‘Happy Christmas, Ruby,’ he murmured softly, playing his finger along the blade of the hunting knife in his pocket.
The door of the annexe that led into the yard presented no problem to him. He had been breaking into buildings from the time he was in short trousers, at first under the tuition of his father who had been an accomplished burglar and then, when his father had been mortally injured in a fight with other ne’er-do-wells, on his own.
Once inside the annexe he stood looking around Ruby’s workshop in the dim light from the window. Thick rolls of expensive cloth and several beautiful outfits on wooden mannequins stood out among the paraphernalia. He walked over to one, gazing at the classic two-piece costume in a rich blue fabric edged with ermine and felt it between his fingers, running his hand over the swell of the dummy’s breasts and down into its waist. Just the sort of outfit Lady Muck would wear. Perhaps she’d even made it for herself?
Once he had slashed it to ribbons he stood back, panting slightly. He’d take great pleasure in setting fire to this lot as he left, he thought, but that wouldn’t be for a good few hours yet. He was going to make his fun last tonight; his Christmas present to himself. He smiled, pleased with his little joke.
Once in the small square of hall beyond the annexe he stood for a moment. The door that opened onto the stairs leading to the flat was ajar and he hadn’t expected that, not that he was complaining. He looked upwards, anticipation of the night ahead making him as hard as a rock. He’d always enjoyed inflicting pain on his sexual partners – it enhanced his pleasure ten-fold – but until now he’d never contemplated the satisfaction of torturing a woman to death and he found it intoxicating. Once she was gagged and bound, he’d start on her face first. Unconsciously his hand touched the eye patch. Aye, he’d take his payment for what she’d done to him before he moved on to other things. An eye for an eye. Wasn’t that what the good book said and who was he to argue?
He crept up the stairs without making a sound. The landing was in darkness but a shaft of light was showing from under the door. He paused for a moment with his hand on the door knob, thinking he heard something from inside the room, but as he waited all was quiet. Slowly, very slowly, he turned the knob and when it opened, again it was unexpected. She clearly didn’t bother with locks and bolts, thought herself invincible no doubt. Foolish, very foolish, as she was about to find out. The element of surprise was always a distinct advantage.
He sidled into the room as silently as a cat, but then stopped dead at the sight that met his eyes. Ruby was wrapped in the arms of a man and they were kissing passionately, oblivious to anything but each other. They were half-sitting, half-lying on a sofa that was set at a slant to the door and meant they had their backs to him, but it would only take one of them glancing round to see him.
Daniel had been used to thinking on his feet all his life. A small bookcase stood to the left of the door against the wall and it had a pair of brass bookends in the shape of owls holding a row of books on the top of it. He grabbed one, the books falling, but in the same breath he brought the brass bookend slamming down on the top of Edward’s head as he sprang to the sofa. The force of the blow was enough to send Edward slumping onto the floor, but as Ruby began to scream he thrust the knife in front of her face.
‘Shut up, shut up now or I’ll slit your throat and I’ll do the same to him.’
She backed away from him, her hand to her mouth to prevent another scream but her horrified eyes flickering from him to Edward.
Daniel kicked at the prone figure on the floor, and as Edward made a sound in his throat, he said, ‘He’s not dead, not yet, but he will be if you don’t do exactly as I say, you hear me? Do you hear me?’
She nodded, watching as he pulled some thick hemp twine out of his pocket, the sort that fishermen used to mend their nets.
‘You’re goin’ to tie lover boy up real tight and no messing or I’ll gut him where he lies. I was goin’ to use this on you but it might be fun for him to watch if he comes round, don’t you think?’
‘You’re mad,’ she whispered.
‘Aye, you’re right there, mad enough to do what I say if you don’t do exactly what you’re told.’
He had been drinking, she could smell it, and as she stared into his face she believed him.
‘I’ve been waiting for this for a long time, Ruby,’ he said almost conversationally. ‘Aye, a long time. Right from the minute we met, in fact. Remember that? With sweet little Ellie? There was I, all prepared to be nice, and you looked at me like I was scum. I knew then I’d see my day with you, but after this –’ he touched the eye patch – ‘it was all I lived for.’
He held out the twine. ‘Tie him up.’
In the same instant that he spoke, Edward, who had been lying as though he was dead to the world, reached up and grabbed one of Daniel’s ankles, jerking him off balance. As Daniel fell virtually on top of him the two began to struggle, but dazed and weak as Edward was from the vicious blow to his head, it was an unequal fight. Even as Ruby darted forwards she saw Daniel get astride Edward who was on his back and plunge the knife into his chest.
Screaming at the top of her voice Ruby snatched up the stout iron poker from the hearth as Edward feebly tried to ward off the hand holding the knife, but Daniel stabbed him again before she brought the poker swinging in a wide arc with all her weight behind it. It caught Daniel on the side of his neck just above his shoulder, and as he gave an unearthly shriek and dropped the knife, she hit him again. He rolled to one side and began to crawl towards the door as she knelt beside Edward who was covered in blood and bleeding profusely. Rushing into the kitchen she grabbed a towel and stuffed it over the two stab wounds, telling Edward to press down on it as she ran to the window and opened it, yelling and screaming for help.
