Aunt Dimity's Death

by Nancy Atherton

  “It must have fallen when you moved the map. Very pretty. Where is it?”

  “England,” I said. “It’s … a place my mother visited. During the war.”

  “It must mean a lot to you,” said Bill. “I have my mother’s photo albums up in my rooms, and I go through them every once in a while. Do you do that?” He handed the photograph to me. I put it and the map in my carryon and zipped the bag securely before answering.

  “No,” I replied, in a tone that persuaded most people to drop the subject.

  “It was hard for me at first, too,” he said. “I’d just turned twelve. I was away at school when the news came—she’d been hit by a bus and killed instantly. That’s one of the reasons Father doesn’t care for public transportation.” He gave me a sidelong look. “I wasn’t making that up, you know.

  “It’s never easy to lose a parent,” he continued, “but at that age …” He creased the folds of the blanket carefully between his finger and thumb. “That’s when I claimed Arthur’s dome for my own. I think part of me believed that if I looked hard enough through the telescope, I’d be able to find her.” He unbuckled his seat belt. “Thanks for covering me up, by the way. I’d hate to arrive in London with the sniffles.” He stood up and stashed the blanket in an overhead bin.

  “You’re welcome.” I hoped the interruption might turn his mind to other things, but when he sat down again, he picked up where he’d left off.

  “When I went back to school after the funeral I felt like a freak. The faculty had briefed the other boys not to say anything that might upset me, so they ended up not saying anything at all. It confused the hell out of me, as though my mother had done something that couldn’t be mentioned in polite company.”

  “You didn’t want to talk about it, did you?” I said.

  “No, but I didn’t want a hush to fall over the room every time the word ‘mother’ came up. It was a relief when Father pulled me out of classes to go with him to England.”

  “That’s when you met Dimity.” I began to pay closer attention.

  “We stayed at her town house in London. It was a fantastic place, and I had the run of it. I spent most of my time in the attics, going through dozens of dusty crates. I found gramophone records, kaleidoscopes—even an old cat’s-whisker radio that still worked. And Dimity was … I don’t know what I’d have done without her. She didn’t tiptoe around the subject. We’d be in the walled garden and she’d ask what flowers my mother liked best. Then she’d fill baskets with them and put them all around the house, just like that, as though it was the most normal thing in the world. And every night, she told me stories.”

  “Aunt Dimity stories?”

  “No,” said Bill, with a brief smile. “As far as I know, those stories were created exclusively for you. Mine had a different heroine entirely.”

  “But they helped, those stories?” I was intrigued in spite of myself.

  “Yes. They helped.” He was silent for a moment. “I’d like to read your stories someday. Perhaps we can work an exchange. How about it?” He nudged my arm. “I’ll tell you mine if you’ll tell me yours.”

  “Only if you behave yourself,” I said.

  “I am a paragon of good behavior,” he replied. “Father would have sent a chaperone to stand guard over you at the cottage otherwise. I was planning on staying there, if it’s okay with you. There’s plenty of room, apparently, and it’ll be that much easier for me to run errands for you. Father suggested that I check into a local hotel, but I convinced him that his ideas of propriety weren’t exactly au courant. We’re hardly a pair of teenagers, are we?”

  The challenge in his eyes was more than I could resist— and if necessary, I could send him on some extremely time-consuming errands. With a toss of the head, I replied, “Fine with me, as long as I can get my work done.”

  “You won’t know I’m there.” He took a fountain pen and a small, leatherbound notebook out of his pocket. “As long as we’re discussing details of the trip, there are a few questions I’d like to ask before we land. Father said that your mother met Dimity Westwood in London during the war. Is that right?”

  “Yes,” I said. “My mother was sent over with a team of advisors before we’d even declared war on Germany, and she stayed on until VE Day.”

  “What did she do?”

  “She was a clerk, a secretary—a paper-shuffler, as she put it. Now that I know about Dimity I’d like to see the city the way they saw it, go to the places they went.”

  “Such as?” He uncapped the pen and opened the notebook.

