Tom and the Dazzling Fiona Ch. 05

This story is entirely fictional.

Upon his return from a business trip to the States, Tom Cassavettes was determined to seek out Fiona Napier, his long time on/off lover. He wanted to settle things once and for all after missing her dreadfully while he was away, and desperately needing to discover whether she might reconsider her previous opposition to their marriage.

This usually clear thinking young man had actually taken an age to realise that it might be now or never. But should he go down to Tremaine Place, his country home, and surprise Fiona or should he ring first?

He might also try to take Fiona away on holiday despite what her father might say. Tom knew for a fact that the mother would be no problem for anything which might hasten the day when Fiona made a brilliant marriage was to be welcomed. And he had not forgotten Jean Napier's sexual advice for Fiona nor of their trip to the family planning clinic.

Having finally decided to go down to the village Tom reached for the phone at the very moment when it rang. He answered warily, not recognising the caller number, only to hear Fiona's distraught voice.

"Tom, thank god you're home, mummy and daddy have been in a car crash."

Between sobs he managed to discover where she was and after another brief phone call was on his way down to the Basement Garage where he was handed the keys to his two-seater. Traffic was thankfully slight at this time of day so within forty minutes of leaving the car park ramp he was pulling into the hospital car park.

Tom came out of the lift and was nearly bowled over by Fiona who threw herself into his waiting arms. He held her close as she sobbed in distress, but over her shoulder he saw his family's housekeeper Valerie Varco. Her face was showing the full gamut of emotions, pity for Fiona, concern for her friend Mrs Napier lying in the emergency ward but mainly surprise at the unexpected intimacy being displayed between Tom and Fiona.

"Would you like to get off," he said to the housekeeper over the distraught young woman's shoulder, "I'll bring Fiona home later."

He took the still distraught Fiona over to a small waiting area and sat her down before walking Mrs Varco to the lift.

"I'll most likely see you later for supper but if there's a change of plan I'll ring."

Fiona and Tom sat close together and she poured out the whole story. How the police had tracked her down at work where a lady constable had told her about her parents being on the motorway with her mother driving and about a side swipe from a left hand drive lorry which ended up with them both being admitted to the nearest accident and emergency ward.

"A constable gave me a lift here, and Mrs Varco has been so good, she drove over as soon as I rang her with the dreadful news."

"Do you want me to ring anybody else?" He began but she declined after a moments thought.

"No it's alright. Mrs Varco has already spoken to the Bishop's palace. The Rural Dean will take over from Daddy until he has recovered."

"But what about you?" He was gentle but pressing. "Who can come and give you some support?"

"Daddies family are all dead; no, I tell a lie, he has a brother in New Zealand but there was an argument years ago and they don't have anything to do with each other. Otherwise there's only mummy's sister, my aunt Bridget, who lives in Scotland. I keep trying her phone but she doesn't seem to be at home."

He left Fiona with a plastic container of tea, fetched from a machine, and went off to find the Duty Doctor whom he finally ran to earth in the nurses station. Her prognosis for the Vicar was not good because the passenger side of the little car had taken the brunt of the collision and they had little expectation of him surviving the night. For his wife they were much more hopeful. She was very likely to make a full recovery but time would be needed for her body to heal.

Tom finally persuaded Fiona that she could do no further good by hanging about the hospital, explaining patiently that neither parent was likely to regain consciousness for the time being and that the hospital was only twenty minutes from her home if things changed. So he drove her back to the village and outside the vicarage held her hand as a sudden surge of compassion washed over him.

"There's nobody at the vicarage and you shouldn't be left alone at a time like this."

This got no reaction at all. Fiona merely sat staring vacantly to her front.

"Please let me come in and look after you."

He fussed over the stricken girl and insisted she had a hot drink to which he added a couple of her mother's sleeping pills. Tom came up the stairs to support Fiona but at her bedroom door she clutched his hand.

"Sleep with me Tom. I need your arm's around me."

