Aunt Dimity and the Widow's Curse

by Nancy Atherton

  “You’re a Yank, aren’t you?” she asked.

  “My accent always gives me away,” I said with a smile. “Yes, I’m a Yank, but my husband and I have lived in England for a long time. We live near a small village not far from here.”

  “Which village is that, then?” Hayley asked.

  “Finch,” I replied.

  “Sorry,” she said, shaking her head. “I’ve never heard of it.”

  “Most people haven’t,” I told her. “It’s a very small village.”

  “There are lots of them about,” she said. “What do you and your friend plan to do while you’re here? Treat yourselves to facials at the spa?”

  “No,” I said. “We came to Old Cowerton to do a favor for a friend who lives in our village.” Taking a page out of Bree’s book, I continued, “Our friend used to live here. She’s too old to travel, so we thought we’d surprise her by taking photographs of people and places she knew way back when. Megan at the Willows Café said that you might be able to point us in the right direction.”

  “Megan’s a great girl,” said Hayley.

  “She’s terrific,” I agreed, “but the strangest thing happened to us at the café. We sat next to a man named Bob Nash and we got to talking with him—”

  “There’s no other choice with Bob,” Hayley interrupted, rolling her eyes. “The man could talk the hind leg off a hippo.”

  “He was very friendly,” I went on, “until we told him about our elderly friend. Her name is Annabelle—”

  “Not Annabelle Craven!” Hayley exclaimed.

  To my relief, she seemed pleased rather than incensed.

  “Yes,” I said. “Annabelle Craven is our neighbor. Do you know her?”

  “She grew up not ten doors down from my gran,” said Hayley, smiling delightedly. “She and my gran went to school together. They were great friends.”

  “I’d love to meet one of Annabelle’s old school friends,” I said, feeling as though I’d hit the mother lode. “Would your gran mind if I took a picture of her?”

  “You’re too late, I’m afraid,” said Hayley, her smile dimming. “Gran passed away nearly fifteen years ago.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I said.

  “She had a good life,” Hayley assured me, “and she passed peacefully.” She released a soft sigh, then brightened. “I can’t believe that you know Annabelle Craven. She must be getting on in years. How is she?”

  “She’s very well,” I said.

  “I’m glad to hear it,” said Hayley. “Please tell her that Hayley Calthorp sends her love. I can’t tell you how much we miss her here in Old Cowerton.”

  “Mr. Nash doesn’t seem to miss her,” I said.

  “He wouldn’t,” Hayley said, with a disparaging tut. “He believes in the widow’s curse.”

  “I beg your pardon?” I said, mystified.

  Before Hayley Calthorp could demystify me, the front door opened and a half dozen boisterous boys spilled into the shop. They were closer in age to Will and Rob than to Bess, and Hayley knew each of them by name, so they posed no threat to her jam-packed shelves, but they were so noisy I could scarcely hear myself think. I had to wait for them to make their purchases—chocolate bars and comic books—and leave before I could resume my conversation with Hayley.

  “I’m not sure I know what you mean by ‘the widow’s curse,’” I said.

  “Why should you?” she asked. “It’s a load of old rubbish.”

  “If it’s a load of old rubbish,” I said, “why does Mr. Nash believe in it?”

  “Because he’s a superstitious old duffer,” Hayley stated firmly. She leaned on the counter and continued, “According to my gran, the whole thing started toward the end of the Second World War, when a local chap named Zach Trotter came home on leave from training camp. He took Annabelle to a dance and the next thing Gran knew, they were married. It was one of those rushed wartime marriages. Annabelle’s parents didn’t approve—Annabelle was barely seventeen—but you know what young people are like.”

  “They don’t often listen to their parents,” I commented, “especially when they’re in love.”

  “Gran didn’t think much of wartime marriages,” Hayley went on. “‘Marry in haste, repent at leisure’ is what she always said, and that’s exactly what happened to Annabelle. Zach was a nice enough boy when he joined up—big, tall, good-looking, polite—but the war changed him, and not for the better.”

  “I imagine he wasn’t the only soldier who had trouble adjusting to civilian life after the war,” I commented.

