Read Online Under Gemini by Rosamunde Pilcher - Free Book Online

Fernrigg did nothing to help the situation. Antony managed to fend them off with the same excuses that he had started making to himself. Rose was simply not a good correspondent.
    But, despite these excuses, doubts loomed and grew like monstrous balloons, like clouds darkening his horizon. He began to lose confidence in his own solid, Scottish common sense. Had he made a fool of himself? Had those magical days in London with Rose simply been a blinding illusion of love and happiness?
    And then something happened to drive all thoughts of Rose from his head. Isobel telephoned from Fernrigg to tell him that Tuppy was ill: she had caught a chill, it had turned to pneumonia, a nurse had been engaged to take care of her. Trying to sound calm, Isobel did her best to reassure Antony. “You mustn’t worry. I’m sure it will be all right. It’s just that I had to tell you. I hate worrying you, but I knew you’d want to know.”
    â€œI’ll come home,” he said instantly.
    â€œNo. Don’t do that. It’ll make her suspicious, make her think something’s really wrong. Perhaps later, when Rose gets back from America. Unless…” Isobel hesitated hopefully. “… perhaps she’s back already?”
    â€œNo,” Antony had to tell her. “No. Not yet. But any day now, I’m sure.”
    â€œYes,” said Isobel. “I’m sure.” She sounded as if she were comforting him, as she had comforted him through all the anxieties of his childhood, and Antony knew that he should be comforting her. That made him feel more miserable than ever.
    It was like worrying about a grumbling appendix and suffering from acute toothache at one and the same time. Antony did not know what to do, and in the end, with a lack of decision that was quite foreign to his nature, he did nothing.
    The nonaction lasted for a week, and then, simultaneously, all his problems came to a ghastly head. The morning post brought the parcel from Rose, untidily wrapped and sealed, postmarked London and containing his engagement ring along with the only letter she had ever written him. And while he was still reeling from the shock, the second telephone call came, from Isobel. That time Isobel had not been able to be brave. Her tears and her very real anguish broke through, and her shaking voice betrayed the shattering truth. Hugh Kyle was obviously worried about Tuppy. She was, Isobel suspected, much worse than any of them had guessed. She would perhaps die.
    All Tuppy wanted was to see Antony and Rose. She was yearning for them, worrying, wanting to make wedding plans. And it would be so dreadful, said Isobel, if something should happen, and Tuppy was never to see Antony and Rose together.
    The implication was obvious. Antony had not the heart to tell Isobel the truth, and even as he heard himself making that impossible promise, he wondered how the hell he was going to keep it. Yet he knew that he had to.
    With a calmness born of desperation, he made arrangements. He spoke with his boss, and with as few explanations as possible, asked for and was granted a long weekend. In a mood of dogged hopelessness, he put through a telephone call to the Schuster flat in London; when there was no reply, he drafted a wordy telegram and sent that instead. He booked a seat on the London plane. Now, at the airport waiting for that plane to be called, he reached into the pocket of his jacket, and took out the letter. The writing paper was deep blue and opulent, the address thickly embossed at the head of the page.
    Eighty Two Cadogan Court
    London, S.W.1
    But Rose’s writing, unfortunately, did not live up to the address. Sprawling, unformed as a child’s, it meandered cross the page, with the lines trailing downward, and the punctuation nonexistent.
    Darling Antony.
    I’m terribly sorry but I’m sending your ring back because I really don’t think that after all I can bear to marry you, it’s