Aunt Dimity and the Lost Prince (7 page)

I
knew what Bill would say if I told him that Bree and I planned to disguise ourselves
as journalists and scour the English countryside for a dungeon containing a Russian
prince who’d been driven into exile by a marauding band of Bolsheviks.

So I didn’t tell him.

I did, however, tell Aunt Dimity. Her reaction was much more sympathetic than Bill’s
would have been.

Well. You and Bree have had quite a day.

Stanley, the twins, and our house guest were asleep upstairs. I was in the study and
the silver sleigh was sitting in Reginald’s special niche on the bookshelves, where
I’d placed it after everyone else had gone to bed. Reginald sat beside it, a soft
silver gleam in his black button eyes.

I had no intention of leaving the tiny masterpiece in such a highly visible spot,
but I needed to see it plainly while I spoke with Aunt Dimity. The sleigh was the
only tangible evidence I had to tie what seemed like a fabulous fairy tale to something
approximating the truth. I regarded it speculatively while the flames crackled in
the hearth, the mantel clock chimed the midnight hour, and Aunt Dimity’s elegant copperplate
unfurled silently across the blue journal’s blank pages.

It sounds as though you’ve set yourselves quite a tall task as well, but first things
first: Is William feeling better?

“Sorry?” I said, dragging my gaze away from the sleigh and peering distractedly at
the journal.

When last we spoke, your father-in-law was suffering from a severe head cold. Has
his condition improved?

“He’s over the worst of it,” I said, “but Deirdre won’t let him leave the house or
receive visitors until Dr. Finisterre gives him the all-clear. If he’s a good boy
and does what he’s told, she may allow him to attend church on Sunday.” I chuckled.
“I don’t think William knew what he was getting into when he hired Deirdre as his
housekeeper.”

Deirdre may be a tyrant, but she’s a sensible and good-hearted tyrant. William would
be wise to heed her advice.

“I doubt he has much choice,” I said. “Deirdre’s a lot stronger than he is, even when
he isn’t recuperating from an illness.”

Any word on when Bill will return from Majorca?

“None,” I replied. “He claims to have a dithering client, but I think he’s just waiting
to see if our warm spell will last until spring.”

I’m sure he misses the boys and you as much as you and the boys miss him.

I snorted derisively.

What’s happening at Emma’s riding school? Has Derek repaired the damaged pipes?

“He decided to replace them,” I said. “He and his crew finished digging up the old
pipes yesterday and plan to connect the new ones tomorrow. The stables should be open
for business by Friday.”

Have you delivered the happy news to Will and Rob?

“Not yet,” I said. “I don’t want them to get their hopes up too soon. If the repairs
are finished on time, I’ll take them to the stables at the crack of dawn on Friday,
so they can spend a couple of hours communing with Thunder and Storm before school.”

They’ll be tickled pink.

“They’ll be over the moon,” I agreed, “though having Bree around has
almost
made them forget how much they miss their ponies.”

Have the fumes in Bree’s house dissipated?

“Not completely,” I said. “She went home to crack a few windows after we got back
from Upper Deeping, but she had to close them again before nightfall to keep her pipes
from freezing. According to her, the place is still uninhabitable. I can’t say I’m
disappointed. She did me a huge favor when she threw herself on my mercy.”

I suspect you are doing her an even bigger favor.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

Has it not occurred to you that Bree might get lonely, living in Ruth and Louise’s
big house all by herself?

I stared at Aunt Dimity’s words, nonplussed.

“It never crossed my mind,” I admitted. “She’s so independent, so upbeat . . .”

She’s also a teen-ager and she’s a long way from home. It wouldn’t surprise me in
the least to learn that her house is perfectly habitable, but that she prefers to
stay with you regardless. I imagine she finds the bustle of family life both refreshing
and stimulating after the silence and the solitude of her own home.

“She’s fantastic with Will and Rob,” I acknowledged. “And they’re crazy about her.”

I’d venture to say that she values your company as much if not more than she values
the boys’. You’re the only person in the Northern Hemisphere who saw firsthand what
her life was like in New Zealand. You may be the only person in the world with whom
she can discuss the bad old days.

