Nancy Atherton - Aunt Dimity's Death

I blinked up at him in confusion and searched my memory. “Let’s get back to work? But I’ve finished—”

“Wait. That’s not what it means. What it actually means is what I’ve wanted to tell you all along. It means, I love—”

Before he could get the last word out, the sound of tires on gravel wafted through the air from the front of the cottage. He grimaced. “What a perfect time for Emma to bring the kids over to meet the Cookie Lady.”

“Oh, come on,” I said, tugging his arm. “I’ve been wanting to meet Peter and Nell. It won’t take long.”

“It’d better not,” he said, but he allowed himself to be dragged to the front door.

We swung it wide, and to our mutual astonishment beheld none other than Willis, Sr., climbing out of the limo with the ever-helpful Paul at his elbow. Paul waved and tipped his cap at me, unloaded Willis, Sr.’s luggage, then backed the limo onto the road and sped off. Willis, Sr., meanwhile, stood on the flagstone walk, his eyes fixed on the cottage, deep in thought.

“Father! Why didn’t you call? I would have come to pick you up.”

“Mr. Willis, if I’d known you were coming early, I’d have—”

“Curious,” Willis, Sr., said, half to himself. “Most curious.” He became aware of our dumbfounded presence and shrugged helplessly. “I assure you that I share your surprise at my early arrival. I am not at all certain that I can explain it.”

“I think I can,” Bill muttered as he went to get his father’s luggage. I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing out loud.

By the time we were settled in the living room—Bill beside his father, and me perched on the window seat—Willis, Sr., had given us as much of an explanation as he could. It wasn’t much. He had simply canceled all of his appointments for the day, boarded a Concorde, and come straight to the cottage, drawn by an urge as irresistible as it was inexplicable. “Whatever will Mrs. Franklin think? And Mr. Hudson? Two of our most valued clients. Oh, dear me…”

“Father, I think that Lori and I will be able to explain this to you.” Bill put a reassuring hand on his father’s impeccably tailored shoulder.

“Will you?” Willis, Sr., asked doubtfully.

“Yes, though you may find our explanation a little difficult to believe,” I said.

“It could scarcely be more incredible than the present circumstances. To change one’s routine so abruptly is really quite…” His gray eyes focused on me. “My dear, please forgive this inexcusable intrusion. I beg of you, do not interrupt your own work on my account.”

I dismissed his apology with a wave. “I’m always glad to see you, Mr. Willis. As a matter of fact, I was going to call you today to let you know that I’ve finished the introduction. If I had to, I could leave right now.”

“Now, Miss Shepherd? You wish to depart today?”

If I had been honest, I would have admitted that there was nothing I wished less. My eyes wandered from the fireplace, with its neat pile of fine white ash, to the lilacs, still fresh and fragrant in their bowls. I touched the inkstain in the corner of the window seat, and looked through the diamond panes at the rose petals fluttering in the breeze. I would miss this place, I would cherish it in my memory, and I didn’t want to leave it. But I knew that I could. It was better, much better, to leave now, with my head up, than later, looking back over my shoulder.

“Yes,” I said decisively. “I don’t need to stay here any longer.”

“I see.” Willis, Sr., regarded me in silence, then added, “Your mind is quite made up on that point?”

“It is.”

“I see.” Willis, Sr., pursed his lips, raised his eyebrows, then seemed to reach a decision. “Well, in that case, I see no reason to delay carrying out Miss Westwood’s final instructions.”

“There’s no need to do that, either, Mr. Willis,” I said. “I’d feel guilty taking a penny of the commission. My work has been a labor of love.”

“That is a very noble sentiment, Miss Shepherd, and I shall honor it, if you so desire. But I am not speaking of the commission.”

“You’re not?”

Willis, Sr., asked Bill to fetch his briefcase from the hall. When Bill returned with it, Willis, Sr., withdrew a leather portfolio and examined its contents soberly. He nodded once, then closed the portfolio and folded his hands on top of it.

“My dear Miss Shepherd,” he said, “there is one last question I must put to you. Would you please tell my son and me the story entitled Aunt Dimity Buys a Torch ?”

I folded my legs beneath me on the window seat and told the story again, the correct version this time, with the bright memories as well as the trodden-on foot. As I told it, I seemed to travel back in time to the night I had arrived at the Willis mansion. I saw myself standing on the doorstep in the dark, cold and alone and angry at the world, and it was like looking at a stranger. That person could never have believed in ghosts or happy endings. That person could never have fallen in love with the Handsome Prince. I felt a great tenderness for her, and when the door opened and the warm light drove away the darkness, I wished her well.

“…and Aunt Dimity went home to warm herself before the fife and feast on buttered brown bread and a pot of tea, smiling quietly as she remembered the very large and very kind man she had met that day at Harrod’s.”

Willis, Sr., let the silence linger for a time, then nodded slowly. “Thank you, Miss Shepherd. Most beautifully told.” He opened the portfolio and cleared his throat. “I am now empowered to inform you that the cottage, the land surrounding it—in fact, the entirety of Miss Westwood’s considerable estate, are to come into your sole possession at the conclusion of the allotted month’s time. I am afraid there is no way to speed that along, my dear, but I am certain that such a delay will not—”

“Mine?” I whispered, afraid to say the word aloud. “The cottage is mine?” My astonishment was mirrored in Bill’s eyes. Apparently his father had not discussed with him this detail of the case.

“Yes, Miss Shepherd. Your answer to Miss Westwood’s final question was more than satisfactory. In fact—”

“Mine?” I repeated faintly, as the full beauty of the scheme unfolded before me. Dimity and Beth, those two remarkable women, guiding each other through rocky terrain, then reaching out to pull me from my isolation and show me another way. They had seen my downward spiral; they had brought me to the cottage to open my closed mind; and they had given me a month to read their words, to hear what they were trying to tell me, so that I would not use Dimity’s considerable estate as a shield, a fortress, a lonely mansion on a hill.

Dazed, I rose from the window seat and walked out of the room. Bill started to follow me, but Willis, Sr., must have restrained him, because I left the cottage alone. Without quite knowing how I got there, I found myself in the clearing at the top of Pouter’s Hill.

The words I exchanged with the gnarled old oak tree must remain between the tree and me. Suffice it to say that the tree proved to be as good a listener as Bill.

Epilogue

Emma planted flowers there later that summer, and according to Willis, Sr., they bloom all year round. He sits beneath the old oak tree for hours whenever he visits and he visits as often as he can. He nearly gave me a heart attack the first time he tackled the climb, but it seems to have done him good. His heart hasn’t bothered him since.

I have to depend on his reports about the clearing because I don’t get up there as often as I’d like. Between unearthing rare books for Stan, visiting Uncle Andrew in Scotland, and shuttling the little Willises between cottage and mansion several times a year—and they say that D day was a big deal!—I’m kept pretty busy.