Aunt Dimity: Vampire Hunter

by Nancy Atherton

  “Bill’s in London, arranging trust funds for cats. Peggy’s never had much color sense, but if you tell her I said so, I’ll deny it. I’m borrowing Mr. Barlow’s Mini because Annelise’s car has developed a few hiccups. Everyone at Anscombe Manor is on the lookout for the pervert. Will and Rob love their teacher, their new friends, and everything about Morningside. I’ve been perfectly well, thank you.”

  My answers led to a gabfest that lasted for over an hour and proved to be very informative. I learned that Miranda Morrow’s cat had given birth to four snow-white kittens; that Mr. Wetherhead had purchased a new locomotive for his elaborate train set; and that Sally Pyne’s cellar had been knee-deep in water for the past two days. I didn’t know where to look when Lilian Bunting, the vicar’s wife, informed me that someone had been pilfering holy water from the baptismal font in St. George’s, but I made a mental note to drop a large donation on the collection plate the next time I was in church.

  Neither Lilian nor anyone else present in the tearoom knew anything about the DuCarals. They had a vague notion that Aldercot Hall was somewhere in the general vicinity of Finch, but its exact location eluded them, and they weren’t nearly as interested in what went on there as they were in finding good homes for Miranda’s kittens. As I listened to them chatter, I realized that Kit’s wry description of my neighbors as “a bit parochial” had been accurate, if grossly understated.

  I also reminded myself that none of them had lived in Finch for more than twenty years. As relative newcomers, they couldn’t be expected to be as well versed in local history as someone like Lizzie Black, whose family had lived in the area for many generations.

  I was disappointed to discover that although everyone had seen Leo drive his motor home through the village on his way to Gypsy Hollow, no one had seen him since. The villagers had assumed that he was a late-season camper and felt sorry for him for having such bad luck with the weather, but he hadn’t aroused their curiosity.

  After promising to return very soon, I managed to extricate myself from the tearoom and cross the village green to the pub, but I struck out there as well. Christine and Dick Peacock, the pub’s proprietors, had never heard of the DuCarals or Aldercot Hall, and they hadn’t seen Leo since he’d driven through Finch.

  They had, however, seen Miranda’s kittens, Mr. Wetherhead’s locomotive, and Sally Pyne’s flooded cellar, and they were intensely curious to know how the twins were doing at Morningside, if Bill would be back in time for the darts tournament, and what I thought of the paint Peggy Taxman had chosen for the greengrocer’s shop.

  After I’d filled them in, they asked where I’d been keeping myself.

  “I was at the Guy Fawkes Day committee meeting on Thursday,” I informed them stoically.

  “We know,” said Dick, “but you didn’t open your mouth once, and you didn’t stay for tea and buns afterwards.”

  I was pathetically grateful to Dick for confirming that I had been at the meeting, but I was reluctant to explain why I’d bailed on the tea and buns. I would have ignited a firestorm of speculation that would have burned for several decades if I’d told them that I’d had to run home to talk to Will and Rob about the vampire they’d seen on Emma’s Hill, so I said instead that I’d simply wanted to spend the evening with my husband before he left for London.

  “You’d think the two of you were still on your honeymoon,” Chris cooed, with a romantic sigh.

  “Speaking of honeymoons,” said Dick, leaning on the bar. “Have you seen the new crew at Anscombe Manor? Kit had better get a move on, or one of the new boys will carry Nell off.”

  “I’m working on it,” I said.

  “Work harder,” Chris urged. “We want our Nell to marry Kit. We don’t want to lose her to some foreigner who has more money than sense.”

  “I’ll do my best,” I promised, and after assuring them yet again that Will and Rob were doing wonderfully well at school, I left the pub.

  I didn’t have the stomach to enter the Emporium and ask Peggy Taxman about Leo, and I didn’t really think it was necessary. Sally Pyne, Miranda Morrow, George Wetherhead, Lilian Bunting, and the Peacocks were more useful than a host of spy satellites when it came to observing the goings-on in Finch. If they hadn’t seen Leo ride his bicycle into Finch, then he hadn’t ridden his bicycle into Finch. Period.

