I hung up the phone and glanced at Bill. His only contribution to his dialogue with Aunt Dimity had been a murmured litany of penitent Yes‘s, and since he showed no sign of stopping soon, Nell and I began a whispered discussion of our strategy with Uncle Tom. We agreed that, if Uncle Tom confirmed our suspicions, we’d try to convince Gerald to come clean with the rest of the family and challenge the Slut to do her worst. As Swann had pointed out, direct confrontation was the only way to deal with blackmailers.
At last, Bill closed the blue journal, put it back into the briefcase, and mopped away the beads of perspiration that had popped out on his forehead. “Given a choice between a scolding from Aunt Dimity and another week at Little Moose Lake,” he announced, “I think I’d take the lake.”
“Rough?” I inquired.
“An exploding stove,” he replied. “What were you two whispering about?”
“I was just saying that we’ll have to tread lightly with Uncle Tom,” I told him. “If he’s too sick to handle a crisis, we’ll leave him in peace and head straight for Haslemere to talk with Gerald.”
“What a good idea,” Bill said, in an ominously genial tone of voice. “I’m looking forward to meeting Angel Face.”
I’d never realized how expressive Bill’s jaw muscles could be—his beard had always covered them before—but one look at the way they were rippling now made me wonder if this particular family reunion would prove to be more memorable than was absolutely necessary.
26.
The village of Old Warden could have served as the capital of Munchkinland. As Paul cruised majestically down the main street, I tried to look out of all the car windows at once, transformed on the spot into a bedazzled, unrepentant tourist.
Tiny cottages lined the street, each in its own separate island of green, some peeking over variegated gold-and-green hedges, others framed by lush rhododendrons, and all set against a backdrop of dark fir trees. Most were painted pale yellow, but no two were alike.
One house had diminutive bay windows capped with cones of thatch, like little pointed hats, and a towering round chimney carved with swirling candy-cane stripes. Next door stood a miniature mock-Tudor mansion with narrow Gothic windows and a chimney disguised to look like a delicate domed watchtower. There were roofs of deep, overhanging thatch and of intricately laid tile, trellis porches and lattice windows, curving dormers and scalloped bargeboards, each whimsical detail scaled down in size, like a model village designed by Santa’s elves.
“What is this?” Bill asked, peering out of the windows. “Mother Goose’s hometown?”
“No,” Nell replied. “Lord Ongley’s. It’s Picturesque.”
“I’d noticed,” said Bill.
“She means the architectural style,” I piped up. “That’s what it’s called. Picturesque.” Nell wasn’t alone in benefiting from Derek’s expertise. “It’s a romantic response to classical symmetry—playful instead of precise, a sort of goofy rustic fantasy. Lord Ongley probably decided that the real village was spoiling his view and replaced it with something he liked better.”
“The good old days,” Bill muttered, rolling his eyes.
I gripped Bill’s arm excitedly and told Paul to stop the car. “Look!” I said. “Pheasants!”
While Nell and Bill scanned the road, I was pointing upward. The pale-yellow house on our left had an outsized redbrick chimney pinned squarely in the center of a thick thatched roof that curved sinuously over three regularly spaced dormer windows. On the roofs ornamented ridgeline, a pair of thatch pheasants stood silhouetted against the sky.
“Now I understand why Lucy smiled when she told you how to find Uncle Tom’s house,” Bill said, following my gaze.
Paul dropped us off, saying that he didn’t want to leave the limo unattended, but I suspected that what he really wanted was to find a shady, private spot in which to read the espionage thriller he’d borrowed from Swann. We waved him off, Bill opened the white picket gate in the gold-and-green hedge, and we crossed the handkerchief lawn to the front door. I rang the bell, waited, and was about to ring again when a blond woman in a plain blue dress came around the side of the house.
“I thought I heard the bell,” she said, walking toward us. She was in her forties, stocky and muscular, with a round red face and gray eyes that reminded me of Miss Kingsley‘s—competent, intelligent, and a tiny bit intimidating. She introduced herself as Nurse Watling.
I told her who we were and asked if we might speak with Thomas Willis. “If he’s up to it,” I added. “I have a message from his niece Lucy.”