There was no question of them having sex. Fiona immediately went out like a light and in the early hours, with a throbbing erection, Tom found relief by masturbating in the bathroom.

...

In the morning he rang Angela, his PA, then sat at the kitchen table to think the problem through while Fiona prepared a sketchy breakfast for them both.

"We should get your family doctor here as soon as possible to prescribe sleeping tablets for you."

She merely nodded having no doubt that Tom would make all the right decisions on her behalf and in retrospect this was the moment when Fiona's opinion of their relationship suddenly shifted seismically. Tom had gone in an instant from being merely an occasional lover to being the only person who could make her previously meaningless life complete.

The Vicar died that night and Tom, in agreement with her doctor and in the absence of her family, decided that even in her distressed state Fiona should be told at once. However she could still surprise him.

"I can't cry for him Tom. We were never close but my mother obviously had feelings for her husband, so maybe she will shed tears enough for us both."

It was Angela Clarke, Tom's PA, who finally managed to track down Fiona's aunt. She located the spinster at a prison volunteers conference and it was Angela who, at Tom's expense, hired a plane to bring the woman down from Scotland. When she arrived Aunt Bridget turned out to be a feisty tweed clad woman who listened carefully to Tom's explanation on the way back from the airport and while approving gladly of all his actions wondered why this personable and evidently extremely rich young man should have become so closely involved in her family's affairs.

But she immediately declared herself ready to take over her niece's care and Tom discreetly moved back to Tremaine Place. However Bridget and Fiona had not been alone for ten minutes before the aunt began questioning Tom's involvement.

"What I cannae understand is your relationship wi' that young man? What makes him so eager to look after you not to mention the dreadful expense of bringing me here by private plane?"

"He loves me auntie. He has even proposed more than once but I turned him down each time."

"And what does your mother think of all this?"

"She can't understand why I don't leap at the chance but she only has eyes for his money. She knows that although he is already extremely rich in his own right, when his father dies he will become obscenely wealthy."

"But ye cannae stomach the thought of marriage?"

"Oh no, marriage would be fine and I do love him desperately, but given his position in society I would never be capable of being his wife. Particularly with all the responsibilities that would involve."

...

Fiona and Bridget soon discovered that his Church would make all the arrangements for the Reverend Napier's burial, given that Mrs Napier still remained in intensive care, and later in the day a thoughtful Tom arrived at the vicarage. After Fiona had gone early to bed Tom and Aunt Bridget retired to the Vicar's study where he suggested that Mrs Napier should be moved to a private hospital.

Bridget looked at him as if he was completely unhinged and with all her Scottish frugality to the fore reminded him caustically that they were "no made of money". Tom immediately sought to set her mind at rest.

"I was not suggesting for a moment that your family should pay. I will pay for everything because I must do what little I can to bring Fiona's mother back to full health."

She looked narrowly at him. Until now she had tacitly accepted the situation but this was altogether another matter and she was rapidly being forced into a total rethink.

"And why on earth would you want to do that and more to the point, why should we accept your offer?"

"Because I love Fiona and still hope that she will change her mind and marry me..." His statement was being made simply and clearly from the heart. "...and I would do anything for the woman I love."

"But she say's that she has her own reasons for not marrying you."

"I know all about that but I've never given up hope that she will eventually change her mind and when she does then it would be a great sadness to Fiona if her mother couldn't be at the wedding."

"Well that being so I cannae deny that your offer is very handsome, but have you discussed it with my niece."

Aunt Bridget spoke with a broad Scottish brogue which Tom was finding hard to decode so, as now, his reply was slightly delayed.

"No, this only occurred to me while driving here."

"Well if Fiona agrees then there's no more to be said."

"Thank you, I'll talk to her in the morning."

...

The weather for the Napier funeral was hot and humid. The family mourners were confined to Fiona who was clinging to Aunt Bridget's arm but accompanied by Tom alongside Mrs Varco. However there was also a representative from the Diocese and a small sprinkling of parishioners who kept glancing at Thomas Cassavettes clearly curious as to the reason for his presence. In return Tom accepted fatalistically that the gossip would now begin but he was by now so besotted with Fiona that he no longer cared.

