Aunt Dimity and the Heart of Gold Page 2

  I loved my sons dearly, but I couldn’t deny that it was more fun to play dress-up with a daughter. Bess looked like a rosy-cheeked Christmas angel in her red velvet dress, white tights, and black patent leather Mary Janes (with nonslip soles). Although I knew that the glossy red headband I threaded through her dark, silky curls wouldn’t stay put for long, I had the satisfaction of seeing her in her complete ensemble while it was still complete.

  Will and Rob planned to escape to the stables after Emma’s feast, so they had my permission to dress down for the evening in flannel shirts, quilted vests, blue jeans, and mud-stained Wellington boots. Bill, too, went for a casual look, but his charcoal-gray cable-knit sweater and twill trousers were a little more sophisticated than the boys’ barn-appropriate attire.

  I opted to go full-on festive, with slim black trousers, a white silk blouse, a red velvet blazer, and a sparkly Christmas tree brooch the boys had made for me in their final art class before the holidays. The brooch was as garish as a Las Vegas billboard, but I wouldn’t have dreamed of attending the party without it.

  We were running late, as usual, but after filling Stanley’s food and water bowls and assuring him that we’d be back before daybreak, we were ready to go. Will and Rob carried Bess’s baby gear to our canary-yellow Range Rover, and Bill carried Bess, but I took charge of my tartlets, tucking the precious containers tenderly between the diaper bag and the bag containing Bess’s mandatory supply of extra clothes as well as her favorite cuddly toy. Bianca the unicorn would, I thought, add a comforting touch of familiarity to the unfamiliar bedroom at Anscombe Manor.

  Since the sun had set at four o’clock, we drove to the manor in a darkness rendered nearly impenetrable by drifting clouds of fog. The Rover’s fog lights cast an eerie glow over the mist-cloaked hedgerows lining the narrow, twisting lane, making it seem as if we were caught in a cobwebbed tunnel filled with weirdly writhing wraiths.

  A sense of claustrophobic dread would have assailed me if I hadn’t grown accustomed to the uncanny shapes that floated through the strangely shifting gloom. Instead of quaking in my black leather ankle boots, I sat back, relaxed, and listened while my children discussed Thunder, Storm, and the gray pony Bess intended to ride when she was old enough to sit tall in the saddle. Bess’s contribution to the conversation consisted mainly of repeating the word “hoss” at regular intervals, but I knew what she meant.

  With characteristic attention to detail, Emma Harris had marked the turnoff to Anscombe Manor’s winding drive with lanterns hung from tall, hooked spikes. She’d outlined the drive with lanterns as well, to keep her guests from veering off course and into four-bar fences, drainage ditches, and/or the lime trees she and Derek had planted to replace the azaleas that had originally bordered the drive. Azaleas, my sons had informed me, were poisonous to horses, but lime trees posed no threat to their health. Emma had provided further guidance for her guests by illuminating every window in the manor house.

  If my father-in-law’s stately home was a symphony of Georgian symmetry, Anscombe Manor was a concerto of quirkiness. On a clear day, it had the mongrel appearance of a building that had been altered over the course of several centuries by a succession of owners who couldn’t agree on a prevailing style.

  On a foggy night, it resembled a ghostly ship run aground on a storm-battered reef. The lights in its mismatched towers seemed to wink on and off as waves of fog broke over them, and the ground floor was enveloped in a rolling tide of mist.

  The house had been in pretty bad shape when Emma and Derek Harris had moved into it, but they’d labored long and hard to turn it into a comfortable home. Anscombe Manor had entered the twenty-first century with, among other features, an enormous kitchen with a vaulted stone ceiling, a dining room large enough to accommodate a Victorian dinner party, a Tudor great hall with a hammer-beam roof, a Gothic library with a movable wrought-iron staircase, twelve bedrooms of widely varying shapes and sizes, and a collection of outbuildings that included a lovely nineteenth-century stable block made of honey-colored Cotswold stone.

  The Harrises, too, had left their mark on the property. In addition to updating the interior infrastructure and replacing the roof, Derek had created apartments within the manor for his son and daughter and their respective spouses. When Emma had started her riding school, she’d embellished the grounds with a pair of outdoor riding rings, a modest indoor arena, and a manure pit that, on hot summer days, lent the estate an authentically medieval air.

