Nancy Atherton - Aunt Dimity's Good Deed

“It has been my pleasure,” he assured me. “And I do hope we’ll have the chance to meet again.” He stood watching from the doorway while I got into the car, and waved as I drove off down the grassy drive.

“If that man’s a reprobate, I’ll swear off butterscotch brownies forever,” I declared.

“You think Miss Kingsley’s misjudged him?” Nell asked.

“I think everyone’s misjudged him,” I replied. “I think. he’s been maligned and slandered, and I’ll bet that woman Miss Kingsley’s seen him with at the Flamborough is his analyst. God knows he could use one, with all the abuse he’s taken.”

“Lori, there’s something you should—” Nell began.

“I mean, think about it, Nell,” I interrupted. “We burst into the guy’s house like a pair of demented ducklings, and what does he do? He serves us tea. Tries to, anyway.” I glanced at my bandaged finger and blushed to remember how I’d injured it. “Apart from that, he turned down William’s proposal flat, so he can’t be trying to con him. Which reminds me, William is—”

“Lori!” Nell cried.

I slammed on the brakes and turned to ask Nell what on earth was the matter, but the question never left my lips. For there, peering at me from within the folds of Nell’s oversized black blazer, was Reginald.

Nell blinked at me innocently. “I told you I saw a rabbit.”

10.

My supply of amazement had been exhausted. I’d used up my allotment of surprise. I had nothing left to give. I gazed into Reginald’s black button eyes and said, with the slow smile of the heavily sedated, “Hi there, Reg. Where’ve you been?”

“I’ve been trying to tell you,” said Nell. “He was in the back parlor. I nearly fainted when I saw a pink ear poking out from under the couch, but Mrs. Burweed didn’t seem to notice, so I scooped him up and stuffed him inside my blazer. I went upstairs as soon as I could and dropped Reg out of a window. Don’t worry. He landed on some nice, soft ferns.”

I let my hands slip from the steering wheel, leaned over, and gave her a hug. “Thank you, Nell. Thanks for rescuing Reg, and me, too, come to think of it. I’m not sure how William will feel about having an illegitimate granddaughter, but you were brilliant back there. I don’t know what I would’ve done without you.”

Nell blushed prettily. “He’s very handsome.”

“That’s no excuse for me losing my head,” I said.

“He doesn’t look a bit like Bill, though,” Nell observed. “Not that Bill isn’t handsome, in his way,” she added hastily, “but I thought there might be a family resemblance.”

I pictured Bill’s dark-brown eyes, graying hair, grizzled beard, and stockbroker’s bulge and shook my head. “Nope. They’re about as different as night and day.” I gave Reginald’s ears a tweak. “So what were you doing under the couch, eh? Looking for dust bunnies?”

“I think he was trying to draw our attention to ... this.” Nell put a hand into the pocket of her black blazer and drew forth another page torn from the blue journal, folded in half, as the first had been, with my name written on it in Aunt Dimity’s old-fashioned copperplate.

“Dimity!” I exclaimed, seizing the journal page. “Great! Maybe she’s figured out why William’s so interested in a three-hundred-year-old family feud.” I unfolded the note and read it aloud.

“My dear Lori,

“William has decided that there’s nothing to discover here and has gone to London to interrogate Lucy and Arthur Willis. Gerald lied to him, naturally, but perhaps it’s for the best. If William loses the scent we’ll all be spared a good deal of unnecessary fuss and bother. Really, William is being most exasperating. He’s no business poking his nose into a quarrel that happened so long ago. A gentleman of his mature years has had ample opportunity to learn that it is almost always best to let sleeping dogs lie.

“I expect Gerald will lie to you about William’s current plan, but you mustn’t be too hard on him. William has put him in an invidious position. Let me be very clear on one point, however: I will not have a photocopier in the cottage. It would look disagreeably out of place and I’m certain that the noise would frighten the rabbits.

“I must go now. Reginald will stay behind to alert you to this message. Do not lose track of William. He must be persuaded to let this matter drop, and I count on you to persuade him. ”

I scratched my head in thoughtful silence, then handed the note back to Nell and restarted the car. “Sleeping dogs and photocopiers. Good old Dimity. Clear as mud.”

Nell returned the journal page to her pocket and placed Reginald on the gearbox, between the seats. “Have you noticed that Aunt Dimity has a way of assuming one knows what she’s talking about?”

“It’s like a connect-the-dots puzzle without the connections,” I agreed. “But don’t fret, Nell. We’ll sort it out.” I continued to dispense heartening words until I turned onto the Midhurst Road and Reginald slipped sideways on the gearbox. When I felt his black button eyes boring into me, I fell silent.

You might be able to fool Nell with a cheerful façade, he seemed to be saying, but you can’t fool me. It was as though he’d seen the warning beacon flashing through the fog of hints and vagaries contained in Dimity’s note, and wanted to be sure I’d seen it, too.

Gerald Willis was a liar. If I’d interpreted Dimity’s message correctly—always a big if —he’d lied to Willis, Sr., about the famous family feud of 1714, and he’d lied to me about Willis, Sr.’s “current plan.” I couldn’t imagine why Gerald would find it necessary to conceal the truth about a quarrel that had taken place nearly three hundred years ago, but I thought I knew why he’d lied to me.

Willis, Sr., must have come to an understanding with him about establishing a partnership and sworn him to secrecy until he’d had a chance to discuss the plan with Lucy. Gerald had lied to me for sound business reasons, and though a part of me understood completely, another part—a clamorous, unreasoning part—felt dreadfully let down.

I’d trusted Gerald. I’d believed everything he’d told me. I’d looked into those angelic eyes and seen someone who was honorable and decent and willing to put his father’s needs before his. career. It was terribly disappointing to discover that he was just another lawyer, wheeling and dealing and spouting half-truths in the name of self-interest. I had no right to feel disillusioned—little Nicolette and I hadn’t exactly played it straight with Gerald—but I did.

My bandaged finger began to throb as I reached to straighten Reginald on the gearbox. “We’ll sort it out,” I repeated.

“Of course we will,” Nell said. “But I think we could do with dinner first.”

“Mais non, ma petite,” I said, making an effort, for Nell’s sake, to sound lighthearted. “Food second. Phone calls first.”

A telephone message from Emma awaited us at the Georgian, but before I returned her call, I rang Miss Kingsley to ask if Willis, Sr., had checked in. She informed me that she’d neither seen nor heard from him since he and I had stayed at the Flamborough three days earlier.

Miss Kingsley readily agreed to find out if he’d done the unthinkable and checked into another hotel, and I could rest assured that her search would be thorough—she controlled more eyes and ears than the Metropolitan Police. On impulse, I dialed Lucy Willis’s number, in case Willis, Sr., had decided to meet with her before going to the Flamborough. After twelve rings, I hung up the phone, discouraged and more than a little depressed. For the first time in two years, I had no idea where my father-in-law was spending the night. It was a foretaste of what life would be like shorn of his comforting presence, and I didn’t like it one bit.