Airs Above the Ground by Mary Stewart Read Free Book Online

dreadful row. I said the most awful things, Tim, I still think about them.’
    He looked at me with a gravity that somehow seemed enormously youthful. ‘And now you’re just torturing yourself all the time because you’ve hurt his feelings?’
    ‘Lewis,’ I said, rather too carefully, and forgetting momentarily who I was talking to, ‘is selfish, obstinate, and arrogant, and has no feelings of any kind whatsoever.’
    ‘Yes,’ said Timothy, ‘I mean no. But if you know he doesn’t want you to join him, why did you come, especially if you’re still so furious with him?’
    I looked down at my hands, which were clasped together rather too tightly on my knee. ‘That’s more sordid still, I’m afraid. I think he’s with a woman, and that’s something I can’t quite laugh off the way we did with your father.’
    ‘Vanessa—’
    ‘I’m sorry, Tim, I’m not behaving well. I’m certainly not a fit and proper person to chaperon you, let alone preach to you, with the damned nerve I had, but I’m so unhappy I’ve got to do something. That’s why I came.’
    ‘Please don’t be unhappy.’ He was as awkward withhis comfort as any man is at any age, but touchingly kind with it. ‘I’m sure you must be wrong. Whatever anyone’s been telling you, you’ll find there’s nothing in it.’
    ‘Yes. Yes, I’m sure you’re right.’ I sat up straighter in the chair, as if by doing so I could shake off my thoughts. ‘And it wasn’t anything anyone told me, it was just an impression I got, and I’m sure it was wrong; all that’s the matter with me is that I do feel guilty about the things I said. It would have been all right if he hadn’t had to go straight away. When you get married, Timothy’ – I managed a smile at him – ‘never part on a quarrel. It’s hell. When I think about it now . . . He just went storming out of the flat, and then, when he got to the door, he stopped, as if he’d suddenly thought of something, and came back to me. I wasn’t even looking at him. He kissed me goodbye, and went.’
    I looked up at him sombrely. It was a relief to put it at last into words. ‘It only came to me afterwards, but it was the way a man would act if he knew he was going to do something dangerous, and he didn’t want to part like that. And now I know that’s true. That’s why I came.’
    He was staring at me. ‘What do you mean? “Dangerous”? What sort of danger could he be in? How can you know?’
    ‘I don’t know. Let me tell you the rest; I’ll be as quick as I can.’ And I told him all about the news-reel and the chain of events which had made me decide to come out to Austria and see for myself what was going on.
    He listened in silence, perched now on the arm of the other chair.
    When I had finished, he was quiet for a minute or two. Then he pushed the hair back from his forehead with a gesture that I was beginning to recognise as a signal of decision.
    ‘Well, as far as locating the circus is concerned, that’ll be dead easy. There are hardly any tenting circuses – that’s travelling circuses – left these days, and everyone in Austria will probably know where this one was. We can ask the hall porter, and we can go on from there. Shall we go and do it now?’
    I stood up. ‘No, we’ll eat first. We’ll go out and find a real Viennese restaurant, and do ourselves proud, shall we? Then when we feel a bit stronger, I’ll tackle the Case of the Vanishing Husband, and you can take on the Father and the Fräulein.’
    ‘We’ll both tackle them both.’ He uncoiled his length from the arm of the chair and stood up. He was a half a head taller than I was. He looked down at me, suddenly shy. ‘I was an awful ass this morning. I – I’m terribly glad we came together after all.’
    ‘That makes two of us,’ I said, reaching in the wardrobe for my coat. ‘For heaven’s sake, let’s go and eat.’
    Not only did Tim’s German prove more than equal to the occasion, but the hall