Aunt Dimity and the Summer King

by Nancy Atherton

  “You’ll never guess who we ran into at L’Espalier last month,” Charlotte said, naming one of Boston’s most exclusive restaurants. “Pamela Grove! Dear, sweet Pamela. You remember Pamela, don’t you, Bill?”

  “She was Pamela Highsmith when you dated her,” said Honoria.

  “I remember Pam,” Bill said woodenly, putting his arm around me.

  “Her son is the same age as Will and Rob,” said Charlotte. “He’s already finished his first year at Beresford.”

  “I’m sure you remember your old prep school,” Honoria said playfully.

  “I remember my prep school,” said Bill.

  “Imagine our surprise,” Charlotte continued, “when dear Pamela informed us that you hadn’t put your sons’ names down for Beresford.”

  “Our sons,” Bill said, tightening his hold on me, “won’t be attending Beresford.”

  “If you don’t send them to Beresford,” said Honoria, “where will you send them?”

  “Lori and I aren’t sending them anywhere,” said Bill. “Will and Rob are happy where they are.”

  “My dear boy,” said Charlotte, “prep school isn’t about happiness. It’s about making the right friends.”

  “Friends who share the same background,” Honoria elucidated. “Friends who will stand them in good stead for the rest of their lives.”

  “Will and Rob aren’t likely to meet their own sort in this godforsaken corner of the world, are they, Bill?” Charlotte asked silkily.

  “Will and Rob have many friends,” Bill said through gritted teeth.

  “But what kind of friends?” Charlotte asked with a dissatisfied moue. “Farmers’ sons? Shopkeepers’ sons? Public schools are good enough for ordinary people”—her eyes darted to me—“but are they good enough for your children?”

  I could almost see the faint wisps of steam coming out of Bill’s ears. I willed Bess to break the rising tension with a well-timed wail, but she insisted on cooing contentedly in her grandfather’s arms.

  “We realize that you were pressured into moving here, Bill,” Honoria said, sending another malevolent glance my way, “but you mustn’t allow the same kind of pressure to jeopardize the twins’ futures.”

  “They’re your sons and heirs, Bill,” Charlotte said gravely. “Don’t you think they deserve to have the same advantages your father gave you?”

  The vein in Bill’s right temple was throbbing. His face was flushed and his jaw muscle looked as if it might snap. I felt the hand clasping my waist curl into a fist, and braced myself. The outbreak of war seemed imminent.

  Then the doorbell rang.

  “See who it is and send them away,” Honoria said peremptorily to Deirdre.

  “This is a family occasion,” said Charlotte. “Interlopers are not welcome.”

  She directed her last comment at Amelia, but Amelia deflected it with a gracious smile. The week in Oxford had evidently rendered William’s fiancée immune to his sisters’ jibes.

  “You haven’t invited one of the villagers to dine with us, have you, William?” Honoria drawled. “The ramblings of a country bumpkin will do nothing to elevate the tone of the—”

  She broke off as Deirdre returned to the drawing room, looking faintly disconcerted.

  “A gentleman to see you, sir,” she said to Willis, Sr.

  “Gentleman might be overstating the case,” said a familiar voice from the entrance hall. “I prefer to think of myself as a humble scholar.”

  Arthur Hargreaves strode into the room, dressed in a spotless tuxedo, an immaculate shirt, a flawless bow tie, and gleaming black leather shoes, with his grapevine wreath tilted at a rakish angle over one eye. He struck a wide-legged pose before Charlotte and Honoria, thrust his hands into his trouser pockets, and grinned roguishly at them.

  “You,” Charlotte gasped as the color drained from her face.

  “Arthur?” Honoria breathed, looking horror-struck.

  “Hello, girls,” he said cheerfully. “I hear you’ve become proper ladies.”

  The color rushed back into Charlotte’s face in a crimson flood. Honoria’s mouth moved, but no sound emerged.

  “Deirdre,” said Willis, Sr. “Would you please take my granddaughter to the nursery? I believe her diaper requires attention.”

  Deirdre, who’d been staring delightedly at Arthur, came out of her happy trance and, with many a backward glance, took Bess from the room.

  “I do apologize for bursting in on you,” Arthur said, extending his hand to shake Willis, Sr.’s and Bill’s. He raised Amelia’s to his lips before releasing it. “I’m Arthur Hargreaves and I live next door. Lori thought we should get to know one another.” He cocked his head toward Honoria and Charlotte. “No need to introduce myself to those two. Honey and the Shark are old pals.”

  “Honey and the Shark?” I said, feeling as though Christmas had come early.

