Nancy Atherton - Aunt Dimity's Death

My fatigue must have put me in a highly suggestible state of mind, because it never once occurred to me to fire any questions back at him. Like “What business is it of yours?” or “Who the hell are you to grill me like this?” The setting was so artificial that I felt like a character in a play. I even felt a touch of pride at knowing my lines so well. The hypnotic rhythm lulled me into a kind of semiconscious complacency, until Willis, Sr., asked what turned out to be the last question.

“Now, young lady, would you please tell my son and me the story entitled Aunt Dimity Buys a Torch?”

I sat bolt upright in the chair, sputtered a few incoherent syllables—and fainted. The shock of hearing those words on a stranger’s lips did what a polar expedition on top of a hectic day without food had failed to do: awakened my sense of drama. I vaguely remember gaping in astonishment and then I found myself gazing blearily into Willis, Sr.’s face from a prone position on a couch.

“Miss Shepherd, can you hear me?” asked Willis, Sr., leaning over to peer closely at my face. “Ah, you are awake. Good, good.”

I hardly recognized the man. The cool politeness in his eyes had given way to a look of warm concern, a lock of white hair had fallen over his forehead, and the hand that had shaken mine with such formality was now solicitously tucking an afghan around me. Suddenly I could see a clear resemblance between father and son.

“I am so very sorry about this,” he said, with a worried frown. “I had no idea it would affect you so severely. But the terms of the will are quite clear and I had to be certain you were who you claimed to be. I was under strict orders, you see, but I never dreamt—”

“How did you know?” I murmured muzzily. “How did you know about Aunt Dimity?”

“I think we shall have a bite of supper first. You appear to be in need of sustenance,” said Willis, Sr. “And then I will answer your questions for a change. A change for the better in my opinion, and in yours, too, no doubt.” He beamed down at me. “I am so happy that you are here, my dear. I feel as though I have known you for years.”

However much I disliked having my questions deflected yet again, I had to admit that food sounded like an idea whose time had come. I pulled myself into a sitting position as Bill entered the room pushing a supper-laden trolley.

“Feeling perfectly fine, are we?” he asked cheerfully, and I felt myself blush. He wheeled the trolley to within my reach and pulled up chairs for himself and his father. “If you’d felt any better, we might have had to call an ambulance.”

“This is no time for levity, my boy,” admonished Willis, Sr., gently. “If you had given Miss Shepherd a proper meal when she arrived, we might have avoided this unfortunate incident.”

“You’re quite right, Father. I stand corrected,” said Bill, and I sank a bit lower on the couch.

“Please, Miss Shepherd, try some of the consommé,” said Willis, Sr. “There’s nothing like a good beef broth after an upset. And then, if you’re up to it, a bit of the roast, I think…”

The two men fussed over me, filling my plate and keeping it filled, and between bites I told them the story of Aunt Dimity’s quest for a torch. I felt awkward, hauling out a part of my childhood for these two strangers to examine, but Willis, Sr., assured me that it was a necessary part of the Great Q and A, so I went ahead and told it, word for word, exactly as my mother had told it to me. The only difference was that this time it put the teller to sleep instead of the listeners. Although it was barely eight o’clock, I dozed off with a dessert plate still in my lap.

4

I awoke in the small hours of the morning. The room was pitch-dark, but I didn’t need light to know that I wasn’t in my own bed The mattress was firm and the pillows were soft—instead of the other way round—and when I stretched, my hands bumped into something which felt suspiciously like a headboard. Reaching to one side, my groping fingers found a nightstand, then a lamp. I turned it on.

Definitely not my room. A large, tweedy armchair sat in one corner, a small, graceful desk in another, the kind that sits in the front window of a fancy antique store and costs half the gross national product. A crystal carafe and a tumbler sat on the nightstand; the carafe was filled with water. The bed had a footboard to go with the headboard, and both were made of the same lustrous wood as the desk. The sheets and blankets were navy blue—very masculine—and the pillowcases bore a silver monogram in looping Florentine script: W

For Willis.

I sat up as the rest of yesterday’s events came flooding back, erasing my confusion and anchoring me firmly in… what? Yesterday morning I had been a struggling, semi-employed, ordinary person who slept on a mattress on the floor. This morning I found myself comfortably ensconced in an elegant bedroom, the honored guest of a venerable attorney. “What next?” I murmured, gazing about the room. “A glass coach and a Handsome Prince?”

The thought made me start as another memory settled into place, a sleepy memory of being carried up a long flight of stairs by the venerable attorney’s son, the same son who had loaned me… I peeked under the covers and was relieved to spot the Harvard insignia. It was bad enough to know that I had been toted up to bed like a helpless child, but it could have been worse.

I still had plenty of questions, but they’d have to wait until the rest of the house had awakened. In the meantime… I swung my legs over the side of the bed. If I was careful and quiet, I should be able to take a look around. After all, it wasn’t every day that I woke up with a mansion to explore.

Easing open a door at random, I discovered a spacious dressing room with empty shelves, empty hangers, an empty dressing table. The towels in the adjoining bathroom held the scent of fresh laundering, and everything else in it seemed to be brand-new: an undented tube of toothpaste, a toothbrush still in its wrapper, a dry bar of sandalwood soap placed between the double sinks. The shampoo and liquid soap dispensers in the shower were full, and an enormous loofah sat on one marble ledge, looking as though it hadn’t touched water since it had first been wrested from the seafloor.

A second door opened on to a well-appointed parlor dominated by a wide, glass-fronted cabinet. Padding over, I saw that it held an assortment of trophies, plaques, and medals for everything from debating to Greek. There were a few sports awards, for odd things like squash and fencing, but most were for scholarly achievements. Each was polished and gleaming, and each was engraved with the name William Willis. The dates indicated that they were Bill’s,” rather than his father’s, and a young Bill’s at that; the triumphs of childhood and young manhood memorialized quietly, in a very private room.

The cabinet reminded me of the steamer trunk I had found while sorting through my mother’s things; a trunk carefully packed with the symbols of my own academic achievements, which had not been inconsiderable. It had been a crushing discovery, like encountering a trunkful of my mother’s unfulfilled dreams for me. I looked at the trophies before me and envied Bill. He had lived up to the promise of his early years, while the schoolteacher’s daughter was living out of cardboard boxes.

I turned away from the cabinet and was promptly distracted from my gloomy thoughts by the sight of my clothes from the day before. They had been placed neatly on the coffee table, cleaned, dried, and pressed. I was amused to see my well-worn clothing treated so respectfully, but I was also a little embarrassed. I doubted that Bill had ever seen such threadbare jeans before, or such shabby sneakers.