Spring Proposal in Swallowbrook Page 13

  It was Friday again, the last working day of what had been a dreary week as far as she was concerned, and in the evening a yearly event was taking place in the assembly hall of the village school, the play that the staff and their young pupils presented after much hard work to parents and friends.

  She knew that Hugo had been taking it for granted that the two of them would be going together to see Toby in his first school play and he’d bought tickets a couple of weeks ago, but that had been before he’d asked her to marry him and their relationship had foundered.

  Now all the tickets had been sold and she’d given up on the idea of going until on arriving home from the surgery on the Friday evening she found the ticket that he’d got for her on the mat when she opened the door and as she’d stared down at it she decided that she was going to go.

  It wasn’t numbered so she didn’t have to sit next to Hugo, she told herself as she bent to pick it up. There would be lots of folk there. They might not even get a glimpse of each other in the packed hall, but that was what she wanted, wasn’t it?

  Having felt like a drab all week, she put on the blue and white dress and spent extra time on hair and make-up. But when she stepped in front of a long mirror in the bedroom before walking down to the school she was asking herself why was she was dressing up. There would be no one she wanted to impress at the play. Hugo was out of her life for good, she’d been too cruel and outspoken for him to want to have anything to do with her ever again.

  As was sometimes the case with the best-laid plans they went astray and the moment Ruby entered the place she saw Libby waving from a row near the front with Nathan on the one side and Hugo on the other. She was pointing to the empty seat next to him and beckoning her across to sit with them, and short of being downright rude there was nothing she could do but join them.

  As she seated herself next to him Libby said, ‘Hugo is here at Toby’s request. Who have you come to clap for, Ruby?’

  She was so aware of him sitting silently beside her she could hardly breathe, but with bright colour staining her cheeks managed to say, ‘Er, all of them, I suppose. I used to be a pupil here myself.’

  ‘And did your brother attend this school too?’ Nathan questioned casually. ‘I don’t seem to remember him.’

  ‘You won’t,’ she told him. ‘Robbie was just a toddler when we left Swallowbrook. There is quite a difference in our ages.’

  So far Hugo hadn’t spoken, but now he broke his silence to ask, ‘Are you packed up and ready to leave in a couple of weeks’ time?’

  ‘More or less,’ she told him, knowing that she’d never been less ready for anything than she was for her departure from Swallowbrook, but with peace between them she would just about manage to get through the days that were left if there were no further discussions, or touching, or false rapport, and then it would be back to Tyneside and the rest of her life without him.

  The play was over, the young performers had taken their bows and while Libby and Nathan went to find Toby behind the scenes Ruby and Hugo were left to wait for them in an uncomfortable silence that seemed never-ending until at last they appeared and as usual Toby came running straight to Hugo and he swung him up into his arms and held him close.

  Ruby turned away. It was how he would be with children of his own, she thought achingly. They would be blessed to have Hugo as a father, but there would be no blessings coming their way if she was their mother.

  He had watched her turn away and it had brought back the hurt that had never left him since she’d refused to marry him, but he wasn’t going to open up that raw wound again. If Ruby had told him she didn’t love him he would have accepted it, but she hadn’t said that. She’d as good as admitted that she did love him, but not enough to marry him and have his children.

  Libby and Nathan were spending the weekend as they often did at their house on the island and were intending sailing across in their motor launch as soon as the play was over, so there was no cause for Ruby and Hugo to linger, and after they’d all said their goodnights Ruby found herself walking back to the apartment with him and the silence that had been between them as they’d waited for Libby and Nathan to find Toby backstage was back again, until they reached Lakes Rise and as she was about to make a quick getaway he held out his hand in front of her and on the palm of it was a small jeweller’s box.

  Mesmerised and shaken, she thought frantically, Please don’t ask me again, Hugo. I won’t be able to say no a second time. But she’d got it wrong. He had no intention of doing any such thing. Instead he lifted the lid and as she gazed wide-eyed at a ruby glowing red in a bright gold setting, he said, ‘As this is no longer of any use to me, you might as well have it. Do what you want with it, Ruby, I don’t mind.’ And leaving her totally speechless he went, bypassing the house so that she would have no chance to catch him up to refuse, or enthuse over the ring, and straight to The Mallard where the conversation would be mundane and easy to handle.

  Ruby sat and gazed at the ring with the glowing stone that she was named after for hours after he’d gone and with every passing moment knew she wasn’t going to give it back to Hugo. It was a beautiful thing that he would have chosen with his hopes high, expecting to put it on her finger when he’d asked her to marry him, and now it meant nothing to him.

  But to her it would be something to remind her of the only man she would ever love, the one who had taken her to his heart and awakened her dormant passions, cared for her when she was weak and lost on her first night back in Swallowbrook, and now she had something to remember him by that she would always wear. Not on her finger, she had no right to do that, but on a slender gold chain around her neck, unseen by others. Only she would know it was there and be comforted.

