Aunt Dimity and the Summer King

by Nancy Atherton

  Since neither woman rose to greet me, I bent awkwardly to kiss their papery cheeks while holding Bess to my shoulder.

  “Is this our great-niece?” Honoria asked, scanning her chic, boxy blazer to make sure her great-niece hadn’t drooled on it.

  “Yes,” I said, straightening. “This is Bess.”

  “Bess,” said Charlotte. “What a charming soubriquet. I’m almost tempted to call William ‘Billy’ and myself ‘Char.’”

  Honoria tittered gaily.

  “You call your nephew ‘Bill,’” I said stiffly.

  “So we do,” Charlotte agreed smoothly. “I meant no offense, dear, and I hope none was taken.”

  I forced a smile and sat on the Regency chaise longue in front of the windows. Bess nuzzled her head into my neck and went to sleep.

  “It’s a pleasure to see you looking so well,” said Honoria. “Childbearing at an advanced age can wreak havoc on a woman’s body.”

  “I understand why you had to dress down,” said Charlotte, taking in my non-designer attire. “I, too, had a terrible time finding nice things to wear when I was shedding my baby weight. Don’t let it trouble you.” She pointed a beautifully manicured, bony finger at me. “With a little effort on your part, you’ll soon have your figure back.”

  Bess whimpered softly in her sleep and I tightened my hold on her to assure her that I was still there.

  “She won’t sleep through the night if you allow her to sleep during the day,” said Honoria.

  “Bess almost always sleeps through the night,” I said. “Why do you think I have so much energy?”

  “If I lived here, I’d have no energy at all,” said Charlotte, gazing languidly around the room. “There’s quiet and there’s comatose. I’ve had only a glimpse of Finch, but it seems to fall into the latter category.”

  “I noticed two houses for sale,” said Honoria. “The signs looked ancient.”

  “Are you implying that no one in his right mind would buy a cottage in Finch?” said Charlotte. “You amaze me.”

  “I wouldn’t care to live there year-round,” said Honoria, “but it might do as a summer retreat.”

  “Do you remember the little knot of senior citizens who stared at us as we drove by?” said Charlotte. “I imagine they’re living on fixed incomes.”

  “They’re not trust fund babies,” Honoria said archly.

  “A clever developer would have no trouble persuading them to sell out,” said Charlotte.

  “They’d grab the money and run,” said Honoria.

  “If the developer modernized the cottages and marketed them properly,” Charlotte went on, “he could sell them as summer homes. He might even turn a profit. After all, property prices are sky-high in England, even in rural areas.”

  “The villagers might not wish to sell their homes,” Willis, Sr., pointed out gently.

  “They might have no choice,” said Charlotte.

  “Fixed incomes are such a nuisance,” said Honoria.

  Bess whimpered again. I checked her diaper surreptitiously, but it was dry. I didn’t know what was bugging her, so I rubbed her back as my mother had rubbed mine when I was a child. It seemed to work. Bess’s eyelids fluttered, then closed as she drifted back to sleep.

  “Is it true that you have no nanny?” Honoria inquired, looking askance at her great-niece.

  “It’s true,” I replied. “I needed all the help I could get when Will and Rob were babies, but one child is less of a handful than twins.”

  “And you’ve had Bill to help you, of course,” said Honoria. “Such a dear, thoughtful man.”

  “Honoria and I were delighted to hear that he went into the office today,” said Charlotte. “He’s spent so much time at home with you and the children that we were beginning to think he’d retired.”

  “Bill’s a wonderful husband and father,” I said stoically. “I don’t know how I would have managed if he hadn’t taken time off from work after Bess was born.”

  “You could have hired a nanny,” Honoria said brightly. “But I suppose a fully qualified nanny might object to working in such a remote location. Where on earth would she go on her day off? There’s nothing for miles around except fields and sheep.”

  Bess shifted her head restlessly, but relaxed when she heard her grandfather’s voice.

  “Finch is not as remote as it might seem,” he said. “Oxford is nearby and the local market town of Upper Deeping is no more than twenty minutes away.”

