The Little House by Philippa Gregory
Ruth shot a look at Patrick. He folded his arms and leaned back.
‘How help?’
‘I’ll come down in the morning and take him out for his constitutional in his pram. Or if rain stops play, I’ll rock him in the hall or wherever, while you do your chores. Elizabeth will come down in the afternoon to give you a break. Patrick will be home at six every evening. So you have some support.’
Ruth hesitated. ‘Is this an offer, or is it an order?’
Frederick cleared his throat. Elizabeth was looking at her well-polished tan shoes. Patrick’s eyes were on his father’s face. Thomas cooed softly and Ruth offered him another toy.
‘You can take it as you wish,’ Frederick said. ‘It’s a description of what is going to happen.’
‘Forever?’
‘Until we are sure that you are well enough to care for him on your own.’
‘And if I refuse?’ she asked.
Patrick stole a quick look at his wife. There was a hardness and a maturity about her that he had never seen before. A sharp brilliance in her look, as if she would face the worst truths in the world, and look them in the eye. She was many miles away now from the grateful ingenue he had married. There was something adult about her now, and rock hard. He was not sure if he liked her, but there was something undeniably erotic in the way she just nodded and moved coldly and intellectually to the next question. He nodded. She was out-manning the men. She had not come as a bereaved mother to weep and call for the return of her baby. She had come out as a lioness to fight until the death.
‘I hope you will see that this is for the best,’ Frederick said, avoiding the challenge.
She smiled, a scornful, bitter smile, very beautiful on her face. ‘But if I do not see that? If I refuse?’
Frederick nodded, accepting her challenge and showing his hand with all the deceptive honesty of the skilled poker player. ‘Then we keep Thomas here and you are welcome to live here with us again, or visit daily.’
She looked to Patrick again but he was looking at the fire.
‘I could take Thomas right away,’ she said thoughtfully.
Frederick shook his head. ‘We would not permit that,’ he said. ‘Thomas stays here, either with us or with you with our supervision.’ He hesitated. ‘Besides,’ he said. ‘You have nowhere to go, and no money. You have no friends who would take you in, and no family. It would not be fair to you or Thomas, and it’s not necessary, Ruth.’
She shot a look at him. ‘Not necessary to be free?’
‘This is a brief difficult phase in a long, long life,’ Frederick said. He spoke solemnly, as if he were weighing her down with the wisdom of his experience. ‘In months, maybe in weeks, we will have half forgotten this, and by next year we will hardly remember it at all. Lots of families have difficulties in adjusting to a new baby. There is no reason why our family should be any different. Let us help you, Ruth, and take it in the spirit in which it is meant – because we love our son, and we love our grandson, and we love you.’
There was a silence. Thomas was bored and started to cry in a fretful, inconsequential way. Ruth lifted him out of his bouncy cradle-seat and sat him on her lap. ‘Nearly time for his nap,’ she said.
‘He can go upstairs,’ Elizabeth said. ‘I’ll make his bottle.’
Ruth nodded, and rocked him gently, held firmly under her cheek against the comforting sound of her beating heart. Thomas’s downy little head was warm under her chin.
‘I have no choice,’ Ruth observed.
Her father-in-law nodded. ‘That is correct,’ he said gently. ‘You have no choice.’
Ruth nodded. ‘You force me to agree,’ she said simply.
Elizabeth came back into the room with the bottle in her hand. ‘You agree?’
‘Yes.’ Ruth nodded dismissively towards Frederick. ‘He can come down in the morning and you can come down in the afternoon. The rest of the time Thomas is to be left with me.’
Patrick suddenly realized that he had been sitting with his arms crossed and his shoulders hunched for what felt like all the morning. He released his grip and felt his muscles relax.
‘Well done, darling,’ he said gently. ‘And thank you.’
Ruth looked at him with large dark eyes, which told him nothing. ‘I’ll put him to sleep in the nursery here,’ she said. ‘I’ll bring the pram up and you can wheel him down when he wakes. I want him brought down to me straight away, as soon as he wakes.’
