*
The entrance to the Harrises’ drive was less than a mile from the cottage, but the drive itself was a good half mile long, curving between rows of azalea bushes, then skirting the edge of a broad expanse of lawn. Ahead of me and to the left was what appeared to be a very soggy vegetable garden, while to the right stood a rambling three-story farmhouse built of the same honey-colored stone as the cottage. Low outbuildings clustered behind it, and the drive led into an open gravel yard littered with the debris of Derek’s profession: sawhorses, a sandpile, bricks, fieldstones, ladders. As I turned off the ignition, raucous barking sounded from the house, and a moment later Emma appeared on the doorstep, wearing a rose-colored corduroy skirt and a pale green cowl-neck sweater. Her long hair billowed behind her as she came to welcome me, sheltered from the storm by a striped golf umbrella.
Clambering out of the car, I began to deliver a string of apologies for my cool reaction to her warning about Dimity, but she stopped me. “No need for that,” she said, taking charge of Reginald. “I didn’t accept it at first, either.”
I cast an admiring glance at my surroundings. “This is an amazing place.”
“Six bedrooms and four baths in the main house.” Emma raised a hand to indicate the other buildings. “My potting shed, Derek’s workshop, the children’s lab—much safer to have it at a distance—the garage, and general storage. You never know what you’ll find in there.” A satellite dish lent an incongruous touch of modernity to the shingled roof of the children’s lab, and a two-foot-tall stone gargoyle leered demonically from the half-open door of the storage building. When we reached the doorstep of the main house, Emma stopped. “Do you like dogs?”
“Very much.”
“Good. We couldn’t have heard ourselves speak if I’d had to lock up Ham. He’ll calm down once he’s finished saying hello.” The low doorway led into a rectangular room with a flagstone floor, where we were greeted by an ebullient black Labrador retriever. He wagged his tail, grinned, and barked exuberantly, while I scratched his ears and told him what a handsome hound he was.
“My daughter found him when he was still a puppy,” Emma explained, “trussed up and tossed on the side of the road not far from here. She brought him home, we nursed him back to health, and she named him after her favorite tragic hero.”
“Hamlet?” I hazarded.
“As Nell is fond of pointing out, he always wears black.” Emma handed Reginald back to me, then put our umbrellas in a crowded stand beside the door and hung my jacket on a row of pegs with many others. Wellington boots, hiking boots, sneakers, and clogs lay in a jumble beneath a wooden church pew that stood against the far wall, and fishing poles, walking sticks, and four battered tennis rackets leaned in one corner. “We call this the mudroom, for obvious reasons. Come into the kitchen. I’ve just filled the pot.”
A brightly colored braided rug covered most of the kitchen floor, burgeoning herb plants trailed over the windowsills, and copper pots hung on hooks near the stove. From a crowded shelf on a tall dresser, Emma took cups, saucers, and a hand-labeled mason jar, placing them beside the teapot on the refectory table in the center of the room. Ham leaned against my leg adoringly as I sat in one of the rush-bottom chairs.
“Oh, Ham, stop flirting.” Emma ordered the dog to his blanket by the stove, then sat across from me. Her eyes lit up when I presented her with the bowl of oatmeal cookies. “Derek and the children will be so pleased. They’ve been after me to make some, but I simply haven’t had the time. You don’t mind if we talk in here, do you?”
“I can’t think of a better place.”
Emma handed me a steaming cup of tea, then pushed the mason jar toward me. “Raspberry jam I put up last summer. Try some in your tea.”
I stirred in a liberal dollop, took a sip, and sighed with pleasure. “Yum. Now, about our mutual friend. Would you like me to go first?”
Emma smiled. “Derek says that my orderly mind drives him crazy sometimes and right now I understand what he means. I can hardly wait to hear what’s happened to you, but…”
“First things first,” I said.
“I’m afraid so. And I’m terrible at making long stories short.”
“Take all the time you need,” I said. “I’m in no hurry.”