Aunt Dimity: Detective

by Nancy Atherton

I sprinted onto the south porch mere seconds before the downpour began in earnest. I paused to catch my breath, pleased by the near miss, before putting my shoulder to the iron-banded oak door and pushing it open. It swung inward smoothly and silently, thanks to Mr. Barlow’s conscientious use of the oil can.

  A soft gray light suffused the church, and the air was filled with the familiar scents of beeswax, musty prayer books, and furniture polish. I closed the door and stood listening to the rain drumming on the lead roof, then gave the bulletin board a quick once-over and scanned the pamphlets and flyers littering the table beneath it. Lilian Bunting had spent long hours revising the booklet describing Saint George’s history, and I tucked a ten-pound note into the collection box, as I always did, to express my appreciation.

  The drumming grew more insistent, and rivers of rain washed the leaded windows, creating weirdly watery shadows on the cold stone walls. My echoing footsteps blended with the thrumming as I wandered idly up the south aisle, rereading the memorial plaques and avoiding eye contact with the creepy medieval wall painting of Saint George battling his snaky dragon. I was about to enter the tiny Lady Chapel when I felt . . . something.

  It was the same feeling I’d had in the vicar’s study when Nicholas had crept up on me, as if an electrical field surrounding me had been disturbed. The hairs on the back of my neck prickled, gooseflesh rose on my arms, and my senses seemed to go on red alert. But it was my sixth sense that screamed most loudly, warning me of danger and urging me to flee.

  I held my ground, turned, and saw a darker shadow detach itself from the gloom at the back of the church. As it passed beneath the windows, the liquid light transformed it into the formidable figure of Peggy Taxman, clad in black from head to toe, marching toward me with a stern, forbidding gleam in her pale blue eyes.

  My heart pounded in time with the drumming rain, but I forced a smile and said gamely, “Hi, Peggy. Nasty weather, huh?”

  “There’s nastiness about,” she growled, “but it’s nothing to do with the weather.” She came to a halt and peered past me. “Where’s your lover? I thought the two of you were inseparable.”

  Shock rendered me speechless. Before I could recover from the bold frontal attack, Peggy had launched another.

  “I’ve seen brazen hussies in my day, but none to match you,” she ranted. “Have you no shame? Parading your fancy man under our noses, as if we were too blind or too stupid to guess what’s going on. You may think you’re more sophisticated than we are, with your money and your travels, but I can tell you, missy, we’re worldly enough to know a T-A-R-T when we see one.”

  “A tart?” I felt a crazy impulse to laugh but repressed it, knowing that it would only egg Peggy on.

  Peggy didn’t need egging on, however. She was perfectly capable of continuing her tirade without any provocation from me.

  “I don’t suppose you’ve given a moment’s thought to your poor husband, as good a man as you’re ever likely to hook, working hard to support his family while you flaunt yourself behind his back.” A mad glitter entered Peggy’s eyes, and she gripped her black purse so tightly that her knuckles went white. “When I think of the two sweet, innocent babes you’ve abandoned while you’re having your filthy fling, it makes me want to . . . to . . . ”

  Flecks of spittle were flying from Peggy’s lips. Her rage was so intense as to be surreal. When she raised her fist as if to strike me, I could only watch in disbelief.

  “Mrs. Taxman.”

  Peggy’s fist froze in midair. She pivoted slowly, until she caught sight of Nicholas. He stood holding the oak door open, as if he’d only just arrived. The wind whipped his hair wildly and rain streamed from his trench coat to puddle on the tiled floor.

  “You,” snarled Peggy.

  Nicholas closed the door and pushed his wet hair away from his face.

  “You call yourself the vicar’s nephew,” Peggy began.

  “I am the vicar’s nephew,” Nicholas said evenly. “But you and Prunella Hooper weren’t old friends.”

  Peggy threw her shoulders back. “How dare you—”

  “You and Prunella Hooper weren’t old friends,” Nicholas repeated, and though he raised his voice, there was nothing menacing in his manner. His face was filled with tenderness, his voice with mild regret, and he approached us with a slow, reluctant step, as though he hated himself for forcing Peggy’s hand. “You didn’t grow up on the same street or go to the same schools or work at the same shop—because Prunella Hooper never lived in Birmingham.”

