The Little House Read online

  Upstairs Ruth went to find Patrick. ‘I should like to go home now,’ she said.

  Patrick was dressing Thomas and had one hand inexpertly laid on Thomas’s stomach while spreading cream on his bottom with the other.

  ‘Oh!’ he said.

  Ruth nodded. ‘As soon as Thomas is dressed. I have a whole load of things I want to get done today.’

  ‘I rather thought we’d stay here, till you’re completely better.’

  ‘There’s nothing in the least wrong with me,’ Ruth said simply. ‘I came home last night to a dark house and my baby missing and I was terribly upset. If he had been there, as he should have been, then everything would have been all right. If you want to make sure that I am not upset, then you should let me look after my own baby.’

  ‘Hush …’ Patrick said, glancing at the open door.

  ‘Elizabeth had no right to take him out of the house without my permission,’ Ruth said as clearly as before. ‘And she has no right to tidy my deep freeze, or peel potatoes, or tie back my bloody kitchen curtains!’

  ‘Everything all right up there?’ Frederick called up the stairs. ‘Time for a cup of coffee?’

  ‘We’re just going!’ Ruth called back. ‘I’ll have coffee at home, thank you.’

  She stepped forward and slipped Thomas’s vest over his head, and pulled his shirt on top. Thomas let out a wail of protest while she captured each foot, put on his socks and his felt slippers. She picked him up and carried him downstairs.

  ‘If you’re sure …’ Elizabeth said. She glanced at Patrick, coming down the stairs behind Ruth. He shrugged.

  ‘Frederick will pop down at midday,’ Elizabeth suggested. ‘And I’ll come down this afternoon.’

  ‘On one condition,’ Ruth specified. They were all wary of her.

  ‘What is that?’ Frederick asked.

  ‘That Thomas is never, never to be taken out of my house, without my express permission.’

  Elizabeth prompted Patrick with a glance.

  ‘But, Ruth, that was my idea, not Mother’s,’ he said. ‘I rang and said I would be late. It was my idea that we should all come up here for dinner, to save you the bother of coping with Thomas on your own and cooking dinner.’

  ‘I am a wife and mother,’ Ruth said, laying claim to titles she would have despised a year earlier. ‘I am a wife and mother and I have a job to do. I have to care for Thomas and I have to manage our house. If I can’t do it, I’ll get help. I’ll hire help. But I won’t have people continually interfering. Thomas is to stay at home.’

  There was a silence; they all looked down the hall towards Frederick. ‘For a trial period of one week,’ he said carefully. ‘And if there is another upset, or any cause for concern at all, then we will reconsider.’

  Ruth, holding Thomas under her chin, met his gaze. ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘If there is another upset, then you will have to seek treatment,’ Frederick said frankly.

  For a moment he thought she had not heard him, her face was so blank. ‘Treatment?’ she said. ‘I’m not ill.’

  ‘That is not for you to judge,’ Frederick said simply. ‘You are not qualified to judge. Neither am I; none of us are. But if things do not get better we’ll call in the experts.’

  ‘You want me to go back to Springfield House?’ she asked incredulously.

  Frederick shook his head. ‘A closed hospital,’ he said quietly.

  Ruth’s breath came out in a little hiss. ‘You’re planning to have me committed,’ she said slowly. ‘You’re planning to call me a loony and send me to a loony bin.’

  Elizabeth and Patrick recoiled at the words but Frederick never wavered. ‘If that’s how you want to describe it,’ he said steadily. ‘I have the power to do it, Ruth. Any close family member, with a doctor’s agreement, can do it.’

  She nodded, saying nothing. Her eyes met his, but he saw from the dark dilation of her pupils that she saw nothing. ‘I know,’ she said softly. ‘I know you have the power.’

  They were all silent for a moment, as if they were all aghast at how far they had come.

  ‘I don’t want to do it,’ Frederick said gently.

  She nodded again. ‘I believe you,’ she said. ‘I believe that you would do it very reluctantly and sadly.’

  ‘I will only do it if it is my duty: to keep Thomas safe, and to keep you safe.’

  She focused her shocked eyes on his face. ‘And those are your only criteria?’ She glanced towards Elizabeth. ‘Thomas’s safety? Not what anyone else says about me? Not whether I’m good enough – or not?’

  ‘No,’ he said steadily. ‘Your safety and Thomas’s safety are the only criteria.’

  She breathed out again, and moved slowly down the hall. ‘Very well,’ she said. ‘I understand what I am facing.’

  Slowly she walked past him to the front door. He opened the door for her and she walked past him, without a word of thanks, without turning her head. Patrick followed her and got into his car, while Ruth put Thomas into the baby seat in her car.

  ‘What was this?’ Frederick asked, pointing to the crumpled wing.

  For a moment she looked blank, then she said abruptly: ‘It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter at all,’ and she got in the car, started the engine, and drove steadily away.

  Elizabeth caught a glimpse of her son’s set face as he too drove past. He raised a hand to them, and followed Ruth’s car down the drive.

  In the little house things were incongruously normal. The heating was on and the house, thanks to Elizabeth’s tidying, looked smart and welcoming. Ruth was taking off Thomas’s coat in the hall when Patrick came in.

  ‘There’s no note,’ she said abruptly.

  Patrick looked at the hall table, where his mother said she had left a note for Ruth. It was empty.

  ‘There must be,’ he said.

  Ruth looked at him but said nothing. ‘Are you going to work now?’

  ‘If you can manage.’ Patrick glanced at his watch. ‘I won’t be late tonight, especially if I can get in now.’

  ‘I can manage.’

  He paused at the front door. ‘Are you sure?’ he asked.

  She nodded, her face blank. ‘Your father is supervising me this morning, and she’s coming this afternoon, and you’ll be home by six. I won’t ever have more than an hour on my own with my son, if that’s what you want.’

  ‘You know it’s not what we want!’ he exclaimed, but broke off. ‘We’ll talk tonight,’ he promised, hoping that they would not have to talk. ‘We’ll have a good long talk tonight.’

  He kissed her gently on the side of her face. To his surprise she turned and kissed him back, on the mouth. He tasted the slightly sweet warmth of her breath. There was a promise in the kiss; Patrick felt desire.

  ‘It’s not me that needs to get back to normality,’ Ruth said quietly. ‘Think about it, Patrick. It might be the rest of you.’

  When Elizabeth came down at two o’clock she rang the front doorbell, as she had been told to do. Ruth, who had dropped the latch to prevent Elizabeth’s walking in, took her time opening the door, and when she saw Elizabeth she turned and went back to the kitchen, where Thomas was sitting in his high chair, watching his mother, and hammering a spoon on the tray.

  ‘As you know, there was no note,’ Ruth said over her shoulder. She was frying mince on the stove. Elizabeth watched as the little droplets of hot grease spattered on top of the Aga and Ruth did not wipe them up.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘There was no note to tell me where Thomas was. You said you had left a note but you did not.’

  Elizabeth suppressed a small sigh, put down her handbag and went back out to the hall. In a few minutes she came back in holding a folded sheet of paper. ‘It had fallen down behind the hall table,’ she said. ‘But I am surprised you did not see it on the floor.’

  Ruth peremptorily took it and read it. It was very clear and very reassuring. She handed it back to Elizabeth without comment.