Aunt Dimity's Good Deed Read online

  “How are things in Chipping Campden?” Emma asked.

  “Dire,” Derek replied. “Church roofs shot.”

  “The whole thing?” Emma leaned forward to wipe the grime from Derek’s chin with a napkin.

  “No,” Derek answered. “Just the fiddly bit where the roof meets the tower. I’ll be astonished if we finish the job in ten days’ time. Bishop’ll simply have to bring his bum bershoot.”

  “You can’t fix it?” Emma sat back, nonplussed.

  “Oh, I can fix it, all right,” Derek conceded. “Give me ten twenty-five-hour days and it’ll be right as—” He put a hand on Emma’s knee. “Sorry, darling. Don’t think I’ll be of much use to you in the garden.”

  “Never mind,” said Emma, putting her hand on his. “I’ll manage.”

  I watched them wistfully, wishing I had Bill’s hand to hold, then averted my gaze and looked stoically into the fire.

  When Nell returned, and her father’s cup had been filled, she resumed her place on the ottoman with Bertie. Derek drank his tea in one long draft, looked longingly at the emptied cup, and set it aside. “All right,” he said, “I’m ready. Fire away.”

  He listened without interrupting while the three of us recounted what had happened. When we’d finished, he looked from me to Emma to Nell, then back to me. “Let me see if I’ve got this straight,” he said. “For reasons unknown, your father-in-law has set out to see a long-lost and possibly nefarious cousin, with Aunt Dimity and, er, Reginald in hot pursuit.” He clucked his tongue. “Can’t leave the three of you alone for a minute, can I.... What do you plan to do next?”

  “Lori’s driving down to Haslemere,” said Emma, looking pointedly at her husband.

  “Is she?” Derek said.

  “Yes, she is,” I replied. “As soon as I’ve made sure that Gerald’s at home.” Without waiting for further discussion, I dialed Gerald’s number and listened in disappointment while a recorded message informed me that, due to a fault on the line, the call could not be completed. Sighing, I let the receiver fall into its cradle, then jumped—as did the others—when the telephone rang under my hand.

  I snatched it up. “Hello?” I said eagerly.

  “Hello back at you, Lori-my-love.”

  “Bill!” I exclaimed, astonished. It was nearly noon in Finch, but dawn had barely cracked back in Boston. “Oh, Bill, I’m so glad to hear your—”

  “Listen, Lori, I don’t have much time,” Bill interrupted, sounding breathless and preoccupied. “There’s been a change of venue. Reeves Biddiford has decided to move the meeting up to the family lodge on Little Moose Lake, and he’s sending a car around to take me to the airport. We’re flying up early so we can get in some fishing before we begin our discussions.”

  “Fishing?” I said.

  “Fishing?” Derek echoed in the background.

  “Reeves thinks it’ll soothe his savage relatives,” Bill explained. “If he’s right, we may be on the verge of a major breakthrough, Lori. If I handle it properly, I may be able to wrap the whole mess up by next week.”

  “But, Bill—”

  “Sorry, love, the car’s here and I’ve got to run. Tell Father I said hello. I love you. I’ll call. Bye for now.” And before I could get in so much as an “I love you, too,” my husband had hung up.

  I set the phone down gently and turned to my attentive audience. “That was Bill,” I announced unnecessarily. “He’s gone fishing.”

  “Fishing?” repeated Derek. “Bill?”

  My husband was notoriously sedentary. He wore thick, black-framed glasses, carried an extra twenty pounds around his middle, and had the prison pallor and slouched shoulders of a dedicated desk-jockey. The Harrises knew as well as I did that the last time Bill had gone fishing he’d tripped over his own waders and fallen headlong into an icy Scottish trout stream.

  “He’ll be in a boat this time,” I explained lamely, “on a lake up in Maine. It has something to do with the negotiations he’s working on.” It suddenly occurred to me that I had no idea how to get in touch with Bill at Little Moose Lake. “Wonderful,” I groaned, my shoulders slumping. “Now I’ve lost my father-in-law and my husband.”

  “And Reginald,” Nell reminded me.

  “Hush,” said her father, coming to stand by my side.

  “Now, Lori,” Emma soothed, “you haven’t lost them. You’ve merely misplaced them. Temporarily. I’m sure that Bill’s secretary will be able to tell you how to get in touch with him.”

