Aunt Dimity and the Lost Prince

by Nancy Atherton

  I gazed into the fire and thought about the houses Bree and I had visited and the women with whom we’d spoken and it slowly dawned on me that the homes and their inhabitants had one thing in common: too much space between them.

  “It’s the way they live,” I said in reply to Aunt Dimity’s question. “They use the word ‘neighbor’ and they refer to ‘the neighborhood,’ but they’re not what I’d call neighborly, not like we are in Finch. It’s as if their homes are islands separated by vast tracts of ocean. They see one another as tiny dots on the horizon, if they bother to look at all, which most of them don’t. I’ll bet they don’t know one tenth as much about their neighbors as I know about mine.”

  They don’t have Peggy Taxman working at their post office. She’d put an end to their ignorance.

  “It’s a pity she can’t,” I said, “because if these women had known each other—really known each other, the way I know Sally Pyne and Christine Peacock and Miranda Morrow and the rest of the villagers—they would have recognized the characters in Daisy’s stories. And if they’d recognized her characters, they might have believed her when she told them about Mikhail.”

  Perhaps Daisy didn’t intend to return the silver sleigh to Mikhail after all. Perhaps she intended to show it to one of her listeners as proof of her veracity.

  “Bree had the same thought,” I said. “Which is why I’m taking the sleigh with me to Tappan Hall tomorrow. I’ll wave it under Lady Barbara Booker’s nose if I have to. I need her to remember whatever she can about her Russian playmate.”

  I hope, I truly hope, that Lady Barbara’s recollections will lead you to Mikhail.

  “I’ll settle for her being well enough to talk to us,” I said. “We’ll see where we go from there.” I yawned, rubbed my eyes, and leaned my chin on my hand. “Bree experienced a moment of doubt after we left Shangri-la this afternoon, but I told her in no uncertain terms that if Mikhail can be found, we’ll find him.”

  You’re still your mother’s bullheaded baby girl, Lori. Your obstinacy isn’t always one of your more endearing features, but in this particular case, it’s a definite asset. Now, run along to bed, my dear, before you fall asleep in your chair.

  “Good night, Dimity,” I said, smiling.

  Good night. And good luck with Lady Barbara!

  Twenty

  The sky was clear, the temperature moderate, and the wind nonexistent when we rose on Saturday morning. Bree and I delivered Will and Rob to the stables after breakfast for an entire day of horsey fun, then took off for Tappan Hall. I was fueled by a flood of optimistic energy, but Bree looked as though she could have used a few more hours in the sack.

  “Did you get any sleep last night?” I asked after her fifth yawn had sucked most of the oxygen out of the Range Rover.

  “Not much,” she replied. “I got carried away with my Shangri-la piece. Didn’t turn off the light until after midnight.” She rubbed her nose and peered at me with bleary-eyed curiosity. “Who were you talking to in the study?”

  If I hadn’t had a tight grip on the steering wheel, I would have driven through a hedge. I hadn’t realized that Bree had overheard my conversation with Aunt Dimity and I hadn’t the faintest intention of introducing one houseguest to the other.

  “Reginald,” I said as casually as I could after receiving such a severe shock to my nervous system. “I was talking to Reginald. I like to review the day with him before I turn in for the night.”

  “I do the same thing with Ruru,” said Bree, referring to her owl. “He wasn’t much help last night, though.”

  I made an urgent mental note to speak more softly with Aunt Dimity while Bree was staying at the cottage, then asked, “What conundrum did Ruru fail to solve for you?”

  “It’s a tricky one,” said Bree. “I’ve decided to give the money I earn from my magazine articles to Tiffany Bell. I don’t need it and she does, but I don’t know how to give it to her without offending her.”

  “She might not be offended,” I said. “She might be grateful.”

  “And she might feel like a charity case,” Bree said, frowning. “I keep thinking of the way Mrs. MacTavish sneered at us when she thought we were reporters writing a sensitive article about the deserving poor.” Bree shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “I don’t want Tiff to see me as one of the beastly Bog brigade, doling out alms to the needy while I look down my nose at them.”

  “You couldn’t be a beastly Bog if you tried,” I chided her. “But if you’re worried about hurting Tiffany’s pride, take it slowly. Get to know her better and let her get to know you before you bring up the touchy subject of money.”

