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"I doubt Cherry will get her own phone soon but I can still put her Mum's landline number in my contacts list," Lucy says with glee as she continues exploring the features on her new phone.

Dinner has just finished in the Barnes household and the three family members are chatting about their day over the remnants of their meal, as is their custom. Lucy, however, is more absorbed by the smartphone she acquired when she and her mother took a trip into the centre of Mettleham and, amongst other places, called into the Apple Store there. On returning home , they had found that Jeremy was already back from work and so a good few hours of father-daughter time followed in which Lucy and her dad set up the phone together.

Marianne turns sharply at the mention of her daughter's friend back in Hanfort. "Really, Lucinda? Why would you want to be calling there? We're living in Mettleham now and you're settling in very nicely, my darling."

"Mum!" Lucy responds instinctively but quickly realizes she has been in this situation countless times already, defending her best friend against yet another disparaging remark aimed at her old life in the village where she was born and grew up. No matter how much she protests against her mother's negative comments about her friends from Hanfort, Lucy has never been able to make even the slightest impact on her mother's opinion about them, particularly when it comes to Cherry Hathwell. Taking past experience as her guide, Lucy does not go any further and chooses to stay silent, instead focusing on her phone.

Jeremy watches the interaction play out and feels a pang of sympathy for his daughter. He can understand how much it hurts Lucy to have her mother attack her friends so often and wishes it would stop. He reaches across the table and touches his wife's hand. Marianne looks up with a questioning expression.

"Let's not, eh?" he says softly.

"Let's not what?" Marianne says as a frown takes over her face.

"Upset Lucy by being horrible about her friends," Jeremy replies and then adds after a pause: "And about Hanfort in general. It might be in the past for some of us, Marianne, but Lucy has spent her whole life there and hasn't known anywhere else."

Jeremy recognizes the early signs of anger stirring in his wife's features and he strokes her hand with his thumb. But it is too late to soothe her and the familiar glint of fire appears in her eyes as she looks at him directly.

"In the past?" she says with contempt heavy in each word. "In the past?! That place will never be 'in the past', Jerry, never!" She pushes her chair back from the table and stands up, attracting Lucy's attention away from the phone. "Let me tell you about the past, Jerry. You included, Lucinda, because this affects you, too."

"Marianne? Darling... ?" Jeremy tries to speak but his wife's voice overwhelms his protests.

"Our past... my family's... was glorious. I was a Redpath before I married you and, a hundred years ago, the Redpaths owned almost all of Hanfort. We were like royalty, Jerry, royalty!" Marianne says proudly. She continues with dramatic flair, bolstered by the knowledge that she has caught both her husband's and her daughter's intense interest; they are clearly not aware of what she has to tell them. "The Redpaths lived a regal life in Redpath Manor, now a nunnery or whatever it's used for these days, and everyone knew who the Redpaths were, everyone greeted them with respect and deference. You wouldn't think that now if you went back to that god-forsaken place today and asked the average man on the street. Most likely only a few will have even heard of the name these days. But not in the past, oh no no! You can trace the Redpath line in Hanfort all the way back to at least Tudor times, and we were always influential and wealthy." She pauses before adding: "Important."

"I didn't know," Jeremy whispers with a glance at Lucy, who is completely rapt by what she is hearing.

Marianne continues: "But then, in nineteen twenty-six, Archibald Hathwell comes along, throwing his charm and good looks around to enchant and attract the attention of everyone who would listen. He was the biggest conman this part of the world has ever seen and, on his way to a big grift up in Manchester, he stops off in Hanfort for a drink. Purely by chance he overhears the Redpath name being thrown about as a family with more wealth than they knew what to do with, while he was in the pub there. Of course, he jumped at the chance to get his hands on this wealth and started working his schemes to ensnare Owen Redpath, the patriarch of our family at the time and the one who held the keys to all of the money. I'll skip the details and simply say that, over the next year, the Redpath fortune became... let's just say 'redistributed' to less deserving causes. In the end, when the dust had settled a decade later, the only people who were any better off were the lawyers who Owen had used in his attempts to reclaim the money and the lawyers Archibald hired to fend off each wave of lawsuits and legal procedures. The Redpaths were devastated financially and their reputation was shattered. Owen had to sell the Manor to pay the debts he'd built up, and the Redpath name dimmed. We became just one more family living in Hanfort and today barely anybody is aware of just how glorious and influential we had once been. Hathwell? He was forced into poverty because of the legal costs, too, and spent the millions he'd conned Owen out of on his attempts to keep hold of it. Ironic, I suppose. His good looks attracted a wife and the two of them started a family living in a hovel on the edge of the village." Marianne snorts derisively. "They still do. His offspring and decendants, I mean."