Nurse Wading raised an eyebrow but made no comment as we followed her around the side of the house to a small paved terrace in the back. The terrace overlooked a long stretch of sloping lawn with a wide view of the Bedfordshire flatlands falling away in the distance.
Uncle Tom was reclining on a cushioned chaise longue, facing the broad expanse of green. Although it was a fine, fair afternoon, with scarcely a breath of wind, he was bundled in a nest of blankets and had turned his face toward the sun. His hair was white, his face gaunt, his skin nearly transparent, but his blue-green eyes were as radiant—and as alert—as Gerald’s.
An oxygen tank stood behind Tom’s chair, with a clear plastic mask attached to a hose hanging within his reach. An upright wicker chair—Nurse Watling‘s, no doubt-sat beside a small table that held pill bottles, a decanter of water, a glass, a pair of binoculars, a book with a brightly colored airplane on the cover, and a stuffed giraffe that looked as though it had almost been loved to death. Its neck was bent at an odd angle, its spots were nearly rubbed off, and there was only a suggestion of the long eyelashes that had been hand-stitched around the black button eyes. I thought of Reginald, back in the limo with Paul, and wished I’d brought him with me to meet Uncle Tom’s giraffe.
Nurse Watling gestured for us to wait by the house and crossed to Tom’s side, where she bent to murmur softly in his ear. His head turned, the bright eyes found us, and a fragile, waxen hand appeared from beneath the blankets, motioning for us to approach.
“More long-lost relatives?” he said, shifting his gaze to each of us in turn. “Cousin William left not an hour ago. I can’t imagine what I’ve done to deserve so much attention, but I’m flattered. We’ll need chairs, young man.” He eyed Bill’s cast. “I’m sure you can manage one, and Rebecca will bring the others.” His voice, like Gerald‘s, was beautifully deep and mellow. It was hard to believe that such a wasted body could produce so resonant a sound.
While Nurse Watling and Bill went into the house to fetch extra chairs, Nell approached the low table and bent to take a closer look at Geraldine.
“You’re beautiful,” Nell said. “I wish I hadn’t left Bertie in the car. He would have adored meeting you.”
“Bertie, eh?” Uncle Tom gave Nell a measuring look. “Badger, bear, or bunny?”
“Bear, of course,” Nell replied. “Lori has the bunny. His name’s Reginald, but he’s back in the car as well.”
“It seems we’re among kindred spirits, Geraldine,” Tom observed. “Here are the chairs. Please, make yourselves comfortable.”
Bill and Nurse Watling had returned, carrying three more wicker chairs, which they placed, at Tom’s direction, in a half-circle to his left, so that we, too, would be able to enjoy the view. I sat closest to Tom, Nell took the farthest seat, and Bill sat between us. Nurse Watling gave her patient a covert glance before she settled back into her chair, picked up the book, and started reading.
“We’ve been to see Anthea,” I began. “Lucy was there, too, and she told me to say hello to Geraldine.”
Tom made a wheezing sound that worried me until I realized it was a chuckle.
“Lucy’s always had a soft spot for old Geraldine.” The wheezing laughter continued. “And here I thought you’d come to talk to me. Should’ve known better. Geraldine’s far more entertaining.” He regarded me with interest. “But I expect you have questions for me as well.”
“One or two,” I admitted. “We have some theories.”
“Good! Love theories. Malleable things. Facts are so drearily rigid.” He paused to rest his head against the back of his chair while his blue-green eyes scanned the horizon.
I glanced outward, too, but saw only clear blue sky. At the very edge of my hearing, however, I noticed a faint buzzing sound, like the distant gnat’s whine of a propellor-driven engine:
“Ah,” said Tom. He gave me a sidelong glance. “Forgive me. Moment’s rest.”
“Of course,” I said solicitously. “Take your time. We’re in no hurry.”
The distant buzz came closer. I searched the sky again and saw a dot swing into view on the horizon. Seconds passed, the buzzing swelled, the dot grew larger, and I realized, to my delight, that a tiny silver biplane was zooming toward us.
“Here he comes,” Tom said, half to himself, an odd smile playing about his lips.
“Is he coming at the house?” I asked, delight shading into alarm as I sat unblinking, unable to tear my gaze from the beautiful, whirring propellor that seemed to be aimed directly at my nose.
