Aunt Dimity and the Family Tree (25 page)

“Sally’s looking well,” he observed.

“She’s in disguise,” I told him. “It’s top secret.”

“She didn’t seem to mind being seen by me,” he said.

“She knows her secret is safe with you,” I said. “You don’t gossip.”

“Ah.” He nodded. “And Aunt Augusta? Is she top secret, too?”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” I replied. I reached for my cell phone and waved him into the drawing room. “Go ahead, join the gang. I’ll be in as soon as I’ve pacified Constable Sleepyhead.”

The constable was none too pleased to learn that I’d ruined his otherwise tranquil night shift with a false alarm.

“The men’ll be all the way to Hodge Farm by now,” he complained.

“Can you bring them back?” I asked meekly.

“Oh, I can bring them back all right,” he allowed grudgingly. “But they won’t like it. All that adrenaline pumping through their veins for nothing? It’s a waste of resources, that’s what it is.”

I soothed his ruffled feelings by pledging a substantial sum to the firemen’s charitable fund, said good-bye, and walked into what had to be the strangest pajama party in Fairworth’s history.

Moonlight streamed through the windows to mingle with firelight and the warm glow of several lamps. Everyone but the Donovans and the mysterious Aunt Augusta sat with their backs to the windows, facing the center of the room. Kit and I alone were fully dressed. The others wore a mixed bag of night attire.

Willis, Sr., who’d seated himself in the Chippendale armchair, was resplendent in a paisley silk dressing gown, neatly pressed pajamas, and slippers made of supple Italian leather. Sally, perched hip-to-hip with Henrique on a Regency chaise longue, looked like a little girl playing dress-up in her sparkly tiara, her baby-blue quilted bathrobe, and her feathery white mules. Henrique, the traveler, wore packable slippers and a lightweight robe over loose-fitting, coffee-colored pajamas.

Deirdre’s chestnut hair fell down her back in a tangle of disordered curls, but she and Declan were dressed almost identically, in cheap velour bathrobes, baggy striped pajamas, and nondescript brown slippers. They sat directly across from Willis, Sr., in a pair of Chippendale side chairs, but their eyes were fixed on the floor.

Aunt Augusta sat rigidly upright in a Gainsborough chair that had been placed near the marble hearth, gazing vacantly into the flames. She’d donned a pair of bulky knitted bed socks and enfolded herself in a voluminous white duvet. Kit had stationed himself on a footstool beside Aunt Augusta, as if he were keeping watch over her.

It was odd enough to see a group of silent, pajama-clad adults sipping tea before a roaring fire in the small hours of the morning. Odder still was the tableau that captured my attention the moment I entered the room. In the center of the Aubusson carpet, a fluffy, cream-colored toy lamb with a faded green ribbon around his neck sat at the head of a line of small, silver sheep, as if he were waiting for a shepherd to open the gate to the next pasture.

“Frederick?” I inquired, looking from the sheep to Willis, Sr.

“Good name,” Aunt Augusta said abruptly. “I never gave him a proper name. Called him Lamby. Frederick’s much better. He’ll be called Frederick from now on, after Grandpapa.”

“Aunt Augusta presented her lamb to me anonymously, as a gift,” Willis, Sr., explained to me. “She placed him in my study while the rest of us were asleep.”

“Deirdre tells me you’re bringing sheep back to Fairworth, young man,” said Aunt Augusta. “Excellent notion. They’ll keep the pastures nice and tidy.”

“What’s Frederick doing with your salt and pepper shakers?” I asked, sinking into the chair next to Willis, Sr.’s.

“Playing,” Aunt Augusta answered in a softer, less snappish voice. “Mama lets me play with the sheep and Papa lets me play with his snuffboxes. Pretty things. Shiny.”

“And the brass compass?” Willis, Sr., asked gently. “Does Papa let you play with it, too?”

“The compass isn’t a toy, young man,” Aunt Augusta said sternly, shaking her head. “Papa brought it home with him from the war. We keep it with the maps, of course.” She sipped her tea and lapsed into silence.

Sally and Henrique exchanged meaningful looks, Kit gazed compassionately at Aunt Augusta, and the Donovans stared at their slippers. Willis, Sr., placed his cup and saucer on the table at his elbow, tented his fingers over his paisley dressing gown, and gazed at the young couple.

“I have, it seems,” he said quietly, “been the unwitting host of an unacknowledged guest.”

