One Snowy Night

by Rita Bradshaw

  ‘No, don’t say that because you can’t be or else you would agree to marry me.’

  She stared at him, and as she did so a strange thought came into her mind. Edward had been born with a silver spoon in his mouth and probably had never been thwarted about a thing in his life before. He was rich and handsome and thought the world was his oyster, as indeed it was. What did he know about life, real life, the life her folk were forced to live just to pay the rent each week and put food on the table? He was angry and upset now, and she supposed he had every right to be, but how much of his desire for her had been prompted by the fact that she had made it clear from the start there could never be anything but friendship between them?

  She didn’t know if she was being grossly unfair, but nevertheless, it gave her the strength she needed to draw herself up straight. ‘You are entitled to believe as you see fit.’

  ‘And that’s it? After all this time, that’s it?’ He turned on his heel, walking back to the car and opening the driver’s door before saying grimly, ‘I hope the life you have chosen brings you contentment, but I fear one day you will wake up to find yourself a little old lady all alone except for a cat or two. And don’t worry about seeing Clarissa – I won’t be visiting Foreburn again so there will be no danger of running into me.’

  She stared at him, her eyes huge in her white face, but made no reply, and after a moment he slid into the vehicle and started the engine.

  In spite of the lateness of the hour and the bitter chill, she continued to stand there for some minutes after the sound of the car’s engine had died away. It was over, not that it had ever really begun, but he had gone and she knew he would not return.

  A numbness had settled on her senses, and once she was inside the shop and had locked the door, she didn’t immediately go through and make her way upstairs to the flat. Instead she walked to one of the full-length, gilt-framed cheval mirrors and stared at herself. The mirror was a fine piece of furniture. The shaped top, the stand with turned finials and brass side screw knobs on shaped legs with carved knees and claw-pad feet was an object of quality – but then so was every item in the room. The French carved upholstered chairs and small gilt-wood tables inset with serpentine-yellow mottled marble tops that were dotted around on the thick pile carpet screamed luxury, as did the cream-and-rose brocade wallpaper and wall mirrors decorated with acanthus-scrolled designs. The same taste and attention to detail was reflected in the adjoining fitting room with its small cloakroom and carpeted floor; all was comfortable and discreet.

  Ruby turned from the beautifully dressed woman in the mirror and glanced round the quiet interior, the glow of achievement she usually felt at her surroundings absent for once.

  She had opened the shop within two months of signing on the dotted line, and following Clarissa’s advice, the sign above the door read ‘Madame Beaucaire’.

  ‘A French name will appeal to your clientele so much more than Ruby Morgan,’ Clarissa had said apologetically. ‘Trust me on this.’ And Clarissa had informed all her friends and acquaintances for miles around of ‘the wonderful new establishment’ that had opened its doors in Newcastle, suggesting that they pay Madame Beaucaire’s a visit and see for themselves. As well as that, some weeks into the refit of the premises, she had arrived on the doorstep with umpteen bags of exquisite clothes that she’d bought in London and only worn once or twice.

  ‘For you, Ruby,’ Clarissa had said carelessly. ‘I thought it might help if you have a rail or two of pre-owned bits and pieces, but whatever you do, don’t call them second-hand. Off-models is the term, all right? They’ll boost your initial stock, won’t they, and there are quite a few influential women in the town married to businessmen whose husbands are beginning to feel the pinch a little now the economy is struggling, who’ll still want their fashionable evening dresses and daywear but won’t want to pay as much as they once would have done. If anyone asks, as they undoubtedly will, you can truthfully say they’re off-models from London shops. They will simply adore that, trust me.’

  Ruby had been overwhelmed by her friend’s generosity, especially as Clarissa wouldn’t hear of accepting a penny for the beautiful clothes. ‘Darling girl, they’d just have been disposed of by my maid,’ Clarissa had said offhandedly, ‘which is such a waste, after all.’

