Aunt Dimity: Snowbound

by Nancy Atherton

  “Bravo.” Bill raised his glass to me. “To the great explorer. May your hiking boots never grow heavier.”

  I laughed and touched my glass to his. I was confident, now, that my day on the trail would be as enjoyable as everyone else expected it to be.

  True to her word, Emma turned up at the crack of dawn to drive me to the trailhead. Morning was my least perky time of day, so I ignored the twisting, turning route she selected to reach our destination and granted myself the gift of an extra forty winks. Emma nudged me awake when we arrived.

  “I don’t know how you can sleep on such a beautiful day,” she scolded. “You’re a sad case.”

  “Tragic,” I agreed, stifling a yawn.

  “Look, Lori, I don’t mean to browbeat you,” said Emma. “If you don’t feel up to tackling—”

  “I’ll be fine,” I broke in, turning to lift my pack from the backseat.

  “If you say so.” Emma eyed me doubtfully. “But for heaven’s sake, stick to the path. I’ll be waiting for you when you reach the other end.”

  I got out of the car, waved until Emma had driven out of sight, then turned in a slow circle to take stock of the day.

  It was beautiful. The morning air was crisp but not frigid, with the merest hint of a rising breeze to ruffle the short dark curls that had escaped my stocking cap. A ragged veil of high clouds hung across the sparkling blue sky, and the only sound to be heard was the dry rustle of dead leaves clinging to the winter-bare branches of the surrounding trees.

  A few yards away and slightly to my right, a tall wooden post marked with a painted arrow indicated the trailhead. I could see from where I stood that I’d have to clamber over a stile to reach the actual trail, but I didn’t mind a bit of clambering. The crisp air had banished my drowsiness. I felt alert, alive, and ready for anything.

  “Emma would be pleased,” I declared. “Her walking cure seems to be working already—and I haven’t even taken a step.” Grinning, I slung my pack’s padded straps comfortably over my shoulders, shoved my woolly gloves into my pocket, and unzipped my lightweight down jacket. The weather was so mild that my cream-colored cotton sweater and blue jeans would provide ample warmth once I started walking.

  “Hang on tight, Reg,” I said, reaching up to touch my bunny’s ears. “A stile awaits.”

  I hiked for three hours without stopping. The trail skirted the edge of several disappointingly lambless fields before descending gradually into a densely wooded valley. As I left the neatly hedgerowed pastures behind, I reflected with pleasure on the general tidiness of the English countryside.

  Every square inch of Cotswolds soil had, at one time or another over the past few thousand years, been plowed by farmers, grazed by sheep, or rearranged en masse by power-crazed landscape architects. The result was a civilized countryside, a countryside that soothed, and while some might find it tediously tame, I found it reassuring. There were those who enjoyed teetering on the brink of fathomless chasms while fending off hoards of grizzlies, and then there were the rest of us. I had no desire to hack a path through dark, undiscovered jungles. I preferred to walk where generations had walked before, and where the likelihood of running into large carnivorous creatures was relatively remote. Well-trodden paths allowed me the luxury of daydreaming.

  Daydreaming, alas, is not a sound aid to navigation. A familiar sense of chagrin crept over me when I paused to glance at Emma’s map and realized that, thanks to the travelers’ curse—and, perhaps, to my own inattentiveness— I’d missed the unmissable turning. Instead of going left and climbing back out of the valley, I’d gone straight and hiked all the way down to the valley floor.

  I should have swung around and retraced my steps right then and there, but I was seized by a desire for adventure—and secure in the knowledge that I had a cell phone handy—so I strode on, savoring the thump of my boots on the hard ground, the silence of the sleeping trees, and the occasional glimpse of a bird who’d forgotten to fly south for the winter. I was so absorbed in the sheer physical exhilaration of walking that I failed to notice the storm clouds gathering overhead. It wasn’t until a downy flake brushed my cheek that I became aware of others drifting like thistledown from a sky that had turned leaden.

