Aunt Dimity and the Heart of Gold Read online

  With marshmallows, I trust!

  I laughed, and when the curving lines of royal-blue ink had faded from the page, I closed the journal and returned it to its shelf. I paused to touch a finger to Reginald’s pink flannel snout, then headed for the kitchen to dig a bag of marshmallows out of the pantry and to ask Bill if he would mind looking after the children for another hour or so. I had a sudden hankering to do a little exploring of my own.

  Nine

  Invigorated by his walk, Bill agreed to postpone his nap until I returned from Anscombe Manor, though he doubted that I’d be home in time for lunch.

  “Knowing you as I do,” he said, “I won’t be shocked if you’re gone for the rest of the day, or possibly for the next month, but don’t hurry back on my account. I can make lunch and dinner, if need be.”

  “Of course you can,” I said. “Your talents know no bounds.” I gave him a quick kiss. “But I promise to be home in time for dinner.”

  Will, Rob, and Bess were guzzling hot chocolate and munching on oatmeal cookies at the kitchen table while they sorted through the rocks, twigs, acorns, leaves, seedpods, and interesting weeds they’d brought back from the oak grove.

  “Everything’s dripping, Mum,” said Will, “so the lane should be okay.”

  “Good to know,” I said. “Be nice to your father while I’m gone. He didn’t get much sleep last night.”

  “Should’ve slept in the hayloft with us,” Rob mumbled through a mouthful of cookie.

  “Hay!” Bess agreed.

  I planted a kiss on her head, grabbed my jacket and my shoulder bag from the hatstand in the front hall, and took off for Anscombe Manor. Since the Range Rover was equipped with child safety seats, I left it in the driveway and used Bill’s car instead. His Mercedes handled beautifully, but it hardly mattered, because the warm-up was well under way. Droplets fell like rain from the melting icicles on the hedgerows and flowed in braided streams across the narrow, twisting lane. Instead of creeping cautiously over straw-strewn ice, I splashed fearlessly through puddles littered with floating straw.

  Mr. Barlow’s car was the only vehicle parked on the graveled apron when I arrived at Anscombe Manor. I pulled in next to his aged sedan and, as the front entrance was used principally for special occasions, I made my way to the back of the manor house, to let myself in through the kitchen door.

  I ran into Kit in the cobbled courtyard behind the manor. He informed me that Nell was exercising a horse in the enclosed arena while Derek and Peter worked on the day nursery under Cassie’s supervision.

  “Cassie would rather swing a hammer,” he said, “but Peter won’t allow her to exert herself.”

  “I should think not,” I said. “We don’t want the baby to pop out before the nursery’s finished. If I were Cassie, I’d take it easy until the baby’s born. She won’t get much rest afterward.”

  “So I’ve heard,” said Kit, smiling. “You’ll find Emma, Tilly, and Mr. Barlow in the kitchen.”

  “I noticed Mr. Barlow’s car out front,” I said. “Why isn’t he in his workshop with Bree, repairing Tilly’s car?”

  “You’ll have to ask him,” said Kit, “though he may not give you a truthful answer.”

  “Why?” I said lightly. “Is he hiding a deep, dark secret?”

  “In a manner of speaking.” Kit scanned the courtyard, as if to make certain that we were alone, before he replied, “Nell thinks Mr. Barlow has fallen head over heels for Tilly.”

  “Does she?” I paused to review Mr. Barlow’s behavior since Tilly’s car had landed in the drainage ditch, then nodded slowly. “Nell may be right, Kit.”

  “Nell’s never wrong about affairs of the heart,” he said.

  I couldn’t argue with him. Nell had always had an uncanny insight into the workings of the human heart. She’d been all of five years old when she’d predicted Emma’s marriage to Derek, and she’d been aware of Kit’s feelings for her long before he’d admitted them to himself.

  “I don’t know how I missed it,” I said. “Mr. Barlow has been acting like a grouchy knight in shining armor ever since he rescued Tilly. He scolded us for staring at her in the great hall last night, and he nearly bit our heads off when we asked her a few simple questions this morning.”

