Ruby McBride (34 page)

Ruby was so afraid for Kit that when anyone asked, she said that Bart had had to go away on urgent business. She made no mention of the fight. Kit slipped quietly away that very first morning before dawn and kept out of sight. They agreed not to meet again until the weekend when he would come to the house on Quay Street. He promised to bring Pearl with him.

Day after day Ruby walked the canal towpath, her frozen body wrapped in a shawl. She felt numb, as if she were standing outside herself, watching herself search every clump of weeds, every turn in the canal, every strut beneath the railway arches. When Sparky appeared, as usual, ready for work, she put him off, telling him there was no work just now and that Bart had gone away for a while. He looked dumbfounded, as well he might. Ruby was filled with pity for him.

‘No work?’ he’d repeated, looking shocked. ‘Nay, lass, that’s a bit of a rum do. Me and Aggie depend upon the work we get from t’baron. Are you saying I have to look elsewhere?’

‘It might not be a bad idea Sparky. Just till Bart gets back - from - wherever it is he’s gone.’

‘Eeh, it’s a bad job is that. I can’t afford to lose work.’ But he didn’t argue, just hunched his shoulders with philosophical resignation and turned away. Then a thought struck him and he turned back to her. ‘It hasn’t anything to do with that bit o’ business I did for him the other day, has it?’

‘What bit of business was that, Sparky?’

‘About your Pearl.’

‘Pearl? What about our Pearl?’

A shadow crossed his face as he suddenly remembered his promise to say nothing. ‘Aw, nowt important. I forget now, exactly. I’m sure the baron knows what he’s doing. He generally does.’ Then, brightening, he said, ‘Tell you what, I’ll come back next week. How will that do? Happen he’ll be back by then.’

‘All right, Sparky. Happen he will.’ She couldn’t bear to let poor Sparky down, nor his wife and children, yet how could she tell him the truth and risk a fate even more terrible for poor Kit?

After Sparky had gone, Ruby gave no further thought to whatever bit of business it might have been that concerned Pearl. She’d learned long ago not to take Pearl’s little dramas too seriously. It would be nothing. And Sparky himself was ever one to make a mountain out of a molehill. Nor did she hang around waiting for him to call again. Seeing as there was nothing more she could do to find Bart, she fled to the house on Quay Street.
 

Here she lit the range, the day being cold and drizzly with rain, and did what she always did when she was upset, she began to clean. She’d already cleaned the tug from stem to stern in the last few days of endless waiting, now she set about the little house with equal energy. Taking each room in turn she turned out all the furniture, scrubbed floors, beat carpets, dusted, swept, even washed the net curtains all over again. Only when everywhere was spick and span and the washing line crowded with blowing clothes, did she brew herself a pot of tea and stop to take stock.

What now? She couldn’t go on cleaning, or playing this game of pretence and denial forever. Everything had changed. Bart had gone, and she couldn’t quite work out how she felt about that, or what she should do about it. The terrible accident seemed too incredible to have any connection with the stark reality of her life. She kept expecting him to walk through the door at any minute, an expression of mock triumph on his face, pleased to have scared the wits out of her.

‘Aye, you’ve certainly done that,’ she would shout at him. Oh, she’d give him what for, she would really.

Ruby stooped to poke the fire and riddle the coals, a task she’d performed only a second before. But then she still couldn’t seem to get any warmth into her bones. She felt ice cold inside, even as her nerve endings tingled as if they were on fire. She paced backwards and forwards in the tiny living-kitchen, arms wrapped about herself in utter and complete misery. She wiped the already clean slop stone, dusted the spotless mantel-shelf before wandering into the front parlour to tweak a tapestry cushion, or twitch a curtain. Then she padded upstairs to smooth the green silk coverlet on the great double bed where so often Bart had made love to her.
 

She recalled his explosion of jealousy over Kit some weeks ago, the night he’d ‘rescued’ her from the ship. And the last memorable occasion, a more tender coupling, almost as if he’d known it was a farewell.

