Aunt Dimity's Death (29 page)

He reached over to pick up the photograph of Dimity, and the words he spoke were spoken to her. “I have tried to keep my anger unchanged, but it has been hard, so very hard. You cannot warm yourself at the fire of anger without chilling your soul. I am an old man now, and it seems that the fire has died. All that is left is sorrow, and guilt, and the cold and certain knowledge that I was wrong.” He pulled a silk handkerchief from his pocket, gently dusted the frame, then returned it to the desk, taking care to place it in exactly the same position. He twisted the handkerchief absently for a moment; then his hands relaxed and he folded them calmly on top of his cane.

“You wish to hear of Dimity Westwood,” he said. “Dimity, my brother’s bonny Belle. He met her at the Flamborough and, for Bobby, one meeting was enough. He knew at first sight that he had found all that his heart desired. He told me he’d proposed to her on a hill overlooking heaven, that he planned to return there after the war, to the place he had first discovered love. He asked me to look after his beautiful Belle if anything should ever happen to him, and I promised, upon my oath as a MacLaren, that I would do as he wished.

“It was such an easy promise to make. His love for Dimity enveloped him in a—” Andrew passed a hand through the dust motes dancing in the sun, “a golden haze. I had never seen such happiness before, and I have never seen it since. It was exquisite, the kind of love that admits no envy, no jealousy. I was dazzled and warmed by it and felt sure that Dimity would feel as I did, that it would be worth any sacrifice to keep that golden aura glowing.”

Andrew placed his cane on the floor, opened the bottom drawer of the desk, and withdrew a bundle of papers bound with a pale blue ribbon. Untying the ribbon, he took out a single photograph. He gazed at it for a long time before handing me a picture of a handsome young man in uniform, sitting in the shade of a gnarled oak tree. He nodded at the bundle of papers.

“It was in among Bobby’s personal effects at Biggin Hill,” he explained. “I was mistaken about Dimity, you see. The night before his final mission, Bobby called me from the base, saying that she had broken off their engagement.” With a shaking hand, he raised the papers toward me. “She’d returned his letters, his pictures, his ring, everything that might remind her of their time together. She’d told him that they must stop seeing one another. I was outraged, incensed. I couldn’t understand how she could be so blind, so willfully cruel. But Bobby remained undaunted.

“‘She thinks she’s being practical,’ he told me, without a trace of rancor. ‘She thinks it’s foolish to make plans in such uncertain times.’ He laughed then. ‘She’s wrong,’ he said. ‘This is when you need to make plans, dream dreams. This is when you need to believe that there will be a tomorrow to fly to. I’ll convince her of it, I know I will. She’s returned the ring to my keeping, but she and I both know that it’s hers forever. As I am.”’

Andrew picked up the ribbon and tied it once more around the papers. He gave the bundle to me, then let his hand fall limply to his knee. “It was the last time I ever spoke with my brother. He was shot down the following day.

“I could not comprehend it. I could not accept that his death had been a mere twist of fate, a misfortune of war. My brother had always flown like a falcon. What had tripped him up? The question tormented me night and day, until, finally, I knew the answer.” Andrew’s hand closed into a fist. “I kept my promise to him. I deposited his share of our inheritance in Dimity Westwood’s account. I cannot be accused of betraying that trust.

“But I … I also wrote her a letter. Bobby had told me that, should I ever need to communicate quickly with Dimity, I should write in care of the Flamborough. He said that everyone there knew who Belle was.

“When I got word of his death, I wrote to her, telling her that the money was hers to do with as she pleased, but that if she tried to return it, we would throw it to the winds because my family wanted nothing more to do with her. I told her that Bobby’s mind had been clouded by thoughts of her betrayal, that his reflexes had been dulled, and I … I accused her of being responsible for …” Andrew pressed his fist to his mouth.

A chill went through me. What must Dimity have felt? She must have been half-mad with grief, consumed with guilt, all too willing to believe Andrew’s vicious accusation. The words must have seared into her soul, and she had carried that great and secret sin with her to the grave.

