Arthur Hargreaves, his wife, and as many of their children and grandchildren as they could gather together at one time trooped through the wrought-iron gate to attend the reception. They came bedecked in flowers and bearing kites that quickly filled the clear blue sky. The villagers I’d failed to reach in my role as emissary were too entranced by the sight of a dragon chasing a biplane to remain standoffish. Harriet won over the last holdout by informing Jasper Taxman quite seriously that his wife had the most magnificent speaking voice she’d ever heard. After that, Peggy boomed to anyone who would listen that the Hargreaveses weren’t so bad after all.
The old cart track was paved, the drainage system was repaired, the encroaching shrubs were trimmed, and the low-hanging tree branches were removed. Charles and Grant were the first to ride their bicycles on it, but Emma Harris was the first to use it as a bridle path. More often it’s used as a walking path by ramblers and villagers alike. No one in Finch wants to miss a launch day.
Arthur was happy to show Grant and Charles his da Vinci and to employ them to frame the botanical painting he’d commissioned from Amelia as a birthday gift for Harriet, who, as it turned out, was a budding botanist, which explained her experiments with cacao beans.
The wrought-iron gate is seldom still. Will and Rob visit Hillfont Abbey to play in the faux ruins, Amelia goes there to paint the flowers in the broad meadow, and Willis, Sr., spends long hours chatting with Arthur in the library. Bess and I return there often and when we do, we’re treated like members of the veritable horde.
“Harriet was right,” I said, looking down at the blue journal. “Everything—everything—begins with the imagination.”
It was August. The hedgerows bordering my little lane were beginning to look dusty and the pastures beyond the hedgerows were becoming parched, but the study was cool and pleasantly shadowy, sheltered from the harsh sunlight by the strands of ivy that crisscrossed the diamond-paned windows above the old oak desk.
I glanced at Bess, who was kicking up her heels in her bouncy chair, then at Bianca the unicorn, who, I’d decided, would share Reginald’s niche until Bess was old enough to refrain from eating her, before returning my gaze to the journal to watch Aunt Dimity’s elegant copperplate curl and loop across the page.
Quentin Hargreaves had a far-reaching imagination. Not many men could have foreseen the fates that would befall so many small villages in England. Even fewer could have conceived of a scheme that would keep one of the smallest from suffering a similar fate.
“Bill and I drove to Tillcote this morning, after we dropped the boys off at the stables,” I said. “Rich people live in the old houses, the old guard lives in council housing, and the highway’s hum followed us wherever we went. The rector at All Saints wanted to charge us ten pounds—apiece—for a churchyard tour.”
Tillcote went the way of the modern world. Thanks to Quentin and his descendants, Finch didn’t.
“Thanks to you, I own our cottage,” I said. “I still don’t understand why Monoceros Properties, Limited, agreed to sell it to you. You didn’t live here as a full-time resident after you moved to London. I’m surprised the Edwards Estate Agency didn’t write you off as an absentee tenant.”
Old Mr. Edwards did write me off as an absentee tenant, but I convinced him that my heir wouldn’t be an absentee. I told him that she would build a life here for herself and her family. I promised him that she would do her bit for Finch, that she would give back more than she took, that she would be willing to do the real work of the village.
“Your imagination was as far-reaching as Quentin’s,” I said, smiling.
Fortunately, my pockets were as deep as his, too. I clinched the deal by paying the company three times the cottage’s fair market value.
“Good grief,” I said weakly.
It was purely a matter of self-interest, I assure you. I’d detected a pattern in the agency’s choice of tenants. I suspected that a wealthy American heiress wouldn’t be allowed to lease my cottage. By purchasing it and bequeathing it to you, I made my own dreams come true. My cottage has become your home. My village has become your village. And I’ve had the great good fortune to be by your side—in a manner of speaking—every step of the way. I can hardly wait for you to embark on your next adventure.
“I’m pretty sure my next adventure will involve teething,” I said. “It may be a little less pleasant than solving the mystery of the empty cottages.”
Less pleasant for you and for Bess. Are the cottages still empty?
“Yep,” I said, “but Marigold brought a potter to see Rose Cottage yesterday. He liked Peggy’s sign-up sheets and he ate two of Sally’s jam doughnuts. He didn’t drink a full glass of Dick’s wine, but he didn’t spit out his first mouthful. He gave as good as he got with the Handmaidens, he found the wall paintings in St. George’s fascinating, and he lapped up Grant’s and Charles’s tales of woe. So the signs are good, Dimity. The potter may be a contender.”
Fingers crossed, as the saying goes.
“Well,” I said, making a face at Bess, “I’d better get moving. I promised Harriet I’d bring Bess to Hillfont today.”