Aunt Dimity: Vampire Hunter

by Nancy Atherton

  I doubted that we’d get much out of icy Mr. Bellamy, but cooks were notorious talkers, and the kitchen was the heart of every home. Mrs. Harcourt would know if a shy man who liked children was sitting down to dinner in the dining room at Aldercot Hall or if a vampiric psychopath was chowing down on raw deer meat behind the boarded windows in the attic. If she’d been at the hall long enough, she might even be able to fill us in on the forty-year-old murder.

  I knew in my bones that if anyone could be enticed into revealing the DuCarals’ lurid family secrets, it would be Mrs. Harcourt. I was equally convinced that if anyone could entice her, it would be me. I was determined to prove to Aunt Dimity that I hadn’t lost my edge when it came to extracting information from chatty servants.

  “I’ll do the talking in the kitchen,” I told Kit. “You may be irresistibly charming, but I’m a world-class gossip.”

  Thirteen

  The kitchen entrance was down a short flight of stone steps toward the rear of Aldercot Hall. The kitchen windows were the only ones I’d seen so far that weren’t covered by drapes or plywood, but since the kitchen was practically underground, I suspected that the extra light was both needed and welcomed by those who worked there.

  Kit had barely withdrawn his finger from the doorbell when the door was flung open by a middle-aged woman of such imposing stature that we both fell back a step. She wasn’t fat, exactly, but she was several inches taller than Kit and at least twice his width, and her bosom was simply massive. If ever a woman were a bloodsucking fiend’s dream-date, it was this one, but as I scanned her neck for bite marks, it occurred to me that she could probably hold her own in a fight with a vampire, however supernatural his strength.

  It wasn’t the woman’s size alone that startled us. She was also as brightly colored as a parrot. Her vermilion hair was quite short and stylishly spiky, and her vivid green eyes were set off by her florid face. She wore a floaty lemon-yellow cotton top with short sleeves and a deep V neckline over the kind of loose-fitting lavender trousers usually worn to yoga classes. A pair of dazzling turquoise socks showed through the straps of the orange huaraches that graced her astonishingly large feet.

  She was, in fact, dressed as though it were high summer instead of mid-October, and when the blast of heat from the kitchen hit us, I understood why.

  “Well, if ever there was a pair of drowned rats,” she said, planting her hands on her hips and looking us up and down.

  “We’re—” Kit began, but he didn’t get any further.

  “I know, I know,” boomed the woman. “Mr. Bellamy rang to warn me. Whatever were you thinking, going out on a day like this? Come in, come in, before I’m as wet as you are.”

  She didn’t wait for us to step over the threshold but grabbed each of us by a shoulder and hauled us effortlessly into a small foyer with a door in every wall. Once we were all inside, she gestured to an enameled pan sitting on the flagstone floor.

  “Bung your boots in there and give me your socks and your jackets,” she said. “I’ll put them near the Aga to dry. I’d ask for your trousers, too, but we don’t run that kind of house.” Her eyes crinkled to slits, and her whole body shook as she laughed at her own risqué joke.

  “We have dry socks,” Kit offered timidly.

  “Dry socks won’t do much good on wet feet,” she declared. “You can leave your packs in the scullery to drip, and you can wash your hands and faces in there, too.” She looked askance at us, then barked, “Well? What are you waiting for?”

  “Where’s the scullery?” I asked in a small voice, looking desperately from door to door.

  “Oh, for pity’s sake,” she said, and grabbed each of us by a wrist.

  After that it was a bit like taking a ride in a spin dryer. Mrs. Harcourt pushed and pulled us from place to place until I didn’t know if I was coming or going. She actually cleaned Kit’s face for him with the corner of a dampened towel, and she inspected my hands closely after I’d scrubbed them. She signaled the end of the cycle by dragging us into the spacious, overheated kitchen and planting us, barefoot and somewhat dazed, on a pair of wooden chairs near a dark-red four-oven Aga cooker that was emitting the wonderful scents of baking pastry.

  While we recovered our equilibrium, she went on bustling. First she stuffed our boots with newspaper and placed them near the cooker, then she hung our socks and jackets on a wooden rack suspended above the cooker, and then she removed a tray of little cakes from the cooker and placed it beside several others that were cooling on a counter. After testing a few of the cakes with a fingertip, she turned to tower over us.