“She alluded to her old life several times today,” I said thoughtfully. “Fifty-three
Addington Terrace seemed to remind her of the dump her father rented in Takapuna.
I don’t think she’s mentioned it since we left New Zealand.”

If she does so again, be a good listener. Even the freest spirits need to lean on
a friendly shoulder from time to time.

“She can lean on mine for as long as she likes,” I said. “Anyone who talks back to
Peggy Taxman is aces in my book.”

Mine, too. Now, about your remarkable day . . . I find it astonishing that neither
Mrs. MacTavish nor Coral Bell know where Amanda and Daisy Pickering went. I would
have expected Amanda to leave a forwarding address with her landlady, and Daisy to
confide in her best friend.

“It’s strange, all right,” I said, nodding. “They took off without a word to anyone.
I’d like to know why they left so abruptly.”

I’m not convinced that Amanda’s departure was as precipitous as Mrs. MacTavish seems
to think it was. Some planning must have gone into it. If it had been a spur-of-the
moment decision, Amanda wouldn’t have taken Daisy’s old clothes to the charity shop.
She would have dropped them into a handy rubbish bin on her way out of town.

“If Amanda knew in advance that she’d be leaving Upper Deeping,” I countered, “why
didn’t she notify her employers?”

I don’t know.
Aunt Dimity’s handwriting paused briefly, then continued.
There’s quite a lot we don’t know about Amanda Pickering. We don’t know where she
came from, for example, and we don’t know where she went. She appears to be a woman
of mystery.

“A trait she passed on to her daughter,” I said, with a wry smile. “I hope Daisy isn’t
tying herself into knots over the silver sleigh. She must have been seriously rattled
when she realized that it had gone astray. If I knew how to contact her, I’d tell
her not to fret. As it is, there’s not much I can do to ease her mind.”

It seems I may have been mistaken about Daisy’s motivation for removing the sleigh
from Skeaping Manor. If it was stolen in the first place, she can hardly be blamed
for making an effort to restore it to its rightful owner.

“Do you believe Mikhail is the rightful owner?” I asked.

As Bree observed, it’s not beyond the realm of possibility. Her comments regarding
Russian émigrés are, by and large, correct. A number of dispossessed landowners sought
sanctuary in England during and after the Bolshevik revolution. Some came with nothing
but the clothes on their backs. Others managed to salvage a few mementos. A handful
arrived in style and continued to live much as they had in the old country, minus
the serfs, of course. I would, by the way, hesitate to characterize the Bolsheviks
simply as “wicked men.” Their methods may have been deplorable and their goals debatable,
but they were attempting to restore balance to a society that had become distressingly
top-heavy.

“It was a turbulent time,” I said. “But even if Mikhail survived the 1917 revolution
and somehow made it to England, he’d be dead by now, wouldn’t he?”

A second wave of Russian immigrants arrived in England during the Second World War,
before the Iron Curtain was raised. Many were Russian nationalists who’d fought a
losing battle to restore their country’s pre-revolutionary way of life. If Mikhail
came to England at that time he could still be alive, though he would be a very old
man indeed.

“Did you know many Russian émigrés?” I asked. “Did any of them live near Upper Deeping?”

Members of the Russian émigré community tended to keep themselves to themselves, Lori.
A number of them were involved in plots to overthrow the Soviet government. Naturally,
secrecy was their byword. Even those who avoided such entanglements were bound together
by ties of language, religion, and culture. The few I met at social functions lived
exclusively in London. If a Russian family lived near Upper Deeping in my lifetime,
I was unaware of it.

“Daisy hasn’t left us an easy puzzle to solve,” I said with a heavy sigh.

Easy problems are hardly worth solving. Where does your investigation stand at the
moment?

“Bree used Bill’s desktop to find out everything she could about Amanda’s employers,”
I said.

Clever girl. What did she discover?

“Mrs. MacTavish was telling the truth when she said ‘nothing but the best’ would do
for Amanda,” I replied. “Daisy’s mother polished silver in some pretty impressive
country houses.”

There are some fine estates not far from Upper Deeping.

