Aunt Dimity Digs In

by Nancy Atherton

  “I knew I could depend on you, Lori,” said Peggy. She tapped the side of her nose, gave me a knowing nod, and made a stately procession back to her shop.

  I wilted with relief, then retraced my steps to the schoolhouse. The door had been left open, and I stepped into the cloakroom, a long, narrow foyer with rows of hooks affixed to the walls at child height.

  As Peggy had said, the village school hadn’t been used as a school for ages. It had once contained two classrooms, but the dividing wall had been removed to create a single open space that served as an all-purpose meeting place. Bill and his fellow Merry Morrismen practiced there on inclement days, Lilian Bunting held church jumble sales under the peaked roof, and Peggy Kitchen chaired Women’s Institute meetings from the raised platform at the far end, where the teachers’ desks had once stood.

  The young man and woman were hovering over the boxes they’d unloaded from the paneled van, and a daunting array of archaeological equipment—black-and-white measuring sticks, high-powered lamps, dental picks, tarpaulins, spades—lay strewn across folding tables or stacked in the cupboards lining the schoolhouse walls. The vicar’s fears, it seemed, had been well-founded. It looked as though Adrian Culver was preparing for an extended stay.

  “Hello,” I said, from the inner doorway. “My name’s Lori Shepherd. I’m the local UN peacekeeper, and I hereby declare these premises to be a safe haven.”

  The boy grinned, set aside an armful of rope, and came over to shake my hand. “Simon Blakely and Katrina Graham,” he said, beckoning to the stocky girl. “We’re working with Dr. Culver on the dig. Thanks awfully for helping us out. We’d no idea we were making such a nuisance of ourselves.”

  “ That woman is more of a nuisance than we are, Simon,” said Katrina, coming to join us. “She made the same sort of scene when we arrived. At seven o’clock on a Sunday morning! Frightened the poor vicar half to death. Is she mad?”

  It was a debatable point, but I let it slide, choosing instead to spell out Peggy’s concerns about the festival.

  “That explains the camp bed,” said Simon, pointing to a folding cot in the corner. “We couldn’t understand why Dr. Culver decided to sleep here for the duration, but if the natives are restless . . .”

  Katrina nodded. “He won’t want to leave our gear unprotected.”

  “Where is he now?” I asked.

  “Staking a grid at Scrag End,” Simon answered. “He’s eager to get the project under way.” Simon glanced again at Katrina. “It’s a pity about the festival, but we’ve scarcely begun the preliminary survey. We’re here to help Dr. Culver set up, but there’ll be ten more students joining us next week.”

  “And we must have a local building for storage and analysis,” Katrina chimed in, gesturing toward the boxes. “My word, can you imagine carting this lot back and forth from Oxford every day?”

  “I suppose not.” I gazed at the boxes, disheartened. I’d nursed a faint hope of convincing the two sides to share the schoolhouse, but realized now that my simple solution wouldn’t fly—the schoolroom just wasn’t big enough for both of them.

  “We’re sorry,” Simon said. “Honestly, we didn’t know about the festival. If we had—”

  “It wouldn’t have mattered,” said Katrina, with a ruthless glint in her eye. “Any fool can see that Dr. Culver’s discovery takes precedence over a local fair.”

  Simon flushed. “You’ll have to forgive my colleague,” he said. “She’s caught a bad case of academic zeal.”

  “I understand,” I said, smiling. “But I’d suggest that you keep your zeal under wraps while you’re here. A low profile will go a long way toward appeasing the natives.”

  “We’ll do our best,” said Simon. “No more loud laughter on the square.”

  The pair returned to their unpacking while I headed for Bill’s office. I had half a mind to let the air out of his bicycle tires. The three-mile walk to the cottage would give my husband ample time to reflect on the evils of plunging his devoted spouse into the middle of a civil war.

  Seething with righteous indignation, I let myself into the office, faced Bill’s desk squarely, and was on the verge of firing a stream of well-chosen words into his much-loved face when a voice behind me asked, “Can you stand on your head?”

  I froze, openmouthed, then pivoted slowly until I beheld a pair of grubby pink sneakers, a bruised shin, and a bandaged knee waving unsteadily in the air. They belonged to a little girl who was going beet-red in the face as she demonstrated her own gymnastic prowess.

