Aunt Dimity Digs In Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1.

  Chapter 2.

  Chapter 3.

  Chapter 4.

  Chapter 5.

  Chapter 6.

  Chapter 7.

  Chapter 8.

  Chapter 9.

  Chapter 10.

  Chapter 11.

  Chapter 12.

  Chapter 13.

  Chapter 14.

  Chapter 15.

  Chapter 16.

  Chapter 17.

  Chapter 18.

  Chapter 19.

  Chapter 20.

  Chapter 21.

  Chapter 22.

  Chapter 23.

  Chapter 24.

  Chapter 25.

  Chapter 26.

  Epilogue

  Lilian’s Lemon Bars

  Also by Nancy Atherton

  Aunt Dimity’s Death

  Aunt Dimity and the Duke

  Aunt Dimity’s Good Deed

  VIKING

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson Street,

  New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

  Penguin Books Ltd, 27 Wrights Lane,

  London W8 5TZ, England

  Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood,

  Victoria, Australia

  Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue,

  Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2

  Penguin Books (N.Z.) Ltd, 182-190 Wairau Road,

  Auckland 10, New Zealand

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices:

  Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England

  First published in 1998 by Viking Penguin,

  a member of Penguin Putnam Inc.

  Copyright © Nancy T. Atherton, 1998

  All rights reserved

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places,

  and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or

  are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living

  or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Atherton, Nancy.

  Aunt Dimity digs in / Nancy Atherton.

  p. cm.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-15700-8

  I. Title.

  PS3551.T426A943 1998

  813’.54—dc21 97-34633

  This book is printed on acid-free paper.

  ∞

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above,

  no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or intro

  duced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any

  means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or

  otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the

  copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  For the Bubble Brigade, friends indeed

  1.

  I had two infants at home and I was drinking heavily: two pots of tea before noon and another pot before nap time. For some reason, I was having trouble sleeping.

  It wasn’t the caffeine—as a nursing mom, I stuck to herbal tea—and it wasn’t the twins’ fault, either. After three grueling months of round-the-clock feeding, Will and Rob had discovered the joys of sleeping through the night—and given their parents a chance to rediscover those same joys. My husband and I now had a full six hours of blessed silence in which to recover from the rigors of the day.

  But while Bill used those golden hours to full advantage, dropping off still fully clothed and usually on the sofa, I catnapped restlessly, listening with a mother’s ears for the softest cry, the tiniest cough or gurgle.

  It wasn’t new-mother jitters alone that kept me awake all night. Will and Rob had been born too soon, in March instead of April, and they’d spent their first full week on earth entombed in incubators. At four months they were strong as bulls—with the lung power of pearl divers—but the fears attending those first uncertain days had never truly left me.

  The world, which for the most part had treated me with kindness, now seemed a treacherous, threatening place in which every corner of every coffee table had been fashioned solely for the purpose of battering my boys’ brains out. It was up to Bill and me to protect our sons from lurking coffee tables, and we took our responsibilities very seriously.

  We fled Bill’s family mansion back in noisy, bustling Boston and brought the boys to England, to a honey-colored cottage in a tranquil rural corner of the Cotswolds. The cottage had been left to me by my late mother’s closest friend, a woman named Dimity Westwood, and I could think of no more perfect place in which to raise a family.

  Bill bicycled each day to Finch, the nearest village, to an office on the square where, via fax, modem, and telephone, he conducted business for his family’s law firm. He traveled to London once a month, and farther when necessary, but for the most part he was home for lunch and rarely late for dinner.

  It wasn’t the food that drew him. Meals at home hadn’t amounted to much since the early days of my pregnancy, when I’d brought my culinary skills to bear on the creation of wholesome baby foods. Bill had grown accustomed to mealtimes spent taste testing samples of mystery mush.

  William Willis, Jr.—my own sweet Bill—was the kind of husband every woman dreams of, the kind of father every child deserves. He changed diapers, gave baths, sang lullabies, and heroically rode out hormonal tidal waves of the postpartum variety that had me wobbling unpredictably between laughter and tears. He shared my absorption in our sons and seemed to understand my need to envelop them in a danger-free environment. He said nothing as I swaddled each piece of furniture in cotton batting, and didn’t utter a word of protest when I secured the kitchen cabinets with latches so complex that neither he nor I could open them for days.

  But when Bill came into the master bedroom one evening in early July to find the boys watching from their bouncy chairs as I wrestled with the mattress on our football field-sized bed, he must have thought I’d well and truly lost it.

  “Lori,” he said softly, standing in the bedroom doorway, “what are you doing?”

  “ Taking the mattress off the frame,” I grunted, tugging ineffectually at a recalcitrant corner.

  “Why?” Bill asked, very gently.

  I rolled my eyes at him, as though the answer were self-evident. “What if Will and Rob crawl under the bed and it collapses on top of them? Much safer to have the mattress on the floor.”

  Bill surveyed four dimpled knees and tiny waving hands that had yet to touch the carpet, and said, “I see.”

