Aunt Dimity Takes a Holiday

by Nancy Atherton

  “You know how obsessive Derek is about fixing things,” Emma said morosely. “Someone will point out a loose shingle, Derek will climb up to nail it in place, and, whoops, there goes the ladder.” She turned to me. “If you come with me, we’ll be able to keep an eye on him at all times.”

  “Does Derek know you’re worried about him?” I asked.

  “He thinks I’m being melodramatic,” said Emma. “And paranoid. And basically silly. That’s why I don’t want you to mention it to Bill. I don’t want the two of them to start poking fun at me.”

  “Have you talked it over with Nicholas?” Nicholas Fox was a police detective on medical leave who was staying at the Harrises’ manor house.

  “Nicholas needs peace and quiet,” said Emma, shaking her head. “I don’t want him fretting about Derek.”

  “What about Kit?” I suggested. “He won’t accuse you of being silly.”

  Kit Smith lived at Anscombe Manor, too, in a private flat overlooking the stable yard. He was the Harrises’ stable master, one of my dearest friends, and the single most selfless soul I’d ever met. If anyone would help Emma in her hour of need, it would be Kit.

  “I haven’t spoken with Kit,” Emma said carefully. “He might volunteer to accompany us to Hailesham and I don’t think that would be a good idea. Do you?”

  “Not if Nell’s there,” I said.

  “Nell will be there,” Emma said quietly. “She’s flying in from Paris to attend the family meeting.”

  Emma didn’t need to explain further. I was fully aware of the trouble Nell Harris had caused when she’d bombarded Kit Smith with love letters the previous winter. The poor man had done everything he could to discourage her amorous attentions, pointing out that he was twice her age and therefore quite unsuitable, but Nell had pursued him relentlessly. We’d been relieved when she’d gone off to spend the summer with her grandfather, and delighted by her unexpected decision to spend a year at the Sorbonne.

  Kit hadn’t heard from Nell since she’d left. I hoped that absence had failed to make Nell’s heart grow fonder, but I also agreed with Emma: It would be tempting fate to take Kit to Hailesham Park while Nell was there.

  “Well,” I said, “I guess that leaves me.”

  Emma peered at me hopefully. “You’ll come?”

  “I haven’t left the cottage since we got back from the States in April. I could do with a holiday.” I nodded decisively. “Count me in.”

  “Thanks so much, Lori. Maybe I am being silly, but if not . . .” Emma smiled briefly, but there was a worried frown behind the smile. “I may not want to be a viscountess, but I don’t want to be a widow even more.”

  Derek a rebel, Lady Nell a lowly honorable, and Emma a viscountess—I thought the surprises were over for the day, but Bill had saved a final one for after dinner.

  The dishes had been washed, the boys had been put to bed, and Annelise had retired early to her room to recover from train lag. Bill and I were alone at last, entwined upon the sofa, bathed in the fire’s rosy glow, contented, serene, and almost ready to crawl upstairs to bed. The time seemed ripe to broach the subject of my trip to Hailesham Park.

  Since Emma had asked me to keep her fears to myself, I focused instead on her need for moral support and my own excitement at the prospect of roving unhindered through the private precincts of Lord Elstyn’s grand estate. When I’d finished spinning my tale, Bill favored me with a quizzical smile.

  “You can go with Derek and Emma if you like,” he said, “but I’d rather you come with me.”

  “Where are you going?” I asked.

  “To Hailesham,” he replied.

  I lifted my head from his chest and peered up at him. “Since when are you going to Hailesham?”

  “I planned to tell you about it this evening,” Bill explained. “Lord Elstyn has invited us both to Hailesham, to attend the family meeting.”

  “Why would he invite us?” I said, taken aback.

  My husband’s velvety brown eyes grew suspiciously round and innocent. “Didn’t I say? I’m one of Lord Elstyn’s attorneys. He wants me to be on hand while he takes care of some family business. It’ll be a working holiday for me, but I thought you might like to come along.”

  “You thought . . .” I unentwined myself from Bill and slid to the far end of the sofa. “How long have you been Lord Elstyn’s attorney?”

