Over the Blue Mountains

by Mary Burchell

  It couldn’t really be as simple as all that, of course. Juliet knew there must be all sorts of questions she should ask, points they should discuss. But the faint, seductive horn call of adventure was sounding in her ears. The thought of Martin was like a bright, beckoning finger. It seemed to Juliet that Fate itself had intervened on her behalf and that the gate to the land of heart’s desire rolled back upon its hinges.

  “I am definitely coming, if you will have me, Aunt Katherine,” she heard herself say. “There are just one or two things we’ll have to—have to straighten out.”

  “Dear child! What, for instance?” demanded Aunt Katherine gaily, and she caught Juliet’s hand and held it in a warm, friendly grasp which showed how flatteringly pleased she was with the decision.

  “Why—why, when do we go, for one thing? I shall have to give notice at the office where I work.”

  “Oh, yes ... I forgot that you work,” Aunt Katherine agreed carelessly. “We shan’t be going for about ten days. That should give you time to settle things.”

  Juliet found herself saying that she thought she could “settle things” in the time available.

  “Then in what—in what circumstances do you want me to come?”

  “Why, as my niece, of course, child. What do you mean?”

  “Well, are you—do you—want to employ me?” Juliet asked, flushing slightly with the effort of making herself clear. “Because, if not, I must pay—”

  “My dear Juliet! Of course there’s no question of employing you in the real sense of the word. Naturally your uncle will pay your fare, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Oh, but I couldn’t—”

  “Don’t argue. It’s settled.” Aunt Katherine smiled, with a generous charm that was almost queenly. “And in return, I hope you will feel willing to do anything you can to make the journey easier for me.”

  “Oh, Aunt Katherine, of course I will. I’ve never been on a boat before, but I—”

  “Boat, darling? We’re not going by boat. We’re flying.”

  “Flying! But, Aunt Katherine, I couldn’t possibly do enough on a flight to repay anything so munificent as my air fare to Australia,” exclaimed Juliet in consternation.

  Verity laughed at this point and Juliet wondered why. “Well, then—” Aunt Katherine patted her cheek “—I hope you’ll stay on with us in Melbourne and show your gratitude in some other nice ways.”

  “Yes, I—indeed I will!” Juliet remembered suddenly that her aunt had described Martin’s part of the country as “nowhere near Melbourne.” “But, first of all, would it be possible for me to visit Tyrville for a few days?”

  “Tyrville?” Aunt Katherine frowned very slightly. “Oh—to see your girl friend. Later on, perhaps.”

  “Aunt Katherine, it isn’t my girl friend. It’s my fiancé.”

  “Your—fiancé?”

  To Juliet’s excited fancy it seemed that the temperature of the room dropped several degrees, and that Aunt Katherine suddenly looked quite unlike the lovely, indulgent person she had seemed throughout this interview.

  “Why, of course, mother,” Verity said impatiently. “Didn’t you notice that she was wearing a ring?”

  As she spoke, she glanced at Juliet’s left hand. And it came to Juliet in that moment that her cousin was casually, accurately and contemptuously pricing Martin’s ring in her own mind.

  Juliet was not petty enough to care if anyone thought Martin’s ring inconsiderable. He had given her the best he could afford, and she loved it and treasured it accordingly. But Aunt Katherine’s sudden coolness and Verity’s air at that moment combined to administer a salutary shock. Was she not being a little unrealistic about all this, allowing herself to be carried away by the charm and excitement of the occasion?

  It was not Juliet’s nature to burn her boats, and here she was lightheartedly applying the match, with singularly little knowledge of the situation to which she would then commit herself.

  “Perhaps—” she began. But the coolness had suddenly vanished from Aunt Katherine’s manner. Indeed, Juliet thought that possibly she had imagined it, after all.

  “Dear Juliet, this is a delightful coincidence.” Aunt Katherine seemed to contemplate Martin’s existence in a different light. “How long have you been engaged?”

  “About a year.”

  “And you are expecting to get married—when?”

  “Well, until this happened, Aunt Katherine, we thought it would take another year before—”

  “Then that’s wonderful! You come to us for a year. And, since the idea of your uncle paying your fare seems to worry you so much, you can—what shall I say, ‘repay’ isn’t quite the word—return anything you regard as generosity on our part by being a kind, helpful niece to us.”

  She smiled charmingly as she said this, but common sense was not to be put to sleep again so easily. Besides, Juliet was essentially independent and used to paying her own way. If it took most of her savings—

  She wondered, a little panic-stricken, what the air fare to Australia really was. But she would think about that later. Common sense might have returned in some degree, but not sufficiently to make Juliet close the door on this fantastically wonderful Australian proposal. It was only a question of how one meant to do it. And she knew now how she meant to do it.

  “Aunt Katherine,” she said, “you musn’t think me ungracious if I insist on paying my own fare. I would rather do it that way. And, of course, that wouldn’t make the slightest difference to the way I would look after you and try to help you as much as possible, either on the journey or later. It’s sufficiently wonderful for me to know that I have relations at the back of me. I’d never have thought of this journey without your help, and even if I’d thought of it, I would have rejected the idea. Please let me come in those circumstances—and I shall be perfectly happy.”

