She looked out of the window, a little sadness in her eyes. ‘Oh, there was this boy, when I was eighteen... He was called Joe; I’d known him most of my life. He lived at Oak Farm, we saw a lot of each other one summer, fell in love. We got engaged and planned to get married the following spring. His parents were pleased; they offered us one of the farm cottages. My mother started planning the wedding. We had a little holiday together, just a weekend, staying with his older sister at Scarborough. One morning he got up very early and went for a swim. The water was very cold. He drowned.’
‘How terrible,’ Henry said heavily. ‘What a waste of a life.’
Ruth sighed. ‘Yes, it was a waste, and so stupid. It need never have happened. He was never a strong swimmer. I don’t know what made him go to the beach on his own at that hour. It seems he got cramp—a local fisherman saw he was in trouble, and tried to save him, but Joe went under before the man got to him.’
Henry watched her, face thoughtful. ‘Have you been mourning him all this time?’
She started, looked at him with a wry little smile. ‘Oh, no. I was very unhappy for a few years, but time heals everything, doesn’t it? No, I haven’t thought of Joe for a long time. But somehow I never met anyone else I really cared about. I had the occasional boyfriend, but it never lasted. You see, I’d been so much in love with Joe that I wasn’t prepared to settle for anything less. Every time I met someone I suppose I unconsciously measured the way I felt for him against the way I had felt about Joe, and the new man always lost out. Then I was into my thirties, and too busy with my career to think about getting married. It was ironic, really—I had to give up my career anyway, to come back here and look after my mother.’
‘You’re a wonderful woman, Ruth,’ Henry said, and she flushed.
‘Oh, nonsense! I couldn’t just stick her into a home and let strangers take care of her. I don’t regret giving up my life in London and my job for her—although I have to admit I sometimes yearn for city life again. But I expect that at my age I’d hate it now. I shall stay here all my life, I suppose.’
Two hours later, Dylan’s baby came into the world. A little girl with a mop of fine, dark hair and a very loud voice. Dylan watched Ruth weigh her, naked and squirming, on kitchen scales covered in kitchen paper.
‘Five pounds two ounces!’
‘Surprisingly good weight.’ Henry had examined the child a few moments ago. ‘And she’s perfect; she has all her bits and pieces so you don’t need to worry about her. She has very good lungs, too—listen to her!’
Dylan laughed. ‘I am! Noisy, isn’t she?’
‘She’s gorgeous,’ Ruth said, shawling the infant in a clean towel before putting her into her old wicker sewing basket, which was the closest they could come to a cot. Lined with a folded sheet, it was just big enough for the small, swaddled form, and the baby’s angry crying stopped as she fell asleep.
Ross had gone downstairs a few minutes earlier to make a pot of tea while Ruth and Henry dealt with the final stages of the birth.
Watching Ruth’s face as she stared down at the baby, Henry asked her, ‘Do you ever wish you’d had a child?’
She sighed, giving him a little nod. ‘But it never happened, so there’s no point in wishing, is there? What about you?’
He smiled at her. ‘Yes, I’d have loved it But Gwen couldn’t have one, poor woman. If she’d had one she might have been happier.’
‘I don’t think Gwen was the contented wife and mother type,’ Ruth said drily, then flushed; meeting his eyes. ‘Sorry, that sounded catty, didn’t it?’
‘You never liked her, did you?’
‘No,’ she said, chin up in defiance. ‘And she never liked me.’
Henry laughed. ‘Well, she was jealous of you, wasn’t she?’
Ruth blinked, eyes opening wide. ‘Jealous? Of me? Of course she wasn’t—why should she be?’
‘I made the mistake of telling her once what a marvellous person I thought you were.’ Henry shrugged. ‘From then on Gwen loathed you.’
Ross came back at that moment and came over to gaze adoringly at the tiny, red, wrinkled, old man’s face which was all he could see by then of his daughter.
‘I can’t believe how beautiful she is!’
‘Isn’t she? Just look at all that black hair. I think she’s going to take after you, Ross,’ said Ruth, then looked from him to his wife. ‘What are you going to call her?’
‘Ruth,’ Dylan said, by now half asleep after all her exertions. She was feeling as light as air, very contented. Her bedclothes had been changed—the new sheets had a clinging, fresh-air smell of lavender—she had been washed, her hair brushed, and was wearing a clean white cotton nightdress.
Flushing, Ruth protested, ‘Oh, no! That’s very nice of you, but really, there’s no need to...’
‘I always liked the name Ruth,’ said Henry thoughtfully.
Through half-closed eyes, Dylan watched them both. Ruth had flushed, her face suddenly years younger. She likes him a lot, thought Dylan. But does he feel the same about her?
‘Ruth “amid the alien corn”,’ Henry went on. ‘That was one of my favourite stories from the Bible at school. She was such a strong woman. After her husband died she didn’t abandon her old mother-in-law; she worked hard to keep them both. Faithful and loyal—old-fashioned virtues these days, when too many people put themselves first; we could do with a lot more people like her.’