  Peggy licked her lips, as if her mouth had suddenly gone dry. “I . . . I can explain.”

  “I wish you would,” said Nicholas. “Because while my dear friend Lori has been telling her husband the truth, you’ve been lying to yours.”

  Chapter 19

  The baptismal font in Saint George’s Church was nearly a thousand years old. The imposing stone bowl had once been embellished with bold reliefs depicting fanciful creatures and plants, but the carvings had worn away with the passage of time, leaving only faint bumps and hollows to hint at the font’s former glory.

  The massive stone bowl stood atop its blunt pillar at the far end of the south aisle, in a shadowy recess opposite the Lady Chapel. Come Easter the bowl would be spilling over with lilies and drooping ferns, but the sweetly perfumed blossoms would do little to soften the font’s air of austere authority.

  I was here before the Church of England, it seemed to say, and I will be here long after you have gone.

  It was a strange place to choose for a confession, but it was the place Peggy Taxman chose. Nicholas’s astonishing declaration had shaken her visibly, but she was, as her husband claimed, a formidable woman. She remained on her feet long enough to stagger over to a handful of folding chairs clustered around the font, leftovers from the most recent christening. I wondered if Peggy had selected the spot for my benefit, to remind me of my “abandoned” babes, who’d both been baptized there.

  When we reached the shadowy recess, Peggy seemed to run out of steam. Her face went slack; she collapsed onto a folding chair and lost her grip on her purse. The black bag opened as it fell to the floor, and a host of objects came tumbling out. Among them was a tiny stuffed animal, a brown monkey with a tan face and ears. He was faded and worn at the seams, as if he’d been with Peggy for a long, long time.

  Nicholas went down on his knees to collect Peggy’s things. He returned the wallet, handkerchief, date book, pens, and lipstick to the purse, but when he picked up the monkey, Peggy stretched out her hand peremptorily.

  “Give him to me,” she ordered.

  Nicholas handed the tiny toy to her and set the purse on a vacant chair. As Peggy ran a thumb over the monkey’s round and smiling face, Nicholas and I sat in chairs I’d placed opposite hers. We were close enough to hear her easily but not so close as to make her feel trapped.

  The rhinestones on her pointy glasses glinted as she raised her eyes from the monkey’s face to mine. “You’ve told your husband the truth, have you?”

  I nodded. “I told Bill that I was attracted to Nicholas but that I hadn’t done anything with him that I couldn’t do in front of my sons. That’s the truth. Whether you choose to believe it or not is up to you.”

  “Did Bill believe it?” she asked.

  I nodded again.

  Her eyes narrowed. “Angry, was he? About the attraction, I mean.”

  “He wasn’t jumping for joy,” I admitted. “But he appreciated the fact that I’d been honest with him.”

  “Takes courage to be honest,” Peggy acknowledged, looking down at the brown monkey.

  “You’re a courageous woman, Mrs. Taxman.” Nicholas sat with his elbows on his knees, his hands loosely clasped, a humble priest counseling a parishioner. “You’re one of the most courageous women I’ve encountered. You’ve been doing your level best, under profoundly difficult circumstances, to protect your husband from a truth he might find painful.”

  “Poor Jasper,” she murmured,
“thinking so highly of me when all along . . .” Her words trailed off. She shifted slightly in her chair, pulled her coat collar more closely around her throat, and cupped the monkey in her hands.

  “Prunella Hooper knew the truth,” Nicholas said quietly. “She also knew why you felt you couldn’t share it with your husband.”

  Peggy could have walked away at any moment, but Nicholas held her there with an unspoken promise of understanding, compassion, and forgiveness. His gentleness enfolded her anger and extinguished it, like a soft blanket thrown over a rising flame. Without using force of any kind, he forced her to see that, having been caught out in one lie, it was best to dispense with them all. Peggy surrendered to him without a whisper of protest.

  “It started long before Prunella,” she told him. “I was eight years old when my parents packed me off to Finch, to keep me safe from the blitz. I didn’t go back to Birmingham till I was fifteen. I was bored to death with the country by then and raring to have a go at real life.” She reached up to pat her hair, as if remembering what it had been like to be a fifteen-year-old girl taking on the big city. “Thought I knew everything there was to know, in those days. Got myself a job in a servicemen’s canteen.”

