“She did.” Tom gave off another wheezing chuckle. “Cousin William said you’d be surprised.”
Thunderstruck would have been more accurate. I’d taken it for granted that Dimity had been drawn back to the cottage solely because of her concern for Willis, Sr. I could see now that I’d been wrong. She must have been concerned about Uncle Tom as well. He was a Starling House kid, one of her own, part of the family she’d created to make up for the one she’d lost when the love of her life had been shot down over the Channel. Tom was as much Dimity’s child as I was. She must have known that something was troubling him, and decided to lend a hand. It just so happened that the hand she had to lend belonged to me.
“Did the Willis family adopt you formally?” I asked.
Tom nodded. “And sent me to school and university. It was rough going at first, but Williston stood up for me every time I put a foot wrong. After a while, I was known simply as the elder son of the family.”
Bill leaned forward. “Does Gerald know that you were adopted?”
“Naturally,” said Tom. “I’ve always been totally honest with my son.” He paused. “I wish I could say that he’s been equally truthful’ with me.” The flowing conversation stopped abruptly. Nurse Watling looked up from her book, but whether she was checking on her patient or simply waiting for him to go on, I couldn’t tell.
“Do you have children?” Tom asked finally.
“Not yet,” I replied, slipping my hand into Bill’s.
“When you do,” Tom said, staring out at the distant horizon, “you will learn that the worst thing in the world is to know that your child is in torment, and not know why.” His fingers fluttered toward the cast on Bill’s arm. “Broken bones will mend, and so will broken hearts, given the proper care and attention. But you can give neither when you don’t know what’s wrong. Helplessness in the face of a child’s suffering is the curse of parenthood.”
Nurse Wading put her book down, filled the glass with water, and brought it to Tom. She helped him to drink, tucked his blankets up again, and stood over him for a moment, as though debating whether or not he was fit enough to continue. Then she reached for the battered old giraffe and nestled it in the mound of blankets on Tom’s lap.
“Dear old Geraldine,” Tom said, breathing slowly and evenly. “We’ve seen it all, haven’t we, old girl?”
Nurse Watling sat down again, but left the book lying on the table and maintained a vigilant watch over her patient.
“Gerald comes to see me every month,” Tom went on. “He always brings a beautiful new book for my library, sometimes a rare edition. We talk about the Shuttleworth Collection, the family, my health—but we never talk about Gerald. I know that my child is suffering, and I would give anything, anything in the world, if he would only tell me why.”
I tightened my grip on Bill’s hand, wondering if Tom had made the same confession to Willis, Sr. Had the two men sat together beneath the clear summer sky, sharing stories about the dutiful sons who were breaking their hearts?
“Perhaps he doesn’t want to worry you,” I offered.
Tom gave my words a moment’s thought before rejecting them. “It is a father’s privilege to worry about his son. What right has he to take that from me?”
“The right of every son to protect his father,” said Bill, looking down at his cast. “I can testify from personal experience that the two rights often come into conflict.”
“Can you?” said Tom. “You must tell me all about it one day. I might learn something useful.”
“Mr. Willis,” said Nell, “do you know about the woman Gerald’s been seeing in London?”
I turned on her, frowning. “Not now, Nell.”
“No, no,” Tom reproved. “Let the child speak.” He shifted slightly in his cocoon of blankets, the better to see Nell. “Yes. Arthur’s spoken of her. William did as well, now that you mention it. I must say that she doesn’t sound like my son’s type.”
“Do you remember the doctor Douglas got involved with?” Nell asked. “The one who gave him all of those pills?”
“How could anyone forget Sally the—” Tom broke off suddenly, and his face took on the same glow of revelation that had graced Lucy’s. He closed his eyes and leaned his head against the cushions. “Blackmail,” he said after a time, in a voice that was scarcely audible. “It must be.”
“That’s what we thought,” I said. “We hoped you might know something about it.”
“Let me think,” Tom said. “Let me think....” A frail hand crept out from under the blankets to stroke Geraldine‘s crooked neck. “He said ... he left ... the firm ... because of mistakes.”
“Swann told us that was nonsense,” I said.
“ ‘Tis,” Tom agreed succinctly, and seemed to gather strength from the thought. “Gerald never put a foot wrong.”