“It seems so,” said Willis, Sr., smiling. “Have you any objections?”
Declan grinned from ear to ear. “I have none, sir, and I’m sure that Deirdre—”
“We’ll stay on one condition,” Deirdre interrupted, showing a hint of the spirit Aunt Augusta had in such abundance. “You must never again ask me to cook badly.”
“I accept your terms,” Willis, Sr., said instantly.
“If you don’t mind my asking, sir,” said Declan. “How did you get the ladies from the village to go along with Mrs. Pyne’s charade?”
“I appealed to the better angels of their nature,” Willis, Sr., replied.
“And?” I said suspiciously.
“I reminded them of how profoundly blessed they are to live in such an idyllic community,” he said, waxing lyrical. “I reminded them that Finch is a place where neighbors help neighbors and friends support friends, where petty differences are set aside in times of trouble, where noble thoughts, kind words, and selfless deeds are as common as bluebells in the spring.”
“And?” I pressed.
Willis, Sr., studied his fingernails. “And I may have mentioned in passing that I would take their behavior toward Mrs. Pyne into account when compiling the guest list for my next social gathering.”
“Blackmail.” Aunt Augusta’s deep-throated chuckle rang out unexpectedly from her place near the hearth. “Works like a charm every time. Well done, Ernest. You have to stand up to the busybodies or your life will never be your own.”
“Words to live by,” Willis, Sr., said wisely, “if one lives in Finch.”
Epilogue
If one lives in Finch, one learns to expect the unexpected. Opal Taylor, Elspeth Binney, Millicent Scroggins, and Selena Buxton—whom Bill has taken to calling “The Four Handmaidens of the Apocalypse”—became Henry Cook’s greatest admirers after he rented a room in Mr. Barlow’s house and took up the position of assistant manager at the tearoom.
Aunt Dimity believes that the ladies revised their opinions of Henry for two principal reasons: They wished to stay in Willis, Sr.’s good graces and they were dead set on having a hand in planning Sally Pyne’s June wedding, which is sure to be the social event of the summer.
Bill credits their conversion to simple math skills. He says it must have dawned on them at some point that Henry, by removing Sally from the ranks of eligible widows, had vastly increased their own chances of landing my father-in-law.
I’m convinced that the Handmaidens like Henry Cook for the same reasons everyone else in Finch likes him. He has a huge heart, a sunny disposition, and a great sense of humor, one aspect of which became evident when Bill explained that cocinero is the Spanish word for cook.
It’s not hard to figure out why Sally Pyne likes Henry. He’s a bilingual sweet-talker with a mile-wide romantic streak and he’s completely nuts about her. They spend most of their evenings at the pub, where Henry juggles, performs magic tricks, and serenades his querida with songs that evoke images of lovers strolling hand in hand along moonlit, jasmine-scented beaches.
Though Sally has added flan and sopapillas to her menu, she continues to make her sublime jam doughnuts and we continue to stuff our faces with them. She sent her granddaughter home at the end of August with a sackful of them and Rainey started the school year with a fresh appreciation of the hard work involved in running a small business as well as the mind-blowing knowledge that true love can blossom between two people who are well past the age of eighteen.
Peggy Taxman hasn’t clashed with Sally once since their nonconfrontation at Fairworth House. I don’t know whether Peggy’s finally recognized how important Sally’s friendship is to her or whether she’s just leery of tangling with Henry, who has a seasoned entertainer’s way with zingers. Mr. Barlow, who’s known the two women for as long as they’ve known each other, is taking bets on when the truce will end. Bill’s money is on Guy Fawkes Day, but I’m holding out for Christmas, when competition for roles in the Nativity play will be at its fiercest.
Grant Tavistock demanded no explanations when Willis, Sr., returned the Fairworthy family tree to him and Willis, Sr., offered none, asking simply that Grant finish the work he’d begun. It took Grant a couple of weeks to restore the family tree to its former glory, but it now hangs in a place of honor in Aunt Augusta’s room, above a glass cabinet containing her father’s snuffboxes and her mother’s silver, sheep-shaped salt and pepper shakers. The brass compass remains on the map case in the library. Where it belongs.
Aunt Augusta insisted that Willis, Sr., retain custody of Frederick and ordered him to memorize Notes on Sheep.
“Best book ever written on the subject,” she told him. “Read it myself when I was a girl. Chock-full of useful information.”
Her subsequent disquisition on prolapsed uteri, scabies, and the squits, given with great enthusiasm during one of Deirdre’s superb Sunday dinners, may explain why Willis, Sr., has not yet acquired his own flock of Cotswold Lions, though he has made a large donation to the Rare Breeds Survival Trust.
Declan hired Mr. Barlow and two Sciaparelli boys to help him with the gardening and Deirdre demonstrated her deep understanding of village politics by hiring every available woman in Finch to help her with the housework on a rotating schedule. By doing so, she avoided the deadly appearance of favoritism and reduced to a bare minimum the Handmaidens’ opportunities to explain to Willis, Sr., how kind they were being to Sally Pyne.
