Aunt Dimity and the Wishing Well

by Nancy Atherton

  “Bird tables and birdbaths,” I said. “Emma doesn’t trust us with pruning shears.”

  “Fair enough,” said Jack. “The tables can be repaired, but the baths are beyond redemption.”

  “The garden center in Upper Deeping has birdbaths,” said Bree.

  “And Mr. Barlow will help us with the bird tables,” I said.

  “No, he won’t,” said Bree, frowning. “I asked him this morning and he said he’d be up to elbows in a Frogeye Sprite all day.”

  “I beg your pardon?” I said, certain I’d misheard her.

  “He’ll be working on another car belonging to another one of Dabney Holdstrom’s flash friends,” Bree explained grumpily. “He let me borrow some tools, though.”

  She gestured to the tarpaulin-covered patch of driveway, which had been transformed into an alfresco carpenter’s workshop. Saws, hammers, nails, planes, and other tools of the woodworking trade had been arranged neatly on three planks laid side by side across a pair of sawhorses. The broken-down bird tables lay in a heap beside the sawhorses.

  Though I knew next to nothing about carpentry, the correct course of action was plain to me. It was more important for Bree and Jack to spend time together than it was for me to spend time alone with either one of them, so I feigned an expertise I did not possess.

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll have a stab at the tables while you two tackle the garden center.”

  “You’ll repair the bird tables?” Bree said doubtfully.

  “Of course I will,” I said, jumping to my feet and rubbing my palms together energetically. “How hard can it be?”

  “Famous last words,” Bree said.

  “Hello?” said a timid voice.

  Theodore Bunting stood in the gateway between the towering hedges, gazing inquisitively at us. Jack and Bree rose from the doorstep and strode forward with me to greet him.

  “G’day, Vicar,” said Jack. “What brings you to Ivy Cottage?”

  “Dear me,” said the vicar, surveying the garden with something akin to horror in his mild gray eyes. “Rumors have been flying about for many days, but I placed little faith in their accuracy. I can see now that I was mistaken. The rumors were all too true.” He shook his head. “I blame myself. Poor Mr. Huggins. I should have tried harder to—”

  “He wouldn’t have let you,” Jack said swiftly.

  “And it’s not as bad as it seems,” said Bree, who was very fond of the vicar. “Emma believes he planted it this way on purpose.”

  “On purpose?” The vicar stared at Bree in disbelief.

  “Ask Emma,” Bree said. “She can explain it better than I can.”

  “By the time we’ve finished pulling it back a bit,” said Jack, “it’ll be fit for the Chelsea Flower Show.”

  “May the Lord bless all the work of your hand,” said the vicar. “By the looks of it, your hands will be fully occupied for some time.” He sighed. “I’m afraid I’ve come on a fool’s errand.”

  “I doubt it,” said Jack.

  “I was hoping to prevail upon one of you to mow the cemetery,” the vicar confessed apologetically. “I’d do it myself, but my wife thinks it might kill me. I don’t know why. I’m in excellent health for a man of my age.”

  I agreed wholeheartedly with Lilian. Theodore Bunting was tall, but as spare as a scarecrow and though he might be in good health for his age, he was too old to be pushing a lawn mower.

  “Mr. Barlow’s the sexton,” said Bree, scowling. “It’s his job to mow the cemetery. He should have done it last Saturday.”

  “I’m afraid he didn’t,” the vicar replied. “He’s been rather tied up with the magnificent motors people keep bringing to him. I couldn’t in good conscience divert him from a pursuit that gives him pleasure as well as a fine income, but there’s no denying that the cemetery is starting to look”—he cast a mournful glance at the overgrown greenery edging the brick path—“rather forlorn.”

  “I’ll tell you what, Vicar,” said Jack. “I’m on my way to Upper Deeping just now, but I’ll mow the cemetery for you this afternoon.”

  “Will you really?” said the vicar, sounding cautiously optimistic. “I don’t wish to interrupt—”

  “You’re not interrupting anything that can’t be interrupted,” Jack assured him. “I’ll see you after lunch.”

  “God bless you,” said the vicar, smiling beatifically as he wrung Jack’s hand. “Lilian will be delighted when I tell her—”

  “Good morning!” said Elspeth Binney.