  “Zach had more trouble than most,” Hayley said darkly.

  “What sort of trouble?” I asked.

  “All sorts,” she replied. “After everything he’d been through, normal life must have been too tame for him. He started drinking, gambling, fighting. People got used to seeing him stagger home from the pub after closing time.”

  “Where was home?” I asked. “I mean, where did he and Annabelle live?”

  “They lived with her parents for a while, because of the housing shortage,” Hayley informed me. “But Zach was a veteran, so he got first crack at one of the houses built after the war. Homes for heroes, they were called, but they were just poky little row houses thrown up in a boggy field. A local landowner donated the land. Gran said he couldn’t wait to get rid of it.”

  I recalled the small enclave of row houses Bree and I had passed on our way to Old Cowerton. “I think I saw the homes for heroes when we drove into town.”

  “Did you drive in from the Oxford road?” Hayley inquired. When I nodded, she said, “You passed right by them. We call them the terraces nowadays. Hardly anyone remembers that they were homes for heroes.”

  “Why are the terraces off on their own?” I asked. “Why is there a gap between them and the rest of Old Cowerton?”

  “The town hated them,” Hayley replied. “The way Gran put it was ‘We were willing to build cheap housing as long as we didn’t have to look at it.’” She chuckled reminiscently, then went on. “The terraces have been improved over the years with insulation and indoor toilets and such, but back then, they weren’t very nice.”

  “Do you know which house Annabelle lived in?” I asked, thinking of the map Francesco had presented to Bree. “I’d like to take a picture of it.”

  “It’s easy enough to find,” Hayley informed me. “There aren’t but three streets in the terraces—four if you count Longview Lane. You’ll find Annabelle’s house at the west end of Bellevue Terrace. That’s the end closest to town,” she added helpfully.

  “Thanks,” I said. “It’ll mean a lot to Annabelle to see what the place looks like now.”

  “She called her house Dovecote,” Hayley continued. “She made a sign and hung it above the house number, Gran said, to give her house a loving touch. Poor Annabelle.” Hayley shook her head sadly. “She must have thought that she and Zach would get on like a pair of turtledoves, but it didn’t work out that way.”

  “What happened?” I asked.

  The front door opened again and an elderly couple came into the shop, seeking a particular brand of shampoo. Hayley found it for them and rang it up, then scurried over to open the door for them before returning to her post behind the counter.

  “Where was I?” she asked.

  “Annabelle and Zach moved into Dovecote on Bellevue Terrace in the terraces,” I said.

  “That’s right,” said Hayley, leaning on the counter. “Zach worked odd jobs, but Gran said he drank most of his earnings. Annabelle had to support them with her needlework. Have you seen her needlework?”

  “I have three of her baby quilts,” I said.

  “I have two,” said Hayley, her face glowing. “They’re beautiful, aren’t they?”

  “I framed mine,” I told her.

  Hayley nodded her approval, then co
ntinued, “Annabelle didn’t have time for quilting back then. She worked her fingers to the bone making and mending, just to put food on the table. Then one day, about a year after they married, Zach ups and leaves.” She snapped her fingers. “Just like that.”

  “He ran out on her?” I said, as if I hadn’t already heard Mrs. Craven’s version of the story.

  “Just like that,” Hayley repeated, snapping her fingers again. “Gran said it was exactly the sort of thing a feckless layabout like Zach Trotter would do.”

  “It must have been hard on Annabelle,” I said.

  “Gran said it was the best thing that ever happened to her,” Hayley declared, “and it might have been, if Minnie Jessop hadn’t opened her big mouth and started yapping.”

  My ears pricked up at the sound of an unfamiliar name. Minnie Jessop had played no role in the tale Mrs. Craven had told me at the quilting bee.

  “Who is Minnie Jessop?” I asked.

  “Minnie lived next door to the Trotters,” Hayley explained. She wrinkled her nose, as if a foul odor had wafted into the shop. “You wouldn’t want to live next door to Minnie Jessop. Gran used to call her the town crier. Eyes on stalks, ears like radar dishes, and a mind like a sewer. After Zach disappeared, Minnie got it into her thick skull that Annabelle had done away with him.”