When Deirdre found out that I lived in Dimity Westwood’s old cottage, she presented me with a fragile slip of paper that had been handed down to her by Aunt Augusta. It contained Aunt Dimity’s handwritten recipe for seed cake.
I studied the slip of paper on a fine evening in late September, while I sat in the study with the blue journal opened in my lap.
“Your writing hasn’t changed much,” I observed.
I’m sure it was much neater then. Our schoolmistress had the face of an angel, but she would rap our knuckles with the edge of a ruler if we failed to meet her exacting standards.
“Looks can be deceiving,” I acknowledged. “Your masquerade proved that.”
I couldn’t have predicted that Henry Cook would be wearing a mask of his own, I’m glad he’s taken it off. I’m glad that all of the masks have been discarded. I had Sally’s best interests at heart when I hatched my little scheme, but honesty really is the best policy.
“Fairworth House was wearing a mask, too,” I said, struck by the comparison. “I thought the place was beyond redemption but William looked past the overgrown ivy and the broken windows and saw one of the prettiest houses in the county. My instincts were right about the Donovans, though. They were up to something.” I smiled ruefully. “It just wasn’t the something I thought they were up to.”
I’m proud of the way you’ve adjusted to their presence at Fairworth House.
“I thank God for their presence at Fairworth,” I declared. “They could have left Aunt Augusta to rot in a nursing home, but they took her into their hearts and they jumped through a thousand flaming hoops to make sure she could live out her days in a place she’s loved since childhood. I can’t think of anyone—including myself—better qualified to take care of William.”
I still find it hard to believe that Gussie’s back at Fairworth.
“I still find it hard to believe that you call Aunt Augusta ‘Gussie,’” I said, rolling my eyes. “She told me that the two of you used to get into all sorts of scrapes.”
We were notorious apple thieves. Gussie was the ringleader, of course. She was a pistol.
“She still is,” I said. “She keeps rearranging the furniture, but William says she’s a better decorator than the one he hired, so he’s letting her get on with it. It won’t surprise me if she lives long enough to see a new branch sprout on the family tree.”
Has Deirdre indicated that a blessed event might be in the offing?
“No,” I said, “but my instincts are telling me that she and Declan will
be creating a nursery in their apartment in the not-too-distant future. And I’m learning to trust my instincts.”
I do hope you’re right. What good is a family tree if it stops growing?
“William considers the family tree to be Fairworth’s greatest treasure,” I said.
I hate to contradict him, but I must. Ancestors and artifacts are lovely things to have, but a house’s greatest treasures are the people who live in it. Without William, Deirdre, Declan, and my old friend Gussie, Fairworth would be nothing more than an empty shell.
“Speaking of which,” I said, sitting up excitedly, “I almost forgot to tell you that someone’s bought Pussywillows.”
The cottage next door to the tearoom? How delightful. It’s been on the market for ages. Do you know who the purchaser is?
“She’s a well-dressed, sweet-faced widow in her early sixties named Amelia Thistle,” I replied promptly, having done my homework.
Oh, dear. The Handmaidens won’t be pleased when they hear about her.
“They already have and they’re not, but I am,” I said, grinning. “What good is an English village if it stops growing?”
I said good night to Aunt Dimity and Reginald and went upstairs to bed, wondering what role Amelia Thistle would play in village life. For all I knew, she could be a convicted felon with a rap sheet as long as my arm or a tedious taxidermist from Topeka.
Looks, as I had discovered, could be deceiving.
Aunt Dimity’s Seed Cake
Makes one cake
Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease and line a 6-inch-round, 3-inch-deep cake pan. (A soufflé dish will work.)
8 tablespoons softened butter (1 stick)
2/3 cup sugar
2 teaspoons caraway seeds
2 large eggs, beaten
1 1/4 cups unbleached flour
3 tablespoons cornstarch
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter and the sugar, then work in the caraway seeds. Beat in the eggs a little at a time. In a separate bowl, stir together remaining ingredients, then fold them into the mixture with a large spoon. Spread mixture in the cake pan. Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes or until toothpick inserted into cake comes out clean. Allow the cake to cool for a few minutes in the cake pan, then carefully turn it out onto a wire rack to cool completely.
ALSO BY NANCY ATHERTON
Aunt Dimity’s Death
Aunt Dimity and the Duke
Aunt Dimity’s Good Deed
Aunt Dimity Digs In
Aunt Dimity’s Christmas
Aunt Dimity Beats the Devil
Aunt Dimity: Detective
Aunt Dimity Takes a Holiday
Aunt Dimity: Snowbound
Aunt Dimity and the Next of Kin
Aunt Dimity and the Deep Blue Sea
Aunt Dimity GoesWest
Aunt Dimity: Vampire Hunter
Aunt Dimity Slays the Dragon
Aunt Dimity Down Under
Aunt Dimity and the Family Tree Page 22
