The Four of Us

by Margaret Pemberton

  As she sucked in her breath he lowered his powerful frame down on one knee, saying emotionally, ‘I was going to wait till you were free before I did this, my darling, but I simply can’t wait any longer to know what your answer is going to be. Will you marry me, Artemis? Will you light up my life as no one else could possibly do? Will you be my wife, as well as my friend?’

  ‘Oh, yes!’ Artemis didn’t even try to restrain her tears of joy. She was loved again – and this time loved for the person she really was, not for the person she seemed to be. ‘Oh yes, Hugo!’ she said, taking hold of the large white Irish linen handkerchief he was, not

  for the first time, so dependably offering her. ‘I want to marry you

  more than anything else in the world!’

  Even before Primmie was faced with the stunning surprise of her own Christmas present, her morning had been joyously memorable. Whilst it was still dark she had milked Maybelline in the warm, electrically lit cow shed, and Black Hearted Alice in her spanking new, equally modern convenience-equipped shed, hardly able to believe that her life had changed so drastically since Christmas last year, when she’d been a Londoner hardly knowing the front end of a cow from the back.

  She’d walked out of Alice’s cosy sleeping quarters just as Brett had roared up on the Harley.

  From then on, after he and Kiki had sped euphorically off for a Christmas-morning ride, she had had her holly-and-ivy-decorated kitchen to herself for an hour or so. Listening to carols on Classic FM she had stuffed the turkey with the chestnut stuffing Artemis had made before going to the Christmas Eve carol service, rubbed it all over with butter, layered its breast with bacon rashers, covered it loosely in foil and put it in the oven.

  By the time Hugo arrived, a small gold-wrapped present in one hand, she was peeling potatoes.

  She didn’t find herself peeling them for very long. When Artemis rushed into the kitchen to tell her that she and Hugo were engaged, all Christmas-dinner preparations were put on hold.

  Orlando and Sholto were woken by their mother announcing her news. Geraldine was woken by Primmie with the same news.

  As a bleary-eyed Orlando and Sholto manfully made it downstairs in order to toast their mother and her fiance in champagne, Matt had arrived and even a hungover Josh had put in an appearance.

  It was after all the congratulations had been given that Matt said, ‘And now it’s time for me to give you your present, Primmie.’

  ‘Now? In front of everyone?’ she had said, bemused. ‘Can’t it wait until after I’ve made the bread sauce?’

  ‘Absolutely not. But I can’t bring it into the sitting room unless I blindfold you first.’

  Giggling, aware that everyone seemed to be in on the secret but herself, Primmie allowed herself to be blindfolded with the turquoise silk scarf Geraldine had been wearing.

  ‘Right,’ Matt said authoritatively. ‘Now you must sit down on the sofa, Primmie.’

  Primmie did as she was told, aware that something heavy was being brought into the room and that a lot of activity was going on.

  Geraldine sat down on one side of her and took hold of her hand, and Artemis sat down on the other side of her and took hold of her other hand.

  ‘Right,’ Matt said again. ‘Now this present is a bit of a concerted effort, Primmie. I wouldn’t have known how much you wanted this if Artemis hadn’t told me. And I wouldn’t have been able to buy it unless Hugo had lowered its price to one I could afford. It does, though, come with all my love, dearest Primmie – and all my thanks, for having changed my life far more than I could ever have imagined.’

  From behind her, with one hand lovingly on her shoulder, he took off her blindfold.

  In front of her, hanging in luminous, jewelcoloured glory, was Summer Memory.

  Disbelief, gratitude and radiant joy flooded through her in so many successive waves that for a moment she thought she was going to do an Artemis and burst into tears.

  Covering Matt’s hand with hers, she turned her head, looking up into his ruggedly handsome face. ‘Thank you so much, Matt,’ she said sincerely. ‘It’s the most beautiful, wonderful Christmas present anyone has ever given me.’

  After Christmas was over, life settled into a domestic routine that Primmie would have found blissful if it hadn’t been for her escalating anxiety where Geraldine was concerned. At the end of January, Geraldine made another trip back to Paris, to see Mr Zimmerman, but this time there was no telephone call from her saying that there was news of a bone marrow match.