“I didn’t invite her,” said Aunt Augusta, glancing over her shoulder at Sally. “Why is she wearing a tiara at this time of night? Is it her birthday? And who is that man next to her? Reminds me of the Spanish ambassador I met in Adelaide. Wonderful dancer. Did you invite them, Ernest?”

“Yes, madam,” said Willis, Sr. “They are friends of mine.”

“Aunt Augusta,” said Declan. “Perhaps we should let Deirdre talk for a while.”

“I’m not stopping her, am I?” said Aunt Augusta, and resumed her contemplation of the fire.

“Mrs. Donovan,” said Willis, Sr., “you have our undivided attention.”

Deirdre straightened her shoulders, folded her hands in her lap, and faced Willis, Sr., squarely.

“Before I start,” she said, “please allow me to apologize for taking advantage of your kindness and for concealing the truth from you. I wouldn’t have done things differently, but I’m sorry nonetheless.”

“I accept your apology,” said Willis, Sr., “and I look forward to hearing why it was made.”

“My maiden name is Deirdre Augusta Fairworthy,” Deirdre began, “but I’m only distantly related to Aunt Augusta. Technically, she’s a cousin rather than an aunt.”

“Did she grow up here?” asked Willis, Sr.

“She was born in Fairworth House,” Deirdre replied, “and she lived here until the age of ten, when she was sent off to boarding school. She never spent any length of time at Fairworth after that. After boarding school came finishing school in Switzerland, then a secretarial job in London, then the war.”

“In 1940, Fairworth was requisitioned by the army,” said Declan, “to be used as a convalescent home. By the time it was released, Aunt Augusta’s parents could no longer afford to live in it, so they sold it.”

“At the end of the war,” Deirdre continued, “Aunt Augusta married an Australian soldier and moved with him to his country. They had no children, so after her husband died, she came back to England to share a small house in Bromley with her sister. When her sister died, she was passed from one relative to another until she ended up with my parents.” A defensive note entered her voice as she continued, “My mother and father are busy professionals—”

“They put her in a nursing home,” Declan interjected bitterly.

“And we took her out,” said Deirdre, lifting her chin. “Aunt Augusta came to live with us in Ireland a year after we purchased the guesthouse.”

“Family’s family,” Declan declared, “for better and for worse. We were making good money and we worked at home, so it was no trouble keeping her with us. And, truth be told, she wasn’t quite as far gone as she is now.”

“Do you know what’s wrong with her?” I asked.

“She was diagnosed with senile dementia when she was in her early seventies,” Deirdre replied. “I don’t know what the diagnosis would be today and I don’t really care. It may sound freakish to you, but I’ve grown to love her just as she is.”

“It is not freakish, Señora,” Henrique said gravely. “To love someone as she is, this is the very essence of love.”

Sally looked up at him with a glimmer of hope in her eyes and Deirdre acknowledged his words with a gracious nod.

“Her state of mind is unpredictable,” Declan admitted. “One moment she’s anchored in the here and now, and the next she’s time-traveling. It can be disconcerting if you’re not used to it.”

“Time-traveling?” Aunt Augusta’s chuckle was surprisingly deep and hearty. “Why don’t you come straight out with it, boy? Tell them I’m gaga and have done with it.”

“She’s gaga,” said Declan, winking at her. “Round the bend.”

“Loopy,” Aunt Augusta murmured and turned her smiling face to the fire.

Deirdre entwined her hand in Declan’s and resumed her tale.

“You know what happened next,” she said. “Our dream fell apart. During the last year, when we were struggling to keep the guesthouse afloat, Aunt Augusta became restive. She pleaded with us to take her home to Fairworth.”

“We told her it was impossible,” said Declan. “As the months passed, she grew quieter and quieter and finally stopped talking altogether. She became so feeble that we had to get a wheelchair for her. It was as if she’d given up.”

“Is that why you bought the Renault van?” I asked. “To accommodate the wheelchair?”

Declan nodded. “With the guesthouse eating up our savings, it was the best we could afford.”

“In May, shortly after we’d sold the guesthouse, my mother mentioned that an American gentleman had purchased Fairworth,” said Deirdre. “And Declan came up with a . . . a madcap scheme.”

“Our dream had failed,” said Declan, “but I thought we might be able to make Aunt Augusta’s dream come true.”

“We made a few inquiries,” Deirdre went on, “and we found out that Fairworth’s new owner was looking for live-in help. We registered with Davina Trent’s agency, making it clear that we would work only in a country house that had separate staff accommodations. She sent us to you.”