  “Tread carefully,” Kit advised. “You don’t want to get on the wrong side of a grouchy knight.”

  “Thanks for the warning,” I said. “I won’t pummel Tilly with questions—until Mr. Barlow leaves.”

  Kit laughed and strode across the courtyard to the stables. I opened the kitchen door and stepped inside to find Mr. Barlow seated across the kitchen table from Emma, who looked as if her patience was wearing thin, and Tilly, who looked distressed. Tilly was dressed in yet another drab ensemble—black skirt, gray blouse, and black cardigan, with the jet brooch pinned at her breast.

  “Morning, all,” I said. “Sorry to barge in, but I left my storage containers behind.” I studied Tilly’s tragic countenance for a moment, then asked, “Is everything okay?”

  “No,” she said, staring at her tightly folded hands. “Mr. Barlow very kindly came to break the bad news to me in person.”

  Jack MacBride could learn a lesson or two from our grouchy knight, I thought, but aloud I said, “What bad news?”

  “No one’s died, though you couldn’t tell it by the way Miss Trout’s carrying on,” Mr. Barlow said, rolling his eyes. “I just need to order parts, is all.”

  “It won’t be easy to obtain replacement parts for such an old vehicle during the holidays,” Tilly said woefully. “It could take a fortnight, perhaps longer. I couldn’t possibly trespass on Emma’s hospitality for an entire fortnight. There must be a hotel nearby.”

  “There are several hotels in Upper Deeping,” I said, “and all of them will be booked solid.”

  Emma gazed imploringly at me. “Please tell Tilly that I mean it when I say she’s welcome to stay with us.”

  “Emma doesn’t say things she doesn’t mean,” I said. “You can see for yourself that she has enough room to house an army, and she could feed one, too, with plenty of food to spare.” I sat beside Mr. Barlow, rested my elbows on the table, and continued, “If you want to go home, I’ll drive you, but if you want to do Emma an enormous favor, you’ll stay here.”

  ”A favor?” said Tilly, lifting her lowered eyes to look doubtfully at me. “What sort of favor could I do for Emma?”

  “You could search the house archives for references to the chapel,” I said.

  “Oh, yes,” said Emma, with an enthusiasm born of relief. “I’d love to know more about the chapel, but I never seem to find the time to comb through the archives. I’d be incredibly grateful to you if you’d do it for me, Tilly.”

  “Well,” Tilly said hesitantly, “if I could be of service . . .”

  “You’d be of tremendous service,” Emma assured her.

  “Then I’ll be glad to accept your invitation,” said Tilly.

  Mr. Barlow stood. “Now that you’ve come to your senses, I’ll get back to work. Bree should have delivered your food parcels by now, Emma. She can help me take the tires off the Peugeot.” He moved toward the door, hesitated, and swung around to face Tilly again. “If you need a break from the archives, Miss Trout, I could show you around our church.”

  “Thank you,” said Tilly, “but I wouldn’t dream of—”

  “Yes, you would,” Emma broke in. “You’ll think more clearly if you take a break now and again.”

  Tilly seemed to weigh the suggestion carefully. “I’m not accustomed to taking breaks, but if you advise it—”

  “I do,” Emma said adamantly.

  “May I ring you?” Tilly asked Mr. Barlow.

  “Yes,” he said, his voice cracking like a teenager’s. He cleared his throat and repeated more forcefully, “Yes. Emma has my number. Ring anytime and I’ll come and
fetch you. Good day, ladies.”

  He let himself out through the kitchen door, though it took him two tries to lift the latch far enough to open the door. Nell’s never wrong about affairs of the heart, I reminded myself as I watched him fumble with a latch he’d lifted a hundred times before. Mr. Barlow is in love with Tilly Trout.

  “We keep the house archives in the library,” Emma was saying to Tilly. “I can take you there now, if you like.”

  “Hold on,” I said. “Before you dive into the archives, Tilly, there’s another subject I’d like to discuss with you. I was thinking about Scotney Castle after I got home this morning, and—”

  “Why were you thinking about Scotney Castle?” Emma interrupted. “Are you planning a visit?”

