The Little House

by Philippa Gregory

  ‘We’ll stick to our agreement then,’ Frederick said. He turned the pram around and went up the drive towards the farmhouse. Ruth could see the puffs of air from his breath as he walked. The pram wheels made dark lines in the whiteness of the frost. She shut the door.

  Frederick walked for ten minutes away from the house and then back again. Thomas, rosy-cheeked in the cold air, did not sleep.

  ‘He’s still awake,’ Frederick said. ‘Shall I rock him in the kitchen or the hall?’

  ‘He can come out and play,’ Ruth said.

  ‘I can keep him amused while you do your chores,’ Frederick offered.

  She gave him a cold look. ‘Of course. You have forty minutes yet.’ She shut the sitting-room door on them both, and Frederick heard her go up the stairs.

  Thomas was over-tired by lunchtime and would eat only breakfast cereal; the soothing milky taste was what he wanted. Ruth gave him his bottle in his pram and wheeled him out into the garden. The clouds were clearing and the sun was coming out; the garden was a monochrome of black shadows and blinding white frost on the grass. Ruth rocked Thomas until he turned his head from his bottle and fell asleep, and then she quietly took the bottle from the pram.

  Promptly at five to three Elizabeth drove down and parked her car. She walked around to the back garden and saw the pram. She leaned in and put her finger down inside Thomas’s little mitten, and touched his cheek to see that he was warm enough. The back door to the kitchen opened.

  ‘I have asked you to come to the front door,’ Ruth said. ‘I asked you yesterday not to disturb him when he is sleeping.’

  Elizabeth straightened up, but she did not look at all reproved. ‘I was checking whether he was warm enough,’ she said. ‘He’s fine.’

  ‘I know,’ Ruth said. ‘I checked him myself five minutes ago.’

  Elizabeth laughed her easy laugh. ‘Well, we’re both happy then,’ she said.

  Ruth stepped back as her mother-in-law came in the house. ‘Now,’ Elizabeth offered, ‘is there anything I can do for you? You know I hate to sit and do nothing.’

  Ruth shook her head, her face blank. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Well, I’ll have the pleasure of reading the newspaper until Thomas wakes,’ Elizabeth said. ‘And then I’ll change him and play with him until five o’clock. Are you going out?’

  A swift expression of deep unhappiness crossed Ruth’s face. ‘If I have to.’

  Elizabeth’s smile never wavered. ‘Why, you must do whatever you would like to do,’ she said. ‘Thomas and I will not be in your way. You could rest, or read, or make some phone calls, or cook supper – whatever you would normally do, Ruth!’

  There was a short silence. There had been no normality since the arrival of Thomas.

  ‘I’ll go for a walk,’ Ruth said.

  ‘Wrap up warm!’ Elizabeth called.

  The front door slammed.

  Elizabeth went out to the kitchen and peeped through the window to see the pram. Thomas was still asleep. Elizabeth opened the larder door and checked the contents. Absentmindedly she opened the freezer door. Someone had disarranged the order of the meat and the vegetables. She reorganized them so that they were in the right places. She glanced around the kitchen. The floor tiles, which she had chosen to reflect light in the rather dark back room, were cloudy. Ruth had not dried them properly, Elizabeth thought. She stacked the kitchen chairs on the table, put the rubbish bin outside, and fetched the mop.

  It took a little longer than she had expected. There had been a hardened lump of red baby food on the floor near the Aga, which Ruth had obviously been too idle to get down and scrub. Elizabeth went on her knees to it and got it clean again. Then she restored the kitchen to order and glanced at the clock. Ruth had been gone only twenty minutes; there was still plenty of time. Elizabeth had telephoned Patrick at work that morning to confirm that the new arrangements were working well. Patrick – who had sounded remarkably relaxed, even happy – had said that things were fine at home. But he had mentioned that there seemed to be a lot of chores to do in the evening, peeling the potatoes, for instance. Elizabeth took the bag of potatoes to the sink and peeled and sliced them, and left them in a saucepan of salted water.

  She inspected the bag of potatoes with distaste. She believed that food should not be stored in polythene, and always emptied her own potatoes into an earthenware crock. In the absence of anything better, she found an old wickerwork basket, which had once held a large flower display, given for Thomas’s birth, and put the potatoes in that.

