Aunt Dimity's Good Deed (11 page)

“Lori, is that you?” Bill sounded barely conscious. “Do you have any idea what time it is here?”

“Bill—” I began urgently, but stopped at the all-too-familiar sound of cavernous yawning.

“Why don’t you call back a little later, love?” he drawled drowsily. “I’ve been on the run since dawn and I have to be up again in—oh my God—
four hours.
”

“But, Bill—”

“Lori, I’m
whacked.
I’m sunburnt and mosquito-bitten and I put a fishhook through my thumb and I
have
to get some sleep or I’ll be good for nothing tomorrow.”

I paused. “All the way through your thumb?” I asked, aghast.

“Just through the fleshy pad, but it hurt like hell, and the shot the doctor gave me put me out like a light.” Bill interrupted himself with another yawn before continuing,
“Please
let me sink into oblivion again. I’ve had an incredibly trying day.”

“But—but, Bill ...” I stared blindly at the spotless tile floor, then raised my eyes to the morning light pouring through the bathroom window. Bill hadn’t bothered to ask about the kind of day I’d had, or why I was calling him at such an ungodly hour, or what my phone number was so he could call me back. His father might have had another heart attack, I might have crashed the Mini, Nell might have plunged headlong from Saint Bartholomew’s bell tower—but all Bill could think about was
his
sunburn,
his
mosquito bites, and
his
thumb.

“Okay,” I said slowly. “I understand.”

“Thanks, love,” Bill murmured. “G‘night.”

I hung up the phone, feeling as though I’d been cut adrift. Was I being unreasonable? Was it asking too much to expect my husband to recognize panic in my voice when he heard it?

I raised a hand to touch the gold band that still hung from the chain around my neck. It wasn’t the first time Bill had tuned me out, or the first time I’d struggled, in vain, to win his attention. That struggle had begun the moment our honeymoon had ended. I thought back to my conversation with Emma the previous morning and, with a sickening sense of clarity, began to listen to that small voice in the back of my head.

Bill didn’t
want
to start a family. A child, after all, would only compound the mistake he’d made by marrying me. That was why he kept me at arm’s length, why he buried himself at the office and evaded all discussion of our future. I’d thought success with the Biddifords would restore my husband to me, but I’d been grotesquely naive. The Biddifords were simply another in a long line of excuses Bill had found to stay as far away from me as he could get. My Handsome Prince had known all along how this fairy tale would end. He’d just been waiting for me to figure it out.

I sat huddled on the tub, clutching the phone, feeling sick and dizzy, as though the foundations of my life had been snatched out from under me. What would I do? Where would I go? How could I bear to start over again? Trembling, I placed the telephone on the floor and tottered to the sink to splash cold water on my face. I couldn’t allow myself to cry, because once I started I didn’t think I’d ever stop, so I leaned there, taking deep breaths, until the dizziness had passed. Then I looked at my reflection in the mirror.

“Willis, Sr., still cares about you,” I whispered. Of that I was certain. But I could no longer say the same about my husband.

Nell was awake and packing when I emerged from the bathroom, and she looked me over carefully before asking, “What happened last night?”

“I’ll tell you about it on the train,” I replied shortly.

“The train?”

“The train.”

 

 

I wasn’t up to engaging in a blushing match with Miss Coombs—my illicit tête-à-tête with Gerald was still burning holes in my conscience—so we slipped out of the Georgian via the garden, unencumbered by any luggage but the briefcase. I’d settle the bill by credit card, I told myself, and ask Miss Kingsley to arrange for our suitcases to be sent on.

I’d ask her to have someone pick up the car, too. Conscious of my promise to Derek to avoid driving in London, we left the Mini in the car park at the Haslemere station and caught the nine twenty-five for Waterloo. The carriages were packed with commuters, but Nell had spoken with Mr. Digby’s daughter in the ticket office and secured us a private compartment as well as two Styrofoam cups of milky, sugary tea.

Nell had discarded her Nicolette blacks in favor of a sleeveless sky-blue dress, a white linen jacket, white pumps, and a soft-sided white leather shoulder bag. She’d dressed Bertie in a blue-and-white sailor suit and selected a similarly summery outfit for me, but I’d opted for the hideous tweeds again. They were the closest thing to mourning she had packed.