  “I’m Rainey Dawson,” she added, bouncing to her feet. “I’m staying with Gran while Mum gets used to Jack. Jack’s my new baby brother and he doesn’t half make a row, so Mum sent me to stay with Gran until he’s more grown-up, and Gran said I could visit Bill this afternoon while she has a lie-down, and I’m having a splendid time.”

  Rainey Dawson’s auburn hair hung down her back in two bedraggled braids and across her forehead in an uneven, flyaway fringe. Her long nose and narrow face were smudged with dirt, as were her formerly pink T-shirt and checked shorts.

  “I’m going to be nine this coming Sunday,” she announced, jiggling from foot to foot. “Do you live in Finch? Will you come to my party? Bill’s going to sit with me and Gran, and help me cut the cake.” She leaned against Bill’s desk and fluttered her eyelashes worshipfully. “I adore Bill. He lets me push the buttons on the fax machine.”

  My adorable husband was sitting with his eyes shut and his head in his hands. I looked down at the little chatter-box and beamed. I couldn’t have invented a better form of revenge. An afternoon with Rainey Dawson was surely equal to twenty minutes with Peggy Kitchen.

  “I’d love to come to your party, Rainey,” I said. “ Thank you very much for inviting me.”

  “Gran said I could invite anyone I liked,” Rainey informed me. “She has the tearoom next door and—” Rainey broke off abruptly and stared hard at my chest. “You’ve got a baby,” she said.

  I folded my arms self-consciously. “What makes you say that?”

  Rainey pointed at my folded arms. “You’ve got spots on your blouse, just like Mum.”

  “Spots on my . . .” I glanced down and saw a pair of telltale damp patches on the front of my hitherto clean blouse. “Ack!” I cried. “I’m late! The boys’ll be starving! And it’s all your fault!” I shook a fist at Bill as I sprinted for the door, and hollered over my shoulder, “Keep talking, Rainey!”

  6.

  I gunned the Mini all the way home and skidded into the driveway with such reckless abandon that I came within inches of hitting the horse.

  “Sorry, Rosie!” I cried, as the poor creature shied. “But I’m late!”

  The chestnut mare’s presence on my front lawn meant that Emma Harris had come to call. Rocinante belonged to Nell, Emma’s thirteen-year-old stepdaughter, but since Nell was spending the summer in Paris with her paternal grandfather, Rosie’s daily regimen of training and exercise had become Emma’s responsibility. “It’s the least I can do,” Emma had told me, “considering Rosie’s voluminous contributions to my garden.”

  I scrambled out of the Mini, gave Rosie’s nose an apologetic rub, and hastened into the cottage, ears cocked for the piteous wailing of my neglected infants.

  Silence greeted me.

  I dashed into the living room, saw that the playpen was empty, and darted upstairs to check the nursery.

  No sign of life.

  “Francesca?” I called, flying back downstairs. “Emma?”

  No answer.

  I ran into the kitchen only to be waylaid by a cloud of delectable aromas emanating from a stockpot that had been left simmering on the stove. I crept over to lift the lid and stood inhaling the heady fragrance of garlic, onions, herbs, and fresh tomatoes until, faint above the sauce’s bubbling, I caught the sound of Rob’s raspy laughter.

  The sound was coming from the back garden. I dropped the lid onto the pot, flew through the solarium to the back door, and
was brought up short once again.

  Francesca and Emma were sitting in two wicker armchairs in the shade of the apple tree. Emma had pulled her gray-blond hair back into a single thick braid that hung past her waist, and placed her black velvet riding helmet on the stone bench. She wore black riding boots and fawn breeches, but had dispensed with her fitted jacket in favor of a short-sleeved cotton top that was better suited to the heat of the day. She was cradling Will in her arms and feeding him with a bottle.

  The sight of Emma Harris playing nursemaid was enough to make my jaw drop. Emma had about as much maternal instinct as a frying pan. She’d stumbled into stepmotherhood by marrying a widower who had a son and daughter already in place. No one could deny that she’d made a go of it—her stepchildren adored her—but she was the first to admit that her success with Peter and Nell owed far more to their patient coaching than to her natural aptitude.

