Aunt Dimity Digs In (7 page)

“Did you use the right ones?” I asked anxiously.

“Would the ones labeled
My Milk
be the right ones?” Francesca asked.

I blushed. “Yes, well . . . Bill sort of mixed them up a few weeks ago and—”

“Stop!” Emma clapped her hands over her ears and shuddered. “Remind me to thank Derek for presenting me with two children who were already weaned and potty-trained.”

Francesca smiled. “Rob’s finished his supper,” she informed me, “so I’ll pop inside and get on with ours. I hope you don’t mind, but I used the tomatoes and such Mrs. Harris brought over from her garden. I’ll manage better once I’ve learnt the trick of opening the kitchen cupboards.”

“I don’t mind at all,” I assured her, and as Francesca went back into the cottage, I made a mental note to take a screwdriver to the cupboards’ safety catches first thing in the morning. If my new nanny could whip up a sauce like that from a bag of miscellaneous veg, there was no telling what she might do with a fully stocked kitchen at her fingertips.

“Thanks for the fresh produce,” I said, turning to Emma.

“I can’t guarantee the quality. This drought is wreaking havoc on my garden. I shudder to think what the farmers are going through.” She leaned forward to straighten Rob’s blanket. “When did you decide to hire live-in help?”

“I didn’t,” I told her. “I’m the victim of a conspiracy.” I gave Emma a quick rundown of my action-packed day, then sat back with Will and waited patiently while she laughed herself hoarse. “Go ahead, yuck it up,” I said darkly.

“Sorry,” Emma said, wiping her eyes. “But wait till you see
this.
” Chuckles continued to percolate from her as she reached over to her riding helmet and pulled a familiar-looking sheet of harvest-gold paper out from under it. “I found it in my mailbox this afternoon. It’s the reason I came over in the first place.” She cleared her throat and declaimed, with appropriate emphasis:

“ Take that, Vicar!” Emma peeked at me over the flyer and came perilously close to losing her tenuous grip on sobriety. She was saved by the sound of two hands clapping.

“Bravo,” called Bill. My husband had come up the side path and stood at the rear corner of the cottage, grinning broadly as he applauded Emma’s performance. He’d exchanged his workaday suit and tie for sneakers, shorts, and an old Harvard sweatshirt. Thanks to the bicycle, his legs were shaping up nicely, his face was ruddy with good health, and he was beginning to lose the broker’s bulge he’d brought with him from Boston. Some men went to seed under the burden of fatherhood, but my Bill was blossoming. “No need to ask who composed that call to arms. Will your name be on the petition, Emma?”

“Absolutely not,” she declared. “After what Lori’s told me, I’m going to stay as far away from Peggy’s shop as possible. Are you going to sign the petition, Lori?”

“I have to,” I replied gloomily, “or Peggy’ll be out here with a bullhorn. I can’t wait until she moves to Little Stubbing.”

“I pity the poor people of Little Stubbing. They don’t know what’s about to hit them.” Emma reached for her riding helmet and got to her feet. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help. My computer skills are, as always, at your service.”

“What’s all this about Little Stubbing?” Bill asked as he bent to examine Rob’s bouncing menagerie.

“I’ll tell you after dinner.” Will had long since finished his afternoon meal, so I handed him to his father and buttoned my blouse. “You’re home early. Rainey wore you out, did she?” I expected a bantering reply, but Bill answered seriously.

“ To tell you the truth, I feel sorry for her,” he said. “She doesn’t have anyone her own age to play with.”

“No one?” I said.

Bill raised Will to his shoulder and gently patted his back. “When Sally Pyne came by to fetch Rainey, we got to talking, and she told me that there aren’t any children in Finch. A few kids out on the farms, yes, but none in the village.” He rubbed his cheek against Will’s fuzzy head. “It’s going to be a long summer for that little girl.”

“Poor kid,” I said. “We’ll have to come up with an extraspecial birthday present for her.”

Bill’s nose wrinkled suddenly and he leaned closer to Rob. “Right now I think our boy has a present for us. Here, you take Will and I’ll change Rob while you start in on dinner.”

I stretched out my arms for Will and smiled as I recalled the stockpot simmering on the stove. “Have I got news for you. . . .”

