Aunt Dimity and the Wishing Well

by Nancy Atherton

  “Within earshot?” Bill sputtered. “Of a well?”

  “And now there’s a Jaguar E-Type in his garage,” I marveled, gazing blindly into the middle distance. “Mr. Barlow’s wish came true and so did Sally’s. Sally must have wished for a visit from Dabney Holdstrom—or someone like Dabney Holdstrom. She makes fabulous pastries and he’s the editor-in-chief of Cozy Cookery magazine, so it stands to reason—”

  “No, it doesn’t,” Bill broke in, raising his voice to be heard above my babbling. “It does not stand to reason. Reason has nothing to do with it.” He took a breath and continued quietly but firmly, “Coincidences happen, Lori. I’ll admit that a Jaguar arriving in Finch the day after Mr. Barlow mentioned one to you is an extraordinary coincidence, but I refuse to accept any other explanation. Once you start believing in things like wishing wells, all bets are off. You may as well make decisions by ripping a chicken open and consulting its oozing entrails.”

  The grisly image brought me back down to earth with a thud. I blanched, then put my head in my hands and chuckled ruefully.

  “Thanks,” I said. “I think I was becoming hysterical.”

  “I’m afraid the whole village is about to become hysterical,” said Bill. He gazed speculatively toward the green, where those who’d failed to nab a table in the tearoom were busily conferring on recent events.

  “Maybe so,” I said, “but I won’t. When I’m in my right mind, I don’t believe in wishing wells any more than I believe in the predictive power of chicken gizzards.” I hesitated, then said, “I do believe in Aunt Dimity, though, and you have to admit that she’s not your average houseguest.”

  “We have concrete proof that Aunt Dimity exists,” Bill pointed out. “She may not exist on the same plane as we do, but the blue journal proves she’s out there somewhere. If you can prove to me that Jack’s well converted an offhand comment into a malfunctioning car, I’ll eat my words.”

  “It’s weird, though, isn’t it?” I said. “First, the rain. Then the Jaguar. Then Mr. Cozy Cookery.”

  “Coincidences are weird,” Bill conceded, “but a wishing well that actually worked would be a whole lot weirder.”

  “As always, you are correct, my best beloved. And on that somewhat sickening and technically inaccurate note,” I said, rising, “I’ll return to the sensible activity of pruning ivy. Hard work will clear the cobwebs of superstition from my tiny brain. But I’ll probably need a hand massage this evening.”

  “Your wish is my command,” said Bill. “As the wishing well said to the Handmaidens.”

  I laughed, but as I left Wysteria Lodge I couldn’t help wondering if we’d seen the last of Finch’s flurry of weird coincidences.

  Twelve

  I didn’t go straight back to Ivy Cottage. I stopped at the tearoom to pick up a fresh loaf of bread for dinner and some strawberry jam drops for the twins’ after-school snack. Henry Cook was so busy waiting on seated customers that I was still there—purely by accident—when Mr. Barlow came in to report his findings to Dabney Holdstrom. The low hum of conversation ceased abruptly as all ears, including mine, were cocked in their direction.

  “Disconnected exhaust pipe,” said Mr. Barlow.

  “Can you mend the dratted thing?” Mr. Holdstrom asked, licking chocolate ganache delicately from his fingertips.

  “Already have.” Mr. Barlow held the ignition key out to him.

  Mr. Holdstrom seemed disconcerted. He looked mournfully from the dangling key to the array of delectable pastries Sally had placed before him, then appeared to reach a decision.

  “Would it be asking too much, Mr. Barlow, if I asked you to take the Jag for a test drive?” he said. “A good, long one. We want to be sure your repair holds, don’t we?”

  “It’ll hold,” said Mr. Barlow, “but I’ll take the Jag for a spin, if you really want me to.”

  “I do, my good fellow, I most certainly do,” said Mr. Holdstrom. “And take your time. I’m in no hurry.”

  Mr. Barlow left the room with a bounce in his step, looking as though every wish he’d ever made had come true. I paid for my bread and my strawberry jam drops and returned to Ivy Cottage, where I studiously ignored the wishing well.

  • • •

  Six days passed and nothing remarkable happened. My sillier neighbors regarded eight sunny days in a row—in May, in England—as miraculous, but the farmers and the forecasters blamed the dry spell on an immobile dome of high pressure, and so did I.