  Bill cleared his throat and carefully avoided my eyes. “The earl’s involvement in various financial concerns in the United States made it advisable for him to retain me as his legal counsel approximately three months ago.”

  “You’re talking like a lawyer, Bill.”

  “I am a lawyer, Lori.”

  We stared at each other across a sofa that seemed to lengthen by the minute. My husband was, in fact, the head of the European branch of Willis & Willis, his family’s venerable law firm. I should have been proud of him for nabbing such a prestigious client. Instead I felt a prickle of resentment.

  “You’ve known about Derek for three months and never breathed a word to me?” I said.

  “I couldn’t,” said Bill. “Lord Elstyn’s business requires complete confidentiality.”

  I eyed him reproachfully but gave a reluctant nod of understanding. My husband was paid big bucks to keep his mouth shut. It was unfair of me to expect him to divulge his clients’ secrets, even when they concerned our closest friends in England.

  “I’ve never been to Hailesham Park,” Bill said by way of a peace offering. “I’ve never set foot in Hailesham House.”

  I looked at him, puzzled. “Then where . . . ?”

  “The London office,” said Bill. “And I’ve only met Lord Elstyn in person twice. He prefers to work through intermediaries.”

  Mollified, I asked, “Does he look like Derek?”

  “Come with me to Hailesham and find out.” Bill opened his arms.

  “Oh, Bill, of course I’m coming with you.” Sighing deeply, I slid over and curled close to him again. “But I have to tell you: There are times when I absolutely hate attorney-client privilege.”

  Bill wrapped his arms around me. “Sometimes I hate it, too, love.”

  I rested my head upon his chest and gazed into the glowing embers. However glad I was that the evening’s conversation had ended amicably, I was gladder still that I’d kept my promise to Emma. Our loving husbands had been keeping one too many secrets from us lately. It seemed only fair that we keep a few from them.

  Besides, I didn’t need Bill’s help to protect Derek. As a mother of twin boys I’d developed a preternatural awareness of danger. I could spot a broken bottle at forty paces. I could smell a smoldering cigarette butt a mile away. I’d stared down growling dogs, hissing geese, and closet monsters. I was more than capable of handling whatever the Elstyn clan might throw at Derek.

  It wasn’t the danger that unnerved me so much as the dress code. Unlike Bill, who’d been born with silver spoons spilling out of his mouth, I wasn’t used to hobnobbing with the gentry. As I lay cuddled against my husband, I began to wonder if Emma had invited me along as a guarantee that she wouldn’t be alone in making a fool of herself.

  Would we be expected to dress for dinner? I wondered. If so, what kind of dress would be appropriate? I was in no mood to ask Bill for advice, but I knew someone else I could turn to. I waited until Bill’s steady breathing told me he’d fallen asleep, then disengaged myself from his arms and headed for the study.

  Three

  I hadn’t always lived a life of leisure in the English countryside. While my husband had grown up in a mansion filled with servants, I’d been raised by my widowed mother in a modest apartment building in a working-class Chicago neighborhood.

  We weren’t poor because my mother worked long and hard to keep our heads above water. There must have been days when she wanted to chuck her job and run away with the circus, but she never did. Her devotion to me enabled her to stay the course, as did her friendship with an Englishwoman named Dimity Westwo
od.

  My mother and Dimity met in London while serving their respective countries during the Second World War. The two women became fast friends while the blitz was raging, and they wrote letters to each other for the rest of their lives. Their transatlantic correspondence was a refuge to which my mother could retreat when the world around her became too dreary or too burdensome to bear.

  My mother was very protective of her refuge. Instead of telling me about her friend directly, she introduced me to her obliquely, as a character in a series of bedtime stories. The redoubtable Aunt Dimity was as familiar to me as Sleeping Beauty was to other children, but I knew nothing of Dimity Westwood until after both she and my mother had died.

  It was then that the real-life Dimity became my benefactress, bequeathing to me a comfortable fortune, a honey-colored cottage in the Cotswolds, and a journal bound in dark blue leather. The money was a lifesaver and the cottage a dream come true, but the journal was Dimity’s greatest gift to me, for in it she’d left something of herself.

  Literally.

