‘Lionel, was Lilian my—’
‘All in good time, Marnie. Lilian wanted you to inherit the manor before she’d even met you. You spoke to each other on the internet. You opened your hearts to each other, I know this. Emelie and I were . . . and you’ll forgive me . . . concerned for her welfare. Lilian could get very confused. She had slight brain damage from unregulated electroconvulsive treatment.’
‘Lilian did?’ Marnie shook her head in bewilderment. ‘When did she have that? I didn’t know.’
‘I’m coming to it. Emelie and I both recommended caution, until we could get to know you properly,’ Lionel went on. ‘It was an amazing coincidence, after all, that your birth date matched that of Lilian’s . . . confinement.’ He chose the word carefully. It was an old-fashioned term for pregnancy, Marnie knew.
‘You have to tell me, Lionel, am I Lilian’s child?’ asked Marnie, her voice small, stolen by emotion, by expectancy.
‘My dear girl, you aren’t,’ said Lionel, gently. ‘There never was a child.’
Marnie’s heart gave a delayed beat. She hadn’t realised how much she had wanted Lionel to say that she was until the moment when he said that she wasn’t. She felt punctured. Her face dropped into hands trembling with shock and she felt Lionel’s arms around her, pulling her into his chest.
‘I’m all too aware of rumours that I fathered Lilian’s baby and she was sent away to Ireland to have it, but it’s all untrue. But I let those convenient rumours persist. It kept people from sniffing around for more.’ He gave a little laugh. ‘It’s no secret that I have been in love with Lilian Dearman for most of our lives. I would have married her in an instant, but it was not to be. Then it became an easier truth for Lilian to accept, that she’d had a child out of wedlock and it had been taken from her.’
Marnie drew back from Lionel. ‘Why an easier truth? It was the nineteen eighties, not the eighteen eighties. If she’d had a baby and not been married, what difference would it make in this day and age?’
Lionel walked over to the books on the shelves and lifted one out. He found the page he wanted then set the book down on the library desk. It featured a photo of a large, puffy-faced country gent with bulging eyes and lots of facial hair. He looked like an obese wolf and had more than a passing resemblance to Titus.
‘Jago Dearman,’ explained Lionel. ‘The most hideous man in our solar system. A bully, a brute, an abuser of women. When you have power and money and status and connections, Marnie, you can override any rule you choose. Lilian and Rachel were indelibly scarred by this . . . animal. He had his wife sectioned, then locked away in a secure hospital after he discovered the affair with her doctor. The girls were allowed to visit her only once and it terrified them. He threatened to do the same to them if they ever tested his boundaries. Rachel of course tried to escape and tragically suffered for it, Lilian complied but . . . she was very unloved. And love was what she craved more than anything. So, when she found it, she threw caution to the wind.’
‘George Purcell?’
Lionel picked up the book and flicked to another page. Marnie could see, as he held it, that it was entitled The History of the Dales Families.
He put it back down in front of Marnie again. A formal family portrait. A beautiful blonde woman with a bouffant hairstyle in a sleeveless evening dress. In her arms a baby and two sombre-looking boys sitting beside her on a chaise. Behind her a ridiculously handsome man with short hair and wide shoulders in a white shirt and evening jacket. Generous lips, dark brown eyes.
‘George Purcell,’ said Lionel.
‘Handsome man,’ nodded Marnie.
‘And her husband Edwin.’
Marnie’s eyebrows sank under the weight of puzzlement. ‘Sorry? Is that not . . .’
‘Georgina Purcell, George to her friends,’ said Lionel.
‘Lilian had an affair with a woman?’
‘Yes,’ said Lionel. ‘A passionate and not very careful affair. George Purcell would never have left her husband, whom she loved; Lilian was a mere dalliance and the affair ended but Lilian . . . dear Lilian . . . was deeply in love and couldn’t let her go. Edwin came to see Jago who was of course livid that he had “an aberration for a daughter”. He arranged for Lilian to be taken – forcibly – to a hospital in Ireland, where they attempted to cure her.’
Marnie noticed how Lionel’s jaw twitched, how his fist clenched at his side.
‘What they did to her in that place was unspeakable. All in the name of religion.’ He shook his head in disgust. ‘My father was in charge of St Jude’s then, he was horrified at what Jago had done. He was instrumental in getting Lilian home again. Oh my, Marnie, you should have seen her. She was completely and utterly in pieces. Broken beyond help, we thought.’ Lionel stood up quickly, turned from her and she knew that he was hiding a tide of great emotion. She gave him time to recover, shifting her attention to the items on the library desk: a silver roller blotter, an art deco perpetual calendar, a vase; once broken but mended with melted gold.
Then Marnie understood. The edelweiss in her gardens, flooding at the feet of her favourite lilies.
‘Emelie and Lilian were lovers weren’t they?’
Lionel nodded slowly. ‘Lilian was terrified of her feelings. Even after her father died and she was in charge of her own life, she still believed she would be taken away, back to Ireland, back to that hospital. And Emelie fought her feelings for as long as possible because she was older than Lilian and saw how fragile she was. No one had to know. Lilian wouldn’t have risked their secret being made public. She would have killed herself before exposure because of what those . . . bastards put her through. I guessed, but then I knew her better than she knew herself. That love made Lilian whole again, better than whole.’
‘And Lilian supplanted her memories with a false one that she’d had a child in Ireland and it would one day come and find her and everything would be all right?’ suggested Marnie.
‘That’s about it in a nutshell,’ Lionel replied. ‘It was an easier truth – a better truth – for her to believe.’
‘And so that’s why she wanted Wychwell to come to me. Because she thought I was her baby grown up and come home.’
‘Yes.’
Marnie looked horrified. ‘But that means I’d be inheriting Wychwell under false pretences. I couldn’t—’
‘But Lilian didn’t leave it to you, dear,’ Lionel cut in. ‘She left it to Emelie and Emelie left it to you. Emelie knew of course that you weren’t Lilian’s daughter. But you could have been, she loved you as if you were. You were similar in so many ways and you both have those beautiful green eyes; we almost came to believe it ourselves that you were hers. Emelie was in no doubt that you were the best person to take care of Wychwell. But I didn’t know she was ill. That was one secret she kept from us all.’
The clock on the wall sounded so loud in the ensuing silence. A deep, comforting tock marking time.
‘There’s a lot to take in,’ said Lionel. ‘I’m so sorry I couldn’t give you the news you really wanted. I think you would have liked to have had Lilian as your mother.’