Aunt Dimity Digs In (27 page)

“Why have you been watching Scrag End field?” I asked. “Dr. Culver saw you—one of you—up here with binoculars.”

“I asked Burt to keep an eye on Francesca,” Annie told me. “My sister’s spending too much time at Scrag End. I’d never betray Papa, but Francesca might, if she fell in love with Dr. Culver.”

Francesca, too, had spoken of betrayal. She’d accused Annie of planning to
sell Papa’s soul for forty pieces of silver.
“I don’t understand,” I said. “How would Francesca betray your father by falling in love with Adrian?”

“You’ll have to ask Francesca.” Annie faced the window and peered up at the sky. “Wind’s rising,” she observed. “I’d say there’ll be rain before morning.”

“Please God.” Burt’s arm slipped around Annie’s waist. “One good soak’ll save the barley.”

It was as if a door had closed between us. They would answer no more questions. They wanted me to go. I left the farmhouse quietly, though my thoughts spun as restlessly as the wisps of hay twirled by the freshening breeze. Why were the two sisters so worried about Adrian Culver?

Adrian was sitting on the hood of the Mercedes, his feet braced on the bumper, his elbows on his knees. Francesca was nowhere to be seen.

“She’s back there, somewhere,” he said, motioning toward the farm buildings behind the house. “She told me not to follow her. She said she needed to be alone.” He rubbed his forehead worriedly. “Did you know about her father?”

“Some of it,” I said. “Not all.”

Adrian slid off of the hood. He took a few hesitant steps toward the outbuildings, then turned back to me. “Go to her, will you? Someone should be with her, and she won’t talk to me.”

I entered the complex of stone sheds, pens, and byres, softly calling Francesca’s name. A few windows were lit in the farmhouse, but the outbuildings were thronged in shadow. Dusk was moving in and the steady breeze brought a few spatterings of rain. I shuddered as cool droplets splashed my arms, and wondered what the farm would be like when winter winds came chasing up the hill to hurl themselves against the stone walls.

I somehow managed to wend my way outside the maze of buildings, to a spot overlooking the wide fields. I picked out the vague shape of Saint George’s tower, an oblong smudge against the darkening sky, and the blurry curve of trees where Scrag End lay. When the rain began in earnest, I darted back to shelter in the doorway of a dark and disused stable.

Since my search had proven fruitless, I put my head down and prepared to make a dash back to the car. Then I heard a soft growl. I froze midbreath, too terrified to flee, until I heard, more softly still, the words
Hush, Caesar.

I slowly turned to peer inside the stable and from the corner of my eye saw a dim halo of light near the floor of the stall farthest from the door. I crept forward until I saw Francesca, outlined by the indeterminate glow of a shuttered lantern.

She knelt with one arm draped over Caesar’s massive back, gazing pensively into the stall. She and the dog were surrounded by debris—boards, flagstones, scraps of burlap sacking. Her hands were filthy; her hair spilled in auburn waves down her back and hung in tendrils over her damp forehead. Despite her red-rimmed eyes, she seemed composed.

Caesar’s ears twitched, but he didn’t reiterate his warning as I came closer. Francesca seemed wholly self-absorbed. I stepped over a loose board and around a tilted flagstone, leaned forward to peer into the stall, and felt my pulse quicken.

The light from the shuttered lantern danced across an elaborately carved stone slab. The slab’s rosette-filled border framed a bas relief of a mounted Roman soldier riding victoriously over a fallen barbarian. The high-stepping horse seemed to prance in the flickering light, the soldier’s lance to plunge nearer his enemy’s throat.

A panel beneath the bas relief contained a Latin inscription. I knew enough of the ancient tongue to attempt a rough translation. “Marcus Petronius,” I read aloud, “son of Lucius, of the Menenian tribe; from Vicenza; a soldier of the Fourteenth Legion; he lies here.” I looked at Francesca uncertainly.

“Papa found the gravestone many years ago, when he was fixing the drainage in here for old Mr. Hodge.” Francesca’s deep-throated murmur twined with the drum of the pouring rain. “Pietro was my father’s proper name, and Petronius is Pietro, in Latin. Papa’s village was in the Berici Mountains above Vicenza, where Petronius was born. And both men were soldiers far from home. When my father found Petronius’s grave, it was as if he’d found a brother.”