  “There, now, that’s better, isn’t it?” she said cheerfully.

  “Yes, thank you, Mrs. Harcourt,” we chorused, like a pair of ten-year-olds.

  “Don’t ‘Mrs. Harcourt’ me,” she scolded, lifting a steaming teakettle from the Aga and filling the brown teapot that sat on the oversized kitchen table. “It’s only Mr. Bellamy calls me that, because he’s got it fixed in his head that all cooks should be called ‘Mrs.,’ whether they’re married or not. I’m not married and never will be, because there isn’t a man alive I’d have for a husband, though I might make an exception in your case, ducky.” She returned the kettle to the Aga and gave Kit a roguish wink. “What a pretty face you have, and pretty manners, too. My name’s Henrietta. What’s yours?”

  I couldn’t swear to it, of course, but I’m almost certain that Kit’s entire body blushed.

  “Kit,” he said weakly. “Kit Smith.”

  “And you?” she said, turning to me.

  “Lori Shepherd,” I said.

  She beamed at us. “Welcome to Aldercot Hall, Kit and Lori. Put your trotters by the Aga while I set out a few nibbles.”

  Henrietta Harcourt’s idea of a few nibbles was as expansive as her personality. The table was soon littered with a savory assortment of meat pies, sausages, cheeses, breads, chutneys, mustards, and pickles. It wasn’t the sort of fare I’d normally serve with tea, but apparently the tea was meant only to warm us, because as soon as we’d downed our first cup, she beckoned us to the table and brought out the beer.

  I’m not a beer-drinker by nature, but I’m also not suicidal. I accepted the foaming glass Henrietta offered and refrained from making faces while I sipped it. When she took a seat across from us and filled her plate with substantial portions of everything she’d laid out on the table, Kit and I dutifully followed suit.

  “You sound like an American, Lori,” she said, adding a wedge of creamy Stilton to her plate.

  “That’s because I am an American,” I said, helping myself to a hunk of cheddar. “I was born and raised in Chicago.”

  Henrietta responded to my pronouncement as so many English people before her had responded when I mentioned the name of my hometown, by raising her hands as if she were holding a machine gun and making guttural rat-a-tat noises in the back of her throat.

  “Al Capone,” she said brightly, when she’d finished rat-a-tatting.

  “That’s right,” I said. “I never knew Al personally, but his legend lives on. Are you from around here?”

  “Heavens no,” she said. “I’m a Londoner.”

  My ears pricked up as I recalled Lizzie Black’s ominous words: The DuCarals ordered everything they needed from London…including servants.

  “How did you find a job way out here?” I asked.

  “Answered an ad in the Times,” said Henrietta. “Miss Charlotte had trouble keeping staff after her mum passed on—except for Mr. Bellamy, of course, and he won’t leave Aldercot until they carry him out feetfirst.” She popped a chunk of sausage into her mouth, but the act of chewing did not in any way impede her ability to speak. “The rest of the old-timers took their pensions and ran, and the new cooks and housemaids disappeared just as fast as Miss Charlotte could hire them.”

  I thought uneasily of the humps in the unkempt lawn.

  “I wasn’t the only experienced cook to answer Miss Charlotte’s ad,” Henrietta went on,
“but I was the only one who liked the look of the place and wanted to stay on.”

  “I suppose the others thought that life here might be too…quiet,” I ventured.

  “Quiet’s what I wanted.” Henrietta leaned forward aggressively, still gripping her knife and fork. “I grew up with four brothers and six sisters in a cramped council flat on a dirty, noisy street in a neighborhood the tour buses don’t include in their itineraries. When I was a kid, all I wanted was to live in the country, have a room of my own, and enjoy some peace and quiet. Aldercot suited me to a tee. I couldn’t wait to move in.”

  She sat back and reached for her glass. While she took a long draft of beer, Kit mouthed the words “You’re good” at me, but I didn’t deserve the praise. Henrietta was too easy. Getting her to talk was about as difficult as getting Will and Rob to ride their ponies.

  “It must be a lot of work, though,” I said, “catering to such a large household.”

