Aunt Dimity's Death (14 page)

“You seem to be a million miles away,” he said softly.

“More like a million years,” I said. “One of my mother’s stories has a cottage in it, exactly like this one. I feel as though I’ve been here before.”

“It’s a strange feeling,” said Bill, “to see a legend from your childhood come to life.”

“Mmm.” I nodded absently. “I was a little worried, after the zoo. She told a story about that, too, and she made it sound like … like Disney World. And it wasn’t like that at all—not during the war, at any rate. But the cottage is just as it should be.”

“As she promised it would be,” Bill murmured.

It was an odd comment, but I wasn’t paying attention. I was already walking toward the door, curious to see if the inside of the cottage would
be as true to the story as the outside was. Bill followed me into the hall, then stopped. He pointed to the ladder-back chair beside the hat rack. “I’ll wait here. You go on ahead, get acquainted with the place.”

“You don’t mind?”

He shook his head. “It’s your story.”

I searched his face for a trace of mockery, but there was none to be found.

“I’ll be right back.” I handed him his jacket and started up the hall.

The two front rooms on the ground floor Were the living and dining rooms. A study was just beyond the living room, to the rear of the cottage, and there was a pretty little powder room just beyond that, complete with lavender-scented hand soap and ruffled towels. I wasn’t big on ruffles, as a rule, but here I couldn’t imagine anything else.

Having completed a quick once-over, I returned for a more leisurely examination of the living room. I saw no sign of the renovation Willis, Sr., had mentioned until I found a television and a snazzy sound system hidden in the cabinetry along one wall. The room had to have been enlarged to accommodate these additions, but even so, I had no trouble picturing Aunt Dimity eating brown bread and drinking tea before that fireplace.

The room was spacious yet snug, with deeply upholstered chairs and a beamed ceiling. Bowls of lilacs had been placed here and there, filling the room with the scent of early summer. A bow window overlooked the front garden, and its window seat was fitted with cushions straight out of my mother’s story.

Or were they? If I remembered the story correctly, Aunt Dimity’s cat had spilled a pot of ink on one of the cushions (having already chewed the fern to bits, scratched the legs of the dining room table, and tipped over the knitting basket). Aha, I thought, feeling extremely clever, I’ve caught you. Surely, that had only been part of the story. Surely …

The inkstain was there. Someone had tried many times to remove it, and it had faded over the years, but it was still there, a defiant blue patch in the back corner near the wall. I gazed at it, then crossed the hall to check the legs of the dining room table. They bore the claw marks of a cantankerous cat. I glanced over my shoulder, half expecting him to stalk through the doorway, demanding a bowl of cream. No such thing happened, of course. The cat had undoubtedly gone on to harass his mistress in another world.

Even without the cat, the dining room was recognizably Aunt Dimity’s. It mirrored the living room, with its fireplace, bow window, and cabinetry, though here the cabinets were glass-fronted and filled with delicate bone china and crystal. A door in one wall opened on to the
kitchen and it was there that I found the first big discrepancy between the cottage of my mother’s story and the one in which I stood. I also discovered that Willis, Sr., shared his son’s fondness for under-statement.

This was no “minor improvement.” This was the most fully equipped modern wonder of a kitchen I’d ever seen, with everything from a microwave oven to a set of juice dispensers in the refrigerator door. As I opened doors and drawers and examined countertops, my first coherent thought was: This is a kitchen for someone who can’t cook.

In other words, a kitchen designed with me in mind. It was a farfetched notion, to say the least. My former husband had been as good a cook as my mother, and I had been too intimidated to learn, but even if Dimity had known of my culinary incompetence, she couldn’t have revamped the kitchen for my benefit. I was only going to be here for a month, after all. The truth had to be that Dimity Westwood had been a lousy cook, too. It would certainly explain why Aunt Dimity seemed to subsist on brown bread and tea.