“She never touched the money,” Andrew went on, “not until she began her work with Starling House. She invested it, then, on behalf of the children, as though seeing to their welfare would right the wrong she had done. She was a canny businesswoman and she made a tidy sum, I’ll grant her that. But how I hated her for it.

“I wrote to her once more, a letter I hoped she would never receive. Although the war was over, I sent it to the Flamborough, with no return address, and I used her proper name, hoping no one would recognize it. I knew that I was breaking faith with Bobby, but I did not care. When the years passed and I received no reply, I felt well satisfied.

“That was when the nightmares began.” Andrew bowed his head and touched his fingers to his temples. “They did not come every night, but often enough to make me afraid to sleep. You cannot imagine their vividness, their power. They always begin with the same hellish vision. I am spinning out of the clouds toward an iron-gray sea. I watch as the waves grow closer and closer, but I can do nothing to stop myself. Sometimes the impact awakens me, and I cry out, gasping for breath, terrified. And sometimes the gray waves pull me under, and that—that is the true nightmare, when I am pulled down into the chill, black depths of the sea and left there, alone and wandering, searching for, but never finding, my way home.” A shudder racked Andrew’s body, and when he opened his eyes, his face was haggard.

“I lied when I told you that I sensed my brother’s presence in the chapel. It is in these visions that Bobby comes to me. For years I’ve told myself that he came to keep my rage alive, to remind me of the horrible way he had died. But in the chapel last night, my certainty began to crumble.” He raised his eyes to mine. “The locket you’re wearing—it was Dimity’s, was it not?”

“She treasured it,” I said. “She was never without it.”

“It was my grandmother’s. Bobby gave it to Dimity. She must have worn it the day she broke off their engagement, and that’s why Bobby knew … She didn’t return everything, you see; she kept back one token of their bond, and when I saw it last night, I knew that Bobby had been right, that, regardless of her actions, she had never stopped loving him.” Andrew bowed his head and moaned softly. “If I’d been wrong about that, was it not possible that I’d been wrong about everything else? My brother was not given to anger—why would his visions encourage it in me? Perhaps he sent them for another reason. Perhaps they were sent to tell me that, as long as Dimity suffered, my brother’s spirit would find no peace.”

He faced the desk once more, opened a narrow side drawer, and withdrew a small box. He gazed at the box, turning it between his fingers as he spoke.

“Shortly after my brother’s plane was shot down, a member of the Home Guard was patrolling the waterfront in the coastal village of Clacton-on-Sea. He found a map case that had floated ashore. In it, he found this.” Andrew passed a gentle finger over the lid of the box, then handed it to me and gestured for me to open it. It held an elaborately carved gold ring.

“The man who found it must have been scrupulously honest,” Andrew continued, “because he turned it in to the local constabulary. It took some years, what with the war and all, but they eventually traced it back to its owners by identifying the MacLaren crest.

“The ring belonged to Bobby,” he said. “He had it with him when he died. He sent it back to her, not to me. He must have known what was in her heart.”

I stared at the ring wordlessly, knowing that the last piece of the puzzle had finally fallen into place. Bobby had known what was in Dimity’s heart. He’d sent the ring home to reassure her, to comfort her, to show her that he had never lost faith in her love. He’d sent the ring home, but it had gone to the wrong home, waylaid by a brother’s misguided love. MacLaren Hall had been Bobby’s birthplace, and the birthplace of his ancestors, but it was not his heart’s home. He had been struggling
desperately ever since to find his way back to that place where he had been most vibrant, most alive.

The aching loneliness that filled Andrew’s nightmares had been Bobby’s. It had been Bobby’s voice I’d heard on Pouter’s Hill, his longing I’d felt, a longing to return to the place where he had spent the most precious moments of his brave, brief life, to return to the woman he loved and convince her to take his love and keep it, believe in it, no matter what the odds, no matter how short the time.

