He had stared at her as though she was mad. ‘Clarissa, my sweet, you’ve been reading too many romantic novels,’ he’d said with a smile, hoping to deflect her from further conversation. ‘As you said yourself, Ruby is making a huge success of her business and what could I offer her? Any relationship between us is more impossible than it has ever been.’
‘No, no, it’s not, Edward.’
‘It is, and with all respect to your sisterly affection, I don’t wish to discuss this.’
‘It’s your pride, isn’t it? Do you mean to tell me that you would let your pride stop you being with the one woman you love?’
He had stared at her and said, ‘A remnant of pride is all I have left. I would rather be hanged, drawn and quartered than become a lead weight round Ruby’s neck.’ The words Verity had flung at him had cut deep. ‘It’s over between us, Clarissa. That is final. I mean it.’
‘I can see that you do.’ Clarissa had sighed and shaken her head. ‘I love you, Edward, I really do, but you are a fool.’
‘I love you too and you’re right, I am, which is another reason Ruby is better off without me.’
‘Oh, you!’ She had stamped her foot and left him with a flounce. The memory of that day brought a wry smile to his lips as he watched Clarissa and Godfrey make their way towards him from where they had been standing waving to the crowds on the dock, none of whom they knew. He loved his sister, and he appreciated the devotion that had brought her and Godfrey rushing across the Atlantic to be at his side, but he wished they had arrived just a day later. According to his doctor, all his troubles in this world would have been over by then.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Edward had been installed in one of the bedroom suites at Foreburn for a week when Ruby went to see him in the middle of December. He was up and about most of the time but still frail, retiring to his private quarters most days after lunch for a nap and joining Clarissa and Godfrey again in the late afternoon for cocktails before dinner. He was irritable and frustrated by what he perceived as the slowness of his recovery, but had found he had to give in to the exhaustion and weakness for the simple reason that it brought him to the point of collapsing if he attempted to fight it.
His parents had visited when he had been back in the country for three days and it hadn’t been a happy meeting. Mr and Mrs Forsythe had come in a spirit of ‘I told you so’ and had left within an hour after Clarissa had ordered them out of the house when Edward had become so incensed he’d been in danger of having a seizure. They had departed threatening never to return, and had been further put out when Clarissa had told them that this was a promise she would hold them to.
Now it was the third Sunday in the month and the morning was bright but bitterly cold. There had been heavy frosts for a week but no snow as yet, and as Ruby had driven to Foreburn the glinting sparkle of spiderwebs in the hedgerows and the thick white coating on bare trees carried a desolate beauty all of their own. She stopped the car at one point and wound down the window, breathing in the icy air as she gazed across frozen fields shimmering in the weak winter sun that was doing its best to melt the carpet of frost. She needed to compose herself before she saw Edward. Clarissa had called to see her the day before and invite her to lunch, but the main reason for her friend’s visit, Clarissa had told her candidly, was to acquaint her with Edward’s changed circumstances. Clarissa had held nothing back, emphasizing that Edward had called off his engagement some weeks before the Wall Street Crash because he was still in love with Ruby and always would be, and that on top of losing everything, he had been as near to dying as a person could be and still survive.
‘But he’s changed, Ruby,’ Clarissa had said sadly. ‘He sees himself as a failure and it’s done something to him. I don’t know how to reach him, I confess, and Godfrey has tried and got nowhere. He’s talking about joining the RAF when he’s well enough – he had some flying experience when he was younger – or failing that trying for the Civil Service. He can speak several languages and with his Eton background they’d probably snap him up. He – well, he’s got this fixation about not becoming a burden to anyone.’
Ruby sighed, leaning back in the car seat for a moment and shutting her eyes. How she would eat any lunch she didn’t know because her stomach had been doing cartwheels since Clarissa’s visit the day before. Her mother had baked a splendid high tea as usual yesterday evening but she had only been able to nibble at a sandwich and swallow a small custard tart. While Cissy had been reading Alice her bedtime story, something she loved to do and which Alice enjoyed because her grandmother didn’t mind going over the same story time and time again, unlike her mother, she had confided in Olive about Edward. She hadn’t meant to, but once she had started the whole story had come out.
