Aunt Dimity and the Summer King (21 page)

I
f I'd written the ensuing scene, Arthur would have thrown his head back and rattled the rafters with a mad scientist's cackle of laughter. A bookcase would have swung outward to reveal the hidden entrance to his secret laboratory. There would have been thunder and lightning and, perhaps, the distant howl of a ravening wolf.

In real life, the scene was a bit less dramatic.

Arthur tilted his head to one side and inquired politely, “I beg your pardon?”

“Don't play dumb with me,” I snapped, straightening. “I've spoken with Marigold Edwards. I know all about Monoceros Properties, Limited.”

“I see,” said Arthur. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “If it's not too much trouble, would you mind telling me what you've learned about Monoceros Properties, Limited?”

“It's a cover,” I said furiously. “You're using it to control access to housing in Finch.”

“Why would I wish to control access to housing in Finch?” he asked.

“Because you're an evil genius!” I expostulated. “You bought up the village on the sly so you could use it in some sort of crazy social experiment.”

“Interesting,” he said without the least hint of rancor. “I've been called a genius many times before, but you are, to my knowledge, the first person to describe me as evil.”

“Evil may be too strong a word,” I admitted, blushing, “but unethical genius doesn't pack the same punch.”

“No, it doesn't,” Arthur agreed. “How did you find out about Monoceros? Did you run my name through a computer search engine?”

“I don't use computers to spy on people,” I said disdainfully. “I spoke face-to-face with my neighbors. Then I rifled through Marigold's files.”

Arthur's mouth twitched. He made an odd, choking noise. Then he began to laugh. It wasn't the cackling laugh I'd half hoped to hear from him, but the hearty guffaw of a man who'd just heard a delicious joke. He staggered a few steps farther into the room and sank onto an armchair across from the sofa, where he continued to chortle helplessly while I stood my ground, glaring at him with a mixture of uncertainty and seething indignation.

“Forgive me, Lori,” he said finally, wiping his eyes. “I don't mean to be disrespectful. We all have certain lines we refuse to cross. Yours apparently include computer searches, but exclude the rifling of files.”

He allowed himself one last, hiccuping chuckle, then took a shaky breath and contained his mirth.

“I'm perfectly aware of how contradictory I sounded just then,” I said haughtily. “I told you about the files because I didn't want you to think that Marigold had betrayed your confidence. She seems like a nice person and I wouldn't want her to get into trouble for something she didn't do. But the fact remains that I don't trust the Internet. I do trust the evidence of my own eyes and ears.”

“I, too, prefer firsthand evidence,” he said. “In this instance, however, I'm afraid your own eyes and ears have led you astray.”

He raised a hand to silence my protest.

“You're on the right track, I'll grant you, but you've ended up at the wrong destination.” He nodded at the sofa. “Have a seat and I'll tell you where you went wrong.”

He seemed so relaxed and so sure of himself that I began to have serious doubts about my hasty accusations. I glanced at the yellowing map of Finch, then crossed to sit on the sofa, with the bassinet at my feet.

“I'm listening,” I said. “So is Bess.”

“I'll try not to disappoint either one of you.” Arthur leaned back in his chair, crossed his legs, and began, “I didn't buy Finch, Lori. I inherited it and all the responsibilities that came along with it.”

“Did your father buy the village?” I asked.

“My father, too, inherited the village, as did his father and his father's father,” said Arthur. “The original purchase was made by my great-great-grandfather.”

“Quentin Hargreaves,” I said. “The man who built Hillfont Abbey.”

Arthur nodded.

“To understand my family's relationship with Finch,” he said, “you must first understand Quentin.” He paused, then lifted his arm in a gesture that encompassed the entire library. “Look around you, Lori. Tell me what you see hanging on the walls.”

I gave the walls a cursory glance and said, “I see what I saw before, Arthur—maps, technical drawings, the family coat of arms. Why? Is it important?”

“What's important is what's missing,” he told me.

“You're talking in riddles,” I said impatiently. “I'm not good at solving riddles.”