  “You’re kidding,” I said in appropriately shocked tones.

  “I wish I were,” said Hayley. “According to Gran, Minnie caused all sorts of strife for poor Annabelle. You know how it is with rumors.”

  “Once they start,” I said, “they’re hard to stop.”

  “And the uglier they are, the more willing people are to believe them,” Hayley said feelingly. “Once Minnie Jessop cried murder, word got around. And once word got around, the police had to look into it. They found nothing, of course, because there was nothing to find. Zach may have been a useless lump, but Annabelle couldn’t have killed him. She didn’t have it in her to kill anyone.”

  “Did the rumors die down after the police cleared her?” I asked.

  “They should have, but Minnie Jessop and her cronies kept them going,” said Hayley. “Annabelle was too proud to go back to her parents’ place and she couldn’t afford to live anywhere else, so she kept her head down and ignored the wagging tongues as best she could. Then Ted Fletcher came along.”

  “Ted Fletcher?” I said alertly. “Who is Ted Fletcher?”

  “Ted Fletcher was Bob Nash’s best friend,” said Hayley. “The two of them were like brothers. They’d grown up together, gone to school together, gone to war together. There was some talk of Ted marrying Bob’s sister Gladys, but it came to nothing.”

  “Because of Annabelle?” I asked.

  “That’s right,” said Hayley. “There may have been an understanding between Ted Fletcher and Gladys Nash before he joined up, but it ended when Ted fell for Annabelle.”

  “Annabelle was still married to Zach Trotter, wasn’t she?” I asked.

  “She was, in the eyes of the law,” Hayley confirmed. “She couldn’t divorce Zach because no one knew where he was, and she couldn’t ask a court to declare him dead until he’d been missing for seven years.” Hayley leaned closer to me, saying earnestly, “There was no funny business between her and Ted Fletcher. He went to church with Annabelle, took her to the cinema, fixed things around the house when they needed fixing—but he never stayed overnight. Ted was a good and decent man. He was willing to wait for Annabelle. Gran reckoned they would have married if he hadn’t died.”

  “He died?” I said in authentically shocked tones. “How?”

  “Ted worked as a cowman up at the dairy,” said Hayley. “About a year after he met Annabelle, he fell into a slurry pit and drowned.”

  “A slurry pit?” I repeated uncomprehendingly. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know what a slurry pit is.”

  “It’s like a pond,” she explained, “only it’s full of cow manure.”

  I recoiled, torn between pity and revulsion at the thought of a man drowning in a pool of cow dung.

  “Good heavens,” I said faintly. “What a dreadful way to die.”

  Hayley raised her shoulders in a fatalistic shrug. “Dairy farms can be dangerous places. Accidents happen. But because he was Annabelle’s sweetheart, people started asking themselves if Ted Fletcher’s death was an accident.”

  A middle-aged woman in a rain-speckled blue anorak came into the shop with a long list of travel toiletries. I’d been too absorbed in Hayley Calthorp’s riveting tale to pay attention to the weather, but when I saw the woman’s anorak, I realized that the April shower had arrived. While Hayley helped her customer, I backed into a corner, pulled my cell phone out of my shoulder bag, and called Bree.

  “Bess and I are at the hotel,” she informed me. “We bailed when it began to rain.”

  “Good decision,” I said.

  “Francesco brought us warm milk and a pot of tea,” she went on, “and I lit a fire in the hearth, so we’re snug as two bugs. How’s it going at Nash’s News?”

  “Informatively,” I told her. “I’ll fill you in when I get back.”

  “Remember to put your hood up,” Bree advised.

  She rang off before I could tell her that I had a new umbrella. I dropped my phone into my shoulder bag and waited impatiently for the woman in the damp anorak to depart, then returned to the counter, agog to hear more about Ted Fletcher’s ghastly death.

  Hayley had evidently lost her train of thought again, so I helped her to find it.

  “Ted Fletcher’s accident,” I prompted.