  “Such as … Well, some of this may not make sense to you,” I said. “They aren’t places usually associated with the Second World War.”

  “But they are places you associate with your mother.”

  “She tried to see everything. You remember the story I told you and your father the night I arrived at the mansion? The one about the torch?” Harrod’s went into the notebook, along with the zoo, the Tate Gallery, St. Paul’s Cathedral, and several other museums and monuments that didn’t require explanation. When I had run out of places, Bill capped his pen, then returned it and the notebook to his pocket.

  “We’ll see what we can do,” he said.

  I stifled a jaw-cracking yawn. “We may have to wait until tomorrow to start. I can feel jet lag setting in already.”

  “This isn’t your first trip overseas?” Bill asked.

  “Hardly,” I replied. “But don’t get me started on that. I’ve been known to bore strong men to tears with my hitchhiking stories.”

  He pulled a large white handkerchief from his breast pocket and regarded me expectantly.

  *

  **

  “So this will be my fourth visit to London,” I concluded. “The first was during the summer after my freshman year in college. I spent a week there that time, crashing in my sleeping bag on the floor of a flat belonging to two guys I’d met on the road. The second time was with my former husband. By then I’d had enough of sleeping on floors, so we booked a room at a B & B. It turned out to be an Earl’s Court special, though, complete with an uncloseable window overlooking a train yard, and a mattress that sagged to the floor, so I ended up sleeping on the floor again anyway.”

  “You’re joking,” said Bill. “Exaggerating, at least.”

  “I am not. I had to hook my leg over the side of the bed to keep from rolling down into the middle. But we learned. The next time we went, we booked a room at a clean and quiet guest house in Sussex Gardens. Even with a bath up the hall, we thought it was heaven.” I rested my head against the back of the seat.

  Bill went through the motions of wringing out his handkerchief, then tucked it back into his pocket.

  “Where are we staying this time?” I asked, closing my eyes.

  “A hotel,” he said. “Father and I stay there when we’re in town. Dimity recommended it to us, in fact. It’s a nice place. Clean. Quiet.”

  When the liveried doorman trotted out to open the door of our limousine, I began to suspect that Bill had indulged in some serious understatement. When I found myself standing beneath the venerable forest-green awning of the Flamborough Hotel, I knew it, and succumbed to momentary panic. There I was, wearing jeans which, although new, were still jeans, for pity’s sake, about to walk into one of the world’s most genteel hotels. The regular residents would probably strain their eyebrows.

  “Clean and quiet, huh?” I said under my breath.

  “Private baths, too,” Bill murmured.

  “Oh, goody. Now I feel right at home.” I averted my eyes when my decrepit canvas bags were pulled from the limo, and stared when they were followed by an unfamiliar set of royal blue canvas carryalls. Bill saw what had caught my attention.

  “Like my new luggage?” he asked as we entered the lobby. “Wonderful stuff, canvas. Durable, lightweight, easy to repair …”

  I groaned inwardly. Evidently Bill had changed hats again. The amiable traveling companion was gone, the joker
was back, and there was nothing I could do about it—except gird myself to face whatever other surprises he had in store in London.

  Bill escorted me to a chair and I sank into its depths, peering timidly at my surroundings as he walked to the front desk. The lobby was all brass and wood, tall ferns and taller doorways, with writing desks tucked discreetly into alcoves, islands of comfortable chairs, and bellboys in spotless dove-gray uniforms. Elderly women sat or stood, draped in ancient fur stoles, pearls at their throats, tiny hats nestled in their silver hair, chatting with equally elderly gentlemen. I felt like a dandelion in a grove of stately oaks, a drooping dandelion at that, and I was relieved when Bill returned; his wrinkled tweed jacket was at least as disreputable as my jeans. He arrived in the company of a dignified, middle-aged woman, and I stood up as they approached, wishing I had a forelock to pull.

  “Lori,” said Bill, “this is Miss Kingsley. She takes care of Father and me when we’re staying here.”

  “Miss Shepherd, how nice to meet you,” said Miss Kingsley.