I wasn’t one bit disappointed to find that the kitchen bore no resemblance to the primitive one of
Aunt Dimity’s Cottage.
I loved the idea of an open hearth, but if I’d been forced to cook on one, I would have starved.

A second door led into a well-stocked pantry and a roomy utility area, and the third and last door led into the hallway. Directly across the hall was the book-lined study, and a white-painted, fern-bedecked solarium stretched across the back end of the cottage.

I paused to survey the study. A stack of papers sat on the desk that faced the ivy-covered windows, and I crossed the room to investigate. I thought it might be miscellaneous bits and pieces of the correspondence—selected letters, perhaps, related to the stories—but it proved to be the stories themselves. They had been written in longhand on fine, unlined paper, and the title page brought me up short.

“Lori’s Stories”
I whispered. It was as though Dimity had foreseen my reluctance to share my heroine with the masses, and had offered this title to reassure me: no matter how far afield these tales might travel in years to come, they would always be mine. I straightened the edges of the manuscript with hands that were none too steady, glanced idly at the bookcases—and found the correspondence.

Books filled several vertical sections of shelves, but the rest of the wall was reserved for row after row of neatly labeled archive boxes. Talking about the letters, reading about them, even thinking long and hard about them, hadn’t prepared me for the impact of seeing them. More than forty years of my mother’s life had been captured in those boxes and the sight
left me feeling slightly dazed. Stan Finderman had once mentioned something called “the mystique of the manuscript” and I finally understood what he had meant. My mother had touched these pages, and in their presence, I felt hers. I wanted to pull down a box right away, but I held off. Not now, not yet. Not with Bill cooling his heels in the hall. After a moment’s thought, I picked up the manuscript and headed for the front door.

Bill stood as I returned.

“That good?” he asked.

“Better,” I replied with a grin.

“And there’s still one more floor to go.”

“You can come up with me, if you want,” I offered. “Aunt Dimity never went upstairs in the story, so it won’t change anything to have you there. Here, you can put this on your nightstand.” I handed him the manuscript, grabbed my bags, and started up the stairs.

Bill stayed where he was. He looked down at the manuscript, then up at me on the stairs. “You’re sure you want me to read these?”

“I’m sure,” I said; then, more gruffly, “Well, don’t just stand there. They’re bedtime stories. They belong upstairs, next to your bed.”

A full bath was at the top of the stairs, and two cozy bedrooms occupied the front of the cottage, each with twin beds, wardrobes, reading chairs, and fireplaces. I put my bags in one and Bill put his and the manuscript in the other.

“You wouldn’t think they’d need so many fireplaces,” Bill remarked as he emerged from his room. “The central heating seems to work well enough.”

“But central heating doesn’t warm the soul the way an open fire does. It’s so”—I skirted around the word “romantic” and finished lamely with—”old-fashioned.” Bill was about to reply when the sight of the master bedroom silenced him.

The master bedroom took up the entire back half of the second floor. A sliding glass door opened on to an outside deck, and another sliding door led to a bathroom that brought to mind the changing room in the Willis mansion. The main difference was that, instead of a simple whirlpool bath, it had a strange-looking Jacuzzi/steam-bath installation. Bill, of course, knew how it worked and showed me how to use it. A good thing, too—I would have parboiled myself if I had tried it on my own.

This room seemed to combine bits and pieces of all the other rooms in the cottage. Aside from the wardrobe and bureau, there were bookshelves, glass-fronted cabinets, and a desk, all of which appeared to be empty. Two
overstuffed chairs were in one corner and a tea service had been placed on a round table between them.

The bed was the size of a small football field, and another grin broke across my face when I saw Meg’s blanket folded atop a wooden chest at its foot. Seeing it there was like seeing an old friend. I began to say something about it to Bill, then noticed that he’d left me alone again so I could enjoy my discoveries in private. The bed faced yet another fireplace, in which a fire had been laid, but I was too distracted to contemplate that pleasure. For there, on the mantelpiece, was a vase filled with deep blue irises. My knees buckled and I sat, stunned, on Meg’s blanket.

