Emma shrugged. “Then you’ll have ten more years of peace and quiet. Is that so bad?”
I smiled wanly. Medical experts on both sides of the Atlantic swore that nothing was wrong with me or Bill, but how could I believe them? I’d been to see Dr. Hawkings almost as soon as I’d arrived in London, given him permission to shout the news from the rooftops if the test results were positive, but I knew they wouldn’t be. I didn’t need Honoria or Charlotte to remind me that Willis, Sr., still had no grandchild.
“You don’t seem to get the picture,” I said stubbornly. “Bill’s working all the time, and when he’s not, he’s so tired he can hardly hold his head up, let alone—”
Emma suppressed a snort of laughter as she gave my shoulder a shake. “You’ve got to get your mind off of it,” she said firmly. “Why don’t you give Stan Finderman a call? Better still, why don’t you go into the village and have a heart-to-heart with Mrs. Famham? She was forty-three years old, you know, before she had—”
“Stop!” I said, wincing. “If you dare mention Mrs. Famham and her miraculous triplets again, I’ll pelt your house with radishes.”
“I was only trying—”
“Thanks,” I said shortly, “but I fail to see how the idea of waiting until I’m forty-three years old to start a family is supposed to cheer me up!”
At that moment the phone in the wheelbarrow rang and, glad of the interruption, I dug through the radishes to find it. It was a durable cellular model, a Christmas gift from Derek inspired by Bill’s comment that Derek would have less trouble getting hold of his wife if he installed a phone booth in the garden.
A phone booth would have been more practical, since Emma, a former computer engineer, had a somewhat cavalier attitude toward high-tech toys. The cellular phone had been hoed, raked, fertilized, and very nearly composted, so finding it buried at the bottom of a barrow ful of radishes was par for the course. I pulled the carrying case from a tangle of greens and passed it to Emma, then strolled over to the cucumber frames, out of earshot, where I waited until she’d finished her conversation.
“That was Nell,” she called, dropping the phone back into the wheelbarrow. “She says William’s not at the cottage.”
“He was there when I left,” I said, picking my way back to her.
“Yes, but Nell says he’s not there now. In fact ...” Emma bent to pull a tarp over the barrow, looking thoughtful. “When was the last time you heard from Dimity?”
“What do you mean?” I asked, coming to an abrupt halt. “Aunt Dimity’s not at the cottage anymore.”
Emma straightened. “Yes, but Nell says that William’s. disappeared. And she seems to think Aunt Dimity’s gone with him.”
My stomach turned a somersault and the tilled earth seemed to shift beneath my feet. “Aunt Dimity?” I said faintly. “How—?”
“I have no idea,” Emma replied. “That’s why we’re driving over to the cottage right now. Let’s go.” She pulled off her sunhat and tossed it onto the tarp, letting her dishwater-blond hair tumble to her waist as she hurried toward the central courtyard of the manor house, where her car was parked.
I blinked stupidly at the barrow for a moment, then ran to catch up with her. “If Nell’s pulling my leg ...” I began, but I left the sentence hanging. If Nell Harris was pulling my leg, I’d have to grin and bear it. Nell wasn’t the sort of child one scolded.
Even so, I told myself as I climbed into Emma’s car, it had to be some sort of joke. My father-in-law was a kind and courtly gentleman. He was also as predictable as the sunrise. He wouldn’t dream of doing something as inconsiderate as “disappearing.” He simply wasn’t what you’d call a spontaneous kind of guy.
I said as much to Emma while we cruised down her long, azalea-bordered drive. “William never even strolls into Finch without letting me know,” I reminded her. “And as for Aunt Dimity going with him—impossible.”
“Why?” asked Emma.
“Because she’s dead!” I cried, exasperated.
“That’s never stopped her before,” Emma pointed out.
I felt a faint, uneasy flutter in the pit of my stomach. “True,” I said. “But I mean really dead. Not like before.”
Emma gave me a sidelong look. “Are you telling me there are degrees of deadness?”
“I’m simply saying that the situation has changed,” I replied. “Dimity had unfinished business to take care of the last time she ... visited. That’s why she couldn’t rest in peace. But we settled all of that two years ago. It’s over. She’s gone.”
“Perhaps she has new business,” Emma suggested.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said. “Dimity can’t just flit in and out of the ether at will.” Because, if she could, I. added mutely, she’d have come through for me with some whiz-bang advice on How to Save My Marriage. “There must be rules about that sort of thing, Emma.”