Aunt Dimity and the Village Witch (23 page)

“‘He could have lost his livelihood and quite possibly his life,’” I said quickly. “I’m quoting you, by the way.”

I know you are and I stand by my words. It’s a lot to ask of a man, even a man in love. Speaking of which, is William pining away?

“No,” I said. “He’s coping with the situation by throwing himself into his work.”

Bully for him. I told you he was a sensible sort of chap. Was Bill of any help with the latest glyph?

“None at all,” I replied. “He doesn’t know what it means.”

Don’t lose sleep over it. Something will turn up.

“Something did turn up this morning,” I said. “Not about the glyph, but about Mad Maggie. Kit heard about her from his stepfather. In his version, Mad Maggie roamed the woods on the Anscombe Manor estate. She also had goat’s horns growing out of her head.”

Goat’s horns and an affinity for the woods? How interesting. It seems that Mistress Meg and Mad Maggie have more in common than the name Margaret.

“I knew you’d make the connection,” I said. “I suppose, if I were a little kid playing in the woods, the sight of a strange woman cutting firewood might scare the wits out of me.”

I believe you’ve put your finger on the origins of Mistress Meg’s transformation from a healer into the hideous hag of my childhood.

“I’d like to put my finger on where she lived,” I said. “Wouldn’t it be wonderful to discover the remains of her house?”

There wouldn’t be much left of it after three hundred years.

“Even so,” I said, “I’d love to find it.”

You’ve grown fond of Mistress Meg, haven’t you?

“Yes, I have,” I said.

I can understand why. She was independent, bullheaded, energetic…Hmmm…Who does she remind me of?

“Good night, Dimity,” I said with a wry smile.

Good night, my dear.

The fine weather was still with us when we left for church the following morning. As usual, we were running late. Bill had forgotten his handkerchief, the boys had tried to sneak out of the house in their riding boots, and I’d had to run back into the cottage for my purse. By the time we reached St. George’s, Elspeth was playing the last chords of the voluntary and Mr. Barlow, whose many roles included that of church usher, was standing at his post to the left of the chancel, armed with the collection plate. We slid into the very last pew on the center aisle, trying but failing spectacularly to be inconspicuous.

Henry Cook’s advice to attend the service had apparently been heeded because the church was packed. Amelia gave me a friendly
wave from her place of honor next to Lilian in the front pew and Mr. Barlow favored me with a wink, but the Handmaidens sniffed disapprovingly while I tried to settle the boys, and Peggy Taxman emitted a loud, disparaging grunt. Thankfully, the rest of the congregation was too intent on private meditation to pay much attention to us.

The vicar began to pray and I bowed my head reverently, but my mind was on other matters. Deirdre had telephoned the cottage at half past seven to inform us that Willis, Sr., was too wrapped up in his work to attend church or to host our regular Sunday brunch at Fairworth House. While I shared Aunt Dimity’s belief that Willis, Sr., was better off working than pining, there was a limit to everything. What kind of work, I asked myself, would require him to cancel a visit from his grandsons?

Aunt Dimity had once told me that retired attorneys never really retired, so I had to assume that an elderly client—perhaps one on his deathbed—had, like Monsieur Delacroix, changed his mind about his will and asked Willis, Sr., to rewrite it before the grim reaper’s arrival. As the vicar mounted the pulpit to give his sermon, I found myself wondering if more homeless cats were about to benefit from a niece’s disinheritance.

I could tell that Lilian had influenced the vicar’s choice of subjects because the crux of his sermon seemed to be that we each had a responsibility to protect the weak from the strong, the individual from the mob. Sadly, I was too preoccupied with my own thoughts to listen closely to his wise and heartfelt words. I was so self-absorbed that I didn’t even bother to look around when the west door opened and a group of latecomers shuffled furtively into the church.

“Mummy?” Will asked, craning his neck to look behind us. “Who are those people?”

I turned to follow his gaze and felt a thrill of shock and horror
when I saw Daffodil Deeproots and at least twenty-five of her colorfully dressed cronies filing in to range themselves across the entire west end of the church. The smell of patchouli hit me like a pie in the face.

The vicar shocked me further when he stopped preaching in mid-sentence and bellowed, “All rise! Hymn 294, Mrs. Binney! Let us sing!”