 

Francesca not only prepared our dinner, she served it to us in the dining room, on real plates, and cleaned up the mess afterward. It was a revelation to me, to relax and enjoy a meal with my husband after four months of snatching mouthfuls on the run.

“She did the laundry, put the linen closet in order, and got dinner ready while I was in town,” I told Bill as we lingered over the raspberries and cream. “And she never gets her apron dirty.”

“She’s beginning to sound vaguely supernatural,” Bill commented.

“Now that you mention it . . .” I lowered my voice, feeling for the first time like a chatelaine with servants to consider. “When she arrived, the cottage was filled with the scent of lilacs.”

Bill’s eyes widened. “No chill in the air? No smoke?” He was referring to tricks Dimity had once used to rid the cottage of an unwelcome visitor.

“Just lilacs,” I replied.

Bill sat back and rubbed his jaw. “I guess Ruth and Louise picked the right nanny.” He pushed himself away from the table. “It’s still light out. How about a walk? If I’m not careful, Francesca’s cooking will ruin my girlish figure.”

We put Will and Rob in their all-terrain strollers, advised Francesca of our plans, and set off down the path through the oak grove that separated the Harrises’ property from mine.

The grove was a tranquil oasis. Leaf-filtered sunlight patterned the path with quivering shadows, squirrels chit tered in the branches overhead, and sparrows flitted from bower to bough. For a moment, walking at my husband’s side and watching my sons absorb a world of wonder, I felt so lighthearted that if I’d let go of Rob’s stroller, I’d have floated.

Then Bill asked how my day had gone.

I told him. In great detail. With many gestures. I think I may have frightened the squirrels.

“Now Peggy’s petitioning the bishop. God knows what she’ll do next. And unless you want your sons to grow up fatherless,” I concluded testily, “you’ll wipe that smirk off of your face this instant!”

“I’m sorry.” Bill wrapped his arms around me and kissed the top of my head—a diversionary tactic, I was certain. “I was only trying to get you out of the house. If I’d known the Gladwell pamphlet would do the trick, I wouldn’t have sent Hurricane Peggy in your direction.”

“Well . . .” I allowed grudgingly, “you sent Francesca in my direction, too, so I guess we can call it a wash.”

Bill reached for Will’s stroller and we resumed our walk. “Do you think we’ll have to catch the thief,” he asked, “or will it be enough if we can persuade Adrian Culver to leave the schoolhouse?”

“They’re not separate issues,” I replied. “We have to find the thief in order to find the stolen pamphlet. And we have to find the stolen pamphlet in order to prove to Adrian Culver that his big find is a bad joke. That’s the only way we’ll get him to vacate the schoolhouse in time for the Harvest Festival. And that’s the only way we’ll get Peggy Kitchen out of the vicar’s hair and into Little Stubbing’s.”

“Wait.” Bill stopped in his tracks. “Haven’t you skipped a step? What about asking Stan to find another copy of the Gladwell pamphlet?”

“I’ll ask him,” I said, “but, frankly, his chances of tracking down another copy are as remote as . . . as the chances of Peggy Kitchen making a huge donation to Saint George’s this coming Sunday.”

“No hope?” said Bill.

I held my thumb and forefinger a hairsbreadth apart. “About this much. There’s a reason documents like the Gladwell pamphlet are called ephemera. Brochures, broadsheets, posters—they’re not made to last. If they do survive, they’re usually buried in the bowels of a poorly indexed collection. It could be years before Stan gets lucky.”

“Then we’ll simply have to keep our eyes and ears open,” said Bill, stepping off briskly. “Someone must have seen something, and they’re bound to talk. You’ll be surprised at how quickly news spreads in a place like Finch.” The twins chirped with delight as we steered the strollers around a dip in the path. “ The village grapevine is the most effective means of communication known to man. It makes the Internet look like a pair of Dixie cups on a string.”

“So all I’ll have to do is make myself available? Bill,” I added, pausing to catch my breath, “could we slow down? I’m getting winded and you’re going to bounce Will right out of his stroller.”

“Sorry.” Bill adjusted his stride and tried, halfheartedly, to suppress a self-satisfied grin. “Shall we call it a day?”

I squirmed at the thought of Bill taking pity on me—Bill! The man who’d scarcely been able to climb Pou ter’s Hill without collapsing!—but I nodded. Four months of diaper-changing were no match for four months of bicycle-riding.

