalling Lady Barbara’s hunch.

  “Why did Amanda confide in you?” Bree asked Miles.

  “Because I walked in on her when she was having a little chat with Daisy about the wonders of Australia and how much happier Daisy would be when she was reunited with her daddy,” Miles said. “It didn’t take much effort on my part to put two and two together. I promised to keep schtum about the whole thing, but it hasn’t been easy. As Alexei said, I’m hopeless at keeping secrets.”

  The cogs turning in Bree’s head were drowned out by the fireworks exploding in mine. Suddenly, everything made sense.

  “The one time I met Daisy,” I said, “she told me she and her mother were on their own because, to use her exact words: Daddy left. I thought she meant her parents had split up, but she was describing a less permanent separation: Daddy left for Australia, but we’ll join him as soon as we can.”

  “She was miserable,” said Bree, “because her dad was half a world away and she didn’t know when she’d see him again. A year is a long time for a kid her age. It must have seemed like forever to Daisy.”

  “Amanda rented the cheapest flat she could find,” I said, “and she worked six days a week because she was saving up for the big move.”

  “Stephen must have sent for her and Daisy around the time Daisy took the silver sleigh from Skeaping Manor,” Bree said excitedly. “That’s why Amanda donated Daisy’s winter clothes to the charity shop. She knew Daisy wouldn’t need them in Australia.”

  “And she didn’t empty the pink parka’s pockets,” I said, “because she was in a tearing hurry to leave Addington Terrace and start a new life down under.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Miles said, raising his hand like a schoolchild in a classroom. “Did I understand you correctly? Did Daisy take something from the museum?”

  “Yes, she did,” said Mikhail. “And it won’t be returned to the museum until you install a proper security system.”

  “As I’ve already explained,” said Miles, “the endowment can’t afford—”

  “I can,” said Mikhail. “We’ll talk about it later, okay?”

  “Er, yes,” Miles said, sounding baffled but hopeful. “Okay!”

  “While we’re on the subject, Alyosha,” said Mikhail, “did you get a quote on repairing our own security system?”

  “Yes, Dedushka,” said Alexei. He bent over to pat his briefcase. “I have the figures in my—”

  He broke off and we all cocked our ears toward the doorway. It sounded as though another car had pulled up to the house.

  “I must have forgotten to close the gates,” Alexei said. He got to his feet. “I’ll find out who it is, Dedushka.”

  “We’ll come with you, Alyosha,” said Mikhail, “in case you need backup.”

  Alexei stood aside as Mikhail maneuvered his wheelchair into the corridor and the rest of us trooped after him as he followed his grandfather to the front door. The entrance hall was no longer dark when we entered it, nor was it deserted. A chandelier and a pair of wall sconces illuminated yet another pair of uninvited guests.

  Ronald Booker, bundled in a parka that looked even rattier than Daisy’s, stood behind the non-motorized wheelchair that held his great-aunt Barbara and her oxygen tank. Lady Barbara was wearing her tweed cap and her shearling slippers, but her body was cocooned in so many woolen blankets that she looked like a papoose.

  Alexei, Miles, Bree and I had to jump aside to avoid bumping into Mikhail’s wheelchair as it came to an abrupt halt opposite Lady Barbara’s.

  “Basha?” the old man said wonderingly.

  “I’ve brought your bear back,” said Lady Barbara. A hand emerged from a gap in the blankets, clutching the cream-colored teddy bear in the red Cossack shirt.

  “Thank you,” Mikhail said faintly.

  “My nitwit great-nephew told me you were on your deathbed,” barked Lady Barbara.

  “I asked him to give you that impression,” said Mikhail, bowing his head.

  Lady Barbara glared at him through narrowed eyes. “Why on earth would you tell Ronald to feed me such an idiotic lie?”

  “You’re a glamorous woman,” said Mikhail. “You’ve led a glamorous life and mine has been so ordinary. I didn’t want you to be . . . disappointed.”

  “Disappointed?” Lady Barbara echoed. “You fool. I could never be disappointed in you.” She gazed at him with unaccustomed tenderness, then blinked rapidly, cleared her throat, and said gruffly, “Are you going to offer me a glass of tea, Misha, or are we going to spend the night staring at each other across a crowded foyer?”

  “You shall have a glass of tea,” said Mikhail with a slow, sweet smile. “And the room in which you drink it, my Basha, will not be crowded.”

  He gestured for Ronald to push Lady Barbara’s chair ahead of his and followed them back to a room filled with memories of a golden summer.

  It was never too late, it seemed, for a lost prince to find his lost princess.

&nbs
p; Epilogue

  February had made a fool of me again. If it hadn’t been for the cold snap, Bree would have been able to open her windows and rid her house of paint fumes. If her house had been habitable, she wouldn’t have sought refuge with me. If she hadn’t stayed with me, I wouldn’t have gone to Skeaping Manor. If I hadn’t gone to Skeaping Manor, I wouldn’t have met Daisy Pickering. And if I hadn’t met Daisy Pickering, I wouldn’t have spent an entire week running frantically from pillar to post, looking for a lost prince who was neither lost nor a prince.

  It was all February’s fault.

  On the other hand . . .

  A few quite wonderful things came out of my fruitless search.

  Bree’s articles brought a steady stream of discerning guests to Hayewood House and a wave of critical acclaim to Shangri-la for its bold juxtaposition of period styles. I understood Hayewood House’s success better than I did Shangri-la’s, but anything that made Gracie Thames happy was okay by me.

