Aunt Dimity and the Wishing Well

by Nancy Atherton

  The blue dish invariably contained Peggy Taxman’s shepherd’s pie; the yellow, Sally Pyne’s chicken in sherry sauce; the green, Charles Bellingham’s braised lamb shanks; the red, Christine Peacock’s beef in beer; the orange, Opal Taylor’s sausage and apples; and the purple, Miranda Morrow’s solitary vegan offering of lentils with sweet potatoes. The savory fragrances rising from the dishes added a homey touch to a room that couldn’t, by any stretch of the imagination, be considered homey.

  “Right, then,” said Jack, clapping his hands together. “Sling your jackets on the hooks, hop out of your boots, and help yourselves to the fire. Tea for two is on its way.”

  I waited until he’d left the room, then turned to glare at my companion.

  “Is it sprayed on?” I parroted back at her in a hissing whisper. “Really, Bree?”

  “Sorry,” she said, pulling her poncho over her head.

  “Open mind, remember?” I said. “You’re keeping an open—” I interrupted myself with an exasperated huff when I saw what my young friend was wearing. The navy blue sweatshirt emblazoned with the New Zealand flag was about as subtle as a declaration of war.

  “It seemed like a good idea at the time,” she said, gazing down at her shirt. “I could take it off, but I’m not wearing anything underneath.”

  “Keep it on,” I advised her wearily. “There’s such a thing as being too welcoming.”

  Jack returned, carrying two plain white teacups on two plain white saucers.

  “Great shirt, Bree,” he said, handing each of us a brimming cup. “The Southern Cross is my favorite constellation. There’s milk and sugar on the table, courtesy of Mrs. Bunting. Would you like to tuck in now or wait until you’ve dried out a bit?” He peered ruefully at our soaked trousers. “Sorry about the rain forest.”

  “No worries,” Bree said as Jack strolled with her to the fireplace. “Not everyone’s a gardener.”

  “Uncle Hector didn’t like to impose his will on nature,” Jack explained.

  “He imposed his will on fish,” Bree pointed out.

  “He always threw them back,” Jack countered.

  I placed myself between them before Bree could decide to lecture our host on the pain suffered by a hooked trout.

  “How’s the jet lag?” I asked.

  “Gone,” said Jack.

  “In one day?” I sighed wistfully. “Oh, to be young again . . .”

  “You’re not exactly in your dotage,” said Jack.

  “I’m a lot closer to it than you are,” I returned, smiling. “Tell me about Uluru.”

  “It’s a great big rock in the middle of Australia,” said Bree.

  “Too right, it’s big,” Jack said, then turned to me. “Uluru’s what they call an island mountain—a hunk of sandstone a thousand feet high and a thousand feet long, with another thousand feet hidden belowground. It stands alone in a great, wide-open landscape and at sunrise and sunset it turns a thousand shades of red. The Anangu—the local Aboriginal tribe—regard it as a sacred place. Uluru is their name for it, but you might know it by another name. In 1873, a surveyor named William Gosse christened it Ayers Rock.”

  “I’ve heard of Ayers Rock,” I said, nodding, “but I didn’t know it was called Uluru. It sounds impressive.”

  “It is,” said Jack. “Have you seen it, Bree?”

  “No,” said Bree. “Seems a long way to go to see a big rock.”

  “Some things are worth going a long way to see,” Jack said lightly. His gaze rested briefly on her face, then he grinned and said, “Who’s hungry?”

  “I am,” I declared. “There’s something about damp, gloomy days that makes me want to eat nonstop. I’ll probably weigh three hundred pounds by the time summer arrives.” I glanced morosely at the rain streaming down the front window. “If it ever does.”

  Jack scurried over to the table to pull out the wooden chair for Bree, then seated me in one of the folding chairs and took the place opposite mine for himself. He removed the lids from the casserole dishes, invited us to help ourselves, and made sure our plates were full before he filled his own. He was, I thought, behaving like a perfect gentleman. I hoped Bree was taking note.

  My comment on the weather sparked a pleasant conversation about weather in various parts of the world, to which Bree contributed little. Jack seemed entirely at ease, though I couldn’t help noticing that he toned down his Australian accent and used Aussie slang less often than he had when I’d first met him, as if he sensed Bree’s aversion to his rowdy countrymen and wished to set himself apart from them.

