I ticked off items on my fingers. “Such as ... why Gerald left the firm—and why he was seeing Sally. Such as who Sybella Markham was. Such as why you think number three, Anne Elizabeth Court, belongs to you.” I flung my hands up. “It’s a tangle of unconnected bits and pieces, but—”
“You’re half right,” Gerald said softly. “It is a tangle, I’ll grant you, but the bits and pieces are very much connected.” He pressed his palms together and slowly interlaced his slender fingers. “Sybella and Sally ... past and present ... the sins of the fathers and of the sons ...” His voice faded to a whisper as he pressed his clasped hands to his forehead.
Willis, Sr., regarded him steadily. “What a wearisome burden for one man to bear,” he said. “It is time to put it down, Gerald. It is time to tell us the truth.” He resumed his seat, took his pocket watch from his waistcoat, consulted it, and returned it to his pocket. “Considering our earlier discussion and the time factor involved, I would like you to start by telling us the truth about Sybella.”
“I knew it,” Nell said under her breath. “I knew Sybella was real.”
29.
Gerald’s boyish charm had deserted him. He looked exhausted, drained, as though the strain of the past two years had finally overwhelmed him. He leaned forward on the couch, bowed his head, and caught his lower lip between his teeth, just as he’d done in the silent, empty aisle at Saint Bartholomew’s.
“Sybella Markham,” he began, “was the only child of a coachmaker in Bath.” He spoke to no one in particular, in a dazed and distant voice, scarcely moving, and never looking up. “Her parents died when she was still quite young, but her father had made provisions for her future. He’d bought property, from which his daughter would derive an ample income, and he’d placed her welfare in the hands of the most respectable solicitors in Bath.”
“The firm of Willis & Willis,” said Bill.
“It was just the one Willis back then,” Gerald informed him. “Sir Williston Willis, knighted for services to the Crown. He had twin boys, a wife, and more than enough room in his fine house for his new ward, young Sybella. The years passed, the boys grew into manhood, and their father eventually died.”
“That’s when his widow decided to try her wings in London,” I said, and from the comer of my eye I saw Nell nod.
Gerald reached for the ice bag and held it to his swollen face. “Julia Louise decided many things after her husband’s death. She decided to marry Sybella to the elder twin, and thus acquire her ward’s valuable properties. She also decided to move the family firm into one of those properties before the wedding had taken place.”
Nell continued to nod as Gerald confirmed her hunches, one by one. “But Sybella didn’t marry the elder twin,” she ventured, “because she fell in love with his younger brother. Isn’t that right?”
“Foolish Sybella.” Gerald sighed. “She not only fell in love with the scapegrace Lord William, she married him, secretly, and presented Julia Louise with a fait accompli.”
“Julia Louise must have been furious,” said Nell. “Did she send Sybella away, as she did with Lord William?”
Gerald’s lips quivered into something very like a smile. “I suppose you could say that, yes. She sent her son to the colonies, certainly, where he founded Cousin William’s branch of the family.”
“Wait a minute,” I objected. “Lord William’s wife was named Charlotte Something-or-other. Are you saying that he was a bigamist? Is that why Julia Louise was so ashamed of him?”
Gerald seemed to fold in on himself in a fit of silent laughter that ended in a sob. He rubbed his forehead for a moment, as though collecting his wits, then rose to his feet abruptly and left the room. When he returned he was carrying a wooden crate similar to those I’d seen in the reliquary room during my first visit to the Larches. He placed the crate on the coffee table and beckoned to us to come closer. I stood at Bill’s side, peering nervously at Gerald, unsettled by his reaction to my question.
When we’d gathered round the crate, Gerald bent to lift the lid, and I leaned forward for a better view. At first I couldn’t tell what I was looking at. Something white, with bits of cloth, and a strange, musty odor.
“Good God.” Bill recoiled, gasping, his hand covering his mouth.
I looked again and my heart stood still as my brain accepted what my eyes were seeing—a skull, a human skull, yawned grotesquely from a nest of human bones. A strand or two of golden hair still clung to the fragile temples, and the tattered remains of an embroidered gown lay among the brittle bones. A ring, perhaps a wedding band, gleamed on what once had been a dainty finger, and a scrap of wizened leather—a shoe?—poked out of a delicate rib cage.
“Allow me to introduce Sybella Willis.” Gerald’s eye was dull and lifeless. “Well before he reached the colonies, you see, Lord William was a widower.”