Nancy Atherton - Aunt Dimity's Death

“Thanks, Meg. I knew I could count on you.”

“Sorry, Shepherd, but he just doesn’t strike me as the Svengali type. I watched him back there in the kitchen. He never took his eyes off of you. Okay, so maybe he made a bad joke about the forbidden subject of marriage, but I’m sure that’s all it was—a joke.”

“I’m tired of being the butt of his jokes, Meg,” I said heatedly. “I’m tired of having my leg pulled, and I am sick and tired of him playacting and goofing around and smirking behind my back and… What are you looking at?”

“You. I haven’t seen you this riled up in a long time.”

“So?”

Meg continued to stare at me intently. She opened her mouth as if to say something, then closed it again and shook her head. “Nope. Not this time, Shepherd. This time you figure it out for yourself.”

Before I could respond, the porch door opened and Doug came out, accompanied by the delicious aroma of garlicky tomato sauce. “Sorry to interrupt,” he said, “but I can’t find the cheese grater.”

“Have you checked the garage?” asked Meg. “Never mind—let me see if I can find it. I’ll be right back, Shepherd.”

Van Gogh decided the storm was too close for comfort and scooted in after them, leaving me alone on the porch. As soon as the door had closed, a few fat drops hit the roof overhead; then the rain came rushing down, enclosing the porch in flickering, translucent walls. I got up from my chair and stood with my hands on the railing, spellbound. I didn’t hear the porch door open once more.

“I’m sorry,” said Bill, and I came out of my reverie, startled to find him standing beside me.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated. “What I said before—it was out of line. I embarrassed you in front of your friends and I should never have done that. I apologize.”

For a moment—one short moment—it was as though I could see Bill, really see him, for the first time. He wasn’t such a Handsome Prince, after all. He wasn’t young and dashing. He had no jutting jaw, no aristocratic nose, no piercing blue eyes, and not even a hint of flaxen hair. His nose was far from aquiline, in fact, and although his beard disguised it, his chin seemed to be a bit on the receding side. His neatly trimmed hair was more gray than anything else and behind his glasses, his eyes were a warm brown. He wasn’t handsome in a classic way; but then, I’d never trusted classic faces. In that brief moment, it struck me that his was a face I could trust. A Handsome Prince is in the eye of the beholder, I mused silently, and I’m having no difficulty picturing Bill in full armor. I gulped and chased the image from my mind at sword-point.

“That’s okay,” I said stiffly, tightening my grip on the railing.

His shoulders slumped. He gave a soft sigh and looked out over the rain-swept sea.

“Really, Bill. It’s no big deal.” I glanced up at him and gently bumped his arm with my elbow. “I know how hard it can be to pass up a good opening.”

“Do you?” said Bill. He reached over and brushed his fingertips across the back of my left hand. “I promise you, it won’t happen again.”

Between the rush of the rain and the pounding of my heart, I scarcely heard Doug’s voice from the doorway. “I’ve tossed the salad,” he announced. “And Meg says that if we don’t eat pronto, she’s going to chew a leg off the kitchen table.”

* * *

For the rest of the evening, Bill behaved like a normal human being. He bantered with Meg, discussed the art market with Doug, played cat games with Van Gogh, and stopped treating me like visiting royalty. He even went to bed early so that my friends and I could have some time to ourselves. When we left the next day, he went so far as to let me forget my bag. Meg came puffing out to the car with it at the last minute. “Look, Shepherd,” she said, “I know you don’t want to sully your gorgeous vehicle with this crummy piece of canvas, but I don’t want it cluttering up my immaculate domain, either.” She dumped it in the backseat behind Bill as Doug ran down the stairs.

“You be sure to write to us from England,” he said.

“Waste of time,” said Meg.

Doug and I looked at her in surprise.

“With your expense account,” she explained, “you can afford to call.”

I hugged the two of them, climbed into the car, and began the drive home.

* * *

It wasn’t until we were stuck in a long line of cars waiting for a truckload of fertilizer to be cleared from the interstate—which Bill had taken to avoid the tortuous scenic route—that I began to consider what Meg had hinted at. Was I riled up over nothing? I could see that I had been a bit defensive with Bill, but defense mechanisms hadn’t evolved because it had been a slow Thursday afternoon. Fear was essential to self-preservation. It had worked for our caveman ancestors, and who was I to argue with history?

Still, it was possible that Bill’s intentions had been good all along, and it did seem odd to be afraid of kindness. It was definitely not a survival trait.

As we crawled past the aromatic accident scene, Bill touched a button on the dashboard and my window hummed shut. I glanced at him, then closed my eyes and leaned back, feigning sleep. I had some serious thinking to do and I wanted no distractions.

* * *

Willis, Sr.’s map was waiting for me in the guest suite when I got back. It had been well padded and securely wrapped in brown paper, and a note from Trevor Douglas had been placed beside it on the coffee table. I dropped my bag on the floor and picked up the note, expecting it to contain the usual polite business phrases. Instead, Mr. Douglas had written:

Please thank Bill for directing me to that woodcarver friend of his. The man is a genius. I’ll be sure to send more work his way.

Woodcarver friend? I put the note back on the table. Worried, I propped the package on the couch, tore off the wrapping paper, removed the padding, and stood back to see what Bill had done now. I stood there for a long time.

Trevor Douglas had not spoken lightly. Whoever had done this work was a genius. In almost no time at all, he had created a frame that was as subtle and intricate as the map itself: a two-inch band of polished wood carved with a frieze of animals—beavers, squirrels, raccoons, and other small creatures of the North American woods—linked by oak leaves and acorns, pine cones and needles. When I ran my fingers over the surface I could feel the care that had gone into its creation.

The phone rang.

“Hello,” said Bill. “Thought I’d call to let you know that Father has planned a farewell luncheon for us tomorrow at two, in the small dining room. ‘Fortification,’ he called it, ‘against the trials of airline fare.’ Can you make it?”

“Sure, I can make it,” I said. “And, uh, Bill—the map has arrived.”

“Has it?”

“I’m looking at it right now,” I said. “The frame is… it’s beautiful, Bill. It’s perfect. I’m…”

“I’ve come up with a scheme for giving it to Father. I can put it on his desk in the office tomorrow while you’re saying good-bye, so he’ll find it after we’ve gone. I think he’d prefer it that way. He’s not fond of public displays of affection, you know.”

“Then that’s what we’ll do,” I agreed. “And Bill, I… I just want to say that…” I took a deep breath, then chickened out completely. “Trevor Douglas asked me to thank you for telling him about the woodcarver.”

There was a prolonged silence on the line.

“Thanks for the message, Lori,” Bill said at last. “I’ll see you at lunch.” And he hung up.

Unsettled, I cleared up the wrapping paper, then carried my canvas bag into the bedroom to unpack. “Why couldn’t you just thank him?” I muttered fretfully, then paused in surprise as I opened the bag. A sheet of sketching paper was lying where my sweater had been. A single sentence from Meg was scrawled across it: Your clothes are in the mail. I flashed back to her lugging the bag to the car before I left. Sneaky, sneaky, I thought, then caught my breath when I saw what lay beneath the sketching paper.