  Our talk soon turned from worldwide weather to English weather and from there it was a short leap to the English countryside and the charm of English villages. Jack reserved special praise for Finch and the many kindnesses the villagers had shown him since his arrival.

  “I enjoyed spending time with Mr. Barlow this morning,” he said. “He thinks the world of you, Bree.”

  “I’m fond of him, too,” said Bree. “He’s a good man and he’s taught me a lot of useful things.”

  “Like grave digging,” said Jack. “I hope you know how grateful I am to you for looking after my uncle’s grave. I wish I’d gotten here in time to dig it myself.”

  “I wish you’d gotten here before your uncle died.”

  Bree spoke in an undertone, but she might as well have slapped Jack in the face. I glanced at him apprehensively, but he met Bree’s reproachful gaze without flinching.

  “I didn’t know I had two great-grandaunties until they were on their deathbeds,” she continued. “They were the sweetest old ladies on earth and I would have given absolutely anything to have had one more day with them. Why didn’t you come here sooner, Jack? Your uncle didn’t have any friends. A nephew would have come in handy. Why did you wait until after he was dead to show your face in Finch?”

  “Bree,” I began in a low voice, but Jack waved me to silence.

  “No worries, Lori,” he said. “Bree’s only saying aloud what everyone else in Finch must be thinking.”

  “We’d appreciate a few answers,” said Bree.

  “I’ll give them to you,” said Jack, “but it’s a sad story.”

  “No fear.” Bree set her knife and fork aside and folded her arms. “I’m tougher than I look.”

  Six

  My better self was dismayed by Bree’s bluntness, but the Finch-trained gossip in me was perfectly willing to cut to the chase. When Jack replaced the covers on the casserole dishes, I took it as a sign that a long and satisfying yarn was in the offing, and when he leaned back in his chair, I couldn’t keep myself from leaning forward. Full disclosure seemed imminent and I was all ears.

  “First off,” he said, “I’m sorry about your great-grandaunts, Bree. It must have been rough to lose them so soon after finding them.”

  “It was,” Bree said stiffly, “but we’re not talking about me at the moment. We’re talking about you.”

  “I’d better get talking, then,” said Jack. He thought for a moment, then began, “The long and the short of it is, my dad didn’t have much use for Uncle Hector.”

  “Why not?” asked Bree.

  “Dad doesn’t have much use for any man who isn’t just like him,” said Jack, “and Uncle Hector was as unlike him as anyone could be. Dad’s a big, strapping bloke, all muscle and mouth. Uncle Hector was a soft-spoken, shy little guy. Dad’s the CEO and founder of a prestigious property development firm. Uncle Hector was a bean counter at a small-town accounting firm. Dad catches marlin and has them mounted as trophies. Uncle Hector caught trout and tossed them back.” He smiled mirthlessly. “Got the picture?”

  “I think so,” I said. “How does your mother fit into it?”

  “Mum is Uncle Hector’s sister,” Jack replied. “His only sibling. Helen, her name is. Hector and Helen.” He sighed. “Granddad was a fan of Greek literature, but his children didn’t live up to their heroic names. Mum is just as shy and self-effacing as Uncle Hector was. Which is fine with Dad
because he likes to have the spotlight all to himself.”

  “Opposites attract,” I said, nodding. “How did they meet?”

  “Dad was in London, making deals,” Jack replied, “and Mum was in London, working as a bank clerk. There she was, going about her business, when a brash Aussie bloke came along, promising to take her away from her gray, cramped little island to a land where the sun always shines.” He grimaced apologetically. “Dad doesn’t have much use for England, either.”

  “So your mum married your dad and emigrated to Australia,” said Bree. “Didn’t she miss her brother—her only sibling?”

  “Mum was too dazzled by her new life to spend much time thinking about her old one,” said Jack.

  “It must have been like going from black and white to Technicolor,” I remarked.

  “Dad’s Technicolor, all right,” said Jack. “He’s bloody blinding. I reckon he picked Mum because he could dazzle her. Big houses, big cars, big boats, everything bigger and better than she’d ever imagined it could be. She kept her part of the bargain by producing not one, but two sons to carry on the family name.”