The next few hours were something of a blur.
It was only later she learned that several folk from the houses opposite had come hurrying into the street, one burly individual taking it upon himself to shoulder open the door of the shop and burst in. All Ruby was aware of was the sound of people running up the stairs and attempting to help her with Edward who had lost consciousness.
The police arriving, the ambulance, the journey to the hospital, the numerous questions that continued for what seemed like hours as she sat in the waiting room waiting for news of Edward, were all part of the nightmare she couldn’t wake up from. Olive arrived at some point and after she had acquainted her sister with the facts they sat in silence, holding hands tightly. Clarissa and Godfrey came a little while later, and although they talked with Olive off and on, Ruby found she couldn’t say a word. She was going to lose Edward like she’d lost Ellie, she knew it. Doctors couldn’t always save someone, and like Ellie, Edward had lost so much blood it didn’t seem possible he could survive.
It was still dark when a constable came into the dimly lit, antiseptic-smelling waiting room and told them the body of Daniel Bell had been found some streets away from the shop. Such was Ruby’s state of mind about Edward the news barely registered, but Godfrey ushered the policeman outside and returned some time later, his face grim. It appeared Bell had died of a crushed windpipe, he told the three women, and had eventually choked on his own blood. Pity he’d died so quickly, he’d added bitterly. He would have liked him to suffer more.
Dawn was creeping into the dour little room through the tiny high window when an expressionless-faced sister popped her head round the door.
‘Mr Harper will see you now if you will come this way,’ she said primly, although her eyes couldn’t quite conceal the avid interest this case had caused among the hospital staff. A handsome rich patient, a beautiful young woman, and an attempted murder. It was like a story from the penny journals she secretly enjoyed so much when she had a minute or two to herself.
Mr Harper turned out to be a tired-looking, middle-aged man who had met Clarissa and Godfrey socially in the past, having connections in high places. He was also an excellent surgeon with a
first-class reputation who had chosen to leave a prestigious London hospital for the north-east when he had married the daughter of a wealthy Durham landowner, the lady in question preferring the north to the capital. As Godfrey remarked afterwards, it had needed an Augustus Harper to bring Edward back from the brink.
The patient was still seriously ill, Augustus had told them, but miraculously the knife had missed any major organs. Unfortunately, one of the two wounds had caused significant damage to the left shoulder, which almost certainly would result in restricted use of that arm in the future. Was the patient right-handed?
Ruby didn’t hear Clarissa’s reply to this, having fainted clean away.
It was a full eight weeks later before Edward was allowed home to Foreburn, and four weeks after this Clarissa handed over care of the invalid to Ruby, on Ruby and Edward’s wedding day.
It was the quietest of occasions, the guests comprising Ruby’s mother and sister and Alice, a frail Mrs Walton and thrilled Mrs Duffy, and on Edward’s side, just Clarissa and Godfrey. As far as the bride and groom were concerned, it was exactly as they wanted and they couldn’t have been happier.
Ruby was a vision of loveliness in a simple white lace gown and short veil, and Alice, as bridesmaid, was as pretty as a picture in a frilly powder-blue frock and matching shoes, of which she was inordinately proud.
After the service at the small parish church, which was a stone’s throw from the grand hotel where Godfrey had paid for the wedding reception as his and Clarissa’s wedding present to the happy couple, they all sat down to a sumptuous five-course meal with champagne. By the time Clarissa and Godfrey took Mrs Walton back to Sunderland the elderly lady was tiddly and declaring it was the best wedding she’d ever been to. Ruby and Edward agreed with her. It had been a wonderful day. But it wasn’t until the taxi cab deposited them home to the place Edward had christened ‘the love nest’ above the shop that Ruby felt truly married. They were alone at last, and after all the twists and turns of the last years, the sorrow and heartache, the doubts and fears, suddenly the world made sense. She was Edward’s wife and he was her husband. It really was as simple as that.
Their wedding night was everything she could have hoped for and more. Edward proved himself to be a gentle but passionate lover, intent on making her first time as wonderful as it could be. And afterwards, when she lay in his arms and listened to the strong steady beat of his heart, she suddenly raised herself up and kissed him over and over again, thinking that if Daniel Bell’s aim had been slightly to the left or right, everything would now be very different. Against all the odds they were together, and she knew that what had been forged in the fire would last.
They would carve themselves a good life, based on a foundation of mutual love and respect, and what better foundation could there be?
It was up to them now.
Epilogue
1935
The last few years had been busy and productive for Ruby and Edward, in more ways than one.
Eighteen months after their wedding day, twin girls had been born, and two years later a bouncing baby boy had announced his arrival into the world with a bellow that had become characteristic of him when he was demanding a feed. George Edward had weighed in at a healthy and hungry ten pounds, and his diminutive sisters, Rose Ellie and Kate Olive, had been thrilled with their new live ‘dolly’. But the arrival of their children had only been part of it.