The church had reverberated to the sound of the West doors closing after the mourners had moved out into the heat following the coffin to where the chalk white sides of the newly dug grave glowed in the evening sun. Fiona had shown no emotion throughout the service and appeared to be moving solely by rote even showing no reaction as the hollow noise of earth being sprinkled on the coffin coincided with the clamour of the rooks at their nearby roost.

Bridget sniffed and remarked caustically, "he was nae the luckiest of men", leaving those few within earshot in no doubt as to her meaning.

Tom used his mother's Range Rover to drive them all straight from the funeral to the private hospital that Angela had selected purely on the basis of it being closest to the Vicarage. There they received much more cheerful news as Fiona's mother was now sitting up and feeling well enough to criticise the housekeeping. She seemed quietly pleased to see Tom with her daughters hand in his as Bridget then described the funeral in some detail.

"Jean," she concluded, "I denae wish tae speak ill of the dead but that husband of yours will no be long remembered."

...

Tom went back up to town as soon as he heard news that his parents were back from the Caribbean. He had taken the precaution of calling ahead and asking to see them both so they were able to meet in the penthouse. Tom filled them in on the last two weeks and they from the first, being very astute, were already way ahead of him. So interrupting Tom in full flow Margaret came straight to the point,

"Have you actually asked Fiona again?"

"No. That was my intention in going down to Tremaine Place but the accident immediately put paid to that."

There was a moments silence as they all considered the possibility that she might refuse Tom once again until Nicholas Cassavettes spoke.

"You must have suspected that Margaret and I had other plans for you," he paused as Tom smiled remembering some of their less than subtle attempts at finding him what they believed to be a proper wife. "but if your love for Fiona has survived for so long then so be it and I must get to know her better."

Margaret nodded in agreement before making her own contribution.

"Her father was a dried up stick in the mud, god rest his soul, but her mother seems to have some spirit and Fiona is certainly a strikingly beautiful girl. But are you sure that you still love her. Are you sure you aren't just taken with the idea of being a knight in shining armour riding to the rescue?"

He set about reassuring them by describing how much he had missed Fiona when away; how she made him complete; of the depth of his love for her; until they finally and genuinely wished him well. But practical as ever Margaret then asked the pertinent question.

"So when will all this happen?"

"That all depends upon Fiona's answer but we would have to wait until her mother is back to good health."

It was significant that when the vicar's daughter had first turned down Tom's proposal his parents had found it impossible to believe that anyone would refuse to marry such a catch so they were now twice in their lives at a loss as to what to think. But that didn't stop Margaret from trying yet again to make Tom re-consider.

"Fiona is very bright, and extremely street wise, but I don't believe that she has much in the way of inner resources."

"You don't think it will work out?"

Tom's unusually belligerent reply instantly warned Margaret to tread more carefully, at least from now on.

"She will find your life difficult and I may have said all this before but it bears repetition. I'm concerned that she won't be able to cope with your absences or with your whole globe trotting lifestyle. I can't help but feel that she would be better off with a nine to five husband who is home every night and at weekends. In fact I think that she will become wholly dependent on you for she has nothing else to fall back on."

"It's a risk worth taking," was all the reply that this lecture evinced from Tom before Nicholas, as usual, had the last word.

"Well one thing is for sure, if she says yes this time then we must give her every support possible."

...

Tom had already worked out for himself that Jean Napier and her daughter would be forced to quit the Vicarage as soon as a new vicar was appointed. With that in mind he had evolved a plan, made in agreement with his father, but how far Fiona would accept his becoming involved was the question? So immediately on returning home he went round to call upon Fiona and her Aunt.

He could see immediately that Fiona's spirits were beginning to revive, she was on her way back to being something like her old self and he was glad to see these first signs of recovery. She was telling him in detail how hard it had been to go back to work and how much better her mother had looked the night before when Bridget left the room to get on with some very necessary ironing.

