01 - Aunt Dimity's Death

by Nancy Atherton - (ebook by Undead)

  “That was when the nightmares began.” Andrew bowed his head and touched his fingers to his temples. “They did not come every night, but often enough to make me afraid to sleep. You cannot imagine their vividness, their power. They always begin with the same hellish vision. I am spinning out of the clouds toward an iron-gray sea. I watch as the waves grow closer and closer, but I can do nothing to stop myself. Sometimes the impact awakens me, and I cry out, gasping for breath, terrified. And sometimes the gray waves pull me under, and that—that is the true nightmare, when I am pulled down into the chill, black depths of the sea and left there, alone and wandering, searching for, but never finding, my way home.” A shudder racked Andrew’s body, and when he opened his eyes, his face was haggard.

  “I lied when I told you that I sensed my brother’s presence in the chapel. It is in these visions that Bobby comes to me. For years I’ve told myself that he came to keep my rage alive, to remind me of the horrible way he had died. But in the chapel last night, my certainty began to crumble.” He raised his eyes to mine. “The locket you’re wearing—it was Dimity’s, was it not?”

  “She treasured it,” I said. “She was never without it.”

  “It was my grandmother’s. Bobby gave it to Dimity. She must have worn it the day she broke off their engagement, and that’s why Bobby knew… She didn’t return everything, you see; she kept back one token of their bond, and when I saw it last night, I knew that Bobby had been right, that, regardless of her actions, she had never stopped loving him.” Andrew bowed his head and moaned softly. “If I’d been wrong about that, was it not possible that I’d been wrong about everything else? My brother was not given to anger—why would his visions encourage it in me? Perhaps he sent them for another reason. Perhaps they were sent to tell me that, as long as Dimity suffered, my brother’s spirit would find no peace.”

  He faced the desk once more, opened a narrow side drawer, and withdrew a small box. He gazed at the box, turning it between his fingers as he spoke.

  “Shortly after my brother’s plane was shot down, a member of the Home Guard was patrolling the waterfront in the coastal village of Clacton-on-Sea. He found a map case that had floated ashore. In it, he found this.” Andrew passed a gentle finger over the lid of the box, then handed it to me and gestured for me to open it. It held an elaborately carved gold ring.

  “The man who found it must have been scrupulously honest,” Andrew continued, “because he turned it in to the local constabulary. It took some years, what with the war and all, but they eventually traced it back to its owners by identifying the MacLaren crest.

  “The ring belonged to Bobby,” he said. “He had it with him when he died. He sent it back to her, not to me. He must have known what was in her heart.”

  I stared at the ring wordlessly, knowing that the last piece of the puzzle had finally fallen into place. Bobby had known what was in Dimity’s heart. He’d sent the ring home to reassure her, to comfort her, to show her that he had never lost faith in her love. He’d sent the ring home, but it had gone to the wrong home, waylaid by a brother’s misguided love. MacLaren Hall had been Bobby’s birthplace, and the birthplace of his ancestors, but it was not his heart’s home. He had been struggling desperately ever since to find his way back to that place where he had been most vibrant, most alive.

  The aching loneliness that filled Andrew’s nightmares had been Bobby’s. It had been Bobby’s voice I’d heard on Pouter’s Hill, his longing I’d felt, a longing to return to the place where he had spent the most precious moments of his brave, brief life, to return to the woman he loved and convince her to take his love and keep it, believe in it, no matter what the odds, no matter how short the time.

  Andrew seemed to read my mind. “Bobby trusted me to get the ring to Dimity, but I betrayed him. I did what I could to deprive her of this token of my brother’s love. Can you imagine what I feel, knowing that, by keeping the ring from Dimity, I have prolonged my brother’s suffering? I should have celebrated Bobby’s memory by living as he would have lived, with honor and kindness and greatness of spirit. But I have spent my life on the pyre of anger, and now there is nothing left but ashes. I make no excuse. And now it is too late….” Andrew covered his face with his hands.

  I couldn’t take my eyes from the ring. The light from the setting sun glinted off the gold, making it look warm and alive. I closed my hand over it.

