The Little House

by Philippa Gregory

  Ruth looked at her for a moment, not as a patient in need of help but as a woman looks at another woman when she has finally understood the odds that are stacked against her. ‘No,’ she said. ‘You don’t know them. If they really want to take him away from me, they’ll do it. They know lawyers and doctors, they even have judges as personal friends. If they want something they get it. I just have to hang on and hope that they will be satisfied with this.’

  The traffic was bad on the return journey and Ruth did not get back to the little house until the early winter dark had fallen. She looked for the light from the windows as she turned in to the drive, but they were dark. Only the porch light was on, to light her way to the closed front door. She felt a sensation of growing terror. They had done it. They had done what she had feared they might do. They had taken Thomas. The house was deserted, and her child was gone. She turned the car carelessly in the driveway and scraped the wing. There was an expensive sound of crumpling metal and the screech of paint against the gatepost. Ruth tore open the driver’s door and ran up the front path to the house.

  She fumbled with the keys and flung the door open, but she knew before she stepped into the dark and silent hall that the house was empty. Thomas was not there.

  For a dreadful moment she was certain that he had been injured: some accident, and Elizabeth had rushed him in her car to the hospital. ‘Oh, God,’ Ruth moaned, envisaging too clearly his face crumpled by some dreadful fall, his hair matted with blood, a twisted limb, a broken arm … ‘Oh, God.’

  She turned and ran from the house, out to the car again, and tore the car door open. She reversed back out into the lane, still on the same steering lock so she hit the gatepost again. This time she did not even hear the noise or feel the impact. She slammed on her headlights and stepped hard on the accelerator and stormed up the drive to the farmhouse. Frederick would know what had happened, and where they were.

  In the turning circle she braked and a spray of sharp gravel flew up from her wheels. There were two cars parked outside the house: Frederick’s and Elizabeth’s. Ruth’s mind was working furiously. If Elizabeth’s car was here, then she was probably here, Thomas was probably here – unless they had gone to the hospital in an ambulance.

  Ruth ran across the gravel to the front door, pushed it open without knocking, and went into the hall. The sitting-room door opened.

  ‘I thought I heard your car,’ Frederick said calmly. ‘How nice –’

  She pushed him in the chest, hard and angrily, forcing him back. She brushed past him and saw, at the fireside, Thomas, lying on his back on Patrick’s old nursery play mat with Patrick’s old nursery toys around him.

  For a moment she simply stared at him, as if she could not believe that the horror story of her imagining was not real, as if she could not believe that this was truly her son, and his grandmother on her knees on the floor beside him, showing him things, and tickling his palms to make him laugh.

  ‘What the hell are you doing?’ Ruth cried harshly.

  Elizabeth looked up. ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘What the hell, what the bloody hell are you doing with my son?’

  Ruth strode across the room and snatched up Thomas. He was startled and let out a little cry. Frederick at once stepped forward and then froze, very alert.

  ‘Ruth,’ Elizabeth said soothingly, ‘Ruth, calm down.’

  ‘I told you,’ Ruth gabbled, spitting in her anger. ‘I told you he was not to be taken out of my house. I ordered you to leave him there!’

  Elizabeth stretched out her hand. ‘I know, I know you did.’

  ‘I thought he was dead!’ Ruth screamed at her. ‘I got home, I thought he was dead! I came up here to see what had happened, what dreadful, dreadful thing had happened, and here you are, having tea, playing on the floor …’ Ruth suddenly collapsed into sobs. Frederick instantly moved, and took Thomas from her. The baby let out another wail and Frederick slipped from the room with him. Ruth’s knees gave way beneath her and she slumped to the floor.

  ‘Hush, Ruth,’ Elizabeth said gently. ‘Calm down, dear.’

  Ruth’s harsh sobs were turning into rasping breaths. She could not breathe, she could not get air. Elizabeth stood behind her, listening to her labouring for oxygen. Frederick came back into the room, without Thomas, and silently held up a key to show that Thomas was safely locked in the nursery. Elizabeth nodded and mimed a telephone, and mouthed the word ‘doctor’. He nodded at once and withdrew.

