Miss Dimple and the Slightly Bewildered Angel (6 page)

“Oh, good! Here comes Chief Tinsley,” Virginia called from her vigil on the other side of the room. “Warren must have radioed for help.” And for the first time since Dimple had demanded she phone the police, Virginia began to believe everything was going to be all right.

Both women jumped a few minutes later when someone pounded at the heavy oak door. “Miss Dimple? Virginia? Are you all right?” Bobby Tinsley shouted. “You can open the door now,” he added.

Although the temperature had dipped into the forties, the chief mopped perspiration from his face with a large handkerchief, while Warren fanned himself with his hat. “You were right to call,” Officer Nelson told them. “There was somebody out there all right. Ran as soon as he saw my car.”

“So it
was
a man,” Dimple said. “I could only see enough to tell there was someone standing there.”

“Couldn't see
that
well,” Warren told her. “Might've been anybody, man or woman, but whoever it was must've been up to no good to have run off like that.”

“I chased them all the way to the railroad track,” Warren told them, “and soon as I leave here, I'll drive around over there, see if somebody turns up, but no harm was done—not yet anyway. Can't very well arrest somebody just for running.”

“This person was waiting out there for a reason,” Dimple reminded him. “I don't know what he had in mind, but I can assure you, it wasn't good, and if the two of you hadn't shown up when you did, I don't like to think what might have happened.”

Bobby Tinsley looked at the levelheaded teacher who had shared her wisdom with several generations and helped guide the police through more frightening situations than he cared to count. Rarely did this woman reveal her emotions, but today Dimple Kilpatrick had let down her guard.

And she was afraid.

“I promise we'll keep an eye on this place in case this person shows up again,” he told them. “Could be a tramp waiting around to try to hitch a ride when the freight train comes through, but if he comes back, we'll be ready.

“And now, just this once, why don't you ladies let us give you a ride home?”

This time, neither of them argued. And as soon as Dimple stepped inside the front door of the place she called home, the welcome aroma of a succulent chicken stew enveloped her. For a few brief seconds, she had the sweet sensation of her mother's arms around her, and Dimple Kilpatrick knew she would be safe here.

For now.

 

C
HAPTER
S
IX

“What is this dessert, Augusta?” Velma asked, and spooning up the last fluffy morsel, she licked her lips. “It tastes like lemony clouds.”

Augusta smiled. “Then that's what it is—lemony clouds. It uses very little sugar, but you do have to whip it a lot.”

Annie groaned. “I am
so
tired of all this worrying about sugar and rubber, and practically everything else. And what about leather? I've had these shoes resoled twice already and I don't know when I'll ever get another pair.
Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without!
I'm sick of hearing it.”

She soon grew aware of the silence in the room, but the others were too polite to look at her. Worse than that, they acted as if she weren't there at all.

“Is anybody going to eat that last biscuit?” Lily asked finally, and Phoebe passed the platter, as requested.

“You know if you eat the last one, you'll be an old maid,” Phoebe told her, and then gasped, realizing what she'd said.

But this time, Lily surprised her—surprised them all. “I guess it's a little late to worry about that,” she said, and with a slight laugh, reached for the biscuit.

“I hear it's supposed to get colder tonight,” Miss Dimple said, turning to Augusta. “Would anyone like another cup of tea?”

“All right! All right!
I'm
sorry
!” Annie pushed aside her plate and closed her eyes, but only for a second. “I know I shouldn't complain. I know I should be grateful for everything we have, and glad to do without the things we don't have while so many are sacrificing their lives, and I
am.
Believe me, I am grateful. My own brother Joel is over there risking his life in a fighter plane, and Frazier … well, the last I heard from my fiancé, he was somewhere in France.…”

Annie rested her head on her arms and began to cry. “I am so tired of this horrible war. I just
hate
this war! I hate it!”

“We all hate it, dear.” Phoebe spoke gently as she placed a hand on Annie's shoulder.

