Aunt Dimity Digs In (3 page)

Images of sparkling kitchens and clutterless living rooms danced in my bedazzled brain. “Well,” I said slowly, “there’s the guest room. It’s right next to the nursery, so—”

“Perfect!” Ruth got to her feet. “We’ll retrieve Francesca’s things from our motor . . .”

“. . . and tell her the happy news.” Louise had also risen. “You rest quietly in the shade awhile, Lori . . .”

“. . . while we help Francesca settle in.” Ruth linked arms with her sister, and they fluttered back into the solarium.

Rest quietly, while a stranger moved into my cottage? Panic bubbled ominously, but I clamped a lid on it. I needed help, I reminded myself, and I was getting it from the most exclusive employment agency in the British Isles. Pyms, Extremely Ltd., was as reliable as April rain, and Dimity had already signaled her lilac-scented approval.

A warm breeze drifted through my damp curls and I drifted with it, soothed by the sounds of high summer. We’d had a dry start to the season, and were in the midst of a hot, muggy spell reminiscent of the sticky Chicago summers of my childhood.

Still, the apple tree’s shade was delicious, and the light breeze helped cool the humid air. I might, with a little practice, grow accustomed to resting quietly. A robin whistled in the leafy branches above my head, bumblebees hummed among the daisies and delphiniums, and a pair of sparrows splashed in the rose-wreathed reflecting pool. I gazed from one tranquil tableau to the next with growing anxiety and muttered dismally, “Emma will
kill
me.”

My best friend and next-door neighbor, Emma Harris, had designed, built, and painstakingly planted my back garden. Spring was Emma’s favorite season, but it had come and gone without my noticing. I’d missed the lilacs and tulips, the bluebells and daffodils, the redbuds flowering down by the brook. I glanced guiltily at the leaves overhead, knowing I’d missed the apple blossoms, too.

Emma Harris was an artist. Her greatest reward was a quiet sigh of admiration, but I hadn’t managed so much as a grunt this year. I’d spent Emma’s favorite season holed up inside the cottage, scarcely conscious of the marvels she’d wrought with hoe and spade. I felt like an ungrateful worm.

“I’ll make it up to her,” I vowed. And I’d start right now, by making the most of this opportunity to savor the peaceful haven she’d created. I leaned back against the apple tree, tried fully to appreciate each trembling leaf, each glorious blossom, and failed. My eyelids were too heavy, nature’s music too hypnotic. I tuned in to the bumblebees . . . dozed . . . and was rudely awakened.

“Lori Shepherd!” a voice thundered, sending birds and bees scrambling for cover. “ That man must be stopped or there’ll be
bloodshed!
”

3.

“Wh-what?” I blinked the apparition into focus and felt my blood run cold.

Peggy Kitchen was standing in my garden.

Peggy Kitchen—shopkeeper, postmistress, and undisputed empress of Finch—had not only talked me into donating an irreplaceable heirloom afghan to the Saint George’s church-fund auction, she’d also convinced my semisedentary and wholly unmusical husband to strap on bells and dance at dawn on May Day with Finch’s geriatric troupe of morris dancers. Bill bought back the afghan—for the price of a year’s beeswax candles—but he could do nothing to keep Peggy from plastering her shop with incriminating photographs of him waving a white hankie while prancing dementedly on the village green.

Peggy Kitchen was an extremely dangerous woman. Pointy glasses dotted with rhinestones, graying hair in an obligatory bun at the back of her head, flowery dress cloaking a mature figure—her disguise would have been perfect but for the lunatic glitter in her pale blue eyes. Peggy Kitchen was on the warpath—again—and I’d somehow ended up in her line of fire.

“Hi, Peggy,” I croaked.

“Would’ve rung first,” Peggy barked, “but Bill agreed that this matter was
far too pressing
to be discussed over the telephone.” I flinched as she smacked fist against palm for emphasis.

“I’m sure he’s right,” I said gravely, wondering how many more unannounced callers Bill planned to send my way before lunchtime.

“He is!” Peggy roared. “If
that man
”—
smack, smack
—“isn’t gone by the seventeenth of August, I won’t be responsible for my actions!”

“Er,” I began, but relapsed into silence when Francesca’s statuesque figure appeared in the solarium’s doorway.

