Ruby McBride

by Freda Lightfoot

Five months later Ruby’s child was born. It was a boy, with glorious, sandy-brown hair and brandy-gold eyes. Kit was not pleased. Any lingering desire to persuade her into marrying him so that he could claim ownership of those barges, instantly died. He instinctively knew that he had no wish to take on another man’s child.

  But the baby’s presence was yet another thorn in the crown of his resentment.

  With difficulty he managed to keep these feelings to himself, anxious to convince Ruby that he adored the child, at least until he’d won complete control over the barges. But to his intense irritation she remained stubborn over the issue. Even throughout the long, tiring months of her pregnancy she’d insisted on working, as usual. The business, by rights, should be his. He was the man of the house, after all, and the one who had taken all the risks to rid them of the baron. She insisted it wasn’t hers to give away, just as if the stupid bastard might return from the dead to claim it any day.

  But Ruby doted on the baby and Kit was convinced that it was only a matter of time before she lost all interest in the barges, in carrying coal and cotton up and down the canal system, and gave her full attention to her child. That’s what women were best at in his opinion.

  Ruby called the baby Thomas and welcomed little Tommy, as he quickly became known, into the world with pride and joy. She’d been unprepared for the rush of love she’d felt for him at first sight. It quite overwhelmed her. Pregnancy had been a trial, endlessly tiring and blighted by backache and a vague sensation of sickness throughout. All due, she was quite sure of it, to tensions at home. Not simply with Kit, who she guessed hugely resented the fact that she wouldn’t allow him to take control of the barges, but also with Pearl.

  The evenings, when they were all in the house together, were the most difficult to cope with. It soon became apparent to Ruby that what Pearl hated most of all was to be ignored. She craved attention, though even then it must be on her own terms. If Ruby was fully occupied feeding the baby, Pearl wouldn’t think to offer to make the supper, grumbling loudly should Ruby ask her to so much as peel a few potatoes.

  ‘I’m not yer bleedin’ skivvy.’

  And she was fiercely jealous of the slightest attention Kit might give to her, quite unnecessarily so. If, when he came in, he went straight over to Ruby as she fed the infant, Pearl would watch the two of them smiling and cooing over Tommy for mere seconds before jumping up from her chair to squeeze between them. ‘Isn’t it time you made supper, our Ruby? I’ll finish Tommy off with the bottle, shall I?’

  Perversely, if Ruby had fed the baby early for once and was at the stove when Kit came down the ladder into the cabin, he might hover at her side as she stirred the stew to see what was cooking. At which point Pearl would suddenly discover that little Tommy needed changing, and she really didn’t know how to do it, or for no reason at all the baby would wake up and start to cry.

  Often her sister would do one of her disappearing acts for a few days, returning only when she was quite certain that Ruby would be miserably worrying over her, eager to placate and welcome her back with open arms. Which Ruby did, time after time, if only for the sake of peace.

  Ruby’s resolve to be a surrogate mother to Pearl, and to help her make a good start in life, sometimes drained her of all energy. Then she’d remember her mam saying, ‘I’ll not lose my sparkle,’ and she’d smile and struggle on. But with the best will in the world she found her sister’s moodiness an increasing source of irritation, preventing her from enjoying being a mother to little Tommy. Living with Pearl was becoming a trial.

  She constantly complained about any work she was asked to do on the boat, and yet protested vigorously should Ruby suggest that she might like to go out and look for another job elsewhere.

  ‘Want rid of me, do you, so’s you can have Kit all to yourself? You’re just jealous of him preferring me to you.’

  ‘I promise you that’s not the way of it all. I’m happy for you.’ Ruby was beginning to wonder what she had ever seen in Kit Jarvis, wishing she’d never met him in the first place. She kept remembering how Bart had warned her against him, and how she hadn’t listened. ‘I’ve told you, I don’t want Kit. You’re welcome to him, but perhaps you and he would be happier some place on your own.’

  ‘So you’d throw him out of work too, would you? Selfish cow, you just want everything for yourself.’

  Ruby simply couldn’t win with Pearl.