  Then she cleaned the sink, gave the windowsills a quick wipe, and tied back the curtains properly – they had once again been left hanging loose.

  A little cry from the garden summoned her. She went out and brought him indoors, decanted him from the pram, changed his nappy with quiet efficiency, and brought him downstairs again to play on the floor before the fire.

  The front door slammed. Ruth looked around the door at the picture of her mother-in-law, the flickering fire, the contented baby. ‘I think I’ll have a bath,’ she said, and went upstairs.

  She did not come down until two minutes before Elizabeth was due to leave, at 4:58 exactly. Elizabeth rose to her feet and put on her coat as Ruth came in the room.

  ‘Did you enjoy your walk?’

  ‘No,’ Ruth said succinctly.

  ‘You’ll want me earlier tomorrow,’ Elizabeth reminded her. ‘You see your therapist tomorrow, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’ll come at one then, shall I? And don’t feel you have to hurry back. I can perfectly well give him his tea.’

  ‘You are not to feed him or to bath him or to take him out of this house,’ Ruth said levelly. ‘The agreement was that Frederick comes down in the morning and you come down in the afternoon. And he is to stay here.’

  Elizabeth looked at the wallpaper above Ruth’s bowed head. ‘I see no reason for any of us to be rude,’ she remarked.

  There was a complete silence. Elizabeth savoured the sense of moral victory. In a moment the girl would lift her head and apologize.

  But Ruth met her eyes. ‘I see every reason to be rude,’ she said. ‘You have come between me and my husband and between me and my child. You are destroying my happiness and my life.’

  ‘Oh, Ruth!’ Elizabeth cried. She reached out her hand but Ruth stood motionless, unresponsive. ‘I am trying very, very hard to do the very best for you, and for Patrick, and for Thomas.’ She looked imploringly into the young determined face. ‘Whatever else you think, you cannot say that I am not trying to make you and Patrick happy together.’ Her gesture took in the comfortable sitting room, furnished in the colours she had chosen, the fire she had lit, the curtains she had hemmed. ‘All I have ever wanted has been your happiness,’ she said gently.

  Ruth’s expression did not change. ‘It’s past five.’

  Elizabeth turned away from the flinty look in Ruth’s face. ‘I’ll come tomorrow at one,’ she said simply, and let herself out.

  As soon as the door shut, Ruth shuddered, and pitched herself down on the floor beside Thomas. He half rolled on his side to see her and reached out a plump little hand to her cheek. Ruth lay, smiling into his little face, enjoying his small caress.

  ‘Ma –’ Thomas said, enjoying the sound.

  Ruth hardly dared breathe.

  ‘Ma –’ Thomas said again.

  ‘Yes,’ Ruth said firmly. ‘I am.’

  The next day Elizabeth was on time, as always, but Thomas was not ready for her. He had eaten well at lunchtime, and Ruth had not been able to hurry him. When Elizabeth walked into the kitchen without knocking, Ruth was on her hands and knees picking up dropped food from the floor beneath the high chair and Thomas was spooning a jar of apple purée into his face and around his smiling mouth.

  ‘How lovely to see him eating so well,’ Elizabeth said. She picked up the jar and checked the ingredients. There was no added sweetener, which was the only thing in its favo
ur, she thought. ‘You run along,’ she went on. ‘I’ll clear up here.’

  Ruth hesitated. It was clearly nonsensical to tell Elizabeth not to change Thomas’s clothes when his shirt was liberally smeared with dinner and his hair full of apple purée.

  ‘Go on,’ Elizabeth urged. ‘I can cope.’

  Ruth went out into the hall and put on her old black reefer jacket. Elizabeth noted that the new coat – the Christmas present – had not appeared. ‘Anything you would like me to do for supper?’ Elizabeth asked brightly. ‘Then you can be back late; you don’t want to have to rush.’

  ‘It will take me half an hour to get to Bath, an hour’s appointment, half an hour home again, and maybe ten minutes for delays,’ Ruth said. ‘I’ll be home by half past three. I don’t need any help.’ She paused. ‘And I would rather you did not peel potatoes. Patrick does them when he comes in.’

  Elizabeth gave a small sigh, and then picked up Thomas. ‘Let’s go and wave good-bye to Mummy,’ she said cheerfully, and took him to the sitting-room window.