  Henrietta lowered her glass and gave a shout of laughter. “The house may be large, but the household isn’t. It’s just Miss Charlotte upstairs, and me and Mr. Bellamy and Jacqueline downstairs. Jacqueline took the job for the scenery,” Henrietta explained, smearing mustard on a forkful of meat pie. “She wants to be a nature photographer.” Her green eyes swerved abruptly toward Kit. “You’re not saying much, ducky. I can tell you have a brain behind your pretty face, so what’s the problem? Cat got your tongue? Or are you the strong and silent type?”

  Kit’s face flamed red again. “I’m…um, er…”

  “He’s shy,” I said.

  “I like ’em shy.” Henrietta waggled her eyebrows, then reached across the table and chucked Kit under the chin.

  I was so impressed by the length of her arm that I almost missed the chuck under the chin, but Kit, as the chuck’s recipient, was unable to ignore it. He mustered a pained grimace that, in a dim light, could have passed for a smile, then lowered his chin to his chest and began furiously dissecting a gherkin.

  “Does Jacqueline help you in the kitchen?” I asked quickly, to distract Henrietta from Kit’s undeniably pretty face.

  “I don’t need help in the kitchen,” she said. “Mostly Jacqueline runs up and down stairs so Mr. Bellamy and I don’t have to.”

  “Wow,” I said. “Just the four of you in this big house…Are you allowed to have guests?”

  “No,” said Henrietta, “but I have all the company I need. A cleaning crew comes up from London every couple of months to dust the place down, and another crew comes up to mow the lawn.”

  “You have a lawn service?” I asked, unable to conceal my surprise.

  “They don’t maintain it,” said Henrietta. “They don’t roll it or fertilize it or grub up the weeds. They just keep it from overrunning the house, is all. It’s an easy day out in the country for them. They’re nice blokes. They bring me the news from London, and I give them slap-up meals. They like my cooking,” she added, with the quiet pride of a woman who enjoys feeding people. “Miss Charlotte, now, she eats like a bird. Hardly touches a morsel I send up. Some cooks would take offense, but I see it as a challenge. I’m always on the lookout for dishes that might tempt her.”

  I was about to recommend a plateful of blood pudding or a dainty feast of venison tartare when a painfully thin young woman drifted into the kitchen. She was dressed in ripped jeans, a wooly turtleneck, and sneakers, and she’d pulled her straight blond hair back into a ponytail.

  “Have your ears been burning, Jacqueline?” Henrietta asked amiably. “I was just telling my new friends about you.”

  The girl turned her pale face toward us and shrugged incuriously. Without saying a word, she proceeded to take a can of diet soda from the refrigerator and drift out of the kitchen.

  “A very inward sort of person, is our Jacqueline,” Henrietta observed, sawing a slice of bread from a dense brown loaf. “Artists often are, you know.”

  “She doesn’t look too healthy,” I said cautiously.

  “Iron deficiency,” said Henrietta.

  Blood deficiency, I thought, and lost what little appetite I had left.

  “I do my best to feed her properly.” Henrietta sighed as she mashed a wedge of Stilton on the slice of bread. “But you know what girls are these days. They’d rather be starving sparrows than fat pheasants.”

  Her words brought to mind the damp pheasant I’d seen in the woods when I’d been looking for the herd of fallow deer that, according to Lizzie, served as the DuCarals’ private blood bank.

  “I was told that a herd of deer roams the property,” I said, “but I didn’t notice one when Kit and I were in the woods.”

  “There haven’t been deer at Aldercot since old Mrs. DuCaral passed away,” said Henrietta. “Mr. Bellamy told me that Miss Charlotte sold the herd to a deer park up in County Durham after her mother died, to save herself the trouble and expense of looking after it.”

  I wondered distractedly if the herd’s sale had coincided with the arrival of a series of disturbingly thin maids-of-all-work like Jacqueline. It stood to reason that once the deer were gone, the lunatic in the attic would require another source of fresh blood. If the servant girls were in his thrall, they’d go to him willingly, and they wouldn’t tell Henrietta what was happening to them. They’d just fade away before her worried eyes until one day they’d simply “disappear,” and others would be brought from London to take their place.

  I must have been lost in disquieting thought for some time, because Kit finally worked up the courage to speak to Henrietta.