  “I believe we passed through Upper Deeping on our way here,” said Honoria, adding dismissively, “It seemed like a quaint little town.” She turned toward the entrance hall. “What can be keeping Amelia? Does your fiancée always leave you alone when you entertain guests, William?”

  “Perhaps she’s lost,” Charlotte suggested. “Fairworth House must seem like a maze to her after her cottage.”

  “Amelia has not always lived in a cottage,” Willis, Sr., informed her. “Her previous home was twice the size of Fairworth House.”

  “Was she compelled to sell it?” Honoria asked, feigning sympathy. “Artists are so often the victims of their own excesses.”

  “They are,” Charlotte said in a sorrowful tone of voice that was equally bogus. “An eminent psychiatrist told me that creative people are prone to alcoholism, drug addiction, and a whole host of mental illnesses.”

  I glanced at Willis, Sr., hoping he’d seen through their act, but he appeared to take their barbed comments at face value.

  “Amelia is guilty of no excesses,” he said. “She came to Finch because her former home no longer suited her.”

  Charlotte and Honoria looked thunderstruck.

  “She moved to Finch voluntarily?” Charlotte said.

  Before Willis, Sr., could respond, Amelia returned to the drawing room, carrying the bouncy chair.

  “Forgive me,” she said, nodding apologetically to each of us. “I was detained by a telephone call. William? A messenger delivered the papers you were expecting. They’re on your desk in the study.”

  “Please excuse me,” Willis, Sr., said to his sisters. “Although I have retired, a few of my clients still rely upon me.”

  “Business before pleasure,” said Charlotte, “is our family motto.”

  “A motto your son would do well to remember,” said Honoria, with a sly, sidelong glance in my direction.

  “Run along, William,” said Charlotte. “Take as much time as you need. We’ll indulge in a little girl-talk while you’re gone.”

  Willis, Sr., left for the study and the sisters fixed their poisonous gazes on Amelia.

  Amelia looked as though she’d collected her wits as well as the bouncy chair. She placed one at my feet and used the other to start a conversation about gardening. She must have thought that no one could attack her on such a neutral subject, but she’d scarcely begun to speak when Charlotte cut her off.

  “Did you really come to Finch of your own volition?” Charlotte asked.

  “Y-yes,” Amelia stammered, thrown off her stride. “After my husband died, my old house felt like a mausoleum. I wanted a cozier home and I found one in Finch.”

  I knew that Amelia had come to Finch to hunt for something other than a cozy home, but I would have undergone oral surgery without anesthetic before I revealed her secrets to the Harpies.

  “But there’s nothing to do here,” Honoria expostulated.

  “A common misconception,” said Amelia. “Finch is, in fact, a hive of activity. We have the harvest festival, the Nativity play, the flower show, jumble sales, sheep dog trials—”

  “The full country calendar,” Charlotte interrupted sarcastically. “I’m sure you find ways to keep busy, Amelia, but you can hardly compare a flower show to the opera or a harvest festival to the symphony.”

  “I wasn’t comparing—” Amelia bega
n, but again she was cut off.

  “You’re being unfair, Charlotte,” said Honoria. “You can’t expect to find the same level of sophistication here as you do in Boston. Operas and symphonies would be wasted on the local inhabitants. One would be casting pearls before swine.”

  “Very true,” said Charlotte. “I’m sure the villagers are content with their jumble sales and their sheep dog trials. Simple pleasures for the simpleminded.”

  Bess pulled her head out of the crook of my neck and let loose a wail a banshee would have envied. The sound seemed to pierce Amelia’s heart, but the sisters were more concerned about their eardrums.

  “What’s wrong with the child?” Honoria demanded, cupping her hands over her ears.

  “Can’t you do something?” Charlotte pleaded, following suit.

  “I certainly can,” I said. I stood and addressed Amelia, raising my voice to be heard above the din. “I’ll take Bess for a walk. That usually does the trick.” I winced as Bess upped the volume. “We may be gone for a while.”

  If Willis, Sr., had been present, Amelia probably would have come with me, but she evidently felt obliged to remain with his guests. I felt no such obligation. Although I was sorry to abandon Amelia for a second time, Bess and I left the sisters behind without a second glance.