  Bree’s fresh-air weekends for the Bell children were a rousing success. Tom and Ben discovered the joys of climbing trees and Coral fell head over heels in love with gardening. Bree solved the tricky problem of helping Tiffany Bell without seeming to help her by filling and refilling a box at Aunt Dimity’s Attic with not-quite-used toys and children’s clothing. Florence Cheeseman makes sure the box appears whenever the Bells pop in for a rummage.

  Bree finally got up the courage to meet Felix Chesterton and to thank him for writing Lark Landing. To her relief, her idol turned out to be a modest, soft-spoken man with a splendidly wicked sense of humor. They are well on their way to becoming old friends.

  Coral Bell and Daisy Pickering remained best friends despite living half a world apart, thanks to their schools’ computers. Coral had the great pleasure of putting Daisy’s mind at ease about the lost prince in a manner that combined the true story I told her with the less accurate but far more dramatic one she’d heard from Daisy.

  Daisy is, by all accounts, flourishing in Australia. She’s put on weight, added a little healthy color to her cheeks, and developed a keen interest in Aboriginal mythology. I expect Coral to relay a romantic tale about a long-lost didgeridoo any day now.

  The Jephcott Endowment received a generous infusion of cash from Mikhail Markov, to be used for the installation of a first-class security system at Skeaping Manor. Once Mikhail was satisfied that a ten-year-old girl would no longer be able to walk away from the museum with one of its priceless treasures tucked into the pocket of her pink parka, the troika saltcellar was returned to its display case.

  The museum’s survival was all but ensured after Miles Craven gave Lady Barbara a guided tour. She was as delighted as Will and Rob had been by the deformed skulls, the giant bugs, and the bloodstained axe, and became Skeaping Manor’s foremost patron. Though I was pleased to know that the museum’s doors would remain open to the public, I was even more pleased when Bill took charge of the boys’ frequent visits.

  Mikhail and Lady Barbara have been inseparable since they were reunited. I have no trouble envisioning them riding off into the sunset, side by side and hand in hand, in their wheelchairs.

  “Maybe there’s no such thing as a fruitless search,” I said. “You may not always find what you’re looking for, but you always find something worth finding.”

  The study was still and silent. Will and Rob were asleep in their beds, Bill was snoozing on the couch in the living room, Stanley was snoozing on Bill’s chest, and the bed in the guest room was empty. Bree had been gone for two months and no one had shown up on my doorstep to take her place.

  Reginald’s black button eyes glittered in the firelight as he looked down on me from his special niche in the bookshelves. I sat in the tall leather armchair with my feet on the ottoman and the blue journal open in my lap, watching Aunt Dimity’s old-fashioned, graceful handwriting curl and loop across the page.

  What did you find that was worth finding, my dear?

  “I found out that I may be infinitesimally more grown up than I thought I was,” I said, “though I’m willing to admit that my newfound sense of maturity didn’t keep me from charging full tilt into Mirfield to rescue a man who didn’t need to be rescued.”

  You’re still you, Lori. You’re still impulsive, impressionable, and possessed of an imagination that rivals Daisy Pickering’s, but you’re also the sort of person Bree turns to for advice. You’re living proof that adulthood doesn’t have to be dull.

  “Thanks, I think,” I said with a wry smile. “You know, Dimity, during the week of the great freeze, when I was marooned in the cottage with Will and Rob, I almost convinced myself that we’d be better off if we lived in a great big house. But I’ve learned that a great big house isn’t for me.”

  What changed your mind?

  “Hayewood House, Risingholme, Shangri-la, Tappan Hall, and Mirfield,” I said. “They’re each nice in their own way—even Risingholme has a kind of creepy charm—but they’re too big.” I looked around the study, listened to the fire crackling in the hearth, and thought of my menfolk, all four of them, sleeping within earshot of my tall leather armchair. “I like it just fine where I am.”

  That’s because you’re where you’re supposed to be. Good night, my dear. Do let me know whether Bree figures out a tactful way to send Coral Bell to visit Daisy Pickering in Sydney. If anyone can do it, Bree can—with your sage advice to guide her, of course!

  As the curving lines of royal-blue ink faded from the page, I thought of the photograph Daisy had enclosed with a letter she’d written to Coral Bell. In it, she stood between her mother and her father, with the Sydney Opera House in the background, a plush koala bear clasped in her arms, and a look of complete contentment on her face. I might regard February as the cruelest month, but to Daisy, it would always be the kindest.

  “As long as the Pickerings are together,” I said to Reginald, “they’ll be where they’re supposed to be.”

  I could have sworn my bunny nodded his agreement.

  Mama Markov’s Russian Tea Cakes

  Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Makes four dozen cookies.

  Ingredients

  1 cup butter, softened

  ½ cup powdered sugar

  1 teaspoon vanilla

  2¼ cups all-purpose flour

  ¾ cup finely chopped hazelnuts

  ¼ teaspoon salt

  Powdered sugar to coat the cookies

  Directions

  Mix butter, ½ cup powdered sugar, and vanilla in large bowl.

  Stir in flour, nuts, and salt until dough holds together.

  Shape dough into 1-inch balls. Place about 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheet.

  Bake 10–12 minutes or until set but not brown.

  Remove cookies from sheet.

  Cool slightly on wire rack.

  Roll warm cookies in powdered sugar.

  Cool on wire rack.

  Roll cookies in powdered sugar again.

  Enjoy with a tall glass of tea, but try not to let the powdered sugar fall on the carpet!