  “Take it slowly,” Bree repeated, sounding awed. “What an excellent idea. I would have slept better last night if I’d thought of it myself. Thanks, Lori.”

  “You’re welcome,” I said, struck once again by the strangeness of having a teenager accept my advice. There were days when I didn’t feel much older than Bree and days when I felt much younger, yet she sometimes seemed to regard me as a font of wisdom. Was this what it felt like to be an adult? I wondered. If so, it wasn’t half bad.

  I stopped at the café in Upper Deeping long enough for Bree to pick up a large cup of black coffee to go, then sped out of town and down the motorway. Since we weren’t posing as journalists, freelance or otherwise, we’d dressed for the day as ourselves, in blue jeans, wool sweaters, sturdy shoes, and winter jackets. Bree hadn’t gone so far as to restore her nose ring to its customary place, but her hair was considerably less tidy than it had been the day before.

  My shoulder bag sat in the Rover’s backseat, next to the old day pack Bree used as a purse. We’d left our cameras and tape recorders behind at the cottage, but I’d brought my notebook with me, in case Lady Barbara Booker let slip something worth recording, such as Mikhail’s address, phone number, and the name of the villain who was abusing him. I didn’t hold out much hope for such a windfall, but I would be ready to catch it if it came our way.

  The silver sleigh was nestled in my shoulder bag. Since I’d left it in Bill’s wall safe in the study for most of the week, I’d almost forgotten how heart-stoppingly beautiful it was. I’d taken a moment to reacquaint myself with its exquisitely wrought details before tucking it carefully into my shoulder bag.

  I glanced at Bree as I exited the motorway, saw that the coffee had had its desired effect, and posed a question to her that had crossed my mind as I’d studied the valuable artifact.

  “Why hasn’t Miles Craven raised the alarm about the silver sleigh?” I asked. “He must know it’s missing by now, yet I didn’t see a single word about it in this morning’s paper.”

  “I’ve been asking myself the same question,” said Bree, “and I keep coming up with the same answer: Miles Craven is in cahoots with the dirtbag who nicked the sleigh from Mikhail. Craven doesn’t dare report the theft to the police because they’ll ask awkward questions about the sleigh’s provenance. If they find out how he acquired it, he’ll be in a big bucket of trouble.”

  “The Jephcott Endowment won’t look favorably upon a curator with criminal connections,” I observed. “And once the board of directors gives him the heave-ho, no other museum will touch him. He’ll lose his job, his flat, his reputation, and his freedom, all for the sake of a shiny bauble.”

  “A rare and valuable bauble,” said Bree. “People have broken the law for a lot less.”

  “May he find consolation in the thought while he’s doing time,” I said, adding sardonically, “I may have flushed my life down the toilet, Your Honor, but at least I had the good judgment to steal something worth stealing.”

  Bree laughed, but I heaved a regretful sigh.

  “I wish I didn’t like him so much,” I said. “I’d feel better about blowing the whistle on him if he hadn’t been so nice to me at the museum.”

  “Nice or not,” said Bree, “the whistle shall be blown. If he’s guilty.”

  “If he’s guilty,” I echoed, and as I exited t
he motorway I found myself rooting for Miles Craven’s innocence.

  • • •

  Tappan Hall’s wrought-iron gates were open when we arrived, and the weeds that had sprouted around them suggested that they were seldom closed. The unguarded entrance seemed to reinforce Gracie’s claim that her friend Lady Barbara was less hoity-toity than the Boghwells, though how anyone could be more snobbish than they were was beyond me.

  The drive was well maintained, as were the grounds, but there was a relaxed atmosphere to the estate that appealed to me greatly. The trees and shrubs looked healthy, but natural, and the gently rolling landscape struck a happy balance between the woefully neglected and the fussily manicured.

  The hall itself was unlike any country house Bree and I had visited so far. It wasn’t symmetrical, it didn’t have a rectangular facade, and it wasn’t made of Cotswold stone. Instead, the whole was made up of randomly placed one-, two-, and three-story parts clustered in a half circle around a graveled courtyard. Redbrick walls, copper-clad windows, and steeply pitched red-tile roofs unified the irregular design, and a border of sturdy rhododendrons within the courtyard diluted the overwhelming effect of so much red. Tappan Hall was a tad gloomy, I thought, but nothing about it was too shiny or too decrepit.

