Mignon smiled. “Oh, I’m the exception to every rule there is,” was her airy reply.
LAKE WINDERMERE
CUMBRIA
There was at least some truth in what Mignon had said. Manette had loved Ian once romantically, but it had been a young adolescent’s love, insubstantial and unsustainable albeit as obvious as the longing looks she’d cast in his direction over family dinners and the desperate letters she’d written and pressed into his hand at the end of holidays when he left for school.
Ian, alas, had not shared her passion. He’d been fond enough of Manette but there had finally come that one dreadful and never forgotten moment when he’d taken her aside during a half-term holiday, had handed her a shoe box of every one of her letters unopened, and had said to her, “Listen. Burn these, Manette. I know what they are, but it’s just not on.” He’d spoken not unkindly because unkindness had never been his way. But firmness had, and he’d been firm.
Well, we all survive these things, Manette had thought eventually. But now she wondered if some women weren’t constituted in a way to do so.
She went in search of her father. She found him on the west side of Ireleth Hall, far down on the lawn and quite near the lake. He was speaking to someone on his mobile phone, his head down as if with concentration. She considered coming upon him stealthily, but before she could do so, he concluded his call. He turned from the water to move towards the house, but when he saw her heading in his direction, he remained where he was and waited for her.
Manette tried to assess the look on his face. It was strange that he’d come out of the hall to make a phone call. He could, of course, have been having a walk and received a call in the midst of it. But somehow she doubted this. There was a furtiveness to the manner in which he slid the mobile into his pocket.
“Why’ve you let all this go on?” she asked her father as she came to his side. She was taller than he, just as her mother was.
Fairclough said, “Which part of ‘all this’ are you referring to?”
“Freddie’s got Ian’s books. He’s printed the spreadsheets. He’s got the programmes. You must have known he’d be putting things in order after Ian.”
“He’s demonstrating his competency, is Freddie. He’d like control of the firm.”
“That’s not his style, Dad. He’d take control of the firm if that’s what you asked of him, but that’s the extent of it. Freddie doesn’t scheme.”
“Are you certain?”
“I know Freddie.”
“We always think we know our spouses. But we never quite know them well enough.”
“I hope you’re not accusing Freddie of anything. That’s not on.”
Bernard smiled thinly. “As it happens, I’m not. He’s a very good man.”
“As it happens, he is.”
“Your divorce … It always puzzled me. Nick and Mignon” — Fairclough fluttered his fingers in the general direction of the folly — “they had their demons, but you didn’t seem to. I was pleased when you and Freddie married. She’s chosen well, I thought. To see it end, to have it dissolve as it has… You’ve made very few mistakes in your life, Manette, but letting Freddie go was one of them.”
“These things happen,” Manette said shortly.
“If we allow them,” was her father’s reply.
Now those were truly infuriating words, Manette thought, all things considered. “Like you allowed Vivienne Tully to happen?” she asked.
Bernard’s gaze didn’t leave her face. Manette knew what was going on in his head. It was that rapid assessment of all the potential sources from which had sprung his daughter’s question. It was also a wondering of what, exactly, Manette did know.
He said, “Vivienne Tully is in the past. She’s been gone a very long time.”
He was casting his line most delicately. Two could fish in these waters, though, so Manette cast hers. “The past is never as gone as we would like it to be. It has a way of coming back to us. Rather like Vivienne’s coming back to you.”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“I mean Ian’s been paying her off for years. Monthly, it seems. Years and years of monthly. You’ll know that, of course.”
He frowned. “Actually, I know nothing of the sort.”
Manette tried to read him. His skin wore a glittering of sweat and she wanted that to mean something significant about who he was and what he might have done. She said at last, “I don’t believe you. There was always something about you and Vivienne Tully.”
He said, “Vivienne was part of a past that I allowed to happen.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“That I failed myself in a human moment.”
“I see,” Manette said.
“Not everything,” her father countered. “I wanted Vivienne, and she agreed to my wanting. But neither of us ever intended — ”
“Oh, people never do, do they?” Manette heard the edge of bitterness in her words. Its presence surprised her. What, after all, was her father saying that in her heart she’d not suspected for years: a long-ago affair with a very young woman. What was this to her, his daughter? It was nothing at all, yet everything at once, and the hell in the moment was that Manette did not know why.
“People
“You and Vivienne Tully. I have to be honest. I don’t mean to hurt you but I can’t see why Vivienne would have wanted to sleep with you.”
“She didn’t.”
“Sleep with you? Oh, please.”
“No. That’s not what I mean.” Fairclough looked towards the hall and then away. There was a path along Lake Windermere, rising towards a woodland that marked the far north edge of the property. He said, “Walk with me. I’ll try to explain.”
“I don’t want an explanation.”
“No. But you’re troubled. I’m part of what troubles you. Walk with me, Manette.” He took her arm and Manette felt the pressure of his fingers through the wool sweater she was wearing. She wanted to loosen his grip and walk away from him and make that departure a permanent one, but she was as trapped as was her sister by the fact that Bernard had wanted a son so badly. Unlike Mignon, who’d spent her life punishing him for this desire, Manette had tried to be that for him, adopting his ways, his postures, his habits, his manner of speaking and standing and gazing intently at someone with whom he was conversing and even working in his business from the time she was able, all to show him she was a worthy son. Which, of course, she could never be. Then the son he’d had was unworthy from the start, no matter how he’d redeemed himself recently, and even that had not been enough to turn her father’s eyes upon her so he could see her merit. Thus, she didn’t want to walk with the bastard and she didn’t want to hear his lies about Vivienne Tully, whatever they were going to be.
He said, “Children don’t like to hear about their parents’ sexuality. It’s unseemly.”
“If this is going to be about Mother… some rejection of you…”
“God no. Your mother never once… No matter. It’s about me. I wanted Vivienne for no reason other than I wanted Vivienne. Her youth, her freshness.”
“I don’t want — ”
“You brought her up, my dear. You must hear it through. There was no seduction involved. Had you thought
