“The compass isn’t a toy, young man,” Aunt Augusta said sternly, shaking her head. “Papa brought it home with him from the war. We keep it with the maps, of course.” She sipped her tea and lapsed into silence.
Sally and Henrique exchanged meaningful looks, Kit gazed compassionately at Aunt Augusta, and the Donovans stared at their slippers. Willis, Sr., placed his cup and saucer on the table at his elbow, tented his fingers over his paisley dressing gown, and gazed at the young couple.
“I have, it seems,” he said quietly, “been the unwitting host of an unacknowledged guest.”
“I didn’t invite her,” said Aunt Augusta, glancing over her shoulder at Sally. “Why is she wearing a tiara at this time of night? Is it her birthday? And who is that man next to her? Reminds me of the Spanish ambassador I met in Adelaide. Wonderful dancer. Did you invite them, Ernest?”
“Yes, madam,” said Willis, Sr. “They are friends of mine.”
“Aunt Augusta,” said Declan. “Perhaps we should let Deirdre talk for a while.”
“I’m not stopping her, am I?” said Aunt Augusta, and resumed her contemplation of the fire.
“Mrs. Donovan,” said Willis, Sr., “you have our undivided attention.”
Deirdre straightened her shoulders, folded her hands in her lap, and faced Willis, Sr., squarely.
“Before I start,” she said, “please allow me to apologize for taking advantage of your kindness and for concealing the truth from you. I wouldn’t have done things differently, but I’m sorry nonetheless.”
“I accept your apology,” said Willis, Sr., “and I look forward to hearing why it was made.”
“My maiden name is Deirdre Augusta Fairworthy,” Deirdre began, “but I’m only distantly related to Aunt Augusta. Technically, she’s a cousin rather than an aunt.”
“Did she grow up here?” asked Willis, Sr.
“She was born in Fairworth House,” Deirdre replied, “and she lived here until the age of ten, when she was sent off to boarding school. She never spent any length of time at Fairworth after that. After boarding school came finishing school in Switzerland, then a secretarial job in London, then the war.”
“In 1940, Fairworth was requisitioned by the army,” said Declan, “to be used as a convalescent home. By the time it was released, Aunt Augusta’s parents could no longer afford to live in it, so they sold it.”
“At the end of the war,” Deirdre continued, “Aunt Augusta married an Australian soldier and moved with him to his country. They had no children, so after her husband died, she came back to England to share a small house in Bromley with her sister. When her sister died, she was passed from one relative to another until she ended up with my parents.” A defensive note entered her voice as she continued, “My mother and father are busy professionals—”
“They put her in a nursing home,” Declan interjected bitterly.
“And we took her out,” said Deirdre, lifting her chin. “Aunt Augusta came to live with us in Ireland a year after we purchased the guesthouse.”
“Family’s family,” Declan declared, “for better and for worse. We were making good money and we worked at home, so it was no trouble keeping her with us. And, truth be told, she wasn’t quite as far gone as she is now.”
“Do you know what’s wrong with her?” I asked.
“She was diagnosed with senile dementia when she was in her early seventies,” Deirdre replied. “I don’t know what the diagnosis would be today and I don’t really care. It may sound freakish to you, but I’ve grown to love her just as she is.”
“It is not freakish, Señora,” Henrique said gravely. “To love someone as she is, this is the very essence of love.”
Sally looked up at him with a glimmer of hope in her eyes and Deirdre acknowledged his words with a gracious nod.
“Her state of mind is unpredictable,” Declan admitted. “One moment she’s anchored in the here and now, and the next she’s time-traveling. It can be disconcerting if you’re not used to it.”
“Time-traveling?” Aunt Augusta’s chuckle was surprisingly deep and hearty. “Why don’t you come straight out with it, boy? Tell them I’m gaga and have done with it.”
“She’s gaga,” said Declan, winking at her. “Round the bend.”
“Loopy,” Aunt Augusta murmured and turned her smiling face to the fire.
Deirdre entwined her hand in Declan’s and resumed her tale.
“You know what happened next,” she said. “Our dream fell apart. During the last year, when we were struggling to keep the guesthouse afloat, Aunt Augusta became restive. She pleaded with us to take her home to Fairworth.”