  ‘Shhh, Ruth, ssshhh,’ Elizabeth said. ‘Breathe, dear, don’t get in such a state.’

  Ruth did not even hear her. She was struggling in a battle against her closing throat and her constricting chest; her harsh rasping gasps filled the pretty room.

  Elizabeth could hear Frederick’s low, urgent voice in the hall but Ruth heard nothing, fighting in a world of growing darkness and growing panic and growing pain.

  ‘Drink this,’ Frederick said firmly. He put a cold glass in her hand and held it to her lips. Ruth gagged on the brandy and spat most of it back. Frederick held it to her mouth again and she choked and swallowed, and choked again. He knelt down beside her and gently cupped his hands over her mouth and nose. ‘Breathe gently,’ he said. ‘You’ll be all right, breathe gently.’

  Slowly Ruth’s breathing steadied as she stopped hyperventilating. Frederick gave her another swallow of brandy, then he helped her onto the sofa, lifted her legs up. Elizabeth propped a pillow behind her head. ‘There,’ she said, and her voice was full of pity.

  ‘The doctor is coming to see you,’ Frederick said gently to Ruth. Her skin was pale and thick, like wax, he thought. ‘Just lie here. Have another sip of brandy.’

  Elizabeth slipped from the room and out to the hall, waiting for the sound of the doctor’s car. She did not want to be near Ruth. She could hardly bear to see that ugly distorted face. Ruth did not fit in the pretty room, in the ordered life. Elizabeth heard Frederick’s soothing murmur and the more distant whimper from the nursery, where Thomas was locked in, safely away from the anger and the tears. Then she heard the sound of the doctor’s car.

  She opened the front door as he was coming up the steps. ‘She had some kind of hysterical fit,’ she said softly. ‘She took it into her head that Thomas was dead and she came racing up here screaming and crying. Then she had a fit. Frederick is with her; she’s on the sofa.’

  He nodded, briefly pressed her hand, and went into the sitting room.

  Frederick was sitting in the chair at Ruth’s head, talking to her gently, very softly, giving her little sips from the glass of brandy. Dr MacFadden took in the scene and came towards Ruth.

  ‘Hello,’ he said gently.

  Vaguely she looked up at him.

  ‘D’you know who I am?’ he asked.

  She looked blank. It felt as if his voice were coming from a long way away, as if it could be nothing to do with her, as if she had tumbled down a long slope into a place where nothing mattered very much any more.

  ‘I’m tired,’ she said. Her voice rasped, her throat was sore from screaming and that dreadful struggle for air.

  ‘Would you like to sleep?’ he asked. ‘Shall we get you into bed, and I could give you an injection and you could get some rest? You look all in.’

  She nodded. William MacFadden nodded to Frederick and the two men supported her and took her from the room. Elizabeth led the way upstairs and into the guest bedroom. The bed was made up; Elizabeth twitched off the covers.

  ‘Just slip her shoes off and get her in,’ the doctor advised gently.

  They laid her on the bed with a detached respect, as if she were a corpse. Elizabeth took off the shoes and noticed a ladder in Ruth’s tights. She pulled the cover over her.

  ‘My bag,’ William MacFadden said quietly to Frederick, and then turned back to the bed. ‘Can you hear me, Ruth? Can you hear me?’

  She turned her head on the pillow and looked at him. He thought he had never seen such a weary, tragic face. ‘Yes,�
� she said softly.

  ‘I’m going to give you an injection so you get a good night’s sleep,’ he said, speaking clearly and strongly. ‘In the morning I’ll come and see how you are. You’ll stay here for tonight.’

  Her mouth formed a word. ‘Thomas.’

  He turned to Elizabeth. ‘What’s she saying?’

  Ruth tried again: ‘Thomas.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Elizabeth said.

  Frederick came in with the bag and William took out a hypodermic syringe, wiped Ruth’s bare vulnerable inside arm with antiseptic, and injected Valium into a pale blue vein.

  ‘Thomas,’ Ruth whispered. ‘I want Thomas.’ And then she was asleep.

  Eighteen

  PATRICK CAME HOME at half past seven and opened the front door with a cheerful call. ‘I saw the little house was in darkness, so I guessed you were all up here.’

