by Merry Farmer
Ruby turned her head and blinked at the woman. Her throat was still sore, and she swallowed. Tears stung her eyes, and she nodded.
“Oh, dear,” Clara said, hurrying down the path to meet Ruby. “Looks like you do need help. Come in, come in.”
Ruby took a few steps toward the vicarage, but stopped. “I can’t,” she said, feeling as heavy as if she were made from stone.
“Of course you can,” Clara replied, continuing down the path until she reached Ruby’s side.
Ruby shook her head and leaned away. “You haven’t heard the rumors, have you.” It wasn’t a question. No one who had heard about her past would accept her into polite company.
But to Ruby’s surprise, Clara laughed. “I have. And believe me, you need to come inside and have a cup of tea.”
There was so much warmth and amusement in the tall, American woman’s expression. Ruby was too confused to protest when Clara nudged her into motion, steering her toward the house. Faith was fully awake and, by the feel of things, needed a change, so Ruby walked on.
“Take your coat off and sit for a spell,” Clara instructed her once they were in the house with the door closed.
Ruby glanced around. A cheerful fire blazed in the fireplace, warming the vicarage’s modest front room. The room wasn’t tidy—which would have shocked women like Mrs. Murphy and Mrs. Jones just as deeply as the revelations of Ruby’s past—but it had a comfortable, inviting look. The Fallon’s older twins sat within a fenced-in area in the corner, playing with wooden animals. Clara crossed to the makeshift pen and deposited the younger twins—who looked close to Faith’s age—beside them.
“There’s room for one more, if you’re willing to give it a try,” Clara said, nodding to the squirming bulge in Ruby’s coat.
“I think she needs a new nappy,” Ruby whispered.
Clara laughed again. “We have plenty of those.”
Ruby felt as though she had stepped into a dream the moment she crossed the threshold into the vicarage. Clara showed her where spare changing supplies were, then fixed tea while Ruby cleaned up Faith. Faith fussed at first when Ruby deposited her in the pen with the Fallon children, but was quickly so distracted by the toys and the other children her age that she ignored Ruby entirely to focus on her new playmates. That meant that Ruby could sit on the sofa with Clara, accepting a cup of tea and a sugared biscuit without worry. It was so vastly different than the way she had been treated only minutes before that Ruby didn’t know what to make of things.
“Have the Croydons had any luck finding you a new position?” Clara asked once everything was settled. When Ruby blinked at her in surprise, Clara waved with a biscuit in her hand and said, “Mr. Croydon has consulted with Arthur on matters of deep importance ever since I’ve known him. He and Mrs. Croydon were down here the day before yesterday asking if we knew of any open positions.”
“Do you?” Ruby blurted before she could remember her manners. “Know of any positions, I mean,” she added with a softer tone.
Clara sighed. “Not at the moment. I’m afraid news of your past traveled quickly.”
Ruby sagged, staring into her chipped teacup, wondering if it was the last friendly offering she would ever receive.
“Don’t worry,” Clara told her. “I know we’ll find something.”
Ruby glanced mournfully up at her. “I’m not so certain. I’ve a black mark now that won’t ever go away.”
“Why not?” Clara shrugged.
Ruby couldn’t believe the woman’s magnanimity. That or her simplicity. “I was a whore,” she admitted in a tiny voice. “It’s a path a woman can never go back from.”
Of all things, Clara laughed, her eyes sparkling with mirth. “That’s what you think.”
It was the most incongruous reaction Ruby had ever seen. All she could do was gape in response.
Clara seemed to sense her confusion. “Do you know why I left America to come here?” she asked.
“To work at Winterberry Park?” Ruby had heard the story several times from the other maids and Mrs. Musgrave.
But Clara shook her head. “That was why I came here, but it wasn’t why I left.” She paused for only a moment before going on with, “Before coming to England, doing a terrible job of working as a maid, and marrying Arthur, I was employed at a brothel in Wyoming.”