When she had finished, Olive had looked at her and said, ‘You still love him.’
She’d nodded.
‘And you would accept him now he’s poor?’
‘Even if he had come back rich I would have married him. I’d realized how stupid I’d been not to give it a chance after he had gone to America but it was too late then. And then he met this other girl . . .’
‘So tell him that. When you see him tomorrow, tell him.’
‘How can I? He’ll think I’m feeling sorry for him.’
‘Feeling sorry, my backside,’ said Olive forcefully. ‘From what his sister has said, he’s not going to say anything to you, is he, not feeling as he does about himself? So it’s up to you to make the first move. Look, lass, if you love him like you say you do, what have you got to lose? Better telling him and him still clearing off, than not telling him and always wondering whether it might have worked.’
She had nodded. Put like that it seemed her only option. Now, though, doubt had crept in. Clarissa had seemed so sure that Edward still loved her and that it had been that which had ended his engagement, but could she really be as sure as she claimed? He must have felt something more than affection to get betrothed to the American girl so quickly? Actually ask her to spend the rest of her life with him? Would they have got back together if the Wall Street Crash hadn’t happened and then Edward had become so ill? It might have been a lovers’ tiff that would have got sorted out but for the catastrophe that had followed.
She made a sound of irritation in her throat and straightened, winding up the window and starting the engine. Enough. At this rate she’d drive herself mad before she got to Foreburn. Feeling as though she was teetering on the edge of a precipice she drove on, vitally aware that the next few hours would determine the rest of her life.
‘You’ve done what?’
‘I’ve invited Ruby for lunch.’ Clarissa faced her brother calmly. ‘You know she often dines with us on a Sunday when we’re at home.’ For a moment she thought he was going to explode – certainly he had more colour in his cheeks than he’d had thus far – but then she watched him take control of himself.
‘Of course,’ he said stiffly. ‘This is your home and you are free to do as you please, but I will take my meal upstairs if that is all right.’
‘No, it’s not all right. That would be positively insulting and you know it. I know things were difficult between you when you parted but surely you can be civil to her?’
Much as he loved his sister, right at this moment he could throttle her. Edward glanced at Godfrey who shook his head. ‘Don’t look at me, old boy. I had no idea either.’
‘It’s Sunday lunch, for goodness’ sake.’ Clarissa hid behind annoyance. ‘Don’t make such a drama of it, the two of you.’
Sunday lunch. Hell’s bells. Here was he looking like death warmed up as his mirror had told him only too plainly that morning, and Ruby was coming. It would have been difficult enough to see her again if he had been hale and hearty and still in possession of his investments, but now? How could Clarissa do this to him? What had possessed her? He had to swallow hard before he could say, ‘You didn’t think to ask me if I thought this was a good idea, or at least give me the opp
ortunity to dine elsewhere in town?’
‘You’re not well enough to dine elsewhere, and I knew if I asked you, you wouldn’t want to see her.’ Clarissa had decided it was time for plain speaking. ‘Which is ridiculous. Ruby is a dear friend and you are my brother – you can’t avoid each other for ever now you are back home. The first time you met was always going to be a little . . . uncomfortable for you both, so it’s better to get it over and done with and everyone can relax. That’s what I think.’
Again Edward glanced at Godfrey, who raised his eyebrows but didn’t comment. He’d met sergeant majors who weren’t a patch on his wife when she had a bee in her bonnet.
After a moment, Edward said quietly, ‘I wish you hadn’t done this, Clarissa.’
Clarissa had her own qualms which had been mounting all morning but she wasn’t about to admit this. She smiled sweetly. ‘You can meet as old friends surely? We are all perfectly civilized, after all.’