For some reason this brought a rush of tears to her eyes and, in despair, Ruby put her hands to her face, desperately trying to shut her mind to the memories crowding in. Her cheeks were wet with tears and she wiped them away with the flat of her hands. Without realising it, she’d been quietly weeping while she worked. Wearily she went back downstairs to brew herself a fresh pot of tea, the other having gone quite cold.

She’d barely taken a sip when there came a knocking on the front door. Ruby flew to answer it, hoping against hope it was him, only to discover Pearl standing on the doorstep. She was prettily, if garishly dressed in a kingfisher blue crepe silk dress with an emerald green bolero and matching hat. And if Ruby momentarily wondered how her young sister could possibly afford such magnificence, she pushed the thought aside. She was so delighted by the sight of her sister’s dear face that she burst into noisy, gulping sobs.
 

‘Oh, Pearl, I’m that glad to see you.’

The two sisters embraced awkwardly then Pearl settled herself comfortably in the only easy chair in the kitchen while Ruby refreshed the tea with scalding hot water. Pearl seemed fidgety and nervous, affected by events, no doubt, as they all were.

‘I’ve heard about the accident. How did it happen?’ she wanted to know. ‘Kit says there was a fight. Did you speak to him - to Bart, I mean, not Kit? Did he say anything?’

‘About what? There wasn’t much time for conversation. He’d been out all day, and it all happened so quick.’ Ruby set a mug of steaming tea in Pearl’s hand. She sipped at it quickly before setting it to one side and leaning forward, her face tight with concern.

‘So what was the fight about? Were they having a row? Why were they arguing? It wasn’t about me, was it?’

Ruby finally lost patience. ‘For goodness’ sake, Pearl, you may find this hard to believe but the entire world does not revolve around
you
! We don’t spend our entire lives talking about you, or looking for you or even thinking about you, let alone fighting about you. Some of us have problems of our own to worry over.’

Seeing Pearl’s face crumple and the tears well, Ruby momentarily closed her eyes as if silently praying for strength, then setting down her mug of tea untouched, she went to put her arms about her sister. ‘I’m sorry, love. Take no notice. I’m not meself today. Proper crosspatch I am. Well, look at you, pretty as a picture. Where are you off to, love, somewhere nice?’

Ignoring the question, Pearl continued, ‘You’d tell me if there was anything - particular - you were worrying over, wouldn’t you, our Ruby?’

Ruby studied her sister’s face, struggling to damp down the fresh burst of anger that rose in her chest like a hot balloon, swelling and expanding till it threatened to explode at any moment. Could she really be asking such a naive question? What was it about Pearl that forever brought Ruby to the limits of her patience, despite loving the bones of her? But where was the point in allowing it to consume her? Nothing would ever alter her sister’s self-absorbed view of life.

Even so, there was a trace of bitter irony in the tone of Ruby’s reply. ‘No, Pearl, there’s nothing in particular I’m worried about. Oh, maybe the fact that my husband has fallen overboard into the canal, probably knocked himself out and drowned. And Kit could well be accused of his murder as a result. But apart from that, no, I’d say there’s nothing to worry about at all.’

Kit came on Friday, as promised, although he came alone, declaring that Pearl couldn’t come as she was otherwise occupied.

Ruby groaned. ‘She hasn’t taken offence, has she, over what I said the other day about the world not revolving around her?’

Giving a snort of laughter, Kit shook his head. ‘Hide as thick as a rhinoceros, our Pearl. Why, did you have words?’

Ruby pulled a face. ‘Just a few. Sometimes I could wring her neck for being so flippin’ selfish, even if she is my own sister. Our Pearl is quite incapable of seeing any other problem beyond her own. She was like that as a child, but she gets worse as she gets older, not better.’ A thought struck her. ‘Did she call at your rooms to tell you she wasn’t coming over?’

‘No,’ Kit hastily fabricated. ‘I popped in the pub.’

‘What is it she does there, serve behind the bar?’

‘Aye, that’s it. Pulling pints all night she is. They keep her pretty busy.’ And then he added as an afterthought, ‘She sends her love.’