“We told her it was impossible,” said Declan. “As the months passed, she grew quieter and quieter and finally stopped talking altogether. She became so feeble that we had to get a wheelchair for her. It was as if she’d given up.”
“Is that why you bought the Renault van?” I asked. “To accommodate the wheelchair?”
Declan nodded. “With the guesthouse eating up our savings, it was the best we could afford.”
“In May, shortly after we’d sold the guesthouse, my mother mentioned that an American gentleman had purchased Fairworth,” said Deirdre. “And Declan came up with a . . . a madcap scheme.”
“Our dream had failed,” said Declan, “but I thought we might be able to make Aunt Augusta’s dream come true.”
“We made a few inquiries,” Deirdre went on, “and we found out that Fairworth’s new owner was looking for live-in help. We registered with Davina Trent’s agency, making it clear that we would work only in a country house that had separate staff accommodations. She sent us to you.”
“Your late arrival was intentional, I presume,” said Willis, Sr.
“We intended to arrive after dark, yes, but not after midnight,” said Declan, rolling his eyes. “We didn’t have to invent the story about the Renault breaking down. It breaks down with spectacular regularity.”
“But you hoped to convey Aunt Augusta from the van to the house under cover of darkness,” Willis, Sr., clarified.
“We didn’t think you’d hire us if we wheeled her into the study,” said Declan.
I snapped my fingers and pointed at the Donovans. “That’s why you wouldn’t let Bill help you to unload the van. He thought you felt awkward, asking the boss’s son to carry your stuff, but you were just getting him out of the way so you could move Aunt Augusta without being seen.”
“Bingo,” said Declan.
“What would you have done had I not hired you?” asked Willis, Sr.
“The possibility never crossed our minds.” Declan smiled wryly. “There are two things you learn when you run a guesthouse: You learn to read people and you learn to please people. With all due respect, sir, we had you pegged within five minutes of meeting you.”
“Apart from that,” Deirdre said, elbowing her husband in the ribs, “we’d been coached very thoroughly by Davina Trent. Forgive me for saying so, sir, but you’d rejected so many applicants by then that she was at the end of her tether. She was desperate for us to make a good impression, so she made quite sure that we understood what would be expected of us.”
“Mrs. Trent could not have prepared you for the”—Willis, Sr., gave Sally and Henrique a sidelong glance—“additional duties that would be thrust upon you.”
“We came here expecting to look after a single gentleman,” said Deirdre, “and we found ourselves looking after three people with, um, special dietary requirements. I’ve lost count of the number of meals I’ve cooked since Mr. Cocinero arrived, on top of doing the housework to your high standards and checking in on Aunt Augusta. To be perfectly honest, sir, I’ve never been so exhausted in my life. When I went to bed, I slept as if I’d been drugged.”
“I’ve had to do the weeding, the mowing, the raking, the trimming, and the sweeping single-handedly,” said Declan, “in between running errands and conducting the wildflower survey.”
“What wildflower sur
vey?” I asked.
“Your father-in-law asked me to map the wildflowers growing in the stand of trees at the northeast corner of the estate,” Declan replied. “I hunted around in there on Tuesday afternoon, sir, and I found the orchids you mentioned.”
“They are exquisite, are they not?” said Willis, Sr.
“That they are, sir,” said Declan.
I caught Kit’s eye and conceded with a small shrug that I’d been wrong. Declan hadn’t been hiding anything in the woods on Tuesday. He’d been searching for wild orchids.
“We’re not complaining, sir,” Deirdre was saying. “We’re explaining why we’ve slept so soundly for the past few nights. We weren’t aware of what was going on around us at night, which is why it took us a while to realize that Aunt Augusta had regained the use of her legs.”
“Deirdre and I were dead to the world,” said Declan, “when she came downstairs on Sunday night and rearranged some of your furniture.”
“The settee and the armchair,” I said, gazing at Deirdre with fresh understanding. “Now I know why you looked so confused when William asked you if you’d moved the furniture.”
“I was gobsmacked,” Deirdre confirmed. “I had to come up with a believable story on the fly, then run upstairs to have a chat with Aunt Augusta. She admitted quite readily that she could walk.”
