Nancy Atherton - Aunt Dimity and the Duke

On the other hand, Derek didn’t spend much time at home. He hadn’t known about Nell’s new play group or Peter leaving the Boy Scouts. And why had Peter quit the Scouts, anyway? He loved the outdoors and was always after Bantry to show him how to tie a new knot or identify an unfamiliar insect. It didn’t make sense.

Emma turned. From the balcony she could see Derek’s crumpled business card, still propped against the clock on the rosewood desk. Since Derek worked out of his home, the phone number on the card would allow her to speak directly to Mrs. Higgins. One telephone call would put her mind at rest about the housekeeper and spare her a potentially embarrassing conversation with Derek. Too bad it was so late.

Emma rubbed her forehead tiredly, remembering that another uncomfortable discussion with Derek was already in the offing. Why in the world had she promised Peter to talk to his father about fixing the window? Emma sighed, then went into the bedroom and turned off the lights. It wasn’t fair. After years of doing everything she could to avoid having children of her own, she lay awake now, worried sick about someone else’s.

17

“It’s none of my business,” Emma muttered, stabbing the pitchfork into the dirt. “Absolutely none.” She yanked a mass of bindweed up by the roots and tossed it into the wheelbarrow. They’d finished clearing the south wall and another of the raised beds before lunch, and she was determined to make a start on the lawn before supper. She jabbed the fork back into the earth and leaned on the handle, wiping the sweat from her forehead and wishing she’d remembered to wear her sunhat. It was too hot to work without it. Not a breath of wind stirred in the chapel garden, and the sun beat down relentlessly from a cloudless blue sky.

“Hey, Emma, you tryin’ to kill yourself?” Syd Bishop looked over at Peter and Nell, who were sitting like wilted flowers in the shade cast by the chapel’s projecting wall. “You kids take a breather. Go ask Gash to squirt you with the hose, or see if Bantry’ll let you play in the fountain. Go on. Outta here!”

They’d gotten word that morning. Grayson, Kate, and Dr. Singh would bring Susannah back to Penford Hall the following day. Excitement in the hall had risen to a feverish pitch as the staff threw itself into preparations for receiving their disabled guest and welcoming home their long-absent master.

Bantry was trimming the hedges at the front of the hall and freshening up the tulips in the beds around the fountain at the center of the circular drive. The drive itself looked like an eccentric used-car lot. Gash had emptied the garage and was busily washing Grayson’s cars. Why he thought it necessary to wash all of them at once, Emma couldn’t say, but the Rolls-Royce, MG, and Jaguar were in line with an ancient but meticulously maintained forest-green Landrover and a badly rusted orange Volkswagen bus. The last, Gash had informed her sadly, belonged to Derek. “Have to do something about it,” he’d muttered, surveying the decrepit vehicle with a calculating eye.

Crowley was supervising a phalanx of villagers who were polishing, dusting, scrubbing, or sweeping every inch of the hall. Mattie was fussing endlessly about what linens would look best in Susannah’s room, Hallard was pounding furiously at his keyboard, and Newland had his men on alert for last-minute gate-crashers, while Madama and three assistants were preparing a welcome-home supper with more courses than a college catalogue.

Derek hadn’t surfaced all day, and Emma was well past being a little peeved.

“Emma, will you quit already? Whaddya tryin’ to do, dig your way to China?” Syd removed the pitchfork from Emma’s hands with unexpected strength. Raising a gloved hand to shade her eyes, Emma realized that the old man had never looked better. His face had the ruddy glow of good health, and his eyes were clear and alert. Perhaps too alert. Emma quickly averted her angry gaze.

Syd took off his straw hat and plopped it on Emma’s head. “Get over there and sit your fanny down before you give yourself a stroke.”

Red-faced and winded, Emma stalked over to the wooden bench, folded her arms, and sat. Her hair was sticking to her back, and her face was streaked with mud and sweat. “What are you doing?” she snapped, when Syd came up behind her.

“I’m tuckin’ your friggin’ wig up in your bonnet. You gotta nice head of hair, Emma, but a cape you don’t need on a day like this. Sit still or I’ll give you such a clout ...” Syd twisted Emma’s long tail of hair into a French knot and pushed it up into the oversized straw hat. With the hair off the back of her neck, the heat in the garden was almost bearable.

Syd sat down next to her. “You gonna tell me what’s eatin’ you or do I have to pry it outta you?”

Emma’s lips tightened.

Syd leaned back on the bench, stretched his legs out in front of him, and crossed his ankles. He raised his face to the sun. “Okay, so I was a little rocky for a coupla days there. Seein’ Suzie all banged up kinda took the wind outta my sails. But I’m okay now. This here chapel garden’s like a tonic.” He nudged Emma with his elbow. “You think I don’t know what you done, bringin’ me out here? You think I ain’t grateful?”

“I’m not mad at you, Syd,” Emma said stiffly.

“I know that, honey. But I gotta return the favor, you understand? Maybe I can help.”

Emma took her work gloves off and placed them in her lap, then turned to face Syd. “Do you think Nell is a truthful child?”

Syd’s eyes slid toward her. “Sure,” he said. “She’s a bright kid. She may embroider a little here, a little there, but she knows what’s make-believe and what’s not.”

“Then what would you say if I told you that Nell implied that Derek leaves her and Peter alone for extended periods of time with no one but a drunk to look after them?”

“I’d say you should be discussing this with Derek,” said Syd.

“How can I?”

Syd waved a hand in the air. “You go up to him, you say, ‘Derek, got a minute?’—”

“No, Syd, that’s not what I mean. I mean, in a larger, philosophical sense, what right do I have to interfere? Why should it matter to me what Derek does with his children? It’s none of my business.”

“Seems to me that, in a larger, philosophical sense, you’re already makin’ it your business. You get much sleep last night?”

“Not much.” Facing forward, Emma ran her hand along the smooth, silvery arm of the wooden bench. Half angry, half embarrassed, she said, “I called there this morning.”

“There where?”

Emma sighed. “I called the number on Derek’s business card. And a woman answered. She was friendly, in a vague sort of way, but it ... it did sound as if she’d been drinking. Oh, Syd, I could practically smell the liquor on her breath.” Emma drummed her fingers on the arm of the bench. “She introduced herself as Mrs. Higgins.”

“You don’t say.” Syd let out a low whistle, then laced his fingers together and cracked his knuckles. “I’ll tell you one thing. If it is true, it ain’t Derek’s fault.”

“How could it not be?” Emma demanded.

“ ’Cause he loves those kids. He wouldn’t leave ’em hangin’ like that. Not on purpose.” Syd shrugged. “You ever think maybe he don’t know?”

Emma’s fingers stopped drumming.

“I mean, the love goes two ways,” Syd went on. “Those kids’d do just about anything for him, am I right? That Peter ...” Syd shook his head. “Never seen a kid wound so tight. Now, there’s one who don’t tell the truth.”