  His mother shook her head, and Patrick instantly caught her gravity. ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s Ruth. She had some kind of hysterical fit,’ she said. ‘She came up here, thinking Thomas was dead. I don’t know exactly what she thought. We called the doctor and he sedated her, and now she is asleep upstairs. He’s coming to see her again tomorrow.’

  He looked aghast. ‘What on earth was wrong?’

  Elizabeth shrugged. ‘She went to see her therapist and then she stormed back in this terrible state.’

  He looked from her to his father. ‘I am sorry,’ he said helplessly. ‘I am sorry. You’ve both tried so hard … I am sorry.’

  ‘All part of the job,’ Frederick said with gruff sympathy. ‘And at least Thomas is all right.’

  ‘He’s in his cot asleep,’ Elizabeth said. ‘D’you want to see him?’

  Patrick nodded. ‘I’ll go up,’ he said.

  ‘Stiff gin and tonic when you come down, old man,’ his father said. ‘Doubles tonight. Bring the colour back into our cheeks.’

  ‘Supper in half an hour,’ Elizabeth said, going towards the kitchen.

  Patrick mounted the stairs slowly and opened the door to his old nursery. His mother had redecorated it for Thomas in the same wallpaper and colours that he remembered from his earliest childhood. The wallpaper was a cream background with small Winnie the Pooh bears floating, holding on to balloons, and smaller Piglets floating beside them. There was a frieze picture of more characters from the stories. The room was warm, with yellow linen curtains drawn against the dark night. It smelled faintly of clean laundry, baby powder, and, as he approached the cot, the warm, sweet smell of sleeping baby.

  Patrick paused, looking down at the little moon face of his son. A sense of great despair and unhappiness swept over him as he looked at those upcurved, untroubled eyelids and the little pout of the mouth.

  ‘I don’t know what to do,’ Patrick confided to the still room. ‘I don’t know what to do for the best.’

  Before he went downstairs he glanced in at Ruth. She was sweating from the bedclothes piled on top of her clothes. She was lying on her back and breathing noisily, through her mouth. Hesitantly, he took off the blankets and left her with just a sheet and a counterpane. He touched her as he might touch an infected animal, warily and with distaste. The slim, demanding, erotic woman of just two nights before seemed like a dream. Ruth was sick again, he thought, and he hated sickly women.

  They ate in silence. No one was very hungry. Patrick drank a good deal of red wine, and when Elizabeth went to bed early, the two men had a whisky together. Patrick slept in his old single bedroom. He did not share the guest bed with Ruth; he felt that it would be like sleeping next to a corpse.

  The click of the automatic central heating switching on jolted Ruth into wakefulness, and she lay for a moment in complete confusion. Her throat was sore and her mouth dry and foul; she was fully dressed and in a room she did not at once recognize. She sat up, swallowed, and then remembered that Thomas was all right, and that she had been so very afraid for him, so painfully, agonizingly, afraid.

  She swung off the bed and went tiptoeing out of her room to the nursery. Thomas was in the cot, still sleeping. She could see the gentle rise and fall of his chest, and hear his soft breath and his little occasional snuffle. One hand opened, in a dream, and closed again. She watched him for several minutes, drinking in the reassurance that he was clean, dry, well, at peace, and then she turned and went back to her bedroom.

  She had no clean clothes, she had no toiletries, she could not brush her hair or clean her teeth. She felt dirty and at a disadvantage, but she splashed water on her face and combed her hair with her fingers. The smooth bob fell into place but hung very limp and plain. She rubbed her teeth with a wet finger and rinsed her mouth. Then she went downstairs.

  Frederick was in the kitchen in his dressing gown, sitting at the kitchen table with a pot of tea and his newspaper. He rose when he saw her, and she saw a swift uneasy look cross his face.

  ‘I’m all right,’ she said abruptly.

  He nodded and sat down again. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’

  She took a cup and saucer from the cupboard. ‘Yes, please.’

  There was an awkward silence.

  ‘I’ll make up a bottle for Thomas,’ Ruth said. ‘He’ll probably wake soon.’

  ‘I can do it,’ Frederick offered.