  It was one of the moments when the huge divide between them had been brought home to Ruby; but the clothes were a gift from the gods, nevertheless, not only to sell but to examine in detail and take patterns from for her own pieces. Clarissa had advised her to be pricey – her intended market would expect it – but not as expensive as the shops in the capital, and with her friend’s patronage business had been brisk from day one. It still was. Her clothes spoke for themselves and her order book was full, so much so that she’d been able to go ahead with the second part of her plan and convert the annexe to the building into her workroom just before Christmas. This meant her tiny flat was free of the clutter that had occupied so much of it, and could just be her home at long last. She’d had a lovely time turning what had essentially been a workplace into her first real home where she had no one to answer to but herself.

  She and Edward had already painted the walls throughout the flat in a warm cream colour in the first week of owning the property, along with scrubbing the floorboards and varnishing them in the sitting room and bedroom. The kitchen and bathroom had new linoleum on the floor. Now, with the drop-leaf table that had been her workstation and had occupied the centre of the room folded away against the wall, its two hard-backed chairs standing either side, she’d found she had room for a small comfortable sofa with chintz upholstery for the sitting room, along with a small bookcase and a coffee table. A couple of brightly coloured shop-bought rugs added to the general air of cosiness, and in the winter evenings when the fire in the hearth glowed and flickered, and the thick curtains at the window shut out the darkness, Ruby was conscious of a sense of peace. Not happiness – happiness was something else and intrinsically tied up with Edward, which made it impossible to achieve.

  This last reflection pierced the numbness and she hurried out of the main shop and through the fitting room into the tiny square of hall beyond. This now boasted a door to the flat. Edward had insisted the builders make this modification on the grounds of privacy and safety when they had carried out the other work, and although she wouldn’t have thought of it herself, she had been pleased with the end result. It kept the shop and her home independent of each other and it was nice to have a separate key to her living quarters. She was thinking of employing an assistant in the near future – her workload was already too much for one person and she needed to delegate where she could – and although she might think about giving a key to the shop to someone in the future, her home was a different matter. As Edward had said, an Englishman’s home – or Englishwoman’s – was his or her castle.

  Oh, Edward. Edward.

  By the time she had climbed the stairs the anaesthetizing numbness had melted away and the full reality of what had just occurred had flooded over her. He had gone. Gone for good. She would never see him again and she only had herself to blame. She collapsed in one of the armchairs and gave vent to a paroxysm of weeping, and much later, as a quiet winter dawn broke and the street below the flat emerged slowly into life, she was still asking herself if she had done the right thing – or whether she had made the biggest mistake of her life.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Life had gone on, the days and weeks merging into a blur of hard work and such a full order book Ruby had taken on two assistants rather than one, but as the year neared its close a few days stood out from the past months. One was the death of Emmeline Pankhurst in June. The First Lady of women’s suffrage was buried in an emotional ceremony attended by hundreds of her followers, many of them wearing the colours of the Women’s Social and Political Union, and Ruby had attended with Clarissa and the chairwoman of their local branch. On the same day an American, Amelia Earhart, became the fir
st woman to fly the Atlantic, battling against terrible weather to bring her seaplane down in a South Wales estuary. It seemed very appropriate that such a significant event had occurred on the same day that Mrs Pankhurst was saluted as a ‘heroic leader’ and a woman who had encouraged her own sex to believe they were every bit as good as men, Ruby and the others had thought.

  Another less newsworthy but to Ruby even more momentous occasion happened in August when she bought herself a little car. The thrill of holding the sulphur-yellow driving licence in her hand for the first time and knowing she was free to drive herself where she pleased was intoxicating. Her Morris Minor was the latest model from Morris Motors and she immediately christened it Alfie, although quite why she wasn’t sure. ‘He’ just looked like an Alfie, she told a bemused Clarissa when she drove to Foreburn for Sunday lunch.