  Where had he ridden it? I asked myself as I climbed into the Mini. Where had Leo spent the day?

  I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel and pondered what to do next. My trip to the village had been a waste of time. The only good thing to come out of it was the strangely satisfying realization that I, a foreigner and the newest newcomer to Finch, knew more than any of my neighbors about the DuCarals of Aldercot Hall. The only person who knew more about the DuCarals than I did was Lizzie Black, and she’d lived in the area longer than anyone except—

  “Ruth and Louise,” I said, and thumped a fist on the steering wheel. “Of course!”

  I backed the Mini away from the tearoom and turned it toward the humpbacked bridge. I couldn’t believe that I’d left two such obvious stones unturned. Ruth and Louise Pym had lived in or near Finch for just over a hundred years. They couldn’t have lived so close to Aldercot Hall for so long without picking up a few tidbits about the DuCaral family.

  I wouldn’t be able to ask them about vampires—Aunt Dimity had warned me against mentioning such an unsavory subject to the churchgoing sisters—but I was bound and determined to find out what they knew about Leo.

  And churchgoers were always eager to discuss black sheep.

  Seventeen

  Ruth and Louise Pym lived a half mile outside of Finch, in a thatched house made of mellow orange-red brick. Their house was an architectural oddity in a region where most buildings were made of locally quarried limestone and roofed with slate, but I loved it nonetheless. The shaggy thatch and the weathered bricks made the house seem warm and inviting even on the dreariest of days.

  I parked the Mini on the grassy verge in front of the house and let myself through the wrought-iron gate between the short hedges that separated the front garden from the lane. The Pyms’ front garden was a thing of beauty in the spring and summer, but the recent rains had left it looking decidedly bedraggled.

  The soggy, windblown plants reminded me of my own disheveled state, so I paused on the doorstep to brush the dried mud from my trousers before turning the handle on the old-fashioned bell.

  The sisters opened the door together, but it was beyond my poor powers of observation to figure out which one was Ruth and which one was Louise. As the mother of identical twins, I’d grown accustomed to the idea of two people looking alike, but Ruth and Louise Pym looked so exactly alike that it was impossible for a mere mortal to tell them apart.

  They were, as always, dressed identically, in matching dove-gray gowns with long sleeves, lace collars, and pearl-shaped buttons that ran in two rows from their tiny waists to the matching gray-and-cream cameos pinned at their throats. Their interchangeable black shoes were profoundly sensible, and their white hair was wound into identical buns on the backs of their identical heads. It wasn’t until they greeted me that I could identify them as individuals. Louise’s voice was softer than Ruth’s, and Ruth invariably spoke first.

  “Lori!” she exclaimed. “What a…”

  “…delightful surprise,” continued Louise. “It’s been an age and an age since we…”

  “…last saw you,” Ruth went on. “Do come in!”

  Listening to the Pyms was not unlike watching a tennis match. Both activities required concentration and supple neck muscles.

  The sisters would have taken me straight into their front parlor, but I insisted on leaving my hiking boots with my jacket in the foyer and stopping in their powder room to freshen up. Since I couldn’t bear the thought of besmirching their lovely needlepoint chairs with my unfortunate trousers, I brought a towel with me when I joined them in the parlor and spread it on my chair before sitting down.
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  While I’d been washing up, the sisters had set the walnut tea table with an assortment of cakes, muffins, and sandwiches that Henrietta Harcourt would have looked upon with approval. As I took my seat near the fire, the teakettle’s whistle called Louise to the kitchen. She returned a short time later, carrying a tray with cups, saucers, and the hand-painted tea set the sisters always used when they had company.

  “Don’t stir, Lori,” said Ruth. “I’ll toast a muffin for you and…”

  “…I’ll fill your cup,” said Louise.

  Although I found it deeply embarrassing to be waited on by a pair of centenarian spinsters, I made no effort to stop them. The sisters might look as frail as frost, but they were, in fact, as tough as old tree roots. They kept their house spotless; gardened in all weather; canned, preserved, bottled, pickled, and dried the fruits of their labors; and participated in village life with a vigor that put women half their age to shame. They were perfectly capable of toasting muffins and pouring tea without any help from me.