  Yet there she sat, with my son in her arms, looking for all the world as though she knew what she was doing. Stranger still, Will seemed to think so, too.

  He sucked industriously at his bottle, while his brother lay on a blanket at Francesca’s feet, kicking and grabbing at an array of circus animals that hung from strings tied to the apple tree’s lower branches. Each time he made contact, the elephants, monkeys, and zebras would bounce and sway and Rob would give a triumphant giggle.

  I took in the homely scene and felt bereft, so superfluous and inconsequential that if Rob hadn’t caught sight of me and promptly let out a piteous wail, I might have beaten him to it.

  “My poor little angel,” I crooned, scooping Rob up from the blanket and cuddling him to within an inch of his life. “I’m so sorry I was late.” The moment I spoke, Will pulled away from his bottle and set up a racket that sparked panic in Emma’s eyes. Francesca quickly motioned for me to take her place in the armchair, and deposited Will alongside Rob as soon as I was seated.

  “Good grief,” said Emma, mopping her brow, “what was that all about? One minute they were fine and the next . . .” She handed the half-empty bottle to Francesca.

  “ They’re letting Lori know they missed her, is all. You wait and see. They’ll settle down in two ticks.” Francesca tucked the bottle into the pocket of the apron she’d tied over her shirtdress. The apron, I noted in passing, was spotless.

  Two ticks later, the boys had finished offloading their grievances and were competing to see who could wriggle out of my arms first. Francesca returned Rob to the blanket, where he resumed his game with the dangling circus animals, while I took up the task of feeding Will.

  “Sorry I’m late,” I told Francesca.

  “No trouble,” she said. “I spotted the bottles you’d left in the fridge—”

  “Did you use the right ones?” I asked anxiously.

  “Would the ones labeled My Milk be the right ones?” Francesca asked.

  I blushed. “Yes, well . . . Bill sort of mixed them up a few weeks ago and—”

  “Stop!” Emma clapped her hands over her ears and shuddered. “Remind me to thank Derek for presenting me with two children who were already weaned and potty-trained.”

  Francesca smiled. “Rob’s finished his supper,” she informed me, “so I’ll pop inside and get on with ours. I hope you don’t mind, but I used the tomatoes and such Mrs. Harris brought over from her garden. I’ll manage better once I’ve learnt the trick of opening the kitchen cupboards.”

  “I don’t mind at all,” I assured her, and as Francesca went back into the cottage, I made a mental note to take a screwdriver to the cupboards’ safety catches first thing in the morning. If my new nanny could whip up a sauce like that from a bag of miscellaneous veg, there was no telling what she might do with a fully stocked kitchen at her fingertips.

  “Thanks for the fresh produce,” I said, turning to Emma.

  “I can’t guarantee the quality. This drought is wreaking havoc on my garden. I shudder to think what the farmers are going through.” She leaned forward to straighten Rob’s blanket. “When did you decide to hire live-in help?”

  “I didn’t,” I told her. “I’m the victim of a conspiracy.” I gave Emma a quick rundown of my action-packed day, then sat back with Will and waited patiently while she laughed herself hoarse. “Go ahead, yuck it up,” I said darkly.

  “Sorry,” Emma said, wiping her eyes. “But wait till you see this.” Chuckles continued to percolate from her as she reached over to her riding helmet and pulled a familiar-looking sheet of harvest-gold paper out from under it. “I found it in my mailbox this afternoon. It’s the reason I came over in the first place.” She cleared her throat and declaimed, with appropriate emphasis:S!O!F!

  Save Our Finch!!!

  Do you want YOUR village ruled by OUTSIDERS?

  Do you want STRANGERS knocking down YOUR door?

  Stop them NOW!!

  PETITION the BISHOP to STOP the INVASION!!

  Signers welcome, night and day,

  at Kitchen’s Emporium.

  But if any provide not for his own,

  and specially for those of his own house,

  he hath denied the faith,

  and is worse than an infidel.

  —I Timothy 5:8

  “ Take that, Vicar!” Emma peeked at me over the flyer and came perilously close to losing her tenuous grip on sobriety. She was saved by the sound of two hands clapping.