  Juliet was aware that her cousin was regarding her now with a complicated expression in which amusement was uppermost. But, mixed with that was also a tinge of respect and—paradoxically enough—scorn. She said nothing, however. It was her mother who replied, and she replied reproachfully, and in a tone that somehow made Juliet feel ungrateful and gauche.

  “Darling, you really hurt me when you talk like that,” she exclaimed. “Surely we aren’t going to argue over a question of money. I can’t help guessing that it would take most of your savings to pay that fare, and I know your uncle wouldn’t hear of it. He’d blame me for letting you do it. If you come with us, your fare is paid—and we’ll say nothing more about it.”

  It was impossible to argue further, in the face of this. Juliet could only accept the offer gracefully and reassure herself with the reflection that at least there seemed to be a good deal of money on this side of the family, so possibly the gesture did not mean so very much to them. And, on the other hand—though she felt guilty and ungracious at even permitting herself this thought—if what her aunt called “returning the generosity” proved to be a much longer and more exacting process than she thought reasonable, she could surely just insist on discharging her financial debt and regaining her independence.

  Her aunt was evidently really happy over achieving her own way, and when Juliet left soon after this the atmosphere was all affection and approval.

  At home once more, in the apartment that no longer seemed silent and solitary because it was peopled with her own thoughts and hopes, Juliet wrote to Martin, telling him all the incredible happenings of that evening. She said nothing of any faint misgivings she had had. For one thing, they would look mean and suspicious committed to paper, Juliet could not help feeling. And, for another, now that she had thought things over, she really did see that only in the most drastic circumstances must she contemplate parting with all her savings.

  She was surprised now that she had even made that gesture of bravado, and she must feel grateful to her aunt that the suggestion had been so generously brushed aside. Juliet was going to need those savings, she knew perfectly well.
She and Martin were going to need them. Far better that she should repay her uncle’s generosity over the fare by a devoted attention to her aunt’s needs, even if this proved to be a longer period than she had envisaged. Surely that would be the smallest return for all that was being done for her.

  The next day, still feeling rather like someone else, Juliet gave in her notice at the office where she had worked for the past three years. She was not devotedly fond of the place, but the finality of this action did give her the queer sensation of pulling up yet another of her roots out of the familiar soil.

  Her employer—a cautious but kindly lawyer—looked at her over his spectacles when she had told him her story, and said, “Aren’t you being rather impulsive? Hadn’t you better think about this a bit?”

  “If I think about it, I won’t go,” Juliet explained. “My aunt is sailing—flying, I mean—in about ten days’ time.”

  There was no arguing with this. And, since work was slack and, rather surprisingly, someone else was found almost immediately to take Juliet’s place, she was allowed to leave during the next two or three days without actually working out her notice.

  This was fortunate indeed. For a telephone call from her aunt made it perfectly clear that Juliet was to make all arrangements for the journey. Not only for herself, but for her aunt and cousin.

  “If you fetch our passports, darling, and take them with yours to the Airways Terminal or wherever it is, you can see about our arrangements, too, and it will save so much time.”

  She didn’t mention whose time would be saved, but Juliet was only too glad to make herself useful in this respect. So, having collected the passports—her aunt, rather disappointingly, was out and they were just left for Juliet at the hotel desk—she went along to the Airways Terminal feeling indescribably excited, responsible and, to tell the truth, nervous.

  However, the atmosphere of the light, bright, busy office was not one to encourage nerves. One might be going to the Channel Islands or around the world—it was all in a day’s work, and nothing to get agitated about.

  Australia?—Via Karachi and Singapore?—Certainly. If she would just come to this desk, please.

  Juliet came to the desk indicated and settled down to the most fascinating discussion of her life.

  Passports?—Yes, those proved to be in order.

  The date of departure?—Hm, ye-es, there should be three seats available. The young man, who seemed completely used to wafting passengers to the end of the earth, did some telephoning while Juliet studied, upside down, the plan of the fantastically big airplane. Her airplane, she thought. She tried to count the seats, but had only reached something between thirty and forty when the young man hung up and announced that seats would be available.

  “Could you tell me something about the route?” Juliet interrupted breathlessly at this point. “And how long does it take?”

  “Four days.”

  “Four days?”

  “Yes. Well, you see, this way you spend two nights on the ground,” the young man explained apologetically.

  “Oh—yes. Where?” Juliet inquired rather faintly.

  “One in Cairo and one in Singapore. You lunch the first day in Rome,” the young man added casually.

  “Oh, no!” Juliet exclaimed. “No, I don’t believe it!”

  He laughed then, and asked good-humoredly if it were “her first trip that way.”

  “It will be the very first time I’ve ever been in an airplane,” Juliet said.

  “Oh, well—it’s a very nice trip,” the young man assured her, as though she were going to Brighton for the day. “I’ve done it myself. You get two nights on the ground, as I’ve said, and two in the air. You are allowed to have one suitcase available at night stops, you know. You need that, of course, for changes of clothes, because the temperature varies tremendously. It will be winter when you get to Australia, don’t forget.”