  “A canteen?” I said. “Wasn’t the war over by then?”

  Peggy gave me a scornful glance. “You think soldiers run off home the minute peace is declared? Don’t be daft, girl. There were millions of battle-weary men on the move all round the world and fresh ones sailing to England every day. There’re still American servicemen in England, but there were more of them, in those days.”

  I sat back and listened, fascinated.

  “There was one boy, an American fresh from training camp,” Peggy went on. “He’d missed the proper war, but he came over to do his duty nonetheless. He was stationed in London, but they sent him to Birmingham to survey the reconstruction work.” Peggy raised her head and stared into the middle distance while her thumb continued to stroke the monkey’s face. “He came to the canteen one day. Wasn’t much older than me. Had thick dark hair and hazel eyes and fine white teeth. He looked so handsome and clean in his uniform, and he was friendly, outgoing, the way Americans are. I was over the moon before he ever said boo to me.”

  Peggy looked down at the monkey, and I gazed at her, trying to picture the slim, bonny girl she’d once been. I imagined her gliding through a sea of panting males toward the one man who’d caught her eye, an outgoing, dark-haired boy who was far from home.

  “Told him I was eighteen,” Peggy said, “same as I told everyone else. Don’t think he’d’ve looked at me twice if he’d known my real age. But he did look at me, more than twice, and after that he came to Birmingham every chance he got. Took me to funfairs and the pictures.” She held up the monkey. “Won Sam for me target shooting. Named him after Uncle Sam because, he said, Uncle Sam had made monkeys of us all. He was brash like that, daring, and I loved it.” Peggy smiled down at Sam. “Mark Leese, his name was. J. Mark Leese. Said he’d tell me what the J stood for after we were married.”

  I frowned and glanced at Nicholas before asking hesitantly, “Wasn’t your first husband named Kitchen?”

  “Didn’t say I married Mark Leese, did I?” Peggy snapped. “Didn’t get the chance. He was blown up.”

  I winced, and Nicholas lowered his eyes.

  “Happened in London,” she said gruffly. “A team of experts was defusing an unexploded bomb. Mark was cycling past when it went off. Killed the experts. Killed him.” She blew a harsh breath through her nostrils and glared at me. “You think a war is over just because a few old men say it is? There’s bombs and mines and ammo dumps just waiting to carry on killing. They’re still digging up bombs from the first war, over there in France and Belgium. But Mark Leese’s bomb was in London, and it killed him.”

  The tragedy tugged at my heart across more than half a century. The war had stolen most of Peggy’s childhood. It seemed unspeakably cruel that it should snatch her first love from her as well. I could think of nothing adequate to say, but beside me, Nicholas stirred.

  “It was a long time ago, Mrs. Taxman,” he said. “Don’t you think your husband would understand if you told him that you were once in love with an American soldier?”

  Peggy turned her face toward the altar to avoid Nicholas’s gaze. “He might,” she allowed stiffly. “But he wouldn’t understand about the baby.”

  My jaw dropped. I looked from Peggy’s shuttered face to the baptismal font and felt a chill of apprehension. “There was a baby?”

  Peggy shifted Sam from one hand to the other. “I told you. I thought I knew everything in those days, but I didn’t. Found out I was pregnant after Mark had been blown up. My mother and father were so ashamed that they sent me north to Whitby, to live with an aunt until the baby came, so no one at home would know what kind of girl I’d turned out to be.”

  “Whitby,” Nicholas said under his breath.

  If Peggy heard him, she gave no sign.

  “My auntie wanted me to stay indoors, knitting balaclavas for displaced refugees,” she said. “But I was fifteen. I couldn’t sit still for nine minutes, let alone nine months, so I’d sneak out while she was at church. That’s how I met Prunella. . . .”

  Shadows drifted across the dim recess as Peggy told her tale, her voice rising and falling with the rhythm of the rain. Prunella Hooper had been born and raised in Whitby. Her mother’s boardinghouse had been two doors down from the house in which Peggy had stayed. Prunella had noticed Peggy’s solitary strolls and decided one day to befriend her.