“You'll solve this one,” he assured me. “Try again. Ask yourself what you would expect to find hanging on the walls of a library as old as this one.”

I sighed irritably, but when I turned my head to study the library's walls, the answer came to me in a flash.

“Portraits,” I said, feeling absurdly pleased with myself. “I'd expect to find family portraits. Where are they? Did Quentin build a special gallery for them?”

“If you go through the whole of Hillfont Abbey, you won't find a single family portrait,” said Arthur. “I'm not talking about family snaps. We have plenty of those. I'm talking about the grandiose portraits of powerful ancestors painted as props to support a family's sense of self-importance. You won't find any of those in the abbey.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“They foster laziness,” Arthur replied. “They allow one to rest on someone else's laurels. Quentin was proud of his ancestors, most of whom were blacksmiths and armorers, but he refused to take credit for their accomplishments. He believed that each generation should set its own goals and achieve them through”—he pointed toward the coat of arms—“imagination, hard work, and persistence. Quentin inculcated his children with the belief that the only aristocracy worth preserving is the aristocracy of the mind.”

“Arthur,” I said, “you don't have to convince me that you come from a long line of high-achieving smarty-pants. I already know that cleverness runs in your family. I kind of got that message when I met your astrophysicist grandson. Maybe my tiny brain is missing the point, but I don't see what any of this has to do with Finch.”

“You will,” Arthur said. “As I told you the other day, Quentin was a manufacturer. He built factories, streamlined methods of mass production, employed hundreds of workers, and made millions of pounds. He believed in progress, in the future, but he also kept one foot planted firmly in the past.”

“He preserved the Roman fountain,” I said, nodding, “and he filled his home with handcrafted furnishings. Also,” I went on, like a student eager to show off, “he built a whimsical country house loosely based on a historical model.”

“Well done,” said Arthur. “Full marks.”

“Once a teacher, always a teacher,” I said with a reluctant smile. “You told me Quentin bought a large estate so he could pursue his dreams in peace. Was Finch part of the estate?”

“It was not,” said Arthur. “He bought Finch one cottage at a time. Within ten years he owned the entire village, with the obvious exceptions of the church, the vicarage, and the schoolhouse.”

“Which were owned by the diocese,” I put in.

“Correct,” said Arthur. “Quentin also purchased every parcel of land within a ten-mile radius of Finch.”

“A ten-mile radius?” I echoed. “That means he bought Anscombe Manor and the Pym sisters' house and . . . and
Fairworth House
?”

“He did,” said Arthur. “We still own each of those properties.”

I gaped at him. “You're William's
landlord
?”

“I'm afraid so,” Arthur said apologetically. “But I can assure you that the terms of his lease are not onerous. We gave him our permission to renovate the house and we contributed to the cost of the renovation.”

“And he never knew it was you?” I said, astonished.

“I don't believe so.” Arthur smiled mischievously. “I never received a thank-you note.”

“But my cottage is mine, isn't it?” I asked, too preoccupied to react to Arthur's mild attempt at humor. “Marigold called me a freeholder.”

“There's nothing preventing my family from selling all the properties Quentin acquired,” said Arthur, “but it has, in fact, happened only once, when Dimity Westwood purchased her property. A great deal of money was involved in the transaction—land prices had risen sharply since Quentin's time—but Miss Westwood wished to leave the cottage to you without encumbrances.”

“Wow,” I said, stunned.

A squawk from Bess gave my reeling mind time to focus again. Once I'd freed her to practice push-ups on a blanket I'd spread across the rug in front of the sofa, I sat beside her and peered curiously at Arthur.

“I don't get it,” I said. “Quentin was proud of being a self-made man. He didn't want to be a lazy aristocrat, living off the achievements of his forefathers. Why would he suddenly decide to become the lord of the manor?”

“That's exactly what he
didn't
do,” said Arthur. “He bought Finch and its environs on the sly, to use your colorful phrase, by utilizing various intermediaries. He created a company—Monoceros Properties, Limited—to shield his identity. He made it virtually impossible to trace the transactions directly back to him.”

