Aunt Dimity and the Village Witch

by Nancy Atherton

  “Anything else?” I asked, thankful that Bree was such an observant young woman.

  “His clothes aren’t right,” she replied promptly. “He dresses like a hippie—leather hat and sandals, fringed wool poncho, embroidered bellbottoms—but everything fits him too well and he’s too neat, too clean. He has a pony tail and a mustache, yes, but they’re trimmed and tidy when they should be shaggy and tousled. It’s like he’s posing for pictures at a sixties museum.”

  “A fanatic in designer rags,” I murmured.

  “Did he mention me?” Amelia asked.

  “He did,” Bree replied. “I told him the only Mae I knew lived in Christchurch, then talked his hind leg off about New Zealand. He tried to shut me up with his laser-beam eyes, but his looks bounced right off me. He finally gave up and climbed into his car, but before he scarpered he gave me a beginner’s guide to Bowenism, written by none other than himself. Listen to this…” Bree pulled a bright yellow pamphlet from the back pocket of her jeans and read aloud:

  Center yourself like the daisy’s eye

  Petals raised to the blue, blue sky

  Live each and every hour in a blissful Bowen bower

  And your heart and soul will flower, flow, and fly!

  Bree finished her recitation with a hearty guffaw, but Amelia grimaced.

  “The man should be locked up for crimes against poetry,” Lilian declared vehemently.

  “He should certainly be locked up for harassment,” the vicar said more seriously.

  “The problem is,” said Amelia, “neither he nor his minions cross the line into outright harassment. They simply appear in vast numbers, gaze at me like a herd of damp cows, and ask endless questions about the universe, the search for truth, and whether vegetables should be eaten raw or cooked.”

  “Have you tried telling them to go away?” Lilian asked.

  “I have,” Amelia replied bitterly, “but I’d have better luck talking to cows. If you say ‘shoo!’ to a cow, it generally obeys. A Bowenist, on the other hand—” She gasped in alarm as the doorbell rang. “If it’s him…”

  “I’ll see who it is,” Lilian said calmly. “You have nothing to fear from unwanted callers, Mrs. Thistle.”

  “I almost feel sorry for Mr. Brocklehurst,” the vicar commented idly as Lilian threw back her shoulders and marched out of the room. “My wife doesn’t suffer fools gladly, Mrs. Thistle. If he turns his laser eyes on her, she’ll be sorely tempted to blacken them.”

  “A sight I’d pay to see,” said Amelia.

  The suspense was killing me, so I tiptoed to the doorway and put my head into the hall. When I saw two familiar figures step into the foyer, I swung around and gave Amelia a reassuring thumbs-up.

  “No worries,” I said. “It’s Grant Tavistock and Charles Bellingham.”

  “Your knowledgeable friends?” she inquired. “The connoisseurs who live in Crabtree Cottage?” When I nodded, she leaned back in her chair, murmuring, “Well, this should be interesting.”

  I’d just regained my own chair when Grant and Charles rushed into the study, spotted Bree, and crossed to stand before her. Lilian followed them into the room at a more leisurely pace, looking bemused.

  “We’d like a word,” Grant said to Bree.

  “It’s about the man you met coming out of our cottage,” said Charles.

  “Myron Brocklehurst,” said Bree, nodding. “What about him?”

  “What about him?” Charles exclaimed. “My dear girl, he’s an intolerable tick!”

  “We thought we’d gotten rid of him,” said Grant. “Imagine our dismay when we saw you nattering away with him on our doorstep.”

  “You must never speak with him again,” Charles said sternly. “For reasons we’re not at liberty to divulge, we must insist that you—”

  “It’s all right, chaps,” Amelia interrupted. “You can stand down. All has been revealed.”

  The two men wheeled around to face Amelia. Grant gaped at her in utter astonishment, but Charles stepped forward.

  “Mrs. Thistle,” he said, bowing low over her proffered hand. “Charles Bellingham, at your service. May I say what an honor it is to make your acquaintance?”

  “You may,” said Amelia, “but only once.”

  Charles chuckled immoderately and introduced Amelia to his partner, who seemed too overawed to speak for himself.

  “Have you a bottle of sherry, Mr. Bunting?” Amelia asked. “I believe Mr. Tavistock could use a pick-me-up.”

  “A brilliant suggestion,” said Charles, bowing again to Amelia. “And so very considerate.”

  Grant was soon safely ensconced on the love seat with a small glass of dry sherry in his hand. Charles, however, continued to loom over us.

  “Is it true?” he asked the room at large. “Has all been revealed?”

  “Yes,” I replied. “Including a vital piece of information you and Grant missed: Amelia Thistle is Mae Bowen’s married name.”

  “Her married name!” Charles exclaimed, clapping a hand to his high forehead. “I should have guessed.”

  “I hope no one else does,” Amelia muttered.

  “And the Bowenist menace?” Charles asked. “Has it been explained?”

  “It has,” said Lilian.

  “Then let me assure you, Mrs. Thistle,” Charles said earnestly, “that Myron Brocklehurst learned nothing from us. We laughed at his suggestion that Mae Bowen might have settled in Finch, told him he was a gullible fool for believing such an absurd rumor, and sent him on his way.”

