Authors: Aunt Dimity [14] Aunt Dimity Slays the Dragon
While Peggy continued to drone, my gaze traveled to the portrait of the queen, hung in a place of honor above the schoolroom’s
double doors. I usually felt a small, Anglophilic tingle when I beheld England’s gracious monarch decked out in royal regalia, but
I’d seen the schoolroom portrait so often that it no longer worked
its magic.
Sighing, I looked down at my idle hands. If asked, I would have
been forced to confess that I had no one but myself to blame for
my growing sense of ennui. After the fiasco with the vampire in
October, I’d sworn to keep my feet fi rmly on the ground, and on
the ground I’d kept them for seven months, successfully stifling an
6 Nancy Atherton
inborn and nearly irresistible inclination to let my vivid imagination run away with me.
When Sally Pyne’s gilded antique biscuit barrel had gone missing in January, I’d clamped down on my desire to nab the thief and
left it to Sally to remember—two days later—that she’d loaned
her precious barrel to Mr. Barlow, who’d played one of the Three
Wise Men in the Nativity play and needed a fancy container for the
frankincense.
Similarly, when a stranger spent a cold February morning taking photographs of every nook and cranny in Finch, I
did not
allow
myself to envision him as a predatory land developer, a fast-talking
film location scout, or a devious foreign spy, and when I learned
that he was, in fact, a real estate agent acting on behalf of clients
who were about to buy long-vacant Crabtree Cottage, I
refused
to
wonder whether or not those clients had sinister ties to the woman
who’d died there.
It was just as well, because the clients turned out to be Grant
Tavistock and Charles Bellingham, who were sitting just below
me, in the front row of folding chairs. The newest residents of
Crabtree Cottage were a perfectly friendly pair of middle-aged art
appraisers who’d never heard of Prunella Hooper or her tragic demise, and who were so eager to fit into their new community that
they’d actually
volunteered
to clean up after the bring-and-buy sale.
As I surveyed their shining faces, I thought pityingly,
They’ll learn
.
“. . . cacti and succulents belong to separate and distinct plant
categories and will be judged accordingly, with no exceptions. . . .”
My mind drifted lazily from cacti to flowers to the beautiful
bouquet Annelise had carried down the aisle. Annelise’s wedding
had definitely helped me to keep my treacherous imagination in
check. With her mother’s permission, I’d thrown myself into every
phase of the preparations, attending to each detail with such
single-minded devotion that I had no energy to spare for phantom
biscuit-barrel thieves or mysterious strangers.
The wedding had taken place on the third Saturday in May—a
Aunt Dimity Slays the Dragon
7
mere nine days ago, I thought, glancing wanly at the schoolroom’s
well-thumbed wall calendar—at St. Margaret’s Catholic Church in
Upper Deeping. Thanks to my impeccable planning, it had gone off
without a hitch, but now that it was over, I couldn’t help feeling a
bit deflated.
What did I have to look forward to, I asked myself, but the
summer fete, the bring-and-buy sale, the gymkhana, the art show,
the flower show, the dog show, and the tidy cottage competition? A
sensible woman would have thanked her lucky stars to live in such
a lively community, but when Peggy asked if there was any other
business, I could scarcely keep myself from yawning. Everyone in
the schoolroom knew that Peggy’s question was meaningless because there was
never
“any other business” at the May meeting.
Which was why everyone—except Peggy—jerked to sudden,
rapt attention when Mr. Malvern raised a hesitant hand and lumbered slowly to his feet.
Horace Malvern lived next door to me, on a vast estate known
as Fivefold Farm. His property ran along the southern edge of
mine, and I’d never had the least cause to regret it. He was a model
neighbor—a respectable, hardworking, middle-aged farmer whose
behavior had, until the moment he’d raised his hand, been as predictable as spring rain. I couldn’t imagine what other business he
had to offer.
I stared at him incredulously for a moment, then swung around
to look at Peggy Taxman, who still had her nose buried in her
notes. It wasn’t until Mr. Malvern gave a rather pointed cough that
Peggy looked up from her clipboard, peered suspiciously around
the room, and fixed her gimlet gaze on the burly farmer.
