Aunt Dimity and the Wishing Well

by Nancy Atherton

  “A full fry-up it is, then,” said Bill. “I’ll prop you up on your pillows and you can have breakfast in bed.”

  “I’ll sit at the kitchen table, thank you,” I said. “I didn’t break a leg, Bill. I can manage the stairs.”

  “Okay,” he said brightly. “Let’s see you sit up.”

  I used my right arm to push myself into an upright position, watched the room tilt alarmingly, and slumped back onto my pillows.

  “Breakfast in bed might not be a bad idea,” I conceded.

  I felt steady enough after breakfast to take a shower, get dressed, and descend to the living room under Bill’s close supervision. I stretched out on the couch, but Bill wouldn’t sit still until he’d arranged my medications on the coffee table, placed two pillows at my back, thrown a quilt across my legs, and put a cushion in my lap to elevate my left hand, as per doctor’s orders. He adjusted pillows, quilt, and cushion repeatedly, until they met his specifications for my comfort, then sat in his armchair and stroked Stanley, who’d hopped into his lap.

  “Thanks, dear,” I said. “You can go to the office now.”

  “No, I can’t,” he said, frowning.

  “Yes, you can,” I said. “I promise to take it easy for the rest of the day. I have everything I need down here, so I won’t have to tackle the stairs, and I won’t leave the cottage unless it catches fire. You can bring Will and Rob home from school and I’ll even let you make dinner.”

  “Dinner shouldn’t be too difficult,” he said. “The casserole parade should begin around noon.”

  My neighbors brought casseroles to invalids as well as to those grieving for a lost loved one. They believed—quite soundly, in my opinion—that grief, illness, and injury were equally incapacitating and did what they could to make life easier for the stricken.

  “There you are,” I said. “I won’t have to lift a finger, much less a thumb, for the rest of the day.”

  “Lori,” Bill began, but I cut him off.

  “I’ll go crazy if you sit there and stare at me,” I said. “And I’ll feel terrible if my inability to swing a hammer screws up your work schedule. You have the conference call with your new Polish client this afternoon, don’t you? The call you’ve had to reschedule three times already because of the dotty uncle?”

  “I can reschedule it again,” said Bill.

  “If you do, I’ll feel even worse,” I said. “I’ll come down with a raging fever and my arm will fall off and it’ll be your fault.” I smiled coaxingly. “Go to work, Bill. I promise to behave myself.”

  Bill eyed me doubtfully, but he shifted Stanley from his lap to the floor, stood, and disappeared up the hall. He returned a moment later to place Reginald and the blue journal on the coffee table.

  “Thought I’d save you a trip to the study,” he said.

  “You really are the most perfect of perfect husbands,” I told him.

  “I’ll be gone for a couple of hours, three at the most,” he said sternly. “If I come home and find you doing handsprings—”

  “I’ve sworn off handsprings.” I held up my mini-mummy. “And carpentry.”

  Bill gave a grudging laugh, collected his laptop and his briefcase, kissed me good-bye, and left the cottage. Stanley jumped onto the armchair, snuggled into the indentation Bill had made in the seat cushion, and went to sleep.

  “My husband really is perfect,” I said to Reginald and he didn’t disagree. I reached for the blue journal, propped it in front of my elevated hand, opened it, and said, “Dimity?”

  A short but elegant line of copperplate appeared on the blank page.

  Is it broken?

  “No,” I said. “Just smashed. I can hardly feel it at the moment. I’m on drugs.”

  Drugs have their uses.

  “Now, about yesterday’s news,” I began, but I got no further.

  Conserve your energy, Lori. I’ve had almost twenty-four hours to analyze your semi-incoherent outburst and I believe I understand most of it. I’ll give you my impressions and you can stop me if I go wrong.

  “Fire away,” I said.

  Mr. Barlow didn’t mow the cemetery and he didn’t help you fix the bird tables because he’s been too busy working on the classic cars brought to him by Dabney Holdstrom and Mr. Holdstrom’s friends, classic cars that appear to be related to a wish Mr. Barlow made near the wishing well.

  “Correct,” I said.

  You attempted to repair the bird tables without Mr. Barlow’s help and your attempt ended when you hurt yourself. It could be argued that Mr. Barlow is indirectly responsible for your accident.