As Elspeth leaned on the opening chords of “Jerusalem” and the parishioners bounced to their feet to belt out the lyrics, I tried frantically to locate Amelia. I leaned sideways to peer past the broad back of the farmer in front of me, but the singing, swaying congregation had created a human wall that blocked my view as effectively as an old-growth forest. I caught a brief glimpse of Mr. Barlow’s elbow as he disappeared into the sacristy before the song came to an end and the vicar asked us all to be seated.

I remained on my feet to scan the front pew, but Amelia wasn’t there. Instead, Bree was sitting in the place of honor beside Lilian, her face turned attentively toward the vicar.

“Sit,” Bill hissed, tugging on my trench coat.

I sank onto the pew, bewildered.

“Is it a circus, Mummy?” Rob asked, squirming around to gaze curiously at Daffodil and her motley companions.

“Something like that,” I said. “Eyes forward, please. It’s impolite to stare.”

In the meantime, the vicar had begun preaching an entirely different sermon. It was one of his classics, a dry, drawn-out, desperately dull analysis of an Aramaic word, the derivations of which were crucial to the understanding of an obscure commentary on a passage in Leviticus. Knowing what was to come, mothers with infants or toddlers immediately carried or led their progeny out of church.

After the first ten minutes of the vicar’s sermon, I gave the boys
crayons and paper to keep them from fidgeting. After forty, Bill took them home. By the time the vicar had spoken for a solid hour, nearly every head in the church had drooped, and when he hit the ninety-minute mark, the snores of the sleeping could be heard in our land.

I was two blinks away from a coma when the west door opened again and I regained consciousness. The Bowenists wanted out. I suspected that some of them had finally realized that their prey had flown the coop while others had simply had their fill of Aramaic derivations, because their departure was accompanied by mingled mutterings of “Mother Mae isn’t here” and “I think my brain’s gone numb.” Wherever Amelia was, I hoped she would have the sense to lie low until her followers left the village. With most of her neighbors napping in church, she was well and truly on her own.

The vicar droned on, as did the snoring, but Bree was alert and watching the retreat intently over her shoulder. When the last Bowenist closed the west door with a thud that roused the sleepers, Bree dashed into the south porch. She returned ten minutes later, grinning broadly and making a slashing movement across her throat.

The vicar stopped talking, leaned on his pulpit, and beamed at his flock.

“Thank you,” he said. “You were marvelous. I will, of course, administer the Eucharist to any who desire it. May I see a show of hands?”

Not a single hand was raised.

“I understand,” said the vicar. “We shall attempt a full service next Sunday—with a much shorter sermon, I promise you.”

He descended the pulpit to a chorus of polite chuckles and gave the benediction, but instead of processing down the center aisle while Elspeth played the recessional, he walked only as far as the front pew and stayed there to speak with Bree. I avoided the main torrent
of departing parishioners by darting up the north aisle to the front of the church, where a few others had lingered to chat with Bree and the Buntings.

“I sense a plot,” I said, when I reached them. “Did you revamp the liturgy to confound the Bowenists?”

“It was Bree’s idea,” said Charles Bellingham. “She thought it was awfully quiet on the Bowenist front yesterday, so she predicted that they would make a push today.”

“Since the church would be a likely target,” said Lilian, “we put together a reaction plan. Teddy explained it before the service and the entire congregation agreed to play along, if necessary.”

“If the Bowenists showed up,” Bree went on, “Mr. Bunting would call for a hymn and we’d stand to sing it. That way, we could mask the sight and the sound of Mr. Barlow smuggling Amelia into the crypt.”

“Amelia’s in the
crypt
?” I said. “
I’ve
never been in the crypt. I didn’t know we
had
a crypt.”

“It’s dark and damp and musty,” said Millicent Scroggins, with a delicate shudder.

“Mr. Barlow’s the only one who ever goes down there,” said Elspeth Binney, “and he does so only to make sure the sump pump is still working.”

“The entrance is in the sacristy,” said Henry, pointing at the door to the left of the chancel. “Barlow reckoned it would take him no more than a couple of minutes to get Mrs. Thistle from the front pew, through the sacristy, and down into the crypt. By then the hymn would be finished and we could be seated.”

“Next came the question of how to get rid of the Bowenists,” said Charles.

“For reasons beyond my comprehension,” said the vicar, “Bree gave me the job of boring them into submission.” He smiled at her. “I hope I lived down to your expectations.”