  “It doesn’t look very old,” Bree said, eyeing the hall doubtfully. “According to Gracie, Lady Barbara’s family has owned Tappan Hall longer than the Bogs have owned Risingholme, but I don’t see how it can be true. This place looks as though it were built relatively recently.”

  “This Tappan Hall may have replaced an earlier version,” I said. “We can ask Lady Barbara. She’ll know.”

  “She’ll know,” Bree agreed, “but she may not be in a fit state to tell us what she knows.”

  “Let us cross our fingers,” I said, “and hope for the best.”

  I parked the Rover before the rounded redbrick arch that framed the hall’s modest, ground-level main entrance and walked to the door with Bree. A neatly dressed young woman answered my tug on the bellpull and ushered us into a simply furnished foyer. When we asked to see Lady Barbara, the young woman invited us to wait in the foyer while she fetched Lord Ronald.

  “Lord Ronald?” I murmured to Bree while we waited. “Gracie didn’t mention a husband.”

  “Maybe Lord Ronald doesn’t like pool parties,” she suggested.

  The young woman returned a few minutes later, accompanied by a short, pudgy, balding man wearing a beige cardigan, baggy tweed trousers, and horn-rimmed spectacles. He looked as though he might be in his early sixties. Try as I might, I couldn’t picture him lounging beside Gracie’s pink pool any more than I could picture him married to a woman in her nineties. If he was Lady Barbara’s husband, I decided, then she had a taste for toy boys.

  “Thank you, Carly,” the man said to the young woman. “You can go back to work. I’ll take it from here. How do you do?” he said, extending his hand to shake mine, then Bree’s. “I’m Lady Barbara’s great-nephew, Ronald Booker.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Lord Ronald,” said Bree.

  “Mr. Booker, please,” he said, blushing. “Doesn’t seem right to use the title while Auntie Barbara’s still alive. By rights, Tappan Hall should have gone to her, but the entail being what it is, it came to me instead. Friends of my great-aunt’s?” he inquired, peering at us myopically.

  “I’m Lori Shepherd,” I said.

  “And I’m Bree Pym,” said Bree. “Gracie Thames sent us. She thought we’d enjoy meeting your great-aunt.”

  “Ah, Gracie . . .” Lord Ronald bobbed his balding head to demonstrate his recognition of the name. “Splendid woman. Bit overwhelming—all that hair!—but kindhearted. Brings Auntie Barbara chicken soup. Sent you, did she?”

  “Yes,” I said gently. “To meet your great-aunt.”

  “Ah, yes.” Lord Ronald raised a hand to scratch his ear, looking faintly distressed. “Thing is, my great-aunt’s just back from hospital. No visitors allowed. Too stimulating. Not good for her.” He shrugged helplessly. “Doctor’s orders.”

  “We understand,” I said, swallowing my disappointment. “Gracie warned us that your great-aunt might not be able to see us.”

  “Pity,” he said, “but there you are. Come again tomorrow, if you like. Auntie Barbara may feel better by then.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Booker,” I said, “but we’ll wait until Monday to call again. We don’t wish to disturb your great-aunt on a Sunday.”

  “Auntie Barbara won’t mind,” he said matter-of-factly. “Atheist. Doesn’t give two figs about God. Sunday’s like any other day to her.”

  “Even so,” I said, suppressing a smile, “we’ll give your great-aunt an extra day to regain her strength before we call again.”

  “Should be right as rain by Monday,” he said helpfully. “Bounces back, you see. Can you let yourselves out? I should look in on Carly.”

  “We’ll be fine, Mr. Booker,” I assured him. “Thank you for seeing us.”

  “Used to it,” Lord Ronald said resignedly. “Waifs and strays always turning up on the doorstep. Auntie Barbara attracts them. Nice to meet you.”

  He shook our hands again, then left us alone in the foyer. Bree started to laugh as soon as we closed the front door behind us.

  “Waifs and strays?” she said, chortling. “I’ll be the waif if you’ll be the stray.”

  “I like the part about Auntie Barbara being an atheist,” I said, smiling. “It’s not the sort of tidbit I’d expect a man like Ronald Booker to share about his great-aunt.”

  “Ronald’s a corker!” Bree said, happily misquoting Gracie Thames. “Honestly, Lori, it was worth coming to Tappan Hall, just to meet His Lordship.”

