Ruby

by Marie Maxwell

  ‘I want you to come and live with me in the flat upstairs.’ He pulled out a box, opened it and stood it in front of her. ‘I want you to marry me!’ He put his hand to his mouth. ‘Sorry, I mean … please, please, Ruby Blakeley, will you be my wife?’

  Shocked into silence, Ruby picked up the box and looked at the diamond ring tucked into the velvet. There were five diamonds in a row, the biggest in the middle and two smaller ones on each side. It was neat and pretty but not ostentatious, and Ruby was mesmerised, not by the ring but by everything it meant. She was dumbstruck by the proposal, which the last thing she’d expected.

  Tony Alfredo was not a man who showed his emotions. Although Ruby knew he liked her and liked being with her, he had never even said that he loved her, never talked about the future other than in the loosest terms. There was no doubt that they got on well together, but marriage … ? Ruby’s brain was in overdrive.

  As she looked at the ring she thought of Johnnie Riordan with a wife and two children, a Ford Consul and a day out at the seaside. She could see him in her mind, slumped down in the deck chair, terrified of what his mad wife would do if she said so much as hello. This was the man whom she was sure had ordered the attack on her two brothers that left them both battered and bloodied and in need of medical attention. He may have been the father of her baby, but Maggie now belonged to the Wheatons and Johnnie belonged to his wife.

  The door was closed and she wanted it to stay that way. She didn’t want temptation, and being married to Tony would make sure she didn’t succumb.

  ‘Well?’ Tony asked. ‘What do you say?’

  ‘Yes, Tony. Yes, I will marry you,’ she whispered. She smiled as he took her hand across the table and slid the ring onto her third finger, enjoying the delight on his face. The fact that she could still see Johnnie Riordan in her mind’s eye was irrelevant. Marrying Tony Alfredo would be a good way of ensuring he was out of her head.

  ‘Can I tell the parents?’

  ‘Ssh, not now. They’re rushed off their feet. We can tell them later.’

  ‘I love you. You’ll enjoy being a solicitor’s wife; you’ll love having lots of babies.’

  The dark eyes that she always found hard to read gazed into hers possessively and she panicked, instantly regretting her answer to his proposal.

  ‘And I love you too,’ she said uneasily. ‘And I love the ring, but I’ll have to put my hand in my pocket as we leave. Your dad has a very eagle eye.’

  ‘We have to make decisions now. First thing will be that George has to find someone else to manage his hotel. You can’t do that and be a solicitor’s wife. Maybe dim Gracie could take the reins in the short term.’

  Ruby didn’t answer. Not because of how he’d referred to Gracie, but because she had temporarily forgotten that Tony didn’t know she actually owned the hotel. She owned the hotel, the business, absolutely everything connected to the hotel, yet the man she’d just agreed to marry didn’t have a clue.

  ‘I can’t give up Thamesview, I really can’t, because –’ she started to say, but he leaned forward and placed a finger on her lips.

  ‘Ssh. Your loyalty is fantastic but it’ll be my job to look after you. Not the Wheatons’. You’re not their little pet evacuee any more, you know. And then we have to arrange the wedding and sort out the flat as we want it.’

  Ruby smiled at him and listened as he carried on planning their lives together. She let it all waft over her; she would tell him all about it the very next day.

  ‘You what?’ Gracie shouted when Ruby told her later that night. ‘You’re out of your mind. You don’t love Tony. It’s all that business with Johnnie-the-ex that’s brought this on.’

  ‘No it isn’t. He’ll be a good husband. I don’t want to be like Leonora, with just the hotel in my life. I want a husband and children, same as you do. Sean isn’t the love of your life but you’re thinking about settling down with him. You’re just waiting for him to ask and then you’ll be off down the aisle.’

  ‘That’s different. I actually really like him as a person, and he likes me,’ Gracie laughed.

  ‘Oh, come on, be happy for me. You can be chief bridesmaid.’

  ‘Are you sure he’s not just after your money?’ Gracie asked, suddenly sombre.

  ‘Hardly. He doesn’t even know I own this place. He thinks I’m just the manager.’