“You outdid yourself,” said Bree. “No offense, Mr. Bunting, but your second sermon made me want to tear my own ears off. I’m surprised the Bowenists lasted as long as they did.”

“I’m surprised any of us lasted as long as we did,” said Lilian. “You were brilliant, Teddy.”

“Mr. Bunting had to keep talking until I gave him the signal to stop,” said Bree, making the throat-slashing motion again. “Which I did, after I sneaked outside and watched the Bowenists drive away.”

“I am impressed,” I acknowledged, making a deep bow to the triumphant conspirators. “I am bowled over. I am in awe of your devious minds as well as your capacity to organize and motivate a crowd.”

“They didn’t need us to motivate them,” said the vicar. “My parishioners don’t approve of persecution and they don’t care to see a woman bullied. Once I described Mrs. Thistle’s dilemma, they were quite willing to help her. Besides, they thought it would be rather good fun. There’s nothing quite so satisfying as raising the roof with a rousing rendition of ‘Jerusalem.’”

“It’s a pity William missed the service,” Millicent said, giving Amelia a sly, sidelong look. “He has a wonderful singing voice.”

“As I told you before, Millicent,” said Elspeth, with an air of all-knowing superiority, “William is engaged in an important project at the moment. I’m sure he’ll be back in church next Sunday.”

“Let’s hope the Bowenists won’t be,” said the vicar.

“Let them come,” Lilian said defiantly. “With Bree on our side, we cannot fail.”

“Before my head gets any bigger,” said Bree, “I’ll pop down to the crypt and let the fugitives know it’s safe to come up.”

“There’s no need,” I said. “They’re here.”

Mr. Barlow and Amelia had emerged from the sacristy
with cobwebs in their hair, mud on their shoes, and looks of barely suppressed excitement on their faces.

“You’ll never guess what happened in the crypt,” Amelia said breathlessly. “Never in a million years. It simply defies belief.”

“You’d better tell us, then,” I said, half expecting her to announce her engagement to Mr. Barlow.

Instead, Amelia thrust out her clenched fist and cried, “We found the fourth page!”

Twenty-one

P 
rotruding from either side of Amelia’s fist were the ends of yet another scroll of parchment.

“Good grief,” I said, stunned.

“I haven’t opened it yet,” said Amelia. “The crypt was rather dirty.”

“Millicent,” Elspeth said bossily, “fetch Selena and Opal. They won’t want to miss this.”

“Why must I fetch them?” Millicent protested. “Your legs appear to be working.”

“A bit of hush, if you please, ladies,” Lilian scolded. “Mrs. Thistle is about to reveal how she and Mr. Barlow made their miraculous discovery.”

“Shall we be seated?” the vicar suggested.

He promptly took his own advice and lowered himself onto the front pew. The rest of us followed his example, but Amelia blocked Mr. Barlow’s bid to join us and tugged him over to stand with her before the altar rail.

“
You
must be the one to explain,” she told him. “It was your stroke of genius, not mine.” She gave him a gentle shove, then stepped back, to give him center stage.

“Not much to explain,” he said gruffly, thrusting his hands into his pockets and hanging his head, like a schoolboy forced to perform a recitation. “Everything went according to plan. Got Mrs. Thistle down to the crypt, lit the lantern, parked ourselves on the camp chairs I’d set up, and that was that.” He raised his head and cocked it to one side. “Thing is, we had a lot of time to kill down there, thanks to Mr. Bunting.”

The vicar bowed good-naturedly in response to a short round of applause.

“We didn’t have to sit there like a pair of scared rabbits, though,” Mr. Barlow continued. “The crypt’s near enough soundproof as makes no difference, so we got to talking. Mrs. Thistle told me about Lori finding the third page and Mrs. Bunting translating it.” Mr. Barlow pursed his lips, as if the translation’s disturbing contents had crossed his mind, but he forbore to comment. “Then she told me about the little drawing the rector had made, the one with the three arrows.”

Amelia came forward, as though she could contain herself no longer.

“Then Mr. Barlow said, ‘Must be the coat of arms’ and I said, ‘What coat of arms?’ and he said, ‘The old knight’s coat of arms’ and I said, ‘Which old knight?’ and he said, ‘Sir Guillaume—’”