I sank to the floor and put my hand on Caesar’s warm neck. “Did he tell Mr. Hodge about it?”

“How could he?” Francesca asked. “Mr. Hodge would’ve told the world. Then the experts would’ve come round, poking and prying and digging up Petronius’s bones.”

“And your father wanted Petronius to rest in peace,” I said.

Francesca nodded slowly. “ That’s why Petronius let my father find him. Fools like your Mr. Gladwell looked high and low, but Petronius waited for someone like Papa, someone who would protect him, guard him, make sure no one disturbed his resting place.” Francesca lifted the lantern and held it closer to the bas relief, to illuminate a carved medallion on the soldier’s breastplate.

“Your
phalera,
” I murmured. “It’s a copy of Petronius’s.”

“Papa gave me the bronze
phalera
when Burt and I became engaged.” Francesca placed the lantern on the floor. “I was supposed to marry Burt and become Petronius’s guardian.”

“But Burt fell in love with Annie,” I said, “and the job went to her.”

“I refused to give up my
phalera,
” said Francesca, “so Papa made another—the one Rainey found at the vicarage.” She hesitated, then went on steadily. “I thought Annunzia might have stolen the pamphlet to keep Adrian nearby.”

The faint light of understanding began to shimmer. “You thought Annie would show the grave to Adrian, if the harvest failed. You thought she might make enough money from the find to carry the farm through to next year.”

“I don’t think it anymore.” Francesca brushed a tendril of hair back from her damp forehead. “Hearing Mrs. Kitchen made me see that I’ve been angry with Annunzia for far too long. It’s no good, holding grudges. It makes you blind and stupid.”

“Just like Mrs. Kitchen,” I put in.

Francesca managed a rueful smile. “After I came out here and had a think, I realized that Annunzia loved Papa as much as I did. She’d never betray his secret.”

“She’s worried that you might,” I said gently.

Francesca’s rueful smile faded. “Yes,” she said, her dark eyes clouding over. “It’s no good, keeping secrets from your husband.”

And that, I realized, with heart-wrenching clarity, was why both sisters were worried about Adrian Culver. Francesca was falling in love with an archaeologist, an expert in Romano-British culture. If she married Adrian, she’d be faced with an impossible question of loyalty. Would she lie to her husband about Petronius’s grave, or would she betray her father’s secret?

“Francesca,” I said, “Adrian loves you. If you explained things to him, I’m sure he’d respect—”

“He might,” she said heavily. “ Then again, he might not.” She reached up and began to pin her hair back in place. “Let’s cover it up. Will and Rob will be wondering where their mother’s got to.”

It took us no more than ten minutes to conceal the gravestone beneath layers of sacking, boards, and flagstones. We tamped dirt between the flags, covered them with straw, and gave Caesar leave to romp around the stall. Francesca blew out the shuttered lantern and hung it on a hook near the door. I let her lead the way back to the Mercedes.

Adrian was waiting for us in the farmyard, not sitting inside the Mercedes but pacing beside it, soaked and shivering. The only time he’d availed himself of the car’s shelter had been to answer the telephone.

“The Pyms gave Bill and the boys a lift back to the cottage,” Adrian reported, through chattering teeth.

Francesca spent most of the return journey scolding Adrian for being too stupid to get in out of the rain. I wasn’t surprised when she asked to be dropped off with him at the schoolhouse, but I was astonished when he pulled her into his arms on the doorstep.

Francesca’s long hair tumbled once more down her back, and the rain soaked through her shirtdress, but she clung to Adrian as though she never intended to let him go. Chastely averting my eyes, I left her to it. There’d be gossip about them now, I thought, smiling contentedly, and this time it was likely to be true.

25.

Rain pattered on the slate roof, gushed through the copper downspouts, and splashed in its own puddles on the flagstone walk. It danced on the leaves of the lilac bushes and ran in branching rivulets down the living room’s bow window. The long dry spell was over.

I sat cross-legged on the window seat beside Francesca and watched a raindrop skitter down a diamond pane. I was finding it difficult to concentrate on the trivial task I’d concocted to pass the time. Francesca asked me for the ball of twine and I passed it to her.

“You think ten each will be enough?” I asked, eyeing the stack of parenting magazines in Francesca’s lap.