‘Aw, bless her, she does have a sweet nature you see, underneath.’ Ruby’s eyes filled with a gush of tears, as they were wont to do these days, now that the first shock was receding. She’d felt proper queasy this morning when she got up first thing, though was it any wonder after all that had happened?
 

‘I know we were always at odds. Me and Bart, I mean. I never asked to wed him, and he wasn’t your normal sort of man. He was a bit of an eccentric, full of more secrets and schemes than I cared to know about. But he never hurt me. In his way, he was good to me. He took me out of the reformatory, fed me, clothed me, gave me the opportunity to work with him on the barges and . . .’

Kit interrupted this flow of what he considered to be maudlin babble, brought on no doubt by an idiotic sense of guilt. ‘Speaking of the barges, what are we going to do about them?’

‘Do? What do you mean - what are
we
going to do about them?’

He poured himself a glass of stout and settled in the easy chair, taking pleasure in assuming rights over the baron’s property. He’d enjoy more than the use of his chair, if Kit had any say in the matter. ‘Ruby, you have to get your wits together. You were the baron’s wife, now his widow. So the tug and barges will belong to you.’

‘Oh, but how could I claim them, or even admit that I’m his widow when we daren’t tell anyone that he’s dead?’ These last two words echoed over and over in her head.
He’s dead. He’s dead.
T
he concept was too difficult for her to comprehend so Ruby pushed the thought aside. Barthram Stobbs was far too full of life. How could he possibly be dead? ‘I can’t do anything about the barges, not right now,’ she repeated. ‘He might come back at any second. You never know.’

‘He isn’t coming back, Ruby!’

‘Don’t say that!’

‘Why not, it’s true.’ Kit took hold of her wrist, pulled her on to his lap and slid his arms about her, fondling her shoulders and neck, stroking her cheek. ‘Now I don’t want you worrying your head over this. I know it came as a shock to you, to us both, but it’s over with now and we have to get on with life. He’d want you to be properly looked after, and isn’t this a big chance for us? A new beginning? As we always wanted.’

Ruby was staring at him perplexed, hearing the words he uttered but unable to put them into any sort of logical order in her mind. They simply didn’t make sense.

He kissed her gently on the mouth, savouring the taste of her sweetness. ‘Listen, love. Why don’t you leave it all to me, eh? I’ll see your all right. I’ll look after the barges for you. When has good old Kit ever let you down? You and me were meant for each other. Pearl might think she has prior claim, but you and me know different.’

‘Pearl? Prior claim? I don’t understand.’

‘Well, you know how she is. As you said yourself, Pearl allus thinks she’s the star, the one and only. Just because I was the one what found her, she thinks it’s her I fancy, but you understand that there’s never been any other girl for me but you, Ruby.’ He eased her blouse out of her skirt and pushed his hand up over her cold flesh to cup her breast. His mouth was nuzzling at her throat, nibbling her ear. ‘Come on, love. I’ve been patient a long time. How about it?’ His hand was on her leg now, sliding under her skirt. Ruby stopped its progress with the sharp dig of her elbow.

‘Not just now, Kit, all right? I want us to be together. I’ve longed for this moment, really I have, only I can’t think straight. I’ve got a terrible headache and colly-wobbles in my stomach. I feel sick. Maybe I’ve eaten something that disagrees with me. Or else all this mess and worry has made me feel ill. I just need a bit more time, that’s all.’

‘More time? Nay, Ruby, I’ve waited months for us to be together. And you’re not wed now. Your husband’s gone, so where’s the harm?’

Ruby pushed him away and scrambled to her feet. ‘Not now, Kit. I’ve told you, I’m tired. Besides, I want our first time to be more romantic than this. I think it would be best if you go.’

He half laughed as he stretched back in the chair, clasping his hands behind his head as he made himself more comfortable. ‘Go where? Nay, lass, I’m going nowhere. I’ll stop here tonight, and every night from now on. Everything that once belonged to the baron is now mine, including you.’ Seeing the bemused expression on her lovely face, he hastily softened his tone. ‘Isn’t that you wanted?’