"Mum! I didn't even know... !" Lucy gasps. "Cherry has never mentioned any of this!"

"Do you think she would even if she knew about it?" Marianne says. "It's not something to be proud of. No one came out of it looking golden. But I'm not saying I feel any sympathy towards the Hathwells now, nearly a century later. No way! They reduced our family almost to nothing, to paupers. They stole the life I should have been living and that I never had the chance to live. I, as a Redpath, was destined for better things but I never got the chance to taste any of them. You, too, Lucinda. Think about it... indirectly, your 'friend' is responsible for you being in that wheelchair. Remember that the next time you feel an urge to speak to her."

Marianne goes quiet, and Jeremy and Lucy also fall silent as they each work through the implications and consequences of what Marianne has revealed.

(Posed and rendered in Poser 12, clothes created in Marvelous Designer 9.5, postwork in PSP 2023.)
(Readers who have been following Lucy & Family's story should keep in mind that we are hearing Marianne's account of events here, spoken and retold as she believes things to be. There may be more since she could have omitted inconvenient facts and events, or is simply not aware of them. In fiction, many authors will use a character to explain key points that are important to the plot/story and we, as readers, almost always assume that this exposition dump is factual since we know that the author is using the character as a convenient outlet for getting relevant info out there. But if we want to believe that the character is also a real person behaving as real people do, we should also remember that they are human and therefore the things they say are liable to the same errors and biases as any other human has.)

Lucy's first Mettleham friend >>>
Lucy Comes To Mettleham
More Kate's Exciting Life

Description
"I doubt Cherry will get her own phone soon but I can still put her Mum's landline number in my contacts list," Lucy says with glee as she continues exploring the features on her new phone.

Dinner has just finished in the Barnes household and the three family members are chatting about their day over the remnants of their meal, as is their custom. Lucy, however, is more absorbed by the smartphone she acquired when she and her mother took a trip into the centre of Mettleham and, amongst other places, called into the Apple Store there. On returning home , they had found that Jeremy was already back from work and so a good few hours of father-daughter time followed in which Lucy and her dad set up the phone together.

Marianne turns sharply at the mention of her daughter's friend back in Hanfort. "Really, Lucinda? Why would you want to be calling there? We're living in Mettleham now and you're settling in very nicely, my darling."

"Mum!" Lucy responds instinctively but quickly realizes she has been in this situation countless times already, defending her best friend against yet another disparaging remark aimed at her old life in the village where she was born and grew up. No matter how much she protests against her mother's negative comments about her friends from Hanfort, Lucy has never been able to make even the slightest impact on her mother's opinion about them, particularly when it comes to Cherry Hathwell. Taking past experience as her guide, Lucy does not go any further and chooses to stay silent, instead focusing on her phone.

Jeremy watches the interaction play out and feels a pang of sympathy for his daughter. He can understand how much it hurts Lucy to have her mother attack her friends so often and wishes it would stop. He reaches across the table and touches his wife's hand. Marianne looks up with a questioning expression.

"Let's not, eh?" he says softly.

"Let's not what?" Marianne says as a frown takes over her face.

"Upset Lucy by being horrible about her friends," Jeremy replies and then adds after a pause: "And about Hanfort in general. It might be in the past for some of us, Marianne, but Lucy has spent her whole life there and hasn't known anywhere else."

Jeremy recognizes the early signs of anger stirring in his wife's features and he strokes her hand with his thumb. But it is too late to soothe her and the familiar glint of fire appears in her eyes as she looks at him directly.

