Aunt Dimity and the Family Tree (20 page)

“Your little flock of silver sheep is intact,” I assured him. “I counted them after Henrique finished pulling them out of people’s ears.”

“You counted my snuffboxes, too,” Willis, Sr., commented idly. “Why?”

I had no wish to burden my father-in-law with a fresh set of worries, so I said lightly, “It never hurts to keep track of things.”

“True,” said Willis, Sr. “Very true.”

Deirdre appeared with the tea tray, which she placed on the low table at my elbow. While I poured the tea and cut generous wedges from the rather plain-looking cake she’d baked, she turned to address Willis, Sr.

“I have good news to report, sir,” she said. “The workmen bypassed the pub on their way through Finch.”

“How do you know?” asked Willis, Sr., sitting upright.

“Declan,” she said. “He parked himself on the war memorial bench about thirty minutes ago, to keep an eye on Peacock’s pub. As soon as he sat down, four women converged on him to ask if I’d made any decisions about hiring extra help, then stuck around to quiz him about the state of things at Fairworth. Declan said that when the workmen saw the four women, they rolled up their windows and raced out of Finch as if the hounds of hell were nipping at their heels.”

It was, I thought, a fair description of the Handmaidens.

“All’s well that ends well, sir,” Deirdre concluded.

“You and your husband are marvelous,” said Willis, Sr., in an almost awed voice. “Simply marvelous. I am grateful to both of you for—”

“Deirdre,” I broke in, peering curiously at the cake. Its single layer was round, unfrosted, and oddly familiar. “Is this seed cake?”

“Yes,” she said. “You requested something simple.”

I passed a piece of cake to Willis, Sr., and bit into my own.

In an instant I was transported back to a sunny afternoon nearly a decade earlier, when I’d invited the late Ruth and Louise Pym to tea at the cottage. I’d baked a seed cake for them then, using a recipe I’d found in an old, dog-eared cookbook that had belonged to Aunt Dimity.
It is so difficult these days,
Ruth had said,
to find
real
seed cake.

Ruth wouldn’t have hesitated to classify the cake Deirdre had baked as
real
seed cake. It was virtually identical in size, color, texture, aroma, and flavor to the cake I’d served to the Pym sisters.

“Where did you get the recipe?” I asked, when the unsettling wave of déjà vu had passed.

“I’m afraid I don’t remember,” Deirdre said. “I’ve collected so many recipes over the years that it’s difficult to recall where each one came from.”

“Your seed cake resembles one my daughter-in-law makes from time to time,” Willis, Sr., explained.

“I see,” said Deirdre, nodding. “Perhaps we own the same cookbook.”

“Perhaps,” I said.

“While we’re on the subject of books,” said Willis, Sr., “would you be so kind as to retrieve a book from the desk in my study and bring it to me, Mrs. Donovan? It is entitled
Notes on Sheep
. My daughter-in-law wishes to borrow it.”

I gave him a furtive glance, wondering if he’d decided to punish me for interrupting his praise of the Donovans.

“Of course, sir,” said Deirdre. “Will there be anything else?”

“Dare I ask about the dinner menu?” said Willis, Sr., with a delicate wince.

“Since Mr. Cocinero enjoyed the trotters, sir, I thought I’d try mushy peas and burnt beef burgers tonight,” said Deirdre. “I’ve never met a foreigner who likes mushy peas.”

Willis, Sr., shrugged philosophically. “I will bear up under the strain if you will prepare something palatable for me after my guests have gone to their rooms. Last night’s chop was delectable.”

“I’m already working on it, sir,” said Deirdre, and she left the drawing room, smiling.

“Mrs. Donovan is a treasure,” murmured Willis, Sr., easing himself back into his chair.

I finished my tea in thoughtful silence.

I left Fairworth a half hour later, with
Notes on Sheep
in my hand and a host of unanswered questions tumbling through my head. After swapping cars with Bill, I brought Will and Rob home from Anscombe Manor, bathed them, dressed them in clean clothes, threatened them with grievous bodily harm if they played in the dirt before dinner, and began to throw a meal together.

The boys settled at the kitchen table with crayons and drawing paper to record their afternoon’s adventure for posterity. I was too preoccupied to listen closely as they described their trail ride with Kit, but maternal instinct enabled me to
ooh
and
aah
in all the right places, and when I asked the boys to help me set the table, they were content to move their drawings to the desk in the study.

