‘Ruby.’ Dad’s voice was very gentle. ‘As you might have guessed, things are not going so well for my business, and we – all of us – we have to pull our belts in. We can’t afford to keep Mrs Traill.’
Ruby stared from Mother to Dad, and back again. ‘But what will she do without us? We’re her family!’
‘She has gone to live with her sister,’ Mother said. ‘We aren’t her family, you know, Ruby. It’s good for her to be back with her own people.’
‘It’s not good! Nothing about it is good!’ Tears began to roll down Ruby’s cheeks. ‘Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you let me say goodbye to her properly? I never even took a photograph of her. I thought she was only going to be away for a month!’
‘Do try to understand, Ruby,’ Mother said wearily. ‘This hasn’t been easy for us, either. We thought that if you had some time to adjust to Mrs Traill’s absence, it would be easier for you to accept that her absence was . . . permanent.’
‘Easier?’ cried Ruby. ‘You think that makes it easier?’
She pushed back her chair and ran to her bedroom. Baxter was snoozing on the end of her bed and she curled up beside him, letting him lick the tears from her face. She couldn’t imagine their house without kind, comfortable Mrs T.
It wasn’t just that she was fond of Mrs T; it was also the thought of eating nothing but her mother’s cooking from now on. Mrs T was the best cook in the world, while Mother . . .
But even that wasn’t the worst of it. Now Ruby was starting to wonder what other secrets Mother and Dad were keeping from her. If they couldn’t afford to keep Mrs T, what other awful changes might there be?
‘Oh, Baxter,’ she said. ‘What’s happening to our family?’
‘GOOD morning, Ruby.’
No mistaking that flat voice. It cut right across the giggling and chattering as the girls caught up with each other for the first day of term.
Oh my hat, Ruby thought. My form mistress this year is Miss Fraser. Of all the luck!
‘Good morning, Miss Fraser,’ she said politely.
‘Welcome to Grade Seven, Ruby. Your desk is this one here in the front row.’ She pointed with a ruler. ‘I hope you are prepared for some hard work this term.’
Not the front row! ‘Yes, Miss Fraser.’
‘No more fidgeting? No more dreaming?’
Ruby shook her head.
‘We should all have dreams, of course. Even schoolteachers have dreams, Ruby, believe it or not.’ She paused, and Ruby was astonished to see the flicker of a smile.‘But there is a time and a place for them. And that means not in my lessons, and not in my classroom.’
‘Yes, Miss Fraser.’ Ruby dropped her satchel and sat down in her chair with a bump. Marjorie, at the desk next to her, gave her a sympathetic look.
This year the class was bigger because there were five new girls,but mousy Polly Ferguson, who used to sit behind Ruby, was missing. Ruby looked around for her friends. She could see Brenda, Sally and Marjorie, but she couldn’t see Hilary. Probably she was late. Hilary was always late.
The bell rang, and Miss Fraser rapped on her desk with her ruler. ‘Settle down, girls! Please collect your Bibles and prayer books and make your way to assembly in an orderly fashion. Quietly, now.’
It was a pity about grey Miss Fraser, but on the whole Ruby was relieved that school had started. While everything at home seemed to be topsy-turvy, school at least was the same: morning assembly with hymns and prayers, the bell ringing in the quadrangle, the familiar faces all around. Just to see Miss Macdonald standing tall and queenly at assembly in her black academic gown made Ruby feel safe. Surely nothing really bad could happen while Miss Macdonald was in charge.
At recess time Hilary still hadn’t turned up. As she sat with the other girls in their usual spot on the lawn, Ruby asked if anybody knew where she was.
‘Haven’t you heard?’ Brenda said. ‘She’s left. Her father lost his job. People aren’t buying new cars anymore, so his company sacked half their salesmen. They sacked Mr Mitchell, too, even though he was one of their managers. He’s working for Myer’s now, in men’s shoes, and he earns hardly anything.’
Ruby felt as if she’d been punched in thestomach.‘I can’t believe it,’ she said. ‘I saw her in the holidays and she didn’t say a thing. Why didn’t she tell me? After all, I’m probably her best friend.’
Brenda shrugged. ‘Maybe she didn’t know. I only know about it because Mama told me. She was having tea in town with Hilary’s mother, and Mama had to pay, because they had chocolate cake, and Mrs Mitchell didn’t have enough money. Mama said Mrs Mitchell was crying.’
