Nancy Atherton: Aunt Dimity's Good Deed

“I wonder what she means by ‘family matters past and present.’ ” Nell frowned down at Willis, Sr.’s book before setting it aside. “And Bertie wants to know about the vast sums of money.”

“Still, we’re better off than we were before,” Emma pointed out. “At least we know where William’s gone.”

“He’s gone to see his cousin Gerald,” Nell chimed in. “So now you know where to look for him, Lori.” She waited for me to respond, glanced covertly at her stepmother, then repeated, more loudly, “Lori?”

I heaved a tiny, forlorn sigh.

Emma put a hand on Nell’s arm, leaned toward me, and asked, “You do know Cousin Gerald, don’t you?”

I shook my head slowly. “Never heard of him. I didn’t even know there was an English branch of the Willis family. Not since back before the beginning of time, anyway. Bill never—” I put a hand to my forehead, stricken. “Oh, Emma, what am I going to tell Bill?”

“I don’t think you should tell him anything ... yet,” advised Emma. “Not until we have something useful to tell him.” She reached for Willis, Sr.’s cup and saucer and got to her feet. “I don’t know about you, but I could use a cup of tea. I’ll go and fill the kettle. Nell, you and Bertie get a fire started.” Emma headed for the doorway, rubbing her arms. “The warmth seems to have gone out of the day.”

A fire wasn’t strictly necessary—it was nearly eleven and there wasn’t a cloud in the sunlit sky—but I knew what Emma meant about the chill in the air. I’d had one too many shocks to the system already. My hands had turned to ice, my stomach was in a knot, and my mind was churning.

What had happened that morning? During the brief time—no more than a half hour—between my departure and Nell’s arrival at the cottage, something had caused Willis, Sr., to throw his book aside, scribble a meaningless note, and spin out of the driveway fast enough to throw gravel to the far side of the road. What kind of family matters had sent him racing off to Haslemere in such a panic? What did Aunt Dimity mean by “vast sums of money”? Above all, why hadn’t Bill told me about Cousin Gerald?

I had answers to none of the above, and I had no intention of asking Bill for them. If Cousin Gerald was a deep, dark secret, Bill would want to know how I’d found out about him, and that would lead to explanations that might distract him from his work.

I didn’t want him distracted. I might wish the Biddifords at the bottom of the blasted lake they owned in Maine, but their case was important to me. If Bill could achieve the Holy Grail of settling the Biddiford dispute, he might finally stop driving himself so hard. He might even find the time to start a family. How could I jeopardize all of that for something that might turn out to be a wild-goose chase?

Besides, I had other sources of information. I could think of at least one who might be able to tell me all I needed to know about Cousin Gerald.

“Where is Haslemere?” I asked, as Emma returned with the tea tray.

“So you are driving down?” Emma asked doubtfully.

“I certainly am,” I replied. “How long will it take me to get there?”

“Three or four hours, depending on the traffic. Haslemere lies in the extreme southwest comer of Surrey.” Emma was a whiz at orienteering, and when she wasn’t in the garden, she could usually be found on a hilltop, studying maps. “I’ve never been there, but Nell has.”

“Papa was called in as a consultant by the Saint Bartholomew’s church council, when they were rehanging the bells in the tower,” Nell explained, passing a cup of tea to me. “Bertie and I went with him.”

“What kind of place is it?” I asked.

“Much bigger than Finch,” Nell replied. “It has its own train station.”

“Do rich people live there?” I pressed. “Are there big houses? Estates?”

“Oh, yes. Papa showed Bertie and me some wonderful places. Tennyson’s home, and Conan Doyle’s ...” Nell paused to study me intently, then shook her head. “But that won’t tell you anything about Cousin Gerald. All sorts of people live in Haslemere.”

“Gerald might as easily live in a council flat as on a country estate,” Emma agreed. “It’s a shame Aunt Dimity didn’t have time to jot down his address.”

“I’ve been thinking about that.” I shifted in my seat, uncomfortably aware of how foolish my next proposal was likely to sound. It depended entirely on whether or not the English Willises were as wedded to tradition as their American cousins. It was a long shot, but if my marriage to Bill had taught me anything, it was that old habits die hard in well-to-do families. Sons were given their fathers’ names, they belonged to the same clubs, sat on the same boards, practiced the same profession, for generation after generation. I wasn’t sure, however, if that kind of family loyalty extended to choice of hotels.

“Don’t laugh,” I said, setting my cup of tea on the low table, “but I was thinking that, if Gerald really is a Willis, and if he’s rich—if Haslemere is the sort of place a rich person might live—and if he ever stays in London ...”

Again, Nell caught on quickly. “The Flamborough! Well done, Lori. We’ll put a call through to Miss Kingsley.”

Miss Kingsley was the concierge at the eminently respectable Flamborough Hotel in London. She thought it a concierge’s duty to maintain detailed files on her guests in order to provide them with the kind of personal service that had brought the Flamborough its share of tastefully subdued fame. In other words, Miss Kingsley was to run-of-the-mill conciergedom what the Encyclopaedia Britannica was to a matchbook cover. She knew not only what her clients ate and drank, but what side of the bed they slept on and who was likely to be sleeping on the other side.

I sometimes thought she knew more about Bill than I did, since she’d been keeping notes on him since his first stay at the hotel, when he was twelve. He and Willis, Sr., had used the Flamborough as their London base for years. If the English Willises had done the same, I reasoned, Miss Kingsley would know about Gerald.

Nell had stayed at the Flamborough as the guest of her paternal grandfather, a stuffy old earl, and she knew Miss Kingsley well, so, while she explained my idea to Emma, I returned to the desk and dialed Miss Kingsley’s number. She answered promptly, and after the usual pleasantries I asked, in as conversational a tone of voice as I could manage, “Did you know that Bill has relatives in England? English ones, I mean.”

“Certainly,” said Miss Kingsley.

I flashed Nell and Emma a thumbs-up. “Has William called to ask you about them recently?”

“Certainly not,” said Miss Kingsley. “The two branches of the family haven’t communicated for ages.”

“Why the long silence?” I asked.

“I’ve been given to understand,” Miss Kingsley replied, choosing her words carefully, “that a falling-out between brothers led one branch of the family to emigrate to the New World in 1714. They haven’t spoken since.”

I was impressed. The Willises really knew how to hold a grudge. Could this be the “family matters past” Dimity had mentioned in her note? “Any idea what the fight was about?”

“A veil of discretion is always drawn over the story at the crucial point,” Miss Kingsley explained apologetically. “I’ve never been able to discover what precipitated the original argument.”

Had Willis, Sr., decided to dig up the cause of the ancient feud? It seemed unlikely. Willis, Sr., was all for family harmony, but I couldn’t envision him leaping from his chair to solve a fraternal spat that had been pending for almost three hundred years. “Have there been any recent quarrels?”