Coming Home (69 page)

It was Athena's reaction to this message which changed everything for Rupert. Because, like a child, she burst into tears. He had never seen any girl so instantly devastated, and her noisy weeping quite upset Mrs Montague-Crichton who, being Scottish, did not believe in letting your feelings show. Realising this, Rupert put an arm around Athena and led her firmly upstairs and into her bedroom, shutting the door behind them in the hope that that would drown the sound of her sobs.

He half expected her to throw herself face-down on her bed and succumb to grief but, still sobbing and gasping, she was already getting her suitcase out of the wardrobe, throwing it open on the bed, and packing it with clothes gathered up in handfuls from drawers, and stuffed into the case any old way. He had never seen anybody do this before, except in films.

‘Athena.’

‘I have to go home. I'll get a taxi. Get a train.’

‘But…’

‘You don't understand. It's Aunt Lavinia. Pops would never ring if he thought that she was going to be all right. And if she dies I just can't bear it, because she's been there
forever.
And I can't bear Pops and Mummy having to be miserable without me being there being miserable with them.’

‘Athena…’

‘I've got to go right away. Be an angel and find out about trains, I suppose from Perth. See if I can get a sleeper or something. Anything. Oh, why do I have to be such a long way away?’

Which made him feel as though, in some way, he was to blame. Her distress tore him apart, and he couldn't stand the sight of her being so unhappy. He said, ‘I'll take you…’

To this incredibly unselfish suggestion he expected a reaction of tear-sodden gratitude, but instead Athena, unpredictable as always, became quite irritated and impatient with him. ‘Oh, don't be
silly.
’ She had the wardrobe doors open and was pulling garments off their hangers. ‘Of course you can't. You're here.’ She flung the clothes onto the bed, and went back for more. ‘Shooting grouse. That's what you've come for. You can't just walk out and leave Mr Montague-Crichton short of a gun. It would be too rude.’ She bundled up her blue evening gown and jammed it into a corner of the suitcase, then turned to face him. ‘And you're having such a perfect time,’ she told him tragically. Fresh tears filled her eyes. ‘…and I know you've been looking forward to it…for…so…
long
…’

Which was all true but didn't make anything any better, so he took her in his arms, and let her cry. He was totally overwhelmed. Always so trivial and light-hearted, he had never imagined Athena to be capable of such intensity of emotion, such love, such involvement with her own immediate family. Somehow, perhaps deliberately, she had kept these deeper feelings from him, but now, Rupert felt, he was seeing the hidden side of her face, the whole person that was Athena.

His handkerchief was filthy, covered in sweat and gun oil, so he reached for a face towel and gave her that in which to blow her nose and wipe her eyes.

He said again, ‘I shall take you. We were going to Cornwall anyway, it just means we'll arrive a bit sooner than we intended. I'll explain to the Montague-Crichtons, and I know they'll understand. But I must have a bath, and I must change into some clean clothes. I suggest you do the same. After that, we'll leave just as soon as you're ready…’

‘I don't know why you're being so sweet.’

‘Don't you?’ He smiled. ‘These things happen.’ And even to himself it sounded a pretty stupid thing to say. In fact, it was the understatement of the year.

Everybody was enormously kind and sympathetic. Rupert's car was fetched from the garage and brought to the front door. Somebody else humped their suitcases and stowed them in the boot. Jamie promised to ring Nancherrow and let Athena's father know what was happening. Mrs Montague-Crichton made sandwiches and filled a Thermos. ‘…just in case.’ Goodbyes were said, and at last they were off, rolling down the long glen road that led to the highway.

Athena had stopped crying, but she said dolefully, gazing from the window, ‘I can't bear it all being so beautiful. I've hardly got here, and now we're going away again.’

‘We'll come back,’ he told her, but somehow the words had a hollow ring to them, and she made no reply.

By the time they had crossed the Border and were approaching Scotch Corner, darkness had fallen, and Rupert knew that if he did not sleep, he would be likely to nod off over the wheel and deposit the pair of them in a ditch. He said, ‘I think we should stop at the hotel and book in for the night. Tomorrow morning, we can set off at sparrowfart, and with a bit of luck we'll do the rest of the journey in the day.’

‘All right.’ She sounded exhausted, and he put a smile in his voice to try and cheer her up.

‘Separate rooms.’

Athena was silent. After a bit, she said, ‘Is that what you want?’

Which threw him slightly. ‘Isn't that what you want?’

‘Not necessarily.’ Her voice was very casual, non-committal. She stared ahead at the dark road, beyond the long beam of his powerful headlights.

He said, ‘You owe me nothing. You know that.’

‘I'm not thinking of you. I'm thinking of me.’

‘You're
sure
that's what you want?’

‘I'm not in the right mood for being alone.’

‘Mr and Mrs Smith, then.’

‘Mr and Mrs Smith.’

And so they slept together, their weariness and his desire assuaged in the anonymous and undisturbed comfort of an enormous double bed. And the last, unasked question was answered, because he discovered that night that Athena, for all her affairs, her strings of admirers, her little weekends in Paris, was still a virgin. Finding this out was somehow the most touching and marvellous thing that had ever happened to him; as though, gratuitously, she had given him a priceless present which he knew he was going to hold close, and treasure, for the rest of his life.