  “So much for Emma’s forecasting skills,” I grumbled, stopping to tuck Reginald safely inside my pack. “You want to know why it hasn’t snowed since December, Reg? Because I haven’t been hiking!” Reginald’s black button eyes gleamed sympathetically as I drew the pack’s flap over his ears. “Ah, well,” I added, reshouldering my pack, “maybe it’ll blow over.”

  As I uttered the word blow a gust of wind buffeted the trees. Chuckling grimly at Mother Nature’s little joke, I zipped my jacket and turned to climb out of the valley, hoping against hope that I’d find my way back to the proper trail before her mood turned ugly.

  The blizzard hit about ten minutes later. It seemed to come from everywhere at once, barreling through the valley like a whirling avalanche, turning the nearest trees into faint gray smudges, and burying the path in a rapidly thickening layer of snow. A vicious wind lanced through my jeans, and bitter, swirling flurries stung my face. I was deafened by the wind’s howl, blinded by the biting snow, and utterly alone. There was no point in putting out an SOS to Bill—what would I tell him? “I don’t know where I am but come and get me”? So I put on my woolly gloves and forged ahead.

  I’d forged no more than fifty yards when a snow-covered tree root tripped me up and sent me slithering down a short but knobbly bank and into a slimy, snow-soaked pile of last year’s leaves. Bruised, winded, and very much annoyed, I rolled onto my knees and found that I’d landed within arm’s reach of an imposing, ivy-clad stone gatepost. It was one of a pair that stood on either side of what appeared to be a narrow lane. As I scrambled to my feet the wind snatched at the ivy, revealing a darker square against the pale Cotswolds stone. I stepped forward, pushed the brittle leaves aside, and saw two words inscribed on a bronze plaque.

  “Ladythorne Abbey,” I whispered, and thanked my lucky stars.

  I’d seen the words before, on Emma’s map. They’d been printed in miniscule letters, suggesting that Ladythorne Abbey was nothing more than an abandoned ruin, but even a ruin would provide some shelter from the storm. More important, it would give me a point of reference I could pass along to Bill via the cell phone.

  Heartened by visions of my gallant husband riding our canary-yellow Range Rover to my rescue, I put my head down and turned up the lane toward Ladythorne Abbey.

  Three

  I made good speed up the lane. It was easy to follow, straight and level, with steep banks on either side, and the ferocious wind helped, too, pushing at my back like a giant hand, as if eager to hurry me on my way. Nevertheless, the snow was shin-deep and rising by the time I spied the ghostly outline of a building dead ahead.

  Ladythorne Abbey didn’t seem to be a ruin. As I slogged forward, I caught snow-veiled glimpses of a long, low-lying building made of pale gray stone and set about with quirky bays, mullioned windows, and oddly angled roofs. A slender bell tower rose from one end of the building, a colonnaded cloister extended from the other, and in the center I saw a sweep of stairs leading to an entryway framed by Gothic arches. The staircase was covered with a pristine blanket of snow.

  The abbey looked as if it had grown in stages over centuries, collecting bits and pieces by whim instead of following the dictates of a master plan. I suspected that it was one of the monastic properties that had been confiscated by Henry VIII and bestowed upon a worthy supporter in the sixteenth century. The cloister in particular seemed the perfect setting for a procession of medieval meditating monks. If I hadn’t been so cold and wet and miserable, I would have taken a leisurely stroll around the place to explore its nooks and crannies.

  But I was cold and wet, and becoming more miserable by the second, so I decided to postpone the leisurely stroll and concentrate instead on finding a way to get inside, out of the storm. I’d stumbled a ha
lf step toward the snow-covered stairs when I saw a splash of red in the cloister. It was the first drop of color I’d seen since the blizzard had begun—and it was moving.

  “Hey!” I shouted, turning toward the cloister. “Hey! Wait up!”

  The red blur came to a halt. As I drew closer I saw a shapeless figure carrying a full-sized backpack. The backpack was made of a brilliant red fabric bordered by an unusual pattern of writhing black flames. The strangely sinister fabric seemed more suited to a biker than a hiker, but the rest of the backpacker’s gear was conventional enough: heavy boots, bulky gray parka, baggy weatherproof trousers, black balaclava, and wraparound sunglasses. The backpacker was so well bundled against the cold that even at close range I couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman. Only the tip of his or her nose was visible between the sunglasses and the balaclava. I identified deeply with the exposed nose; it was nearly as red as the backpack.