  ‘Whaaat? Oh, Ruby, what is wrong with you? He will go mad when you tell him.’

  ‘Why?’ Ruby asked, as if she didn’t know the answer.

  Gracie threw her hands up in the air. ‘Because it’s going to look as if you don’t bleeding trust him,’ she shouted. ‘You know what he’ll do, don’t you? He’ll throw a sulk first and then he’ll want to take it over. You’ll lose everything if you marry him.’

  ‘I’ll tell him, I promise, and I’ll discuss it with Uncle George.’ She pulled a face. ‘The biggest problem is he wants me to move into Mamma and Papà Alfredo’s flat with him, the one over the café. It’s only up the road but—’

  ‘Oh, you are priceless, Ruby Blakeley,’ Gracie interrupted with a huge exaggerated sigh. ‘Priceless. I’m going to go to my room, get down on my knees and say a prayer for your sanity and your safety, you daft ha’porth. You’re going to need all the help you can get from the Good Lord above to get out of this mess!’

  Twenty-Five

  Melton

  Derek Yardley was up in his flat looking out of the window at the scene of domesticity in the Wheatons’ garden below. It was a cold autumn day but still George and Babs Wheaton were out in the garden with Maggie. George was in the summerhouse with a blanket over his legs, his wife was gardening and Maggie was running around excitedly with her new lurcher puppy, a stray that Babs Wheaton had brought home after finding it freezing cold and shivering in the field out the back.

  Yet another stray.

  They’d given it a home because they felt sorry for it; much in the way they had taken in Yardley himself all those years before, except that even the puppy really was part of the family. Looking down at them, all he could see was a perfect family unit and Yardley resented that he wasn’t part of it, that he was even lower in the pecking order than an abandoned flea-ridden gypsy puppy.

  He wanted to be a part of it somehow, so he pulled on his well-worn donkey jacket and went down the wooden stairs and through the open gate to the garden. He walked around the edge of the lawn towards where they were at the far corner.

  ‘Good afternoon, Mrs Wheaton, Mr Wheaton,’ he said respectfully as he approached.

  Babs looked up from her weeding and smiled. ‘Good afternoon, Yardley. What can we do for you?’

  ‘I saw you from my window and thought you might like me to help you with the wheelbarrow.’

  ‘That’s thoughtful of you but it’s your day off.’

  ‘I haven’t got anything else to do. I like to be busy.’

  ‘In that case, yes, some help would be nice. I’m trying to sort the vegetable garden out but it’s so time-consuming and it’s getting a bit chilly. See that pile of leaves there? If you could rake them that would be such a help.’ Again she smiled. ‘And if you gather up the windfalls, I’ll bake you an apple pie in appreciation.’

  As they worked side by side he started to relax. He felt that he was part of the family again, the way he had been in the days before Ruby and Maggie, when it had just been the three of them. He always blamed Ruby because she was the one who made the Wheatons feel dissatisfied with the way things were. It was because of Ruby that they adopted orphan Maggie, as he liked to call her. It was because of Ruby he was no longer the only one. He hated her.

  It wasn’t that he was all that much younger than either of the Wheatons in years, but he was in intellect. His reading and writing skills were poor after minimal schooling, and his social skills were even worse. Babs Wheaton had spent time with him, teaching him the basics he’d missed and, despite his own disability, George had taught him to drive, but Derek Yardley had remained social
ly inept.

  Derek Yardley had been a sickly child born prematurely to farming parents who lived on the breadline and who had no time to compensate for his lack of schooling. Lung congestion, they had called it, when he had wheezed and coughed and had been too ill to get out of his bed. His mother would boil some water, pour it into a bowl and then place him and the steaming bowl under a towel. Much of his childhood had been spent either in the kitchen under the towel or alone in the bedroom he shared with two healthy brothers, who were always either at school or working on the Cambridgeshire farm. No one had ever had any time for Derek Yardley.

  As a result he was not only small for his age, and socially inept, but also inherently resentful of life.