Hence, the dilemma. It had, as it were, crept up on him from behind, and his subconscious had known it was there, approaching, ready to pounce at any moment, while all the time he had been robustly telling himself that Athena was simply another relationship, another girl. Lies. What was the point in lying to himself, when the truth was that the prospect of any sort of an existence without her would be insupportable? She had, in fact, become his future.

There. It was done. Accepted. He took a deep breath, and let it all out on a long sigh of relief.

‘You sound very gloomy.’

He turned his head, and Athena was there, standing in the open French windows, and smiling down at him. She wore a sleeveless cream linen dress, and had knotted, like a cricket silk, a blue-and-cream-spotted scarf around her slender waist.

‘You look like a matinée star,’ he told her, ‘making an entrance. Anyone for tennis?’

‘And you look like doom personified. But rather comfortable. Don't get up.’ She stepped out onto the grass, and dragged a second chair closer to where he lay. On this she perched, sitting sideways, so that she faced him. ‘What was the sigh for?’

He reached out and took her hand. ‘Perhaps it was a yawn. How did you sleep?’

‘Like a log.’

‘We didn't expect you until lunch-time.’

‘The sun woke me up.’

‘Have you had breakfast?’

‘Cup of coffee.’

‘Actually, I wasn't yawning. I was thinking.’

‘So that's what you were doing? It sounded dreadfully exhausting.’

‘I was thinking that perhaps we ought to get married.’

Athena looked a bit stunned. After a bit, she said, ‘Oh, dear.’

‘Is it such an awesome suggestion?’

‘No, it's just come at rather a funny time.’

‘What's funny about it?’

‘I don't know. Everything, really. Aunt Lavinia dying and then not dying, and us racing home from Scotland…I just feel I don't quite know what's going to happen next. Except that we seem to be teetering on the verge of a horrible war.’

It was the first time Rupert had ever heard her make a serious and considered statement about the situation in Europe. And in all the time they had spent together, she had presented a face so trivial and light-hearted and sweet that he had never brought the subject up, simply because he didn't want to spoil anything; he wanted her to stay that way.

Now he said, ‘Does it frighten you?’

‘Of course it does. The very idea turns me to jelly. And I hate
waiting
. And listening to the news. It's like watching sand go through an egg-timer, and each day everything gets more and more ghastly and hopeless.’

‘If it's any comfort, we're all in it together.’

‘It's people like darling Pops that I agonise for. He's been through it all before, and Mummy says he's despairing, though he does his best to hide it. Not for himself, but for all of us. Specially Edward.’

‘Is it because of a war that you don't want to get married?’

‘I didn't say that.’

‘Can you imagine being the wife of a regular Army officer?’

‘Not really, but that doesn't mean that I wouldn't quite like it.’

‘Following the drum?’

‘If the balloon goes up, I don't suppose there'll be much of a drum to follow.’

‘That's true enough. So, for the time being, I haven't very much to offer you, except probably years of separation. If you don't think you can deal with that, I shall perfectly understand.’

She said, with total confidence, ‘Oh, I could easily deal with
that
.’

‘So what couldn't you deal with?’

‘Oh, silly things that you probably don't think are important.’

‘Try me.’

‘Well…I'm not being rude or critical or anything, but I don't think I'd fit frightfully well into your family. Admit it, Rupert, I didn't make much of an impression.’

He was sympathetic. ‘My mother is a bit of a battleaxe, I know, but she's not a fool. She's capable of making the best of any situation. And my inheriting Taddington, and taking over responsibility, is, with a bit of luck, decades away. As well, I respect my parents, but I have never been intimidated by them.’

‘Goodness, you're brave. Do you mean you'd fly against their wishes?’

‘I mean that I intend marrying someone I love, not the Lady Master of Foxhounds, nor the prospective Conservative candidate.’

Which for some reason made her laugh, and all at once she was his own dear Athena again. He put his hand around her neck, drew her close and kissed her. When he had finished kissing her, she said, ‘I certainly don't fall into either of those categories.’

He lay back in his chair. ‘Which deals with one silly thing. What's the next objection?’

‘You won't laugh?’

‘I promise.’

‘Well, the thing is, I've never really wanted to get married.’

‘To get married, or to be married?’

‘To get married. I mean, weddings and such. I hate weddings. I don't even like going to them. They always strike me as being the most ghastly ordeal for everybody. Particularly the poor bride.’

‘I thought her wedding day was meant to be every girl's dream.’

‘Not mine. I've attended too many, sometimes as a bridesmaid and sometimes as a guest, and they're all the same, except that each seems just a bit more extravagant and pretentious than the last. As though the whole idea was to outdo the last performance, and put on an even more costly and theatrical show. And weddings take months to organise, and there are fittings and invitation lists and old aunts being coy about the honeymoon, and having to have somebody's perfectly hideous cousin for a bridesmaid. And then hundreds of appalling wedding presents. Toast-racks and Japanese vases and pictures that never, in a million years, would you want to hang on the wall. And you spend all your time writing insincere thank-you letters with your fingers crossed, and everybody gets tense and miserable and there's lots of bursting into tears. The miracle is that anybody ever gets married at all, but I bet most girls have nervous breakdowns on their honeymoons…’