  Deirdre met me in the entrance hall.

  “Is there anything I can do?” she asked as Bess’s wails rebounded from the white marble walls.

  “Bess needs a breath of untainted air,” I explained. “Her pram’s in the Rover.”

  “Right,” said Deirdre. “I’ll fetch the diaper bag and meet you there. Look after Bess. Let me deal with the pram.”

  In less than ten minutes, Bess and I were moving briskly across a verdant meadow on one of Willis, Sr.’s well-maintained gravel paths. Soothed by the change of scenery and by the all-terrain pram’s familiar vibrations, Bess quickly regained her composure.

  I, on the other hand, was ready to spit tacks.

  Fourteen

  “

  Trust fund babies,” I muttered furiously. “Pearls before swine. Simpleminded pleasures. Childbearing at an advanced age?”

  If I’d been a dragon, I would have breathed fire.

  “Your daddy knows his aunts much better than I do, Bess,” I went on. “He knew they’d try to undermine Amelia. Alcoholism, drug addiction, and mental illness, my foot!”

  I walked so rapidly I scattered gravel in my wake. I didn’t bask in the sunshine or revel in the loveliness of the flower-sprinkled meadow. I charged ahead like a rampaging rhinoceros. I didn’t care where we were going, as long as it was away from the Harpies.

  “Later on, Bess, when you’re old enough to learn about good and evil,” I continued, “I’ll show you a photograph of your grandfather and a photograph of the grandaunts you met today and explain to you which is which.” I kicked an inoffensive twig and sent it flying into the undergrowth. “Why can’t Grandpa William see it?”

  Cool air, dappled shade, and the faint scent of moist earth suggested that we were no longer in the sunny meadow. I stopped to look around.

  “The orchid wood,” I whispered. A shiver went down my spine as Willis, Sr.’s words came back to me. “A five-minute stroll through the orchid wood . . .” I tucked a blanket over Bess’s bare legs. “I wonder if the side entrance to the Summer King’s estate is locked? Let’s find out, shall we? He did invite us to drop in.”

  I was pretty sure the side entrance Willis, Sr., had mentioned would be locked or rusted shut, but it didn’t matter. The mere thought of seeing Arthur Hargreaves again brought my anger with Bill’s aunts down to a manageable level.

  “He should be at home,” I said to Bess. “Remember what Grant and Charles told us? The Hermit of Hillfont Abbey doesn’t leave home, if he can help it. Then again, Grant and Charles could be wrong.” I pursed my lips and said thoughtfully, “Everyone could be wrong about Arthur.”

  I jiggled the pram to keep Bess amused while I reviewed the information I’d gathered about Arthur Hargreaves. According to the villagers, he was as mean-spirited and uppity as the rest of the Tillcote folk. According to Grant Tavistock and Charles Bellingham, he was a slightly mad, wholly secretive power broker. According to Willis, Sr., he was a fireworks aficionado, and according to Aunt Dimity, he was the innocent victim of an inherited feud.

  “But none of them—not even Aunt Dimity—has met Arthur,” I said aloud. “Their impressions of him are based on rumor, hearsay, innuendo, and a story that’s been passed down from one generation to the next.” I stopped jiggling the pram and gazed steadily into Bess’s brown eyes. “This could be our chance to find out if the rumors are true, baby girl. Interested? I knew you would be. Let’s go!”

  It took some time to locate the correct path among the many crisscrossing, branching trails in the orchid wood, but I eventually found myself standing before a formidable wrought-iron gate set into the boundary wall that had piqued my curiosity and drawn me farther along the old cart track than I’d intended to go. The wall itself was concealed by banks of massed rhododendrons and the gate was around the corner from the section Arthur had climbed.

  “We couldn’t see the gate from the cart track,” I explained to Bess, “because it was hidden in a stand of trees. If your mummy had a better sense of direction, she would have known it was the orchid wood. Emma would have recognized it straightaway.” I rolled my eyes. “All that map reading . . .”