  “Thank you,” Amelia said gravely.

  “And what about the rest of us?” Charles said, using a tone of voice usually reserved for kindergartners. “Have we taken a vow of silence? Have we promised to protect and defend our new neighbor”—he bowed yet again to Amelia—“from Myron Brocklehurst and his ilk?”

  “Charles,” I said testily, “if you don’t stop bobbing up and down like a teeter-totter, we’ll be forced to protect Amelia from you.”

  Grant let out a snort of laughter and Charles, blushing, retreated to the love seat.

  “It goes without saying that we’ll do what we can to maintain your anonymity, Mrs. Thistle,” said Lilian.

  “Does it?” Amelia said hopefully.

  “Naturally,” said the vicar. “Your secret is safe with us.”

  “Myron will run for his life if he sees me coming,” said Bree, with an evil grin. “I have lots more to tell him about New Zealand.”

  “You’re too kind,” said Amelia, her face glowing. “First, you promise to help me with the memoir, then you offer to—”

  “The memoir?” Grant said interestedly. “Are you writing a memoir, Mrs. Thistle?”

  It took a while to tell Grant and Charles about the search for Gamaliel Gowland’s secret memoir. Fortunately, Amelia had brought the first two pages with her, which sped the process up a bit.

  “We did some major renovation work after we moved into our cottage,” said Grant, examining the page we’d found in the bell tower, “but we didn’t find a sheet of parchment hidden in our chimney.”

  “If we had,” said Charles, “we would have framed it.”

  “What about the glyph?” I asked. “Does it mean anything to you? William thinks it’s an olive branch.”

  While Grant and Charles studied the small drawing, Lilian turned to Amelia.

  “How did you fare in the churchyard?” she asked. “Did you find another clue?”

  “I’m afraid not,” Amelia replied. “The carvings that might have been olive branches turned out to be feathers.” She pulled the stone rubbings from her bag and passed them to Lilian, saying, “See for yourself.”

  Lilian unrolled the first sheet, surveyed the image, and nodded.

  “The Tolliver family,” she said. “I never thought to make rubbings of their headstones, but their burials are recorded in the church archives. They lived south of Finch, on a small farmstead that no longer exists. They were the only members of St. George’s paris
h to die of the plague.”

  “The good old days,” I said under my breath.

  “May I keep the rubbings?” Lilian requested. “They’d make a splendid exhibition in the church. Visitors often ask who’s buried beneath those sad and mysterious gravestones.”

  “Consider them donated,” said Amelia.

  “Has Mistress Meg surfaced in the archives?” Bree asked.

  “Not yet,” Lilian answered, sliding the roll of rubbings under her chair for safekeeping. “I’ve traced three Margarets living in Finch during the mid-sixteen hundreds, but none of them remained single. They lie buried beside their husbands in St. George’s churchyard.”

  “Margaret Hazlitt, Margaret Green, and Margaret Waters,” Bree recited. In response to a flurry of raised eyebrows, she explained, “I visit the aunties at least twice a week. I’ve gotten to know their neighbors.”

  “I’ll keep looking,” Lilian continued, “but so far I’ve been unable to verify Margaret Redfearn’s birth, baptism, death, or burial. I wouldn’t read too much into it, though. Some of Teddy’s predecessors were better archivists than others, so our records aren’t entirely reliable. Then again, Margaret Redfearn may have been born and buried in another parish.”

  “Have you found any reference to a witch trial?” I asked.

  “No,” Lilian replied, “but I wouldn’t necessarily expect to find any. Witchcraft cases were prosecuted in borough courts and assizes as well as church courts, so she could have been tried somewhere other than Finch.”

  “There might be another explanation for Margaret Redfearn’s absence from the archives,” said the vicar. “If she was convicted of witchcraft, hanged, and buried in unsanctified ground, the Reverend Gowland might have chosen to purify his church by expunging her name from the records.”

  “Why would he create a secret memoir about a woman he’d expunged?” I asked.

  “To justify the part he played in her death?” the vicar speculated. “The truth is, we won’t know the answer until we find the rest of the memoir.”

  “Dove Cottage,” Grant said suddenly.

  “What?” I said, turning to him. I’d been so caught up in conversation that I’d forgotten about the two men on the love seat.

  “Dove Cottage,” Grant repeated, waving the memoir’s second page in the air.

  “Of course!” said the vicar, slapping his knee. “I should have seen it immediately.”

  “What should you have seen?” I asked.

  “Dove Cottage,” Grant repeated insistently. “A dove brought an olive branch to Noah as a sign that the great flood was receding. Ergo, Gamaliel’s olive branch could refer to Dove Cottage.”

  “Dove Cottage is one door down from Plover Cottage, where the first page was hidden,” said the vicar. “They’re both near the church. Gamaliel would have found it as easy to conceal a piece of parchment in one as in the other.”

  “Gentlemen,” Amelia said excitedly, “you are brilliant! I’m quite sure you’ve cracked the code. Who lives in Dove Cottage?”