  The floodlights mounted on the manor’s facade illuminated several cars parked on the graveled apron at the end of the drive. As we cruised cautiously around the final bend, I spotted the Buntings’ black sedan, Mr. Barlow’s paneled van, Bree Pym’s almost-new Morris Mini, and Charles Bellingham’s brand-new SUV, but the Hobsons’ blue hatchback was missing.

  “Where are James and Felicity?” I asked as Bill pulled in beside Bree’s Mini.

  “Maybe they’re running late, too,” he replied. “The fog may be worse near their cottage.”

  “It would have to be horrendous to make them later than us,” I said. “We’re always the last to arrive.”

  “Another fine tradition bites the dust,” said Bill with an insincere sigh.

  We unloaded the Rover, climbed the broad stone staircase, and crossed the flagstone terrace to the garlanded front door, where the boys took turns tugging on the bell pull until Derek Harris flung the door wide and greeted us with a merry “Ho, ho, ho!”

  Derek was tall and lean and dressed as informally as my sons, though he wore leather work boots instead of wellies. He had a head full of curly salt-and-pepper hair, the weathered face of an outdoorsman, and stunningly beautiful sapphire-blue eyes. Derek had been a widower with two small children when he’d met and married Emma, but Peter and Nell never referred to Emma as their stepmother. She’d come into their lives when they’d needed her most, and from then on they’d regarded her as their mother.

  “Come in, come in,” Derek said, giving me a peck on the cheek and clapping Bill on the shoulder. “Hello, Bess! Learn any new words today? I hope you’re hungry, boys. We’ve enough food to feed a cavalry regiment.” After we followed him across the low-ceilinged vestibule to hang our coats and Bess’s bags in the cloakroom, he relieved me of my storage containers and peered at them doubtfully. “What? No cheese straws?”

  “I’ve raised my game this year,” I said.

  “So has Emma,” said Derek. “Wait until you see the goose. It should be on the cover of a cooking magazine.” When I reached for the containers, he shook his head. “I’ll take your mystery munchies through to the kitchen, Lori. You and yours are wanted in the dining room. Everyone else is in there already, awaiting your arrival.”

  “Not everyone,” I said. “Not unless James and Felicity hitchhiked.”

  “I’m sorry to say that the Hobsons won’t be joining us tonight,” said Derek. “James rang this morning to deliver the bad news.”

  “I hope they’re not sick,” I said.

  “They’re not, but their daughter and their grandchildren are,” said Derek. “They’ve gone to Upper Deeping to give their son-in-law a helping hand.”

  “I’d expect nothing less of them,” I said, “but it really is a shame. Felicity has earned a night out.”

  “So has James,” said Bill. “Unfortunately, viruses don’t share our sense of fair play.”

  “Let’s hope it’s the only bad news we hear all evening,” I said.

  “I don’t think it will be,” said Derek. Lowering his voice, he added, “Bree’s looking stormy.”

  “Why?” I asked, intrigued.

  “Don’t know,” he replied, “but I expect she’ll tell us, now that you’re here. Get thee to the dining room!”

  He left for the kitchen and we obeyed his command.

  The dining room had been expanded in Victorian times, and it retained its spacious pro
portions. Since Emma and Derek preferred clean lines to curlicues, however, they hadn’t furnished the room in a fussy Victorian style. A few framed fruit-and-flower still lifes hung on the plain, pale walls, and the sole ornament on the mahogany sideboard was an old riding helmet. When set for the pre-Christmas feast, however, the immense mahogany table looked like an illustration from a Dickens novel.

  The white damask tablecloth seemed to stretch for miles beneath gold-accented place settings that glittered in the light from a chandelier dripping with crystals. An Edwardian epergne overflowing with lacy ferns and red carnations took pride of place as the centerpiece, flanked by small silver vases filled with simple holly sprigs. Handwritten name cards in silver holders sat beside each place setting, a civilized solution to the scrum that would ensue if hungry guests were left to their own devices.