  “That’s what they called themselves back in the day,” Arthur said brightly, beaming at Bill’s aunts. “We met in Boston when I was lecturing at MIT. They were party animals back then. Haven’t changed a bit, have you, girls? Still downing your drinky poos?” He began to stride jauntily back and forth in front of the sisters. “I was a callow fifteen-year-old, but Honey and the Shark liked the look of me. Fixed me up with a fake ID, took me barhopping.” He came to a halt and gazed wistfully into the middle distance. “I’ll never forget the sight of them, dancing on a pool table with their dresses hiked up around their . . .” He sighed reminiscently. “It was quite an education.”

  The martini glasses fell to the floor. The sisters stood.

  “Excuse me, William,” Charlotte said, her eyes downcast. “I am unwell.”

  “As am I,” Honoria mumbled.

  They sped from the room. The sound of their footsteps on the marble staircase suggested that they were unwilling to wait for the elevator.

  “Is it true?” I asked Arthur, clasping my hands to my chest as I rose from the settee. “Oh, please, let it be true.”

  The answer came from an unexpected quarter.

  “It is true,” said Willis, Sr. “My sisters were legendarily wayward young women. My father had to bail them out of jail on five separate occasions. My recollections of their youthful indiscretions have always made it difficult for me to take their conversion to respectability seriously.”

  “Thank you, Arthur,” I cried, throwing my arms around him.

  “I had to protect our emissary,” he said, his eyes twinkling, when we broke apart. “And some good deeds can’t be done in silence.”

  “Mr. Hargreaves?” said Amelia. “Would you care to join us for dinner?”

  “I would be honored,” said Arthur.

  “The honor,” said Bill, grinning from ear to ear, “is entirely ours.”

  And though darkness had fallen on the slumbering world, the sun shone that night in Fairworth.

  Epilogue

  The wedding was a joyous occasion. Willis, Sr., and Amelia were equally radiant and the love they felt for each other seemed to fill every heart in St. George’s. Peggy Taxman, Sally Cook, and Christine Peacock held their husbands’ hands, Grant Tavistock rested his head against Charles Bellingham’s shoulder, and the Handmaidens couldn’t help smiling through their copious tears.

  My matron of honor dress fit me like a dream and though I wasn’t as slender as the young bridesmaids, my curves won their fair share of admirers. Bill looked debonair in his morning suit and Will and Rob performed their roles as ring bearers flawlessly—after Amelia showed them the cookies she’d hidden in her bouquet.

  The sunlit reception at Fairworth House was more fun for some than for others. Charlotte and Honoria led the rest of Bill’s relatives in welcoming Amelia to the family, then took the first flight back to Boston. Bree Pym and Jack MacBride presented the newlyweds with a matching pair of didgeridoos they�
��d picked up in Australia, then regaled us with tales of their journey, finishing each other’s sentences with an ease that left little doubt in anyone’s mind that the vicar would soon be performing another wedding.

  Arthur Hargreaves, his wife, and as many of their children and grandchildren as they could gather together at one time trooped through the wrought-iron gate to attend the reception. They came bedecked in flowers and bearing kites that quickly filled the clear blue sky. The villagers I’d failed to reach in my role as emissary were too entranced by the sight of a dragon chasing a biplane to remain standoffish. Harriet won over the last holdout by informing Jasper Taxman quite seriously that his wife had the most magnificent speaking voice she’d ever heard. After that, Peggy boomed to anyone who would listen that the Hargreaveses weren’t so bad after all.

  The old cart track was paved, the drainage system was repaired, the encroaching shrubs were trimmed, and the low-hanging tree branches were removed. Charles and Grant were the first to ride their bicycles on it, but Emma Harris was the first to use it as a bridle path. More often it’s used as a walking path by ramblers and villagers alike. No one in Finch wants to miss a launch day.

  Arthur was happy to show Grant and Charles his da Vinci and to employ them to frame the botanical painting he’d commissioned from Amelia as a birthday gift for Harriet, who, as it turned out, was a budding botanist, which explained her experiments with cacao beans.

  The wrought-iron gate is seldom still. Will and Rob visit Hillfont Abbey to play in the faux ruins, Amelia goes there to paint the flowers in the broad meadow, and Willis, Sr., spends long hours chatting with Arthur in the library. Bess and I return there often and when we do, we’re treated like members of the veritable horde.

  “Harriet was right,” I said, looking down at the blue journal. “Everything—everything—begins with the imagination.”

  It was August. The hedgerows bordering my little lane were beginning to look dusty and the pastures beyond the hedgerows were becoming parched, but the study was cool and pleasantly shadowy, sheltered from the harsh sunlight by the strands of ivy that crisscrossed the diamond-paned windows above the old oak desk.

  I glanced at Bess, who was kicking up her heels in her bouncy chair, then at Bianca the unicorn, who, I’d decided, would share Reginald’s niche until Bess was old enough to refrain from eating her, before returning my gaze to the journal to watch Aunt Dimity’s elegant copperplate curl and loop across the page.