  One pleasant thing seemed to lead to another after Dabney Holdstrom’s visit, but I could account for all of them without resorting to supernatural explanations. The little editor had been so impressed by Mr. Barlow’s repair work that he’d driven several other treasures from his classic car collection to Finch for tune-ups and sent friends along as well. I couldn’t tell one sports car from another, but Bill reported sightings of a 1962 Austin Healey Sprite, a 1969 MGB-GT, and a 1965 Lotus Seven, each of which, according to Bill, would gladden a retired mechanic’s heart. Mr. Barlow gave the automotive gems his undivided attention and floated through each day in a happy haze.

  Mr. Holdstrom didn’t return to Finch for car maintenance alone. He came back to conduct vital research. Sally Pyne’s exceptional skills as a pastry chef had inspired him to write a feature article about her for an upcoming issue of Cozy Cookery magazine. He observed Sally in her kitchen, interviewed her suppliers, conversed with her customers, pigged out on her pastries, and promised to arrange a photo shoot, as Sally and her summer pudding were to grace the cover. When Sally asked him why he’d chosen such a commonplace confection over her more complex compositions, he’d replied simply: “It’s the summer issue.”

  Opal Taylor would share Sally’s spotlight. Opal had worked for many years as a cook for a wealthy family in Gloucester. Since her retirement, she’d padded her modest pension by selling her homemade jams and marmalades through Peggy Taxman’s Emporium. When Peggy brought the jewel-like jars to Mr. Holdstrom’s attention, he agreed to highlight their contents in what the villagers had taken to calling “the tearoom issue” of Cozy Cookery. Opal, who’d always looked down on Sally Pyne as a mere baker, became the tearoom owner’s best friend overnight.

  Like Sally, Opal was convinced that the wishing well had orchestrated her good fortune. I put it down to a combination of Peggy’s business acumen and Mr. Holdstrom’s fondness for jams and marmalades.

  Millicent Scroggins’s good fortune owed nothing to Dabney Holdstrom. Her dental martyrdom ended the day after her visit to Ivy Cottage, and though she ascribed her swift recovery to the wishing well, I credited it to oil of cloves, ice packs, the healing power of nature, and the wonders of modern dentistry.

  Nothing extraordinary happened to Selena Buxton or to Elspeth Binney, but their eyes remained bright with anticipation, as if they believed the well would grant their wishes as soon as it found the time.

  A steady stream of villagers came to Ivy Cottage to pick up an empty casserole dish or to drop off a full one. Jack felt obliged to give each helpful neighbor a guided tour of his late uncle’s property and each found a reason to linger in the back garden.

  Noises in the back garden roused Jack from his slumbers several nights in a row, but he wasn’t sure what had made them. It was always too dark to see what was going on from his bedroom window and by the time he went downstairs with a flashlight, there was nothing to see. He blamed a neighboring badger, but Bree and I blamed our neighbors, some of whom, we were certain, would prefer to keep their visits to the well under wraps.

  No one but Sally, Opal, and Millicent would admit to making a wish, and even they spoke of it in hushed voices. When I reminded Mr. Barlow of our conversation about the Jaguar E-Type, he simply laughed and said it was a funny old world. Nearly everyone in the village discussed the well with an air of amused tolerance, yet nearly everyone visited it.

  Aunt Dimity endorsed Bill’s opinion of the wishing well and she helped me to remain levelheaded by offering reasonable expla
nations for everything that happened in the wake of my wish for dry weather. Lilian Bunting looked upon the frenzy of well wishing as a passing fad and the vicar’s Sunday sermon reminded everyone to “put away childish things.”

  I spent five of the six days toiling with Bree and Jack at Ivy Cottage. It took us two full days to trim the vines around the roof, the windows, the doors, the gutters, and the downspouts, and a further four to conduct what I thought was an excessively painstaking examination of its exterior walls. Following Jack’s lead, Bree and I lifted each fluttering leaf to search for damaged stonework, but we found none. The mortar was solid, the stones were unblemished, and Jack had no need of Derek Harris’s services.

  Our minute examination of the cottage’s walls was undeniably tedious, but it was better than a gym workout for whipping me into shape. A stiff regimen of ladder climbing was exactly what I needed to strengthen my lungs as well as my legs. I wasn’t ready to sign up for a mountain bike race, but by the sixth day I could keep up with Bree, who’d begun riding her own bicycle to Ivy Cottage.