  ‘I will.’ Ruth turned her back to him and busied herself with measuring scoops and boiled water from the kettle.

  ‘The doctor is coming back to see you this morning,’ Frederick remarked.

  Ruth kept her face turned away. She had only the dimmest memory of yesterday evening. At Frederick’s prompting she recalled the face of William MacFadden and her slide into silence and sleep.

  ‘All right,’ she said. She glanced at Frederick. ‘I was frightened yesterday because the house was in darkness. Elizabeth promised me that they would be there when I came home. I had no idea what was going on.’

  ‘I left a note,’ Elizabeth said abruptly from the doorway. She was in her dressing gown, but her hair was smooth and her face was wide awake, her eyes clear. Beside her Ruth felt frowsy and unkempt. ‘Patrick rang to tell me that he would be home late, and that I was to bring Thomas here so that the evening would not be too much for you.’ She stepped forward and rested her well-manicured hand on Frederick’s shoulder. ‘Did you not see my note? On the hall table?’

  Ruth shook her head. ‘I didn’t see it.’ She thought for a moment. ‘There was nothing on the hall table,’ she said certainly. ‘There was no note there, nothing.’

  Elizabeth met her gaze but did not reply.

  There was a distant wail from upstairs as Thomas woke for his early-morning feed. Both women reached for the bottle but Elizabeth let Ruth take it. She stepped back as the younger woman went out and nodded to Frederick. ‘Stay within earshot,’ she said softly.

  He nodded, and followed Ruth up the stairs to the nursery. Briskly, Elizabeth began to lay the dining-room table for breakfast.

  William MacFadden came to visit during his break from morning surgery, at eleven o’clock. Patrick had fetched Ruth’s clothes from the little house, and she was dressed in a clean shirt and blue jeans. She looked young and pretty and well.

  ‘You look a lot better,’ he said approvingly.

  Patrick took Thomas from her and went to the bedroom door. ‘I’ll be in the nursery if you need me,’ he said.

  Ruth let them go. ‘I’m better,’ she said to William. ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘No after effects?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘I wonder if you should go on a course of mild sedatives,’ William suggested. ‘You do seem a little high-strung, something to make you a little more relaxed?’

  Ruth looked at him. ‘No,’ she said shortly. ‘I’ve had enough of your pills.’

  He felt that she was blaming him, and disliked her for it. ‘It was a nasty panic attack you had,’ he said smoothly. ‘Distressing.’

  ‘My baby had disappeared from his home,’ Ruth said bitingly. ‘I ha
d no idea where he was or what was happening. Of course I was afraid.’

  ‘You must have known he would be safe with your mother-in-law …’ Dr MacFadden interrupted.

  Ruth shot him a hard look. ‘No, I did not,’ she said.

  He raised his eyebrows as if he did not want to comment, or even consider what she said. ‘Is there anything I can do for you? Would you like to see me at the surgery? You could have an evening appointment so we are not at all rushed? I could refer you to a therapist?’

  ‘No, thank you,’ Ruth said.

  He paused for a moment longer, but the list of patients who needed to see him was on his mind, and he did not know what should be done for Ruth.

  ‘Very well, then,’ he said. ‘I’ll see myself out.’

  Elizabeth and Frederick were waiting for him in the hall.

  ‘How is she?’ Elizabeth asked.

  ‘Irritable,’ he replied. ‘But in control.’

  Patrick walked with him to the car. ‘Should we have her committed?’ he asked frankly. ‘Get this sorted out once and for all?’

  Dr MacFadden recoiled. ‘She’s not psychotic!’

  ‘I don’t know what she is!’ Frederick gestured to Ruth’s new car. The front wing, which had suffered a double blow, was crumpled beyond repair. ‘That’s the second car she’s gone through in as many months. She can’t seem to manage anything.’

  ‘Is she at risk?’

  The two men looked at the car.

  ‘Obviously,’ Frederick said.

  Dr MacFadden took a deep breath. ‘If you want her committed for an assessment of her mental health, then I would sign the forms,’ he promised.

  ‘Good man,’ Frederick said quietly. ‘I think we’d all be happier.’