  Something in his tone of voice made me pause. I stared down at the mattress, glanced over at the boys, then recoiled from the bedding, as though it had burst into flame. “Bill,” I whispered, shaken, “what am I doing?”

  “It’s more what you’re not doing.” Bill took me by the hand and pulled me over to the armchair by the dresser. He nudged the mattress back into its frame, squatted for a moment to gobble Will’s belly and snuffle Rob’s chin, then sat on the footstool at my knee. “You’re not sleeping,” he elaborated. “You’re not eating right. You’re not getting enough fresh air and exercise.” He looked pointedly at the mattress. “It’s no wonder you’re going overboard.”

  I whimpered. “B-but the boys—”

  “The boys are fit as fleas,” Bill broke in. He swung around to make a face at his bright-eyed, drooling sons. “Look at them. Dr. Hawkings said he’s never seen pree mies rally so well.You’ve done a magnificent job, Lori.”

  I smile
d weakly. “We’ve done a magnificent job.”

  “I’ve done what I can,” Bill acknowledged, turning back to me, “but I’m not here all day, the way you are. Taking care of one child is enough to run a full-time mom ragged, and you’ve got two. Let’s face it, love—you’re outnumbered.”

  I sank back in the chair and nodded miserably. “I have been more tired than usual lately.”

  “And more strung out,” Bill asserted. “Now that we’ve gotten the boys up to speed and started on solid foods, it’s time for you to take a break.”

  “Leave my babies?” I gasped, horrified.

  “Of course not,” Bill said hastily. “But I’ve talked things over with Dimity—”

  “When?” I demanded. “When did you talk things over with Dimity?”

  “Last week, when you padlocked the medicine cabinet and hid the key so the boys wouldn’t find it,” Bill replied. “Have you remembered where you hid it yet?”

  “Er . . .”

  “Never mind.” Bill pulled my feet into his lap and began kneading them gently. “ The point is that Dimity thinks it’d be a good idea to hire someone to help you with Rob and Will. And I agree.”

  I blinked at him, incredulous. “You can’t be serious. I’d never let a stranger take care of my boys.”

  “ Then she can help with the laundry and the cooking and all the other housework,” Bill said reasonably. “Anything to give you a breather. Lori,” he added, grasping my toes firmly, “Aunt Dimity says that you have to start taking care of yourself or you’ll be no good at all to our sons.”

  Bill had spoken the magic words, and wisely refrained from saying more while he waited for them to take effect. He knew that I never quarreled with what Aunt Dimity said—rather, with what she wrote, since her conversation was confined to sentences written in a small blue leather-bound book, which we kept in the study. I’d been too busy to consult with Aunt Dimity since the boys had arrived, but she’d apparently been keeping watch over me—and worrying about what she saw.

  Had I really given her cause for alarm? I closed my weary eyes and thought back over the past three months. A few scenes stood out with pristine clarity: Bill and his father changing diapers side by side during one of Willis, Sr.’s frequent visits; the boys’ first splashy bath in the padded bassinet; a hushed, golden morning with Bill rocking Rob while I nursed Will, both of us pajama-clad and drowsy and besotted by the bundles in our arms. Most of my memories were blurred, though, one day running into the next without shape or distinction, like a watercolor left out in the rain. It was not how I wanted to remember my sons’ childhood.

  “Maybe you and Dimity are right,” I conceded at last. “Maybe I have been overdoing it.”

  Bill choked back a snort of exasperated laughter and pulled the rest of me into his lap. “Have you ever done anything without overdoing it?” he asked, nuzzling my dark curls.

  I smiled sheepishly. “Okay. I admit it. I could use some help around here.” I pushed away from him to ask, “But how do we find the right person? I don’t know anyone in the village.”

  Although we’d been living at the cottage for nearly a year, Finch was about as familiar to me as the far side of the moon. I’d spent my entire pregnancy memorizing child-rearing manuals, knitting oddly shaped booties, and turning every available scrap of food into nutritious goo. My social calendar had been left to gather dust.

  “There’s Emma and Derek,” I said, “but they’ve already got full-time jobs.” Emma and Derek Harris lived up the road from us in a fourteenth-century manor house they’d refurbished. Emma was a computer engineer and master gardener; Derek, a building contractor who specialized in restoration work. They were our closest friends in England, but I somehow doubted that they’d jump at the chance to mop floors or launder loads of diapers.

  “There’s Ruth and Louise, of course,” I continued thoughtfully, “but I don’t think they’d have the stamina.” Ruth and Louise Pym were identical twin sisters who shared a house just outside of Finch. No one knew how old they were, but the fact that their memories of the First and Second World Wars were equally vivid suggested that they weren’t spring chickens.

  “And Sally Pyne . . .” I was on my feet now, ticking off the short list of locals with whom I was personally acquainted. Sally Pyne was the cherubic, white-haired widow who ran the tearoom next door to Bill’s office. She was good-natured and energetic, “. . . but Emma told me that Sally’s granddaughter is staying with her this summer, so I imagine she has her hands full. So who . . . ?” I turned to Bill and saw that he was examining his fingernails, a smug smile plastered across his face. “Don’t tell me you’ve already found someone!”

