Wishing Water (51 page)

What game was Brandon playing? Had he deliberately brought the twins back late just to prove a point? ‘I’ve been to the Marina Hotel as a matter of fact, for a drink.’ It was true, only he’d gone there after he left Lissa.

Brandon gave a shrug of contempt. ‘As you wish. I thought it prudent to demonstrate to my wife that I still hold the power. She may keep the twins only so long as I allow it. And there are rules. One of which is she is not to have anything to do with other men, particularly you.’
 

‘That’s only until the divorce is finalised,’ Derry said, gritting his teeth on a fast disappearing patience.

Philip Brandon looked mildly surprised, dark brows lifted in polite enquiry. ‘What divorce? I’ve said nothing about divorce.’
 

‘You took a paper to her to sign. She told me.’ Derry groaned as he saw Philip’s smile broaden, for he’d carelessly given away the fact that he had seen, or at least spoken to Lissa today. ‘She rang me,’ he blustered, with little conviction. Philip only laughed.

‘Then she must be confused. She often is. Haven’t you noticed how very incompetent she is? Sweet but rather stupid.’
 

‘I don’t see her that way at all.’
 

‘Then perhaps you would like to see the paper to which she refers?’ Brandon held it out and Derry found himself scanning the small print with growing horror.

‘These aren’t divorce papers.’
 

‘I never said that they were. I merely acknowledged that Lissa wanted a divorce and perhaps we should be mature, modern people and end this sham of a marriage. But in my own time, if all else fails, and on my terms. Perhaps I forgot to add that small rider.’
 

Derry was tearing up the paper and throwing it all over the pavement. Philip laughed, a bitter, hollow sound in the empty street. ‘That’s only a copy, of course. I have the confession of her adultery with you, for that, as you see, is what it is, safely locked in my safe. If you want her to keep her beloved children, and you know how precious they are to her, Lissa herself being only a foster child, then you will leave Carreckwater without delay.’
 

Derry could feel his stomach shaking with rage. He had never felt more helpless in his life. ‘And if I refuse?’
 

Philip shrugged. ‘Then I will remove them from her care. A married woman with a lover is not considered a fit person to have care of young children.’
 

Derry took a half step towards him but Brandon didn’t even flinch. ‘I wouldn’t if I were you. I am within my rights - as their father.’

‘You’ve never been a father to them. Lissa has told me how you simply issue orders, expect them to be neat and perfect to gratify your ego. You don’t even love them, not as Lissa loves them. You leave them with the nanny all the damn time.’
 

‘Hardly unusual. Half the aristocracy was brought up that way.’

Derry was clenching his fists in fury, desperately preventing himself from smashing one in Brandon’s face. ‘A child needs a loving family. You’re twisted and sly and yes, dammit, for all your charm you’re evil and cruel.’
 

Brandon burst out laughing. ‘How very melodramatic you sound. The point is,
I
will choose their future, not Lissa. And what I decide depends very much upon you, Colwith. When Lissa finds that you have gone, without a word, she will see that you are as unreliable as ever. As I warned her you would be. She’ll be more than ready to return home.’

‘
Never
!’

‘As you see, I have ways of making people do exactly as I wish. I can’t say it’s been pleasant knowing you, but it is certainly a pleasure to say goodbye. First train in the morning, remember.’
 

Meg rang Lissa on Monday morning to ask her to come up to Broombank. ‘I have a problem I’d like to talk over with you, it’s rather urgent.’
 

Lissa arranged for Renee to take the twins to school and pick them up at lunchtime if she wasn’t back in time. ‘I’m sorry to dump them on you but there seems to be some sort of emergency at Broombank.’
 

She was smiling, untroubled as her mind replayed those hours with Derry. Yes, she had broken her marriage vows, and the twins being late had given her a scare. But Philip had agreed to a divorce and soon she and Derry could be together for always. Then they could lie together and love every night, without restraint or fear. Lissa’s stomach clenched with excitement at the prospect. How long would the divorce take? she wondered. She could hardly wait, making a mental note to ring her solicitor and ask him.