“Morning, Mrs. Kitchen.” Francesca squared her shoulders and folded her strong arms. “Fine day, isn’t it? All this peace and quiet—just the ticket for a pair of babes like the two I’m looking after.” The faintest hint of steel entered her purr. “You’ll keep the noise down, for their sake, won’t you, Mrs. Kitchen.”

It was not a question, and Francesca didn’t wait for a reply. She simply turned on her heel and disappeared into the cottage, leaving me alone with a ticking Peggy Kitchen. I held my breath, awaiting the explosion.

“Humph,” said Peggy. She stared daggers at Francesca’s retreating back, sat beside me on the bench, and murmured, “You’re letting
that woman
look after your cubs? After what her father did?”

“What did her father—”

“I’ve no time for gossip,” Peggy interrupted, glancing nervously at the cottage. “I’ve a crisis on my hands and I need your help.”

“What crisis?” I asked.

“It’s
that man!
” Peggy repeated in a furious whisper.

“That specky professor who digs things up. If he wants to muck about in Scrag End, that’s his affair, but I won’t have him mucking up my festival!”

“The festival . . .” I clung to those words as to a slender reed of sense in a rushing river of babble.
That specky professor
and
Scrag End
meant nothing to me, but even I, in my self-imposed isolation, had heard about Peggy’s festival. I doubted that there was a kayaking Inuit or a Sherpa climbing Everest who hadn’t received one of her harvest-gold flyers. My cottage had been bombarded by no fewer than seven.

“Is there a problem with the Harvest Festival?” I asked timorously.

“Is there a
problem?
” Peggy snorted. “I’ve been stabbed in the back,
that’s
the problem!”

“By the specky professor?” I hazarded.

“No,” Peggy said with exaggerated patience. “By the vicar, of course.”

“What’s the vicar done?” I was unable to conceive of a less likely backstabber than the mild-mannered man who’d performed my marriage ceremony and christened my children.

“He’s only gone and given over the schoolhouse to that specky chap. Don’t know what he was thinking, handing it over without asking me first. How am I to run the Harvest Festival without the schoolhouse?”

“Well . . .” I fell silent as Peggy leapt to her feet and began listing what I assumed to be contest categories.

“There’s the Shepherd’s Crooks, the Local Vegetables, the Best Floral Arrangement in a Gravy Boat!” she fretted. “There’s the Photography, the Hand-Spun Fleece, the Wines and Beer! Not to mention the Sponge Fruit Flans and Lemon Bars! Where are we to put ’em all, if we don’t have the schoolhouse?”

“Tables in the school yard?” I ventured meekly.

“No room!” Peggy exclaimed. She glanced over her shoulder before continuing, in a strangled murmur, “Not with the poultry, rabbits, goats, sheep, and ponies. And don’t bother mentioning the square because the Merry Morrismen and the Finch Minstrels’ll be there.” She flung her hands into the air and sagged onto the bench.

“I see your point,” I said, and I meant it. I’d envisioned the Harvest Festival as a sort of al fresco picnic on the square, but Peggy’s plans were more complex than that. The vicar had to have been in a fugue state when he’d snatched the schoolhouse from her—if, in fact, he had. Peggy had a habit of overdramatizing events, but if she’d truly lost the schoolhouse, she had a right to be miffed. Apart from the church it was the largest building in Finch, and the only one suited to the kind of pageant Peggy had in mind.

“Can the vicar give the schoolhouse away, just like that?” I asked.

“It belongs to the church,” Peggy informed me. “Most village schools do. It hasn’t been a proper school for donkey’s years, but it’s still church property. But it’s not whether he
can,
” she huffed indignantly, “it’s whether he
should.
He’s no right to fill my schoolhouse with Scrag End rubbish less than two months before the Harvest Festival. Especially since—” She broke off and gave me a sidelong look. “I’ll tell you something, Lori, and it’s not something I’ve told very many people. As soon as the Harvest Festival is over, I’m leaving Finch. For good.”

I gaped at her in disbelief. “You’re leaving Finch?”

“Don’t try to talk me out of it,” said Peggy. “My old friend Mr. Taxman tried that already, and I’ll tell you what I told him: I’ve done what I set out to do in Finch. I’ve livened the place up a bit, set a good example for the villagers, and now it’s time for me to move on.”

“Where will you go?” I asked.