‘I’ll do that for you,’ Frederick said quietly. He had to suppress a sense of triumph. It had been a long time since he had been faced with a situation of outright and damaging conflict. It had been something of a diplomatic pleasure as well as a duty to bring Ruth into line.
‘I’ll drive you home,’ Patrick offered. ‘Dad can come too and collect the pram. That’ll save you the walk.’
Again she gave him the dark, unfriendly stare. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘When he’s asleep.’
That day Ruth did as they wanted. Frederick pushed the pram down the drive as soon as Thomas had woken, and Ruth greeted them at the garden gate, drew the pram into the house, played with Thomas, and then gave him his lunch. After lunch, which he ate with relish – it was one of the brighter-coloured jars – Ruth took him upstairs to change his nappy and changed all his clothes as well. His morning clothes smelled of Elizabeth’s perfume.
At about three o’clock, when Thomas started getting tired again, Ruth put him in his pram and rocked him until his eyelids slowly closed and his one waving foot fell back into the pram. Then she tucked him up and put the pram in the back garden, and started to wash the kitchen floor.
Glancing out of the French windows, she saw Elizabeth, who had entered the garden by the bottom gate, bending over the pram, and gently rocking it with the handle. Ruth opened the back door.
‘I should like you to tell me when you arrive,’ she said abruptly. ‘Don’t go straight to the pram like that. He might have been just dozing off and you would have woken him.’
Elizabeth straightened up and nodded. ‘I’m sorry,’ she apologized. ‘I will in future.’
She came into the kitchen, glancing around. ‘Would you like to go out?’ she asked. ‘Or have a rest? I can finish the chores while Thomas is sleeping.’
‘I’m in the middle of washing my kitchen floor. I hardly want to leave it and go out. Would you please go to the sitting room?’
Elizabeth nodded, saying nothing, and went quietly through. Ruth mopped with silent resentment, wrung out the mop, poured away the dirty water, and put the mop and bucket away in the cupboard under the stairs.
She put her head around the sitting-room door. ‘I need to do some shopping,’ she said abruptly. ‘I’ll be about an hour.’
Elizabeth was sitting on the sofa, looking at the Guardian newspaper. ‘Of course,’ she said pleasantly. ‘If he wakes I’ll bring him in and play with him here.’
‘He is not to be taken out of this house,’ Ruth said flatly. ‘When I come back, he is to be here.’
‘Of course.’ Elizabeth gave her daughter-in-law a tentative smile. ‘Of course, Ruth. We’re all working together on this.’
Ruth’s face was like a wall. ‘That’s not how I see it,’ she said. ‘You are not to give him his tea, you are not to bath him. I will do that when I come home.’
‘I will change his nappy,’ Elizabeth stipulated.
Ruth hesitated. ‘All right,’ she said and turned and went out of the door.
Elizabeth sat completely still until she heard the car drive away, and then she went through to the kitchen and glanced out of the window at the pram. As the noise of the engine died away down the lane she gave a little sigh, and her shoulders relaxed, as if a burden had slid away. She drew the curtains into the proper tiebacks. ‘Poor, dear, unhappy Ruth,’ she said softly. ‘Such a shame …’
Then she went out into the garden to see Thomas.
Ruth was back precisely within the hour, and she unloaded the shopping from
‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ Elizabeth said on the doorstep.
Ruth nodded, and shut the door in her face.
Elizabeth gathered the collar of her coat about her ears, and ran down the path to her car. As she drove away from the little house she was smiling.
Thomas was fretful at dinner time and would not eat. He kicked out as he went into his high chair, and his bowl of dinner went flying, landing with a splash of bright tomato red all over the newly washed floor.
Ruth had to heat another bowl of dinner to give to him, and then leave him, squirming crossly in his high chair, starting to cry, as she cleared up the kitchen floor. Just as she thrust the last red-stained lump of kitchen towel in the bin, Thomas’s dinner bowl – which should have been fixed with a suction cup on the tray of his high chair – came unstuck and flew across the kitchen to land on the floor again.