“Your late arrival was intentional, I presume,” said Willis, Sr.

“We intended to arrive after dark, yes, but not after midnight,” said Declan, rolling his eyes. “We didn’t have to invent the story about the Renault breaking down. It breaks down with spectacular regularity.”

“But you hoped to convey Aunt Augusta from the van to the house under cover of darkness,” Willis, Sr., clarified.

“We didn’t think you’d hire us if we wheeled her into the study,” said Declan.

I snapped my fingers and pointed at the Donovans. “That’s why you wouldn’t let Bill help you to unload the van. He thought you felt awkward, asking the boss’s son to carry your stuff, but you were just getting him out of the way so you could move Aunt Augusta without being seen.”

“Bingo,” said Declan.

“What would you have done had I not hired you?” asked Willis, Sr.

“The possibility never crossed our minds.” Declan smiled wryly. “There are two things you learn when you run a guesthouse: You learn to read people and you learn to please people. With all due respect, sir, we had you pegged within five minutes of meeting you.”

“Apart from that,” Deirdre said, elbowing her husband in the ribs, “we’d been coached very thoroughly by Davina Trent. Forgive me for saying so, sir, but you’d rejected so many applicants by then that she was at the end of her tether. She was desperate for us to make a good impression, so she made quite sure that we understood what would be expected of us.”

“Mrs. Trent could not have prepared you for the”—Willis, Sr., gave Sally and Henrique a sidelong glance—“additional duties that would be thrust upon you.”

“We came here expecting to look after a single gentleman,” said Deirdre, “and we found ourselves looking after three people with, um, special dietary requirements. I’ve lost count of the number of meals I’ve cooked since Mr. Cocinero arrived, on top of doing the housework to your high standards and checking in on Aunt Augusta. To be perfectly honest, sir, I’ve never been so exhausted in my life. When I went to bed, I slept as if I’d been drugged.”

“I’ve had to do the weeding, the mowing, the raking, the trimming, and the sweeping single-handedly,” said Declan, “in between running errands and conducting the wildflower survey.”

“What wildflower survey?” I asked.

“Your father-in-law asked me to map the wildflowers growing in the stand of trees at the northeast corner of the estate,” Declan replied. “I hunted around in there on Tuesday afternoon, sir, and I found the orchids you mentioned.”

“They are exquisite, are they not?” said Willis, Sr.

“That they are, sir,” said Declan.

I caught Kit’s eye and conceded with a small shrug that I’d been wrong. Declan hadn’t been hiding anything in the woods on Tuesday. He’d been searching for wild orchids.

“We’re not complaining, sir,” Deirdre was saying. “We’re explaining why we’ve slept so soundly for the past few nights. We weren’t aware of what was going on around us at night, which is why it took us a while to realize that Aunt Augusta had regained the use of her legs.”

“Deirdre and I were dead to the world,” said Declan, “when she came downstairs on Sunday night and rearranged some of your furniture.”

“The settee and the armchair,” I said, gazing at Deirdre with fresh understanding. “Now I know why you looked so confused when William asked you if you’d moved the furniture.”

“I was gobsmacked,” Deirdre confirmed. “I had to come up with a believable story on the fly, then run upstairs to have a chat with Aunt Augusta. She admitted quite readily that she could walk.”

“She claims that being back at Fairworth has healed her,” Declan put in. “And why not? Happiness is good for your health.”

“We were delighted by her recovery, of course,” said Deirdre, “but it did complicate matters. She startled us awake on Monday night by cranking up the volume on our sound system.”

“Benny Goodman,” I said.

“She’s Benny’s biggest fan,” said Declan.

“The King of Swing,” murmured Aunt Augusta, tapping her foot to a melody only she could hear.

“We unplugged the machine,” said Deirdre, “and fell back into bed. As soon as we were asleep, she came downstairs to play with the snuffboxes and to move the brass compass from the billiards room to the map case in the library.”

“Where it belongs,” Aunt Augusta muttered. “What sort of fool puts a compass in a billiards room?”

“I found her playing choo-choo trains with the snuffboxes at three o’clock in the morning,” said Declan. “I put her back to bed with strict orders to stay put for the rest of the night.”

“Pish tush,” Aunt Augusta said, waving her hand dismissively. “I’ll do as I please in my own home.”

“You have always done as you pleased in your home, have you not, Augusta?” said Willis, Sr., eyeing her shrewdly. “I believe you did as you pleased a long time ago, when you were a little girl, before you left for boarding school.”