“ There’s a village up in Yorkshire called Little Stubbing. Mr. Taxman and I passed through it on a driving holiday last year. It reminded me of the way Finch was before I took it in hand. Little Stubbing needs me, Lori.” She clutched her hands together in her lap. “But I won’t be driven from Finch by
that man.
He must go!”

I shook my head doubtfully. “I think you’ll have a hard time getting rid of the vic—”

“Not the vicar!” Peggy cried. “
That man!
The specky chap! Says he’s from Oxford, but I don’t care if he’s from Windsor. He’s not going to interfere with my festival.” She turned her glittering eyes on me. “And you’re going to see to it that he doesn’t.”

I gulped.

“You’re going to persuade the vicar to turn him out,” Peggy continued, with terrifying composure.

“I don’t suppose you’ve talked things over with the vicar,” I said, with wan hope.

Peggy sniffed. “The Reverend Theodore Bunting and I are not, at present, on speaking terms. And if he thinks I’m going to special-order his finicking tinned prawns after he’s ridden roughshod over a time-honored tradition like the Harvest Festival”—she paused for a breath—“he’s very much mistaken.”

I began backpedaling for dear life. “I’m honored by your faith in me, Peggy, but honestly, I don’t know the first thing about the Harvest Festival. I’ve been kind of busy lately, what with the boys and all, and—”

“That’s exactly what I said to Bill,” Peggy broke in. “ ‘Bill,’ I said, ‘Lori’s the only person in the village who isn’t involved in the festival.’ ”

“You’ve been talking with Bill?” I asked, catching a faint whiff of rat in the air.

“I have, and he pointed out that you’re just the person I’ve been looking for. What did he call you?” Peggy peered upward, squinting slightly through her pointy glasses. “An independent witness. An unbiased observer. An impartial third party.”

“Bill said all that, did he?” I pursed my lips and contemplated life as a single parent.

“I had my doubts,” Peggy assured me, “but Bill laid them to rest. You’ve been on the sidelines, he said, you’ve got no ax to grind. The vicar’s bound to listen to you.” She got to her feet and looked down at me, her mad gaze pinning me to the tree. “So you just trot over to the vicarage and tell Mr. Bunting that unless he wants to special-order his own tinned prawns for the rest of his natural life, he’d best give that specky chap the boot. And I’d thank you not to tell anyone that I intend to leave Finch. I plan to announce my departure at the end of the Harvest Festival.” Peggy nodded affably and left the garden by the side path, puffing like a granny on a rampage.

“That rat,” I muttered between gritted teeth. “That low-down, conniving, flea-bitten—” I spotted two pairs of bright eyes peering at me from the solarium and ceased murmuring sweet nothings about my lord and master.

“You can come out,” I said, beckoning to the Pyms. “She’s gone.”

Ruth emerged first, carrying a cup of tea. “It seemed such an urgent interview . . .”

“. . . we didn’t like to intrude.” Louise came to stand beside her sister. “But we thought you might need a little pick-me-up . . .”

“. . . after your visit with Peggy.” Ruth eyed me sympathetically. “One usually does.”

“Thanks,” I said, accepting the proffered cup. “If I weren’t breast-feeding the boys, I’d ask for something stronger. Like strychnine.”

Ruth tittered. “Now, Lori, I’m sure it will all . . .”

“. . . work out for the best,” Louise finished.

“Ha.” I slumped against the tree. “Didn’t you hear? I’m an impartial observer. That’s another way of saying ‘inno cent bystander,’ and we all know what happens to them.”

Ruth laid a gloved hand on my shoulder. “I have no doubt that you’ll rise to the occasion. I’m afraid, however, that we must . . .”

“. . . leave you to it,” said Louise. “Do feel free to call on us . . .”

“. . . should you need our help. We wouldn’t want to keep Mrs. Kitchen from her new life in Little Stubbing.” Ruth turned to go.

“Wait!” I cried, nearly spilling my tea. “Do you know anything about this specky—” I was interrupted by the sound of a telephone ringing inside the cottage. A moment later Francesca came out to hand the cordless phone to me.

“It’s the vicar,” she said.

“Oh, Lord . . .” I groaned.

Francesca went back into the cottage, and the Pyms gave me a synchronized finger-flutter before tiptoeing stealthily out of the garden.