  “It’s not too late,” I murmured. The old man raised his head and I repeated, more loudly: “It’s not too late, Andrew. Bobby’s been out there all this time, searching for a beacon to bring him home. I promise you, Andrew, I’ll bring him home.”

  24

  Andrew allowed us to help him to bed, where he fell into what may have been the first sound sleep he’d had since the ring had come into his possession. Looking down on his peaceful face, I knew that his nightmares were at an end, and I was glad for him. I couldn’t be angry. There had been too much anger already.

  When we came downstairs, Mrs. Hume was still on the telephone in the library, diligently recounting the ill-fated marriage of a couple named Charlie and Eileen. She seemed to be enjoying the conversation—it was the first time I’d seen her smile. I murmured a brief explanation of the scene to Bill.

  “Why did you bring my father into it?” he asked in a low voice. “I would have thought Miss Kingsley—”

  “Bill,” I said, “can you think of anyone more capable than your father of charming Mrs. Hume?”

  Bill called Mrs. Hume away from the phone for a few moments, and I picked up the receiver. “It’s me again,” I said quietly. “You can wrap up your conversation when Mrs. Hume comes back.”

  “Did I fulfill my commission, Miss Shepherd?” he asked with an air of mild curiosity.

  “Admirably. I’ll tell you all about it as soon as I get a chance.”

  “I look forward to your explanation.”

  * * *

  Colin was kind enough to drive us to the airport. The moon was rising when we left MacLaren Hall and it was nearing midnight by the time we landed in London. Bobby’s ring was tucked safely into a deep pocket in my jacket, and we flew in silence for a time, sorting through the bundle of papers that Andrew had given to us. The missing pages from the photograph album were there, folded with care so as not to damage any of the pictures. The photos were of Bobby, and all but five had been taken atop Pouter’s Hill. The rest showed him with his Hurricane and his fellow airmen at Biggin Hill. The bundle contained some handwritten notes as well, the kind that would have fit easily into Archy Gorman’s “post-box” at the Flamborough. Bill picked one up, but I stopped him before he opened it, murmuring, “These aren’t for us to read.”

  It was Bill who found the pictures I’d been searching for. Cut from a larger photograph, the two small heart shapes bore two familiar faces. Dimity’s dark hair was swept back and up off her face, held in place with a ribbon that might have been pale blue. Bobby was smiling his warm, engaging smile, and wings gleamed on the collar of his uniform shirt. As I fitted them into the locket, I said, “Remember the marking on the blue box? The W for Westwood was really an M for MacLaren.”

  “You read it upside down,” Bill said with a wry smile. He held up a page from the album and pointed to one of the captions. “Did you notice this? Their first date. Just over a month before Bobby’s plane went down. He must have proposed right after they met.”

  “My dad proposed to my mom on their second date,” I said, “and she accepted on their third. Things happened faster in those days. I guess they had to.” Gathering the pages together, I laid them flat on the seat across the aisle. “When we get to the cottage, we’ll put them back where they belong. We’ll put back the picture my mother gave me, too.” I put the folded notes into a pile, tied the ribbon around them, and put them in my carry-on bag.

  Bill gazed pensively out of the window at the star-filled sky. “Poor Andrew,” he said. “Barricading himself in his mansion on the hill, all alone with his anger
and his grief.”

  “And his love,” I said, “his terrible love for his brother. That was at the root of everything that followed.”

  “Mmm.” Bill nodded absently, and when he looked at me, his eyes were troubled. “Did Dimity really believe she’d killed Bobby?”

  I switched off the overhead light and looked past him at the stars. “You were right when you said that it had to be something pretty drastic to cause her this much grief. Dimity must have convinced herself—with Andrew’s help—that Bobby had died because of her cowardice, and she never forgave herself.”

  “Cowardice?” Bill said in surprise. “What cowardice?”

  “She chickened out of the engagement, Bill. It’s my guess that she didn’t want to end up like the women at Starling House, married one minute and widowed the next, so she tried to play it safe. She was so afraid of things ending that she never let them begin.”