  “Bravo,” called Bill. My husband had come up the side path and stood at the rear corner of the cottage, grinning broadly as he applauded Emma’s performance. He’d exchanged his workaday suit and tie for sneakers, shorts, and an old Harvard sweatshirt. Thanks to the bicycle, his legs were shaping up nicely, his face was ruddy with good health, and he was beginning to lose the broker’s bulge he’d brought with him from Boston. Some men went to seed under the burden of fatherhood, but my Bill was blossoming. “No need to ask who composed that call to arms. Will your name be on the petition, Emma?”

  “Absolutely not,” she declared. “After what Lori’s told me, I’m going to stay as far away from Peggy’s shop as possible. Are you going to sign the petition, Lori?”

  “I have to,” I replied gloomily, “or Peggy’ll be out here with a bullhorn. I can’t wait until she moves to Little Stubbing.”

  “I pity the poor people of Little Stubbing. They don’t know what’s about to hit them.” Emma reached for her riding helmet and got to her feet. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help. My computer skills are, as always, at your service.”

  “What’s all this about Little Stubbing?” Bill asked as he bent to examine Rob’s bouncing menagerie.

  “I’ll tell you after dinner.” Will had long since finished his afternoon meal, so I handed him to his father and buttoned my blouse. “You’re home early. Rainey wore you out, did she?” I expected a bantering reply, but Bill answered seriously.

  “ To tell you the truth, I feel sorry for her,” he said. “She doesn’t have anyone her own age to play with.”

  “No one?” I said.

  Bill raised Will to his shoulder and gently patted his back. “When Sally Pyne came by to fetch Rainey, we got to talking, and she told me that there aren’t any children in Finch. A few kids out on the farms, yes, but none in the village.” He rubbed his cheek against Will’s fuzzy head. “It’s going to be a long summer for that little girl.”

  “Poor kid,” I said. “We’ll have to come up with an extraspecial birthday present for her.”

  Bill’s nose wrinkled suddenly and he leaned closer to Rob. “Right now I think our boy has a present for us. Here, you take Will and I’ll change Rob while you start in on dinner.”

  I stretched out my arms for Will and smiled as I recalled the stockpot simmering on the stove. “Have I got news for you. . . .”

  Francesca not only prepared our dinner, she served it to us in the dining room, on real plates, and cleaned up the mess afterward. It was a revelation to me, to relax and enjoy a meal with my husband after four months of snatching
mouthfuls on the run.

  “She did the laundry, put the linen closet in order, and got dinner ready while I was in town,” I told Bill as we lingered over the raspberries and cream. “And she never gets her apron dirty.”

  “She’s beginning to sound vaguely supernatural,” Bill commented.

  “Now that you mention it . . .” I lowered my voice, feeling for the first time like a chatelaine with servants to consider. “When she arrived, the cottage was filled with the scent of lilacs.”

  Bill’s eyes widened. “No chill in the air? No smoke?” He was referring to tricks Dimity had once used to rid the cottage of an unwelcome visitor.

  “Just lilacs,” I replied.

  Bill sat back and rubbed his jaw. “I guess Ruth and Louise picked the right nanny.” He pushed himself away from the table. “It’s still light out. How about a walk? If I’m not careful, Francesca’s cooking will ruin my girlish figure.”

  We put Will and Rob in their all-terrain strollers, advised Francesca of our plans, and set off down the path through the oak grove that separated the Harrises’ property from mine.

  The grove was a tranquil oasis. Leaf-filtered sunlight patterned the path with quivering shadows, squirrels chit tered in the branches overhead, and sparrows flitted from bower to bough. For a moment, walking at my husband’s side and watching my sons absorb a world of wonder, I felt so lighthearted that if I’d let go of Rob’s stroller, I’d have floated.

  Then Bill asked how my day had gone.

  I told him. In great detail. With many gestures. I think I may have frightened the squirrels.

  “Now Peggy’s petitioning the bishop. God knows what she’ll do next. And unless you want your sons to grow up fatherless,” I concluded testily, “you’ll wipe that smirk off of your face this instant!”

  “I’m sorry.” Bill wrapped his arms around me and kissed the top of my head—a diversionary tactic, I was certain. “I was only trying to get you out of the house. If I’d known the Gladwell pamphlet would do the trick, I wouldn’t have sent Hurricane Peggy in your direction.”