  “You have a brother,” I said interestedly. “Are the two of you close?”

  “No,” Jack replied. “Conor, Jr., is a chip off the old block. I’m the disappointment.”

  I surveyed his rumpled pullover and raised an interrogative eyebrow. “Would I be correct in assuming that your father’s high-flying lifestyle doesn’t agree with you?”

  “Let’s just say that Dad and I didn’t see eye to eye when it came to arranging my future,” said Jack. “It was his way or the highway and I chose the highway. When I left school, I left home, and Dad cut me off without a cent. I’ve been making my own way in the world ever since.”

  “Good for you,” I said.

  “Good for my soul, maybe,” Jack said wryly, “but not so good for my bank balance.” He turned to Bree. “The jobs I’ve held are jobs worth doing, but they’ve never paid much. If they had, I would’ve visited Uncle Hector more often.”

  “More often?” Bree repeated skeptically. “Did you ever visit him?”

  “I did,” said Jack. “When I was six and Conor was nine, Mum and Dad brought us over to meet Uncle Hector.”

  “Impossible,” Bree declared, shaking her head. “If you and your family had ever come to Finch, someone here would have remembered you.”

  “Dad? Come to Finch?” Jack threw his head back and laughed. “Now that’s impossible. Dad’d never waste time in the wop-wops, Bree, not unless he was planning a land grab. We didn’t come down here to see Uncle Hector. Uncle Hector came up to London to see us. It was a bit of a disaster, really, because he spoiled Dad’s plans.”

  “How?” I asked.

  “By being himself,” said Jack. “He came to our posh hotel and he didn’t seem to notice it. It wasn’t beneath his notice, it just wasn’t important to him. He wanted to see his sister and to meet his nephews. Everything else was just window dressing.” A wicked twinkle lit Jack’s eyes. “It drove Dad mad. He took us to a flash restaurant for dinner and Uncle Hector ordered fish and chips. Dad flapped his jaws about his newest yacht and Uncle Hector sat there, playing with a piece of string.” Jack looked toward the fire and smiled reminiscently. “Uncle Hector showed me how to tie seven different knots with that piece of string. I can still tie ’em.”

  “You admired your uncle because he refused to be overawed by your father,” I said.

  “It wasn’t that he refused to be overawed,” Jack elaborated. “He just . . . wasn’t. He and Dad didn’t value the same things. Dad wrote Uncle Hector off as a loser, but I didn’t think he was a loser. I thought he was a nice bloke who looked me in the eye and listened to what I had to say. He paid attention to me. That sort of thing means a lot, when you’re six and your big brother’s a bullying git.”

  “Was that the only time you met your uncle?” said Bree.

  “Yep,” said Jack. “Dad never brought the family over again and he didn’t invite Uncle Hector to visit us in Oz. He told Mum that her brother was a bad influence on Conor and me, and in my case, he was right. Dad wanted me to go into the family firm, but Uncle Hector encouraged me to do all sorts of things before deciding for myself what to do with my life.” He smiled wryly. “No prize for guessing whose advice I took.”

  “You seem to know a lot about your uncle,” said Bree. “He didn’t eat the fish he caught, he didn’t like to impose his will on nature, he didn’t entertain, he didn’t share your father’s values, he encouraged you to make your own decisions . . . How could you know so much about him if you met him only once, when you were a little boy?”

  “We may not have met face to face,” said Jack, “but we wrote to each other. Letter writing is old-school, I know, but so was Uncle Hector. He and I—”

  “Sorry,” Bree broke in brusquely, “but if you’d written to your uncle, all of Finch would have known about it. As you’ll find out if you spend any time at all here, our local postmistress isn’t the soul of discretion. Letters to or from Australia would have been a big-ticket item for Peggy Taxman. She would have told everyone about them.”

  “Crikey,” said Jack with an air of enlightenment. “That would explain it.”

  “What would explain what?” Bree demanded.

  “Uncle Hector didn’t like to draw attention to himself, Bree,” said Jack. “He must have known he’d be the center of attention if Mrs. Taxman found out about his family in Australia.”

  “He would have become a local celebrity,” I confirmed.