  Bill shook his head. “I hate to think of her that way, leading a life filled with secret misery.”

  “I don’t think there’s any way around it.” I put a hand on the ring in my pocket. “If Dimity had let herself off the hook for a minute, Bobby’s spirit would have touched her, his ring would have gotten to her, somehow, and she would’ve known that everything was all right.”

  “As it was…”

  “Bobby never stood a chance. Dimity’s guilt blocked him like a brick wall. She never talked or wrote about him, she only went back to the Flamborough once, and she rarely went back to the cottage. She probably wore the locket to remind herself of the pain she’d caused him. We’ll never know for sure if Bobby ‘visited’ her the way he ‘visited’ Andrew, but even if he tried—”

  “She’d have misinterpreted his message,” Bill said. “She’d have filtered it through her guilt, the way Andrew filtered it through his anger.”

  “And twisted its meaning as badly as he did.”

  Bill stroked his beard, then asked doubtfully, “Then guilt can be stronger than love?”

  “I didn’t say that.” I let go of Bobby’s ring and took Bill’s hand. “Oh, Bill, haven’t you figured anything out? You’re just too sane, I guess. It might help if you were a bit more neurotic.”

  “I’ll work on it,” he said, “but in the meantime, I’ll defer to an expert.” He made a half bow in my direction.

  I ducked my head sheepishly. “Yeah, so I have been sort of… crazed. So was Dimity. So was Andrew, for that matter. Grief can make you believe things that never happened and forget things that you know for sure.”

  “The way you forgot your mother’s pride in you?”

  “And a lot of other things as well. You remember what I did with Aunt Dimity’s cat? I did the same thing with the rest of the stories. It wasn’t until I had them shoved in my face that I began to remember the way things really were, the whole of it, not just the disappointments. Dimity handled it a lot better than Andrew and I did, though. She didn’t let pain cut her off from the world.”

  “She had your mother to help her,” Bill reminded me.

  I squeezed his hand. “Let’s say they helped each other.”

  Bill nodded thoughtfully, then scratched his head. “So guilt can overwhelm you—”

  “But love is stronger. It’s in the process of triumphing, remember? It just took a little time for the right messenger to come along.”

  “Dimity’s spiritual daughter.”

  I nodded. “There’s nothing between Dimity and me but love, and I think I know a way to bury her guilt, to get Bobby’s message through to her once and for all. That’s what we were sent here to do.”

  “Who sent us? Bobby?”

  “Yes.” I reached into the bag at my feet and pulled from it the battered old photograph of the clearing. “We were sent by Bobby, and by my mother, and Ruth and Louise, and your father, and Emma and Derek—even Archy and Paul helped. We were sent here by everyone who ever loved Dimity.”

  Bill nodded slowly. “So what do we do now?”

  “Wait and see,” I said. “And in the meantime, help me think of something to tell your father.”

  * * *

  I had called Emma and Derek from MacLaren Hall to give them an update and they were waiting for us at the cottage, flashlights in hand, when we drove up. I fetched the one I had purchased at Harrod’s and Bill took the emergency lantern from the car. The three of them exchanged looks, but asked no questions as I led them through the back garden to the path up Pouter’s Hill.

  The woods had been dim in full daylight; now they were black as pitch. We had to stop frequently to search for the path and the beams from our flashlights danced like will-o’-the-wisps as we swung them from side to side. I could hear Bill puffing behind me, and the faint rustling noises of night creatures running for cover. I wondered what they made of our peculiar expedition.

  As we reached the top of the hill, the gray predawn light was beginning to filter through the swirling mist that had settled in the clearing. When I pulled up short at the eerie sight, Bill walked into me and then Derek and Emma bumped into him, so our entrance was more in character with the Marx Brothers than the Bronte sisters, which was okay by me.

  I led the way to the old oak tree and swung my carry-on bag to the ground. Kneeling, I pulled out a trowel and began to dig between two gnarled roots. Emma and Derek and Bill switched off their lights and watched in silence, and when the hole was deep enough, I paused to look up at the heart Bobby had carved so long ago. They followed my gaze and, one by one, knelt beside me, eyes alight with understanding.