‘How perfectly awful,’ said Marjorie. ‘I suppose they won’t be able to afford the tennis court now.’
‘Oh, no!’ mourned Sally. ‘I was so looking forward to playing tennis on their new court! Oh, that’s too bad!’
Ruby picked at the grass, thinking how much she would miss Hilary. She had a sudden fierce urge to find her, and give her a hug, and tell her that everything would be all right.
‘Is Hilary ever coming back to school, Brenda?’ she asked.
‘I shouldn’t think so. She’ll be going to a state school from now on, the poor thing. Just imagine!’
Ruby imagined. She shuddered. There were boys at state schools, rough boys. Mother said that absolutely anybody could go to a public school, and some of the people were ‘very undesirable’.
‘Mama said the Mitchells had it coming to them, though,’ Brenda went on. ‘She said they lived way beyond their means. Everything Mrs Mitchell bought was very expensive. Even her underwear was all pure silk, crêpe de chine, Mama said.’
‘Really?’ said Marjorie. ‘I suppose silk underwear is quite extravagant. My mother says cotton is perfectly good enough for everyday.’
Ruby thought of the lost silk lounging pyjamas. She’d planned to tell the girls about how she and Mother were caught up in the rioting in Victoria Square, and how brave they’d been, and how they had been rescued by a policeman, but compared with what had happened to Hilary it no longer seemed terribly important.
On Monday in the second week of term, two extraordinary things happened. The first thing was so very extraordinary that soon the whole school was talking about it.
After assembly on that warm summer morning Miss Fraser entered the classroom as usual. She said, ‘Good morning, girls!’ as usual. She turned to the blackboard as usual to write up the day’s order of lessons. But Ruby thought that this morning Miss Fraser seemed . . . different. Her hair was pulled back in its familiar bun, but it didn’t look quite so severe. Her cheeks were slightly pink. Even more surprising, she wasn’t dressed in her usual grey skirt and long grey cardigan. Instead, she was in a frock – a chiffon frock, patterned with mauve flowers. It wasn’t the latest fashion, but it was quite pretty. And when Miss Fraser turned back to speak to the class, Ruby saw that she was wearing lipstick.
Ruby opened her eyes wide. Miss Fraser never, ever wore lipstick!
And then she noticed the most surprising thing of all.
‘Look at Miss Fraser’s hand!’ she hissed to Marjorie. ‘She’s wearing an engagement ring!’
‘No!’ Marjorie strained forward to look. ‘Yes!’ She turned to the girls behind her. ‘Look at Miss Fraser’s hand! Her left hand, Brenda, you goose!’
The news passed around the classroom in seconds. ‘Ask her,’ whispered Marjorie. ‘Go on.’
Urged on by silent nods and gestures, Ruby put up her hand. ‘Miss Fraser?’ she said.
‘Yes, Ruby?’
‘Miss Fraser, I hope you won’t think I’m being rude, but please tell us – we couldn’t help noticing your ring. Is it – ? Are you – ?’
Miss Fraser’s cheeks became even pinker. ‘Well, yes, Ruby, if I understand what you’re trying to say, I am indeed engaged to be married.’
The classroom erupted. ‘Oh, Miss Fraser!’ ‘Who is he, Miss Fraser?’ ‘When is the wedding?’ ‘Will you be leaving the schoo
l?’
Miss Fraser’s fiancé was called Mr Kennedy. The wedding would be in six months’ time, and naturally Miss Fraser would then retire from teaching. Everyone crowded around to have a look at the engagement ring, three small diamonds set in a thin gold band.
‘Miss Fraser’s only thirty-five, you know,’ Marjorie said at recess. ‘Her hair’s grey, so she looks about sixty, but she isn’t. She could have a baby! My auntie had a baby when she was thirty-seven.’
Ruby was still trying to imagine Miss Fraser with a baby when the second extraordinary thing happened.
‘I say,’ said Sally, tugging at Ruby’s plait. ‘Isn’t that your parents over there?’
Ruby looked, and, sure enough, there in the distance were Mother and Dad walking down the path to the main school building. What on earth were they doing there? They hadn’t said they were coming to the school today.
