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."
