Aunt Dimity's Christmas Read Online Free Page A

he wouldn’t stop.” Louise’s bright bird’s eyes widened as she added, “It was rather eerie, to be honest. He reminded us so strongly …”
    â€œâ€¦ of poor Robert Anscombe, who died so long ago,” said Ruth. “He lost an arm in the trenches in 1917, and his face was so sadly disfigured that he couldn’t bear to be with other people …”
    â€œâ€¦ so he always took the bridle path, to avoid being seen,” Louise finished.
    I saw Nell nod. The Harrises had lived in Anscombe Manor for the past eight years. The house had been a wreck when they’d moved into it, and the grounds had been sorely neglected. The Anscombe family, once Finch’s local gentry, had faded from the scene some thirty years earlier. Now there was little to remember them by but a pair of effigies and assorted marble plaques in Saint George’s Church.
    â€œWe urged him to come in out of the storm,” said Ruth, “but he said he would be stopping soon enough.”
    â€œWhere?” said Bill.
    â€œAt Dimity Westwood’s cottage,” said Louise.
    Of course, I thought. If the tramp had come to the cottage to see anyone, it had to have been Dimity Westwood. The woman from whom I’d inherited the cottage had known a wide range of people during her lifetime, including those at the lowest end of the social scale.
    Willis, Sr., shifted Will from his shoulder to his lap before stating the obvious. “The gentleman must be ignorant of the fact that Miss Westwood is dead.”
    The sisters nodded in tandem.
    â€œWe tried to tell him,” Ruth said. “But he couldn’t hear us …”
    â€œâ€¦ over the wind,” said Louise, “and the coughing.”
    â€œDid he say anything else about Dimity?” Bill asked.
    â€œNothing,” said Ruth. “He simply waved …”
    â€œâ€¦ and went on his way,” said Louise. “We’ve been terribly concerned about him. How is the poor gentleman?”
    Bill caught my eye and jutted his chin toward the hallway. While he launched into a detailed description of the morning’s activities, I excused myself and headed for the study. It was clear that my husband wanted me to speak with Aunt Dimity.

D imity Westwood was not, in an official sense, my aunt. Nor was she, technically speaking, alive. The former was far easier to explain than the latter.
    Dimity Westwood had been my late mother’s closest friend. They’d met in London during the Second World War and maintained a steady correspondence long after the war was over. I grew up hearing about Aunt Dimity, but only as a fictional character in a series of bedtime stories. I didn’t learn about the real Dimity Westwood until after her death, when she bequeathed to me a considerable fortune, a honey-colored cottage in the Cotswolds, and a blue leather–bound journal with blank pages, which I kept on a shelf in the study.
    It was through the blue journal that I came to know my benefactress. Dimity Westwood was not the sort of person who’d let a little thing like death interrupt the habits of a lifetime, so she continued her correspondence long after her mortal remains had dwindled into dust.
    When I opened the blue journal, Aunt Dimity’s handwritingappeared, an elegant copperplate taught in the village school at a time when high-buttoned shoes were still in vogue. I had no idea how Dimity managed to bridge the gap between earth and eternity, and I kept the blue journal a closely held secret, but I cherished her presence in the cottage and hoped she would never leave.
    â€œDimity?” I sat in one of the pair of tall leather armchairs that flanked the hearth, with the journal open in my lap. I glanced at the closed door and kept my voice low, understandably reluctant to have my guests hear me addressing a dead woman. “Dimity?” I repeated, and felt a thrill course though me as the familiar,