  I shook her hand and nodded dumbly. She must have wondered if I understood English.

  “If you will excuse me,” said Bill, “there are some arrangements I need to make. You take it easy, Lori, and get some sleep. Why don’t we meet here tomorrow morning, at ten o’clock? I’ll see you then.” Bill went back to the desk and I was left alone with Miss Kingsley.

  “Shall I show you to your suite, Miss Shepherd?”

  “Yes, please,” I said. “And … would it be all right with you if you called me Lori? Bill’s father is the only person in the world who calls me Miss Shepherd.”

  “Of course.” Miss Kingsley summoned a porter to carry my bags and led the way, explaining that she would be at my disposal while I was in London. If I had any questions, problems, or special requests, I should feel free to contact her. She couldn’t have been friendlier, but I found myself restraining the urge to curtsy when she left.

  The suite consisted of a sitting room, bathroom, and bedroom, with windows that opened on to a courtyard garden. It was charming, but I was pooped. After a brief tour, I made a beeline for the bedroom, peeled off my clothes, dumped them in a heap on the floor, and fell into bed. The last thing that passed through my mind was the memory of my mother’s voice telling me that the best way to deal with jet lag was to fight it. “Good idea, Mom,” I murmured. Then I faded into sleep.

  I awoke at three in the morning, of course, wide-awake and raring to go. Miss Kingsley, or some of her elves, had visited the room while I slept. The heap of clothes had vanished and a fluffy white robe had been placed on a chair near the bed. I slipped it on and noticed that my bags had been unpacked and my gear stowed in the wardrobe.

  Wandering into the sitting room, I saw a tray of sandwiches on the table near the windows. Beside it was a lovely, floral-patterned tea service, complete with an electric kettle. And next to that was a guidebook, several London maps, and the current issue of Time Out. “Good grief,” I muttered. “They could have ridden the Horse Guard through here and I wouldn’t have noticed.”

  I thumbed through the guidebook and saw that someone had marked it in red ink. A handwritten list, keyed to the page numbers in the book, had been taped to the inside of the front cover. The list had been written on a page torn from a small notebook. Just like Bill’s.

  *

  **

  He was waiting in the lobby at ten o’clock, along with Miss Kingsley and a small, white-haired man in a dark blue uniform, whom Bill introduced as Paul.

  “Paul will be our driver while we’re in London,” Bill explained, “and I can testify that he knows the city inside out.”

  “That’s very kind of you, sir,” said Paul. “And you, miss —young Mr. Willis here tells me that you’d like to see places having to do with the Second World War. Is that correct?”

  “Yes,” I replied.

  “Did you know that you’re standing in one?”

  “The Flamborough?” I looked around the lobby with renewed interest.

  “Paul is quite right,” said Miss Kingsley. “The Flamborough was a famous watering hole in those days, or so I’ve been told. The young airmen thought of it as their unofficial headquarters. They used to come here to relax, to have a drink, to dance with their wives and girlfriends—”

  “They came here to gossip,” Paul put in with an authoritative nod. “Talked like there was no tomorrow, they did, miss, bragging and poking fun at one another. If there was any news to spread, it came to the Flamborough first. The Flamborough Telegraph, they used to call it.”

  “Please, come with me,” said Miss Kingsley. “I think you might find this interesting.”

  She took us into the hotel lounge, a large, rectangular room with wine-red banquettes along the walls and a small dance floor. The focal point was a glorious traditional English bar, with mahogany framework that went right up to the ceiling. The bar was ornamented from top to bottom with carved scrollwork and brass fixtures, and an oval mirror etched with fruit and flowers stretched across the back of it. The room was dim and silent, not yet open for business.

  “The Flamborough was fortunate to escape the Blitz,” Miss Kingsley said, “and the nature of our clientele precludes extensive renovations. The room appears now very much as it did during the war. Here, this is what I wished to show you.”

  The walls at the far end of the room were hung with photographs. They were snapshots rather than professional portraits; framed, black-and-white pictures of men in uniform or in flying gear, standing beside their aircraft or sitting at camp tables, grinning.

