“Sounds like he was trying to disassociate himself from Julia Louise,” I commented. “Not a bad idea.”
“I’ve got something more on Gerald, if you’re interested,” Emma said. “It’s about why he left the firm. Let me see, where did I put it?”
While Emma searched through her notes, I stared out of the window. We were driving through open country now. The hedged-in, patchwork fields of the south had given way to the Midlands’ broader vistas. Great golden swaths of barley, corn, and rippling wheat filled the wide horizons. I fixed my gaze on a plume of dust trailing behind a distant combine harvester, and wished that my pulse wouldn’t jump every time someone mentioned Gerald’s name.
“Here, I’ve found it,” Emma said. “Rumor has it that Gerald misplaced a few decimal points on a client’s settlement. The money was restored, and the incident hushed up, but the timing was bad. The firm had just gone through the bad patch I told you about, and they were afraid that one more scandal would cause a fatal crisis of confidence.”
“He was under a lot of pressure at the time,” I murmured.
“What? Speak up, Lori. I missed that last bit.”
“I was just saying that Lucy’s under a lot of pressure,” I replied quickly. “It’s a shame Gerald had to leave. She could use his help.”
Nell reminded me to ask Emma to look for information on Sybella Markham, and her reminder prompted me to describe our visit to Uncle Williston. Emma was stunned to hear that Douglas and Sibyl were dead.
“Good heavens!” she exclaimed. “Nobody said a word about it to me.” She paused before adding thoughtfully, “Maybe it’s because they died in Canada. Nobody here pays much attention to what goes on there.”
“Under the circumstances, I’m sure the family kept the whole thing as quiet as they could,” I told her.
“Oh, Lori ...” Emma sighed. “If I wasn’t totally committed to my runner beans today, I’d hop in the car and race you to Aunt Anthea’s. I only get to hear about these people. You get to meet them.”
“I’ll invite them all to a family reunion at the cottage,” I promised, and I was only half joking. I’d be interested to see how my levelheaded friend reacted to Arthur, Lucy, Uncle Williston, and perhaps most of all, to Gerald.
21.
I tried reaching Bill again, to no avail. We passed Don-caster, Pontefract, and Leeds, turned east for York, then northeast for Pickering. By two o‘clock, the open fields of golden grain had been replaced by solid walls of broad, steep hills that cut off the horizon. Patches of woodland shaded roads nestled into narrow valleys, and crooked streams ran fast and cold beneath medieval gray stone bridges. We’d reached the southern edge of the North York Moors.
Six miles beyond Pickering lay the village of Lastingham. It was a pretty place, a collection of gray stone houses tucked into a shadowy pocket of trees at the head of a small river. The parish church, according to Paul’s atlas, had been founded in the seventh century by Saint Cedd, a Northumbrian bishop and missionary, who was buried beneath its crypt. Saint Mary’s was a place of pilgrimage, and it drew me like a magnet, but as soon as Paul had parked the limo in the widest part of the village street, Nell pulled me toward the Blacksmith’s Arms.
“Lunch and information,” she murmured, “are more important than sightseeing.”
She was right, of course. Aunt Dimity had conveyed Anthea’s address with her usual carefree disregard for details. The village pub would no doubt be the place to get them—and lunch.
Much to my surprise, Paul joined us on the pub’s doorstep. For a brief, delightful moment I thought he’d finally thrown decorum to the wind, but, alas, his decision was motivated by strict propriety. It wouldn’t do, he told us, for ladies such as ourselves to go chatting up a pack of strangers. If we’d kindly stand aside, he’d undertake the onerous task of interviewing the landlord himself.
Nell and I were in the midst of giving our separate but strikingly similar responses to Paul’s offer—the phrase “perfectly capable of looking after ourselves” formed a chorus—when we both pulled up short, distracted by sounds that seemed to come from another age.
A clatter of hooves and a braying whinny were followed by the thump of riding boots hitting the asphalt as a tall woman dismounted from a fifteen-hand bay gelding not twenty feet away from us. The woman appeared to be on the far side of middle age, but she moved with the muscular grace of a natural athlete and cut an imposing figure in trim fawn jodhpurs, a fitted black riding coat, shiny black boots, and a black velvet riding helmet. Her hair was gray and her face weathered, but her full lips, high forehead, and dark-brown eyes marked her as a descendant of the infamous Julia Louise.
“Is that your bus?” she demanded, waving her riding crop in the direction of the limousine.