"In the past?" she says with contempt heavy in each word. "In the past?! That place will never be 'in the past', Jerry, never!" She pushes her chair back from the table and stands up, attracting Lucy's attention away from the phone. "Let me tell you about the past, Jerry. You included, Lucinda, because this affects you, too."

"Marianne? Darling... ?" Jeremy tries to speak but his wife's voice overwhelms his protests.

"Our past... my family's... was glorious. I was a Redpath before I married you and, a hundred years ago, the Redpaths owned almost all of Hanfort. We were like royalty, Jerry, royalty!" Marianne says proudly. She continues with dramatic flair, bolstered by the knowledge that she has caught both her husband's and her daughter's intense interest; they are clearly not aware of what she has to tell them. "The Redpaths lived a regal life in Redpath Manor, now a nunnery or whatever it's used for these days, and everyone knew who the Redpaths were, everyone greeted them with respect and deference. You wouldn't think that now if you went back to that god-forsaken place today and asked the average man on the street. Most likely only a few will have even heard of the name these days. But not in the past, oh no no! You can trace the Redpath line in Hanfort all the way back to at least Tudor times, and we were always influential and wealthy." She pauses before adding: "Important."

"I didn't know," Jeremy whispers with a glance at Lucy, who is completely rapt by what she is hearing.

Marianne continues: "But then, in nineteen twenty-six, Archibald Hathwell comes along, throwing his charm and good looks around to enchant and attract the attention of everyone who would listen. He was the biggest conman this part of the world has ever seen and, on his way to a big grift up in Manchester, he stops off in Hanfort for a drink. Purely by chance he overhears the Redpath name being thrown about as a family with more wealth than they knew what to do with, while he was in the pub there. Of course, he jumped at the chance to get his hands on this wealth and started working his schemes to ensnare Owen Redpath, the patriarch of our family at the time and the one who held the keys to all of the money. I'll skip the details and simply say that, over the next year, the Redpath fortune became... let's just say 'redistributed' to less deserving causes. In the end, when the dust had settled a decade later, the only people who were any better off were the lawyers who Owen had used in his attempts to reclaim the money and the lawyers Archibald hired to fend off each wave of lawsuits and legal procedures. The Redpaths were devastated financially and their reputation was shattered. Owen had to sell the Manor to pay the debts he'd built up, and the Redpath name dimmed. We became just one more family living in Hanfort and today barely anybody is aware of just how glorious and influential we had once been. Hathwell? He was forced into poverty because of the legal costs, too, and spent the millions he'd conned Owen out of on his attempts to keep hold of it. Ironic, I suppose. His good looks attracted a wife and the two of them started a family living in a hovel on the edge of the village." Marianne snorts derisively. "They still do. His offspring and decendants, I mean."

"Mum! I didn't even know... !" Lucy gasps. "Cherry has never mentioned any of this!"

"Do you think she would even if she knew about it?" Marianne says. "It's not something to be proud of. No one came out of it looking golden. But I'm not saying I feel any sympathy towards the Hathwells now, nearly a century later. No way! They reduced our family almost to nothing, to paupers. They stole the life I should have been living and that I never had the chance to live. I, as a Redpath, was destined for better things but I never got the chance to taste any of them. You, too, Lucinda. Think about it... indirectly, your 'friend' is responsible for you being in that wheelchair. Remember that the next time you feel an urge to speak to her."

Marianne goes quiet, and Jeremy and Lucy also fall silent as they each work through the implications and consequences of what Marianne has revealed.

(Posed and rendered in Poser 12, clothes created in Marvelous Designer 9.5, postwork in PSP 2023.)
(Readers who have been following Lucy & Family's story should keep in mind that we are hearing Marianne's account of events here, spoken and retold as she believes things to be. There may be more since she could have omitted inconvenient facts and events, or is simply not aware of them. In fiction, many authors will use a character to explain key points that are important to the plot/story and we, as readers, almost always assume that this exposition dump is factual since we know that the author is using the character as a convenient outlet for getting relevant info out there. But if we want to believe that the character is also a real person behaving as real people do, we should also remember that they are human and therefore the things they say are liable to the same errors and biases as any other human has.)

Lucy's first Mettleham friend >>>
Lucy Comes To Mettleham
More Kate's Exciting Life