“I’m afraid so,” said Tom, still with that loopy half-smile.
I stared in rapt amazement, hypnotized, paralyzed, as the biplane sped closer and closer, until it swooped so low that I could see the grinning face of the goggled pilot. I gave an incoherent gurgle and cringed, flinging both arms over my head, feeling the backwash toss my curls as the plane climbed steeply skyward.
“A 1935 Gloster Gladiator,” Tom said, raising his voice slightly. “Bristol Mercury nine-cylinder radial. Defended the Plymouth dockyards during the Battle of Britain.”
I lowered my arms and looked cautiously toward the sky. The engine noise had faded, and the biplane had vanished. I glanced at Bill, who looked distinctly unnerved, and at Nell, who seemed delighted.
“Does this happen often?” I asked, turning back to Tom.
“Every Thursday,” Tom replied. “Weather permitting.”
Nurse Watling got up from her chair, poured water into the glass on the table, shook two pills out of one of the bottles, and waited while Tom swallowed them. I wasn’t surprised to see that he needed medication, considering the effect the Gloster Gladiator’s performance was still having on my own heart rate.
“It’s from the Shuttleworth Collection,” Tom explained when Nurse Watling had returned to her seat.
“Is that a museum?” I asked.
“More than that-it’s a living, breathing monument to the glory of flight,” Tom replied. “Every plane in the collection is airworthy. Makes Shuttleworth unique.” Tom spoke with the languid drawl of a man accustomed to harboring his resources, but there was no mistaking his enthusiasm. “Where else can you look out of the window and see a Gipsy Moth one day and a Hawker Hind the next? Where else can you hear engines that have purred aloft for fifty, sixty, seventy years and more?”
“They fly seventy-year-old airplanes?” Bill said doubtfully.
Tom closed his eyes. “In the hangar you can smell the oil, taste the paraffin in the air. You can see a 1912 Black burn-not collecting dust, but alive, with gnats on the prop and greasy thumbprints on the fuselage.” His eyes opened and turned toward me. “Of course,” he added, “haven’t been over to the hangar for some time now. Can’t manage the trip, though when the wind is right I can hear the engines warming. That’s why the boys buzz the place when they can. Good of them.”
“That’s why you live here in Old Warden,” Nell suggested. “So you can be near the Shuttleworth Collection.”
Tom nodded his agreement. “Would’ve pitched a tent to live here. Don’t know how Gerald was able to find the house for me. These places are usually snapped up the moment they hit the market.” Tom leaned back in his chair, his chest wilting, but a smile of pure, childlike delight still hovered on his blue-tinged lips.
“Maybe we should go,” I said, taking my cue from Nurse Watling’s alert expression.
“No, no,” said Tom, reaching for the oxygen mask. “Just give me a moment. Breath of life, seeing those splendid machines.”
The breath of life, I thought, as he held the mask to his face. A loving son would do whatever it took to give his father such a gift. I wondered how Gerald had managed it. Every time we turned around, we discovered fresh demands on his finances—Uncle Williston’s expensive bibelots, Tom’s perfect bijou of a house in a fairy-tale village, and—if we were guessing right—payments to a dumpling-shaped blackmailer. At this rate, Gerald’s remarkably large bank account would soon fit into a piggy bank.
Unless, of course, he had a supplementary source of income. My thoughts flew back to the day I’d stumbled into the Larches, too stupefied by Gerald’s presence to find the back parlor. Instead, I’d found the reliquary, a priceless piece of the collection Tom had “picked up for a song” after the war. I’d forgotten all about it, forgotten even to mention it to Bill, but now I wondered ... was Gerald playing Santa Claus to the older Willises by selling off his inheritance?
Tom handed the oxygen mask to Nurse Watling and waved her aside. “You mustn’t frighten my guests with your forbidding glances, Rebecca, or I’ll send you away to minister to some dull old trout in Surbiton.”
“I’m rather fond of trout,” said Nurse Watling, tucking the blankets around Tom’s legs.
“Back to your studies, Nurse,” Tom said sternly. “I’m perfectly fit.” He did look much better. The blue-gray color had left his lips, and he was breathing more or less normally again. Nurse Watling seemed satisfied, at any rate, because she resumed her reading.