Ruby could have been knocked over by a light breeze. “You were?” she asked, her voice little more than a squeak.
Clara nodded. “It wasn’t something I did by choice, of course, and I would never go back. But the fact of the matter is, you and I are not so different.”
Ruby was speechless. Her mind could barely accept what Clara was saying, and yet, no woman, especially not the wife of the town’s vicar, would admit to a past like that, or any sort of similarity to her.
“But,” Ruby stammered, blinking rapidly as sense returned to her, “you’re married to Rev. Fallon. People like and respect you.”
“I hope I don’t sound arrogant by saying yes they do,” Clara said with a smile. “But only because my past is a closed book that is thoroughly off-limits. Mr. Croydon made sure of that when I went to work for him, and Arthur has sworn he will take my secrets with him to the grave.”
“But…but….” Ruby shook her head.
“And there’s more,” Clara went on, saving her from having to find her voice. Clara’s smile faded, and she glanced down at her tea with a sudden look of sadness. “I had a baby too. I gave her up before coming over here. It was for the best. She has lovely parents now. She’s happy.”
Ruby sent a reflexive look to Faith, playing happily with the other children. She couldn’t imagine giving up her daughter. Not unless she was certain she was on the verge of death, or unless Faith’s life was in danger if she didn’t give her away.
“I’m not saying you should do the same as I did,” Clara went on, alarm in her eyes as though she’d just realized how Ruby might take her words. “All I’m saying is that a fallen past does not necessarily mean a ruined future.”
Hope swelled in Ruby’s chest. It reached a towering peak before flattening. “But you were able to move to a whole new country, thousands of miles away from your past. I don’t have the same liberty.”
“Perhaps not.” Clara tilted her head to the side in acknowledgment. “But you do have people who are looking out for a new situation for you, the Croydons, Arthur, and me. You do have friends.”
It was such a simple sentiment, but it choked Ruby up all the same. So much so that she had to put her tea down to keep from spilling it as sudden tears began to fall.
“I’m sorry.” Clara rushed to put her teacup aside as well. She scooted closer to Ruby, hugging her. “I didn’t mean for that to upset you.”
“No, no it doesn’t,” Ruby sniffled. “It’s just…I’ve never had friends before.”
“Never?” Clara asked, sounding shocked.
Ruby’s heart twisted. “Well, Gil.”
“Gilbert Phillips?”
Ruby nodded. Just thinking about Gil filled her with love and pain. “He’ll never forgive me,” she wept.
Clara hugged her harder. “I’m sure that’s not true. Gilbert is a good, sensible man. Mr. Croydon depends on him, and Mr. Croydon isn’t the sort to put his faith in anyone other than the best of the best.”
Ruby wished she could believe her. “He blames me for Miss Goode being able to steal James away last year. Everybody does.”
Clara let out a breath, but rather than pushing Ruby aside, she hugged her tighter. “Do you blame yourself?”
Ruby nodded. “I shouldn’t have trusted her. I was the one who let her come to Winterberry Park, who made her feel welcome.”
“Well, why did you?” Clara leaned back, studying her with genuine curiosity.
Ruby shrugged, wringing her hands in her apron. “She said she was from Limehouse, like I was. She said she lived on the same block where I grew up. She was treated badly by a man too, or so she told me. I’d never had
a friend like that, who was just like me and felt the same way I do about things. We talked for hours. It was so comforting. But it was all a lie.”
“She told you everything you wanted to hear, didn’t she,” Clara said.
“Yes.” Something felt as though it broke loose in Ruby’s soul. It was such a relief to admit that at last.
“And you’d never had a friend like that before, had you,” Clara went on, digging right to the heart of everything Ruby was feeling.
“No, never.”
“So of course you wanted to grow that friendship,” Clara continued, her voice softer. “And it was easy for that bad women to take advantage of a good heart like yours when it was hungry for love.”
Ruby snapped her eyes up to meet Clara’s, certain no one had ever understood anything as clearly as Clara understood her.