  “Why—of course it will!” She remembered now that Martin had mentioned the cold in his last letter. “And where do we arrive? Melbourne?”

  “Sydney.”

  Sydney! Hadn’t Aunt Katherine said something about Katoomba—and Tyrville—being reachable from Sydney?

  “How wonderful!”

  “Yes. It’s a great sight, coming in over the harbor. It should be light by the time you arrive.”

  “What time do we arrive?”

  “Seven-thirty,” said the young man, as though they were talking of a local train.

  Juliet shut her eyes and thought of all the thousands of miles between London and that seven-thirty arrival. Then she opened them again and asked in an awed tone if the plane were always on time.

  “Oh, sometimes it’s five minutes early,” the young man said, and grinned. Then he asked her about vaccination and cholera inoculation, and seemed amused again when Juliet assured him gravely that she had been vaccinated as a baby.

  “No good, I’m afraid. Has to be within the last three years. You can be done here, if you like.” His air said that all facilities were available on the premises. “Once for smallpox, twice for cholera. If you’d like to be done right away, that gives you a clear week before the second cholera shot.”

  Juliet said she would be done right away. And, having collected a sheaf of attractive travel folders, she prepared to go.

  “When will the tickets be ready?” she paused to inquire.

  “Well—we need a day or two to clear the check. I suppose you are paying by check?”

  Juliet said that she thought her aunt would certainly be paying by check.

  “Then I’d better let you know the amount now.” He made a few pencil calculations and mentioned a sum that made Juliet catch her breath. “If your aunt sends along the check today or tomorrow, we’ll mail the tickets—or you can collect them—by the beginning of next week. And I expect you would all like overnight bags, wouldn’t you?”

  Juliet said, “Yes, please.” But she was not really thinking about overnight bags. She was thinking. My goodness! I’m thankful Aunt Katherine didn’t take me at my word when I declared I would pay my own fare!

  The vaccination and inoculation seemed very minor matters in the midst of all this excitement. And, with a slight scratch on one side of her arm and what felt like a slight bruise on the other, Juliet emerged into the afternoon sunshine once more, quite ready to tackle the next problem.

  There was a certain amount of shopping to be done, of course. Because, although Juliet had made the best of resolutions about not being extravagant, it was not in human nature to refrain from a few additions to one’s wardrobe on an occasion like this.

  In addition, there was the question of disposing of her home. The very thought of parting with the place where she and her mother had been happy made Juliet bite her lip. But this separation, like all the others, had to be done.

  The apartment had always been theirs on a monthly tenancy, but the agent showed almost hysterical delight when Juliet came to say that he might have vacant possession in less than two weeks. That presented no problem, at any rate.

  So far as the furniture was concerned—the personal possessions—the links with the past—the not very valuable but infinitely dear articles that marked every phase of her own life and were all that she now had left to remind her of her mother—Juliet could not bring herself to sell these hastily and peremptorily. She arranged to store them instead, telling herself that when the time came to marry Martin, she could send for her things, most of which would be useful in her new home, quite apart from their sentimental value.

  Not until a few days before the final departure did Juliet have more than the most fleeting glimpses of or telephone conversations with her aunt. (For a convalescent, Aunt Katherine seemed to fill her days remarkably full.)

  And then, when Juliet happened to mention the disposal of her home, all Aunt Katherine said was, “My dear, how very convenient! Then you can come here and stay with me on the last two evenings. It will be such a comfort having someone to help w
ith the packing. Verity is so little good at that sort of thing. And, anyway, she and Max—”

  The sentence trailed off without completion, but Juliet hardly noticed. She had meant to spend those last two evenings quietly in the home of an old friend. But, of course, Aunt Katherine’s interests really did come first. And it might be as well to have little time to think during those last hours.

  Juliet had no time whatever in which to think during those last hours.

  At the beck and call of both Aunt Katherine and Verity, she ironed, mended, packed, shopped, repacked, telephoned, ran messages and generally acted as a shock absorber for them both. In a way it was touching, and a little flattering to be so very much the prop and stay of her aunt, and the whole experience was not without its amusing moments. But Juliet did wonder once or twice whether this was a typical example of life with her aunt.

  On the last evening, even Verity—who had been indulging in a final “fling” of gaiety and pleasure—agreed that an early night was necessary, for the car which was to take them and their luggage to the airport in the morning would be coming for them at an early hour.

  “What is Max doing?” Aunt Katherine inquired, checking off details languidly on her fingers.

  “Doing? Oh, tomorrow, you mean? He’s going straight to the airport, too,” Verity said.

  “Is he coming to see you off?” Juliet inquired.

  There was the very faintest silence, which somehow conveyed to Juliet that she had in some way presumed when she broke into this conversation. Then Verity said, “Why, no. He is coming, too. He is returning to Australia on the same plane as we are.”

  “Is he?” Juliet had, if she thought about it at all, assumed that Max Ormathon usually lived in London, and her tone of surprise probably sounded more interested than she intended.

  At any rate, Verity gave her a glance that quite disconcerted Juliet.

  “Yes, certainly. Have you any objection?”