  “Hi,” I said cheerfully, as I stepped into the cloister. “Lovely weather we’re having, isn’t it?”

  “Lovely,” the backpacker agreed in a muffled voice. “Do you live here?”

  “No,” I said. “I was kind of hoping you did.”

  “No.” The backpacker began walking toward the back of the house. “Thought I’d look for a rear entrance.”

  “Have you tried the front door?” I asked.

  “No one answered,” said the backpacker. “Come on.”

  “I’m coming,” I said, and as my new companion plowed a path through the snow for me to follow, I wondered fleetingly how he or she had approached the front door without leaving tracks in the staircase’s smooth blanket of snow.

  The cloistered walkway opened onto a cobbled courtyard enclosed by various outbuildings that seemed to be sinking rapidly beneath the rising drifts. The backpacker ignored the outbuildings and headed directly for a plain wooden door set in a section of the main house that projected into the courtyard. When we reached the door, I grasped the handle eagerly, but it refused to budge.

  “Locked,” I muttered.

  “We’ll see about that.”

  I stood back and watched with growing astonishment as the backpacker reached into a side pocket of the flaming red backpack, produced a short-handled pry bar, and inserted it between the door and the jamb.

  “What are you doing?” I said, taken aback. “You’ll damage the door, won’t you?”

  “Would you prefer to stay out here?” my fearless leader retorted.

  “B-but . . . what if someone’s home?” I sputtered.

  “We’ll advise them to answer their front door next time.” With an excruciating crunch, the wooden door’s lock gave way, and the backpacker strode inside.

  I glanced over my shoulder, half expecting a police constable to leap from a snowdrift and arrest us for breaking and entering, then chided myself for being such a ninny and stepped across the threshold. If I did end up in court, I reasoned, my lawyer husband could surely make a case for extenuating circumstances.

  I closed the courtyard door behind me and paused to savor the sensation of having five inches of solid oak between me and the biting wind. As I wiped icy droplets from my face, however, I realized that I could still see my breath. Ladythorne Abbey’s current owner clearly wasn’t wasting money on heating bills.

  Not that I blamed him; it would have cost a fortune to heat the room we’d broken into. It was a kitchen, a huge kitchen with a vaulted ceiling, six pointy-arched Gothic windows, a polished, black-and-white-tile floor, and connecting doors piercing each wall.

  A great stone trough of a sink built on brick legs rested beneath the Gothic windows, with a stone draining board at one end, a wooden plate-drying rack at the other, and in between a pair of antiquated porcelain taps and a grid of copper pipes running its length. I tried the taps and breathed a sigh of relief when water splashed into the sink—cold water only, but cold running water was better than none at all.

  Two vast dressers faced one another across the room, one painted white and laden with crockery, the other painted brown and filled with beaten copper pots, pans, and various large cooking utensils. A sturdy oak table, scarred with use and big enough to seat ten, occupied the center of the room, and the far wall held an elaborate black-leaded Victorian range set into a whitewashed chimney breast.

  A simple brass chandelier hung from the ceiling and brass light fixtures protruded from the walls, but when I flicked the light switches beside the courtyard door, nothing happened.

  “Storm must’ve taken out the electricity,” I said, brushing the snow from my jeans. “I’m Lori Shepherd, by the way.”

  “Wendy Walker,” said the backpacker.

  While I concentrated on snow-removal, Wendy slipped her backpack from her shoulders and leaned it against the white dresser. She wisely kept her parka on, but removed her sunglasses, revealing a pair of blue-gray eyes beneath a fringe of fluffy gray bangs. When she pulled the balaclava from her head, she loosed a waist-length cloud of gray hair that framed a round, wind-reddened face. She looked as if she might be a few years older than me, in her late thirties or early forties.

  “I’m incredibly pleased to meet you, Wendy,” I said effusively. “I wasn’t looking forward to weathering the storm on my own.”