  The main joy in Ruby’s life was, without question, her child. He represented her future, her reason for living. She took little Tommy with her everywhere. When she was working on the barges, Ruby would prop him up on cushions where she could keep an eye on him and his eyes would follow every movement she made, as if he couldn’t bear to let her out of his sight.

  When all the chores were done, Ruby would devote all her attention to the baby’s needs. She would bathe him each night in the small white basin she’d bought specially for that purpose, laughing as he kicked and splashed her with his sturdy young limbs.

  Cheeky boy,’ she’d tease him. You’re smacking that water at me deliberately.’ Then she would tickle his tummy, making him squeal with delight and giggle entrancingly. Oh, how she adored him. He was her treasure, her delight, her utter and complete joy.

  Afterwards, she would powder and dry him, cuddle him close and breathe in the sweet baby scent of him as she lay him in his cot beside her bed, and settle him to sleep. She’d lie on her side so she could watch him breathing, promising that nothing would ever be allowed to hurt little Tommy. He was Bart’s child, and one day the tug and the barges would belong to him. They were his inheritance. His right. And it was her task in life to keep Bart’s son, and that inheritance, safe.

  ‘I shall build us a fine business, Tommy lad,’ she would say. ‘One that you can take over one day, that would have made your daddy proud.’ And he would listen with close attention, his brandy-gold eyes bright and knowing. Sometimes, it almost felt as if Bart were still with her, so like him was his young son.

  The thought of never seeing Bart again, never having him make love to her, never again feeling his mouth move against hers, or his touch that could rouse her to a tempestuous passion, brought an unbearable pain, as if her heart truly were breaking in two. But why should she feel this terrible anguish over losing him? It wasn’t as if she’d ever loved him.

  But then, what exactly was love? She’d loved Kit Jarvis for years, hadn’t she? Ever since she was a girl, he’d been the one she wanted above everything. So why didn’t it trouble her that he preferred her sister? And quietly, out of the darkness, the answer came all too clearly.

  Because she’d made a terrible mistake. She’d imagined herself in love with Kit Jarvis because she was young and vulnerable, desperate for someone to care for her. But he wasn’t the love of her life at all. Barthram Stobbs was. All those years of being in love with a dream, a childhood memory, instead of paying attention to what she already had, instead of loving the man who already occupied her bed. The bitter irony of this discovery was heartbreaking.

  Oh, how cruel of fate not to allow her to discover her true feelings until after he was dead, when it was far too late.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Learning her trade proved a difficult challenge for Ruby. There were times when being a woman was a definite disadvantage; at others it worked in her favour. There were some who claimed she’d be a danger to herself and to others, that she’d be hopeless at steering, and that the work was unwomanly. This made Ruby laugh. In all her life she’d never done the least little thing that could be considered ‘womanly’, save perhaps for the laundry work she did at the reformatory. And she knew where she’d rather be. Here, on the boats, out in the fresh air. True, she felt tired after a long day working on the tugs and barges, yet invigorated, glowing with health.

  She felt she owed it to Bart to make the business successful. Admittedly he had never been as obsessed with the boats as she was, being more interested in his scams and schemes and union act
ivities. Nevertheless, the boat and the pair of barges had belonged to him, and in a way were his legacy. Ruby meant to put into practice all he’d taught her, and justify the faith he’d once had in her.

  The work was frustratingly unreliable and irregular, affected as it was by the weather, and by delays often of a day or more waiting in a bottleneck of other craft for the barges to be unloaded, or for a fresh load to be taken on. The worst part was travelling empty, hoping to pick up a load. They needed five or six longish trips every fortnight in order to be economically viable. Because this rarely happened, the boats sometimes going for days with no work at all, on other weeks she’d take orders thick and fast, going for long spells without a day off or a glimpse of her little house.

  Life with Kit and Pearl did not improve. He spent more and more time with Pearl, and Ruby often wondered if they would even notice if she simply vanished into thin air and never returned.

  Rather as Bart had done.

  If it hadn’t been for Sparky, Ruby doubted she’d have managed at all. Kit, although always so full of talk and plans, insisted on working only a few days each week, because he claimed to have ‘other irons in the fire’, as he put it. He wasn’t prepared to give those up until she handed control of the barges over to him, as he thought she should, since he was a man and she a mere woman.