  Bess sighed sympathetically.

  “I can see Arthur’s house,” I told her excitedly, stepping past the pram. “It’s over there.”

  I peered eagerly through the wrought-iron gate and across a broad expanse of open meadow to the low rise upon which Quentin Hargreaves had built his faux abbey. Aunt Dimity’s Victorian ancestors had poured scorn upon “Quentin’s Folly,” but it filled me with delight.

  “Oh, Bess,” I whispered. “It’s wonderful.”

  From a distance, Hillfont Abbey looked more like a fanciful fortress than a sober monastery. Its basic layout was quite simple—a square tower flanked by a pair of three-story wings—but the magic was in the details.

  The central tower was crenellated and pierced by lancet windows. The three-story wings were festooned with spires, turrets, chimney clusters, stepped gables, projecting bays, and slender corner towers with conical caps. The building seemed to possess every shade of Cotswold stone—gray roofs, golden turrets, cream-colored embrasures, butterscotch walls—and it was surrounded by a crazy quilt of courtyards and gardens enclosed by another stone wall.

  A flag hung from a pole atop the central tower. When it fluttered in a passing breeze, I caught a glimpse of a multicolored emblem centered on a sky-blue ground. I was too far away to decipher the emblem, but I was willing to swear that it wasn’t a Union Jack.

  “Quentin Hargreaves probably designed his own flag, too,” I said to Bess. “Should I ask your brothers to design a flag for our family? I’ll bet your grandaunts would have a lot to say about a family flag emblazoned with ponies, cookies, and dinosaurs.”

  I began to chuckle but fell silent when a strange buzzing noise reached my ears. It sounded as if someone had crossed a lawnmower with a sewing machine, then tossed a hornets’ nest into the mix for good measure. Stranger still, the noise seemed to be coming from the sky.

  I tilted my head back to see if the Summer King or one of his grandchildren had launched a marvelous, motorized kite into the air, but the buzzing noise didn’t come from a kite. It came from a tiny aircraft that looked as though it had been cobbled together from a lawn chair, spare pram wheels, and leftover kite fabric.

  The craft’s single, lime-green wing and its tail wings looked marginally reliable, but they were attached to a frame that appeared to be made out of duct tape and plastic pipes. It had no fuselage, no windshield, no doors, no protective shell of any kind, and its buzzing engine sa
t directly above the pilot’s bare head.

  My mouth fell open as the flimsy airplane circled once, twice, three times around the abbey, then swooped low to land in the meadow. I held my breath as it touched down and didn’t breathe again until it had rolled to within twenty yards of the wrought-iron gate. When it finally came to a full stop, I saw that its pilot had white hair and a short, neatly trimmed beard.

  “Arthur may be slightly mad, Bess,” I conceded, pressing a hand to my heaving chest, “but we can’t fault his courage.”

  Arthur Hargreaves switched off the engine and unbuckled a shoulder harness and a seat belt. He stashed his goggles and his bulbous ear protectors beneath his seat, then climbed out of the lawn chair and stretched his arms above his head, as if they were stiff. He was dressed in a loose-fitting Hawaiian shirt, khaki cargo shorts, and the same soiled sneakers he’d worn when I’d first met him, but his grapevine crown was missing.

  “He must have left it at home so it wouldn’t blow away,” I whispered to Bess. “If the Summer King had abdicated, it would be raining.”

  I watched in silence as Arthur secured the little plane, tethering it to stakes he drove into the ground by the simple expedient of stomping on them. He stood back to survey his handiwork, then began to make his way to the abbey.

  “Arthur?” I called through the gate. I plucked a clean diaper from the diaper bag and waved it to get his attention. “Arthur! Over here!”

  He swung around and looked toward me. A broad grin split his bearded face when he spotted the flapping diaper.

  “Lori!” he shouted back. “Good to see you!”

  I returned the diaper to the diaper bag and waited expectantly as the Summer King ambled toward me. When he reached the gate, I meant to say, “Hello again, Arthur. I hope Bess and I aren’t intruding.” Instead, the first thing that came into my head popped out of my mouth.