  “Okay. I won’t.” Bill nodded agreeably and leaned over to lift a cooing Rob from his bouncy chair. “Let’s get these poor mites fed and ready for bed.”

  I spent the remainder of the evening trying doggedly to worm additional information out of my insufferably self-satisfied husband—and Dimity—but the only detail I was able to nail down was that “someone suitable” would be arriving shortly.

  I wasn’t taken completely by surprise, therefore, when the Pym sisters fluttered up my flagstone walk on Monday morning with a calm and competent-looking dark-haired woman in their wake.

  It was the other woman, the one who showed up screaming, who surprised me.

  2.

  I answered the front doorbell slightly flustered, with Will on one shoulder, Rob on the other, and a generous helping of hideous green glop smeared across my canvas apron.

  Ruth and Louise Pym, by contrast, looked as though they were on their way to an Edwardian garden party. They were, as always, dressed identically, in dove-gray gowns with lace collars and tiny pearl-shaped buttons. They wore matching gray-and-cream cameos at their matching throats, sprigs of lavender pinned to their diminutive bosoms, and crocheted ivory gloves on their dainty but capable hands.

  The third woman towered above the Pyms like an exotic hothouse bloom above a pair of Michaelmas daisies. She was a stranger to me, tall, broad-shouldered, and voluptuously curved, with an olive tint to her complexion, full lips, and almond-shaped eyes so dark they were almost black. Her auburn hair was drawn back from a high forehead and braided in an intricate coil at the nape of her neck. She wore a severely plain white shirtdress and comfortable-looking beige flats. The open collar of her dress revealed a slender leather thong from which hung a curious bronze-colored medallion.

  I detected a look of swift appraisal in her dark eyes and blushed self-consciously as I greeted the Pyms. Even on my better days I looked like a scrub beside them, and this was not one of my better days.

  “My dear Lori,” said Ruth. Ruth always spoke first. It was the only way I could tell the two sisters apart. “You look the very picture of . . .”

  “. . . industry,” Louise continued. Watching the Pym sisters converse was like watching a Ping-Pong match. “We do hope we haven’t come . . .”

  “. . . at an inconvenient time. We would have rung first . . .”

  “. . . but Bill urged us to drive over straightaway.”

  The Pyms’ car, an ancient vehicle with a wooden dash, quilted upholstery, and running boards, was parked on the graveled drive beside my black Morris Mini and the Mercedes Bill drove on rainy days.

  “You know I’m always glad to see you,” I assured them, wishing I’d taken a minute to sluice the boys down before answering the door.

  “And how are our . . .”

  “. . . sweet angels today?”

  “Fine, just fine,” I managed. Will and Rob had by now recognized the Pyms’ familiar voices and were squirming to get a look at the only other pair of identical twins they’d ever met. As Bill had pointed out the night before, I was outnumbered, and when the dark-eyed woman reached for Will, I handed him over with a wholly unanticipated sense of relief.

  “Thanks,” I said. I shifted Rob so he could see where his brother had gone, and felt a perverse twinge of dismay. Will was taking the hand
over much too cheerfully. He dribbled happily on the dark-eyed woman’s shirtdress and showed more interest in flirting with Ruth than in fussing about who was holding him.

  Ruth was not immune to Will’s charms, but as she leaned in to rub noses with him she said, in a puzzled voice, “Lori, are you certain that our darling Will . . .”

  “. . . is feeling quite himself today?” Louise’s bright eyes had also fastened on my son.

  “I think so,” I said, my pulse quickening. “Why? What’s wrong?”

  Ruth’s brow wrinkled. “He seems to have come out . . .”

  “. . . in little green spots. As has his darling brother.” Louise was now peering closely at a wriggling Rob. “I’ve seen red spots before, and pink ones . . .”

  “. . . but never green ones,” said Ruth. “I do hope it’s nothing . . .”

  “. . . tropical.”

  My heart unclenched. “It’s not a rare disease,” I told them. “It’s avocados. I forgot to put the lid on the blender.” I stood aside. “Please, come in. The cottage is a bit of a mess, but—”

  “Tut,” said Ruth, as she stepped over the threshold. “I’m certain you’ve had far more important things on your mind recently . . .”

  “. . . than housekeeping,” Louise finished cheerfully, following me up the hall and into the living room. “And rightly so. What could be more important than . . .” The Pyms’ dueling dialogue trailed off into a politely discomfited silence.

  I was almost as nonplussed as Louise. I distinctly remembered the living room as one of the most inviting rooms in the cottage, but at the moment it looked as though a gang of tramps had been camping out in it.Yards of cotton batting dangled from the coffee and end tables, an overflowing basket of laundry obscured the fireplace, parenting magazines spilled from the cushioned window seat to the floor, and a chaotic tangle of toys, stuffed animals, and oddly shaped booties littered the overstuffed armchairs and sofa.