“The owners like their privacy,” I said, “because Bree couldn’t find out much about
them apart from their names and addresses. The addresses helped her map out the route
we’ll take tomorrow and the names helped her choose which house we’ll visit first.”

Which house would that be?

“Hayewood House,” I said triumphantly, “because Hayewood House just happens to be
owned by a couple named Madeleine and Sergei Sturgess.”

Sergei is a Russian name, I’ll grant you, but Sturgess couldn’t possibly be more English.

“It’s the closest thing we have to a lead,” I grumbled. “Don’t spoil it.”

Sorry.

“Sergei is the only Russian name Bree came across,” I went on. “The rest don’t even
come close. And she didn’t find a single Mikhail.”

Mikhail might be a former employee rather than a homeowner. As I explained earlier,
some Russian émigrés came to England with few possessions. They would not have had
the wherewithal to purchase small houses, let alone large estates. Mikhail might have
become a cook or a gardener or an odd-job man for a well-to-do family. His employers
might have allowed him to continue to live on the property after his retirement. If
so, his name wouldn’t necessarily be listed with the homeowners’.

“I hadn’t thought of that,” I said, “but now that you mention it, it makes all kinds
of sense. As a charwoman’s daughter, Daisy would be much more likely to meet up with
a retired gardener than with the head of the house.”

Which means that you and Bree mustn’t limit your search to the big houses. If there
are smaller dwellings on the grounds, you’ll have to search them as well.

A smile crept over my face as I recalled Bree’s unsanctioned use of Miles Craven’s
laptop. If she deemed it necessary to poke around in a cottage or two during our quest
for the lost prince, I was fairly sure she’d do so, with or without the landowner’s
permission.

“We’ll manage,” I said breezily. “Bree and I are nothing if not resourceful.” I gazed
into the fire for a moment, then shook my head. “Imagine a prince reduced to living
in a cottage on someone else’s property. A cottage might very well seem like a dungeon
to a prince.”

I confess that I find Mikhail’s title perplexing. There were no princes in the Russian
Empire. The heir apparent to the throne was known as the tsarevitch.

“Mikhail probably thought ‘tsarevitch’ was too much of a mouthful for a little girl,”
I said. “You have to admit that Prince Mikhail is easier to say than Tsarevitch Mikhail.”

But that’s my point. There was no tsarevitch named Mikhail. The last tsarevitch was
Alexei Nikolayevich, the only son of Czar Nicholas II. Sadly, young Alexei was summarily
and brutally executed with the rest of the Russian imperial family in 1918.

“Turbulent times,” I murmured, shuddering.

I suppose Mikhail could have invented his royal title to impress Daisy. Either that,
or he belongs to a lesser dynasty. The Russian Empire was a patchwork of minor principalities.
Mikhail might be a prince in name if not in power.

“If I find him, I’ll ask him,” I said. “In the meantime, I’d better get some shut-eye.
Bree and I plan to tackle Hayewood House right after the school run tomorrow.”

I like the thought of you and Bree riding to Mikhail’s rescue.

“In a canary-yellow Range Rover,” I said, smiling. “It does make for a memorable image.”

What I mean to say is: I’d like nothing better than to be proven wrong about Daisy
Pickering. Find the lost prince, Lori. Prove me wrong.

As the curving lines of royal-blue ink faded from the page, I lifted my gaze to the
silver sleigh and tried to imagine the kind of life the lost prince had left behind.

“If you exist, Mikhail, I’ll find you,” I said under my breath. “I can’t let Daisy
or
Aunt Dimity down.”

W
hile Will and Rob were getting dressed for school on Wednesday morning, Bree burst
into the kitchen bearing a shoe box filled with what she called our “journalist essentials.”
These included two mini tape recorders, two digital cameras, two small spiral notebooks,
and an assortment of ballpoint pens. I didn’t recognize a single item.

“Where did you find this stuff?” I asked as she tipped the box’s contents onto the
kitchen table.