Francesca wound the twine around the stack. “ Ten’ll be plenty. Price ’em at five pence apiece and they’ll fly off the table.”

I handed her the scissors. “I don’t know who’ll buy them, even at five pence. Will and Rob seem to be the only children under thirty in Finch.”

Francesca snipped the twine on her bundle and tied it off in a neat bow. “You never know. Folks with children may come from other villages. And my sister-in-law’s got enough little ones to start a cricket club.You just put these out on a table during the festival and see what happens.” She bent to place the bundle in the cardboard box beside the playpen.

I’d given Francesca every opportunity to tell me what, if anything, had passed between her and Adrian after I’d dropped them off at the schoolhouse the night before, but she’d been maddeningly discreet.

She’d returned to the cottage long after Bill and I had gone to bed, performed her morning duties with her usual efficiency, and kept her mouth determinedly shut. I’d so far resisted the urge to hold the scissors to her throat and force her to talk, but my patience was wearing thin. I owed it to the boys, I told myself, to find out if their nanny would be around much longer.

I picked a magazine at random and leafed through it casually. “You’ve taught me more in one week than the so-called experts taught me in nine months.”

“I’ve taught you nothing you didn’t know already,” said Francesca. “All you needed was to relax a bit and realize what you knew. Young mothers need to take a break now and again. Used to be you could leave the kiddies with Grandma or an auntie, but it’s not so simple nowadays.”

“The boys’ grandmas are dead,” I said, “and I’d rather toss my babies into a tank filled with piranhas than leave them with Bill’s aunts. But I take your point.” I closed the magazine. “It’s been a queer sort of break, though. Most people would spend a weekend at the seaside. I ran around, trying to find a burglar. And I didn’t even manage to do that.”

“You’re not giving up, are you?” asked Francesca.

I shrugged. “I don’t know what else to do. Sally Pyne didn’t do it. Katrina Graham didn’t do it. Adrian certainly didn’t do it, nor did your sister. I don’t know who else would have wanted to steal the pamphlet.”

“Something’ll turn up to point you in the right direction.” Francesca smiled serenely and turned to gaze out of the window. “Sometimes the answer comes along when you’ve stopped looking.”

I compared the calm, self-possessed figure on the window seat to the haggard, frantic woman I’d encountered in the stable. Was she talking about the burglary, or had she solved a far more interesting mystery?

“You know,” I said, wrapping a length of twine around my finger, “if you decide that you have to move on, for any reason, we’ll be fine.”

Francesca’s smile widened. “I won’t be going anywhere soon, Lori.”

I looked up in confusion. “Did you tell Adrian about Petronius’s grave?”

Francesca chuckled. “I didn’t have to. He’d already guessed that there’d been a villa on the hill. The topography fits the profile, he said, and where there’s a villa, there’s almost always a grave.”

“Has he agreed to keep your secret?” I asked.

“Can’t get funding for every dig in Britain, he told me.” Francesca’s dark eyes were twinkling. “ ’Specially if you don’t apply for it.”

Francesca glowed with the unmistakable inner radiance of a woman who’d found her heart’s desire. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why she’d choose to go on working as a nanny when she could be sailing off into the sunset with the man she loved.

“Then why in God’s name are you staying here?” I demanded.

Francesca toyed with a snip of twine. “I need time to make amends with Annunzia. And I’m old-fashioned. I believe in long engagements.”

I thought I heard the sound of trumpets in the pouring rain. I looked out of the window, smiling broadly, just in time to see a delivery van pull into my driveway.

Stan’s pamphlet had arrived. I tipped the damp delivery-man and opened the padded envelope in the living room. A note from Stan made it very clear that the collector in Labrador wanted his precious sample back as soon as possible and in pristine condition. I seriously considered returning it untouched, but decided against it. Stan had gone to a lot of trouble to obtain it, as a favor to me. The least I could do was take a look.

The pamphlet was entitled
Holding Fast
. It had buff-colored wrappers and sixteen leaves, measured five by seven inches, and was hand sewn. It had been printed in 1874. Unfortunately, as Stan had warned, it had nothing to do with archaeology. I felt defeated.

“Pathetic, isn’t it?” I said, after showing the pamphlet to Francesca. “It’s all I have to show for my efforts this week.”