  “I blame Dabney Holdstrom,” I said. “His cars lured Mr. Barlow away from his proper jobs.”

  Why didn’t you attend to your thumb immediately? You must have known it was damaged.

  “I meant to put ice on it,” I said, “but I heard Charles and Grant yelling at each other and I had to find out what was going on.”

  Ah, yes, I remember: Charles is mad at Grant and Grant is mad at Charles. I can’t say I’m surprised. Did Charles use the Asazuki painting as an excuse to air an assortment of grievances against Grant?

  “Mostly he accused Grant of taking him for granted,” I said. “Grant aired a few grievances, too, before he drove off in a huff. It was an old-fashioned, no-holds-barred shouting match.”

  Prompted by the masterpiece Charles wished to find.

  “Exactly,” I said.

  Charles used an exquisite work of art as a weapon in a childish argument. It was bound to end in tears. Let us move on to Elspeth’s embarrassment. Jemma is the photographer-niece whose mission it is to photograph Cotswold villagers.

  “She is,” I said.

  Did her manner embarrass Elspeth?

  “She has no manners,” I said. “That’s what embarrassed Elspeth. It’s as if Jemma doesn’t realize she’s photographing real, live human beings. She just barges in and starts snapping away, regardless of whether her subjects wish to be photographed or not.”

  Artists can be self-absorbed.

  “Then Jemma’s a true artist,” I said. “She dumped her gear all over Elspeth’s cottage, refused the cup of tea Elspeth offered her, and offended Elspeth’s friends. If Elspeth hadn’t dragged her away, Opal and Millicent would have made mincemeat of her. I don’t think her kind of creative energy is the kind Elspeth had in mind when she made her wish.”

  Creative energy is not to be taken lightly. It isn’t like fairy dust, gilding all it touches. It’s like a bulldozer, knocking down whatever gets in its way.

  “By now, Elspeth probably agrees with you,” I said.

  I confess that I reached an impasse when I came to “Rick won’t shoot Opal’s marmalades.” Who is Rick and why would Opal want him to shoot her marmalades?

  I spent the next fifteen minutes telling Aunt Dimity the intertwined stories of Peggy, Sally, Henry, Rick, and Opal.

  “In short,” I concluded, “it’s a big mess.”

  Rick’s conflict with Opal seems unremarkable. As he said, an assignment is an assignment. Opal can bark orders at him until she’s blue in the face, but it will make no difference. Rick needs his employer’s permission, not hers, to alter a photo shoot.

  “What about Peggy and Henry, though?” I asked. “Bree’s guesses about them were spot on. No one saw them visit the wishing well, so they must have gone there at night, as Charles did. Peggy’s wish must have been to own the tearoom and Henry’s must have been to take his act on stage again. And their wishes, like everyone else’s, came true.”

  With catastrophic consequences. Sally’s taste of Cozy Cookery fame went straight to her head. Her arrogance goaded Peggy into buying a business she doesn’t need and won’t be able to run. Furthermore, Sally is delusional if she believes that Henry’s comedic gifts will catapult him—and by extension, her—into the stratosphere of stardom.

  “Henry is pretty funny,” I reminded her.

  Henry Cook tells humorous anecdotes in a tearoom. I’m not convinced tha
t he has the drive to claw his way to the top of the entertainment industry. He may have given in to Arty Barnes’s blandishments as a lark, but I doubt very much that he yearns for the high-powered career Sally envisions.

  “He didn’t seem to be as excited as Sally was about the gig at the comedy club,” I said reflectively. “He looked kind of gloomy when she started boasting about his big break.”

  Of course he did. He knows that Peggy’s purchase of the tearoom will end the comfortable life he and Sally have fashioned for themselves in Finch. He also knows that he will be unable to support himself and Sally with his modest talents. He must feel as if his world is caving in on him.

  “He’s not alone,” I said. “Peggy can’t bake and no competent baker will work for her because she’s such a bossy-boots. Once she buys the tearoom, Finch’s supply of jelly doughnuts and custard tarts will dry up. I know of at least two grown men—namely, Derek Harris and my own sweet Bill—who will become extremely cranky without their daily pastry fix.”

  Peggy, too, will become disagreeable when her new venture fails, as it inevitably will.