  Elspeth walked into the front garden accompanied by a woman who would never be mistaken for a Handmaiden. The stranger was tall and lean, but curvy, and her legs seemed to go on forever. She had pale blue eyes, high cheekbones, lustrous honey-blond hair that flowed down her back in gleaming waves, and a tan that rivaled Jack’s. She wore a khaki vest dotted with pockets over a formfitting white tank top and she’d pulled a pair of scuffed cowboy boots over her skintight blue jeans.

  It was hard to guess her age—older than Jack, I thought, and younger than me—but in her case, age was irrelevant. She was certifiably gorgeous, and though I’d never seen her before, I knew who she was. The three cameras hanging from straps around her neck were a dead giveaway.

  “May I introduce my niece?” Elspeth said brightly. “Jemima—”

  “Jemma Renshawe,” the gorgeous woman interrupted gruffly, raising one of the cameras to her eye. “Pretend I’m not here.”

  It was impossible to comply with her request as she writhed around us, snapping photographs of our startled faces from every conceivable angle, but I pretended, for Elspeth’s sake, to take her niece’s uncouth behavior in stride.

  “Pleased to meet you, Jemma,” I said.

  Jemma grunted.

  “Yes, er, welcome to the village, um, Jemma,” said the vicar, looking both uncomfortable and bewildered. “If you’ll forgive me, I must return to the vicarage to, um, to revise my sermon.” He sidled awkwardly toward the lane in a bid to escape the slinking shutterbug. “I’ll say good-bye for now, then, shall I? I look forward to seeing you this afternoon, Jack.”

  “Count on it, Vicar,” said Jack, who appeared to be vastly amused by the situation.

  Bree was not amused. She waited until the vicar was gone, then strode up to Jemma and cupped her hand over the camera lens. Jemma rose from a contorted crouch and looked at Bree in surprise.

  “Problem?” Jemma asked.

  “Yes,” Bree snapped, squaring her shoulders. “I don’t recall giving you my permission to take my photograph.”

  “Oh.” Jemma’s puzzled expression vanished. “Sorry. Forgot. Get carried away sometimes.”

  “Jemma is working on a book about Cotswold villages,” Elspeth intervened hastily. “She’s been commissioned to take photographs of villagers.”

  “I’m not a villager,” said Jack. “I’m not even English, so you may as well delete my photos, Jemma. Bree and Lori aren’t English, either, but they live here, as does Mr. Bunting, who’s English to the bone. I’m sure he won’t mind being in your book.”

  “It’s okay with me, too,” I said. I wasn’t wildly enthused about having my left nostril immortalized in print, but I didn’t want to upset Elspeth by opting out.

  “What about you?” Jemma asked Bree.

  “Yes, all right, I suppose you can use my photographs, too,” Bree said with ungracious reluctance. “Come on, Jack. If we keep hanging about, the garden center will be closed before we get there.”

  Bree marched off to climb into Jack’s car and Jack ran after her, calling cheery good-byes to Elspeth and to Jemma. Jemma grunted at me and left the front garden. Elspeth watched her go, then turned to me.

  “Your niece is very . . . interesting,” I observed.

  “She has an artistic temperament,” said Elspeth. “When she has a camera in her hands, she becomes obsessed.” Elspeth’s brow furrowed worriedly as she gazed toward the empty gateway. “She didn’t even want a cup of tea after her long driv
e down from Yorkshire. She preferred to get straight to business.”

  “She’s certainly not a time waster,” I said encouragingly. “She swept in and out of here like a real pro.”

  “Yes,” Elspeth said without conviction. “She doesn’t approve of posed photos, you see. She prefers to capture images fleetingly, in unstructured environments. She believes impromptu photos give a more accurate reflection of human nature.”

  “Fascinating,” I said dutifully.

  “She’s brought an awful lot of equipment with her,” Elspeth said, and the creases in her forehead deepened. “Two computers, a printer, and all sorts of paraphernalia. It wouldn’t fit on the desk in the guest room, so Jemma spread it out on my dining room table.”

  “A small sacrifice,” I said, “when you consider the end result.”

  “Indeed,” said Elspeth. “It will be worth it in the end. And it’s all very . . . interesting. If you’ll excuse me, I should probably go after her.”