‘Don’t worry,’ Renee was saying. ‘We can manage fine. I welcome any excuse to play with those little terrors - sorry - treasures.’

Laughing, Lissa kissed the twins and went on her way. There was a lingering tang of autumn still in the air as she drove through the wooded valleys, the bite of winter coming fast on its heel as she climbed higher. The mountains looked paler than usual against the blue sky, as if already glazed by a coating of hoar frost. Meg met her at the farm gate and Lissa saw at once that something was wrong. She looked weary, older somehow.

‘You should have talked to me. I’m your mother,’ Meg scolded, putting her arms about Lissa and drawing her close.

‘I know, only I wanted to decide first what I was going to do. It’s sorted now. Everything is going to be fine.’
 

They walked together over the heaf as they so loved to do and Lissa struggled to open her heart. For such an instinctively private person it wasn’t easy. She told Meg of the papers she’d signed, how she would soon be free.

‘Philip has agreed then to a divorce? I’m surprised it was so easy. However, your marital problems are not the only reason I asked you to call.’ Meg handed Lissa a letter. ‘Take a look at that.’
 

They sat on the drystone wall of the old pack horse bridge while Lissa read, and as she did her heart sank. ‘I never thought he would do it.’

Meg turned startled eyes upon her. ‘Never thought who would do what?’
 

‘Philip. He threatened to bribe the water consultant into choosing Broombank as a suitable site for the reservoir, if I refused to stop seeing Derry.’
 

A small, dreadful silence. ‘And you did refuse?’
 

‘No, but I didn’t really believe he’d do it.’

Meg’s grey eyes seemed to darken and grow bleak, for all her tone still rang with her indomitable spirit. ‘Look at this land.’ She lifted one hand in a gesture partly possessive and partly indicating despair. ‘It’s mine; and has been these last twenty years and more.’
 

‘I’m aware of that, I never meant this to happen.’
 

‘Most of this dale is good, sound land, productive enough to grow a little corn during the war. Admittedly my sheep spend most of their time high on the fells but the intake land is important to keep them in good heart at lambing times. I could never leave here, Lissa. It is a part of me: the house, the land, everything.’
 

‘Meg, I know.’
 

‘I drained some of the wet parts,’ she went on, as if Lissa had not spoken. ‘It was back-breaking work. But there are still patches of bog where no bracken or good grass grows. In the spring and summer you’ll find those pale mauve marsh orchids, kingcups and bog myrtle. There are the troublesome sedge rushes, yes, but even they have their uses, building up the silt, holding it together.’ Her voice took on an edge of passion. ‘The larks and meadow pipits love it too, as do the thrushes and merlins, the deer and the stoats, the tiny fritillary butterflies who depend on the sweet violets for their survival. We all depend on this land. And no one,
no one
, must be allowed to harm it.’
 

Humbled by the passion in her foster mother’s voice and shamed by her own negligence in not warning her, Lissa grabbed Meg’s hand and clung to it. ‘Don’t Meg. Please don’t blame me for this. I tried. I really tried. I meant never to see Derry again but I couldn’t help myself, and nor could he. I prayed it was all a meaningless threat, no more than Philip’s hurt pride.’
 

‘Yet this letter tells me Manchester Water Board are sending some geologists to inspect the land and take samples, whatever that might mean.’
 

‘I can’t believe it.’ Lissa felt panic rise in her throat. ‘It must be a mistake. He’s agreed to a divorce. Why should he do this?’

Meg’s face was grim. ‘Broombank has been chosen as a possible alternative to Winster Valley, and if the samples are good, then our dale will be flooded, not Winster. My beloved home, Ashlea, and all the other farms, the land upon which we all depend, will be flooded and destroyed for ever.’
 

Derry did not catch the train from Windermere that Monday morning. After a sleepless night tossing and turning in a bed that felt harder with each passing hour, dawn found him walking by the lake, desperately seeking a solution. He sat on a log, head in hands as he glumly watched the swirl of mist roll over the water, swallowing up a troop of ducks waddling out for their first paddle. The tips of the far mountains seemed to be suspended in space, like fairy mountains.