“I'm sorry. I don't know what came over me.” Annie sniffed as she accepted Miss Dimple's offer of a handkerchief.

“I think we all feel like crying sometimes,” Miss Dimple told her, glancing briefly at Augusta. “I know I do, but what brought this on so suddenly?”

Annie dried her eyes before answering. “I don't know. I suppose it must've been the book.”

“What book?” Velma asked, frowning.

“That decorating book. The one Miss Dimple brought home from the library today.”

“My goodness!” Phoebe said, shaking her head. “I was hoping it would give me some new ideas for my bedroom. Everything looks so drab in there, but if that book upset you this much, I think I'd better rush it back to the library.”

Annie saw that Phoebe was smiling, and so were the others at the table. In fact, she felt a smile coming on herself. “I found myself looking at the house plans in there,” she admitted. “All those pretty cottages, and … well … I was thinking how wonderful it would be when Frazier comes home, if maybe one day
we
might have a house like that—just a small one with a yard, and we would fence it in so our children could play there. I even planned what kind of flowers I'd plant. And then the horrible thought hit me:
What if he never comes back?”

“We can't let ourselves think like that, Annie,” Miss Dimple told her. “It won't help Frazier and it won't help you.” She remembered the agonizing weeks the past summer when Annie's Frazier and another officer had become separated from their unit during the breakout at Normandy in Operation Cobra. For Annie, each day had begun with hope and ended in despair until she finally received word he was all right.

Phoebe nodded in agreement. She had recently learned that her own grandson, Harrison, was now helping to build an air base in the Dutch East Indies after being a part of the Battle of Morotai in September. There were some things, she realized, she would rather not know. That was one of them.

“Please let me help with the dishes,” Annie insisted after supper, discouraging offers from others. She needed something to do with her hands—something useful.

Later, alone in the kitchen with Augusta, she slowly dried each yellow-striped bowl and stacked them one by one while outside a stiff wind sent the last of the brown leaves scurrying from the apple tree by the back door.

Standing at the sink, Augusta scrubbed the big stew pot, humming as she worked. Annie didn't recognize the tune, if there was a tune, but the funny little air seemed to float about like dandelion fluff in a breeze, reminding her of a summer day when she was five or six. Her family had gone on a picnic on her grandfather's farm, and while Joel and her cousins splashed in the creek, the grandfather they called “Papa Jake” taught her to make tiny houses from moss, sticks, and stones. As the other children played, the two of them created a small village with pebble-lined paths, giant daisy “trees,” and “gardens” of buttercups.

Papa Jake had died when Annie was twelve, and she couldn't remember the last time she had thought of the fairy-size village in the woods and the happiness she'd felt there. But tonight, in this soap-scented kitchen with Augusta, she experienced it once again.

Annie Gardner took a deep breath, gave the dish towel a snap, and said, “Ahhh!”

Augusta turned with a smile. “I hope that means you're feeling better?”

“I am, yes. Thank you. For some reason, I remembered a special day with my grandfather when it seemed the most important thing in the world to do was nothing. Maybe it was that song you were humming, but suddenly I felt like … well … I can face whatever comes along.”

Why am I telling this to someone I hardly know? Annie wondered, but what did it matter if her heart felt ten pounds lighter?

Augusta nodded. “When I want to go to a peaceful place, I think blue,” she said. “Tiny blue violets, calm blue waters, sky like a porcelain bowl. It calms me.”

“I can't imagine you being any other way,” Annie said. She watched Augusta stoop to store the large pot under the counter. She had never seen it so sparkling clean. “What did you use on that besides elbow grease?” she asked.

Augusta winked. “That and a sprinkle of angel dust.”

Annie yawned as she climbed the stairs for bed. It had been a very long day and she was ready to snuggle under her comfy quilt and let the wind lull her to sleep.

The newcomer is an amazing cook, she thought, but sometimes she says the strangest things.

