Believing the Lie - Elizabeth George [214]
She didn’t want to believe what Mignon had revealed about this child Bianca, but she could see by the expression on her father’s face that Mignon’s revelation was the truth. She didn’t know how she felt about this, and she didn’t know when she might even be able to sort through her feelings in the matter. But she saw how Mignon felt about it: just another reason to blame their father for whatever she believed had been lacking in her life.
Mignon said to him happily, “Oh my, Dad. Well, at least you and I are going down in this ship together, aren’t we? I do expect there’s some consolation in that for you. To be doomed but to see your favourite child— that would be me, wouldn’t it?— doomed alongside you? Rather like King Lear and Cordelia. Only… Who’s playing the Fool?”
Bernard’s lips were as thin as a bowl of workhouse gruel. He said, “I think you’re rather mistaken, Mignon, although you’ve got the serpent’s-tooth part of it bang on the money.”
She wasn’t the least taken aback. “D’you think marital forgiveness actually runs that far?”
He said, “I don’t think you know the first thing about marriage or forgiveness.”
At this Manette glanced at Freddie. He was watching her, his dark eyes concerned. She understood he was worried for her, anxious about how she was taking in being a witness to her family’s destruction. Before her eyes, the world as she’d known it was undergoing a cataclysmic change. She wanted to tell him she could cope with that, but she knew she didn’t want to cope alone.
Mignon said to their father, “Did you really think you could keep Bianca a secret forever? My God, what an enormous ego you have. Tell me, Dad, what was poor little Bianca to make of everything when she learned about her father and his other family? His legitimate family. But you hadn’t got that far along in your consideration of the future, had you? As long as Vivver was willing to play the game your way, you probably didn’t think one moment beyond what kind of fuck she was and how often you could manage it.”
“Vivienne,” her father replied, “is going home to New Zealand. And this conversation is quite finished.”
“I’ll say when it’s finished,” Mignon told him. “Not you. Never you. She’s younger than we are, this Vivienne of yours. She’s younger than Nick.”
Bernard walked to the front door then, passing Mignon to do so. She tried to grab his arm, but he shook her off. Manette expected her sister to use that gesture as an opportunity to topple from the sofa to the floor and proclaim herself the victim of abuse, but instead, she merely carried on talking. She said, “I’ll speak to Mother. I’ll tell her the rest. How long you’ve been having an affair with Vivienne Tully: Is it ten years, Dad? Longer than that? How old she was when it all began: She was twenty-four, wasn’t she? Or was she younger? How Bianca came about: She wanted her, didn’t she? She wanted a baby and you did as well, didn’t you, Dad? Because when Bianca was born, Nick was still out there doing his Nick thing and you were still hoping that someone, somewhere, some bloody time was going to give you a decent male child, weren’t you, Dad? And won’t Mother just love hearing that?”
Bernard said, “Do your worst, Mignon. It is, I think, what you’ve always wanted.”
“I hate you,” she said.
“As always,” he replied.
“Did you hear me? I hate you.”
“For my sins,” Bernard said, “believe me, I know. And perhaps I deserve it. Now leave my house.”
There was a moment of impasse during which Manette thought her sister might refuse. Mignon stared at her father as if waiting for something that Manette