“Is Gerald interested in historic aircraft?” I asked, out of sheer curiosity.
“Not at all,” said Tom. “I am, though. Always have been, ever since I was a boy, isn’t that right, Geraldine? It’s because of the war, of course.”
I remembered Cyril, Dimity’s gnomish messenger at Cloverly House,and felt a prickle of suspicion. According to Sir Poppet, Cyril had worked at Biggin Hill during the war. Had Uncle Tom been there, too? Were we about to discover someone else who might have known Dimity and her fighter-pilot fiancé?
“Were you an airman?” I asked.
Tom looked at Nurse Watling. “I must be having an off day, Rebecca. The child thinks I’m Father Time.” He turned back to me. “My dear girl, I was only twelve years old when the war ended. They signed ‘em up young, but not quite that young.”
I gazed at my feet in mute embarrassment, remembering, too late, that Gerald had told Nell his father had been too young to serve during the war. I wondered if I was developing an Aunt Dimity complex. If I wasn’t careful, I’d start seeing her behind every bush.
“There, there,” Tom murmured consolingly. “Not your fault. They don’t teach history in school anymore. I don’t suppose you’ve ever heard of the Battle of Britain.”
“Yes, I have,” I said defensively. “In fact, I’m sort of related to someone who died in it.”
“Are you?” Tom said, impressed. “So am I. My mother, my father, my brother Stanley, and my sister Iris. My aunt and uncle lived upstairs, my grandparents next door. Dad sent me round the comer one Sunday for a bit of cheese, and while I was gone a Heinkel dropped a stick on our row of houses. When I came home, there was no row of houses. Just flames and smoke and ruin.” He smiled. “That’s how I became interested in airplanes. Queer, isn’t it?”
Was he delirious? I glanced at Nurse Watling, but she seemed to be absorbed in her reading. I looked at Bill, who lifted his eyebrows, and at Nell, who simply looked faintly puzzled.
“Mr. Willis,” she said, taking the bull by the horns with her usual forthrightness, “how can that be? Your brother’s name is Williston, and Anthea’s your sister, and both of them are still alive. You spent the war at number three, Anne Elizabeth Court.”
Tom shook his head. “I’m loath to contradict you, my dear Lady Nell, but all of that came much later. After Dimity.”
27.
A squadron of Spitfires could h
ave strafed Tom’s backyard and I wouldn’t have blinked. My heart, so recently resuscitated after its encounter with the Gloster Gladiator, had experienced another severe jolt, and I sat as if turned to stone, head pointed in Tom’s direction, mouth agape, incapable of speech.
Fortunately, Tom needed no encouragement to go on with his story. He told it with a detached air, as though he knew that to infuse his words with any strong emotion would be to reduce stark tragedy to mere melodrama.
Tom’s entire family had been killed in a single air raid, part of the “Little Blitz” that had pounded London in January 1944. “They’d tried to evacuate Stanley and Iris and me early on, but my mother wouldn’t hear of it. ‘If we go, we’ll go together,’ she always said. She was wrong, as it turned out.”
There’d been a well-established routine for handling bombed-out families by that point in the war, but Tom had evaded the long arm of authority and lived on his own for the next few months, “like a rat in the ruins,” doing odd jobs and finding trinkets in the rubble to trade for food and drink. He’d made his home in the basement of a ruined block of flats until a rescue worker had finally collared him and hauled him off to Starling House.
I blinked. “Starling House? The home for widows and orphans?”
Tom looked at me with new respect. “Fancy you knowing about that.”
“I, uh, I’ve done a lot of reading about the Second World War,” I told him.
“You must tell me where you’ve read about Starling House,” said Tom. “Did they make any mention of a woman called Dimity Westwood? If not, the account is sadly incomplete. Dimity was Starling House.” He smiled fondly. “Marvelous woman. Changed my life. Cleaned me up, drilled me in my sums, taught me how to speak like a proper little gentleman. Gave me Geraldine.”
Which meant, I realized wonderingly, that Geraldine and Reginald were the stuffed-animal equivalents of cousins. I wasn’t the only one with family connections in England.
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