In her pretty blue dress, with Bertie cradled in one arm and Reginald’s pink flannel ears poking out of her shoulder bag, Nell presented a picture of golden-haired innocence as we made our way to our private compartment, but as soon as I closed the door, she scowled like a Tatar.

“Eat,” she commanded, reaching into her shoulder bag to produce the round tin Gerald had given me.

I eyed the tin’s contents and felt my gorge rise.

“You had no dinner last night, no breakfast this morning, you haven’t spoken a word since we left the Georgian, and you’re as pale as rice pudding,” Nell lectured sternly. She took Reginald from her bag and placed him beside Bertie on the compartment’s small table, so they could both look out of the window. “If you don’t eat something this minute, Lori, I’ll telephone Papa when we reach London and tell him you’re not fit to continue the journey. Reginald insists. He’s very worried about you.”

I couldn’t see Reginald’s face, but I could tell by the upright angle of his ears that he was indeed perturbed by my behavior. Grudgingly, I pulled a tiny piece from one of the brownies, popped it in my mouth, and washed it down with tea. Nell folded her arms and waited until I’d finished the entire brownie, and two more besides, then ordered me to drink her tea as well as mine. When I’d downed it, she unfolded her arms, reached for Bertie, and promptly changed from a tough-talking blackmailer into a timid, twelve-year-old child.

“Feel better?” she asked.

With a sense of shock I realized that I’d thrown Nell for a loop. It had never occurred to me that a tsunami-sized mood swing or two might unnerve someone as serenely self-possessed as Lady Eleanor Harris. Her cornflower eyes were twice their normal size, and she clung so tightly to Bertie that his stuffing bulged beneath his sailor shirt. Shamefaced, I reached across the table to pat her hand.

“I didn’t sleep well last night,” I lied. In fact, I’d slept better than I had for months, despite a series of vivid dreams that should have made a married woman blush. “I always get cranky when I don’t get enough sleep. And I guess I’m feeling a bit fed up with all of this running around.”

“Are you sorry you brought Bertie and me with you?” Nell asked soberly.

“Good heavens, no, Nell, not one bit,” I exclaimed. “You’ve both been great. It’s just that ...” I sighed. “This isn’t how I’d hoped to spend my second honeymoon.”

Nell relaxed her grip on Bertie, but her expression remained grave. “Being married isn’t easy,” she said knowingly. “I’m the only one at school whose parents still live together in the same house. Except for Petra de Bernouilles, but she’s a Catholic and they’re not allowed to divorce. Are you going to divorce Bill?”

“Nell! What an idea!” I dismissed the question with a breezy chuckle while telling myself that perhaps it would be better if my own hypothetical twelve-year-old weren’t quite as perceptive as Nell. “I’ll admit that I’m disappointed that Bill couldn’t come with me on this trip, but what’s one trip?”

“When’s the last time he came with you?” she inquired.

“The last time? That would be ... This is August, right?” I tilted my head nonchalantly and squinted into the middle distance. “A year ago,” I answered finally. “Bill was here last August. We spent a few days in London and a week at the cottage. It was wonderful.”

“A year,” said Nell.

“Hardly any time at all,” I said, and before Nell could point out that it was nearly half of my married life, I changed the subject. “By the way, I forgot to ask—did Bertrand hear any juicy tidbits from the maids?”

“Nothing new.” Nell straightened Bertie’s beribboned sailor hat. “They’re dotty about Gerald, but the whole town seems to be dotty about Gerald. Did you learn anything new?”

“Gerald promised to do what he could to keep William from leaving Boston,” I told her, “but I don’t.think he’ll be able to do much. He. says he’s through practicing law.”

“Did you believe him?” Nell asked.

“I did,” I replied. “And I still do. If you’d seen his face last night, Nell, you’d have believed him, too. I don’t understand why Aunt Dimity expected him to lie to me.”

“Perhaps because she heard him lie to William about the other thing,” Nell suggested. “The ‘quarrel that happened so long ago.’ I have an idea about that.”

“Tell me,” I said, glad to divert Nell’s mind, and my own, from all thoughts of Bill and the D-word.

Nell’s gaze wandered to the suburban sprawl that had begun to crowd out the countryside. “Yesterday,” she said, “when I was poking round the Larches, I opened the door of a sort of storeroom and I saw the most marvelous thing—a cross made of gold and covered with jewels.”

