Nancy Atherton - Aunt Dimity's Death

“Wrong answer,” Bill whispered. “Look—right here.”

Still holding my hand over the phone, I bent down to skim the page. It was the conclusion of the Aunt Dimity’s Cottage

and as I read through it I realized that I had gotten it wrong. Confused, and a little shaken, I straightened and spoke once more to Willis, Sr.

“That is to say…” I cleared my throat. “What I meant to say is that the cat has no redeeming qualities at first, but then, when you get to the end of the story—and the letter—he turns out to be kind of a sweetie. I mean, he still does all sorts of awful things and he still makes Dimity lose her temper, but he also amuses her, and he… he keeps her feet warm in bed.”

“Thank you, Miss Shepherd,” said Willis, Sr. “If you have no further commissions for me, I shall ring off. I have no wish to impede your progress.”

“No, no further commissions. I’ll talk to you again soon.” I hung up the phone and looked down at the story. “I don’t understand this…. I thought I remembered every word.”

“Did Dimity change the ending?” Bill asked.

“No. That’s what’s so strange. As soon as I began reading it, the words came back to me, exactly as they’re written on the page.”

“So your memory slipped up a bit. I wouldn’t worry about it.”

But I was worried. I had been utterly convinced that I knew these stories inside out, but it seemed as though I had been wrong. I felt disoriented, bewildered. What else had I forgotten? I turned to the beginning of the manuscript and began reading.

18

We were fogbound for three days.

Emma swore she had never seen anything like it. She dropped by to let me know that Ruth and Louise Pym had accepted my invitation to come to tea on Saturday, and to reiterate her warning about Pouter’s Hill. “It may not be Mount Everest,” she said, “but it can be just as hazardous in weather like this.” I confounded Bill’s expectations by agreeing with her, and confounded them further by postponing the trip for another twenty-four hours after the sun finally appeared on the morning of the fourth day. I figured it wouldn’t hurt to give the hill a chance to dry out—a path mired in mud would be no easier to climb than one covered in fog.

Our time wasn’t wasted, though. Bill finished a first read-through of the correspondence and handed me a complete index of letters that related in one way or another to the Aunt Dimity stories. I was amazed at the speed with which he had completed his reading, but he shrugged it off, saying that it was a breeze compared to reading contract law.

He failed to find so much as a hint about Dimity’s problem, but he set to work compiling a list of the people mentioned in her letters, everyone from Leslie Gordon of Starling House to Mrs. Farnham, the greengrocer’s wife. If Ruth and Louise Pym didn’t pan out, we would go down the list until we found someone who did.

While Bill was busy with the correspondence, I continued to pore over the manuscript, testing my memory against the written text. All too often, my memory fell short, and the ways in which it did were disturbing. I clearly remembered the very large man who had stepped on Aunt Dimity’s foot at Harrod’s, for example, but what happened next had somehow been edited from my recollection.

With profuse apologies, the very large man turned to Aunt Dimity and offered her his very large arm. “I am so very sorry, Madame,” he said, in his very large voice, “but the crush is quite impossible today. Won’t you take my arm? Perhaps we can make better progress if we face the crowds together.”

And Aunt Dimity did take his arm, and they did face the crowds together, and he escorted her to the train afterward and said a cheery farewell. And, although she left without the torch, the bright memory of the kind man lit the. way home.

All I had remembered was her squashed foot. It was as though I had twisted the story to fit an entirely different view of the world, one which was harsher and more harrowing, and the same was true of almost every story in the collection. Disquieted, I said nothing of it to Bill, but I wondered—when had I grown so bitter?

When I had finished the stories, I made a careful search of the cottage, starting with the utility room and going from there through every cupboard, cabinet, drawer, and shelf, looking for the missing photographs, a personal diary, anything that might help us figure out what had happened to Dimity. I went so far as to try tapping walls and floorboards to discover hidden recesses—a procedure that amused Bill no end—but my hunt proved fruitless.

I used Bill’s index to cull from the correspondence all of the letters related to the stories, then used them as an excuse to drive into Bath. I told Bill I was going there to find a photocopy shop, and he agreed that it made sense to work with copies of the letters rather than the originals. It was a plausible story—I believed it, too, until I found myself browsing through the dress shops. That’s when I decided that I had really gone to Bath to find something to wear to tea on Saturday. After all, it was my duty as a hostess to show up in something more presentable than jeans and a sweater.

So, after wandering through the splendid arcades and elegant crescents of the prettiest of Georgian towns, and after duly copying the letters, I did a little shopping. Maybe more than a little. Once I’d found the dress—a short-sleeved blue silk one, with a dainty floral print—I had to find the shoes to go with it, and then came all the bits in between, and by the time I was finished, I had squeezed my supply of personal cash dry. Why I didn’t ask Bill for an advance was a question I avoided like the plague.

I tiptoed upstairs to stash my new clothes in the master bedroom, then floated innocently back down to the study, photocopies in hand. When Willis, Sr., called, late in the afternoon on the fourth day of our hiatus, I greeted him with the self-assurance of someone who knows that all the bases are covered.

“What’s it to be this time, Mr. Willis? Do you want to know about Aunt Dimity’s adventures at Harrod’s? Or maybe we’ll stick closer to home—Aunt Dimity setting aside a patch of garden for the rabbits.”

“I am heartened to hear the enthusiasm in your voice, Miss Shepherd,” said Willis, Sr. “It is reassuring to know that Miss Westwood’s wishes are being carried forward with such zeal. My question, however, has to do with Aunt Dimity’s experiences at the zoological gardens. Can you recount for me the original version of that story?”

“Aunt Dimity Goes to the Zoo,” I murmured, leafing patiently through the photocopies. “Let’s see. That should be here somewhere….” But it wasn’t. I double-checked Bill’s index, but the end result was the same: there had been no reference to the zoo in any of Dimity’s letters. Reluctantly, I admitted as much to Willis, Sr. “I don’t know what to say. There doesn’t seem to be an original version of that story.”

“Precisely, Miss Shepherd. Thank you very much. Have you had an opportunity to look about you yet? Though your work comes first, of course.”

“As a matter of fact, we’ve been having some pretty wet weather since we arrived,” I said. “It’s cleared up a bit today, though, and I think I may get a chance tomorrow to use the map you gave me.”

“I envy you, Miss Shepherd. England in the springtime is not a thing to miss. I would suggest a longer outing, but, alas, the work needs must be done.” And with a pleasant goodbye, he hung up.

I put the receiver back in the cradle, then turned to Bill, who was still laboring over his list of names. “Why didn’t Dimity write to my mother about the zoo?” I asked. “She talks about Berkeley Square and that rabbit-faced lieutenant, but in all her wartime chatter there’s not one word about the zoo.”