  Strangely, the more he grumbled about that, the more she resisted. The business was hers, and would remain so.

  ‘Well then,’ he’d say, his tone hard, ‘since you refuse to share it, and I’m not your husband, nor even the father of your flaming child, I’ll do as I please.’ And he and Pearl would go off, arm in arm, Pearl with a smug smile on her face.

  Sometimes they would stay away for days, off on some mysterious personal errand. On these days, Ruby employed Jackdaw, who proved to be an absolute treasure. He and Sparky got on famously and worked well together, one so full of life and good humour, always quick to spot a load in need of transport; the other methodical and painstaking, if constantly on the lookout for bad weather or a leaking boat.

  And the pair were very protective of her. Not that Ruby minded. She accepted the rules they set without too much argument. They wouldn’t allow her to help haul the barges by hand through the locks, though were happy enough for her to operate the mechanism, and even let her steer once in a while, if never at night.

  Ruby was always scrupulously fair with them, as Bart had been, often adding a bonus whenever they’d worked over the odds, so that they proved to be able and willing hands. She didn’t exploit them, and unlike many, they wouldn’t have dreamt of pilfering cargo. Not that they’d have got away with it under her sharp eye, but she trusted them utterly, knew they would never try as they were scrupulously honest and supremely loyal, partly because of their respect for Bart, but also, Ruby hoped, for herself too.

  Traditionally money for transporting a consignment of cotton, coal, pig iron or whatever, was handed to the captain, according to tonnage or trip rates. Therefore it was Ruby’s responsibility to pay her team, to which Kit vociferously objected.

  ‘I should be the captain, as the man of the house and your partner in the business. I should be the one to dole out the wages.’

  Ruby sighed. ‘That’s not the way it’s done,’ she tactfully pointed out.

  ‘It’s the way it should be done.’

  ‘Maybe, in certain circumstances, but generally speaking this method works quite well. And you’re not my partner, Kit, you’re my sister’s lover.’

  ‘Only because you’re too selfish and stubborn to share. And I know why. You want everything all for yourself, and to cut Pearl and me out. Yet you know it’s not normal for a woman to be captain.’

  ‘Eeh, I don’t know about that,’ chipped in Sparky. ‘There were Annie Heap, down Bolton way. She were a right tartar! Her first mate once come back drunk and she. . .’

  A warning glare from Ruby made him clamp his jaws shut on whatever it was Annie Heap had done to her first mate, and Sparky scurried away about his business.

  She was ashamed of how long it had taken her to see through Kit; before her suspicions as to the true nature of his relationship with Pearl had finally crystallised in her head. And if it rankled just a little that the man she’d once believed to be the love of her life hadn’t turned out to be quite as she’d expected, perhaps the situation was entirely her own fault.

  She should never have indulged in those foolish dreams. She’d believed with the optimism of foolish youth that what she’d felt for Kit Jarvis was love, when it was nothing more than the desperate cry of a child in need. Had she not been so stupidly blind, she might never have lost Bart. He would never have fought with Kit on the boat and he’d still be alive today.

  This was a mess of her own making, for not being satisfied with what she had. So what right did she have to complain?

  Outwardly, she tolerated Kit’s demands, his grumbles and moans, Pearl’s constant prattling and dedicated selfishness, and continued to care for them both as if they were children, and not a pair of adults at all.

  She wasn’t jealous of their close friendship, only curious and a touch resentful perhaps that they should use her so, without even a thank you or any sign of appreciation, let alone love. Everyone needs love and privately, in her heart, Ruby continued to grieve for Bart, the father of her child. She thought she could cope, and go on in this way indefinitely, but perhaps she underestimated the effect of all this inner anguish and heart-rending emotion. One day, while working on deck with Sparky, she fainted. One minute she was swabbing and scrubbing away grime and muck; the next she’d keeled over, and was, in Sparky’s words, ‘out like a light’.

  ‘I knew summat were wrong with you,’ he said, wafting some air in her face with his cap minutes later when she finally came round. ‘You’ve been looking a mite peaky for weeks now. Months! You work too hard, Ruby, and them two selfish gits do nowt.’

