Nancy Atherton - Aunt Dimity Digs In

“No need, Lori.” Adrian gave my hand a sympathetic squeeze and departed.

I closed the door and rounded on Derek. “What have you done to my husband?”

Bill cleared his throat. “Pegger . . . Peggry . . . Peg gle . . .”

“Peggy Kitchen,” Derek translated, “brought her petition round to the pub this evening. She spotted Bill and me having supper, came over to ask if Bill’d worked out the legal solution you’d promised her.”

I winced. I’d forgotten to warn Bill about the lies I’d spun to keep Peggy away from the schoolhouse.

“Never fear,” Derek went on. “Bill’s a lawyer. Knows how to improvise. Told Peggy that in order to have enough time to explore the appropriate legal avenues he’d be forced to give up morris dancing.”

“No . . . more . . . danshing,” Bill stated, fairly firmly.

“Quite right, Bill, no more dancing.” Derek patted Bill’s shoulder. “That’s why Peggy assigned you to the mead-tasting committee for the Harvest Festival. Said it’d take up less of your valuable time.”

“Mead.” Bill giggled softly.

“Bill doesn’t know the first thing about mead,” I said, bewildered.

Bill tried again. “I tol’, tol’, tol’ . . .”

“ That’s what he told Peggy,” Derek interjected. “And that’s why Peggy took it upon herself to educate your husband’s palate. Had him sample all twelve jugs of Dick Peacock’s finest mead.”

Bill made a complicated attempt to hold up twelve fingers.

I groaned.

“Chris called me away to help her fit the new pub sign with hooks,” said Derek. “By the time I got back, Bill was blotto. Took some time to persuade him that his bed would be more comfy than the floor. Took even longer to pry him off of that blasted bicycle. And there’s something else. . . .” Derek put an arm out to keep Bill from sliding down the wall. “Peggy pulled me aside and told me some crackbrained story about Francesca and that Culver chap getting up to no good in the churchyard.”

I gaped at him, bereft of speech.

“Told her not to be a damned fool,” Derek assured me. “Why on earth would Francesca use the churchyard when she has a perfectly comfortable—”

“Derek!” I exclaimed indignantly.

“ Thought that would bring you round.” Derek grinned briefly. “In point of fact, I told Peggy that if she went about talking nonsense about my friends, she’d have to find another handyman. And since I’m the only man in the kingdom who understands her drains, I doubt we’ll hear any more out of her.” He nodded toward Bill. “Upstairs?”

“Please.” As I stood there watching Derek cart my drunken husband off to bed, my indignation gave way to a simmering rage. “ That woman,” I growled. “ That woman must be stopped.”

10.

If a hundred Gladwell pamphlets had slithered through my mail slot the following morning, I’d have tossed them on the hearth and set them blazing. I was no longer interested in closing down Adrian’s dig. I wanted him to occupy the schoolhouse forever. I was a little out of charity with Peggy Kitchen. And so was Bill.

“May I kill her, Lori? Please? Just this once?”

I wiped his greenish face with a cool washcloth. “Only if you get to her before I do, my darling.”

Bill smiled serenely, pushed himself up on his elbows, and was violently sick in the bedside bucket thoughtfully provided by Francesca.

I cleaned him up, got him settled, and went downstairs. As I reached the bottom of the staircase, I noticed Francesca standing in the doorway to the study, a rag in one hand, a jar of furniture polish in the other. She seemed oddly flustered.

“Lori? Would you come in here, please?”

I felt a tiny flutter of alarm as I followed her into the study. The room showed signs of a recent cleaning. The hearth had been swept, the ivy-covered windows were spotless, and the tall leather armchairs gleamed dully in the light from the mantelshelf lamps. Will and Rob observed our entrance solemnly from their bouncy chairs on the far side of the room.

When she reached the wooden desk beneath the windows, Francesca pointed to a bookshelf on her right. “A book fell from that shelf as you were coming down the stairs. It nearly hit me in the head.”

“Oh, dear.” I didn’t have to pretend to be dismayed as I walked over to lay a hand along the blue journal’s spine. I did, however, have to keep myself from screeching when the book nudged my palm. “I . . . I should have warned you.”

“Warned me about what?” Francesca asked.

I leaned my full weight on the book. “It’s an old cottage,” I babbled. “The walls are crooked. The floors are uneven. Sometimes . . . when someone comes down the stairs . . . books fall off the shelves.”

“But that’s dangerous,” Francesca scolded. “What if the book had hit one of the boys?”

“She’d never . . .” I cleared my throat. “You’re right. I’m sorry. Let’s take the boys to the living room, just to be on the safe side.”

Francesca complied, but as we were leaving the study, carrying one baby-filled bouncy chair apiece, she gave me a sidelong look. “How did you know it was the blue book that fell?” she asked.

“You . . . um . . . pointed to it,” I said, avoiding her eyes. We transferred the boys from their bouncy chairs to the playpen, and I backed toward the hallway. “I’ve got some phone calls to make,” I said. “I’ll be in the study, if you need me.”

“All right,” said Francesca, observing me closely.

I darted up the hallway, praying that she’d blame my jumpiness on hormonal fluctuations. I slipped into the study, paused to take a calming breath, and gently closed the door. Then I grabbed the blue journal from the shelf and banged it open on the desk.

“Dimity, what do you think you’re doing?” I demanded. “Do you want Francesca to think I’m nuts?”

I wanted to get your attention. If handwriting could appear petulant, Dimity’s did.

“You’ve got it,” I said, “but I wish you’d come up with a more discreet way of attracting it.”

Your anger was filling the cottage.

“Why shouldn’t I be angry?” It wasn’t easy, venting my spleen in an undertone, but I managed. “Peggy Kitchen’s got the town in an uproar. She’s making the vicar’s life hell, she tricked Adrian Culver into signing her stupid petition, and she got Bill plastered last night because he tried to quit morris dancing. If that weren’t enough, she’s spreading filthy rumors about Francesca and Adrian.” I thumped my fist on the desk. “You bet I’m angry.”

I wanted to remind you of something before you let your anger carry you away.

“What?” I said impatiently. “What did you want to remind me of?”

Your eighth birthday.

“My . . .” I stared at the words on the page, then straightened slowly and touched a hand to my forehead. “My eighth birthday?”

Do you remember what your mother gave you for your eighth birthday?

“Of course I remember.” I looked from the journal to the archival boxes that held the letters my mother had written to Dimity over a span of some forty years. I didn’t have to refer to them to remember the most glorious birthday gift my mother had ever given me.

“My bicycle.” I lowered myself onto the desk chair, rested my elbows on either side of the journal, and stared at the sunlight flickering through the ivy. “My first bicycle. Mom got it secondhand, but I thought it was the most beautiful bike I’d ever seen. It was blue with white hand-grips and a white seat.”

It had a silver bell on the left handlebar.You rang it with your thumb.

I glanced down at Dimity’s words and smiled. “Mom came out and watched me ride it up and down the block all afternoon. I felt like I was flying. I’ll never forget it.”