  But it was in November on the first Sunday of the month that she was tested to the utmost. By unspoken mutual consent, she and Clarissa had never discussed Edward since the day of her friend’s party. It was clear by Clarissa’s silence about her brother that Edward must have confided something of what had occurred between them, Ruby thought, but Clarissa’s friendship had not wavered and the two women had carried on as normal. But that Sunday, when she had arrived for lunch, Clarissa had taken her aside and told her that Edward had been living in America for the last few months and had been seeing a rich young heiress to whom he had just got engaged.

  ‘I thought you ought to know.’ Clarissa had stared at her with troubled eyes. ‘I confess I don’t think his heart is in it and I’m more than a little surprised but there it is.’

  It had taken every ounce of strength for Ruby to be able to nod and say calmly, ‘Pass on my congratulations to them when you have a chance. I’m sure they’ll be very happy,’ but she didn’t linger after lunch, unlike most Sundays.

  Once she got home that day she had faced the truth that had flooded over her the moment she heard the news. She regretted, with every fibre of her being, sending Edward away. She had been fighting against admitting it to herself for months, but even as he had driven away that snowy night at the beginning of April she had known it was a mistake. She should have swallowed her pride and gone to see him the next day or in the following days, but she hadn’t. She hadn’t. And now it was too late. A marriage between them might have been a disaster but, equally, it might not have been; now she would never know. It was a bitter pill to swallow, but swallow it she must and get on with things. The alternative was to curl up in a little ball and die, and that wasn’t an option. She had felt like this once before when she had first arrived in Newcastle after Adam’s betrayal, and she had got through then. She would do so again. But this was much worse. Before she could blame Olive and Adam for her suffering; this time the fault was hers and hers alone.

  But now it was three weeks before Christmas and the weather was so cold no one would have been surprised if the sleety rain that had been falling for the last week or so had come down in ice cubes. She and her two seamstresses were working longer and longer hours as the festive season approached – it seemed all the well-to-do women in Newcastle and for miles around had parties and social functions they simply had to have new clothes for, but if nothing else it had convinced Ruby that she had to take the plunge and open another shop in the near future. It was simply a matter of finding the time to look for one, but then just that very morning one of her seamstresses, a sweet and rather shy young girl who reminded Ruby of Ellie, or the Ellie in the days before her friend had met Daniel Bell, had told her about a property that had come up for sale close to where she lived just a few streets away in Ridley Place at the back of Ginnett’s Amphitheatre. Ridley Place was only a quarter of a mile or so from her present shop, which Ruby thought was perfect. She had already decided that a new business would be aimed at women on the large size and would stock mainly outsize clothes; it seemed among the middle class there were plenty of stout matrons who would pay the prices she asked to look as though they had been dressed by a London fashion house, at the same time as appearing pounds lighter than they were.

  ‘It’s a lovely shop, Miss Morgan,’ Polly said earnestly. ‘It’s been a draper’s ever since I can remember, an’ it’s in a row like this one. There’s a watchmaker’s next door an’ a wool shop the other side if I remember right. You ought to go an’ have a look.’

  ‘I will, Polly. Thank you.’ If the shop had been run as a draper’s, hopefully it wouldn’t need much in the way of alterations to bring it in line with what she had in mind, but she would have to see. Her first appointment that morning was with a lady coming in for a fitting and the evening dress was ready for the client to try on, so deciding there was time to quickly pop to Ridley Place before eleven o’clock, Ruby left the shop.

  The premises were slightly larger than the present shop, being in a terraced row of three-storey shops with what looked like an attic room under the eaves. After she had ventured in and explained why she had come, the present owner – a dapper little man in his sixties – escorted her round the shop and the living accommodation above. The only modifications Ruby felt were needed on the ground floor were the addition of a cloakroom and indoor toilet, thereby making the privy at the end of the yard obsolete, and painting and decorating throughout. The flat, although neat and clean, had no modern conveniences, an outside tap being the only source of water for the premises. As she intended to employ a manageress to live above the shop, the cost of converting the smaller of the two bedrooms on the second floor into a bathroom and providing running water for the kitchen would have to be taken into account. The attic room was presently being used for storage and was packed so full she couldn’t see much. Nevertheless, it seemed promising and she told the owner she would be in touch with the estate agent handling the sale.

