The study was dark, but it wasn’t silent. A rising wind moaned in the chimney and made the dried strands of ivy rattle insistently against the many-paned window above the old oak desk. I crossed the book-lined room to light the mantelshelf lamps, then knelt to touch a match to the tinder in the hearth. When the wood caught fire, I straightened and looked toward a special niche in the bookcase beside the fireplace.
The niche was occupied by a small rabbit with black button eyes and a pale pink flannel hide. His name was Reginald and he’d been my companion in adventure for as long as I could remember. I never entered the study without greeting him, but tonight’s greeting was a somber announcement rather than a cheery “Hello, Reg!”
“The Pym sisters are sick,” I said, touching the faded grape juice stain on Reginald’s powder-pink snout. “They may not last the night, so I hope you won’t mind if I skip the small talk. I need to speak with Aunt Dimity.”
Reginald’s eyes seemed to gleam solemnly in the firelight, as if he understood the gravity of the situation. I nodded to him, then pulled the blue journal from its shelf and sat in one of the tall leather armchairs facing the fireplace. Instead of opening the journal, however, I rested my hand on its smooth front cover and gazed at the leaping flames.
Until that moment I hadn’t considered how difficult it would be to tell Aunt Dimity about the Pyms. The cottage she’d bequeathed to me had been the one in which she’d been born and raised. She’d known Ruth and Louise her entire life. Although she was intimately familiar with death, I wasn’t sure how she’d react when I told her that two of her oldest friends were about to join her in the great beyond.
I looked up at Reginald, found strength in his kindly gaze, and opened the journal.
“Dimity?” I said. “I’m afraid I have some sad news to tell you.”
I blinked as Aunt Dimity’s elegant handwriting swept across the page in a blur of royal-blue ink.
Does it concern Will, Rob, Bill, or William?
“They’re fine,” I assured her hastily. “So am I and so is Stanley. But Ruth and Louise Pym aren’t.”
Oh, dear. What has happened to them?
“Their hearts are giving out,” I said gently. “Dr. Finisterre doesn’t think they have much longer to live. . . .” I went on to tell her about the doctor’s diagnosis, the villagers’ outpouring of affection, and the postponement of the long-awaited wedding. When I finished, there was an extended pause in which nothing new appeared on the page. Then the handwriting began again, more slowly this time, as if Aunt Dimity were lost in distant memories.
I owe them my life, you know. After Bobby died, I didn’t want to go on living.
I stopped breathing for a moment, then leaned closer to the page. Bobby MacLaren had been Aunt Dimity’s one true love. He’d been shot down over the English Channel during the Battle of Britain and his body had never been found. She rarely mentioned him.
Ruth and Louise wouldn’t let me give in to my grief. They rousted me out of the cottage and put me to work in their vegetable garden. They didn’t tell me that life goes on. They let me see it for myself. As I weeded and watered and watched green shoots reach for the sun, I gradually began to blossom again. I’ve never forgotten the lessons I learned in their garden. And one of those lessons is, of course, that every life comes to an end. So it’s their time at last. I can’t say that it’s unexpected, but it will be very strange to think of Finch without them.
“Yes, it will,” I agreed. In a small village, every person counted, but the Pyms counted more than most not only because they were good and decent women, but because they connected Finch to its past in a way no one else could. “The whole village will go into mourning when they die.”
I should hope so. But after the mourning, life will go on. I’m glad the boys had a chance to know them. It’s fortunate, too, that you’ve had time to say good-bye to them.
“I hope I have time to do more than that,” I said. “They asked me to do a favor for them, Dimity, and I’d really like to do it while they’re still around to know that it’s been done.”
What favor have they asked of you?
“They asked me to find Aubrey,” I said.
Aubrey? They asked for Aubrey?
“They asked me to find Aubrey,” I repeated.
They must have been delirious.
“They didn’t seem delirious to me,” I said. “To tell you the truth, they seemed remarkably clearheaded.”
They couldn’t have been clearheaded, Lori, or they wouldn’t have asked you to find Aubrey.
“Why not?” I asked.
Because Aubrey can’t possibly be alive. He was five years older than Ruth and Louise. He must be dead and buried by now.
“Let’s back up a step,” I said. “Who is Aubrey?”
Didn’t they tell you?
“They’re as weak as kittens,” I explained. “They asked me to find Aubrey, then drifted off to sleep before they could give me further details.”
Vagueness was ever their hallmark, bless them. Very well, then, I’ll tell you what I know. Ruth and Louise weren’t the only children in the Pym family. There was a boy as well. Aubrey Jeremiah Pym was the Pym sisters’ older brother.