Andrew seemed to read my mind. “Bobby trusted me to get the ring to Dimity, but I betrayed him. I did what I could to deprive her of this token of my brother’s love. Can you imagine what I feel, knowing that, by keeping the ring from Dimity, I have prolonged my brother’s suffering? I should have celebrated Bobby’s memory by living as he would have lived, with honor and kindness and greatness of spirit. But I have spent my life on the pyre of anger, and now there is nothing left but ashes. I make no excuse. And now it is too late… .” Andrew covered his face with his hands.

I couldn’t take my eyes from the ring. The light from the setting sun glinted off the gold, making it look warm and alive. I closed my hand over it.

“It’s not too late,” I murmured. The old man raised his head and I repeated, more loudly: “It’s not too late, Andrew. Bobby’s been out there all this time, searching for a beacon to bring him home. I promise you, Andrew, I’ll bring him home.”

Andrew allowed us to help him to bed, where he fell into what may have been the first sound sleep he’d had since the ring had come into his possession. Looking down on his peaceful face, I knew that his nightmares were at an end, and I was glad for him. I couldn’t be angry. There had been too much anger already.

When we came downstairs, Mrs. Hume was still on the telephone in the library, diligently recounting the ill-fated marriage of a couple named Charlie and Eileen. She seemed to be enjoying the conversation—it was the first time I’d seen her smile. I murmured a brief explanation of the scene to Bill.

“Why did you bring my father into it?” he asked in a low voice. “I would have thought Miss Kingsley—”

“Bill,” I said, “can you think of anyone more capable than your father of charming Mrs. Hume?”

Bill called Mrs. Hume away from the phone for a few moments, and I picked up the receiver. “It’s me again,” I said quietly. “You can wrap up your conversation when Mrs. Hume comes back.”

“Did I fulfill my commission, Miss Shepherd?” he asked with an air of mild curiosity.

“Admirably. I’ll tell you all about it as soon as I get a chance.”

“I look forward to your explanation.”

*
* *

Colin was kind enough to drive us to the airport. The moon was rising when we left MacLaren Hall and it was nearing midnight by the time we landed in London. Bobby’s ring was tucked safely into a deep pocket in my jacket, and we flew in silence for a time, sorting through the bundle of papers that Andrew had given to us. The missing pages from the photograph album were there, folded with care so as not to damage any of the pictures. The photos were of Bobby, and all but five had been taken atop Pouter’s Hill. The rest showed him with his Hurricane and his fellow airmen at Biggin Hill. The bundle contained some handwritten notes as well, the kind that would have fit easily into Archy Gorman’s “post-box” at the Flamborough. Bill picked one up, but I stopped him before he opened it, murmuring, “These aren’t for us to read.”

It was Bill who found the pictures I’d been searching for. Cut from a larger photograph, the two small heart shapes bore two familiar faces. Dimity’s dark hair was swept back and up off her face, held in place with a ribbon that might have been pale blue. Bobby was smiling his warm, engaging smile, and wings gleamed on the collar of his uniform shirt. As I fitted them into the locket, I said, “Remember the marking on the blue box? The
W
for
Westwood
was really an M for
MacLaren
.”

“You read it upside down,” Bill said with a wry smile. He held up a page from the album and pointed to one of the captions. “Did you notice this? Their first date. Just over a month before Bobby’s plane went down. He must have proposed right after they met.”

“My dad proposed to my mom on their second date,” I said, “and she accepted on their third. Things happened faster in those days. I guess they had to.” Gathering the pages together, I laid them flat on the seat across the aisle. “When we get to the cottage, we’ll put them back where they belong. We’ll put back the picture my mother gave me, too.” I put the folded notes into a pile, tied the ribbon around them, and put them in my carry-on bag.

Bill gazed pensively out of the window at the star-filled sky. “Poor Andrew,” he said. “Barricading himself in his mansion on the hill, all alone with his anger and his grief.”