Nancy Atherton: Aunt Dimity Digs In

“. . . and their eight children.”

“Eight children . . . ?” I nearly swooned.

“Yes, the Sciaparelli farm is quite a lively place. Francesca’s had . . .”

“. . . bags of experience with babies.” Louise exchanged a hesitant glance with her sister before adding, delicately, “We’d rather hoped, however, that you might have room for her . . .”

“. . . here at the cottage,” said Ruth. “Francesca’s thirty-seven years old, you know. She’s spent all of her adult life nursing her sick parents and looking after her brother’s children. She needs a change of scene . . .”

“. . . as much as you do, Lori. Would it be too great an imposition?”

Images of sparkling kitchens and clutterless living rooms danced in my bedazzled brain. “Well,” I said slowly, “there’s the guest room. It’s right next to the nursery, so—”

“Perfect!” Ruth got to her feet. “We’ll retrieve Francesca’s things from our motor . . .”

“. . . and tell her the happy news.” Louise had also risen. “You rest quietly in the shade awhile, Lori . . .”

“. . . while we help Francesca settle in.” Ruth linked arms with her sister, and they fluttered back into the solarium.

Rest quietly, while a stranger moved into my cottage? Panic bubbled ominously, but I clamped a lid on it. I needed help, I reminded myself, and I was getting it from the most exclusive employment agency in the British Isles. Pyms, Extremely Ltd., was as reliable as April rain, and Dimity had already signaled her lilac-scented approval.

A warm breeze drifted through my damp curls and I drifted with it, soothed by the sounds of high summer. We’d had a dry start to the season, and were in the midst of a hot, muggy spell reminiscent of the sticky Chicago summers of my childhood.

Still, the apple tree’s shade was delicious, and the light breeze helped cool the humid air. I might, with a little practice, grow accustomed to resting quietly. A robin whistled in the leafy branches above my head, bumblebees hummed among the daisies and delphiniums, and a pair of sparrows splashed in the rose-wreathed reflecting pool. I gazed from one tranquil tableau to the next with growing anxiety and muttered dismally, “Emma will kill me.”

My best friend and next-door neighbor, Emma Harris, had designed, built, and painstakingly planted my back garden. Spring was Emma’s favorite season, but it had come and gone without my noticing. I’d missed the lilacs and tulips, the bluebells and daffodils, the redbuds flowering down by the brook. I glanced guiltily at the leaves overhead, knowing I’d missed the apple blossoms, too.

Emma Harris was an artist. Her greatest reward was a quiet sigh of admiration, but I hadn’t managed so much as a grunt this year. I’d spent Emma’s favorite season holed up inside the cottage, scarcely conscious of the marvels she’d wrought with hoe and spade. I felt like an ungrateful worm.

“I’ll make it up to her,” I vowed. And I’d start right now, by making the most of this opportunity to savor the peaceful haven she’d created. I leaned back against the apple tree, tried fully to appreciate each trembling leaf, each glorious blossom, and failed. My eyelids were too heavy, nature’s music too hypnotic. I tuned in to the bumblebees . . . dozed . . . and was rudely awakened.

“Lori Shepherd!” a voice thundered, sending birds and bees scrambling for cover. “ That man must be stopped or there’ll be bloodshed! ”

3.

“Wh-what?” I blinked the apparition into focus and felt my blood run cold.

Peggy Kitchen was standing in my garden.

Peggy Kitchen—shopkeeper, postmistress, and undisputed empress of Finch—had not only talked me into donating an irreplaceable heirloom afghan to the Saint George’s church-fund auction, she’d also convinced my semisedentary and wholly unmusical husband to strap on bells and dance at dawn on May Day with Finch’s geriatric troupe of morris dancers. Bill bought back the afghan—for the price of a year’s beeswax candles—but he could do nothing to keep Peggy from plastering her shop with incriminating photographs of him waving a white hankie while prancing dementedly on the village green.

Peggy Kitchen was an extremely dangerous woman. Pointy glasses dotted with rhinestones, graying hair in an obligatory bun at the back of her head, flowery dress cloaking a mature figure—her disguise would have been perfect but for the lunatic glitter in her pale blue eyes. Peggy Kitchen was on the warpath—again—and I’d somehow ended up in her line of fire.

“Hi, Peggy,” I croaked.

“Would’ve rung first,” Peggy barked, “but Bill agreed that this matter was far too pressing to be discussed over the telephone.” I flinched as she smacked fist against palm for emphasis.

“I’m sure he’s right,” I said gravely, wondering how many more unannounced callers Bill planned to send my way before lunchtime.

“He is!” Peggy roared. “If that man ”— smack, smack —“isn’t gone by the seventeenth of August, I won’t be responsible for my actions!”

“Er,” I began, but relapsed into silence when Francesca’s statuesque figure appeared in the solarium’s doorway.

“Morning, Mrs. Kitchen.” Francesca squared her shoulders and folded her strong arms. “Fine day, isn’t it? All this peace and quiet—just the ticket for a pair of babes like the two I’m looking after.” The faintest hint of steel entered her purr. “You’ll keep the noise down, for their sake, won’t you, Mrs. Kitchen.”

It was not a question, and Francesca didn’t wait for a reply. She simply turned on her heel and disappeared into the cottage, leaving me alone with a ticking Peggy Kitchen. I held my breath, awaiting the explosion.

“Humph,” said Peggy. She stared daggers at Francesca’s retreating back, sat beside me on the bench, and murmured, “You’re letting that woman look after your cubs? After what her father did?”

“What did her father—”

“I’ve no time for gossip,” Peggy interrupted, glancing nervously at the cottage. “I’ve a crisis on my hands and I need your help.”

“What crisis?” I asked.

“It’s that man! ” Peggy repeated in a furious whisper.

“That specky professor who digs things up. If he wants to muck about in Scrag End, that’s his affair, but I won’t have him mucking up my festival!”

“The festival . . .” I clung to those words as to a slender reed of sense in a rushing river of babble. That specky professor and Scrag End meant nothing to me, but even I, in my self-imposed isolation, had heard about Peggy’s festival. I doubted that there was a kayaking Inuit or a Sherpa climbing Everest who hadn’t received one of her harvest-gold flyers. My cottage had been bombarded by no fewer than seven.

Come One, Come All

to the

Harvest Festival!

Saturday, August 17—10:00 A.M.

Exhibitions! Competitions!

Demonstrations of Arts & Crafts!

Traditional Music & Dance!

Refreshments at Peacock’s Pub

Organ Recital

and

Blessing of the Beasts

at

Saint George’s Church—9:00 A.M.

£2 General Admission Pets and Under 5’s Free!

“Is there a problem with the Harvest Festival?” I asked timorously.

“Is there a problem? ” Peggy snorted. “I’ve been stabbed in the back, that’s the problem!”

“By the specky professor?” I hazarded.

“No,” Peggy said with exaggerated patience. “By the vicar, of course.”

“What’s the vicar done?” I was unable to conceive of a less likely backstabber than the mild-mannered man who’d performed my marriage ceremony and christened my children.