  After a few minutes of industrious fluttering, they came to rest in chairs facing mine across the tea table, which was now amply supplied with hot, buttered muffins, and asked about Bill, the twins, Stanley, Annelise, and me. While I answered their questions, their bright bird’s eyes flitted interestedly over my less-than-formal attire.

  “I’m sorry I’m such a mess,” I apologized, dabbing melted butter from my lips with a lace-edged linen napkin. “Kit Smith and I hiked over to Aldercot Hall this morning, and the trails were pretty muddy.”

  “Aldercot Hall?” said Ruth. “A splendid house. So sad that it fell into the hands of such dreadful people.”

  “The DuCarals, you know,” said Louise. “Maurice and Madeline. Not one of our old families. They made their money…”

  “…in washing-machine parts,” said Ruth, “and once they’d struck it rich, they left their old life behind and bought…”

  “…Aldercot Hall, to impress their old friends,” said Louise. “They hired people to decorate the house and to tend the gardens, and they hired their help through a London agency. They bought a herd…”

  “…of fallow deer,” said Ruth, “because they’d seen one at another stately home and thought it was de rigueur. They hired a gamekeeper…”

  “…to manage the deer, the grouse, and the pheasants,” said Louise, “and a stableman…”

  “…to look after a pair of hunters they never learned to ride,” said Ruth.

  “So silly of them,” said Louise. “Maurice DuCaral didn’t know the first thing about shooting…”

  “…or riding…”

  “…or fishing,” said Louise, “but he bought the right outfits and the most expensive guns and rods and went about…”

  “…pretending to be lord of the manor.” Ruth tilted her head to one side and peered vaguely at the ceiling. “He had no idea what it means to be lord of the manor. Maurice and Madeline thought local matters…”

  “…were beneath their notice,” said Louise. “They never took an interest in their neighbors, and they never allowed their children to mix with…”

  “…anyone who had less money than they did. They thought their money made them superior, you see.” Ruth clucked her tongue. “Poor things. They were wholly unsuited to country life.”

  Louise nodded sadly. “They simply didn’t have a clue.”

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

  “Ah, yes,” said Ruth. “Poor Charlotte. She had one chance to escape her parents’ clutches, but the young man…”

  “…failed her,” said Louise. “She shouldn’t have put her faith in Leo. He never was very reliable.”

  “Leo?” I said, startled. “Leo in the motor home?”

  The sisters bobbed their heads in identical nods.

  “He drove past our house yesterday morning,” said Ruth. “But of course…”

  “…we ignored him,” said Louise. “We haven’t quite forgiven him…”

  “…for his ill-treatment of poor Charlotte,” said Ruth.

  “Let me get this straight,” I said. “The Leo you saw in the motor home used to be Charlotte DuCaral’s boyfriend?”

  “He was more than a boyfriend, I’m afraid,” said Ruth. “Leo and Charlotte were going to elope. They planned to run off in the dead of night. It was the only way…”

  “…Charlotte could break free from her parents,” said Louise. “But Leo never came. He left her waiting—so humiliating for the poor girl—and disappeared without a word of warning…”

  “…and Charlotte never saw him again,” said Ruth. “Then the accident happened and she had to stay at home because her mother was…”

  “…a thoroughly incompetent nurse,” said Louise, “and her father was such a demanding invalid that the nurses they hired wouldn’t stay…”

  “…for more than a week,” said Ruth. “But Charlotte wouldn’t have left Aldercot…”

  “…even if she’d hadn’t had to care for her father,” said Louise. “Leo broke her heart, you see. She never recovered from the blow.”

  I ran my hand through my hair dazedly. Leo was undoubtedly the black sheep who’d earned Charlotte’s ire, but he wasn’t in the right flock.

  “To tell you the truth,” I said, “I thought Leo was Charlotte’s brother.”

  “Her brother?” said Ruth, blinking in surprise. “Oh, my, no, Leo wasn’t her brother. Her brother was a trial to her, of course, but in an entirely different way.”