  “Which is the last thing he would have wanted,” said Jack. “So he bypassed Mrs. Taxman.” He smiled quizzically at Bree. “I didn’t send my letters through the post office in Finch. I sent them to a post office box in Upper Deeping.”

  “Your uncle had a post office box in Upper Deeping?” Bree said uncertainly.

  “That’s right,” said Jack.

  “Your uncle was a clever man, Jack,” I said, chuckling. “Not many of us can say we’ve outfoxed Peggy Taxman, can we, Bree?”

  “Not many of us, no,” Bree murmured, looking discomfited.

  “Uncle Hector and I lost track of each other after I left home,” Jack went on. “I haven’t had a permanent address since then. That’s why it took Aldous Winterbottom so long to find me. He tried to reach me when Uncle Hector became ill, but I didn’t get his letter until . . . too late. When I found out that Uncle Hector was gone, I was gutted.” He tilted his head toward Bree. “If I’d become a VP in Dad’s firm, I could’ve visited Uncle Hector as often as I pleased. But if I were the VP type, I wouldn’t be the sort of bloke who’d want to visit a bloke like Uncle Hector. My uncle understood why I couldn’t come here, Bree, and he didn’t mind. He encouraged me to work for love, not money.”

  “Oh,” Bree said quietly.

  “Uncle Hector left me enough to cover my travel costs,” Jack went on, “because he wanted me to take care of a few things for him. There was no one else he could rely on.”

  “Right,” said Bree, more quietly still.

  “What did he ask you to do?” I asked.

  “He wrote a memoir,” said Jack. “I’m to read it, give it a tune-up if it needs one, and publish one copy of it privately. Uncle Hector wanted just one copy made.” Jack’s voice trembled slightly as he added, “For me.”

  I stared down at my plate, abashed. Lilian Bunting, Bree, and I had treated Hector Huggins’s memoir as a big joke. We’d never considered the possibility that it might have been written as a farewell gift from a loving uncle to a favorite nephew. I felt thoroughly ashamed of my frivolity and I knew that Lilian would feel equally mortified when I told her the whole story.

  Bree must have been experiencing similar emotions because she unfolded her arms and said somberly, “I wish I’d known your uncle better, Jack. I think I would have liked him.”

  “He would have been terrified by you,” said Jack, but his crooked smile took the sting out of his words. “People te
rrified him, Bree. He preferred the company of birds, badgers, butterflies, trout. You may find it hard to believe, but he was a happy man.”

  “I’m glad,” said Bree. “It gives your sad story a nearly happy ending.” She cleared her throat, then inquired with exquisite courtesy, “What kind of conservation work did you do at Uluru?”

  “Removing invasive plants, mostly,” he replied. “Good preparation, as it turns out, for the second project Uncle Hector left me.” He swept a hand through the air to indicate Ivy Cottage. “I’m to tidy the place up and get it ready to put on the market. The house seems to be in good nick, but the land needs a lot of work. And that’s left me in a bit of a bind. Uncle Hector didn’t own any gardening tools, apart from a dodgy-looking lawn mower, and I’ll need more than that to restore order around here. Is there a place I can hire—”

  “Don’t be stupid,” Bree interrupted. “I’ve got all the tools you’ll need. What if I bring them ’round tomorrow morning?” She turned to me. “I’ll haul them in my own car, Lori, so the Rover won’t get mucky.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “I have a hard enough time keeping it clean as it is.”

  “I could stay on and pitch in,” Bree continued, turning back to Jack. “I’ve no plans for the day.”

  “I’ll help, too,” I piped up. “I’m not much of a gardener, but I can pull weeds if someone points them out to me. I’ll see if I can recruit Emma Harris as well. She lives up the lane and she knows a lot about gardens.”

  “I’ll take all the help I can get,” Jack said gratefully. “Nine o’clock tomorrow morning suit you?”

  “Could we make it ten?” I asked. “My mornings tend to be a little hectic.”

  “Fine with me,” said Bree.

  “Ten it is,” said Jack. He sat upright and surveyed our empty plates. “You choose: dessert or a breath of fresh air?”

  “Fresh air,” Bree said promptly. She gave him a shy, sidelong look as she added, “And a fresh start?”

  “Sounds good,” he said, and his smile was bright enough to blind the sun.