“People think that women want nothing more than the love of a man,” Clara said with a lop-sided grin. “That’s not true. More than anything, we need friends, women friends. We need sisters to prop us up when we’re down and to laugh with us when we’re happy.”
Ruby nodded, crying harder now than she had when she was merely sad. Hearing the things Clara said was like someone throwing open the door to a prison and setting her free at last.
“You’ve never had that,” Clara went on. “Or so it sounds. So how could anyone possibly hold you at fault for opening your heart to what you thought was the friend you so desperately needed?”
“It’s not my fault?” Ruby squeaked, quivering with hope.
“Of course not,” Clara laughed, hugging her tight.
Ruby burst into a sob of relief like nothing she’d ever felt before, resting her head on Clara’s shoulder. Every ounce of misery and guilt she’d trapped inside of her heart broke free at once, flowing away from her like the tide going out. Her body went limp with it, and when she breathed in, it felt as though she filled herself with every good thing she’d kept at arm’s length for months, maybe even years, feeling as though she didn’t deserve it.
“It was unforgivably wicked of that Miss Goode woman, whoever she really is, to play off your heart like that,” Clara said, stroking Ruby’s head. “If I ever see her again, I’ll wring her neck. But just because someone was very clever and very evil doesn’t mean you’re a bad person too. We all have our weaknesses.”
“Can we be forgiven for them?” Ruby asked, raising her head and wiping her streaming eyes and nose with her apron.
“Well, I forgive you,” Clara said. “And I know Mrs. Croydon does too. Otherwise she wouldn’t be fighting so hard for you.”
Ruby hadn’t considered that. It warmed her from the inside out, giving her a feeling of strength that she hadn’t had in ages. And perhaps the fact that the Croydons were looking for a new position for her instead of tossing her out was a sign of their friendship instead of a way to assuage their own guilt.
“Now, the real question,” Clara said, “is whether you forgive yourself.”
Ruby took in a breath, pressing her hand to her stomach. She looked deep within herself, asking the question she hadn’t dared to ask before. Could she forgive herself? Did she really hold herself completely at fault for James’s kidnapping? Was she truly an unforgivable fool for believing Miss Goode’s lies? Or had she been taken advantage of in horrible ways?
“I think I might be able to forgive myself in time,” she said at last, blowing out a breath. “James was recovered, and there was little lasting harm.” And he loved her. James loved her. He, more than anyone, had reason to hate her and shy away from her for the rest of his life, but he loved her still.
“I’m sure Gilbert will see the same thing,” Clara said, back to smiling as though everything were right with the world.
The fledgling hope in Ruby’s gut withered. Her shoulders sank. “I’m not so sure. I let him down so badly. He’s so disappointed in me.”
“Does he love you?”
Ruby gulped at Clara’s question, her already hot face flushing hotter. “I don’t know,” she whispered.
“If he loves you, he’ll be able to forgive you.” Clara paused. “Although you might have to slap him around a little to get him to see why he should.”
A sudden laugh burst from Ruby’s lips. She clapped a hand to her mouth in shock. She shouldn’t be laughing at something like that. Gil had every right to be disappointed in her. He had every reason to hate her.
But no. A new voice spoke up inside of her. If she was going to forgive herself, if it was true that she had been imposed upon and that she had been targeted because of her weaknesses, then it wasn’t fair for Gil to fault her for trusting the wrong person. At least not permanently. Yes, she’d done something wrong, but if he had any feelings for her at all, he would understand why she’d done what she had.
“There you go,” Clara said, smiling as she watched Ruby turning through her thoughts. “I think you see now that there’s hope after all, and that you’re not alone.”
“I’ve felt so alone,” she admitted with a rush of breath.
Clara took her hands. “Well, you’re not now. I should have gone looking for you the moment I found out about your past, the moment you arrived in Lanhill, really. We should have been friends from the start. But all these babies, you know,” she laughed.
Ruby squeezed Clara’s hands, her heart fluttering. “Will you be my friend?”