  ‘Just what is the matter with Geraldine?’ Artemis said to her as they tramped together across frost-rimed grass towards the hen arks. ‘She’s constantly tired, bruises as soon as you look at her, has nosebleeds more often than anyone I’ve ever known. When I ask her, she just says that she’s anaemic, but it must be something else, surely?’

  Wishing desperately that she could share her burden of knowledge and knowing she couldn’t possibly break her word to Geraldine, Primmie slid the door of the nesting boxes back and said; ‘Geraldine does have anaemia, Artemis. Truly.’

  ‘Then her doctor should prescribe iron tablets for her. There’s a herbalist in Calleloe. I’m going to go in there tomorrow and see what he advises.’

  The next morning, just as she was about to leave the gallery’s flat, the telephone rang.

  She put down her handbag and lifted the receiver, expecting it to be Hugo.

  ‘Artemis?’ The voice was young, female, cut-glass and so distressed as to sound on the verge of hysteria. ‘It’s Serena Campbell-Thynne. There’s been an accident. Rupert was thrown from his horse and it rolled on top of him. He’s …’ She broke off, sobbing, and someone else, a man, took the telephone from her and said, ‘Mrs Gower? Rupert is badly hurt and he’s asking for you. He’s in Bristol Royal Infirmary, in intensive care.’

  Artemis could feel herself swaying as if she were about to faint. ‘The boys … Orlando and Sholto … do they know? Are they with him?’

  ‘Orlando is on a ski-ing trip in America. He’s been contacted and is on his way back to Britain. Your younger son is at the hospital.’

  In a daze Artemis tried to grasp what was being said to her. ‘Is Rupert’s life in danger? I’m sorry, but you’re not being very clear.’

  ‘He’s in a critical condition,’ the man said again, not answering her question, ‘and he has asked to see you.’

  ‘Then I’ll be there. It will take me about three hours.’

  When she severed the connection, she immediately telephoned Hugo. ‘It’s Rupert,’ she said unsteadily, aware that she was shaking with shock. ‘He’s been badly hurt. Perhaps fatally hurt – whomever it was who spoke to me said that Orlando was flying home from America. He wouldn’t do that, would he, unless Rupert were in danger of dying?’

  It was a question Hugo couldn’t possibly answer. Aware that his beloved angel was in no state to be driving to wherever her estranged husband had been hospitalized, he said merely, ‘I’ll be right with you,’ and put the phone down.

  Seated beside him as he drove at ninety miles an hour in the outside lane of the motorway, tears rolled down Artemis’s cheeks.

  ‘I’m not distressed because I’m still in love with him,’ she said, clutching a familiar white linen handkerchief in her hands. ‘But I do still have some feelings for him. How could I not when we were married for thirty-two years? And he wants to see me. I won’t be able to bear it if it’s because he wants to say sorry. Rupert never says sorry. The word just isn’t in his vocabulary.’

  At the hospital, clutching hold of Hugo’s arm, Artemis allowed herself to be led, with rising apprehension, into the intensive care unit. In the waiting room attached to it were Sholto and Serena.

  ‘Dad’s been badly crushed,’ Sholto said, white faced. ‘He’s had surgery but it’s going to be a miracle if he pulls through.’

  Artemis looked across at Serena and barely recognized her. There were deep circles carved under her eyes and her breath was coming
in great shuddering gasps.

  Leaving Hugo with Sholto she was escorted by a nurse into the room where Rupert lay.

  He was attached to a plethora of monitoring screens, tubes and drips, an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth, his eyes closed.

  Weak kneed she sat down on the chair beside the bed. Not for one minute did she think he was going to ask her, if he recovered from his injuries, to give their marriage another go. Instead, she was certain that he was going to apologize to her for his years of unfaithfulness and the way he had so insensitively and abruptly ended their rocky marriage.

  ‘Rupert?’ Her voice was a hoarse whisper. ‘I’m here, Rupert. It’s Artemis.’

  His eyes flickered open.

  Very lightly, she covered his hand with hers.

  He made a gutteral noise in his throat and the nurse stepped forward, lifting his oxygen mask away from his mouth.