  Since she had rung home to say she was coming back to Tyneside there had been mixed feelings in the family. There was pleasure because they would see more of her. Robbie was especially delighted while knowing nothing of the circumstances, because ‘big sis’, as he called her, was coming back to live with them.

  But there was also anxiety because both her parents knew something that the man who wanted to marry her didn’t, and they ached for their daughter.

  Her mother was very quiet with only Ruby’s one cryptic comment about Hugo Lawrence’s love of children to go by with regard to the end of the love affair, and knowing how the reason for it would hurt the woman who had given birth to her, she’d made light of it on the night that she’d phoned to say she was coming back home to live, which left Jess not knowing what to think.

  But not so her father. He knew his daughter too well not to pick up on the sadness in Ruby that she’d been quick to deny on the occasions when he’d phoned her since she’d said she was leaving Swallowbrook, and he had drawn his own conclusions.

  After the gift of the ring Ruby was consumed with the urge for it to be as near to her heart as possible and the next morning, taking advantage of it being Saturday, she drove into the town to the main jeweller’s on the high street whose name was on the box that it had been in and bought the chain that would hold the ring warm and safe between her breasts.

  After a coffee in a nearby café she was preparing to drive back to the village when she saw Laura Armitage and her children also out shopping, if the number of bags and parcels they were carrying was anything to go by.

  As the two of them stopped to pass the time of day the woman who was shortly to take over the practice manager position that her uncle had left vacant said, ‘We’ve just seen Hugo chatting to Libby and Nathan with Toby in one of the stores and now we see you, Ruby. The Swallowbrook doctors must have all had the same idea this morning.’

  Not exactly, Ruby thought. They might have all come to shop, but she would be the only one who had come to buy a chain for a ring that she was going to wear around her neck when its rightful place was on her finger.

  ‘Where exactly
did you see them, Laura?’ she asked the other woman, who pointed vaguely in the direction of a new store that had just opened, which prompted Ruby to go in the other direction as they each went their separate ways

  She had reckoned without the long arm of coincidence that sometimes reached out when least expected, and while she was filling the petrol tank at a garage on the way back to the village Hugo’s car pulled in behind her and he came to stand beside her as she was replacing the petrol cap.

  He was smiling in spite of what was going on in their lives. Just the sight of her was enough to brighten his day. ‘It seems as if we’ve all had the same idea, to do an early shop,’ he said. ‘Libby and Nathan were in one of the stores, and Laura and her family appeared while I was chatting to them.’

  A casual glance inside the car and his smile disappeared. He’d seen the fancy bag with the jeweller’s name on it that contained the chain and she thought with sick dismay, Surely he doesn’t think I’ve changed the ring for something else. Please don’t let it be that!

  Yet she couldn’t ask him if it was, it would be just too awful if she was wrong and totally horrific if she was right. With all speed she went to pay for the fuel and while Hugo was busy at the pumps wished him a brief goodbye and drove off.

  The rest of the weekend was going to be an exercise in depression that would make past days seem joyful if she didn’t explain to Hugo about the chain. There was no need for Hugo to know why she’d bought it, but clear the air she must for the sake of her peace of mind…and his.

  But time passed and when there was no sign of him coming back to the house her anxiety regarding the bag from the jeweller’s switched to his whereabouts, which unknown to her were connected with him having clothes for fell walking and other equipment in the boot of his car, and an arrangement with the mountain rescue services that he could be contacted at short notice in an emergency.

  A group from a nearby sixth form college had gone on a supervised walk up one of the fells and got lost in thick mist up on the tops, so much so that instructions for them all to stay together hadn’t been as easy to adhere to as had been thought, and now it was chaos up there, with small groups trying to find their way down in very poor visibility. Others were wisely staying put until it improved.

  Along with other experienced fell walkers Hugo and Nathan had both received calls to turn out with a team of mountain rescue volunteers and if Ruby had known that she might have felt that her urgency for Hugo’s company came a poor second to the needs of the lost teenage walkers, but as she didn’t, it wasn’t until Libby phoned in the early evening to explain his absence that she became aware that on this occasion the needs of others had to come first.

  Another call from Libby at the cottage much later in the evening was to say that the lost and those who had gone to bring them down to safety were all back at the village hall being given warm drinks and blankets to bring up body temperatures. Though it had been a mild day by the lakeside it had been very cold on the tops, and her last item of information before she rang off was to say, ‘Hugo’s car has just gone past. He should arrive at Lakes Rise any moment, Ruby,’ and as she replaced the receiver he was pulling up on the drive.

  When he got out of the car he looked tired and drawn and she was beside him in a flash, all else forgotten in the need to cherish him for a few precious moments.

  ‘Would you like some supper?’ she asked. ‘I’ve made a quiche and a salad, with blueberry crumble and custard to follow.’

  ‘To what do I owe the honour?’ he asked quizzically.

  ‘Two reasons,’ she told him, ‘firstly because it can’t have been very pleasant up there tonight.’

  ‘True,’ he agreed. ‘And what’s the second?’

  ‘That I’ve been waiting for hours to explain what the bag from the jewellers was doing in my car.’