Bill reentered the master bedroom, carrying my bags. He placed them on the bureau, folded his arms, and declared: “
This
is your room.”

“Bill,” I said, “did you come here today?”

“No. Why?” He walked over to stand in front of me.

“I was wondering how those got here.” I pointed to the flowers.

Bill glanced over his shoulder. “So that’s where they put them. With so much to look at, I nearly missed them. The Harrises must agree with me—about this being your room, that is.”

“The Harrises?”

“I called them today and asked them to put some irises in the cottage for you. I thought they’d add a nice welcoming touch.”

“So you’ve really never been here before?”

“Lori, I may have an odd sense of humor, but I’ve never lied to you. I have never set foot in this cottage before this evening.”

I twisted a strand of the fringe on Meg’s blanket. “I didn’t mean to sound so …”

“Suspicious? Paranoid?” Bill suggested helpfully.

“It’s just that, for a minute there—”

“You thought someone else had opened your birthday present.”

I ducked my head. “It sounds pretty childish when you put it that way.”

“What’s wrong with that? I’d feel the same way if I found out that someone had been snooping around Arthur’s dome. By the way”—he stepped aside to give me an unobstructed view of the flowers—”do you like them?”

“You know I do.” I stood up. “But you haven’t seen the rest of the place yet. Come on, I’ll give you a guided tour.” We were halfway down the stairs when I heard tires crunching on the gravel drive.

“Who on earth—” I backed up a step. “Oh, no … not Evan.”

“You stay here,” said Bill, squaring his shoulders. “I’ll take care of this.”

If Bill had his heart set on giving Evan the boot, he must have been disappointed when he opened the door. I know I was, but for very different reasons. Our unexpected guests turned out to be Emma and Derek Harris, and one look was enough to tell me that they couldn’t possibly be the couple who had given my mother the photograph. They weren’t the doddering, white-haired caretakers I had envisioned. In fact, unless my ears deceived me, Emma wasn’t even English.

“You’re American?” I asked, coming down the stairs.

“Yes, I am,” said Emma, looking up from the doorway. She was shorter than I, a bit plumper and some years older, wearing a bulky hand-knit sweater beneath a lightweight parka, and a gorgeously mucky pair of Wellingtons. Dishwater blond hair hung to her waist and she peered shyly at me through a pair of wire-rim glasses. “But my husband is the real thing. Harrow, Oxford—he even plays cricket when he has the chance.”

“Which is none too often.” Derek Harris had eyes to kill for, the kind of deep, dark blue eyes that casting directors dream about and the rest of us don’t really believe exist. Emma would have been justified if she had married him for his eyes alone. He was tall and angular, with salt-and-pepper curls framing a weatherworn face. Like Emma, he wore a lightweight parka and appeared to be in his late forties. “I scarcely have
enough time to run my business, let alone practice my bowling.” He eyed Bill speculatively. “I don’t suppose you …”

“Sorry,” said Bill, “speed-reading is my game.” He gestured for the Harrises to come into the hall, closed the door, and made formal introductions. “By the way, Harris, my father wanted me to express his gratitude to you for keeping an eye on the cottage.”

“Only too happy to help.” Derek turned his blue eyes toward me. “Hope we haven’t interrupted anything. Bill rang this morning to let us know you were coming out today. We spotted a car in the drive when we were coming back from town, so we thought we’d drop yours off.”

“My what?” I asked.

“Your car,” said Emma. “Bill asked us to lease one for you locally. It was no trouble,” she added. “Our house is just up the road. We can walk back.”

“Do you have to get back right away?” I asked. “If not, you’re welcome to stop in for a cup of tea. It’s the least I can do to thank you.”

“An Englishman never turns down a cup of tea,” said Derek with a smile. “Here, Em, let me help you with those.” Emma took his arm and stepped out of her Wellies while Bill hung their jackets in the hall closet.