Nancy Atherton - Aunt Dimity's Good Deed

“Déjà vu all over again,” I muttered, remembering the first time I’d seen that name engraved on a brass plate. I’d been frozen by wintry Boston winds that day, but now I was broiling beneath a glaring London sun, already regretting my decision to wear the dark tweeds.

I waved to Paul, who’d elected to stay behind and defend the limo from the depredations of voracious traffic wardens, and reached up to twist the bell handle protruding from the center of the gleaming white door. I’d managed only a half-turn when the handle was yanked from my hand and the door was flung open by a tall, heavyset young man in a black three-piece suit.

The man’s neat attire contrasted sharply with his brown beard, which was long and unkempt, and his thick brown hair, which stuck out all over his head in uneven wisps and tails. His state of disorder was promptly explained when he took one look at us, and as if by force of long habit flung a pudgy hand to his head.

“Good Lord,” he exclaimed, making his hair stand, quite literally, on end. “Is it noon already? Forgive me, dear ladies. I seem to have lost track of the time. Won’t you come in?”

Before I could inform him that noon was still an hour off, Nell’s fist in the small of my back sent me skittering across the threshold and into a small but tastefully furnished entrance hall. Ahead of us was an ivory-painted door framed by slender neoclassical pilasters; to our left, a narrow staircase with a graceful black wrought-iron balustrade. The effect was elegant and old-money expensive—a sharp contrast to the Larches.

The portly man didn’t seem to notice my stumbling entrance. He didn’t seem to notice much at all, apart from his shiny gold wristwatch, which he shook, tapped, and held to his ear repeatedly as he led us up the staircase to a second-floor office with windows that overlooked the square. The room was fine and lofty, with plasterwork arabesques on the ceiling and white-painted floor-to-ceiling bookcases.

The room’s harmonious lines were spoiled, unfortunately, by the books, which were in as sad a state of disarray as the large man’s hair. Some were stacked helter-skelter on their sides, some were lodged on their spines, and nearly all of them bristled with strips of paper tucked between the pages. The desk opposite the door was a marquetry affair large enough to serve as an emergency airstrip, and littered with sheafs of paper, document boxes, and still more books.

Nell and I took our places in delicate, oval-backed armchairs while the portly man made the long journey to the far side of the desk. His own chair was a sturdy, broad-backed executive’s recliner, distinctly out-of-period, but eminently suited to a man of his stature. Once seated, he left off rattling his watch, pulled a document box toward him, and began to shuffle hastily through its contents, talking all the while.

“You’ll be pleased to know, Lady Rutherford, that the disputed settlement has been resolved much faster than we’d anticipated. I’ve been authorized by the estate to release funds to you, and to your niece, on the quarterly schedule previously discussed.” He paused for a moment to fold his hands on his breast, his brown eyes melting with compassion. “And may I once again, on behalf of the entire firm, extend my heartfelt condolences to you on your grievous loss.”

I smiled weakly and glanced at Nell.

“Here we are,” the large man said at last, unearthing two typewritten sheets from the box. He rose from his chair and came around to clear a space on the desk and place the papers before me. Smiling vaguely, he patted each of his pockets in turn before bustling once more to the far side of the desk to retrieve a black fountain pen from the center drawer.

“As you can see, Lady Rutherford,” he said, puffing slightly as he strode back to stand over me, “I’ve signed the forms just here. If you would be so good as add your signature, I‘ll—”

He broke off as the door to his office opened and a dark-haired woman put her head inside. “Arthur?” she said. “Lady Rutherford and her niece have arrived early. They’re waiting for you ... in ... the ...” Her words trailed off as her eyes traveled from my face to Nell’s to the pen poised in the big man’s sausage fingers. “Arthur,” she said abruptly, with a bright, brittle smile, “may I speak with you? In my office? Now?”

She vanished from sight, and Arthur trudged off after her, tugging worriedly at his scraggly beard, a haunted expression in his dark-brown eyes. The moment he left the office, Nell went over to listen at the door, but I pulled the papers toward me and stared hard at the portly man’s signature.

“William Arthur Willis,” I read aloud, with the same dizzy sense of dislocation I’d experienced upon seeing the brass plate beside the front door. My husband and my father-in-law were both named William Arthur Willis, and the Willis mansion in Boston had been built in large part by an American ancestor of the same name.

“You’re still Miss Shepherd, and I’m still Nicolette,” Nell whispered as she hurriedly took her seat again.

“Huh?” I said, distracted, but Nell didn’t have time to repeat her orders because the dark-haired woman had returned and was beckoning to us from the doorway.

“My name is Lucy Willis,” she informed us. “I’m afraid there’s been a slight misunderstanding. Won’t you come with me?”

14.

As Nell and I followed Lucy Willis to her office at the rear of the building, I caught a glimpse of Arthur standing at the top of the stairs, chatting with two women who might, in very dim light, have been mistaken for Nell and me. One was blond, at any rate, and the other was brunette, and the brunette was dressed in black from head to toe. But the fact that the blonde was at least twice my age—the brunette had to be pushing eighty—probably should have tipped Arthur off to his mistake.

“I’m sorry for the confusion,” Lucy murmured. “My sisters have both taken maternity leave, so we’re rather pressed at the moment. My cousin has been working long hours. He sometimes ...” She left the sentence hanging, shrugged apologetically, and continued down the hallway.

Lucy, I thought, was being kind. I was willing to bet that the mess in Arthur’s office was the rule rather than the exception, and his readiness to fork over clients’ funds to a pair of vaguely familiar strangers suggested that the state of his bookshelves was an accurate reflection of the way he conducted business. Nevertheless, I admired Lucy’s loyal attempt to cover for him.

Lucy Willis appeared to be a year or two older than Arthur, in her early thirties. She was as tall as her cousin, and her primrose skirt and blazer clothed a trim figure.

Lucy carried herself with an air of competence and quiet authority, but her face was pale and drawn, as though she’d gone a long time between vacations. I suspected that she, rather than scatterbrained Arthur, shouldered the burden of running the firm. She must have been seriously disturbed by Gerald’s errors in judgment to let him go, knowing that she’d be left to soldier on with such inadequate troops at her disposal.

Lucy’s office was as orderly as Arthur’s was chaotic. The walls were powder-blue, an Aubusson carpet covered the floor, and tidy glass-enclosed bookshelves lined the wall behind an absolutely spotless burled-walnut desk—there wasn’t a pile of papers or a misplaced document box in sight. The ornamental ceiling mirrored that in Arthur’s office, but here the arabesques glittered with gilt, and the tall windows that lined the rear wall were covered with long, gauzy white drapes.

The interior wall held an exquisite neoclassical fireplace framed by gold-veined marble columns. Above the mantelpiece hung a late-seventeenth-century oil painting, a portrait of an oval-faced, plump-shouldered woman in a silver-blue satin gown with billowing sleeves. A cluster of chairs and a satinwood settee sat invitingly before the hearth, but Lucy led us to a pair of chairs in front of the walnut desk and took her place behind it.