He wasn’t feeling civilized, certainly not towards his sister. He was about to ask, ‘What time is she coming?’ when a knock at the drawing-room door and the maid announcing Ruby’s name saved him the trouble.
The next moment Ruby walked in. He knew he ought to say something, to rise to the occasion, but as Clarissa jumped up and hurried forward, taking Ruby’s hands as she said, ‘Oh, darling, you must be frozen, it’s so cold outside. Come and get warm by the fire,’ he found himself unable to even stand to his feet. And then Godfrey had stood up and moved forward, giving him much needed seconds to compose himself. As he rose, he was praying his legs would hold him. She looked even lovelier than he remembered and so full of life, her cheeks pink with the cold and her beautiful hair shining like silk. Somehow he managed to smile and hold out his hand and say coolly, ‘Ruby, how nice. It’s been such a long time. I trust you are well?’
‘Quite well, thank you, Edward.’ There was a split second of screamingly awkward silence before she added, ‘And you? I hear you have been ill.’
‘Oh, I’m fine now, as you see.’
What she saw was a gaunt and skeletal individual who bore little resemblance to the man she had known; even his face seemed to have been hollowed out, his cheekbones showing razor sharp under the skin. Pulling herself together, she said politely, ‘I’m glad. I’m sure Clarissa’s been looking after you.’
‘Oh, yes. Clarissa always knows what’s best for us all.’ It was barbed and he immediately could have kicked himself for his boorishness. Too quickly, he said, ‘But enough about me. I hear your business has gone from strength to strength? You have opened another shop, Clarissa tells me.’
Clarissa had been ushering Ruby to an armchair close to the roaring fire as he had spoken, and once Ruby had sat down and they’d resumed their seats, she said quietly, ‘Yes, a short distance from the original one. My sister’s husband was killed in a mining accident at the same time my father passed away and so they had nothing to hold them in Sunderland. They live above the second shop. My mother takes care of my niece and my sister runs the shop. It has worked out very well.’
He was dead? The man she had been betrothed to who had let her down so badly with her sister, he was dead? And she’d taken on the sister and child, along with her mother? He became aware that he was staring and forced himself to say, ‘My condolences. It must have been a difficult time.’
‘Yes, it was.’ This was awful, ten times worse than she had prepared herself for. He was so stiff, so cold.
Clarissa and Godfrey must have been thinking the same because over the next half an hour before lunch they fell over themselves to keep some sort of conversation going. When the gong sounded and they walked through to the dining room everyone breathed a sigh of relief, although in the event the meal was just as uncomfortable.
It was as they retired back to the drawing room where Clarissa had asked their coffee to be served, that she caught hold of Godfrey’s arm, saying to Ruby and Edward, ‘You two go through, we won’t be a minute,’ leaving them no option but to do as she said. Ruby knew she was blushing as she took the seat she’d vacated before the meal, but Edward was as cool as a cucumber to her fevered gaze.
In the event, he was inwardly cursing Clarissa. All through the interminable lunch he had been picturing the look of shock on Ruby’s face when she had first set eyes on him. She had concealed it almost instantly, but not before he had seen the concern and yes, yes, the pity that had turned her brown eyes liquid. He had always known she had a soft heart. Look how she had tortured herself over her friend, Ellie, and this latest – her providing a home and employment for her sister and the child after the history between them – proved she was a sucker for the underdog. And that’s what he was now, an underdog.
There were a few moments of excruciating silence after they had sat down, and then they both spoke at once, only to stop again.
‘I’m sorry.’ Edward smiled grimly. ‘You were saying . . .?’
‘I was just going to say that – that I’m sorry your engagement didn’t work out.’ It was the only thing she could think of to introduce what she wanted to say.
He shrugged. ‘It was just one of those things.’ Looking at her was causing a physical pain in his chest – she was so beautiful, so damn perfect. ‘Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.’