“He bought Finch anonymously,” I said, feeling utterly at sea. “Why would he buy a village if he didn't want to lord it over the villagers?”

“Quentin had no wish to lord it over anyone,” said Arthur. “He bought Finch because the villagers despised him. They thought he was an upstart, a parvenu, a grubby tradesman who didn't deserve their respect. They called his house Quentin's Folly and made rude remarks about him whenever he ventured into the village.”

I eyed Arthur doubtfully.

“I don't mean to pry,” I said, “but did Quentin have a taste for . . . abuse?”

“Not at all,” said Arthur, laughing, “but he did have a great liking for honesty. He found their attitude refreshing and wholly admirable. The people in Tillcote treated him with undue deference. They tugged their forelocks when he passed by and came crawling to him, cap in hand, asking for jobs and favors.”

“They treated him as if he were an aristocrat,” I said, with a glimmer of comprehension, “which is the one thing he didn't wish to be.”

“Precisely,” said Arthur. “He was accustomed to the rough-and-tumble world of industry. He preferred Finch's bluntness to Tillcote's toadying. He mistrusted kid gloves.”

“He liked boxing gloves better?” I said.

“They're more direct,” said Arthur. “Quentin wished to do something for Finch, but he didn't want the villagers to feel indebted to him.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“To make them grateful would be to encourage subservience,” Arthur explained. “He also agreed with the Greek philosopher Seneca, who wrote: Let him who has done a good deed be silent.”

“Quentin wanted to do a good deed for Finch,” I said, “but he wanted to do it anonymously.”

“Yes,” said Arthur. “When a dispute over stolen pigs arose between Finch and Tillcote, therefore, he sided with Tillcote.”

“He offended Finch on purpose,” I marveled, “so he could help the villagers without hurting their pride.”

“It seems back to front,” Arthur acknowledged, “but Quentin had to distance himself from the village in order to protect it.”

“Protect it?” I said. “Protect it from what?”

“From housing estates, industrial parks, motorways, and suburban sprawl,” said Arthur. “The countryside was already under threat in Quentin's time. He realized that the only way to protect Finch was to create a buffer zone around it.”

I turned Bess over and let her play grab-and-chew with my fingers.

“A buffer zone would explain why Quentin bought the surrounding land,” I said to Arthur, “but it doesn't explain why he bought the village.”

“Quentin foresaw the day when country cottages would become a rare and valuable commodity,” Arthur informed me. “He was bitterly opposed to the gentrification of small villages. He loathed the idea of the wealthy driving out those of lesser means.”

“So he bought the cottages in order to control housing costs,” I said, as understanding finally dawned. “He transformed Finch into a . . . a rent-controlled village where ordinary, everyday people could afford to live.”

“It's been that way ever since,” said Arthur. “We see to it.”

“How do you keep Finch from being overrun by bargain-hunters?” I asked.

“The buffer zone helps,” said Arthur. “No one can build a leisure center or a cinema or a minimall within ten miles of Finch. Their absence gives the village a highly desirable air of dullness.”

“Finch has its limitations,” I said wryly.

“We also rely on word of mouth rather than advertising to attract new residents,” said Arthur. “When a property becomes available, we list it with one small estate agency in Upper Deeping and we give them strict instructions to wait for interested parties to come to them.”

“The Edwards Estate Agency,” I said. “Your family's current intermediary.”

“They've served us well for nearly a hundred years,” said Arthur.

“I suppose the total-immersion tour is another way of reducing demand,” I said.

“So you found out about the tour as well,” Arthur said admiringly. “You have done your homework. I must admit that your name for it is catchier than ours.”

“What do you call it?” I asked.

“An introduction to Finch,” Arthur replied. “One moves into a community as well as a cottage.”

“So I've been told,” I said, hearing the echo of Aunt Dimity's words in Arthur's.

“The introduction,” Arthur continued, “allows people to test the waters before they make a commitment. It's not an infallible system. People sometimes overestimate their tolerance for Finch's uniquely potent form of neighborliness.”