‘Oh no!’ Ruth said. For a moment she thought she would not be able to hold back the tears, but then her face hardened. It was no longer a question of having a bad evening, or washing the floor twice. It was a question of keeping custody of her child, and the danger of Patrick’s family’s labelling her as insane. In the face of that nightmare Ruth felt she could not afford easy, small emotions. She was facing the worst thing that could possibly happen to her; the spilling of Thomas’s dinner was nothing.
She scooped him out of his chair and, leaving the sticky mess on the kitchen floor, took him up the stairs, and laid him gently on his changing mat to get him undressed for his bath.
Thomas, enjoying the change of scene, was all smiles. His face, striped liberally with red tomato sauce, was radiant. When Ruth tickled his bare tummy and gently blew, he gurgled with laughter, and Ruth found herself making soft aeroplane-bombing noises and zooming down to kiss the round of his fat, warm stomach.
She lifted her head when she heard the front door open. Patrick was home. She heard him put down his briefcase, go into the kitchen, exclaim at the state of the floor, and then come up the stairs. Ruth stripped off Thomas’s dirty nappy and left it on the changing mat, and carried Thomas, wrapped in a warm towel, to the bathroom.
‘Hello,’ Patrick said cautiously.
‘Hello,’ she said.
‘How are things?’ he asked.
‘Fine.’
Ruth ran the bath and then put Thomas carefully in it, one hand behind his back, one firm grip on his arm.
‘Anything I can do?’ Patrick asked. In the farmhouse he was required to sit on the chair in the bathroom, drink a gin and tonic, and smile occasionally at his son.
‘Yes,’ Ruth said pleasantly. ‘Can you clean up the changing table, there’s a dirty nappy there, and then wash the kitchen floor and clean up the kitchen, and then peel some potatoes for supper, and put them on to boil. Make Thomas’s bottles and bring them up.’
Patrick blinked. ‘The kitchen floor looks like a butcher’s shop,’ he remarked.
‘Doesn’t it?’ Ruth agreed. ‘I’ve washed it twice already today. That’s just one effort. Hurry up, Patrick, or we’ll never get supper on.’
‘I’ll have to change,’ he said.
She nodded. Slowly, he went to the bedroom to change into jeans and a sweatshirt. With his two parents on call and Ruth at home all day, he did not see why he should have to wash the kitchen floor on his arrival home after a long day at work. He slipped his feet into comfortable moccasins, and went downstairs.
The kitchen was most unappealing. From the bathroom upstairs he could hear Ruth playing with Thomas, the noise of splashing, and Thomas’s delighted giggles. Patrick sighed heavily and fetched the mop.
He had barely finished before Ruth called down the stairs, ‘He’s ready for his bottle!’
‘Coming!’ Patrick shouted back.
He made up the feed and carried it up the stairs. Thomas was pink and sweet-smelling from his bath. His pyjamas were a soft white cotton all-in-one sleep suit, which encased his plump little feet and his round, compact body. When he saw his father bringing the bottle, he beamed, stretched out his hand, and babbled.
‘He’s saying hello!’ Ruth exclaimed.
Ruth settled herself in the nursing chair and held Thomas on her lap. Patrick handed her the bottle and drew the curtains against the dark winter night. ‘Goodnight, son!’ he said cheerfully, and went to the door.
‘Nappy,’ Ruth reminded him. ‘You’ve forgotten the dirty nappy.’
With a half-suppressed sigh Patrick folded up the disgusting little package and took it downstairs. Ruth cuddled Thomas close and rocked him.
Patrick felt at a disadvantage through the evening. He was expecting Ruth to reproach him for not standing up for her against his parents, but she cooked lamb chops and served them at the table as if she were a perfectly contented wife and mother. The potatoes were disagreeably spotty where Patrick had missed the eyes and markings, and rather hard. Ruth ate them without comment. Patrick left his on the side of his plate, with a martyred air, but then absentmindedly ate them up.
He glanced at the clock on the microwave. ‘I have to see the nine-o’clock news,’ he said, and got up from the table.
‘OK,’ Ruth said obligingly. ‘We can stack the dishwasher later.’