  ‘Why do you feel you have to do that?’

  ‘Because I thought you might have wondered if I’d been to exchange the ring you gave me for something else.’

  ‘And had you?’

  ‘No! Of course not! I would never do such a thing.’

  ‘Good. I’m glad to hear it, though does it matter?’

  Yes, it does, it really does, she thought wistfully, achingly aware of the glowing jewel hidden from sight, and bringing her thoughts back to the reason why they were having this conversation at close on midnight, she said, ‘So are you going to come and join me for supper?’

  ‘Er, yes of course,’ was the reply. ‘It’s kind of you to offer. Give me a few moments to get changed and cleaned up and I’ll be with you.’ He strode across to the house and disappeared from sight and she went back into the apartment to wait for him with the knowledge that she wasn’t any wiser regarding what Hugo had thought when he had seen the bag from the jeweller’s in the car, but at least she’d explained the reason for it in an oblique sort of way from her point of view.

  It would have put her mind at rest if she’d known that he hadn’t thought anything in particular when he’d seen it. It had been merely a matter that observing the familiar name on the bag had reminded him of the fate of the ring that he’d bought with high hopes of seeing it on her finger, and instead had ended up giving it to her as a sign of defeat.

  And now as she waited for him the thought was there that this might be the last time they shared a meal, were together on their own, and she couldn’t bear it, but if Hugo picked up on her distress it would bring them into the kind of situation that they always ended in, heart searching and half-truths from her side, and she didn’t want that tonight.

  The table was set for two in soft lamplight when he appeared looking scrubbed and clean after scrambling around the fells searching for the lost ones who would now be homeward bound in the coach that had brought them to Swallowbrook.

  To his amazement she’d changed into the blue dress that he’d once asked her to wear and had seen the request ignored. Was there a message in that, or had it just been the first thing she’d seen in the wardrobe? he wondered.

  There was just a week to go before Ruby disappeared out of his life and tonight was the only time he’d felt any closeness between them since she’d flatly refused to marry him, and even now it could be just wishful thinking on his part.

  It could be that she was doing what any friend would do for him after a pretty gruelling day, making him a meal and giving him the pleasure of her company, but it didn’t explain the blue dress, and he wasn’t going to ask why tonight of all nights she was wearing it. She’d been dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt when she’d come out onto the drive to speak to him when he had arrived home.

  If it was a good omen and Ruby was changing her mind about leaving the village, the practice, and him, she was going to have to make the first move. He’d been down that road once and had been groping for an answer to what was going on in his life ever since.

  She was crazy, thought Ruby as she dished the food out in the apartment’s small kitchen. In the last three weeks she’d kept her distance from Hugo except for at the surgery, and now tonight when it was almost time for her to go she was melting with love for him, aching for him to make love to her just once so that she would have something to hold onto in the dark days of a future without him.

  But she’d seen the look in his eyes when he had noticed the dress and it hadn’t been pleasure there. Just a wary, questioning sort of look that said, Don’t play games with me, Ruby. If it wasn’t for the fact that it would be so obvious she would dash into the bedroom and change back into the jeans and cotton top.

  Unaware of the thoughts going round in her head Hugo smiled when she put the food in front of him and said, ‘I can’t remember the last time someone made a meal for me.’

  ‘What about your sister?’ she asked

  ‘It was more a matter of me doing the cooking when she was here. Patrice had
no interest in anything, until she was suddenly taken with the idea of living in Canada near a friend who’d come over on a visit. Before I knew it she’d gone and I was free to live my own life, until on a winter’s evening a vision appeared in a red cape…’

  She was laughing. ‘Please don’t bring that up again. I shudder when I think about the way I blundered into your ordered life.’

  ‘And now you’re going out of it as quickly as you came into it.’ he said, sombre now, ‘and I still don’t understand.’

  ‘It’s better if you don’t,’ she told him in a low voice. ‘A lot of things are best that way.’

  ‘Not when they concern the two of us, Ruby,’ he said tightly. ‘Don’t insult my intelligence.’

  She had seated herself opposite and after that there was silence between them until they’d finished the meal. When she went into the kitchen to make coffee he followed her and doing the very thing that he’d vowed not to do said, ‘Why the blue dress? Or is it something else that I’m better off not knowing?’

  ‘I put it on because I thought it might be our last time alone. I’m going home at the end of next week, probably driving to Tyneside on the Sunday evening, and remembering how you’d once asked me to wear it and I didn’t, I thought that it might make up for it a little.’

  ‘And that’s it?’

  ‘Yes, more or less.’

  ‘And suppose I asked you to go one step further and slip out of it, the same as you were going to do with the raincoat when we’d got caught in the downpour that time? Would you do that for me to make up for me being so slow to respond then?’

  ‘No,’ she said softly. ‘The desire is there, urgent and compelling. I’ve wanted to give myself to you since the moment you arrived, but it would be like leaving us with unfinished business if we made love during my last few days in the village. I would want more and it wouldn’t be right.’