*   *   *

Miss Dimple had decided not to say anything to the others about what happened at the library that afternoon. Although the prowler acted suspiciously, he or she hadn't actually broken any law, and for all she knew, it might have been some poor creature frightened by the sudden frenzy. Still, she felt uneasy about the situation and was glad Bobby Tinsley had promised to keep an eye on the place.

Unable to sleep, she sat alone by the dying fire in the parlor with one of Agatha Christie's recent Miss Marple mysteries,
The Moving Finger.
Tomorrow was a school day and she needed her sleep. Perhaps reading would make her drowsy.

“Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know anyone was in here,” Augusta said from the doorway. “I was going to bank the fire for the night, but I hope you'll join me for a cup of tea?”

“Thank you. That would be delightful,” Miss Dimple said, closing her book.

Augusta had left the kettle on a boil, so Dimple sat, warmed by the fire, as amber embers winked on the hearth, and she had almost nodded off when Augusta returned with two steaming mugs and a small plate of thin spice cookies she had made that afternoon.

Miss Dimple said she didn't usually eat sweets before bedtime, but found she'd consumed at least three of them before she even realized it.

“Miss Dimple, is anything wrong?” Augusta asked, sitting across from her in the small mahogany side chair, its flowered needlepoint seat now beginning to fade. “You seem as if something is bothering you.”

Dimple sipped her tea. Not as good as her lemon-ginger brew, she thought, but hot and soothing just the same. She sighed. She really didn't know this newcomer well at all, and thought it a bit forward of her to ask such a personal question. Why should she unburden herself to a stranger?

But the words were out of her mouth before she even realized it. “I have to send a telegram,” she said, and told Augusta of her concerns about Henry.

“Tell me about him,” Augusta said, giving the fire a poke. And Dimple spoke with pride of her brother's work at the Bell Bomber Plant near Marietta. “I know he's doing something important for the war effort,” she said, “but Henry doesn't talk about it.”

Augusta nodded. “That's where they build the aeroplanes, isn't it?” She pronounced the word in a peculiar manner, as if she wasn't accustomed to using it, and Dimple hid a smile.

“That's right,” she said. “My brother helps to design them. He's an engineer, a special kind of engineer.” She remembered how proud she had been to contribute part of her small teacher's salary to help with young Henry's expenses at Georgia Tech, and it had been worth every dollar and then some.

Augusta just smiled and nodded, as if she knew all about flying. What a strange little bird, Dimple thought.

“I suppose you've tried to reach him by telephone,” Augusta suggested, and was told he was never there when Dimple called, and Henry's wife apparently had forgotten to relay her messages.

“Hazel—that's my brother's wife—told me he's been out of town a good bit lately,” Dimple confided. “She thinks he's working on a special kind of project, but of course she doesn't know what it is, except that it seems to be important.”

Augusta shifted in her seat, giving her skirt a twitch. Its colors of turquoise, gold, and rose seemed to blend in the fire's glow. “He
must
be at home sometime,” she said. “Do you know when he goes in to work?”

“Early. Very early. I've thought of calling then, but I don't want to wake the entire household.”

“Why not?” Augusta said, and Dimple examined her companion's serene countenance and thought to herself,
Why not indeed?

“Then I'll phone in the morning.” Dimple stifled a yawn.

Augusta smiled. “Before your walk.”

“Yes, before my walk,” Dimple agreed.

And she did.

Grumpy Hazel answered, her voice sounding as if she were hollering up a chimney filled with soot. “Who is this? Dimple? Is that you? I suppose you know you've waked the whole household.”

The words
I'm sorry
were on Dimple's lips, but she swallowed them just in time. She wasn't one bit sorry. “That's too bad. I'd like to speak with my brother, please.”

Dimple heard a rumble of voices in the background and finally Henry himself took the receiver in hand. “Dimple? What's going on? Is anything wrong?”

Dimple was so relieved to hear his voice, she almost cried, but this wasn't the time for crying. “Of course I'm all right, Henry, but I've been worried sick about you. Why haven't you returned my calls or answered my letters? It's been months since I've heard from you.”