  As Ruth’s car drove away, Elizabeth looked around the room. The grate had not been cleaned, it was filled with ashes. There was a cup of coffee left on the floor by one of the chairs. The sofa cushions had been put on back to front, there were newspapers on the floor beside Patrick’s chair, and the room needed dusting. ‘Lots to do!’ she said happily to Thomas. ‘I don’t know what kind of state your mummy would get into if I wasn’t here.’

  She climbed up the stairs with him against her shoulder. There were wet and soiled clothes in the nursery laundry bag. Elizabeth stripped Thomas, changed his nappy, and put the dirty clothes in the bag. Then she dressed him in the clothes that were her favourites – a strong bright blue for a boy – and took him, and the laundry bag, downstairs again. She just had the washing in the machine, and was tying back the curtains in the kitchen windows, when the telephone rang.

  ‘Hello, Mother,’ Patrick said. ‘How are things?’

  ‘Fairly well,’ she said cautiously. ‘She’s not getting the laundry done, and the house needs a bit of attention, but she seems to have been all right with Thomas today. He was having lunch when I arrived – just jars, of course.’

  ‘I was calling to say I have to be late,’ Patrick said. ‘I can’t get home before half past seven.’

  ‘What would you like us to do?’

  He hesitated. ‘I’m not sure. Ideally, I’d like you to have Thomas for the evening, really. His dinner time and then bathtime and bedtime are a lot for Ruth to manage on her own.’

  ‘Of course we can,’ she said sweetly. ‘I’ll take him home now, and Ruth can come up for dinner. You could both come. We’ll put Thomas to bed in the nursery, and Frederick can bring him down in the morning.’

  Again Patrick hesitated. ‘Don’t you think she would resent it? How is she with you?’

  Elizabeth laughed her assured happy laugh. ‘Oh, my dear! She’s in such a rage with us that none of us can do anything right. But it is the right thing for Thomas and that must be the only thing we are thinking of. I’ll take him up to the farmhouse now, shall I?’

  ‘Leave her a note,’ Patrick reminded her. ‘Tell her that I called and said I would be late, and that I’ll come and collect her at seven-thirty, and we’ll come on to dinner with you. But we’ll bring Thomas back. We can take him home in his carry cot.’

  ‘Oh, don’t take him out in the cold night air!’

  ‘No,’ Patrick said firmly. ‘I know that she won’t want him to stay at the farm without us. He’ll come home with us. It won’t hurt the once.’

  ‘I’ll make a steak and Guinness pie,’ his mother promised. ‘And I guarantee – no black-eyed potatoes!’

  ‘You must teach me how to cook,’ Patrick said, smiling. ‘I blame you for spoiling me.’

  Elizabeth went around the house, checking that everything was right for Ruth’s return. She laid the fire in the sitting room and whisked a duster around the more obvious surfaces. She grimaced at the little room. ‘Well, Thomas,’ she confided. ‘It’s not how we would like it, but I suppose it will have to do until I can come down with Mrs M and do a thoroughly good clean.’

  Then she bundled Thomas into his outdoor things, strapped him in his car seat, and carried seat and baby to the car, slamming the front door behind her.

  Ruth sat in the waiting room at the therapist’s house, staring blankly before her. There had been a long break over the Christmas holiday and this was her first visit since then. A very great deal seemed to have happened. Ruth felt that she could not even be sure that Clare Leesome would recognize her. She felt completely changed, as if overnight she had ceased to be a vulnerable young woman and had found inside her someone hard and cold and determined.

  Clare looked reassuringly the same. She was wearing a long dark skirt and a deep red soft sweater. ‘Hello, Ruth,’ she said.

  Ruth sat in the chair opposite her.

  ‘And how are things?’ Clare asked.

  Ruth looked around the room, absorbing the sense of enclosed safety. It struck her that Elizabeth had never been here, never dusted the mantelpiece, never rearranged the books on the desk. The room was a refuge from Elizabeth and from the whole Cleary family.

  ‘They are as bad as they can be,’ she said eventually.

  Clare waited.

