Nancy Atherton - Aunt Dimity Digs In

And that, I realized, with heart-wrenching clarity, was why both sisters were worried about Adrian Culver. Francesca was falling in love with an archaeologist, an expert in Romano-British culture. If she married Adrian, she’d be faced with an impossible question of loyalty. Would she lie to her husband about Petronius’s grave, or would she betray her father’s secret?

“Francesca,” I said, “Adrian loves you. If you explained things to him, I’m sure he’d respect—”

“He might,” she said heavily. “ Then again, he might not.” She reached up and began to pin her hair back in place. “Let’s cover it up. Will and Rob will be wondering where their mother’s got to.”

It took us no more than ten minutes to conceal the gravestone beneath layers of sacking, boards, and flagstones. We tamped dirt between the flags, covered them with straw, and gave Caesar leave to romp around the stall. Francesca blew out the shuttered lantern and hung it on a hook near the door. I let her lead the way back to the Mercedes.

Adrian was waiting for us in the farmyard, not sitting inside the Mercedes but pacing beside it, soaked and shivering. The only time he’d availed himself of the car’s shelter had been to answer the telephone.

“The Pyms gave Bill and the boys a lift back to the cottage,” Adrian reported, through chattering teeth.

Francesca spent most of the return journey scolding Adrian for being too stupid to get in out of the rain. I wasn’t surprised when she asked to be dropped off with him at the schoolhouse, but I was astonished when he pulled her into his arms on the doorstep.

Francesca’s long hair tumbled once more down her back, and the rain soaked through her shirtdress, but she clung to Adrian as though she never intended to let him go. Chastely averting my eyes, I left her to it. There’d be gossip about them now, I thought, smiling contentedly, and this time it was likely to be true.

25.

Rain pattered on the slate roof, gushed through the copper downspouts, and splashed in its own puddles on the flagstone walk. It danced on the leaves of the lilac bushes and ran in branching rivulets down the living room’s bow window. The long dry spell was over.

I sat cross-legged on the window seat beside Francesca and watched a raindrop skitter down a diamond pane. I was finding it difficult to concentrate on the trivial task I’d concocted to pass the time. Francesca asked me for the ball of twine and I passed it to her.

“You think ten each will be enough?” I asked, eyeing the stack of parenting magazines in Francesca’s lap.

Francesca wound the twine around the stack. “ Ten’ll be plenty. Price ’em at five pence apiece and they’ll fly off the table.”

I handed her the scissors. “I don’t know who’ll buy them, even at five pence. Will and Rob seem to be the only children under thirty in Finch.”

Francesca snipped the twine on her bundle and tied it off in a neat bow. “You never know. Folks with children may come from other villages. And my sister-in-law’s got enough little ones to start a cricket club.You just put these out on a table during the festival and see what happens.” She bent to place the bundle in the cardboard box beside the playpen.

I’d given Francesca every opportunity to tell me what, if anything, had passed between her and Adrian after I’d dropped them off at the schoolhouse the night before, but she’d been maddeningly discreet.

She’d returned to the cottage long after Bill and I had gone to bed, performed her morning duties with her usual efficiency, and kept her mouth determinedly shut. I’d so far resisted the urge to hold the scissors to her throat and force her to talk, but my patience was wearing thin. I owed it to the boys, I told myself, to find out if their nanny would be around much longer.

I picked a magazine at random and leafed through it casually. “You’ve taught me more in one week than the so-called experts taught me in nine months.”

“I’ve taught you nothing you didn’t know already,” said Francesca. “All you needed was to relax a bit and realize what you knew. Young mothers need to take a break now and again. Used to be you could leave the kiddies with Grandma or an auntie, but it’s not so simple nowadays.”

“The boys’ grandmas are dead,” I said, “and I’d rather toss my babies into a tank filled with piranhas than leave them with Bill’s aunts. But I take your point.” I closed the magazine. “It’s been a queer sort of break, though. Most people would spend a weekend at the seaside. I ran around, trying to find a burglar. And I didn’t even manage to do that.”

“You’re not giving up, are you?” asked Francesca.

I shrugged. “I don’t know what else to do. Sally Pyne didn’t do it. Katrina Graham didn’t do it. Adrian certainly didn’t do it, nor did your sister. I don’t know who else would have wanted to steal the pamphlet.”

“Something’ll turn up to point you in the right direction.” Francesca smiled serenely and turned to gaze out of the window. “Sometimes the answer comes along when you’ve stopped looking.”

I compared the calm, self-possessed figure on the window seat to the haggard, frantic woman I’d encountered in the stable. Was she talking about the burglary, or had she solved a far more interesting mystery?

“You know,” I said, wrapping a length of twine around my finger, “if you decide that you have to move on, for any reason, we’ll be fine.”

Francesca’s smile widened. “I won’t be going anywhere soon, Lori.”

I looked up in confusion. “Did you tell Adrian about Petronius’s grave?”

Francesca chuckled. “I didn’t have to. He’d already guessed that there’d been a villa on the hill. The topography fits the profile, he said, and where there’s a villa, there’s almost always a grave.”

“Has he agreed to keep your secret?” I asked.

“Can’t get funding for every dig in Britain, he told me.” Francesca’s dark eyes were twinkling. “ ’Specially if you don’t apply for it.”

Francesca glowed with the unmistakable inner radiance of a woman who’d found her heart’s desire. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why she’d choose to go on working as a nanny when she could be sailing off into the sunset with the man she loved.

“Then why in God’s name are you staying here?” I demanded.

Francesca toyed with a snip of twine. “I need time to make amends with Annunzia. And I’m old-fashioned. I believe in long engagements.”

I thought I heard the sound of trumpets in the pouring rain. I looked out of the window, smiling broadly, just in time to see a delivery van pull into my driveway.

Stan’s pamphlet had arrived. I tipped the damp delivery-man and opened the padded envelope in the living room. A note from Stan made it very clear that the collector in Labrador wanted his precious sample back as soon as possible and in pristine condition. I seriously considered returning it untouched, but decided against it. Stan had gone to a lot of trouble to obtain it, as a favor to me. The least I could do was take a look.

The pamphlet was entitled Holding Fast . It had buff-colored wrappers and sixteen leaves, measured five by seven inches, and was hand sewn. It had been printed in 1874. Unfortunately, as Stan had warned, it had nothing to do with archaeology. I felt defeated.

“Pathetic, isn’t it?” I said, after showing the pamphlet to Francesca. “It’s all I have to show for my efforts this week.”

Francesca attempted to cheer me up. “Why don’t you take it over to the vicarage?” she suggested. “Mrs. Bunting’d like to see it, I’m sure. It might even help her with that parish history she’s been writing.”

I glanced out at the rain-washed driveway. I had little doubt that Lilian would enjoy seeing another Gladwell pamphlet, even if it wasn’t the duplicate she’d hoped for. I had even less doubt that she’d like to hear a more complete account of the confrontation at Hodge Farm than the one I’d given to her over the telephone after breakfast.