Patrick said nothing. He had rather thought that Ruth would clear up the kitchen while he watched the news and then bring him a cup of coffee when she had finished. Ruth looked at him as if she could not see these half-formed thoughts behind his eyes.
‘Oh, let’s do it now,’ he said.
They cleared the table in silence, and Ruth wiped down the worktops and put the breakfast things ready. Then they went through to the sitting room. It was nearly time for the ten-o’clock news. Ruth shucked off her shoes and curled up in an armchair to watch. ‘Be a darling, and make me a cup of tea,’ she asked. ‘I’ll watch the news and then I’m up to bed. It’s been a long horrible day.’
He paused at the doorway. ‘I’m sorry about this morning,’ he said awkwardly. ‘It’ll all be all right soon.’
She had her head turned towards the television screen, and she did not turn back to look at him. ‘Yes,’ she said shortly.
They went to bed together. Patrick expected her to turn on her side and present him with her smooth pale back. But when he put out the light he felt her arms come around him with surprising strength.
He was going to hold her, to pat her back in a consoling manner. But she reared up over him and put her mouth down to his and kissed him, penetratingly, hard.
Patrick felt pierced by lust. He pulled her towards him, and she came astride him at once, her arms wound tightly around his neck, her body hard and heavy along him. As she kissed him he felt her teeth graze his lips, and he groaned with sudden, surprising desire.
Ruth slipped a quick cunning hand down his body and found and grasped his penis. Tumbling deep into desire, Patrick had a sense of adultery, of forbidden pleasure. In the years of their marriage Ruth had never assertively taken the initiative. She had often invited, but she had never forced the issue. This hot, angry sexual woman on top of him was a woman he did not recognize, but he knew, as he instinctively thrust upward, that she was what he wanted.
Ruth’s silky nightgown rode up over her thighs, over her back. ‘Oh, God!’ Patrick said at the touch of her skin. She lowered herself on him with a gasp and then moved, rocking him faster and faster. Patrick, in a blur of sensation, just followed the rapid, demanding movements of her hips, felt himself drawn in, demanded, and finally consumed. She moved her weight so the bone inside the flesh pressed the flesh tantalizingly, delightfully, irresistibly together.
They lay still for a moment, and then, without a word, Ruth rolled off him. Patrick was still far from thought, whirling in a powerful sexual daze.
‘Ruth?’ he whispered after a little while.
She did not reply, and he thought she had fallen asleep. He stretched out a hand to caress her, but she rolled away, and all he touch
‘Ruth?’
On her side, eyes open, Ruth heard him whisper her name, but she lay still. She felt a fierce, wild joy. She had taken Patrick as her mate, at last, after years of waiting for his passion and waiting for her own. She had won him to her, and she would keep him. Not any longer by trying to please him, but by determinedly and excitingly pleasing herself.
She waited until she heard the quiet rhythm of his sleeping breath, and then she rolled on her back and stretched with pleasure. ‘At least that’s one thing she can’t do,’ she said softly.
Seventeen
FREDERICK WALKED down the drive to Ruth’s house. The day was bitterly cold, the sky heavy and grey. ‘Looks like snow,’ Frederick said to himself.
He rang the doorbell, and Ruth answered. Thomas was already in his pram, well wrapped-up. ‘I’ll only take him for a short walk, twenty minutes or so,’ Frederick said. ‘It’s freezing.’
Ruth nodded without smiling. He had never seen her before without that slightly nervous, slightly deferential smile. It was an unnerving change; she looked suddenly older, more powerful. For the first time in his life Frederick thought that she was a beautiful woman.
‘When you come back you can bring him in,’ she said. ‘The pram can go in the hall. I’m doing the bedrooms.’
Frederick touched his cap to her in the courteous way he always treated her. She looked at him ironically, but said nothing. ‘If you want to go out,’ he offered. ‘I can stay with him all the morning.’
She shook her head. ‘You said an hour,’ she said. ‘An hour in the morning and two in the afternoon. This is not at my request, nor my convenience. This is what you insist on doing. If you want to change it, then you can go home and I will have him all to myself this morning.’