  ‘Thomas had an accident, he choked on a sponge, and then he was sick out shopping and I put him in his cot without changing him because he was asleep. Patrick’s mother told Patrick about the accident and that I left him to be sick – and they have insisted that Frederick visits in the morning, and Elizabeth comes in the afternoon.’ Ruth’s composed bitter voice suddenly shook. ‘They don’t trust me with him.’

  Clare nodded gravely. ‘How very, very dreadful for you,’ she said.

  It was the trigger for Ruth’s grief. Ruth choked and then burst into tears. Through her sobs, Clare could hear her voice, as pained as a child, telling of her outrage, her loss, and her terror that they would take Thomas away from her forever.

  Clare let her weep until Ruth sat up and pushed her hair away from her flushed face.

  ‘I hadn’t cried,’ she said. ‘I have been so angry.’

  Clare nodded. ‘I think anyone would feel sad and angry,’ she said. ‘You are in a very unfair situation. It is perfectly reasonable to be very unhappy and very angry.’

  Ruth nodded. ‘I don’t know what to do,’ she said. Her voice was still thin; she looked at Clare like a bewildered child.

  ‘Wipe your face,’ Clare said gently.

  Ruth looked around. There was a box of tissues on the desk. Clare did not pass them to her but gestured that she should go and fetch them. Ruth got up and walked slowly to the desk, fetched the tissues, and sat down again. She wiped her face; she felt the peace of the room penetrate her.

  ‘I feel better now,’ she said, and her voice was steady again.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Clare asked.

  ‘I am going along with it,’ Ruth said. ‘I let them come for their visits and then they go again. I’ve stopped running around Patrick so much and he is having to do more chores. He’s not being treated like he’s doing me a favour by coming home any more.’

  Clare smiled. ‘And how does he like that?’ she asked.

  Ruth had a sudden recollection of the surprise of her passion in bed with him. ‘He doesn’t like the washing up,’ she said. ‘But there are compensations.’

  Clare, reading the inward smile, let that comment go. ‘And do they say when they will trust you again?’

  Ruth shook her head. ‘I feel like I am on probation all the time.’

  Clare nodded. ‘And, of course, no one can survive that sort of inspection,’ she said. ‘People make mistakes all the time.’

  ‘Yes,’ Ruth said eagerly. ‘Of course I make mistakes with him. But I would never hurt him on purpose.’

  Clare paused. ‘But what is the grain of truth in what they are saying?’ she asked. ‘Would you hurt him b
y accident? Are you careless? Do you wish you did not have to care for him all the time?’

  Ruth sat silent, thinking deeply. She summoned a picture of Thomas, his bright eyes and his smiling face, the dimples of his knuckles and his knees. The plump firmness of his little feet and the perfect straightness of his toes. ‘Sometimes I don’t want to care for him,’ she said honestly. ‘When I’m tired or hungry, and I have to see to him first before I can do anything for myself. When he comes first all the time. Sometimes I wish someone would take him away – just for a day or two, so I can get something done without always waiting for him to wake up. And then at other times it is perfectly all right.’ She paused. ‘I made a mistake with the sponge,’ she said. ‘It didn’t matter. And putting him into his cot to sleep when he had been upset and sick was the right thing to do. Elizabeth made it seem awful, but she wasn’t there, and she doesn’t know what he was like. He had just that moment fallen asleep and I couldn’t face waking him up again.’

  Clare waited in case there was anything more. But Ruth just looked up at her and smiled, an innocent, heartfelt smile. ‘I love him so much,’ she said simply. ‘I would lay my life down for him – in an instant, without even thinking about it. To suggest that I would hurt him on purpose is quite impossible.’

  Clare smiled back. ‘I think you should know that I believe that you are a very good mother,’ she said gently. ‘I think you are learning all the time how to care for Thomas, and that you are an excellent mother.’

  It was like a benediction. Ruth leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes. ‘Thank you,’ she breathed.

  Clare nodded. ‘Is there anything more?’ she asked.

  Ruth shook her head, satisfied. ‘I’ll hang on,’ she said. ‘I have nothing to hide. They’ll see how good I am with him. They will have to see it.’

  Clare thought for a moment. ‘And even if they do not see,’ she emphasized, thinking of Patrick’s careful manipulative phone call, and wondering what his mother and father were hoping and fearing and engineering, ‘even if they do not see, then if you are mothering Thomas to the best of your ability and keeping him safe then no one can take him away from you.’