  Whenever I opened the blue journal, its blank pages came alive with Dimity’s handwriting, a graceful copperplate taught in the village school at a time when horse-drawn plows outnumbered tractors. I’d been scared spitless the first time Dimity had greeted me from beyond the grave, but fear had long since given way to gratitude. I simply couldn’t imagine life without my good and trusted, if not entirely corporeal, friend.

  I closed the study door, turned on the mantelpiece lamps, took the blue journal from its niche on the bookshelves, and curled comfortably in one of the pair of leather armchairs that sat before the hearth.

  “Dimity?” I said, opening the journal. “Got a minute?” I glanced briefly at the door, then smiled down at the journal as Dimity’s words began to unfurl across the page.

  I have several, as it happens, each of which is at your disposal.

  “Great,” I said, “because I’ve got the most astonishing news to tell you. Derek Harris is a viscount.”

  Ah. There was a pause before Dimity added, Is that the astonishing news?

  “Well . . . yes,” I said, deflated. I’d expected at least one or two exclamation points.

  I’m sorry, my dear, but I can’t pretend to be too terribly astonished. I’ve been acquainted with Derek’s father for many years, you see. I’m well aware of Derek’s position among the Elstyns.

  I suppressed a soft groan of frustration. “Am I the only person in the cottage who didn’t know that Derek was a big-shot aristocrat?”

  I doubt that Will and Rob are aware of Derek’s title.

  “I wouldn’t be so sure,” I said. “Bill probably confided in them three months ago. That’s when he became Lord Elstyn’s lawyer.”

  How interesting. Edwin’s American investments must be doing well if he requires the services of Willis & Willis.

  “Edwin?” I said, blinking. “You were on a first-name basis with Lord Elstyn?”

  Indeed I was. Edwin made several generous donations to the Westwood Trust. If you look in the archives, you’ll find his name on many donors’ lists.

  The Westwood Trust was an umbrella organization for a number of charities that had been close to Dimity’s heart. As its titular head, I sat in on board meetings and planning sessions, but it had never occurred to me to go rooting around in its archives.

  “Lord Elstyn may have been generous to the trust,” I allowed, “but his idea of charity isn’t the kind that begins at home. Emma told me he’s been pretty hard on Derek.”

  The two men have always been hard on each other. Edwin was furious with Derek for rejecting a career in politics or finance, and Derek was furious with Edwin for disparaging his passion for restoration work. Both were too stiff-necked to attempt a compromise, and the result was an unfortunate estrangement.

  “What about Derek’s first wife?” I asked. “Lord Elstyn looked down his nose at her, didn’t he?”

  If one’s son is to inherit a vast and complex family fortune, one naturally wishes for a suitable daughter-in-law. Edwin considered Mary to be most unsuitable.

  I bristled. “Because she was a commoner, like me?”

  Mary wasn’t remotely like you, Lori. She was sweet and helpless and altogether incapable of running such a demanding household. Edwin was not entirely wrong to assume that she would have been lost as mistress of Hailesham Park.

  I was a bit put out by Dimity’s suggestion that I lacked sweetness but had to agree with her about running a place like Hailesham. I found it challenging enough to keep the cottage neat and tidy. It would be a thousand times more difficult to manage a large estate.

  “Maybe Derek chose his wife with his heart instead of his head,” I said. “It may not have been the practical thing to do, but since when does love have anything to do with practicality?”

  Love has, alas, always been less important to Edwin than duty. He married for practical reasons and could not understand his son’s refusal to do as he had done.

  “It sounds as if Derek hasn’t done anything his father wanted him to do,” I commented. “Until now, that is. Emma came over today to tell me that Derek’s accepted the earl’s invitation to attend a family reunion at Hailesham Park. Derek’s going home for the first time in twenty years, and he’s taking Emma with him. How’s that for astonishing?”

  Nothing could be more predictable. Derek’s approaching his midforties, Lori. One’s perceptions change when one reaches middle age, especially when one has a son of one’s own. Will Peter be at Hailesham?

  “I don’t think so.” Last I’d heard, Derek’s twenty-year-old son was studying whales off the coast of New Zealand. “He’s on a research ship somewhere in the South Pacific. I doubt that he’ll be able to get back in time to attend the earl’s powwow.”