  Bree continued to spar with Jack and he continued to absorb her verbal punches. My conversations with Jack were as interesting as they were informative. Though he’d spent most of his life in Australia, his work had taken him to New Zealand as well. I learned that he’d built wooden walkways to protect the fragile terrain in the Waipoua Kauri Forest, done trail maintenance work on the active Tongariro volcano, counted whales off the Kaikoura coast, and taken ice cores from the Fox Glacier. Whether by accident or design, Jack emphasized his familiarity with New Zealand whenever Bree was within earshot. I thought he was playing his cards brilliantly.

  The Oxford lab gave the well a clean bill of health and Miranda Morrow returned to refill her bottles. I dropped Will and Rob off at Anscombe Manor for their riding lessons on Saturday, spent Sunday with them and Bill at Willis, Sr.’s, and regarded my neighbors’ shenanigans with silent amusement.

  The one truly remarkable feature of the six-day span was Emma’s failure to keep her word. Though she’d promised to deliver her garden plan to Jack by “Thursday at the latest,” we didn’t see her or her plan until the following Wednesday. Bree, Jack, and I were too busy snipping ivy and studying stonework to let the delay worry us, but by Wednesday morning, we’d run out of things to do.

  We were standing in the front garden, admiring the cottage’s neat appearance and comparing calluses, when Emma arrived with a three-ring binder containing her master plan for the gardens’ restoration. The binder’s thickness seemed to explain why she’d taken so long to deliver it.

  Emma had created a fifty-page opus that included plant lists, diagrams, instructions, general layouts, detailed layouts, and thumbnail photographs of each plant she hoped to preserve. She’d also made a series of technical drawings to show how the pergola, the trellis, the birdbaths, the bird tables, and the old stone wall would look once they were repaired. Jack seemed to be stunned by the sheer weight of the tome and Emma was clearly embarrassed by it.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s overkill, I know, but once I got started, I couldn’t stop.”

  “Don’t apologize,” said Jack. “You’ve put in the hard yards and I’m grateful.” He leafed through the binder, then closed it with a snap. “Tell you what. I’ll read it today and figure out how much of it I can handle.”

  “You don’t have to handle it on your own,” said Bree. “Lori and I aren’t going anywhere.”

  “We wouldn’t dream of letting you have all the fun,” I chimed in.

  “I wish I could help, too,” said Emma. “But I’ve already fallen behind on my own work.”

  “You’ve done your part,” said Jack. “We’ll take it from here.”

  “Okay,” said Emma. “If you have any questions, feel free to call me. Or send an e-mail. Or a text. Or a note. My contact information is inside the front cover.” She looked regretfully from the three-ring binder to the three-ring circus of greenery bordering the brick paths and said with a valiant attempt at cheerfulness, “Well. I’d better be going. Insurance forms wait for no woman.”

  It pained me to watch her drag herself reluctantly from the garden because I knew how badly she wanted to stay behind.

  “Let’s pack it in,” said Jack, after she’d gone. “It’ll take me all day to digest Emma’s scheme and I’ll need to speak with Aldous Winterbottom about it before I decide whether or not to go ahead with it.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “He’ll know if there’s enough money in Uncle Hector’s estate to pay for the scheme,” said Jack. “I want to do right by Uncle Hector, but if the dosh isn’t there, I may have to take some shortcuts.”

  “Tell Mr. Winterbottom you’re getting the labor for free,” said Bree.

  “You’re not cheap labor,” Jack protested. “We’re a team.”

  “Team Ivy,” I suggested.

  “Team Ivy,” chorused Jack and Bree, laughing.

  After an exuberant round of high-fives, Bree and I collected our bicycles from the garage and rode side by side up the lane. I’d so far resisted the almost irresistible urge to plumb the depths of Bree’s feelings for Jack and she’d given me no access to her thoughts. Observation told me that Jack was besotted with her, but she was less easy to read.

  I listened to her intently as we climbed the gentle slope, in part because I didn’t want to miss any hints she might drop about the state of her heart, but mainly because I didn’t yet have the lung power to conduct a conversation and cycle uphill with her at the same time.