  “Elspeth Binney,” Charles informed her.

  “Ah, yes,” said Amelia, nodding. “The retired schoolteacher who enjoys bird watching and takes painting lessons from Mr. Shuttleworth in Upper Deeping.”

  “Correct in every particular,” said Charles. “You’ve met her?”

  “Mrs. Binney came to Pussywillows to lend a hand with the unpacking and we got to talking, the way one does with a new acquaintance,” Amelia said. “Such a kind woman. She’s bound to allow us to search her house. As a former schoolteacher, she’ll find it intellectually stimulating.”

  As far as I knew, Elspeth Binney’s intellect was stimulated primarily by gossip, but I kept my thoughts to myself.

  “Unfortunately, Elspeth is away from home at the moment,” said Grant. “She’s visiting her niece—”

  “The niece who lives in London and plays the violin or the niece who’s married to the organic farmer with a smallholding in North Yorkshire?” Amelia asked.

  “The London niece,” Grant replied, clearly delighted by Amelia’s display of local knowledge. “Elspeth’s due home on Saturday—around noon, she told us.”

  “So be it,” said Amelia. “What’s a day’s delay after four hundred years?”

  It took us less than ten minutes to devise a plan. Charles and Grant agreed to bring our request to Elspeth after her return from London on Saturday afternoon. If she was amenable, they would ring Amelia, Bree, Lilian, and me, and we would converge on Dove Cottage to conduct the search. The vicar alone had to cry off because of a diocesan meeting in Cheltenham.

  “We should invite Mr. Willis to join us as well,” Amelia proposed. “He was instrumental in deciphering the first and second glyphs. He could be instrumental in finding the third page.”

  “He shall be invited.” A calculating expression crossed Charles’s face as he turned to address me. “Lori? Will you please ask William to be prepared to meet us at Dove Cottage on Saturday?”

  I smiled inwardly. Everyone in the room, apart from Amelia, knew of Elspeth Binney’s marital aspirations. It didn’t take a razor-sharp mind to figure out that Charles intended to use my father-in-law as bait to secure Elspeth’s cooperation.

  “I’ll ask him, Charles, but I can’t guarantee that he’ll come.” I glanced furtively at Amelia as I added, “He usually spends Saturday afternoons in his greenhouse.”

  “You must lure him away from his greenhouse and onto the great stage of history,” Charles said portentously. “I’m depending on you, Lori.”

  Amelia gathered the afghan into her arms and stood.

  “If I might have my hat, coat, and boots, Mrs. Bunting, I’ll be on my way,” she said. “I’ve trespassed on your time—and on your property—long enough.”

  “Wait,” I said, springing to my feet. “I’ll make sure the coast is clear.”

  “So will I,” said Bree.

  “Dear me,” Amelia said, regarding us affectionately. “Are you my new bodyguards?”

  “No,” Bree said gently. “We’re your new friends.”

  Bree and I escorted Amelia to Pussywillows without incident, then went our separate ways. I went home to have a bite to eat, assemble a casserole for dinner, and make a few telephone calls, but I eventually ended up in the study, with my feet propped on the ottoman and the blue journal open in my lap.

  Reginald was disturbed by the news of Myron Brocklehurst’s arrival in Finch, but Aunt Dimity had seen it coming.

  Well, it was inevitable, wasn’t it? If Mr. Brocklehurst is half the fanatic I believe him to be, he would have compiled a comprehensive dossier of personal information about Amelia, derived from the rubbish he plucked from her dustbins. By studying discarded envelopes, letters, or bills, he could easily determine that Mae Bowen’s married name is Amelia Thistle. It would then be a trifling matter for him to trace her movements by contacting removals companies or estate agents.

  “If you’re right,” I said, “why didn’t he go directly to Pussywillows? Why did he stop off at Crabtree Cottage?”

  His information may have been incomplete or he may have misunderstood it. Whatever the case, we must assume he’ll try again and be prepared to meet him when he does. Grant, Charles, and Bree dealt with him admirably, but day-to-day improvisations won’t work in the long run.

  “No, they won’t,” I agreed. “We have to figure out a way to rid ourselves of Myron Brocklehurst permanently.”

  Any ideas?

  “Loads,” I said glumly, “but most of them involve tar and feathers.”

  Perhaps it would be best if you let me devise a scheme. I’ll give the Brocklehurst problem my full attention while you focus on Dove Cottage. I suspect you’ll be more successful there than you were in the churchyard.

  “We eliminated the Tolliver headstones from our investigation,” I said, “but we didn’t accomplish much else today. Nor did Lilian. The only thing her research has shown so far is that Margaret Redfearn’s name is conspicuous
ly absent from the church archives.”

  Is her absence too conspicuous, I wonder?

  “The vicar thinks Gamaliel censored the records in order to cleanse the church of the stain of witchcraft,” I said. “But it doesn’t make much sense, does it? Why would he go to all the trouble of removing Mistress Meg from the church records, then write a memoir about her in secret?”

  It might make sense if Gamaliel were in love with Mistress Meg.

  My jaw dropped.