  “They’re so young,” I said, looking from face to face.

  “And they stayed that way,” said Paul.

  Miss Kingsley frowned slightly at him, then turned to me. “These are the boys who didn’t come back,” she explained. “Their comrades put the pictures here, in tribute. We keep them here, to remember.”

  The faces of those boys remained with me throughout my time in London. My mother had always spoken of the war as a great adventure, a time of unforgettable sights and sounds, of strong friendships quickly made. She had never mentioned the friendships that had been even more quickly ended.

  *

  **

  Bill seemed to hold the keys to the city. He got me into the building where my mother had worked—now just another maze of modernized corridors—and out on the roofs of St. Paul’s, where she had seen the incendiaries fall. He found an elderly general to give us a private tour of the Cabinet War Rooms, the underground bunkers from which Churchill had conducted the war during the Blitz, and he somehow got permission for me to view Imperial War Museum photo archives that were usually reserved for scholars.

  Bill was so solicitous, in fact, that he made me edgy. There was nothing I could point to, no overt act that embarrassed or annoyed me, but there was something in his manner… . Perhaps it was the return of the same secret, knowing smile he had tried to hide during his tenure as my chauffeur in Boston. In London it gave me the feeling that something was up, that he was planning some monumental prank that would leave me flabbergasted.

  As far as I could see, however, he only put his foot wrong once in London, and even that wasn’t his fault. It was pure bad luck that brought us together with a guy who had frequented the rare book reading room at my university in Boston; a genuine, bona fide, one-hundred-percent-guaranteed creep named Evan Fleischer. Evan was in his late twenties, with stringy, shoulder-length black hair, thick glasses, and a hairy little potbelly that peeked out between the lower buttons of his ill-fitting shirts. I might have found him endearingly scruffy if it hadn’t been for the fact that he was the single most egocentric individual I had ever met.

  I was never able to pin down Evan’s area of expertise because he claimed to know everything. The word “important” was frequently on his lips, but he defined it rather more narrowly than the rest of the English-speaking world. If anyone else had a deadline to meet, it was inconsequential, and the same wen
t for ideas: only Evan’s were “important.” One day in the reading room, when he referred to his laundry as “important,” I laughed in his face. It didn’t faze him. He simply explained, in little words that even I could understand, why doing his laundry was a service to humanity. Looking pointedly at his grease-stained tie, I conceded that he had a point, but the jibe was lost on him. He merely assumed I’d seen the light.

  And how he loved to enlighten people. He gathered around him a coterie of emotionally disturbed undergrads who hung on his every word, which reinforced his self-image as an altruistic mentor. He led them on in order to feed his own ego, and that, when all was said and done, was what made him a creep rather than just another obnoxious jerk. I had no time to explain any of this to Bill when I heard Evan call my name in the lobby of the Tate.

  “Lori? Lori Shepherd?”

  I would have tucked my head down and sprinted for the exit, but Bill was already shaking Evan’s hand, eager to meet another one of my friends.

  “What a pleasant surprise,” said Evan.

  “You’re half right,” I muttered.

  “I don’t believe we’ve met before.” Evan blinked owlishly at Bill. “I am Dr. Evan Fleischer. You may call me Evan, if you wish, although naturally I prefer Dr. Fleischer. Lori and I are old friends.”

  “It’s very nice to meet you, Dr. Fleischer,” said Bill. “I’m Bill Willis. Lori and I are—”

  “I’m sure Evan doesn’t have time for small talk,” I interrupted.

  “Only too true,” said Evan. “I’m delivering an important paper on Dostoyevski’s use of patronymics this coming Saturday at the British Museum. I’m sure you would find it instructive, though perhaps a bit esoteric. I find it difficult to write for a general audience, you see, because—”

  “What a shame,” I said. “We’re leaving London on Saturday.”

  “Where are you off to?”

  In full Mr. Congeniality mode, Bill piped up: “We’ll be staying in a cottage in the Cotswolds, near a place called Finch.”

  “What about our change of plans?” I asked Bill urgently.