Bill was equally preoccupied when he came home from work. One of his favorite clients, a Bavarian art collector named Karla Schniering, had suffered a massive stroke from which she was unlikely to recover.

“There’s bound to be a family squabble when Frau Schniering dies,” he told me over dinner. “I may have to leave for Munich at a moment’s notice, to make sure that no one reinterprets her will.”

“I’ll pack a bag for you tonight,” I said. I was accustomed to Bill’s sudden departures. As an estate attorney with an international clientele, he was always on call.

“Are you going away, Daddy?” Will asked.

“Not tonight,” said Bill. “But I may have to take a trip tomorrow.”

“Why?” asked Rob.

“Because a very nice old lady is about to die.” Bill didn’t believe in sugarcoating the facts of life, but he did believe in framing them in terms that made sense to his children. “When she does, I’ll have to make sure that her toys go to the right people.”

“Does she have little boys?” Will asked interestedly.

“She has four grown-up sons,” said Bill. “And they don’t get along very well.”

“Oh,” said Rob, with an air of enlightenment. “They’ll fight over the toys.”

“If they fight too much,” Will said, after a meditative pause, “you can take the toys away.”

“And bring them to us,” said Rob.

“We won’t fight over them,” Will promised.

“I’ll bear that in mind,” Bill said gravely.

“Who wants blackberry crumble?” I asked, and blackberry-picking swiftly replaced death as the prime topic of conversation.

The thunderstorm began after dinner. While I cleared the kitchen, Bill and the boys hunkered down on the window seat in the living room to count the seconds between flashes and booms. At half past seven, Bill took the boys up to bed, as he always did on the night before a journey.

He spent the rest of the evening in his armchair, monitoring Frau Schniering’s declining health via the telephone and his laptop. Stanley, as if sensing the gravity of the situation, rubbed his head against Bill’s leg, then curled up in a gleaming black ball on the window seat.

I didn’t want to distract Bill with my unanswered questions, so I stretched out on the sofa and read
Notes on Sheep
. I’d expected the book to be a dry-as-dust instructional manual on sheep rearing, but it turned out to be a well-crafted meditation on the importance of sheep to the Cotswolds. I was so pleasantly surprised that I couldn’t keep myself from sharing a few fun facts with Bill.

“Did you know that the Romans introduced the longwool sheep breeds to Britain?” I asked.

“Mmm-hmm,” said Bill, tapping away at his keyboard.

“Did you know that the word
Cotswolds
comes from ‘cote,’ meaning a sheep enclosure, and ‘wolds,’ meaning rolling, treeless hills?” I asked.

“Mmm-hmm,” said Bill.

“Did you know that Cotswold Sheep used to have bat wings and venomous fangs?” I asked.

“Mmm-hmm,” said Bill.

I closed
Notes on Sheep
and got to my feet.

“If you need me, I’ll be in the study,” I said.

“Venomous fangs,” Bill said without glancing up from his computer. “See? I’m listening.”

“You’re an amazing multitasker,” I said, “but you should focus on Frau Schniering right now. She needs your attention more than I do.”

I gently ruffled his hair and left him to his sad vigil.

Windswept rain washed in waves against the diamond-paned windows above the old oak desk in the study. I lit a fire in the hearth to chase away the chill in the storm-cooled air and touched a finger to Reginald’s snout.

“It’s a good night to be indoors, Reg,” I said. “Especially if you’re made of flannel.”

Smiling, I pulled the blue journal from its shelf and snuggled up with it in the tall leather armchair before the fire.

“Dimity?” I said as I opened the journal. “I’m here earlier than I was last night. Do I get a gold star on my report card?”

I chuckled as Aunt Dimity’s elegant copperplate curled and looped across the page.

Two gold stars, my dear, and a silver moon. Tell me quickly: Has Sally been unmasked?

“No,” I said. “The Lady Sarah charade continues, but something strange is definitely going on at Fairworth.”

Something stranger than the charade?

“A whole lot stranger,” I confirmed. “But I’d better start at the beginning. I don’t want to leave anything out.”

I’m all ears. Metaphorically speaking.

“Okay,” I said. “My day began with a phone call from William. . . .”