  Elspeth pressed two fingers to her temple, as if she had a headache coming on, and hurried away to search for her artistic niece.

  I didn’t envy her the task of reining in such an intense character and I wasn’t at all sure how my neighbors would react to having a camera thrust at them in an impromptu manner by a monosyllabic goddess. It seemed likely that the men would comb their hair, pull in their tummies, and compete for the chance to pose for her, but I doubted the women would. Opal, Millicent, and Selena wouldn’t hesitate for a moment to tell their dear friend exactly what they thought of her niece, and if Jemma shoved a camera under Peggy Taxman’s nose, the camera—and quite possibly Jemma—would end up in pieces.

  I moseyed over to the driveway to examine the broken bird tables, but I was still thinking about Elspeth. Her wish to observe the creative mind at work had already lost her a dining room table. Would it lose her a few friendships as well?

  “Then there’s Mr. Barlow,” I murmured fretfully.

  If Mr. Barlow’s infatuation with classic cars had ended when he’d fixed Dabney Holdstrom’s precious Jaguar, all would have been well. He would have had his fun and Finch would have had its sexton-handyman back. But the cars wouldn’t stop coming and Mr. Barlow wouldn’t stop working on them and the things he was supposed to be doing weren’t getting done.

  “He’s not himself,” I said to a foraging robin.

  Mr. Barlow believed in old-fashioned virtues like doing one’s duty and keeping one’s promises, yet he’d failed signally to do his duty as a sexton and he’d gone back on his promise to lend a hand, if needed, with Ivy Cottage. I didn’t want to imagine what Finch would be like without its hardworking handyman, but as I hefted a hammer it dawned on me that I might have to.

  I gave myself a preview of the apocalypse by attempting to do what Mr. Barlow should have done. After twenty minutes or so of banging nails every which way but straight into the wood, the inevitable happened. I whacked my left thumb so hard with the hammer that the wave of pain nearly knocked me off my feet. I dropped the hammer, grasped my wrist, and did a little dance of agony, during which I cursed every Jaguar E-Type ever made.

  I was on my way into the cottage to find ice for my throbbing digit when the sound of raised voices reached my ears. Alarmed, I forgot my injury and raced toward the village, arriving atop the humpbacked bridge in time to watch the first act of Finch’s final downfall.

  Seventeen

  I wasn’t alone in witnessing doomsday. The curious leaned from windows or stood in doorways or froze in their tracks all up and down the village green. Mr. Barlow emerged from his garage near the bottom of the bridge, spotted me, and climbed up to share my grandstand view.

  “’Morning, Lori,” he said, as if the end of the world weren’t nigh. “What did you do to your thumb?”

  “We’ll talk about it later,” I responded distractedly.

  He slipped a socket wrench into his tool belt and wiped his greasy hands on a grimy rag, which he stowed in the back pocket of his grubby coveralls. The oily stench he brought with him made me feel sick to my stomach, but I swallowed hard and forced myself to focus on the matter at hand.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “Grant and Charles are having a tiff, I reckon,” he replied.

  I reckoned he was right. Grant Tavistock and Charles Bellingham were bellowing at each other over their white picket gate. Grant was on the outside, glaring up at Charles, and Charles was on the inside, glaring down at Grant while waving a horribly familiar, small, framed painting in Grant’s face. They were arguing so loudly that it was impossible not to eavesdrop.

  “It’s an Asazuki!” Charles crowed. “An original Asazuki!”

  “I know it’s an Asazuki!” Grant shouted. “I can see it’s an Asazuki! I don’t need you to tell me what an Asazuki looks like!”

  “Apparently, you do,” Charles said gleefully. “Because it was right under your nose and you missed it!”

  “If you don’t get it away from my nose,” Grant said, shoving Charles’s arm aside, “I’ll punch you on yours!”

  “I’d like to see you try,” said Charles.

  “I don’t think you would,” said Grant, raising a clenched fist.

  “Who do you reckon would win if they had a dustup?” Mr. Barlow asked conversationally. “Charles has the height, the weight, and the reach, but Grant’s kept himself in better shape.”

  “I sincerely hope they won’t have a dustup,” I said, appalled by the thought of either man sprawled across the cobbles in my peaceful village.