  She rattled on about Sally’s summer pudding, Opal’s jams and marmalades, Millicent’s tooth, and Mr. Barlow’s love affair with Dabney Holdstrom’s classic cars. She invented wishes for the rest of our neighbors and laughed at them for their naiveté, but the only time Jack’s name came up was when she guessed at the identities of his night callers.

  “Peggy Taxman is at the top of my list,” she said. “She’s spent the past week laughing at anyone who mentions the well. She’d lose face if anyone saw her talking to it in broad daylight.”

  “What . . . wish?” I gasped.

  “To buy another business,” Bree said promptly. “She may be queen of the Emporium, the post office, and the greengrocer’s, but she won’t rest until she’s conquered every shop in Finch. Henry Cook is high on my list of suspects, too.”

  “Why . . . Henry?” I wheezed.

  “He used to be a star,” said Bree. “He used to entertain hundreds of people on cruise ships. He must miss it, don’t you think? He must be longing for the limelight now that Sally’s taken center stage, but he can’t say it out loud because she’s his fiancée.”

  “Anyone . . . else?” I panted.

  “Charles Bellingham,” Bree replied. “He’s always talking about what a great eye he has. He’d love to find an undiscovered masterpiece, but he wouldn’t want to be seen wishing for one. He’d want everyone—Grant especially—to think he could spot a long-lost Rembrandt without the well’s assistance.”

  Bree’s comments were cruel, but accurate. She’d lived in Finch long enough to know her neighbors’ foibles better than she knew her own. I had no trouble picturing Peggy or Henry or Charles sneaking into the back garden to commune with the wishing well privately. Pride would motivate them to conceal their activities and girth—they were not the daintiest of creatures—would prevent them from sneaking stealthily. They could very well be responsible for the noises that had disturbed Jack’s sleep.

  “Too bad you have no proof,” I said, dismounting for a breather at Bree’s house. “I’d give my eyeteeth to have a photograph of Peggy sticking her head down the well.”

  “So would I,” said Bree. “Too late, though. If I’m right—which I am—she’s already been and gone.”

  “I’d better be gone, too,” I said. “I’ve been a bit lax with the laundry lately. It’s time to catch up.”

  “You really know how to enjoy a day off,” Bree said with a wry smile. “Hug the boys
for me.”

  “Will do,” I said. “See you tomorrow!”

  I had something more enjoyable than laundry to contemplate as I pedaled toward home. I intended to share Bree’s educated guesswork with Aunt Dimity. She would, I knew, be as tickled as I was by the thought of Peggy Taxman, Charles Bellingham, and Henry Cook whispering sweet nothings to the well in the dead of night.

  I turned into our graveled driveway, stowed Betsy in the garage, and threw a greeting to Stanley as I sailed through the front door and up the hallway to the study. I was in the midst of giving Reginald’s pink flannel ears a fond twiddle when the doorbell rang, not once, but five times in a row.

  “I’m coming!” I called, shooting a querying glance at my bunny.

  Neither Reginald nor I could have known it at the time, but the five rings heralded a small avalanche of weird coincidences.

  Thirteen

  I found Emma waiting for me on the doorstep, her finger poised to ring the bell a sixth time. She brushed past me when I opened the door and whirled around to face me when I closed it, but she didn’t speak. Instead, she bounced up and down on the balls of her feet, clasped her hands under her chin, and let loose a gurgle of laughter.

  “Emma?” I said gently. “Have you been drinking?”

  “Not yet,” she replied, “but Derek and I may break open a bottle of bubbly later. Oh, Lori, we’ve had the most wonderful news! Wonderful! You’ll never guess what it is.”

  “Tell me, then,” I demanded as dozens of guesses darted through my mind. “Is it Nell? Is she preg—”

  “It’s not Nell!” Emma exclaimed. “It’s Peter!”

  “Peter’s pregnant?” I said doubtfully.

  Emma giggled like a five-year-old, cleared her throat, and announced exultantly, “Peter’s coming home!”

  My jaw dropped. Peter Harris was Derek’s son, Emma’s stepson, and Nell’s only sibling. Though the Harrises were a close-knit family, Peter wasn’t a homebody. He and his wife, Cassandra, had spent the past five years monitoring wildlife in remote outposts all over the United Kingdom. They’d made a brief appearance at Nell’s wedding and taken off again almost immediately for another assignment. It was the last time any of us had seen them at Anscombe Manor.