Clara smiled at her with more compassion than Ruby thought was possible. “Of course, ducky. I think it was always meant to be.”
Tears flowed from Ruby’s eyes once again, but this time they were tears of joy. Her heart hadn’t felt so light in…she didn’t think it had ever felt so light.
“I think I’d like another cup of tea,” she said, smiling and sniffling. With tea and friendship, she was certain she could make it through anything.
Chapter 5
Gil drew his collar up higher against the cold wind blowing through Lanhill as he headed home from the post office. He’d been distracted the entire time he sent the telegram to London, placing the advertisement for a new valet in the appropriate journals. It had caused him to be stand-offish with Mr. Brown, the postman, and several locals who’d tried to engage him in conversation, which wasn’t like him at all. But increasingly over the past few days, his mood had gone sour and his thoughts had coalesced into one obsession that pounded through him with every beat of his heart.
What was he going to do without Ruby?
Worse still, what was she going to do if she didn’t have the Croydon’s protection, his protection?
“Watch it, Gil,” Sam Jones, the butcher, cautioned Gil as he bumped into the man coming out of his shop, cleaver in hand.
“Sorry, Sam.” Gil mumbled a distracted apology.
“Here, I don’t blame ya for bein’ all down in the mouth,” Sam called after him instead of going about his business. “Not with that harlot in your midst.”
Gil instantly stopped, snapping back to the man with a deep scowl. “Sorry?”
“That whore,” Sam said with a look that hinted he thought Gil would agree with whatever he said. “Scandalous, it is, for someone of Mr. Croydon’s importance to have the wool pulled over his eyes like that.”
Gil took a few steps toward him. “Excuse me?” he demanded.
In spite of his mean-looking meat cleaver, Sam shied back, suddenly nervous. “I just thought…you know…and the fact that she would dare show her face at the school. My Alice is at that school. Young and impressionable, she is. Nancy told that harlot off good, though.” His voice faded to an uncertain mumble.
Without another word, Gil marched off. Instead of heading home, he turned his steps toward Tim Turnbridge’s school. The worry he’d been carrying around for days flashed to an anger more powerful than anything he was used to feeling. He balled his hands into fists as he walked, ready to wring the neck of anyone who disparaged Ruby.
But at the very back of his mind, an itch was forming. He hadn’t protected Ruby as muc
h as he should have.
The rehearsal for the winter show that Tim had been planning—the man should have been a theatrical producer, not a teacher, the way he was always organizing his students into plays and concerts—was just ending as Gil walked into the school. The scene was chaos as usual, with the smaller children running amok while a few of the girls tried half-heartedly to keep them in line, and the older boys glared at anyone interrupting their frantic studying. Gil wasn’t interested in the children, though.
“Where is Ruby?” he demanded of Tim, marching up the aisle between desks.
Tim glanced up from the piano he was playing to one side at the front of the room. He played a few sour notes, then stopped and stood. “Gil. What brings you out on an afternoon like this?” The dozen or so children surrounding him, including James, kept singing for a moment as Tim spoke.
As friendly as he and Tim were, Gil’s scowl didn’t budge as he marched through the curious children to the piano. “Where’s Ruby?”
Tim’s smile crumbled. “Did you hear about the trouble this morning?”
He answered with, “Anyone who has trouble with Ruby has trouble with me.”
The pile of children glanced from Tim to Gil as though watching a play of their own.
“Those women were mean to Ruby,” James said, breaking away from the others to zip to Gil’s side. “They pushed her.”
“What?” Gil demanded of Tim while resting a hand on James’s shoulder.
Tim sighed, his shoulders dropping. “Certain rumors have gotten around town,” he began. “A group of mothers decided they didn’t want Ruby around their children.”
“And you let them push her?”
Tim shook his head. “It was mostly all over by the time I got there. Ruby left willingly. I said I’d make sure James got back to her or Winterberry Park.”
“You let her leave like that?” Gil was beside himself, but twining with his anger was guilt. “Where did she go?”