  Emma was one of the handful of people who knew about my disembodied houseguest. If she and I had been alone, I wouldn’t have hesitated to tell her about my conversation with Aunt Dimity. I did not, however, intend to inform Tilly that I’d spent the morning chatting with a dead woman.

  “I’m not planning a visit,” I said. “It’s just one of those things that drifted into my mind.” I gave Emma a repressive look before turning to Tilly. “It struck me that, if Scotney Castle has a priest hole, Emma’s chapel might have one, too. Why didn’t you look for a priest hole when you were in the chapel last night?”

  Tilly blinked at me dumbly, then shook her head, looking chagrined. “I hope you’ll forgive me, Emma. I must have been overtired, because it simply never occurred to me to look for a priest hole.”

  “I’ll forgive you,” said Emma, “if you’ll tell me what a priest hole is.”

  “Tell her on the way to the chapel,” I recommended, getting to my feet. “Come on, you two. We’ll search for the priest hole together.”

  “We’ll need torches,” said Tilly. “And brooms.”

  “Brooms?” I queried.

  “The handles will be useful for floor tapping,” Tilly explained.

  Equipped with the tools of the priest-hole hunter’s trade, we strode purposefully to the chapel. As she had the previous evening, Tilly shed her shyness as soon as she was asked to share her knowledge. While we walked, she delivered a lecture on priest holes that put Aunt Dimity’s in the shade. I was particularly appalled by the tale of Nicholas Owen, the Jesuit lay brother responsible for the construction of numerous priest holes during the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I.

  “Brother Nicholas was lame and quite tiny,” Tilly informed us, “yet he always worked alone, sometimes in the dead of night, cutting through stonework or thick oak floorboards to create his hiding places.”

  “He must have been a prime target for the priest hunters,” I said.

  “Indeed, he was,” Tilly concurred. “He evaded them until 1606, when he was captured, conveyed to the Tower of London, and tortured to death on the rack. Despite suffering untold agonies, he never imparted a scintilla of useful information to his captors.”

  “A brave man,” I murmured hollowly, trying not to imagine his untold agonies.

  “Brother Nicholas was canonized in 1970,” Tilly said brightly, as if sainthood made his horrific death less dreadful. “I think he’d be pleased to know that he’s the patron saint of illusionists and escapologists, don’t you?”

  “I’m sure he would,” I said, exchanging aghast grimaces with Emma behind Tilly’s back. “I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who knows as much as you do about the history of the Roman Catholic Church in England. You wouldn’t happen to be a nun, would you?”

  “I attend church regularly,” she replied seriously, “but I’ve never felt the call to take Holy Orders. I’m nothing more than a lay member of the Church of England.” She clasped her hands together. “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we discovered one of Brother Nicholas’s priest holes in your chapel, Emma?”

  “How would we know it was one of his?” Emma asked. “He didn’t sign them, did he?”

  “No, but certain features have come to be associated with his work,” said Tilly. “Brother Nicholas was known for creating double-blind priest holes—hiding places that contained two compartments, one in front of or below the other. Upon finding the first compartment empty, the priest hunters would conclude their search, leaving the priest safe and sound in the second compartment.”

  “How thick are the chapel walls?” I asked Emma.

  “The exterior wall is three feet thick, and it’s made of stone blocks,” she replied. “Derek measured it a few years ago. We used to joke that the original builders aimed for a castle and ended up with a manor house, but now I’m not so sure.”

  “A three-foot-thick wall would be roomy enough for a priest hole,” I pointed out.

  “It suggests to me that the builder included a priest hole in his plan for the chapel,” said Tilly. “An unusual occurrence, but not entirely without precedent.”

  Before Tilly could offer us a list of historic houses with similar architectural features, Emma opened the chapel door and turned on the wall sconces.

  “Where do we begin?” she asked.

  “With the floor, I think,” said Tilly. She flipped her broom upside down and demonstrated the correct tapping technique. “If one of us hears a hollow sound, we’ll stop to investigate.”