  “Did you know Mrs. DuCaral?” he inquired.

  “No,” she replied, twinkling at him. “And between you and me, Kit, it’s just as well. God rest her soul and all that, but from what Mr. Bellamy’s let slip, it sounds as if she was too proud for her own good. Only the finest London shops would do for her. She wouldn’t have anything in the house that was made or grown round here, except milk, and that was left at the gates, so Mr. Bellamy had to send the girl down there to fetch it every morning. Mrs. DuCaral never got to know her neighbors, never took an interest in county affairs. From what I’ve gathered, she just stayed at home, looking down on the rest of the world.”

  “Does her daughter take after her?” I asked, slipping back into my role as chief interrogator.

  “In some ways,” Henrietta allowed. “Miss Charlotte keeps herself to herself, and she still orders lots of things from London—force of habit, I suppose—but the milk’s delivered to the kitchen door as it should be, along with local butter, cheese, veg, and fruit. I told her when she interviewed me that I couldn’t do my job without fresh ingredients, and she took it to heart. Mr. Bellamy’s devoted to her, of course, and Jacqueline seems content enough, and I’ve never had a cross word from her, so I can’t find a reason to complain. To tell you the truth, I’ve only laid eyes on her a handful of times since she interviewed me for the job. I don’t go upstairs, and she’s not the sort of woman who comes down to the kitchen for a cuppa with the cook.”

  “It sounds as if she leads a lonely life,” I commented. “Does she ever entertain?”

  “Never,” said Henrietta, taking a bite of the cheese-slathered bread. “I wish she would. I’m a dab hand at banquets.”

  I gave Kit a meaningful glance, and he returned it with a thoughtful one. It had evidently occurred to him, as it had to me, that, if Henrietta wasn’t allowed to have guests and Miss Charlotte never entertained, then Rendor couldn’t be a visitor to Aldercot Hall. Ergo, he had to be a family member.

  “Does Miss Charlotte have brothers or sisters?” Kit asked.

  “An older brother,” Henrietta replied, “but I don’t know anything about him. Mr. Bellamy mentioned him once—not by name, you understand, just as ‘the young master’—but he clammed up after that. Considering the state of the house, I’d say that Miss Charlotte’s brother disgraced himself financially—cards or the gee-gees or some such—and got himself booted out of the family. You know how it is with the gentry. There’
s always a naughty boy in the bunch. All I know is, he’s never set foot in Aldercot Hall since I’ve been here.”

  While Henrietta washed down the bread and cheese with a swig of beer, a voice inside my head cried out, The brother’s in the attic! Luckily, no one but me heard it.

  “For all practical purposes,” Henrietta continued, patting at her mouth with a napkin, “Miss Charlotte is the only surviving member of the DuCaral family. Her mother died two years ago—a year before I came on board—and from what I’ve heard, the old lady’s death was a blessed release for Miss Charlotte.”

  “How so?” I asked.

  “Old Mrs. DuCaral had a stroke after her husband died,” Henrietta informed me, “and she never really recovered from it. Miss Charlotte waited on her hand and foot until she passed.”

  “Did Mr. DuCaral die a long time ago?” I asked. “Like, say, forty years ago?”

  “More like three,” said Henrietta. “The date’s out there, in the mausoleum. But he’d been an invalid for nearly forty years before that.”

  Lizzie Black seemed to whisper in my ear: “Ask them, if you dare, about the murder that took place there forty years ago. Ask them why it was never reported to the police. Ask them how a man could be dead one day and alive the next.”

  I stared down at my plate, certain that I’d found the answers Lizzie had dared me to find, the kernels of truth in her garbled story. Mr. DuCaral hadn’t been murdered forty years ago, as Lizzie had intimated, but he had been viciously attacked, perhaps by his own mysteriously missing son. Though the attack hadn’t killed Mr. DuCaral outright, it had turned him into an invalid and caused the lingering illness that had led to his death.

  Mrs. DuCaral hadn’t wanted her son to go to prison—what mother would?—so she’d sequestered him in the attic—drugged him, perhaps, to control his violent behavior. When she died, Charlotte had taken over the tasks of controlling and concealing her brother. Charlotte was the last DuCaral left to guard the family’s secrets.