Ruby inwardly flinched. So he had loved her, this American. ‘I don’t know if that’s quite true.’
‘No? Well, we always did look at things differently, you and I,’ he said, his tone pleasant now. ‘You were right about that. In fact, you were right about a lot of things.’
She shook her head. ‘Not really.’ It took all her strength to look him in the eye and say quietly, ‘I missed you.’
There was an agony inside him as though he had been disembowelled. He knew he was looking at her for the last time because he couldn’t go through this again. As soon as he was able he would leave Foreburn, leave the north altogether, and he wouldn’t come back. Clarissa had said to him that he and Ruby could meet as equals now, but they were far from that. Her star was rising and he was glad for her, he didn’t begrudge her one moment of the success she so deserved, but he was poorer than a church mouse and that had effectively finished anything that might have lingered between them. And the fact remained that she had been able to cast him off and get on with her life perfectly well; she hadn’t written to him or tried to contact him all the months he had been away. There had been nothing. But now, because she saw him as a lame duck, her sympathy was aroused. But sympathy and pity and even affection weren’t a basis for a relationship between a man and a woman. Steeling himself, he smiled coolly.
‘Thank you. Now if you will excuse me I usually spend the afternoon resting in my room, so I will see you later if you are staying for tea?’ He knew she wouldn’t; her face had gone white.
‘No, not today.’ She rose too, offering him her hand as she said, ‘I hope you are soon completely well.’
He inclined his head – speech was beyond him – and walked as steadily as he could out of the room, closing the door quietly behind him. He met Clarissa and Godfrey in the hall but he didn’t speak, casting his sister one look that caused her to put her hand to her throat.
They stood and watched him as he walked up the winding staircase, and as Clarissa whispered, ‘Oh, Godfrey,’ her husband patted her hand but said nothing. One of the things he had always loved about his young, lovely, impetuous wife was her bravery for rushing in where angels feared to tread, but in this instance he wished she had discussed the matter with him first. Edward was broken in body and mind and the only thing he had left was a semblance of pride. Clarissa should have known that, but perhaps it was a male/female thing? Anyway, it was clear that this whole incident was an unmitigated disaster.
When they entered the drawing room they found Ruby standing looking out of the windows into the white expanse outside. She turned to face them, and before Clarissa could speak, she said, ‘Thank you for a lovely lunch but I really must be
going now.’
‘Oh, Ruby, please don’t. Please stay. Whatever has happened, whatever he’s said, he doesn’t mean it and—’
‘Clarissa.’ Whether it was the tone of Godfrey’s voice, a tone he had never used with her before, or because the situation was beyond even her, Clarissa became quiet. He patted her hand again and then walked across to Ruby, taking her arm as he said, ‘Let me walk you to the car.’
‘Thank you.’ Ruby managed a faint smile, and as they passed a stricken Clarissa, she stopped and gave her a swift hug before continuing. Godfrey himself fetched her hat and coat, and once they were outside in the frosty air and standing by her car, she said quietly, ‘Tell Clarissa I know she meant well, won’t you? But I hope she’ll understand that I won’t come again while Edward is with you.’
Godfrey nodded. ‘I’m sorry, m’dear.’
‘So am I.’ This time her smile was tearful, and afraid she would break down completely in the face of his kindness and understanding, she kissed him swiftly on his cheek and slid into the car, starting the engine at once and driving away before he could see the tears streaming down her cheeks.
Once outside the confines of the estate she drove for some miles before stopping the car and letting the overwhelming sorrow have its way. It was nearly half an hour before she started the engine again and she was all cried out. She had lost him, totally and for ever, and the finality of it had caused something to die inside her. From this day forth, whatever happened and however well she did in life, she would never look at the world in the same way again. A light had gone out – that was the only way she could describe the way she felt to herself – and with its going everything would always be that little bit darker.
Chapter Twenty-Six
One Snowy Night Page 33