  We divided the floor into three zones, one for each of us, and walked slowly up and down the room, tapping our broom handles on the parquet. I wasn’t sure I would recognize a “hollow sound” if I heard one, so I listened for any thump that stood out from the rest. None did, for me or for my companions. Though we tapped every square inch of the floor, we found nothing to investigate.

  “The walls, then,” said Tilly, undeterred.

  “We don’t have to tap them, do we?” said Emma. “I’d hate to dent the paneling.”

  “We’ll look for hidden handles first,” said Tilly. “Draw your fingers along the carved edges within each panel to feel for a notch or a bump—any feature that doesn’t belong there.”

  Emma and I took a long wall apiece while Tilly concentrated on the short ones. It was slow going. The linenfold panels had so many edges that it took quite a while to slide our fingers along each of them. When Tilly finished examining the panels surrounding the door, she turned her attention to the panels at the end of the room where the disguised altar had once stood. Since we weren’t listening for odd thumps anymore, she treated us to more fun facts about priest holes while she worked.

  “The compartments were usually quite compact,” she said. “It must have been exceedingly uncomfortable to sit or to crouch in a confined space, in total darkness, without making a noise for fear of alerting the priest hunters. Hunger and thirst could assail the hidden priest as well. A search could last for days in a house as large as Anscombe Manor.”

  “I’d rather face muscle cramps, hunger, and thirst than the rack,” I said.

  “So would I,” said Emma.

  “Naturally, one would,” said Tilly. “Even so, it must have been terribly stressful to know that the slightest moan could mean the difference between life and . . . Oh!” she cried suddenly. “I’ve found it!”

  She stood at the center of the altar wall, with one hand resting on a waist-high section of paneling that had swung wide to reveal a second, much plainer panel. Emma and I instantly abandoned our walls and rushed to the far end of the chapel to take a closer look at Tilly’s find.

  “There’s a latch that opens it from the inside as well as the outside,” she explained excitedly, indicating an inch-long piece of carving protruding from the bottom edge of the outer panel. “Imagine it opening silently after centuries of disuse,” she marveled. “It quite takes my breath away.”

  “The inner panel would make the outer panel seem solid if a priest hunter tapped it,” Emma said. “Ingenious.”

  “How do we open the inner panel?” I asked. “I don’t see a handle.”

  “I b
elieve it slides sideways,” said Tilly.

  “Slide it!” I urged.

  “May I?” Tilly inquired, gazing hopefully at Emma.

  When Emma nodded, Tilly wedged her fingertips into the seam at the left-hand edge of the inner panel. She tugged sideways and the panel slid open soundlessly to reveal a pitch-black cavity. While Emma and I gaped at the yawning hole in the stone wall behind the linenfold panel, Tilly staggered backward and covered her mouth with her hands.

  “A priest hole,” she whispered. “I’ve found a priest hole.”

  “Would you like to sit down, Tilly?” Emma asked, looking helplessly around the empty room. “I can bring a chair for you.”

  “No, no,” said Tilly. “I’ll be all right in a moment.” She dropped her hands and took a steadying breath. “It’s just a bit . . . overwhelming. I can’t thank you enough for giving me the opportunity to make such a marvelous discovery.”

  “I should be thanking you,” said Emma. “I didn’t know what a priest hole was until you told me, so I wouldn’t have searched for one. Are you a teacher?”

  “A teacher!” Tilly exclaimed. She shook her head and said modestly, “I haven’t the education to be a teacher.”

  “I beg to differ,” said Emma. “You seem to be very well educated.”

  “You’re very kind,” said Tilly.

  “We’re all very thankful and kind and well educated,” I said with a touch of asperity. “But now that we’ve found the priest hole, could we please take a look inside it?”

  “Tilly first.” Emma stepped aside and waved a hand toward the black cavity. “To the victor go the spoils.”

  “Are you quite sure?” Tilly asked.

  “Discoverer’s privilege,” Emma stated firmly. “But remember to turn on your flashlight.”

  Tilly flicked the switch on her flashlight and thrust it before her as she poked her head inside the cavity.

  “It’s larger than I expected,” she reported. “Ample headroom.” She shone the light to her left, turned her head to follow the beam, and drew back from the cavity with a gasp.