“What is it, Horace?” she snapped waspishly. “Be quick. I can’t
abide time-wasters.”
Mr. Malvern shuffled his large feet uncomfortably, then muttered something gruffly to the fl oor.
“Speak up, Horace,” Peggy ordered. “No one can hear you.”
Mr. Malvern cleared his throat and, with a brief glance over his
8 Nancy Atherton
right shoulder, said forthrightly, “My nephew would like to make
an announcement.”
“Your nephew?” said Peggy, clearly taken aback.
“That’s right,” said Mr. Malvern, nodding. “Calvin, my brother
Martin’s boy, would like to make an announcement.” Without further ado, he turned toward the double doors and whistled shrilly,
then sat down again and ducked his head.
The double doors were flung open, and a lithe figure clad in the
belled cap and the diamond-patterned costume of a medieval court
jester catapulted down the central aisle in a lightning-fast series of
handsprings, backflips, somersaults, and cartwheels. He came to
rest on bended knee at the foot of the stage, just below Peggy Taxman, with his arms outstretched and his bells jingling.
The jester’s knee had barely touched the floor when a pair of
young men dressed in plumed caps, yellow tights, and bright red
tabards took up positions on either side of the doors, raised long,
slender trumpets to their lips, and blew an elaborate fanfare. As
the last note of the fanfare faded, they turned as one to address the
room.
“Arise, gentle folk!” they bellowed in unison. “Hence cometh
our excellent and most gracious ruler, the lord of laughter and the
monarch of mirth, His Majesty, King Wilfred the Good!”
Sixty-seven jaws dropped simultaneously as King Wilfred the
Good strode into the schoolhouse.
Two
K ing Wilfred paused just inside the doorway, planted his
hands on his hips, and beamed benevolently around the
room. He was in his late twenties, I guessed, tall and
heavyset, with twinkling blue eyes, a full beard, and a cascade of
light brown curls that tumbled to his shoulders. I wouldn’t have
looked at him twice if he’d been wearing a T-shirt and jeans, but the
clothes he had on deserved a prolonged second glance. As he stood
near the doorway, arms akimbo and head held high, I couldn’t help
wondering if he’d spent the day ransacking Henry VIII’s closet.
He wore a sleeveless, ermine-trimmed surcoat of plum velvet
over a gold-shot brocade tunic with long, puffed sleeves, a stiff lace
collar, and a belt made of braided silver cord. His stout legs were
clad in white tights, with an embroidered garter above each knee,
and his surprisingly dainty feet were shod in soft-soled suede ankle
boots. Heavy gold rings adorned his thick fingers and a chunky gold
chain hung around his neck, embellished with a ruby-encrusted
pendant. Set among his light brown curls was a shiny golden crown
whose tall points were dotted with gemstones that seemed too
sparkly to be real.
The trumpeters doffed their plumed caps and bowed deeply at his
entrance, while the jester curled into a ball and rolled to one side of
the stage, to crouch beneath an alarmed-looking Mr. Wetherhead.
The only villager to “arise” was Sally Pyne, who’d jumped to her feet
at the trumpeters’ command, then hastily resumed her seat, blushing
furiously. The rest of us sat openmouthed and staring, as if we’d been
turned to stone.
“All hail good King Wilfred!” the trumpeters chorused, rising
from their bows.
10 Nancy Atherton
“Pray silence, good heralds,” the king responded, with a nonchalant wave of his hand. “We see that our magnificence has temporarily robbed our subjects of speech and rendered their limbs
useless. We will not, therefore, stand upon ceremony.”
The jester rose from his crouch, held an imaginary telescope to
his eye, and scanned the room in a sweeping motion that ended at
Mr. Wetherhead’s startled face.
“Looks to me like no one’s standing,” the jester announced,
“upon ceremony or otherwise.”
Mr. Wetherhead twitched nervously and shrank back in his chair.