“I brought it from home after I closed my windows last night.” She struck a pose,
hand on hip, head thrown back dramatically. “Please note that I’m wearing professional
attire as well: posh blouse and trousers instead of jumper and jeans.” She gave my
sweater and jeans a haughty glance and wagged a finger at me. “I recommend that you
smarten yourself up before we leave, madam. First impressions, you know.”

I wondered what impression her flaming red hair and her nose ring would make on Madeleine
and Sergei Sturgess, but kept my thoughts to myself.

“One more thing,” said Bree. She reached into the neat black purse she’d tucked under
her arm and produced a business card. “While I was at home, I ran up a few of these
on my computer. If anyone wants to know where we work, we pull one out and say—”

“
Country House Monthly
,” I broke in, reading aloud the words printed in bold type on the fake business card.
“We work for
Country House Monthly
magazine? Never heard of it.”

“That’s because I made it up,” she said. “I settled on
Country House Monthly
because it’s generic enough to be believable. It sounds like all of those slick,
dull magazines designed to make the landed gentry feel good about themselves.”

“But you put your real name and address on the card,” I said in dismay. “Is that wise?”

“I may be a fraud,” said Bree, “but I’m an honest fraud.” She swept her share of journalist
essentials into the black purse and snapped it shut. “Who knows? I may write an article
based on our experiences and submit it to a real magazine one day. For now, though,
let’s use the cards only if we have to.”

“Agreed.” I heard the thunder of little feet on the stairs, stuffed the rest of the
journalist essentials into my pockets, and pointed imperiously toward the pot of porridge
bubbling on the stove. “You’re in charge of breakfast, ace reporter. I have to smarten
myself up.”

•   •   •

Before we left the cottage, Bree refined her disguise by donning a crisply tailored
black trench coat. I followed her example and slipped into my old beige trench coat,
wishing I had a fedora to complete the look. Instead, I pulled on a rather fetching
brown velvet beret I’d picked up for a song at a church jumble sale. Though the sun
smiled down on us as we herded the boys into the Rover, it wasn’t quite warm enough
yet to go outside bareheaded.

“Why are you dressed as spies?” Will asked as he climbed into the backseat.

“Because it’s fun,” said Bree, which was a much better answer than any I had in mind.

“Can we play spies after school?” Rob asked.

“Absolutely,” said Bree. “I’ll show you how to write in invisible ink.”

“Cool,”
the boys chorused.

It took us twenty minutes to drive to Morningside School and another forty to drive
from there to Hayewood House. Thanks to Bree’s route map and her peerless navigational
skills, we didn’t take a single wrong turn, despite the fact that we were traveling
in unfamiliar territory.

Hayewood House sat at the end of a long, graveled drive lined with cypress trees that
effectively blocked our view of the grounds. The house was nearly twice as big as
my father-in-law’s Georgian residence, but it was built in the same style and of the
same material—a golden-hued limestone commonly found in our part of the Cotswolds.

The gardens flanking the house looked as soggy and unkempt as gardens usually do in
February, but the building itself appeared to be in excellent repair. The tall windows
sparkled in the morning sun and there wasn’t a chipped balustrade or a cracked roof
tile in sight.

I parked the Rover at the bottom of a short flight of steps that led to the front
door, clambered out of the driver’s seat, and took a deep breath of fresh country
air.

“It’s lovely, isn’t it?” I said, surveying the house with an approving eye.

“Nothing but the best for our Mrs. Pickering,” Bree said, mimicking Mrs. MacTavish’s
Scottish brogue. “It makes a nice change from Addington Terrace. I’d give Hayewood
two
e
’s in the middle, for being extra, extra posh.”

“So would I,” I said. “Ready?”

“For anything,” she replied with the brashness of youth. “Let’s go!”

As we climbed the stairs, I prepared an introductory speech that would, I hoped, gain
us access to Hayewood House, but I needn’t have bothered. Our shoes had barely skimmed
the top step when a woman flung open the front door and stood beaming at us as if
we were her oldest, dearest friends.

“Welcome to Hayewood,” she said. “I’m so glad you’re here. Won’t you come in?”

I was too taken aback to move, but Bree seized my wrist and dragged me with her as
she surged past the woman into a light and airy entrance hall.