  “Suit yourself,” Mr. Barlow said equably. “I’d back Grant. Quicker, lighter on his feet, more stamina. It’s the wiry ones you have to watch out for.”

  Charles apparently decided to watch out for the wiry one standing within arm’s reach of his nose because he clutched the painting to his chest, withdrew to a safe distance, and changed tactics.

  “It’s not about the Asazuki,” he was saying. “It’s about you taking advantage of my good nature.”

  “If you didn’t want to sort the disposables, why didn’t you say so?” Grant exploded. “I didn’t force them on you! I didn’t lock you in the shed!”

  “No, but you left the shed all topsy-turvy because you knew you could rely on me to organize it for you!” Charles retorted.

  “I’m sick to death of you organizing things!” said Grant. “I’m sick of you nagging and fussing and hoovering and polishing and making me feel like a guest in my own home!”

  “You,” said Charles, “are an ungrateful swine.”

  “And you,” Grant snarled, “are a paranoid neat freak with delusions of grandeur. And I’ve had enough!”

  Grant spun on his heel, got into his car, and sped off in the direction of Upper Deeping. Charles frowned ferociously, stomped into the cottage, and slammed the door so hard that the sound reverberated from one end of the village to the other.

  “They’ve lost their minds,” I said.

  “Who’s the boa constrictor?” Mr. Barlow asked.

  “Who’s the what?” I asked, staring at him.

  “The bendy beauty with the cameras,” he replied.

  He gestured toward Jemma Renshawe, who’d wrapped her gorgeous self around the war memorial, presumably to capture artistic images of Grant and Charles yelling at each other. Her aunt stood in the memorial’s shadow, looking as if she’d rather be anywhere else.

  “It’s Elspeth’s niece,” I said. “She’s taking photographs for a book about Cotswold villages.”

  Mr. Barlow burst out laughing. “Charles and Grant will be well pleased to have their bickering beaks put in a book for all the world to see.”

  “Pleased?” I said, sagging against the bridge’s low stone wall. “They’re the vainest men in Finch. They’ll have six fits when they find out what she’s done.”

  “I wouldn’t get comfortable just yet, Lori,” Mr. Barlow advised. “There’s more to come.”

  “Where?” I asked, pushing myself upright.

&
nbsp; Mr. Barlow’s pointing finger followed Peggy Taxman as she exited her general store and sailed majestically across the green to enter the tearoom.

  “I’ve seen this one coming,” said Mr. Barlow, folding his arms.

  “What have you seen coming?” I asked.

  “The clash of the titans,” he replied. “Peggy’s been pea-green with envy ever since Sally had her lucky break with Dabney Holdstrom, and Sally’s bragging hasn’t helped. Always has to have the upper hand, does Peggy, and she hasn’t had it lately. Looks as if she’s geared herself up to bring Sally down a peg.”

  If anyone could deflate an overblown ego, it was Peggy Taxman. Peggy was a force to be reckoned with. Grown men ran for cover when her pointy, rhinestone-studded glasses came into view and grown women generally did whatever she told them to do.

  Sally Pyne didn’t appear to be in an overly submissive state of mind as she chased Peggy out of the tearoom. Sally’s round face was screwed up and beet-red with rage, while Henry Cook, who trailed after her, looked as though he had one foot hovering precariously over a land mine. I couldn’t blame him. Both women looked as if they were ready to explode.

  “What sort of getup is Sally wearing?” Mr. Barlow asked.

  His perplexity was understandable. Short, plump, white-haired Sally Pyne usually wore stretch pants, a loose-fitting blouse, and sneakers to work. It took me a full five seconds to figure out why she’d replaced her customary attire with a flouncy, full-skirted, green gingham dress, a frilly pink apron, and lavender satin slippers.

  “It must be for the photo shoot,” I said as the penny dropped. “The photo shoot for the Cozy Cookery magazine cover.”

  “She looks like an angry Easter egg,” Mr. Barlow said, chuckling.

  I couldn’t laugh along with him. I felt as if I were witnessing the collision of two mighty tectonic plates. My sense of dread increased exponentially when Jemma Renshawe released her hold on the war memorial and made a beeline for the villagers who’d gathered on the green to watch Peggy and Sally face off. I doubted that my neighbors would look kindly upon Jemma if she blocked their view of what promised to be a highly entertaining confrontation.