  “And I have some suggestions about finding William,” Derek added. I looked up at him hopefully. “First off, we’ll ring the local constabulary in Haslemere and ask them to keep a lookout for the Mercedes. They might even be willing to stop William and get a message through to him.”

  “That’s a fine idea,” said Emma. “And if you still need to go down to Haslemere, I’ll drive you.”

  “A capital plan,” Derek agreed, “except for one thing. I’ll drive Lori to Haslemere.” He wagged a grubby index finger at his wife. “No, my dear, can’t have you deserting the dahlias in August.”

  “But you have to fix the church roof,” Emma countered.

  “Wait a minute,” I said. Emma’s leaden hints had been falling thick and fast all morning, so I was ready to call a halt to what was clearly a manufactured argument. Emma and Derek weren’t fighting for the privilege of conveying me to Haslemere, they were trying to stop me from getting behind the wheel and driving there myself. They had no faith whatsoever in my driving skills. They were afraid I’d put the Mini in a ditch or wrap it around a light pole, or something worse. They were, in my opinion, overreacting.

  I wasn’t that bad a driver. It was true that I was occasionally rattled by oncoming traffic when driving on the wrong side of the road. It was also true that I tended to hug the verge in self-defense. And I could scarcely deny that I’d flattened four side mirrors against the hedgerows lining the narrow lanes around Finch, and scraped enough paint off the passenger‘s-side door to keep Mr. Barlow busy for weeks with his retouching tools. But I’d never had an actual collision with another vehicle, and I’d ended up in a ditch only once, when the sharp bend near the Pym sisters’ house had been covered with ice.

  “Thank you for your concern,” I went on, “but we’re not calling the police, and neither one of you is driving me to Haslemere.” I raised my hand to silence Derek’s protest. “If Aunt Dimity’d thought the police could help, she would’ve told me to call them, just as she would’ve told me to take the train if that had been a better idea. But she didn’t. She told me to drive down to Haslemere, and that’s what I’m going to do.”

  “Train’s a good idea,” Derek muttered, folding his arms. “What in the word could be so essential about having a car?”

  “Who knows?” I said. “Maybe I’ll have to make a fast getaway. Derek,” I went on, more gently, “listen to me. Do you honestly think that Dimity would have come back from two years of resting in peace if she didn’t think William was in serious trouble?”

  Derek lowered his eyes and shrugged.

  “But that shouldn’t keep you from letting one of us do the driving,” Emma persisted.

  “You’d have a nervous breakdown if I dragged you away from the garden right now,” I told her firmly. “And as you pointed out, Derek has a roof to repair. I won’t be held responsible for a dripping bishop. He’s not a well man as it is, and—”

  “Be that as it may,” said Derek, drawing himself up to his full and considerable height, “I can’t possibly permit you to drive all that way by yourself. Even if you don’t crash the Mini, you’re sure to get lost. You’ve never even been to Haslemere.”

  “Bertie and I have,” Nell said quietly. She rose to stand between her father and stepmother. “We’ve driven with Lori, too. She’s a good-enough driver, as long as she has someone with her to watch for signs and read the road maps. And I’m brilliant with maps. You said so yourself, Papa.”

  Was Nell volunteering to come w
ith me? I looked at her, surprised, and a little sheepish. I hadn’t treated her very nicely so far today, and I wanted to make it up to her. If she felt the need to come along, I’d give her my support. I wouldn’t mind the company, and, besides, she really was good at reading maps.

  Derek rubbed his jaw. “I don’t know, Nell ... Dimity implied that the situation might be dangerous.”

  “I’ll look after Nell,” I promised. “I’ll see to it that she fastens her seat belt and doesn’t come to any harm.”

  “And Nell’s perfectly capable of looking after herself,” Emma reasoned.

  “Please, Papa,” Nell added, and Ham trotted over to nuzzle Derek’s hand.

  What choice did the poor man have? He was outnumbered, three to one—four to one, counting Ham. He nodded, grudgingly, and Nell flew into his arms.

  “With two provisos,” he added. “No driving after dark, and no driving in London.”

  “Done.” I got up from my chair. “Remember—not a word to Bill about this. If he calls, tell him ...”