  I took from the bag the folded notes, still tied with the pale blue ribbon, and placed them at the bottom of the hole. From a pocket I took the blue box, then unclasped the chain from around my neck. I slipped Bobby’s ring onto it; it clinked softly as it touched the locket. I placed them together in the blue box and set it gently atop the bundle of notes. Bill troweled the dirt back in and as he patted the last scattering into place, the sun rose.

  The clearing glittered with dew-diamonds and a lark sang out the first sweet song of morning. The mist rolled back from the valley floor, and the fields and hills emerged, flushed pink and peach and golden. It may have been a trick of the light, and I’ve never confirmed it with the others, but I’m willing to swear that the heart on the old tree shimmered as I stood up.

  The scene was complete now; nothing was missing or out of place, and I knew that when the sun was high, the hawks would rise again to ride the thermals.

  25

  I’m not sure if the mind at work was that of a son or a lawyer, but Bill managed to come up with a fairly convincing story for me to give to Willis, Sr. It had to do with running into old friends during our country ramble, being invited to visit them at their home in northern Scotland, and getting drafted into arranging a surprise party. It sounded farfetched to me, but Willis, Sr., seemed willing enough to accept it. I figured that sort of thing must be routine in their circle.

  Much to my surprise, Willis, Sr., was also willing to go along with my request to end our question-and-answer sessions. He seemed to understand when I told him that they weren’t needed anymore, that I was ready to begin writing. I called Bill into the study to say hello, and when he had hung up the phone, I pointed to the door. “Now go away,” I ordered. “I have an introduction to write.”

  From that moment on, Bill was like a second ghost haunting the cottage. Sandwiches and pots of tea mysteriously appeared and the empty plates and pots seemed to vanish on their own.

  At one point, a cot showed up in the study, then an electric typewriter, with Reginald perched jauntily on the keys. Needless to say, my memory of those days is hazy at best, but nine drafts later, with a week left to the end of the month, the introduction to Lori’s Stories was finished.

  I slept for fourteen hours straight, then typed it up and went looking for Bill. He was upstairs on the deck, luxuriating in the sun. He squinted up at me, then waved. “Hello, stranger. I’ve been meaning to ask you, have you talked to Dimity lat
ely?”

  “Yes, but there was no reply. I didn’t expect one. She had a lot of catching up to do. Have a look at this, will you?” I handed the pages to him, then stood by the railing to wait while he read them.

  I had put into them all that I had learned since I had come to the cottage. I wrote about pain and loss and disappointment; about splendid plans going tragically awry. And I wrote about courage and hope and healing. It wasn’t hard to do—it was all there already, in the stories. There were no names mentioned, of course, and the sentences were simple, and that had been the most difficult part: to say what I needed to say, in a voice that would speak to a child.

  I also tried to speak to the adult that child would one day become. I urged her not to let the book lie dusty and forgotten on a shelf, but to keep it nearby and to reread it now and again, as a reminder of all the good things that life’s trials might tempt her to forget.

  I had added a final paragraph, one that I would not include in the next and final draft because it was intended for one pair of eyes only. In it I wrote of the terrible, wonderful power of love; how it could be used to hold someone captive or to set someone free; how it could be given without hope of return and rejected without ever being lost. Most of all, I wrote of how vital it was to believe in the love offered by an honest heart, no matter how impractical or absurd or fearful the circumstances. Because all times were uncertain and the chance might never come again.

  Bill seemed to take forever to finish reading it, but when he did, the look in his eyes told me that it had done what I had hoped it would do. “It’s good,” he said. “It’s very good. I think the critics will be writing about this instead of the stories.”

  “As long as the children remember the stories.”

  “If they pay attention to what you’ve said here, they’ll remember them all their lives.” Bill left the typed sheets on the deck chair and came over to me. “That last part might be a little tricky for them, though. It’s beyond the scope of the assignment, isn’t it?”