  “That’s right,” she said, planting her elbows on the counter. “It happened only a few months after he and Annabelle started seeing each other. Minnie Jessop couldn’t wait to say ‘I told you so’ to everyone who doubted her when she accused Annabelle of killing Zach. She put it about that any man who took an interest in Annabelle would die before his time. She began calling it the widow’s curse.”

  “That’s absurd,” I objected. “Setting aside the fact that curses only work in fairy tales, Minnie’s rumor doesn’t add up. Why would Annabelle kill a decent, hardworking man who adored her?”

  “Exactly!” Hayley exclaimed. “She wouldn’t, of course, but you’d be surprised at how many people believed Minnie and her chums. If you repeat a lie often enough, it starts to look an awful lot like the truth.”

  “Bob Nash still believes it,” I said.

  “Ted’s death hit Bob hard,” said Hayley. “Gran said he needed to blame someone, so he blamed Annabelle for bringing the widow’s curse down on his best friend. Gran tried to talk some sense into him, but he listened to Minnie Jessop’s ravings instead. Pillock,” she muttered disdainfully.

  “Is Minnie Jessop still around?” I asked.

  “She’s still in the same house,” said Hayley, “the one next door to Dovecote.” She laughed. “They’ll need an oyster knife to pry her out of there. Minnie’s husband passed away years ago and she must be pushing ninety, but her daughter Susan looks after her, the one that never married.”

  A flurry of raindrops pelted the shop windows, and several families rushed through the front door, presumably to get in out of the rain. They didn’t appear to be in a hurry to leave and I didn’t care to have them eavesdrop on my conversation with Hayley, so I paid for the snacks and the umbrella and prepared to venture forth into the storm.

  “I’m lucky that Megan sent me to you,” I said to Hayley. “You’ve been incredibly generous with your time. If the sun cooperates tomorrow, my friend and I should get some great photographs of Dovecote. It’s at the end of Bellevue Terrace, right?”

  “That’s right,” she said cheerfully. “Look for the rosebushes in the back garden. You’ll know them when you see them. They’re the healthiest rosebushes in Old Cowerton.”

  A ripple of uncertainty passed through me as I remem
bered Mrs. Craven’s chilling words: I thought a dead body would enrich the soil . . . I mumbled a distracted thank-you to Hayley, threaded my way through the overcrowded shop, pulled my hood up, and stepped outside without opening the violet umbrella. I’d forgotten all about it.

  I could think of nothing but the corpse that might lie buried beneath the healthiest rosebushes in Old Cowerton, and the man who died an unspeakable death in a slurry pit.

  Ten

  The April shower had become a minor gale. By the time I reached the White Hart, my jacket was streaming with rain, my trouser legs were drenched, and my shoes squelched like soaked sponges. To avoid leaving a trail of puddles in the crooked corridor, I entered our suite via the garden door.

  The peaceful scene that greeted me helped to ease the turmoil in my brain. A fire burned steadily in the gas-lit hearth. A dainty, antique tea service sat on the teak table in the dining nook. Moo gazed serenely at me from the playpen.

  Bree was lying on the sofa, reading a handsome leather-bound edition of Wuthering Heights.

  “Wuthering Heights?” I said, raising an eyebrow.

  “Perfect weather for it,” she said, pointing a stockinged foot at the rain-washed windows. “I borrowed it from the hotel’s library. I started reading it to Bess, but she dozed off before I finished the first page, so I moved her to the cot in your room and carried on without her.” She laid the book aside and stood. “I’ll try Jane Austen next. I don’t think Bess is a Brontë fan.”

  “Maybe not,” I said, “but she’s a big fan of afternoon naps. Thanks for taking such good care of her—and for introducing her to a classic.”

  “Maybe she’ll grow into it,” said Bree.

  I dropped my dripping shoulder bag on the coffee table and passed the sopping shopping bag to Bree, saying, “Almonds, cashews, raisins, banana chips, a variety of chocolate bars—which must never cross Bess’s lips—and a violet umbrella to match your clogs. Would you mind ordering a fresh pot of tea while I change? I feel as if I just crawled through a car wash.”