‘You’ve been a bad girl, Ruby Q,’ Sally teased her. ‘You’ve forgotten to wear your gloves so many times that Miss Macdonald has sent for your parents. Perhaps you’ll be expelled!’
‘Don’t be silly,’ said Ruby. ‘They’re probably seeing her about whether or not I can do ballet next term. Mother thinks I should.’
‘But why would your father be seeing her too?’ asked Brenda. ‘Fathers don’t visit school, only mothers.’
‘There’s sure to be a reason,’ said Ruby, swatting away a fly. ‘I’ll ask.’
But when she was home again that afternoon, she told Mother first of all about Miss Fraser. Mother cheered up a great deal when she heard the good news, and wanted to know all the details. ‘A woman needs a man to support her,’ she said. ‘It’s the proper order of things – an engagement, and marriage, and children.’ And Ruby was so pleased to see Mother happy again that she forgot about the other extraordinary thing altogether.
‘I AM a blackboard in a schoolroom,’ Ruby said, reading from her essay book, ‘and this is the story of a week in my life. On Monday I am roused from a sound sleep by a teacher drawing maps on me with a piece of white chalk. Sometimes she makes mistakes and rubs them out with a soft duster . . .’
Ruby hated reading her essays aloud, especially when the subject was as boring as ‘The Story of a Blackboard’.Who could possibly imagine what it would be like to be a blackboard? Who would want to?
‘This is quite warming on a cold morning,’ she continued, ‘and I look forward to it.’
Miss Muir head, the English teacher, listened with half-closed eyes, a faint smile on her face.
‘Wednesday is my favourite day, for then the drawing teacher draws pretty designs and pictures on me . . .’ Ruby hesitated, distracted by the faint but unmistakable sound of somebody giggling.
Miss Muirhead opened her eyes. ‘Stop, please, Ruby.’ Ruby lowered her essay book. ‘Lizzie Spotswood and Sally O’Day,’ Miss Muirhead said loudly. ‘Lizzie, I see that you have just given something to Sally. May I ask what it is?’
‘It’s just a note, Miss Muirhead,’ mumbled Lizzie.
‘A note.’ Miss Muirhead turned to Sally. ‘Please share this fascinating note with all of us,’ she said. ‘If it’s more important than Ruby’s essay, it must be very important indeed.’
The blood drained from Sally’s face. ‘Please don’t make me, Miss Muirhead.’
‘If you don’t read it aloud, and immediately, I shall give you a debit mark. It goes without saying that Lizzie, as the writer of the note, has a debit mark already.’
Sally held up the little piece of paper. ‘Ruby thinks she’s so smart,’ she said in a trembling voice. ‘Wait till she hears what Brenda knows about her father.’ She glanced at Ruby. ‘I’m really, really sorry, Ruby Q.’
Miss Muirhead looked shocked, but soon recovered herself. ‘The classroom is no place for idle gossip. Lizzie, see me after class. Ruby, please ignore what has been said and continue with your reading.’
Ruby started again, but now the words seemed to be jumping up and down on the page. What did Brenda know about Dad? Was it something to do with his work? Was something terrible about to happen?
English was the last lesson for the day. When Miss Fraser came in to dismiss the class, Ruby packed away her books as quickly as she could and left the classroom without speaking to anybody. She could see that Marjorie and the twins were looking at her with curious, sympathetic faces, and she stayed well away from them. Especially she stayed away from Brenda. If something was happening to her family, she didn’t want to hear about it from Brenda Walker.
Ruby walked down the long shadowy driveway, past the oval with its hissing sprinklers, through the big stone gateway. Her hat was on straight, and she was wearing her new gloves. The prefect on duty smiled as she went past. ‘Good to see you sticking to the dress code, Ruby!’ she called.
Ruby tried to smile back. In spite of the heat of the afternoon, her hands inside her gloves were freezing cold.
She found her mother in the kitchen, making pastry. The dough looked too wet, and Mother was trying to scrape the gluey mass off her fingers. A pie dish filled with sliced apples stood on the table.
‘Your father loves an apple pie,’ Mother said. She smiled tiredly. ‘How was school? I hope your day was better than mine.’
Ruby sat down. To take her mind off what she was about to say, she picked up an apple and began to throw it from one hand to the other.