  At thirteen he’d run away with as many of his clothes he could wear at once and never gone back. He quickly taught himself how to live rough and he’d survived by doing odd jobs when he was well, and sleeping in the woods in his makeshift shelter when he was poorly. He loved his den, which was made of collected wood and any old rags he could find all moulded together with mud to make a reasonably waterproof shelter. He’d learned to hunt for food by trial and error and had become skilled at roasting rabbits over an open fire and sewing the pelts together for warmth in the winter. No one knew where his hideaway was so he was left alone in his solitude unless he went out into the villages looking for work.

  He’d lived that way for several years until the day he’d collapsed both physically and mentally while working in the village next to Melton. Dr George Wheaton had not only treated him, he’d taken him under his wing and helped to mend him.

  Derek Yardley adored the couple who had made him feel like an ordinary human being, and he had never been as happy as he was in those early years being sheltered by the Wheatons. They fed him, tended his illness and taught him all about cars; then they gave him a job and his own home. They had not only saved his life, they’d replaced it, and he saw himself more as a son than an employee.

  But that had all changed when they’d brought in Ruby Blakeley and really embraced her into the family; in his mind he was convinced the London evacuee had replaced him.

  Now he felt as if he were fighting for survival all over again. He’d been happy in the woods at the time but now he knew different, and he couldn’t imagine not having his job and home. He didn’t ever want to go back to having nothing.

  Babs and Yardley carried on doing the gardening while George dozed and Maggie bounced around with her puppy.

  ‘I’ve been thinking, Yardley, it seems a long time since you had a holiday. Why don’t you take some days off and go somewhere? It would do you good, I’m sure. We all need to get away sometimes.’

  ‘I’m fine, Mrs Wheaton. I don’t like holidays, I like to work.’

  ‘I know you do, and we all appreciate it,’ she said. ‘I tell you what, I’ll have a word with Ruby. She’s at that lovely little place in Southend that used to be Dr Wheaton’s sister’s hotel, where we went for Mrs Wheaton’s funeral. Well, you couldn’t stay there because it’s ladies only, but I’m sure she could recommend somewhere. The sea air would be good for your chest as well …’

  Halfway through what she was saying his mind switched off so he didn’t really hear the words, he didn’t recognise her thoughtfulness, he just heard Babs Wheaton trying to get rid of him.

  Instantly his back was up and he was angry all over again.

  ‘I don’t like the sea, I like the country, I like it here …’ he muttered without looking up, but he didn’t think she’d heard him because she was across the garden, laughing with Maggie as they tried to catch the puppy.

  ‘Well, I think we’ve finished here now, Yardley,’ she shouted across to him. ‘Thank you for your help. An apple pie it is for you!’

  He turned away and walked back up to his flat, feeling as if he’d been dismissed.

  Apple pie. He sneered as he walked up his staircase. He didn’t want apple pie, he wanted things to be as they used to be before Ruby Blakeley came along.

  His head was throbbing with the familiar pain as he went inside. Revenge was all he could think of, but his head was hurting too much for him to formulate anything. He looked in the drawer for his bottle of aspirin. He took three with a glass of water to be sure, then lay down on the lumpy sofa with his head on a small cushion and his legs hanging over the end. He would think about Ruby Blakeley in the morning.

  Babs had opened up the door of the boiler in her kitchen, and George and Maggie were sitting warming their hands in front of the glowing coals while Babs prepared supper for them all. The curtains were drawn and the puppy was curled up in his bed fast asleep, tired out from all the exercise.

  ‘Maggie darling, I think it’s time you went and had a good wash after all that playing in the garden with Scruffy.’

  The little girl turned down the corners of her mouth. ‘But, Mummy, I don’t want to. I want to stay here with Scruffy.’

  ‘No supper for you then. We’ll have to give it to this little doggie here instead.’ George shook his head and pulled a sad face, making her laugh and run for the stairs.

  Babs looked round the door to make sure she’d gone. ‘George, I have to confess I’m a little worried about Yardley. I’m concerned he’s going back a bit to how he was when you first treated him. I can’t quite put my finger on it but something’s not quite right. Even Ruby was asking questions about him when she was here.’

  ‘Can’t say I’ve noticed.’ George looked at her. ‘He’s just being Yardley, surely. He’s always been different, that’s how he ended up here in the first place.’