  The only seasonal items missing from the table were Christmas crackers, explosive cardboard tubes wrapped in colorful paper and crammed with paper hats, cheap trinkets, and lame jokes. The tubes emptied with a bang when pulled at either end, at which point paper hats were donned, trinkets displayed, and lame jokes shared. Crackers were an essential feature of Yuletide celebrations in England, but Emma had decided long ago that some traditions should be reserved for Christmas Day.

  Sixteen antique mahogany chairs and a thoroughly modern high chair had been placed around the table, but no one was seated. Bree Pym and Lilian Bunting appeared to be engaged in a serious discussion in one corner of the room, while Charles Bellingham stood before the sideboard, regaling Theodore Bunting, Mr. Barlow, and Grant Tavistock with a funny story about an eccentric client. Not one member of the Anscombe Manor clan was present. I assumed that Peter, Cassie, Nell, and Kit were with Derek in the kitchen, helping Emma to put the finishing touches on her dishes.

  The hum of conversation that had reached my ears in the vestibule came to an abrupt halt when we entered the dining room, and every head swiveled in our direction.

  “Right,” said Bill. “Who won?”

  “I did!” crowed Lilian Bunting, waving a slip of paper in the air. “Half past five on the dot!”

  Our customary tardiness had spawned a game that involved an old riding helmet filled with slips of paper inscribed with possible times of our arrival, none of which acknowledged the possibility that we might actually arrive on time. Lilian’s triumphant cry brought a faint smile to Bree’s troubled face and set off a roar of good-natured laughter among the others that was followed by a burst of greetings and the rumble of chair legs on the wooden floor as eager diners took their assigned seats.

  Emma must have been listening for the rumble, because food and drink began to arrive almost as soon as we were seated. While Cassie filled our wineglasses and Nell filled our water glasses, Peter, Kit, and Emma filled the empty spaces on the damask tablecloth with a feast fit for a king.

  Roast parsnips, turnips, carrots, and brussels sprouts; mashed potatoes with caramelized shallots; smashed potatoes roasted in goose fat; braised chestnuts; spiced red cabbage; rich, dark gravy; glistening cranberry sauce; and the bacon-wrapped miniature sausages known in England as pigs-in-blankets were but a few of the dishes that prefaced the arrival of a magnificent roast goose stuffed with apples and prunes and garnished with red currant jelly and creamy bread sauce.

  Emma received shouts of acclaim and a round of applause when she finally took her place opposite Derek. The praise was well deserved because, although Emma was as American as I was, she’d mastered the art of traditional English cooking.

  Had I spent untold hours toiling over a hot stove, I would have been a red-faced, sweaty mess, but apart from a slight frizziness in her graying dishwater-blond hair, Emma looked as fresh as a daisy. My ferociously organized friend had evidently given herself enough time to change from her kitchen duds into a tapestry blazer, a wine-colored turtleneck, and a pair of loose-fitting brown trousers that would forgive overindulgence.

  The aromas wafting through the air were so seductive that I could scarcely keep myself from drooling while the vicar said grace, but once the chorus of “amens” had sounded, I dove headlong into the meal with a joyful abandon shared by my dining companions.

  We knew how fortunate we were to be able to celebrate the season at Anscombe Manor, and when the plum pudding was brought, flaming, to the table, we joined Derek in a toast to absent friends.

  Three

  Bess was the first to leave the table. Having eaten her fill within the first thirty minutes of the goose’s triumphant arrival, my daughter elected to work off her meal by toddling energetically around the dining room, stopping only to chat with a neighbor or to play with the wooden blocks Emma had provided for her amusement. No one complained about the noise she made. As Finch suffered from a severe shortage of little ones, Bess had, by default, become the village’s baby girl.

  Bree Pym said very little during dinner. Though conversation flowed freely once the initial feeding frenzy had subsided, she didn’t speak unless spoken to, and even then her answers were brief and disjointed, as if she was too self-absorbed to pay attention to any topic other than the one that seemed to be troubling her. When I gave Lilian Bunting a querying look, she rolled her eyes heavenward and mouthed the word “later.”