  Quentin Hargreaves had a far-reaching imagination. Not many men could have foreseen the fates that would befall so many small villages in England. Even fewer could have conceived of a scheme that would keep one of the smallest from suffering a similar fate.

  “Bill and I drove to Tillcote this morning, after we dropped the boys off at the stables,” I said. “Rich people live in the old houses, the old guard lives in council housing, and the highway’s hum followed us wherever we went. The rector at All Saints wanted to charge us ten pounds—apiece—for a churchyard tour.”

  Tillcote went the way of the modern world. Thanks to Quentin and his descendants, Finch didn’t.

  “Thanks to you, I own our cottage,” I said. “I still don’t understand why Monoceros Properties, Limited, agreed to sell it to you. You didn’t live here as a full-time resident after you moved to London. I’m surprised the Edwards Estate Agency didn’t write you off as an absentee tenant.”

  Old Mr. Edwards did write me off as an absentee tenant, but I convinced him that my heir wouldn’t be an absentee. I told him that she would build a life here for herself and her family. I promised him that she would do her bit for Finch, that she would give back more than she took, that she would be willing to do the real work of the village.

  “Your imagination was as far-reaching as Quentin’s,” I said, smiling.

  Fortunately, my pockets were as deep as his, too. I clinched the deal by paying the company three times the cottage’s fair market value.

  “Good grief,” I said weakly.

  It was purely a matter of self-interest, I assure you. I’d detected a pattern in the agency’s choice of tenants. I suspected that a wealthy American heiress wouldn’t be allowed to lease my cottage. By purchasing it and bequeathing it to you, I made my own dreams come true. My cottage has become your home. My village has become your village. And I’ve had the great good fortune to be by your side—in a manner of speaking—every step of the way. I can hardly wait for you to embark on your next adventure.

  “I’m pretty sure my next adventure will involve teething,” I said. “It may be a little less pleasant than solving the mystery of the empty cottages.”

  Less pleasant for you and for Bess. Are the cottages still empty?

  “Yep,” I said, “but Marigold brought a potter to see Rose Cottage yesterday. He liked Peggy’s sign-up sheets and he ate two of Sally’s jam doughnuts. He didn’t drink a full glass of Dick’s wine, but he didn’t spit out his first mouthful. He gave as good as he got with the Handmaidens, he found the wall paintings in St. George’s fascinating, and he lapped up Grant’s and Charles’s tales of woe. So the signs are good, Dimity. The potter may be a contender.”

  Fingers crossed, as the saying goes.

  “Well,” I said, making a face at Bess, “I’d better get moving. I promised Harriet I’d bring Bess to Hillfont today.”

  Enjoy the warm weather while it lasts. The Summer King’s reign will come to an end next month.

  “The Summer King’s reign will never end,” I said. “Even in the depths of winter, Arthur will find a way to make the sun shine—within a ten-mile radius of Finch.” I thought of the man in the grapevine wreath crown and felt my heart swell with gratitude as I cried, “Long may the Summer King reign!”

  Harriet’s Pinwheel Cookies

  Makes about 5 dozen cookies.

  Ingredients

  3 cups all-purpose flour

  1/2 teaspoon baking powder

  1/2 teaspoon salt

  1 cup unsalted butter, softened

  1 1/3 cups granulated sugar

  2 eggs

  2 teaspoons vanilla extract

  2 ounces unsweetened chocolate, melted and cooled

  Directions

  1. In a large mixing bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, and salt.

  2. In another large mixing bowl, beat the butter and sugar with an electric mixer for about 2 minutes, until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition. Add vanilla.

  3. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and beat on low until just combined.

  4. Divide the dough in half. Form one half into a 4-inch by 4-inch square. Wrap in plastic wrap and set aside.

  5. Return the other half of the dough to the mixer. Add the melted chocolate to the dough in the mixer and beat until just combined. Form the chocolate dough into a 4-inch by 4-inch square. Wrap in plastic wrap.

  6. Refrigerate both doughs for at least 30 minutes.

  7. On parchment paper, roll the vanilla dough into a 16-inch by 13-inch rectangle, about 1/8 inch thick.

  8. On another sheet of parchment paper, roll the chocolate dough into a 16-inch by 13-inch rectangle, about 1/8 inch thick.

  9. Place the chocolate dough rectangle on top of the vanilla dough rectangle, to make two layers. Peel away both sheets of parchment paper.

  10. Cut the layered dough in half. Roll each half into a tight log. Wrap each log in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for at least 3 hours or overnight.

  11. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

  12. Line medium cookie sheets with parchment paper.

  13. Cut the logs into 1/4-inch-thick slices. Space 1 inch apart on cookie sheets.

  14. Bake for 8–10 minutes, or until vanilla swirls are lightly golden.

  15. Cool on cooling racks or eat them while they’re still warm from the oven. Your ch
oice!

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