  ‘I know, but I am going to keep a close eye on him. It’s been a long time since he had any of his mental problems but I think we need to watch him … for his sake as much as anyone else’s. Maybe give him a check up? He can’t say no to you if you suggest it.’

  ‘Fair enough, but here’s no reason for it to happen again. His problems were caused by his circumstances. Living alone in the woods for years would affect anyone. The one single factor would be if he was stressed, and he certainly doesn’t have any stress here.’

  ‘I’m still going to keep an eye. Especially with him driving you on your rounds.’ Babs looked thoughtful. ‘Next time I speak to Ruby I’m going to find out what made her ask about him. Unfortunately we were too busy with Maggie’s birthday tea to really talk, and then Leonora died and everything was forgotten.’

  Babs Wheaton loved her husband just as much as she had when they were courting. The couple had a strong marriage and adopting Maggie had added to it. They both adored her. Babs also admired George tremendously. He had overcome being crippled by polio as a child and, against all the odds, had gone to medical school and qualified as a doctor so that he could carry on when his father, the village GP, retired.

  A popular figure in the village community and a much-admired GP, George was always doing over and above his duties. Babs loved the fact that he was kind and caring and that he always tried to see the best in everyone, but it was this very trait that was now making Babs feel she had to be extra observant.

  Something wasn’t right about Derek Yardley. Her instincts told her that he had changed recently and, with hindsight, her conversation with Ruby was now worrying her. She wondered what it was that had made Ruby ask the questions she had.

  ‘I’m going to telephone Ruby to double-check. You don’t mind, do you?’

  ‘Of course not, if it puts your mind at rest,’ George smiled.

  After she put the phone down she went back through to George.

  ‘Well? What did she say?’ he asked.

  ‘I didn’t get round to asking about Yardley.’ Babs’ expression was thoughtful. ‘She said that she and Tony wanted to come and see us. George, they’re engaged. She wanted to tell us face to face but as I’d phoned she told me.’

  ‘Oh, that’s interesting. Can’t say I’m surprised he’s asked her – I’m sure lots of young men would like to marry our Ruby – but I am surprised she said yes. What d
o your instincts tell you about Tony Alfredo?’

  ‘I don’t like him one little bit, as you know, but Ruby’s a big girl now. All we can do is cross our fingers …’

  ‘And make sure the ownership of the hotel is watertight. Solicitor or not, I don’t trust him as far as I can run, and that’s certainly not very far at all, is it?’

  Babs laughed. ‘Yes. At the funeral he trying to inveigle his way into every conversation. He asked too many questions for a stranger. The hotel definitely needs to be wrapped up legally.’

  Twenty-Six

  Ruby stood on the doorstep for several minutes while she plucked up the courage to knock on the door. It had been so long since the day she had just upped and left that she wondered if perhaps it was best to leave it be, to turn and walk away a second time. None of them had contacted her after Ray had found her, although he had telephoned her once. But then again she hadn’t contacted them.

  She knocked twice and waited. Then she knocked again.

  ‘There’s nobody in.’

  She looked around and realised the voice was coming from next door. Nosy Norah.

  ‘Well, knock me down and call me Charlie, it’s young Ruby, I’d recognise that hair anywhere. How are you, lovey? Long time no see, eh?’

  Ruby smiled. ‘I’m fine, thank you, and it’s nice to see you too. Do you know where everyone is?’

  ‘Probably at Whipps Cross. Elsie was carted off in the ambulance a couple of weeks ago.’

  ‘What happened to her?’ Ruby asked. ‘Is she all right?’

  ‘She had a fall and broke something – her leg or her hip. It’s afternoon visiting today so that’s where they’ll be.’

  Ruby started to walk back down the short path but Norah had no intention of letting her get away that easily.

  ‘You look smashing, a right proper lady. Best thing you did was to get away from those brothers of yours, your nan used to say. Mind you, your mother’s done all right for herself. Really nice man she’s married, always passes the time of day and even tends my bit of back yard at the same time as your mother’s. And she doesn’t have Ray and Bobbie there no more, which is probably a blessing.’