“I’m Madeleine Sturgess,” said the woman, following us inside, “and I’m delighted
to meet you at last. I hope you’ll treat my home as yours during your stay.”

Madeleine Sturgess was a classic English beauty, tall, slender, and blue-eyed, with
a peaches and cream complexion and silky blond hair wound into an exquisitely coifed
French roll. She wore an attractive full-skirted dress, low-heeled pumps, and the
merest hint of makeup. I thought she might be in her early forties.

“You’ve arrived a tiny bit earlier than I expected,” she continued, closing the door,
“but never mind. Your rooms are as ready as they’ll ever be.” She paused with her
hand on the doorknob and an almost comical look of consternation on her face. “I should
fetch your bags, shouldn’t I? Shall I go now or would you prefer to see your rooms
first?”

“I’m afraid there’s been a small misunderstanding, Mrs. Sturgess,” said Bree, taking
command of the situation. “My name is Bree Pym, my colleague is Lori Shepherd, and
we’re not guests. We’re journalists.”

“Have you come to do a story about Hayewood House? How thrilling!” Madeleine released
the doorknob and her beaming smile returned. “Bunny Fordyce-Triggs said you might
turn up without warning. Give me your coats and come through to the drawing room.
I’ll ring for tea. And please do call me Maddie. ‘Mrs. Sturgess’ is far too formal
for a cozy tête-à-tête.”

In what seemed like the blink of an eye, Bree and I found ourselves seated side by
side on a high-backed mahogany settee across from Madeleine, who sat on the very edge
of a Hepplewhite armchair, talking a mile a minute, while we pulled out our pens and
notebooks and tried to act as though we knew what we were doing.

“I should have guessed that you weren’t the Graham sisters from Dundee,” she said.
“The Graham sisters aren’t due to arrive until supper time, but Bunny says guests
tend to show up when you least expect them, so I thought you might be they. Have you
interviewed Bunny?”

“No,” I said, feeling a bit shell-shocked.

“Oh, you should,” she said earnestly. “She’s been in the business for years and she’d
love the publicity.”

“How would you describe your business, Maddie?” Bree asked, her pen poised over her
notebook.

“Hayewood House is an exclusive, high-end guesthouse,” Madeleine informed us. “Bunny’s
was so successful that my husband and I decided to take the plunge ourselves. Well,
it was my idea more than his, really. My husband works in London during the week,
you see, and comes home only on weekends. With him gone and the children grown and
flown, I have rather too much time on my hands, so I thought I’d try running my own
business.”

“How enterprising of you,” I said.

“I’m not doing it just to fill time,” Madeleine said earnestly. “Hayewood House costs
the earth to maintain, so we could do with the extra income.” She waved a hand in
the air to indicate the room in general. “Nothing’s ready-made, you see. Everything
has to be handcrafted—doors, windowpanes, floorboards, absolutely everything. As you
can imagine, it adds up.”

“So you decided to take in paying guests,” I ventured, “to help pay for the house’s
upkeep?”

“It was a secondary consideration,” said Madeleine, “but a consideration nonetheless.
The place seemed rather empty with the children gone, so I thought, why not put it
to good use? We have seven bedrooms and nearly as many bathrooms and my husband and
I can hardly use them all.”

“Have you been in the B and B business for very long, Maddie?” Bree asked.

A rosy blush tinted Madeleine’s cheeks.

“To tell you the absolute truth,” she said, “we haven’t started yet. If you’d been
the Graham sisters, you would have been our first paying guests. We rather hoped word
of mouth would bring the right sort of people to our door, but so far it hasn’t brought
anyone but the Grahams. Bunny told them about us when she was visiting friends in
Dundee last August.”

“Have you considered creating a website?” Bree asked delicately, as if she wished
to give our hostess a hint about how to run a business.

“A website would be a great help, of course,” Madeleine acknowledged, “but my husband
has been terribly busy at work lately and I’m no good at all with computers, so we
haven’t got round to setting one up.”

“How long has your family lived at Hayewood?” I asked.

“Let’s see . . .” Madeleine tapped an index finger against her pursed lips, then said
in an amazed tone, “Gosh! It’ll be twenty-five years next December. How time flies
when one’s raising a family!”