  ‘A … bugger,’ he said with enormous effort. ‘Bloody horse …’ He closed his eyes again, rallying strength. When he opened them again, he said, ‘There’s something I have to tell you, Artemis.’

  His words were rasping and slurred.

  Tears blurred her eyes. ‘It doesn’t matter, Rupert. I don’t want an apology. I just want you to recover.’

  He made a slight movement of his head. ‘It isn’t to do with you and me, Artemis.’ He shut his eyes again and then, his eyes still shut, he said, ‘It’s to do with Destiny.’

  Artemis felt as if the world had stopped revolving. It was so unexpected, so moving. He’d never granted himself the comfort of talking about Destiny and now, when he thought he might be dying, he wanted to do so. And he wanted to do so with her.

  He opened his eyes again, the expression in them one of quite dreadful reluctance.

  ‘She isn’t dead,’ he said after an interminable pause. ‘I’m sorry, Artemis. I acted for the best. She didn’t drown. She didn’t die. Destiny is alive.’

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  For a second she just sat, poleaxed, hardly able to grasp that after all these years of resolutely not uttering Destiny’s name he so desperately wanted her still to be alive that his partially anaesthetized brain had made the wanting a reality to him.

  Leaning towards him, she said gently, ‘You’re hallucinating, Rupert. Please stop trying to talk. The effort is too much for you. If you want me to stay here at the hospital, I will. Sholto is here and Orlando is—’

  He interrupted her by making another hideous guttural sound in his throat. ‘Sweet Christ, Artemis,’ he said on a gasp, when he at last managed to speak. ‘Just for once, listen to me, will you? Really listen.’

  The little jagged green lines running continually across the screen of the nearest monitor increased in unevenness. Artemis glanced at it fearfully, wondering if she should ask the nurse if she should leave.

  ‘I was never going to tell you … I couldn’t see the point.’ He sucked in another deep breath, making a whistling sound as he did so. ‘It was your fault, Artemis. Destiny should have been in a home for children with special needs and you wouldn’t even consider it. You wanted to saddle our home with a child who needed far more attention than our way of life could tolerate. It was unfair to you. Unfair to me. Unfair to her. And so I resolved an untenable situation the only way I knew how. When you were in hospital, unable to leave it, I put Destiny into a long-term care home – and told you that she’d drowned in Spain.’

  He broke off, his eyes closed, the lines on the monitor dancing wildly.

  ‘Right. That’s enough,’ the nurse said abruptly. ‘Please leave the room, Mrs Gower. Please leave immediately.’

  Artemis did no such thing.

  She gripped Rupert’s hand tight, desperate for him to open his eyes, to remain conscious. ‘Where did you leave her?’ she demanded frantically. ‘If you’re telling me the truth, where did you leave her?’

  In her anxiety to be near enough to hear even a whisper in reply, she half slid and half fell off the chair on to one knee beside him. ‘Rupert! Please God! What home did you put her in? Where is she now? Where is our daughter?’

  There wasn’t a reply, or even the merest hope of her remaining to hear any reply he might make.

  An entire team of doctors and nurses surged into the room, most of them concerned only with Rupert, two others heaving her to her feet and frogmarching her back into the waiting-room.

  ‘What on earth …’ Hugo began, hurrying forwards to extricate her from their grasp.

  ‘What’s happened?’ Serena shrieked. ‘Is Rupert dead?’

  ‘She’s alive,’ Artemis said incoherently to Sholto as Hugo put a steadying arm round her. ‘Destiny is alive. Your father’s just told me. She’s alive and he’s always known she was alive.’

  It was the moment she should have collapsed into tears, but for the first time in her life she was beyond tears, she was beyond anything but the most profound, mind-numbing shock.

  ‘And Dad?’ Sholto hadn’t the least interest in whether an adopted sister he had never known was alive or not. ‘Why has everyone gone rushing in to him? Has he taken a turn for the worse? He hasn’t died, has he?’

  Numbly Artemis shook her head. ‘She’s alive,’ she said again, this time to Hugo. ‘My little girl is alive!’

  Hugo, who hadn’t a clue what she was talking about, but was aware from the fevered activity going on in the intensive care room that cataclysmic bad news was probably imminent, said, ‘Let’s go out into the corridor, darling. You can talk to me there. Explain to me there.’