  “Tell him we’ve gone to Saint Bartholomew’s to see the bells,” Nell suggested.

  “Perfect.” I smiled approvingly at Nell. “Now, a quick bite of lunch before we leave, I think.”

  I hadn’t been in the mood for breakfast, and I wasn’t about to embark on any expedition on an empty stomach. While Nell ran home to throw a few things into an overnight case, Emma, Derek, and I repaired to my kitchen to fix a salad-and-sandwiches lunch that ended with a plateful of the butterscotch brownies I’d baked the night before. I’d used my mother’s old recipe, a great favorite from my childhood, and as Nell and I cleared away the crumbs, I wondered when I’d get a chance to make a batch again.

  The bag Nell had packed was about five times larger than the usual overnight case, so perhaps she sensed what I sensed. Something told me that our search for Willis, Sr., wouldn’t end after a brief visit with Cousin Gerald. When Aunt Dimity got involved, things almost always turned out to be more complicated than they seemed.

  6.

  Nell proved to be an ideal traveling companion. She got me from Finch to Oxford without a hitch, and I couldn’t fault the route she’d laid out after that. The multilane M40 wasn’t a shortcut to Haslemere, but it was relatively wide, generally straight, and as boring as porridge.

  Nell was a good passenger, too. She didn’t cling to the armrest or gasp in horror, at any rate, the way Bill did when I drove in England, and her occasional reminders to stay in the center of the lane weren’t prefaced with a semi-hysterical “For God’s sake, Lori ... ”

  She didn’t make wisecracks about my car, either. Granted, the Mini wasn’t much bigger than a skateboard, but that was fine with me. Any car that made me feel like the smallest target on the road was fine with me. As far as I was concerned, the Mini’s only drawback was a lack of luggage space, but that didn’t seem to bother Nell. She was content to hold Bertie in her lap, and if she had any objections to stacking her large suitcase on the backseat atop the even larger case she’d insisted on packing for me, she kept them to herself.

  I was pleasantly surprised. I’d never spent much time alone with Nell, in part because the opportunity seldom arose, and in part because I found her a bit daunting. She seemed so cool and distant, so self-contained, more mature at twelve than I’d been at twice her age. She dressed beautifully, spoke fluent French, and knew better than to mention birthing stalls in polite company. She didn’t talk much at all, in fact, and I was curious to know what was going on beneath that mop of golden curls. I’d have a twelve-year-old of my own to deal with one day, God willing.

  Nell was looking somewhat pensive as we hit the M40, staring down at Bertie, her lower lip caught between her teeth.

  “Worried about William?” I asked.

  “No,” she said distractedly. “I’m worried that Bertie might be sick. He looks a bit peaky, don’t you think?”

  Bang goes the myth of Nell’s maturity, I thought, with an inward smile. “Hold him up so he can see out of the window. It might help take his mind off of his tummy.”

  Nell lifted the chocolate-brown bear from her lap and turned him to face the passing scenery. A quarter-mile later, she nodded. “Much better. Thank you, Lori. I expect you’ve had the same trouble with Reginald.”

  “Not really,” I told her. “Reg is a good little traveler, though I don’t think he’ll enjoy being carted around in William’s briefcase.”

  “He’ll be fine,” Nell said serenely. “William will, too, as long as Aunt Dimity’s there to look after them.”

  “A disembodied bodyguard?” I smiled again, outwardly this time, not because Nell’s words were funny, but because they could well be true. In the past, Dimity had shown herself to be a less-than-blithe spirit toward those people she deemed objectionable. She’d haunt Cousin Gerald’s hide off if he so much as thought about harming Willis, Sr. “I suppose you’re right,” I admitted, “but all the same, I’m not too happy about the way William left the cottage. It’s not like him to rush off without telling anyone.”

  “Oh, but, Lori, it is,” Nell said earnestly. “It’s exactly like him. If he’d told us he was going, we’d have wanted to go along, and he couldn’t allow that.”

  “Why not?” I asked, intrigued.

  “Because there might be trouble,” Nell replied, with a soft but nonetheless rapturous sigh. “He doesn’t mind facing it on his own, but he’d mind very much if you or I were dragged into it.”