  “It wouldn’t have been much fun.” Wendy tucked the pry bar, sunglasses, and balaclava into her pack, twisted her long hair into a knot at the nape of her neck, and began moving from door to door, surveying the rooms that opened off of the kitchen. When she reached the first door she asked, over her shoulder, “Are you from the States?”

  “Yep.” I took off my day pack and placed it on the oak table. “I was born and raised in Chicago, but I’ve lived in England for the past six years. You?”

  “Long Island, New York.” She peered into what appeared to be a darkened corridor, closed the door, and moved on to the next. “Do you live near here?”

  I had no clear memory of the route Emma had taken, so I answered as best I could. “I live near a small village about”—I picked a number at random—“twenty miles from here. I’ve never been to Ladythorne before, though. I didn’t even know it existed, not as a complete house. I thought it was a ruin.”

  “That’s what it looks like on the map,” said Wendy. “But maps can be misleading.”

  “Did you get lost, too?” I asked.

  “The storm threw me off course,” Wendy replied.

  “Me, too,” I said, half-truthfully. “Lucky for me that your backpack’s so . . . bright. I might not have spotted you otherwise. I’ve never seen one like it.”

  “I made it.” Wendy shrugged. “I made the pack, anyway. I bought the frame from a mail-order house.”

  “Ah,” I said, rubbing my hands together for warmth, “a hard-core hiker. Are you doing one of the long-distance trails?” I’d learned from Emma’s map collection that England was crisscrossed by a trail system that made it possible to walk the entire length and breadth of the island.

  “I was, until I got turned around.” Wendy opened the door nearest the Victorian range, poked her head inside, and pulled a small flashlight from her pocket, murmuring, “The twenty-first century intrudes.”

  “Does it?” I asked.

  “Come and see,” she said, and stepped through the doorway.

  I joined her in what turned out to be a second kitchen. It was much smaller than the one we’d left, and its furnishings were distinctly non-Victorian. Wendy’s flashlight revealed sleek teak cabinetry, polished granite countertops, two microwaves, a marble-topped island, a stainless-steel refrigerator, floor-to-ceiling steel shelves filled with small appliances, and a butter-yellow Aga gas oven.

  “I’ll bet this is where they do the real cooking,” I said. “They must have preserved the other kitchen as a sort of historical showpiece.”

  Wendy moved along the counters, opening one cabinet after another, then peered into the refrigerator.

  “If this is where they do the real cooking, then they must be on a strict die
t,” she commented, “because the cupboards are bare.” She sighed and raised a gloved hand to warm her nose. “I don’t know about you, but I could use a cup of tea.”

  “I’d settle for a cup of hot water,” I said, and touched the Aga cooker. It was cold. “The gas must be turned off. And the microwaves won’t work because the electricity is out.”

  “Looks like we’ll have to rely on historical technology,” Wendy said as she headed back into the big kitchen.

  I trotted after her, asking, “Are you going to try the range? It looks like it’s a hundred years old. Do you know how it works?”

  “Not yet.” Wendy lifted an empty coal scuttle from the whitewashed hearth, pointed to an oversized teakettle sitting on the range, and strode toward the darkened corridor. “You fill the kettle, I’ll find the coal.”

  I did as I was told, humbled by her air of confident competence. The complicated range overawed me, but I was pretty sure I could handle a pair of spigots.

  I was still filling the kettle when Wendy returned with a full scuttle and began shoveling coal into the range’s vintage gullet.

  “The coal hole’s next to the boiler room,” she told me. “The corridor’s lined with service rooms and leads to the main part of the house. I don’t think anyone’s here but us.”

  I agreed. Since the Aga was cold, the kitchen freezing, and the hot running water nonexistent, I suspected that Ladythorne’s owner was not currently in residence. I turned the water off, hauled the heavy kettle to the range, and watched while Wendy fiddled with tinder, flues, and matches. In no time at all, the range began to give off a faint whisper of blessed warmth.

  “I am more impressed than I can possibly say,” I declared, holding my hands over the range.

  Wendy glanced at my lightweight down jacket. “You’re a little underdressed for the weather, aren’t you?”