‘For heaven’s sake, Ruby, do stop fiddling with things,’ Mother said. ‘You’ll drive me mad, and I have enough to worry about already.’
Ruby put the apple back on the table and brushed some flour off her skirt. She wanted Mother to tell her that Brenda didn’t know anything about Dad – it was just gossip, as Miss Muirhead had said. She wanted Mother to be shocked and angry. But suppose it was true?
She took a deep breath. ‘Mother, today in our English lesson Lizzie passed Sally a note in class. Miss Muirhead made Sally read it aloud, and it was about Dad. It said Brenda knew something about him, and it sounded like something bad. But how could she know anything about Dad? She’s making it up, isn’t she?’
Ruby waited for her mother to say that it was all nonsense: of course it wasn’t possible for Brenda to know anything, because there wasn’t anything to know. But Mother said nothing, and her silence made Ruby feel the way she’d felt when she’d heard that Hilary wasn’t coming back to school.
Mother turned away, rinsed her hands at the sink, and dried them very slowly on a tea-towel. Finally she sat down in a chair, facing Ruby. ‘Brenda may not be making it up,’ she said. ‘It’s possible that Uncle Donald said something, and she overheard him.’
‘Uncle Donald?’
‘Your father and I wanted to keep this from you as long as possible,’ Mother continued, ‘but the time has come. You already know that things are not going well with your father’s business, don’t you?’
Ruby nodded.
‘Well, things are actually going very badly indeed. Much worse than we first thought. Your father has lost a great deal of money, and he has had to declare himself bankrupt. Do you know what that means?’
Ruby licked her dry lips. ‘Not really.’
‘It means that we can’t pay people what we owe them. We are thousands of pounds in debt, and the court has agreed that we are incapable of paying. We have no money.’
‘But how can we have no money? Dad is still building houses, isn’t he?’
‘Yes, he is. He hoped that if he kept building, things might improve. Now some of his clients have become bankrupt themselves, and can’t pay what they owe him. It’s quite a mess.’ Mother leaned forward and took Ruby’s hand. ‘It means that we will have to take you out of school. Your father and I have already spoken to Miss Macdonald. She will allow you to stay for two more weeks –’
‘Two more weeks!’ Ruby exploded. ‘How can I –’
‘Two more weeks,’ repeated Mother, ‘while we work out what we must do. Miss Macdonald will refund the money we have already paid for the full term. It is extremel
y kind of her.’
Ruby felt as if she and her head were not properly connected. ‘But if I have to leave school, where will I go? You wouldn’t send me to a state school, would you?’
‘We haven’t yet made a decision about that.’ Mother looked down at her lap. Ruby saw that she was twisting the tea-towel, twisting and twisting it. ‘And darling, there’s another thing –’
Ruby began to shiver. Mother never called her ‘darling’, or hardly ever. Only when she was about to say something very serious indeed. But what could be more serious than having to leave school?
‘If you are declared bankrupt you have to raise every bit of money you can, because you must pay off as much of your debt as possible. And that means, Ruby, that we shall have to sell this house.’
At first Ruby was furious with Dad for having done this terrible thing to them all, but when he came through the front door that evening, looking so tired and unhappy, she just couldn’t feel angry. This was her father, the person she loved most in all the world, and what had happened wasn’t his fault. Bad things were happening everywhere. So she ran straight up to him and hugged him as hard as she could, before he had even taken his hat off.
‘Your mother has told you, then,’ Dad said. ‘Well, that’s the worst of it over, I suppose. We both felt dreadful keeping it from you. I’m so sorry you’ll have to leave your school, sweetheart. And this house – I can’t tell you how I wish –’ He passed his hand across his eyes.
‘Don’t worry, Dad,’ Ruby said. ‘We’ll manage.’
Dad kissed her on the cheek. ‘That’s my brave girl,’ he said. And then he walked very quickly down the hall to his study.
But Ruby didn’t feel brave at all.
We’re going to be poor, she thought. Oh my hat, we’re going to be poor.
‘I DON’T believe it,’ said Marjorie, stepping backwards and accidentally kicking Sally on the ankle. She looked at Ruby as if she was something weird and slightly disturbing from the Museum – an Egyptian mummy, Ruby thought, or one of those huge horned beetles in the insect display.
Meet Ruby Page 4