Augustus Harper had been right and Edward’s arm had never fully recovered from Daniel Bell’s knife wound, but twelve months into their marriage he had been elected onto the local council and had become involved in various community projects, and was currently in the process of running for government on behalf of the Labour Party. He supported Ruby in the continuing fight for women’s rights in every walk of life, and the two of them ran a soup kitchen in the heart of Newcastle, which had become a lifesaver to some folk as the depression had worsened. Along with her two shops, Ruby had opened a clothing factory, employing local women who badly needed work due to family situations. They made good but cheap clothes for the less well off in the community, which were sold direct from the factory shop at the front of the premises.
When Ruby had moved a manageress into the flat above her original shop a few months after she and Edward had tied the knot, they’d purchased a small three-bedroomed house with a family-sized garden on one of the new housing estates that were springing up in Arthur’s Hill and Fenham, one of Newcastle’s fastest-growing suburbs. It was a modest dwelling compared to what they could have afforded, but they had decided that to be part of the local community they had to live among them and not in some grand ivory tower.
Times were still desperately hard for huge numbers of the north’s working class, and although the abolition of the dreaded workhouses in 1930 meant that a significant break with the odium of pauperism had begun, Ruby and Edward knew from their welfare work that some folk would prefer to slowly starve than ask for help. Through their contacts with the soup kitchen, they’d established a link with some of these families, and had set about quietly distributing food parcels, medical supplies and clothes and shoes for the bairns on a weekly basis.
Of late, they had also been thinking about a new venture, that of opening a small refuge for girls like Ellie who had been sucked into a life of prostitution and despair, and who needed practical help to escape it. Mrs Walton had died peacefully in her sleep some months before and, true to her word, the old lady had left everything she possessed to Ruby. It was Ruby and Edward’s plan to name the refuge after Mrs Walton, something they knew would have pleased her. Ruby’s businesses had also gone from strength to strength, and she could think of no better way to use the legacy and the growing wealth they’d accumulated. Edward had spoken to the local branch of the Labour Party about it and they’d been fully supportive, no doubt thinking it would increase his chances of being elected as their MP, but that wasn’t why he wanted to do it. He knew Ruby grieved every day for her friend, and doing something constructive to help other girls would enable her to come to terms with Ellie’s tragic death, something he knew hadn’t happened yet.
He glanced at his wife as they walked arm in arm towards the park where they were taking the children for their Sunday afternoon stroll, the girls just in front of them swinging George between them who screamed with delight every time his chubby little legs flew into the air.
Ruby caught the look and smiled at him. She was heavily pregnant with their fourth child who was due in six weeks at the beginning of December. She and Edward were thrilled about this, but it had caused yet another difficult conversation with her mother. Cissy had been scandalized when Ruby had continued working throughout her pregnancies, returning to oversee each of the two shops and the clothing factory within weeks of the babies being born when she would leave them in Edward’s care for a while. They worked their daily routine between them, manipulating his council work and party work with her business obligations, along with the soup kitchen every other day, and the care of the children. Edward was a complete anomaly to her mother the way he wanted to be involved in every aspect of home life, changing nappies and babysitting the bairns, tackling washing and ironing and housework, and – crime of all crimes – cooking meals. Ruby had learned the uselessness of explaining to her mother that they shared all these tasks between them and worked as a team, and she had given up trying. She and Edward were supremely happy with the way things were and that was all that mattered.
To be fair, she supposed they were unusual and something of a peculiarity, but she felt this was a good thing. At one time she had felt stuck between two worlds and that she fitted in nowhere but she and Edward had created their own world, with their own rules. It was one where class and wealth and social niceties had no relevance whatsoever; they were equals in every respect. They worked together and supported each other in a way she could never have envisaged years ago when she had sent him away, and they were determined to mirror their way to their bairns. They w
ere both aware that the future wasn’t going to be easy. Europe was beginning to beat the drums of war and Germany’s massive rearmament programme could only mean one thing. War was inevitable and that would mean everything became uncertain, but one thing was for sure. She and Edward would deal together with whatever came.
The sky was a heavy blue-grey and the pleasing nip in the air at the beginning of the month had already given way to several hard white frosts in the last week, the alchemy of the season turning the decaying autumn landscape into a glorious abundance of colours. As they reached the little park situated not far from the house, Edward took the children off to play on the swings and roundabout while Ruby sat down on a bench to watch them.
The baby in her womb kicked, a strong, vigorous kick as though to demand that her attention wasn’t all on the rest of the family, and as she placed her hand under her coat and felt more movement she experienced a sense of deep contentment. Whatever challenges the future might bring, she was ready to face them. The road had been a long and winding one at times, but she had come to a place where she was sure of who she was and where she belonged. It was the most precious of gifts.
One Snowy Night
Rita Bradshaw was born in Northamptonshire, where she still lives today. At the age of sixteen she met her husband – whom she considers her soulmate – and they have two daughters, a son and six grandchildren. Much to her delight, Rita’s first novel was accepted for publication and she has gone on to write many more successful novels since then, including the number one bestseller Dancing in the Moonlight.
As a committed Christian and passionate animal-lover her life is full, but she loves walking her dog, reading, eating out and visiting the cinema and theatre, as well as being involved in her church and animal welfare.
One Snowy Night Page 35