"Fiona," he said not realising quite how pompous he suddenly sounded, "please come over here and listen to me."

"No, I won't," she had instantly turned mulish. "You are going to ask me to marry you again but I know it's only out of pity for my situation..."

Tom was aware that she was holding back tears and longed to comfort her.

"...and you are already paying for my mother's hospital treatment and I ...sob ...sob... don't know how on earth we'll ever pay you back."

She was clearly working herself up into a bout of hysterics and he was at a loss at what to do for the best. How crass and unthinking he had been. So in desperation he went to the door and shouted for Bridget who arrived looking thoroughly flustered.

"Please tell your stubborn niece how much I love her. She thinks I want to marry her purely out of pity and you know that's not true." He looked from one to the other then straight at Fiona. "I was about to come down here to propose once again and I had actually just picked up the phone myself when you rang from the hospital with the terrible news..."

The honesty of his feelings shone out.

"...You know that I've loved you for years and that I've been hoping that in time you would change your mind."

He then dropped his head only to raise it again as a further thought occured to him.

"And I know that it's only your fear of my lifestyle that prevents you accepting so now's the time for you to say yes."

Then Bridget intervened.

"He told me that he loved you on the night I arrived after the accident, and I know you love him."

"Oh yes, of course I do. I've loved him ever since he first kissed me back when I was eighteen. But can we ever be happy together?"

"Well now's the time to try, and besides," Bridget was remembering the conversation as if it was yesterday, "he said that he would never forgive himself if your mother was not at the wedding."

Perhaps it was the vulnerable look on his face, a look that she had never seen before, or the realisation that he could just have cut and run at any time during the last few weeks, or even that her love for him was making it possible to override her fears, but whatever it was that finally convinced Fiona she walked across to stand in front of him and he stood to meet her.

"Yes please," said Fiona wrapping her arms around his neck, "yes please Tom."

...

Later that evening they were sitting having supper with Tom about to bring up the matter of the vicarage when he realised that the pair had already been going over the same problem. He was amused to hear them return, with lukewarm enthusiasm, to a plan for renting a housing society property in the next village.

"They're in a really nice area which I think mother would soon get to like," but Fiona's brittle voice left him in no doubt that Jean Napier would never show any real enthusiasm for such a plan.

"Humph," was her aunt's much more expressive response which was the moment when Tom seized the opportunity to butt in.

"Can I make a suggestion?"

Bridget turned hopefully having already been very impressed by this enterprising and forceful young man. She like others before was beginning to realise that Tom had the ability to make things happen and for the better.

"Please do."

"Part of my future inheritance from my father will be "Glebe House". It's an Edwardian villa in the village."

"Where the Everett's used to live?" broke in Fiona. "You know the one Auntie, it's at the top of the Green. Mother wondered why it hadn't gone up for sale when they moved out."

"Do you think that Jean would like to live there?" Tom ventured.

Fiona laughed nervously but hope was already dawning on her face.

"Just try and stop her, she's admired that house ever since she went to a coffee morning there, and she'll get a real kick out of knowing that the Everett's only rented Glebe House and didn't own it. They always behaved so snottily to my mother."

She sobered slightly under her aunt's quelling gaze, and turned adoring eyes on her lover.

"Oh Tom that's absolutely brilliant, she would be in seventh heaven, you really do know how to perform miracles... But how would we ever afford the rent."

Now she had gone from joy to despair in a second but Tom soon restored her to the former.

"One of the things that our financial advisors keep banging on about is that property must either be used or disposed of profitably. But on this occasion I am going to ignore the accountants and do precisely what I want. With my father's permission Glebe House will be an engagement gift to you because I know it will make you happy if your mother's future is secure."

At this Fiona's face began to crumble so Tom tried immediately to deflect her from the incipient tears.

"But you had better start deciding what needs doing to the place and it might be a good idea to consult Jean, don't you think. Anything you require will be done and I'll get the keys sent round in the morning."