  “You think he’s being chivalrous?” I said thoughtfully. A shadowy corner of my mind had been busily manufacturing nightmares about senile dementia, but Nell’s astute observation cast a new light on the situation. My father-in-law was a classic gentleman—in his book, women and children always came first. If he’d wanted to leave the cottage on some dangerous mission, his only choice would have been to wait until he was alone, then make a run for it, leaving no tracks for us to follow. “I have to hand it to you, Nell. I do believe you’ve hit the nail on the head again. I don’t suppose you’ve given any thought to why he’s gone to see Cousin Gerald.”

  “I have, but ...” Nell gave me a hesitant, sidelong glance. “I don’t think you’ll like it.”

  “Break it to me gently, then,” I coaxed.

  “William’s told me once or twice that he hasn’t enough work to do back in Boston.” Nell stopped to look at me again.

  “Has he?” I said uneasily.

  “Yes. He said that Bill was doing everything and that he felt ... sort of ... useless,” Nell explained. “I think he may have gone to talk to Cousin Gerald about—”

  “Forming a new partnership? But Nell, that’s ...” Entirely possible, I finished silently. Bill had been elbowing his father to the sidelines for months now. What if he’d finally succeeded in elbowing him out of Boston altogether? Willis, Sr., had made no secret of his desire to establish a European base for Willis & Willis, but Bill hadn’t taken him seriously.

  Perhaps Cousin Gerald had. Gerald was out of a job at the moment, and any lawyer in his right mind—let alone one who was currently unemployed—would jump at the chance to work with my experienced and extremely well-connected father-in-law.

  “But why Gerald?” I said aloud. “Why not his respectable cousins? Can you picture William hooking up with a womanizing embezzler?”

  “No,” said Nell, “but William might not know about Gerald’s reputation. He didn’t ask Miss Kingsley.”

  “Well, that’s the first thing he’s going to hear about from me,” I said, pressing down on the accelerator.

  No wonder Aunt Dimity had sounded the alarm. The idea of Willis, Sr., discussing business with a black sheep like Gerald was bad enough, but the thought of him putting the entire Atlantic Ocean between us was far worse. My own father had died before I’d learned to walk, so Willis, Sr., was, in all the ways that counted, the only father I’d ever known. I would do everything I could to keep from losing him.

  The Willis mansion without Willis, Sr., wou
ld be a much colder and lonelier place to live.

  The closest thing to a hotel in Finch was the upstairs back room in Mr. and Mrs. Peacock’s pub. A handful of tourists had stayed there over the years, but few had returned, put off, perhaps, by the fact that the Peacocks had changed nothing in the room—not even the sheets and pillow cases—since Martin, their army-bound son, had vacated it some twenty years ago.

  Haslemere, Derek had assured me, offered a much wider range of accommodation. It wasn’t a touristy place—not a chain hotel in sight—but its wooded hills and open patches of heath had drawn a steady stream of city-worn Londoners since the coming of the railway in 1859, and the town catered to their needs with a goodly number of small hotels, B&Bs, and guest houses.

  In the end, my choice of lodgings was based on pure panic. After four weary hours of highway driving, we found ourselves in Haslemere at last and moving rapidly toward the top of the High Street, where five roads converged in what looked to me to be a life-threatening maelstrom of traffic. When the Georgian Hotel loomed on my right, with its name spelled out in graceful gold letters on a creamy Queen Anne front, I bailed out.

  Panic paid off. The Georgian was a comfortable hotel a stone’s throw from the center of town, with a spacious bar lounge that opened onto a walled garden. The staff seemed friendly, too. Miss Coombs, the red-haired, freckle-faced young receptionist, welcomed us at the front door and escorted us into her sunny office, where we signed in for an overnight stay.

  I registered under my own name—Lori Shepherd—rather than my husband‘s, in part to avoid drawing attention to a possible connection between myself and Gerald Willis, but mainly because it was still my legal name.

  Nell registered under the name of Nicolette Gascon. I had no idea why, or what it portended, but she announced her new identity with such self-assurance that I decided to ask questions later rather than risk an argument in front of the amiable, but no doubt observant, Miss Coombs. As soon as we’d finished the paperwork, Nell went up to our room, with a heavily laden porter in tow, to call her parents and let them know we’d survived our ordeal by tire.