  We were halfway to the Range Rover when someone hissed at us. I turned in the direction of the hiss and spied a little old woman peering at us through a gap in the rhododendron hedge. She was wearing a tweed hat with earflaps, a thick woolen dressing gown, and shearling bedroom slippers. Thin, flexible plastic tubes ran from her nostrils to what appeared to be an oxygen tank on wheels. When she saw that she had our attention, she beckoned to us with a skeletal but rapidly waving hand.

  “You, there,” she said in a hoarse whisper. “Come in, will you? I’m bored to tears!”

  Twenty-one

  Bree and I hesitated for less than a nanosecond before plunging into the rhododendrons. The old woman nodded approvingly and led us slowly but steadily toward a pair of French doors, dragging her oxygen tank behind her like a golfer pulling a cart.

  “Have we met?” she asked over her shoulder.

  “No,” I said. “I’m Lori Shepherd.”

  “And I’m Bree Pym,” said Bree.

  “Gracie Thames sent us,” we chorused.

  “Any friend of Gracie’s is a friend of mine,” the woman declared. She panted softly as she spoke and her voice was as rusty as an old hinge, but her words were crisp and clear.

  “Are you Lady Barbara?” I inquired.

  “Barbara or Barb will do,” Lady Barbara replied. “I’ve never been much of a lady.” She paused before the French doors, put a finger to her lips, and said, “No shouting, please. Ronald doesn’t know I’m down here. He thinks I’m upstairs in the well-ventilated, antiseptic chamber of horrors the dimwit doctor created for me, and I’d just as soon keep it that way.”

  “When your great-nephew sees our car,” I said, “he’s bound to wonder where we’ve gone.”

  “Let him wonder,” barked Lady Barbara, opening one of the French doors and waving us in. “It’ll do him good.”

  The room we entered could not be described as well-ventilated or antiseptic. It was stifling hot, thanks to a fire blazing in the redbrick hearth, and furnished with sagging armchairs and dusty oak tables. I was certain it was soundproof as well because no sound short of a cannon’s roar could have penetrated the layers of books that surrounded us. Books were everywhere, jammed two deep onto the shelves that lined the walls from floor to ceiling, heaped haphazardly
on the chairs and tables, and stacked in teetering columns on the floor.

  Lady Barbara threaded her way through the literary forest to four armchairs that occupied a small clearing in front of the hearth. She dropped her tweed hat onto one armchair and settled herself into another, pulling the oxygen tank to one side and draping the plastic tubes carefully over the chair’s fraying arm.

  “Bung your bags and jackets there,” she said, pointing to the chair that held her hat, “and bung your bums anywhere you please.”

  Though no lamps had been lit in the room, I could see her quite clearly by the light of the roaring fire. Her short hair was pure white and appeared to be naturally wavy. Faded freckles covered almost every inch of her wizened face, and though her blue eyes were as faded as her freckles, they were lit by a roguish twinkle. The wavy hair, the freckles, the blue eyes, and the twinkle made me suspect that Lady Barbara had once been a ravishing redhead.

  “I’ve spent the past three months in hospital,” she informed us after we’d seated ourselves in the sagging armchairs facing hers. “They let me come home last week, at my insistence, but while I was away my idiot great-nephew allowed my idiot physician to turn my bedroom into a hospital ward.” She paused to catch her breath. “No fires, because ash irritates my airways. No books, because dust irritates my airways.” She set her jaw mulishly. “What’s the point of living if I can’t have fires and books?”

  “I’m sure your great-nephew meant well,” I said.

  “Oh, yes,” Lady Barbara said, her voice heavy with sarcasm, “Ronald always means well. He meant well when he got married, but it didn’t stop his wife from divorcing him. Fortunately, the tart produced a very decent sort of son before she ran off with her chiropractor, so the lawyers won’t have to hunt high and low for the next heir. In case you were wondering, the pretty blonde who answered the door isn’t Ronald’s midlife crisis.”

  “I, uh, wasn’t,” I faltered. “Wondering, that is.”

  “It’s a reasonable thing to wonder,” said Lady Barbara. “Young girl, old codger, country house. They could get up to all sorts of naughtiness, but they don’t. Ronald’s too much of a fuddy-duddy and Carlotta von Streuther—to give Carly her pedigreed name—can’t imagine anyone over the age of thirty engaging in a bit of rumpy-pumpy.”