Never had he felt so low in all his life. He loved Lissa and she loved him. They wanted to be together, was that so wrong? Derry refused to feel guilty about their lovemaking last evening. Hadn’t her marriage been over for months, if not years? And hadn’t Brandon tricked her into it in the first place? But how to get her out of it? There must be something he could do. Brandon was the slippiest customer he’d ever met.

Derry knew that given a choice between himself and her children he would lose out every time, and quite right too.

‘But it’s not fair to ask it of her in the first place,’ he shouted, flustering the ducks.

He’d wished for Lissa, that night by the tarn when they’d drunk the wishing water together. For her to be by his side for the rest of his life. But it had been no more than a desperate, childish game. He couldn’t rely on wishes, he had to find an answer.

At ten to eight he was waiting at the office door, knowing that Miss Henshaw always arrived early. She was surprised to see him but delighted to offer coffee in her inner sanctum, a minuscule kitchen little bigger than a cupboard.

`I still love my morning cup before everyone comes,’ she confessed, smiling flirtatiously at him. ‘’Gives me a lift for the day ahead.’
 

‘So, how’re things?’ Derry asked, leaning against the wooden draining board and giving the best imitation of his usual grin that he could manage.

‘It’s been very dull since you left, Derry. Not at all the same.’

‘And Mr Brandon?’
 

Miss Henshaw fiddled with her glasses as they bounced against her flat bosom on their long cord, her lips pursing slightly as she picked up her cup, small finger extended. ‘Much as you might expect.’
 

Did he detect a slight slackening of devotion in her stiff-lipped reply? Derry wondered. His mind was whirling. What exactly was he looking for? He had this idea that if he learned more about Brandon’s life and professional matters, it might help. But what and how, he couldn’t imagine. Miss Henshaw had seemed the obvious person to try, now he hadn’t the first idea where to start. Hope slid away, and his depression must have showed in his face for Miss Henshaw leaned forward and patted his hand.

‘There, there, don’t look so sad. You weren’t wanting your old job back, were you? I’d heard you were doing well.’ She looked suddenly troubled.

‘Good lord, no. I have a job, a much neglected one back in the States. I hope it’s still waiting for me when I get back.’ If I go back, he thought. There was no real reason why he shouldn’t do the same thing here, if he wanted. He’d had to conduct some of his business by telephone since he came anyway.

She sighed with relief. ‘That’s all right then. It wouldn’t do at all for you to come back here.’ She glanced about, as if half expecting her employer to appear like a genie from behind her shoulder. ‘Business is slack. Bank putting on pressure, I believe. Not that he ever tells me anything, or lets me look at the accounts but I know money is tight. He always gets slightly tetchy, you know?’
 

‘I remember,’ Derry grinned, glad that he was no longer under Philip Brandon’s edict. ‘It’s an ill wind, as they say. Did me a favour sacking me, as it’s turned out.’
 

She set down her cup. ‘Well, I can’t sit about here gossiping all day. I must get on. I’ve a funeral to attend later this morning.’
 

‘Oh, I’m sorry. Anyone close?’

‘A client.’

Derry lifted one brow, almost his old cheeky self. ‘I thought Brandon usually did those, enjoying the kudos and the funeral teas. Not like him to let you out of the office. How will he manage without you? Even for an hour.’
 

Miss Henshaw clattered the cups as she washed them up, handing them to Derry to dry. ‘I insisted, as a matter of fact, though it really shouldn’t be my place,’ she said, tight-lipped. ‘Mr Brandon had declined.’
 

Derry’s eyes narrowed with speculation. There was something not quite right here. Brandon never missed the funeral of a valued client. It was part of the deal. He read the hatched, matched and dispatched columns every day in the local paper to check if an esteemed client would be requiring his probate services. And he always liked to be seen to be doing the right thing. ‘Anyone I know?’ he asked.