“Come,” said a deep voice.
Nell followed me into a spacious drawing room that wouldn’t have looked out of place in number three, Anne Elizabeth Court—or the eighteenth century. The walls were painted a pale leaf-green, damask drapes covered the windows, and a mirror-bright oak floor reflected fine antique furnishings. There were candle sconces on the walls and oil lamps on the tables, but no electric lights, no telephone, television, radio—no visible concession whatsoever to the modern world.
Uncle Williston sat in a shield-back chair at a Queen Anne kneehole desk, with his back to the door. Even seated, he was an imposing figure, as large as Arthur, but with none of his son’s softness. He wore a black tailcoat, black knee-breeches, white stockings, and square-toed black shoes with silver buckles. His long white hair had been pulled back into a softly curling ponytail that was held in place by a black velvet ribbon. I could see the feathery tip of a quill pen bobbing in his right hand and hear the scratch of its sharpened tip across the paper. At our entrance, he stopped writing and turned slowly, his back erect, his face an expressionless mask.
Then he gasped. Looking straight past me, he flung his arms wide and threw himself to his knees with a cry that was almost a sob.
“Sybella! I knew you’d come!”
18.
Nell’s eyes were as wide as a deer’s in headlights. I’d warned her about Uncle Williston’s delusions, but she obviously hadn’t expected to be included in them. Nor, for that matter, had I, and I watched in wary anticipation as the old man used the chair seat to lever himself to his feet.
I was struck at once by Uncle Williston’s resemblance to Arthur and, by extension, Bill. I’d always suspected that my husband had grown his beard to conceal a weak chin, but there was nothing weak about Uncle Williston’s cleanshaven features. He had a strong jawline, a fine, high forehead, and the same expressive brown eyes that Bill hid behind black-framed glasses. If he aged as well as Uncle Williston, I mused, Bill would one day be a distinguished-looking elder statesman.
When Williston had drawn himself to his full height, he straightened his snowy neckcloth, ran a hand over his white hair, and shook out the wrist frills that fell from the sleeves of his black tailcoat. His brown eyes remained fixed on Nell’s face as he crossed over to me and, much to my surprise, pressed a glittering one-pound coin into my palm.
“I owe you much for bringing forth my lady,” he murmured. “You may go now.”
“Stay!” cried Nell, and I was perversely pleased to detect a note of panic in her voice.
Uncle Williston, however, nodded knowingly. “I understand,” he said to her. “You cannot maintain your present form unaided.” He gestured to a gilded footstool beside the door. “You may wait here, Magister,” he told me.
I sat.
Williston turned to Nell. “Can you take tea, my lady?” he asked. His question confirmed a suspicion that made this extremely strange encounter even stranger. Uncle Williston, it seemed, thought he was addressing a ghost. And he seemed to think I’d summoned her.
Nell swallowed hard, then swung into action. She raised her chin, met Uncle Williston’s gaze directly, and refused his offer. “I have not come here today for food or drink, my lord.”
“Indeed.” Williston nodded gravely. “Pray sit with me awhile, then. We have much to discuss.”
“And little time to discuss it,” Nell put in quickly. “I must return whence I came before sunset.”
Williston’s face darkened with distress, but he quickly mastered his emotions. “Then we must make the most of every moment. Come, my lady.” He motioned for Nell to take a seat on a backless settee in front of the windows.
Williston’s vocabulary was not, strictly speaking, of the eighteenth century, and his mannered delivery brought to mind the fruity accents used by second-rate Shake spearean actors to signal the audience that they were hearing something highbrow that had been written sometime prior to the Great Depression. He stood with one white-stockinged leg well forward, walked with a mincing gait ill-suited to his size, and bowed with a flurry of wrist frills that would have been farcical if his expression hadn’t been so sincere.
I felt invisible in my perch near the door, but I didn’t object. I was only too glad to be relegated to the sidelines. The game being played in Uncle Williston’s mind was way out of my league.