  “The shame, the guilt, the effort it took to conceal the truth…” Louise sighed regretfully. “One can’t blame him for his de sires, but…”

  “…it would have been better for all concerned if he had controlled them,” Ruth concluded. “Have another muffin, dear.”

  “And another cup of tea.” Louise refilled my cup, and both sisters began to chat about Miranda Morrow’s kittens.

  I went with the flow, because I knew that no matter how hard I tried, I wouldn’t be able to steer the conversation back to Maurice, Madeline, Charlotte, Leo, or the nameless brother with the shameful desires. When the sisters closed the door on a subject, it was impossible to get them to open it again, and they’d clearly closed the door on the DuCarals.

  I couldn’t complain, though. Ruth and Louise might not have answered all my questions about the DuCaral family, but they’d answered at least as many as they’d raised. After indulging in one last buttery muffin, I left their house feeling as though the hour I’d spent with them had not been wasted.

  As I climbed into the Mini, it occurred to me that Leo might have returned to his motor home while I’d been visiting the Pyms, but I quickly dismissed the notion of looking for him there. The Mini would never make it down the track to Gypsy Hollow, and I had no intention of walking down it. Leo, I decided, could wait until the morning. I was sick of traipsing through mud. I wanted to go home.

  By the time Annelise, Will, and Rob returned to the cottage, I’d showered, changed, checked the freezer for ice cream, and thrown together a homemade pizza. Pizza, ice cream, and a movie were our Saturday-night treats, so after the boys were bathed and we were all fed, we gathered in the living room with bowls of ice cream to watch The Black Stallion for what had to be the seven-thousandth time. This time, however, I found myself thinking of old Toby and wondering idly what it would be like to bond with him the way the boy bonded with the stallion. I was almost sorry when the film ended and bedtime arrived.

  Annelise worked on her wedding dress for a while after I’d put Will and Rob to bed, but she retired relatively early because she wanted to look her best for her fiancé the next morning.

  Bill called right after she’d gone upstairs—he knew better than to interrupt our Saturday-night movie by calling earlier—but he was too tired to talk for very long. Mrs. Shuttleworth’s daughters had just discovered that their shares of their mother’s estate were smaller than Mr. Muddy-Buddy’s, and Bill had spent the day fielding telephone calls from them and t
heir irate lawyers.

  I cheered him with the news from Finch. He was so amused by the thought of Jasper Taxman painting the greengrocer’s shop mauve that he forgot to ask me about the historic home Kit and I had spent the day visiting, and I didn’t feel the need to mention it to him.

  “I’m going to sleep in tomorrow,” he said finally. “What about you?”

  “Church and the Cotswold Farm Park,” I said. “No rest for the weary mother.”

  “Say hello to the polka-dotted pigs for me,” he said.

  “I’ll give them your best,” I promised, and rang off.

  I turned off the lights in the kitchen and went to the study, where I smiled at Reginald, lit a fire in the hearth, and curled up in the tall leather armchair with the blue journal in my lap. I paused for a moment to marshal my thoughts, then opened the journal and gazed down at the blank page.

  “Dimity?” I said. “I hope you’re comfortable, because I have an awful lot to tell you.”

  I smiled as Aunt Dimity’s response began to scroll across the page in her familiar, old-fashioned copperplate.

  One of the great advantages of being disembodied is that one is always comfortable. Fire away!

  I leaned back in the chair, stretched my legs out on the ottoman, and gave Aunt Dimity a detailed account of everything I’d done that day, both with Kit and without him. I described our fascinating—and thoroughly disquieting—visit to Aldercot Hall, our fruitless journeys to Gypsy Hollow, my solo tour of Finch, and the remarkable conversation I’d had with the Pym sisters.

  After a lengthy digression, during which I had to answer Aunt Dimity’s questions about Miranda Morrow’s kittens (“Four—white”), Sally Pyne’s flood (“Knee-deep”), Peggy Taxman’s paint color (“Mauve”), and George Wetherhead’s locomotive (“No idea, I haven’t seen it yet”), I presented her with a scenario based on what I’d seen at Aldercot Hall and what I’d heard from Lizzie Black, Henrietta Harcourt, and the Pyms. I thought it was a pretty impressive piece of work.