I spoke steadily while the fire snapped and crackled and the rain continued to fall, recounting everything that had happened at Fairworth from the moment I’d arrived to the moment I’d left. I told Aunt Dimity about the workmen, the Benny Goodman music, the impromptu hootenanny in the billiards room, the bangers and mash luncheon, the Handmaidens’ unwitting role in protecting Sally’s secret, and the eerily familiar seed cake. I gave particular emphasis to the snuffboxes’ monetary value and to Deirdre’s confession that she had moved them as well as the brass compass, just as she’d moved the settee and the Chippendale armchair. When I finished, I felt more confused than ever.

“The snuffboxes and the compass fit into your theft theory,” I said, “but I don’t see how they relate to the music Henrique heard in his bedroom last night or to the seed cake.”

Must everything be related?

The question brought me up short. I’d assumed that Aunt Dimity would connect the dots for me. Instead, she’d underscored a fatal flaw in my reasoning.

“I suppose not,” I said, feeling a bit deflated.

If anything, the Benny Goodman music points to the Donovans’ innocence. If they were intent on lulling William into a false sense of security, why would they draw attention to themselves by playing loud music?

“What about the seed cake?” I asked. “Don’t you find it a little odd that it was so similar to yours?”

I didn’t invent seed cake, Lori. It’s been around since the Middle Ages. I’m quite sure that many people have recipes similar to my own.

“And the snuffboxes?” I went on a little desperately. “And the compass? Deirdre keeps moving stuff, just as you predicted. Have you changed your mind about her?”

No, I haven’t. I still suspect her and her husband of masterminding a forthcoming robbery, which is why you mustn’t allow yourself to be distracted by music and cake. Concentrate on collecting relevant evidence, Lori, or you’ll find yourself mired in a morass of extraneous details.

“But you just told me that the Benny Goodman music points to the Donovans’ innocence,” I protested.

I’m willing to keep an open mind about the Donovans, which is more than I can say for you. I may suspect them of foul play, but you are already convinced of their guilt. Your prejudice is clouding your judgment. What will catch your eye next? Will you try to persuade me that Declan’s red hair and the prominent mole on Deirdre’s face are signs of corruption?

“Of course not,” I said, abashed.

I cherish your passionate nature, Lori, but you must learn to harness it. You must learn to separate the trivial from the significant. Don’t dwell on trifling incidents. Focus instead on Deirdre’s sleight of hand with William’s possessions.

“At least his precious book was where he left it,” I mumbled.

What book?

“
Notes on Sheep
,” I said, “by Frederick Fairworthy. It’s one of the books the builders unearthed when the old stables were torn down. William loaned it to me, to help me to understand his obsession with sheep. And it did help. I think it’d be wonderful to see a flock of Cotswold Lions grazing Fairworth’s pastures.”

They wouldn’t be the first Cotswold Lions to graze there. Sheep were the foundation of the Fairworthy family fortune, as indeed, they were the foundation of England’s wealth. Wool production fueled a significant portion of England’s economy for several centuries. Did you know that the Lord Chancellor sits on a sack stuffed with wool in the House of Lords?

“As a matter of fact, I did,” I said smugly. “According to
Notes on Sheep
, the Lord Chancellor’s woolsack symbolizes the importance of sheep to England.”

Did
Notes on Sheep
also discuss their role in shaping the Cotswolds? The exquisite churches found in modest towns like Fairford and Northleach were built by wealthy wool merchants. The merchants took such pride in their profession that their gravestones were sometimes carved to resemble woolsacks.

“The woolsack tombs,” I said, nodding. “Bill and I saw them in Burford.”

There are some very fine examples of woolsack tombs in Burford, mementos of prosperous days gone by. When the price of wool plummeted in the early nineteenth century, the entire region was engulfed in a great depression. Since no one could afford to renovate or to replace old structures, villages like Finch retained their quirkiness and their sublime architecture. To understand the Cotswolds, one must first understand the rise and fall of sheep.

“Did the Fairworthy family rise and fall with them, too?” I asked.

Naturally. Fairworth wasn’t the family’s principal residence, you know. They lived in Worth Hall, a much grander edifice on the outskirts of Gloucester. They built Fairworth House as a country retreat. Sadly, Worth Hall was pulled down during the rather depressing period between the wars when we lost so many of our stately homes.