Bill blinked a few times, then grinned. “You don’t say.”
“It’s right here in black and white: ‘…that night in Berkeley Square when I introduced you to Joe.’ I knew they had met during the war, but not that Dimity was behind it. Well, they were a great match.”
“Do you believe in that sort of thing?” Bill asked.
“What, matchmaking?” I paused to consider. It wasn’t something I’d given much thought to. “I guess there’s nothing wrong with it. If you know the people well enough, if you think it might work—why not bring them together? What harm could it do?”
“None that I can think of,” said Bill.
“Why? Has your father tried it?”
“No,” he said, going back to his reading. “He’d consider it impertinent, bless him.”
It must be the “desiccated aunts,” I thought, the ones he’d mentioned that morning in the guest suite. Did they parade their favorite nephew before a bevy of suitable females? It might explain why his father thought he was shy around women. I felt a touch of pity for him, but the temptation to tease got the better of me. “Bill?”
“Yes?”
“Does your matchmaker consider you a tough assignment?”
He put down the letter he was reading and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Why do you ask?”
“Well, you’re not married yet. Do you have something against matchmaking?”
Bill tilted his head to one side, as though debating whether to joke or give me a straight answer. I was a little surprised when he chose the latter.
“Not at all,” he said. “There have been a few romances along the way, but nothing that stuck. It’s a matter of time as much as anything. First college, then the Peace Corps—”
“You were in the Peace Corps?” I was impressed.
“For four years. I re-upped twice. Then came law school, then learning the ropes at the firm. No breaks for the son of the house, I’m afraid. And my job entails a lot of traveling, which makes it difficult to maintain any sort of ongoing relationship. But now that you mention it, maybe I am a tough assignment.” He held up a frayed cuff and shrugged. “Let’s face it. I’m not movie star material.”
“But I think you’re—” I broke off midprotest, realizing that I was on the verge of telling him that he was more attractive than any movie star and that the women who had rejected him had probably been shallow, vain, and dumber than doorstops. “I think you’re forgetting,” I said carefully, “that you were busy establishing yourself in your career.”
“Mmm, maybe that was part of it. Anything else you’d like to know?”
“No, no, I was just, uh, wondering….” I returned to my reading, but a short time later, I couldn’t help looking up again. “Bill?”
“Mmm?”
“What did you do in the Peace Corps?”
“I gave puppet shows,” he replied, still concentrating on the letter in his hand.
“Puppet shows?”
He put the letter down. “Yes. I gave puppet shows. I was sent to Swaziland—that’s the place in southern Africa, by the way, not the place with the Alps—to teach English and after two years of using more traditional teaching methods, I added puppet shows.”
“What a great idea.” My mother had tried the same thing in her classroom.
“They were a big hit, education and entertainment in one neat package. I ended up traveling around the country in a Land Rover, giving shows in schools, churches, kraals, anywhere they sent me.” He lifted his hand and began to talk with it, as though it were a puppet. “Sahnibonani beguneni.”
“What does that mean?” I asked, delighted.
“Roughly? ‘Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.’ That’s about all the SiSwati I remember after all these years. Oh, and: Ngee oot sanzi, Lori.”
“What’s that?”
Bill smiled. “Let’s get back to work, Lori.”
*
The news about my parents’ meeting was the biggest revelation, but even the small ones fascinated me. After demobilizing, Dimity had remained in London: busy, happy, and unexpectedly up to her elbows in children.
My Dearest Beth,
You will think me quite mad, for I have decided not to return to Finch. Moreover, I have taken off one uniform and put on another. No, I have not taken holy orders—perish the thought!—but I have signed on with Leslie Gordon at Starling House, a quite sacred place in its own right.
I believe I told you of my friend, Pearl Ripley. She married an airman, young Brian Ripley, who was killed in the Battle of Britain. She was a bride one day, a widow the next, and a mother nine months later. I once questioned the wisdom of wartime marriages—even you waited until after the Armistice to marry Joe