A gray-haired woman in a maid’s uniform entered the drawing room and deposited a heavily
laden tea tray on the satinwood table at Madeleine’s elbow.

“Will there be anything else, Mad—er, madam?” the maid asked.

“No, thank you, Ernestine,” said Maddie.

“Look, Lori,” said Bree, pointing to the plate of dainties Ernestine had brought with
the tea. “Pecan balls.”

“I beg your pardon?” said Madeleine.

Bree looked at Ernestine.

“Those round biscuits covered with icing sugar,” she said. “They’re pecan balls, aren’t
they?”

“No, ma’am,” the maid answered. “No pecans in them. They’re made with hazelnuts and
Cook calls them Russian tea cakes.”

“Russian tea cakes?” I said. “Is your cook Russian?”

Ernestine and Madeleine exchanged amused glances.

“Goodness, no, ma’am,” said Ernestine. “Cook was born and raised not ten miles from
here. She got the recipe for the Russian tea cakes from the receipt book.”

“What’s a receipt book?” Bree asked.

“It’s a book cooks keep,” Ernestine told her. “They write recipes in it and hand it
on to the next cook.”

“Who wrote the Russian tea cake recipe in Cook’s receipt book?” I asked.

“No idea, ma’am,” said Ernestine. “Our book goes a long way back, you see. Some of
the recipes in it are more than a hundred years old.” She turned to Madeleine. “Will
that be all, madam? Only, I promised Cook I’d help her prep for supper.”

“Yes, that will be all, thank you,” said Madeleine.

The maid curtseyed and left the room.

“Ernestine is a treasure,” said Madeleine, turning to gaze soulfully at the door through
which the maid had exited. “I don’t know what I’d do without her.”

“As a matter of interest,” I said, “did a Russian family ever own Hayewood House?”

“No,” Madeleine replied. “Hayewood House was the country seat of the Hayewood family
for three hundred years until Sergei and I bought it.”

“Sergei,” I said, taking the bull by the horns. “It’s an interesting name. Is your
husband Russian?”

“We do seem to have a theme going, don’t we?” Madeleine said, nodding at the tea cakes.
“But, no, my husband isn’t Russian. His mother was mad for the Russian ballet, so
she named her three sons Sergei, Vaslav, and Rudolf, after Sergei Diaghilev, Vaslav
Nijinsky, and Rudolf Nureyev.” She rolled her eyes. “You can imagine how well that
went over with their schoolmates.”

Bree and I chuckled politely, and though I felt a tiny stab of disappointment, I pressed
on.

“Do you have a full indoor and outdoor staff?” I asked. “Any retired retainers on
the premises?”

“Retired retainers?” Madeleine exclaimed, smiling. “No one has retired retainers anymore.
Ernestine is our only full-time employee, and she has an apartment here in the house.
The dailies come in from the surrounding villages or from Upper Deeping. I can’t think
of anyone who has a full complement of live-in staff, apart from the royal family,
of course. For the rest of us, the world of
Upstairs, Downstairs
is long gone. People are happier in their own homes nowadays than they would be in
servants’ quarters.” She placed her empty teacup on the tray. “When you’ve finished,
I’ll be happy to show you the guest rooms.”

“We’d like to see the cellars,” Bree said firmly.

“The cellars?” Madeleine’s brow wrinkled briefly, then smoothed. “Looking for signs
of vermin. I understand. I can assure you that Hayewood House is completely pest-free,
but of course you can’t take my word for it. The cellars shall be our first port of
call.”

Bree and I finished our tea as quickly as we could without actually slurping it and
jumped up to trail behind Madeleine as she gave us the grand tour. The cellars were
both immaculate and devoid of captives, as were the attics, the guest rooms, the reception
rooms, and the rest of the rooms Bree decided to “inspect.” While I took random photographs,
Bree took full and shameless advantage of Madeleine’s eagerness to please by peering
into every wardrobe, cupboard, trunk, and storage space we passed, but she didn’t
discover a bound and gagged Russian prince in any of them.