  His absence may explain Derek’s decision to return home. Peter will one day inherit Hailesham Park—and all that comes with it—from his father. Derek might willingly forgo his own inheritance, but he won’t jeopardize Peter’s. It seems likely that Derek is returning to Hailesham in order to protect his son’s claims.

  “Do you think someone might challenge him?” I asked.

  It’s possible. Derek has exiled himself from his family for the past twenty years. There may be those who question his right to don his father’s mantle after such a lengthy and self-imposed absence.

  I leaned closer to the journal and said, in a confidential murmur, “Do you think there might be . . . violence?”

  What a perfectly preposterous suggestion. Honestly, Lori, you must learn to control your penchant for melodrama.

  “It wasn’t my idea,” I protested. “It’s Emma’s. She’s afraid someone might try to murder Derek.”

  Emma is clearly having trouble adjusting to her new role as viscountess. Please remind her that we are no longer living in the fifteenth century. Poison-filled rings have gone out of style, even in the most aristocratic circles.

  I sat back, feeling vaguely disappointed. I’d rather enjoyed the air of intrigue Emma’s suspicions had lent the trip.

  “Someone might try to fake an accident,” I suggested.

  And someone might challenge Derek to a duel at dawn, but I think it highly unlikely, don’t you?

  I was beginning to understand why Emma had been reluctant to broadcast her concerns to the men. Dimity’s mild sarcasm was bad enough. Our husbands’ combined mockery would have been unbearable.

  “I suppose you’re right,” I mumbled, and moved on to another subject. “Bill and I are going to Hailesham, too. Bill’s going as Lord Elstyn’s lawyer and I’m tagging along as the lawyer’s wife.” I hesitated. “I was kind of hoping you’d join us.”

  I’d be delighted. I haven’t visited Hailesham Park in donkey’s years. I could do with a holiday.

  “It’ll be a working holiday,” I warned. “I’ll need your advice on which fork to use and when to curtsy and what to wear to dinner.”

  Curtsies are reserved for the Royal Family nowadays, b
ut I’ll be more than happy to draw labeled diagrams of typical place settings. As to what to wear . . . Oh, this shall be fun!

  Emma had expended too much shocked indignation on her own husband to have much left for mine. When I told her that Bill had been secretly employed by her father-in-law for the past three months, she sighed wearily and said, “I’m tired of boys’ games. Let’s go shopping.” We spent the next week buying clothes.

  Emma hadn’t replenished her wardrobe since she’d dumped her excess poundage, so our shopping spree was more enjoyable than either of us expected it to be. We purchased riding outfits and hiking gear, were measured for tea gowns and dinner dresses, and selected—at Dimity’s insistence—the sort of nightclothes that could be worn while searching chilly corridors for distant bathrooms.

  Then came the hunt for shoes to go with each outfit, bags to go with the shoes, and a few simple pieces of jewelry to add sparkle to our ensemble. When Bill asked about our extended shopping trips, I explained to him what Dimity had explained to me: Five days in a country house was equivalent to six months in a foreign country. One had to be prepared for anything.

  I made no attempt to tame my unruly curls, knowing that they’d refuse to cooperate in any case, but Emma had her gray-blond hair styled in a becoming bob. The new haircut seemed to bolster her self-confidence. By the time we left the salon, she’d stopped scolding me for addressing her as Viscountess.

  As I surveyed my new finery, I took particular pleasure in a slinky black number I’d found at Nanny Cole’s Boutique in London. It fit me like a glove and would, I knew, knock Bill’s eyes right out of their sockets. When I thought of what else it would do to him, I realized that it was an extremely selfish purchase.

  I hadn’t felt like such a girly-girl in years and I reveled in every giddy minute. It took me half a day to pack my new clothes—in tissue paper, as Dimity suggested—and I finished by tucking Reginald into my shoulder bag. Reginald was a small, powder-pink stuffed rabbit who’d been with me since childhood, and a powder-pink rabbit was, in my opinion, the perfect complement to a girly-girl’s wardrobe.