“Well said, Fool,” said King Wilfred, chuckling merrily as he
approached the stage. “And foolishly said well, for a fool may well
say wisely what a wise man cannot say, and wise man may say foolishly what a fool may—”
“Calvin Malvern!”
The name exploded from Peggy Taxman as
though it had been shot from a cannon. “Is it you under all that
hair?”
King Wilfred removed his crown with a flourish and shook his
curls back from his round face. “It is I, Calvin Malvern, at your service, Auntie Peggy.”
“I’m not your aunt, you pea-witted nincompoop,” Peggy thundered.
“I think of you as my aunt,” Calvin assured her. “After the many
pleasant hours I spent in your shop when I was but a wee lad—”
“I chased you out of the Emporium more times than I can
count, you young rascal,” Peggy interrupted.
“But you were always pleased to see me when I came back,” Calvin countered, smiling angelically.
“That’s as may be,” Peggy retorted, “but I’m certainly not pleased
to see you now. How dare you disrupt my meeting?”
“Forgive me,” said Calvin. “I was under the impression that
you’d called for other business.”
“Other business does not include prancing in here like a puff edup popinjay and spouting poetical nonsense,” Peggy growled. “What
Aunt Dimity Slays the Dragon
11
your poor father would think if he could see you strutting around
like an overdressed peacock . . .”
“He’d think I was doing something useful with my life,” said
Calvin.
“Useful?” Peggy snorted derisively. “Run along, Calvin. Take
your little friends and play dress-up somewhere else. The grownups have work to do.”
Mr. Wetherhead gave a terrified squeal as the jester vaulted
onto the stage and bent low to peer at the laptop’s screen.
“May it please the court,” the jester cried, raising a rigid index
finger. “I see nothing in the minutes that limits ‘other business’ to
that offered by boring blokes in business suits.” He pointed the finger accusingly at Peggy. “You must let the peacock squeak, er, I
mean, speak!”
Dick Peacock chuckled and Christine Peacock snickered as a
ripple of amusement ran through the schoolhouse. I was sitting too
close to Peggy to risk outright laughter, but I caught the jester’s eye
and smiled furtively.
“We may as well hear what Cal has to say, now he’s here,” called
Mr. Barlow from the back of the room.
“Hear, hear!” called Lilian Bunting from the front row.
“Let King Wilfred speak,” called Miranda Morrow, shaking her
strawberry-blond hair back from her freckled face.
Others soon chimed in. While the rest of the villagers spoke up
in Calvin’s defense, Horace Malvern stared stoically at the floor
and said nothing. It was impossible to tell whether he was upset,
embarrassed, or simply bewildered by his nephew’s antics, but his
silence seemed to imply that all was not well between them.
Peggy’s silence had a distinctly ominous edge to it, but she was a
seasoned politician and she could read a crowd’s mood accurately,
when she chose to. She waited until the groundswell of support had
reached a raucous rumble, then placed her clipboard on the table,
banged the gavel twice for order, and folded her arms across her
impressive bosom.
12 Nancy Atherton
“The chair will give you ten minutes,” she declared, nodding
curtly to Calvin.
Calvin bowed to her, murmuring, “As generous as always, Auntie Peggy.”
A titter went through the room, accompanied by a buzz of excitement rarely heard at a May meeting. Lilian Bunting and I exchanged gleefully mystified glances, then gave our full attention to
Calvin. I had no idea what he was about to say, but it had to be
more entertaining than Peggy’s guidelines on stanchion storage.
I expected Calvin to replace his crown and revert to the persona of King Wilfred while making his mysterious announcement.
Instead, he handed the crown to the jester, who won a huge roar of
laughter by pretending to put it on Peggy’s head before leaping
nimbly from the stage to sit cross-legged at Charles Bellingham’s
feet. Calvin allowed the room to settle down, then began to speak
in the artfully modulated tones of a trained actor—or a snake-oil
salesman.
“My friends,” he said. “Have you ever dreamed of traveling back
in time? Have you ever yearned to return to an age when simple
folk danced gayly on the green while lords quaffed and knights
fought and troubadours sang sweetly of chivalrous deeds? Have you