“Peggy’s petition won’t help me find the burglar,” I said as we turned the strollers around. “Everyone in the village will sign it, including the thief. No one in his right mind is going to defy Peggy Kitchen openly.”

Bill stooped to rescue a tiny sock that was in danger of escaping from Will’s flailing foot. “You know how I hate to contradict you, my love, especially in front of the children, but Sally Pyne’s defied Peggy already.”

“To her face?” I said, astonished.

“More or less,” said Bill. “Sally offered room and board to the two young people Dr. Culver brought with him.”

“Simon and Katrina,” I said. “Did they accept?”

“ They moved in Sunday afternoon.” Bill straightened. “Sally Pyne is clearly a Culverite.”

I picked a long blade of grass from the edge of the path and twirled it slowly between my fingers. “An archaeological site might pull in tourists,” I reasoned, “and tourists would boost business at Sally’s tearoom. I suppose Sally might’ve burgled the vicarage.”

“Fat Sally?” Bill lifted an eyebrow. “It’s hard to imagine a woman of Sally’s proportions managing stealthy footsteps, but it’s possible.”

“Too much is possible,” I grumbled. “The only villagers I can scratch off the list of suspects are the Buntings and Peggy Kitchen.”

“And Jasper Taxman,” Bill put in. “According to Sally Pyne, Mr. Taxman is courting Peggy Kitchen.”

I whistled softly between my teeth. “Brave man.”

“He’s a retired accountant,” Bill explained. “Perhaps he craves excitement in his golden years.”

“Perhaps,” I said doubtfully. I crossed Jasper Taxman’s name off of my mental list, then frowned. “What if all of the villagers decide to keep their mouths shut?”

Bill patted my hand. “It’ll never happen. Gossip is a competitive sport in Finch. As you said before, all you have to do is make yourself available.”

“I’ll have tea tomorrow, at Sally Pyne’s,” I said, warming to the idea, “and you’ll eat lunch and dinner at the pub for the next few days.”

Bill sighed mournfully. “I feel compelled to point out that we’ll be forsaking the delights of Francesca’s cooking. Are we willing to make such a sacrifice for the Buntings’ sake?”

I paused, remembering the vicar’s troubled face and the undercurrent of concern in Lilian’s voice. I owed an awful lot to those two kindly souls. I’d given up on religion when my mother had died, but the twins had made me reach for it again. Delivery rooms, like foxholes, make believers of us all, and when I’d first entered Saint George’s, furtively and by a side door, too embarrassed to admit how lost I felt, the Buntings had welcomed me as though I’d never strayed.

Bill had turned to look back at me. The playful note was gone from his voice when he said, “I know. It’s the least we can do.”

I hugged him, then pushed away. “Hey, Mr. Big Shot Boston lawyer—how did you get to be such an expert on small towns?” I’d intended to lighten the mood, but Bill’s face remained somber.

“Finch reminds me of my prep school,” he said, “which means that we’d better catch our thief quickly. When people in a close-knit community start taking sides in a dispute, things can turn ugly overnight.”

7.

“Shepherd! How the hell are you? Up to your armpits in crappy nappies?”

Dr. Stanford J. “Call me Stan” Finderman wasn’t your standard academic. My old boss looked more like a long shoreman than a scholar, with a bristly crew cut, a barrel chest, and hands that could wring the neck of a rhinoceros. His forthright manner and colorful vocabulary were legacies of a stint in the navy.

“Brats off the tit yet?” Stan continued. “Or d’you plan to go to college with ’em?”

“The boys are fine, Stan,” I replied. It was nine o’clock in the morning and I felt like a million bucks. I’d slept like a rock for six hours, fed the boys, then rolled over for another luxurious half hour while Francesca got them bathed and dressed. My sterling nanny had baked croissants for breakfast—after I showed her how to open the kitchen cabinets—and Bill had pedaled off to work whistling blithely, while I retreated to the study to make my call to Stan. “Can you spare a minute? I need your help.”

“Anytime, anyplace, Shepherd.” Stan’s sense of loyalty was another legacy of his stint in the navy.

“I’m trying to do a favor for some friends,” I explained. “Do we know anyone who collects obscure Victorian archaeological ephemera?”