  “And she’ll take it out on the rest of us,” I said, adding darkly. “The wishing well has a lot to answer for.”

  The wishing well. Yes. It does seem to be at the center of Finch’s recent spate of disasters.

  “People have gotten what they wished for,” I said, “but it hasn’t made all of them happy. Sally’s smugness, Peggy’s lust for power, Elspeth’s naiveté, and Charles’s thirst for revenge made their wishes backfire. Mr. Barlow’s wish hasn’t backfired on him, but it has backfired on the vicar, not to mention my thumb. I suppose my own wish backfired on me. I wished the rain would stop and ended up dehydrated.”

  It’s not hard to understand why so many wishes have failed, Lori. The real mystery is why so many came true in the first place. There’s something unreal about what’s happening in Finch, something contrived, as if a mastermind were at work behind the scenes, as if a puppeteer were pulling the villagers’ strings.

  “He’d have to pull some pretty long strings to control the rain,” I said.

  Let’s set aside the rain for the moment and focus on the more terrestrial wishes. Who could the mastermind be? Jack is the most likely suspect, of course. He discovered the well. He’s allowed all and sundry to visit it. Finch was a relatively peaceful community until he arrived.

  “Jack MacBride? A conniving meddler?” I said, laughing. “Impossible. He was nowhere near the wishing well when the wishes were made.”

  One needn’t be near the well to learn who made which wishes. Remember, Lori, there are no secrets in Finch. I suspect Sally and the others couldn’t keep themselves from divulging their wishes to someone who in turn mentioned them to someone else and so on, until everyone in Finch knew of everyone else’s wishes. The puppeteer could get wind of them quite easily.

  “It still can’t be Jack,” I argued. “It would take someone with power and influence to grant so many wishes. A guy with power and influence doesn’t live out of a backpack. Our puppeteer would also have to know a lot of people—Jemma’s editor, for instance, and Arty Barnes the talent agent—and Jack doesn’t know anyone outside of Finch. How could he? He hasn’t been in England since he was six.”

  Dabney Holdstrom has power, influence, and a wide circle of friends, and his arrival in Finch precipitated a number of unfortunate events. Perhaps he’s pulling the strings.

  “Why would Dabney Holdstrom make the villagers’ wishes come true?” I asked. “Why would he care about them at all?”

  I don’t know, but someone might. It’s time for you to take action, Lori.

  “Is it?” I said weakly. The burst of energy that had brought me downstairs was beginning to dissipate and the painkiller was wearing off. The mere thought of taking any kind of action made my thumb throb. “What did you have in mind?”

  I suggest you start with a bit of investigative work. Look into Dabney Holdstrom’s background. Is he distantly related to someone in Finch? Was a family member evacuated to Finch during the war? Could he feel a debt of gratitude to a villager for a long-forgotten favor? Find out about his connections. Does he know the editor who gave Jemma Renshawe her commission? Does he publish the newsletter through which George Wetherhead found his rare locomotive? Is he familiar with the estate agent who listed the tearoom’s sale? Could he somehow be responsible for sending Peter and Cassie Harris back to Anscombe Manor? Is Arty Barnes really impressed by Henry’s talent or is he acting at the behest of his old friend, Dabney Holdstrom? Get out there, Lori! Ask questions! Collect facts!

  “Okay,” I said meekly. “But may I have a cup of tea first?”

  I don’t expect you to start until you feel up to it, my dear. Pain can be quite exhausting.

  “In that case, I’ll have a cup of tea and a nap,” I said.

  An excellent notion. Sleep is the best medicine. May your nap be undisturbed by tidal waves.

  “Thanks, Dimity,” I said, smiling.

  The curving lines of royal-blue ink faded from the page and I laid my head against the pillows, but before I could close my eyes, the doorbell rang.

  “The casserole parade begins,” I murmured.

  I stashed the blue journal behind my pillows, tucked Reginald beneath the quilt, and thought about standing until a searing pain in my thumb changed my mind.

  Fortunately, Bill was as lax as a villager when it came to locking up.

  “It’s open!” I called. “Come in!”