“It’s called a reliquary.” I nodded. “I saw it, too. I went into the room by mistake and there it was, gleaming away at me.” I paused, distracted by the memory of Gerald’s breath on my hand as he’d bent to examine my cut finger. “Gerald said that the reliquary’s part of a collection he’s cataloguing for ...” I frowned, unable to recall his exact words.

“For whom?” Nell asked.

“A private collector or a museum, I imagine.” I shrugged. “Gerald didn’t mention any names.”

“Hmmm,” said Nell, still looking out of the window.

“What are you thinking, Nell?” I asked.

“I’m thinking that the reliquary must be worth lots of money.” Nell turned her head to stare at me. “Vast sums.”

I returned her stare uneasily. The Larches’ dismal state of disrepair had made me forget all about Gerald’s large bank account, and I’d never thought to question his possession of the golden cross. “Go on,” I said.

“What if the reliquary—and everything else in that storeroom—belongs to the American branch of the Willis family?” Nell proposed. “What if Gerald’s trying to rob William of his legacy?”

Could the reliquary be the sleeping dog Dimity wanted Willis, Sr., to avoid? I could think of several reasons why it might be in Gerald’s interest to conceal the existence of a valuable inheritance: His family might have borrowed against it, he might be intent on selling it, or he might have sold it already. In any case, it wouldn’t do for the rightful heir to appear out of nowhere and lay claim to it.

“It’s possible,” I conceded. “I’ll ask Emma to look for records of a disputed legacy out there on the net. Though I still can’t imagine why it would have popped into William’s mind yesterday morning.”

Nell tapped the round tin. “Did you remember to ask Gerald about the butterscotch brownies?”

I slapped a hand to my forehead. “Forgot all about it.”

“Never mind,” said Nell with a small, self-satisfied smile. “I asked him when he stopped by the hotel.”

“Ten points to you.” I bowed graciously, pleased to see her smiling again. “What did he say?”

“Thomas Willis didn’t serve in London during the war,” Nell informed me. “He was too young. He’s only sixty-three now.”

“So in 1945 he would have been”—I peered at the ceiling—“ twelve. I can’t picture a boy your age exchanging recipes in war-torn London, can you?”

“My brother,” Nell said authoritatively, “would have been too busy exploring the bomb craters.”

I nodded my agreement, but my mind was already on other things. I opened the briefcase and took from it the list of names Miss Kingsley had passed along, the drama-tis personae of the Willis family. “Thomas Willis is sixty-three, and he’s the oldest of the older generation here in England. That means they’re all younger than William. Thomas retired because of his heart trouble, but what about the other two—Anthea and Williston? Gerald told me that his cousin Lucy’s been running the firm shorthanded since he left. I wonder why Anthea and Williston haven’t come back to help her out?”

Nell returned the tin to her purse and folded her hands on the table, her eyes twinkling. “I’m looking forward to talking with Lucy Willis, aren’t you?”

“Absolutely.” I raised the list into the air with a flourish. “This branch of the family is getting more interesting by the minute.” I laughed and Nell chuckled, but as I put the list back into the briefcase I couldn’t repress the traitorous thought that perhaps Dimity had chosen my husband from the wrong side of the Atlantic.

I’d planned to take a cab from Waterloo to Lucy Willis’s office, but it proved to be unnecessary. The moment Nell and I alighted from the train, a small white-haired man in a dark-blue uniform hailed us from beyond the ticket barrier.

“Good morning,. madam! Didn’t expect to see you back so soon. And if it isn’t Lady Eleanor. My, but you’re pretty as a picture today, my lady. Nanny Cole’ll sell those frocks hand over fist once the gentry see you parading in yours. Master Bertram’s in the pink, I hope? Oh, I see you’ve brought Master Reginald as well.”

“Paul!” I exclaimed. Paul, whose last name, if it existed, had never been vouchsafed to me, was the chauffeur who’d driven Willis, Sr., and me down to the cottage after our overnight in London. He worked for Miss Kingsley, but I had no idea how he’d learned of our arrival at Waterloo.

“A pleasure to see you, too, madam.” Paul put two fingers to his dark-blue cap, then beckoned to a railway porter who was, to my astonishment, trundling my suitcase and Nell’s along the platform on a wheeled trolley.