“She claims that being back at Fairworth has healed her,” Declan put in. “And why not? Happiness is good for your health.”
“We were delighted by her recovery, of course,” said Deirdre, “but it did complicate matters. She startled us awake on Monday night by cranking up the volume on our sound system.”
“Benny Goodman,” I said.
“She’s Benny’s biggest fan,” said Declan.
“The King of Swing,” murmured Aunt Augusta, tapping her foot to a melody only she could hear.
“We unplugged the machine,” said Deirdre, “and fell back into bed. As soon as we were asleep, she came downstairs to play with the snuffboxes and to move the brass compass from the billiards room to the map case in the library.”
“Where it belongs,” Aunt Augusta muttered. “What sort of fool puts a compass in a billiards room?”
“I found her playing choo-choo trains with the snuffboxes at three o’clock in the morning,” said Declan. “I put her back to bed with strict orders to stay put for the rest of the night.”
“Pish tush,” Aunt Augusta said, waving her hand dismissively. “I’ll do as I please in my own home.”
“You have always done as you pleased in your home, have you not, Augusta?” said Willis, Sr., eyeing her shrewdly. “I believe you did as you pleased a long time ago, when you were a little girl, before you left for boarding school.”
I caught Kit’s eye and shrugged, mystified. Though I sensed that Willis, Sr., was leading the witness, I had no idea where he was taking her.
“Would you like to tell us, Augusta?” said Willis, Sr. “Would you like to tell us what you did with your mama’s shiny silver sheep and your papa’s pretty snuffboxes?”
“I hid them,” Aunt Augusta said proudly. “I hid them with Grandpapa’s book and Papa’s compass and the family tree Mama painted.” Her expression clouded over. “There was talk of selling Fairworth, of auctioning its contents to pay death duties—what utter nonsense!—so I hid my treasures in the stables.” She sighed. “I meant to come back for them, but I never did. Life moves so fast, so very fast, and we’re swept along like dried leaves in the wind.”
Silence fell, save for the snap and crackle of the burning logs. Kit reached up to pull the duvet more closely around Aunt Augusta’s spare shoulders. Deirdre refilled everyone’s cups. Declan went to stir the fire. Willis, Sr., contemplated his tented fingers. Sally looked thoughtful and a slight frown creased Henrique’s forehead.
“We’re very sorry, sir,” Deirdre murmured, resuming her seat.
“You apologized at the beginning of your remarkable testimony,” Willis, Sr., observed. “Does your second apology signal its conclusion? If so, I feel compelled to point out that your confession is woefully incomplete. You, Mr. Donovan, have failed to answer an indisputably significant question.”
“What question would that be, sir?” said Declan.
“Why,” Willis, Sr., said calmly, “did you break into Crabtree Cottage and steal the Fairworthy family tree?”
Twenty-One
I jumped as if scalded.
“How did you find out about the robbery?” I demanded, rounding on Willis, Sr.
He gave me a look that was almost pitying. “Need you ask? You have told me on countless occasions that secrets do not remain secret for very long in Finch. You of all people should have known better than to try to keep one from me.”
“Grant spilled the beans, didn’t he?” I said, my eyes narrowing.
“Mr. Tavistock is in a fragile emotional state,” Willis, Sr., acknowledged. “When I telephoned him after dinner to ask for a progress report, he lost his composure completely and insisted on giving me an unexpurgated account of the unfortunate events that transpired at Crabtree Cottage while he and Mr. Bellingham were in London.”
“I wonder how many gin-and-tonics he’d tossed back before you called,” I grumbled.
“In vino veritas,” Willis, Sr., said loftily, and turned his attention to the Donovans. “I note that you do not deny embarking on a sordid life of crime. Am I to assume, therefore, that you are guilty as charged?”
“Please excuse me, sir,” Deirdre said abruptly. “I have something to show you. I’ll be right back.”
She stood and left the room, her brown robe swirling behind her. A moment later I heard the distant hum of the elevator.
“The break-in, Mr. Donovan?” prompted Willis, Sr.
“It . . . it wasn’t a break-in,” Declan temporized. “It was more of a walk-in. Doesn’t anyone lock their doors around here?”