  True to her word, that evening she visited the agency and found out more details with a view to setting the wheels in motion, and the following morning contacted the owner of the shop to ask permission for her builder to come and view the premises so he could give her a price for the work she would want carried out.

  When she had first begun considering a second establishment some weeks before, she had thought it sensible to pay a visit to the building society to enquire how they would view her buying a further property. The manager, who had been watching the success of the first shop closely, had agreed that – subject to certain guidelines – he saw no reason not to lend her the money for a second venture.

  Within twenty-four hours her builder had given her a quotation and, unwilling to let the grass grow under her feet, she put in an offer for the premises, which was accepted. By the end of the week she’d been to the building society and everything was under way.

  She hadn’t seen Clarissa for some time while all this was going on. Godfrey had finally retired from the army and to celebrate he had whisked his wife off to Europe for a holiday, taking in the sights of Italy and Greece, and finally ending up in Paris for a week or so. And so it was with some surprise that the weekend after the purchase of the new shop was completed, Ruby answered a knock at the door to find Clarissa on the doorstep, as bubbly and effusive as ever. Over coffee, she told her friend about recent events, admitting that the speed with which her latest acquisition had happened had left her feeling shell-shocked.

  ‘Darling, it’s wonderful, just wonderful.’ Clarissa kissed her on both cheeks. ‘You’re doing so amazingly well and so you should – your clothes are divine. My goodness, a woman of substance! Lady Russell was asking after you only the other day when we spent a few days in London after returning from Paris. She’s never forgotten how you saved my life, and she thinks this new endeavour of yours is fabulous.’

  Ruby smiled but didn’t comment. Lady Russell had been present at Clarissa’s party in the spring, and Ruby had got the distinct impression that the aristocratic noblewoman had disapproved of the friendship between herself and Edward. Women from every walk of life having the right to vote was one thing but Lady R
ussell, like so many of her class, believed that those walks of life should be kept clearly defined with no party stepping over into a different one when it came to marriage and family. Indeed, Ruby had often wondered what Clarissa’s reaction would have been if she and Edward had told her they were in love and intended to marry. Would her friend have welcomed her with open arms, or would there have been reservations? Much as she cared for Clarissa, she rather thought it would be the latter. And she couldn’t blame Clarissa if that was the case, not when she herself could list a whole host of reasons why a match with Edward could have been a disaster. Anyway, all that was incidental now. She had sent Edward away and he had lost no time in making his home abroad and falling in love with someone else, which perhaps indicated that she had been right all along.

  Knowing that when she let her mind go down this particular route it resulted in bitter heartache and confusion, Ruby steered the conversation to Clarissa’s recent holiday and let her friend enthuse about Paris. ‘Here.’ Clarissa passed over a large embossed carrier bag that had a Parisian designer’s name on it. ‘An early Christmas gift but I knew it would suit you. Oh, and there are some French fashion magazines too; I know you don’t speak French but the illustrations will give you an idea or two, won’t they. Darling, it’s all little skull caps over there of silver and gold tissue designed to cover the ears as well as the hair, and skirts are set to get longer apparently but women must be pencil-thin. Godfrey wasn’t at all impressed. He said this slimming craze is set to turn women into boys and he finds it repugnant, so at least I can eat my cream cakes and chocolates and other goodies with impunity.’

  Ruby had delved into the bag while Clarissa had been speaking and now, as she brought out an exquisitely made dress and jacket in dove-grey raw silk, she said, ‘Oh, it’s beautiful, Clarissa, thank you so much.’