  Nineteen

  I sat up and peered over the back of the couch, expecting to see Sally Pyne or Peggy Taxman or one of the Handmaidens kick off the casserole parade. Instead, Mr. Barlow shuffled into the room, holding one of the cellophane-wrapped boxes of chocolates Peggy sold at the Emporium.

  To my relief, Mr. Barlow had exchanged his grubby coveralls for a short-sleeved cotton shirt and twill trousers, neither of which reeked of motor oil. His hands and his face were spotless and it looked as though he’d run a wet comb through his short, grizzled hair.

  “’Morning, Lori,” he said, coming around the couch to offer the box to me. “How’re you feeling?”

  “Better than I felt yesterday,” I said. “I always feel better when a gentleman brings me chocolates. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” He remained on his feet, with his hands stuffed into his pockets and his head bowed. “Bill came by my place on his way to the office and told me how you busted up your thumb.”

  I frowned. “Bill shouldn’t have—”

  “Yes, he should,” Mr. Barlow interrupted. “Nothing wrong with a man speaking up for his wife. Nothing wrong with a man speaking the truth to a friend, either, and Bill brought a few truths home to me this morning.” He rubbed the back of his neck and sighed heavily. “I reckon I owe you a whole barrow full of apologies, Lori. I’m sorry I didn’t fix the bird tables. I’m sorry you got hurt using one of my hammers. And I’m sorry I stood there like a half-wit yesterday and told you to see a doctor when you wouldn’t have had to see a doctor if I’d kept my promise to Jack.”

  “Apologies accepted,” I said gently. I flapped my good hand at him peremptorily. “Now, sit down and make yourself comfortable or I’ll have a stiff neck to go along with my stiff thumb.”

  Mr. Barlow glanced at the sleeping Stanley, then took a seat in my armchair. He leaned toward me, his hands loosely clasped between his knees.

  “You’re not the only one I’ve wronged,” he said. “The vicar had to ask Jack MacBride to do the work I should’ve done in the churchyard last Saturday. The grass was halfway up Hezekiah Tansy’s marble angel by the time Jack got there. He had to go over it with the string trimmer and the rake before he could do the mowing. Took him the best part of the afternoon to finish.” He shook his head. “I felt about two inches tall when Bill told me. The vicar asking a stranger to do my job . . .” He peered earnestly at me. “I’ll apologize to Jack and the vicar after I’m done here. I wanted to say sorry to you
first, because you paid the biggest price for my malingering.”

  “You weren’t malingering,” I protested. “You were working.”

  “I was having the time of my life,” he countered. “Never thought I’d get to touch a Jag E-Type or ’65 Lotus, not if I lived to be a hundred, and there I was, tinkering with them, driving them, putting them through their paces. It was a dream come true right enough, but dreaming don’t mend bird tables or mow lawns.”

  I shifted my aching hand to a less agonizing position and decided to make the most of Mr. Barlow’s visit by asking him about Dabney Holdstrom. The thought of commencing my investigation without leaving the couch appealed to me greatly.

  “Do you and Mr. Holdstrom chat much?” I asked.

  “What would we chat about?” asked Mr. Barlow, looking puzzled.

  “The usual things,” I said. “His family, his friends . . .”

  “Why would I want to know about his family or his friends?” Mr. Barlow asked. “We aren’t mates, Lori. I’m grateful to him for steering his friends my way, but we don’t have anything in common, apart from the cars.”

  “Do his friends talk about him?” I asked.

  “Not much,” said Mr. Barlow, “except to say how surprised they are to see him in a quiet little place like Finch. One of them—I think it was Arty Barnes, the theatrical chap—said Mr. Holdstrom was reliving his childhood.”

  “Did he grow up in Finch?” I asked eagerly.

  “No,” said Mr. Barlow. “He grew up the other side of Upper Deeping, in a little place called Skeaping. The village with the weird museum your lads are so fond of.”

  “Skeaping Manor,” I said, with a pang of disappointment.

  “Mr. Holdstrom went to London as soon as he left school, but he still has family back in Skeaping,” said Mr. Barlow. “That’s what the Barnes chap told me.” Mr. Barlow regarded me questioningly. “What made you think Mr. Holdstrom might’ve grown up in Finch?”

  “He’s been extremely kind to you and to Sally and to Opal,” I said, “and he introduced Henry to Arty Barnes.”