  The feast drew to a close three hours after its tardy beginning. Peter and Kit gently ejected Emma from the dining room to prevent her from doing any more work, then stayed behind with Cassie and Nell to clear the table and to make up food parcels for our housebound neighbors. None of the leftovers from Emma’s bounteous feast would go to waste.

  Derek offered to transport the rest of us to the great hall in a wheelbarrow, but we managed to waddle across the vestibule without his assistance. Bill kept a firm hold on Bess’s hand as we made our entrance, and I kept an eye on the boys, whose rapt expressions were the very essence of Christmastime.

  The great hall was a sight to behold. A towering Christmas tree covered with colorful ornaments and topped with a gleaming gold star stood at the far end of the cavernous, oblong room. A pile of logs burned merrily in the Portland stone fireplace, and a pair of potted poinsettias flanked the Christmas cards that crowded the mantel shelf. Evergreen garlands dotted with tiny lights twinkled softly from the roof beams, wreaths hung from the oak-paneled walls, and silver bowls filled with walnuts and shiny apples graced the occasional tables placed here and there among the worn but comfy armchairs that had been grouped in cozy islands on the scattered Persian rugs.

  To make the homely picture complete, the family’s elderly black Labrador retriever snoozed in his plaid doggy bed near the fireplace. Hamlet raised his head when we came into the hall, and his tail thumped amiably, but we spared him the ordeal of meandering creakily around the room to greet each of us individually by gathering near his bed to give him a kind word and a cuddle.

  Emma had shut out the foggy night by drawing the drapes over the row of tall mullioned windows that overlooked the curving drive and the sodden pastures in front of the manor house. A trestle table positioned before the windows held a Crock-Pot containing mulled wine, an insulated carafe filled with cinnamon-scented cider, and a cut-glass bowl brimming with the potent punch Derek concocted every year. Designated drivers bypassed Derek’s punch completely, and the rest of us treated it with the respect it deserved.

  The trestle table also held the snacks my neighbors and I had prepared for after-dinner munching, with the sweet offerings grouped on one side of the drinks, and the savory nibbles on the other. On the savory side, I spotted miniature quiches, sausage rolls, and meat pies; olive-stuffed flat bread cut into bite-size pieces; and an immense cheese ball coated with minced parsley and dotted with chopped pimientos. My tartlets seemed to beckon to me from a silver salver beside the cheese ball, but once I’d assured myself that they’d survived their journey without disintegrating, I ignored them.

  Among the sweets were dainty mince pies; elegant petits fours; an abunda
nce of gaily decorated cookies; and a platter piled with treats I couldn’t identify. They appeared to be small balls of pale-brown dough, but I had no idea what they were called and I was too full to perform a taste test.

  Will and Rob stuck around long enough to stuff their pockets with sausage rolls before they headed for the stables, but no one else showed the slightest interest in pillaging the food table. Lilian Bunting and Grant Tavistock were engrossed in a lively conversation about illuminated manuscripts; Bill, Derek, and the vicar discussed the weather’s impact on Derek’s business; and Mr. Barlow and Charles Bellingham exchanged views on a dwarf variety of euphorbia Charles hoped to add to his garden in the spring. Bree Pym, by contrast, stood alone beside Hamlet’s doggy bed, gazing pensively into the fire.

  Short, sturdy Mr. Barlow wore a white shirt and a red-and-green-striped tie with his second-best suit—his best was reserved for church. Though he was clearly enjoying his conversation with Charles, his eyes wandered toward Bree every so often.

  I wasn’t surprised. Mr. Barlow had taken Bree under his wing when she’d first arrived in Finch, and she’d taken a shine to him. If he needed help hanging a door, welding a tailpipe, or clipping the shrubs in the churchyard, Bree was the first person he called. He treated her like the son he’d never had, and she treated him like the father she wished she had. He was far too diffident to intrude on her thoughts, but I could see that he, too, was worried about her.

  Bess was entranced by the Christmas tree. She seemed to be awed by it as well, which was a good thing, since it quelled her desire to play with the pretty ornaments. She allowed herself to be passed from one welcoming pair of arms to the next, but her gaze remained fixed on the tree. As soon as her eyelids began to droop, Bill signaled to me that he would be back in a moment, then carried our sleepy girl to the room Emma had readied for her.