  “She asked me in for a cup of tea,” Peggy told us. “I was so bored and lonely that I nearly wept with gratitude. After that, we met every week for a cup of tea in her mother’s kitchen.”

  The two girls soon discovered that they had much in common. They were the same age, and both had been evacuated to rural villages during the war. Peggy played it safe, at first, and stuck to stories about the years she’d spent in Finch, living above the Emporium with Mr. Harmer and his family. But Prunella proved to be a good listener, an ideal confidante, and Peggy needed desperately to talk with someone about the dashing American soldier, J. Mark Leese. It eased her heart to speak his name aloud, and before too long she’d told Prunella everything.

  “Prunella wasn’t a bit shocked,” said Peggy. “I suppose she’d seen it all, growing up in a boardinghouse. Whatever the case, she didn’t go on at me the way my auntie did, and I was grateful. She was my only friend, in those days.” Peggy’s gaze came to rest on the stone font. “Then the baby came. It was a boy. My auntie had it adopted and sent me home.”

  Her careful use of the neutral pronoun was nearly as heartbreaking as her rushed account of the baby’s birth. Had she been allowed to hold her son before giving him up? Or had the child been spirited away before a bond could form between him and his young mother? I took one look at Peggy’s stolid expression and couldn’t bring myself to ask.

  “I’d promised to keep in touch with Prunella,” Peggy continued. “But after I came home I didn’t want to remember Whitby, so I never answered her letters. I married Mr. Kitchen, and when he died, I came back to Finch and bought the Emporium from old Mr. Harmer. Then I married a second time. That was Jasper. Never told my husbands about Mark Leese or the baby. Never saw the need.”

  The need arose when Prunella Hooper sent a letter to Finch.

  “It came last autumn, a week after Harvest Festival,” Peggy said. “Don’t know how she tracked me down. I suppose she remembered the stories I’d told her about the Emporium.”

  Prunella had expressed a friendly interest in Peggy’s affairs and brought Peggy up-to-date on her own. In the closing paragraph Prunella had described her son’s recent move to Birmingham and her own desire to come south, to be nearer her grandson. She’d asked if Peggy knew of a place that would suit her.

  “Wish I’d burnt the letter,” Peggy growled, “but like a fool, I wrote back. Told Prunella I couldn’t help her.” Her blue ey
es glittered fiercely. “I didn’t want her coming here, reminding me of things I wanted to forget.”

  It was too late, however. Prunella wrote again to say that she’d seen Crabtree Cottage listed with other holiday homes in a tourist office in Birmingham. She thought Crabtree Cottage would suit her splendidly if she and Peggy could come to terms on the rental fee.

  “She asked if I had fond memories of the time we’d spent together.” Peggy’s voice was taut with fury. “She made it sound harmless, an old friend reminiscing, but I could read between the lines. Then she showed up, bold as brass, at the Emporium—with Jasper behind the counter!—passing herself off as an old chum from Birmingham.”

  “You allowed your husband to believe her,” Nicholas pointed out. “You supported her story.”

  “Had no choice,” Peggy retorted. “It was play her game or have her tell Jasper what sort of woman he’d married.”

  Peggy played Prunella’s game. She charged Prunella nothing to live in Crabtree Cottage, and when Prunella asked for money to buy her beastly grandson the latest sneakers or the newest computer games, Peggy supplied it. Peggy defended her in public and cursed her in private. If Peggy lost her temper or threatened to rebel, Prunella brought her back in line by wondering aloud what had become of the fine baby boy Peggy had left behind in Whitby.

  I glanced upward. The drumming on the roof had lessened, and dappled shadows raced across the memorial tablets, as if the sun had broken through the scudding clouds. Peggy had fallen into a meditative silence, and Nicholas appeared to be lost in thought.

  As I turned Peggy’s story over in my mind, I saw that it revealed more about her than perhaps she realized. I’d thought her deranged when she’d accused me of abandoning my sons, but I understood her rage better now that I knew she’d been forced to abandon her child. The strict moral code by which she judged Kit, Nicholas, and me had its roots in her own hard experience. Her love for Mark Leese had cost her dearly, and she’d been Nell Harris’s age when she’d paid the price.