  ‘Don’t! Don’t say it, Sparky. I’m a fool, I know I am. But what can I do?’

  ‘You could tell ‘em to fetch and carry for themselves.’

  `Oh, I couldn’t do that. Pearl is my little sister. She needs me. Mam is dead, you see, and Pearl depends upon me. I’m all the family she has.’

  Sparky gave a sad little shake of the head. ‘Nay, lass. That’s no excuse and you know it. You wait on them two like a chap wi’ three hands. You can’t go on like this. Summat has to give. They don’t even appreciate what you do for them - off on the razzle every night.’ He helped her to her feet and they sat on a coil of rope together, sharing a tot of rum.

  ‘It’ll warm your belly on a raw night like this.’

  Perhaps it was the alcohol that loosened her tongue but suddenly Ruby was asking questions, the words spilling out of her mouth as if of their own volition. ‘This pub in Rochdale where our Pearl works ... what’s it like? They never seem keen for me to go with them.’ She made an attempt at an exasperated laugh, as if this were some silly foible of theirs. But a sideways glance at the expression on Sparky’s face, like a trapped rabbit caught in a beam of light, told her that he knew more than he was saying.

  ‘What is it, Sparky? I’m a grown woman. You can tell me.’

  Gloomy by nature he may be, but never had she seen him look more miserable. ‘Nay, it’s nowt to do wi’ me.’

  ‘But it is something to do with me, and I thought you were my friend. You’ve just shown your concern, for goodness’ sake. Whatever it is that you know, I’ve surely earned the right to be told properly, by someone I can trust.’

  ‘I promised the baron . . .’

  Ruby was instantly alert. ‘What? What did you promise him? You must tell me, Sparky. You can’t leave it like this, hanging in the air. What is it that you promised the baron? For God’s sake, he isn’t here to know that you’ve broken your promise, is he?’

  ‘Happen not, no. Eeh, can I ask our Aggie? She’d know what to do for the best.’

  ‘No, tell me now, Sparky, if you know what’s good for
you.’ It was cruel of her to bully him, but whatever it was, Ruby needed to know the truth.

  He began his tale haltingly, going off at tangents, stopping in tantalising places to sip his rum or make excuses that the details had slipped his mind, but in the end his meaning was all too clear. Kit and Pearl had known each other for a long time, far longer than they’d let on. Sparky finally admitted that the baron had asked him to make some enquiries, and he’d discovered that they’d been living together, as a couple, for at least a year before ever Kit had brought Pearl to the ship that night. Ruby felt as if she’d been kicked in the stomach. ‘Are you saying that all the time I was asking him to find Pearl, he was already living with her?’

  ‘Aye, that’s right. He were one of her chaps.’ Sparky could have bitten off his own tongue. He’d nearly blabbed too much. He started to back away, even as he nodded his agreement, desperate to escape and get back to his work before she started asking any more awkward questions, the kind which would lead to even more uncomfortable facts coming to light than were good for her.

  ‘And he didn’t let on because he wanted that pendant, didn’t he?’ The pendant had been yet another bone of contention between the three of them. Kit had wanted her to sell it and use the money to buy more barges, another way for him to wheedle his way into the business. Ruby had refused. The pendant had been the only gift that Bart had ever given her, and nothing would make her part with it.

  ‘You’re so selfish!’ Pearl had said.

  Kit had brutally echoed her sister’s words. ‘That’s right, Ruby McBride, you think of nobody but yourself.’

  She was glad now that she’d held on to her resolve. She understood everything now, how she’d been duped. No wonder Bart had been furious. He’d been trying to protect her, and she hadn’t realised.

  As often as possible the pendant still hung about her neck, though during the week when she was working on the barges, she stowed it away in a secret place beneath a floorboard in her bedroom in Quay Street. She’d hate to lose it overboard. The single ruby was a reminder of what now, looking back, seemed to have been happier days. It broke Ruby’s heart that she hadn’t realised it before, that they’d wasted so much of their time in passionate argument. But then that had characterised their entire relationship. Passion.