  As she leaned against him so heavily he was almost totally supporting her, he led her out of the waiting room and into the relative privacy of the corridor. ‘What daughter, darling?’ he asked as she started to tremble violently. ‘The little girl you told me about who drowned when she was only five years old? How can she still be alive?’

  Artemis’s trembling increased. She was juddering now, shaking from head to toe. ‘He did it. Rupert did it,’ she said through chattering teeth. ‘She was a slow learner … and he hated it. He was ashamed of it. He wanted us to put her in a home. But she didn’t need to be in a home, Hugo. She was loving and happy and quite clever at some things … things like drawing and painting. And he … Rupert … he took her to Spain … to our villa in Spain … and he telephoned me with the news that she’d died … drowned … and she hadn’t. She hadn’t!’

  The horror of what she was telling him almost took his breath away. ‘You mean he lied to you? But how could he lie about a thing like that and get away with it? You have her death certificate, don’t you? And you know where she is buried?’

  At the blank incomprehension he met with, he knew just how easy it would have been for Rupert to have pulled the wool completely over Artemis’s eyes. Without her having to say anything, he knew that Artemis had never given a thought to a death certificate; that she’d believed Destiny had been cremated.

  ‘He put her in a home. He put our five-year-old little girl into a home and left her there!’ As Artemis thought of how bewildered, how frightened Destiny must have been, how she must have cried and cried for her, she thought she was going to faint. ‘How could he do such a thing, Hugo? How could anyone be so cruel, so wicked …?’

  ‘Dad’s dead.’ A door whisked shut behind Sholto as he stood staring at his mother in Hugo’s protective arms. ‘I think I should stay with Serena, don’t you?’ he said tightly, his face drawn and white. ‘She probably needs me to be with her far more than you do.’

  As he turned abruptly away from her, Artemis made no attempt to run after him, or to call him back. She could only think of one thing, and it wasn’t Sholto’s grief.

  ‘He didn’t tell me where he left her!’ Her eyes met Hugo’s, appalled. ‘How can I find her, Hugo, if I don’t know where he left her?’

  He tightened his arm round her and began walking her down the corridor towards the stairs and the exit.

  ‘We’ll find her,’ he said confidently. ‘The first thing to do is to c
ontact whatever organization you have in Britain that is the equivalent of America’s Missing Persons Bureau.’

  Artemis stopped walking, swinging round to face him. ‘No,’ she said, as a new realization hit her with all the force of a tidal wave. ‘The first thing I have to do is to tell Primmie!’

  It was seven o’clock when they turned in through Ruthven’s opened gates. Behind cosily drawn curtains all the downstairs lights were on, so that in the otherwise bleak emptiness of the headland the house looked as glowingly welcome as a house on a Christmas card.

  ‘How am I going to tell her? How can I possibly prepare her for such earth-shattering news?’ she said as Hugo drove into the yard and Rags came bounding out of the house to greet them.

  Hugo, who was still rallying from the shock of learning that Destiny had been Primmie’s love child, said gravely, ‘You can’t prepare her, Artemis, darling. You couldn’t prepare anyone for news such as this. Just tell her straight out, as simply and directly as possible.’

  They entered the house by the side door, walking through the porch and into the kitchen. Primmie, Kiki, Geraldine, Brett and Matt were all seated at the gingham-clothed table. Primmie was ladling soup into bowls from a large, steaming soup tureen, Matt was cutting thick slices from a loaf still warm from the oven and Brett was pouring generous amounts of red wine into glasses.

  ‘You’re just in time,’ Primmie said, rising to greet them and still smiling at something Brett had just said. ‘The soup is carrot and parsnip, but I’ve some pâté in the fridge, if you’d prefer it.’

  ‘No. The soup is fine, Primmie.’ Artemis stood in the welcoming warmth of the kitchen, aware that Rags was again settling himself down by the Aga. Through lips that were dry, she said, ‘I think you should sit down, Primmie darling. I have some news. Monumental news.’

  It certainly wasn’t the way she would have prepared her for the news that Rupert had died, and Primmie stared at her in bewilderment.