“No,” Sally and I said simultaneously.
“I do,” said Willis, Sr.
“The exception that proves the rule,” I pronounced, and Sally nodded her agreement.
“I didn’t damage anything,” Declan went on. “I wanted to delay a full-on police investigation, so I made it look as though Mr. Tavistock’s studio had been properly turned over. I figured that, if the studio was in disarray, it’d take him longer to figure out what had gone missing. But I didn’t break so much as a pencil point.”
“Your respect for Mr. Tavistock’s property will no doubt count in your favor,” Willis, Sr., said dryly, “but there is still the small matter of the theft.”
“What a nightmare.” Declan leaned his head in his hands. “I thought it’d be a doddle to sneak through the village at two o’clock in the morning, but the entire place was crawling with women. I had to wade the river to avoid the short, skinny one marching back and forth on the bridge, and after that it was like being inside a pinball machine. Every time I turned around, there was another woman creeping from pillar to post. It was all I could do to avoid bumping into them!” He raised his head and looked around the room imploringly. “Is it like that every night?”
I opened my mouth to speak, but Sally Pyne cut me off.
“Depends on the weather,” she said knowledgeably. “On a fine summer night, you’ll usually find someone out taking the air. Village folk aren’t afraid to wander about after dark, the way city folk are. We, er”—she glanced self-consciously at Henrique—“I mean to say, they take an interest in things, too. The villagers know what Finch sounds like and if they hear something out of the ordinary, they get up to investigate.”
“Interfering pack of busybodies,” Aunt Augusta said with a contemptuous sniff. “Can’t adjust one’s garter without it making the rounds.”
Kit raised a hand to his mouth to cover his smile.
“I did take the family tree, Mr. Willis,” said Declan, “because—”
“He took it because I panicked,” Deirdre stated firmly. She stood framed by the doorway for a moment
, then marched into the room, carrying the grubby masterpiece that had once soiled Willis, Sr.’s pristine study. “I asked Declan to steal the family tree, sir. I believe you’ll understand why after you’ve seen it.”
I winced when she placed the painting on the white marble mantel shelf, but realized at once that my fears were groundless. The worst of the soot had been removed, as had the broken glass. The gilt frame was far from immaculate, but I could detect a muted gleam of gold through the residual grime, and the calligraphy as well as the painted images could be seen as if through a fine layer of darkened lacquer.
The Fairworthy family tree wasn’t a conventional chart recording the names and relationships of succeeding generations in minute detail. It was a true work of art. An ancient oak tree in full leaf stood tall against a pale sky, with the tops of lesser trees just visible on the horizon. Miniature portraits labeled in flowing calligraphy hung like glimmering oval ornaments along the oak’s twisted branches or stood solidly among its gnarled roots.
Deirdre backed away from the hearth, but Willis, Sr., and I rose as one and approached it, drawn to the extraordinary artifact like moths to a flame. The names Augusta and Frederick were repeated in every generation, but I was less interested in the names than in the faces. There weren’t enough portraits to account for the entire Fairworthy family. The artist had chosen instead to commemorate a select group of men and women who had, I imagined, made the most meaningful contributions to the family’s good fortune.
“Our rise in the world began in the fourteenth century, during the reign of Edward the Third,” Aunt Augusta informed us. “Sheep made us. We raised them, sheared them, and spun the finest wool from their fleeces. We built mills and exported fabrics to more countries than I can name. We didn’t sit on our backsides like the lazy, grab-all aristocracy. We were the hardworking merchants who made England a force to be reckoned with.”
“Marvelous,” Willis, Sr., murmured, peering closely at a miniature identified as “Frederick Frances Fairworthy, Author of Notes on Sheep.”
I stood on tiptoe to drink in the wealth of details in the women’s portraits. The artist had taken great pains to depict the fashions of each period accurately. The elaborate head wrappings, bejeweled hairnets, seed pearl headdresses, and powdered wigs adorning early generations of Fairworthy women stood in stark contrast to the severe and sober hairstyle worn by the Victorian matron whose image hung from the tree’s tallest branch.
Aunt Dimity and the Family Tree Page 20
