The Little House

‘No,’ Ruth said shortly.

Elizabeth had the front-door key; she opened the door and stepped back to let Ruth go in. ‘Don’t cling, dear,’ she said gently. ‘Men hate women who cling. Especially now.’

Ruth turned abruptly from her mother-in-law and went into the sitting room. Elizabeth was undoubtedly right, which made her advice the more galling. There was still a large patch of damp beside the French windows, which not even the previous summer had dried out.

‘Now,’ Elizabeth said, throwing off her light jacket with energy. ‘You sit down on that little stool and I’ll rush round and take all the measurements you want.’

From the pocket of the jacket she pulled a notebook and pen and a measuring tape. Ruth sulkily took the notebook while Elizabeth strode around the room calling out the measurements of the walls and the window frames.

‘Fitted carpets, I think, don’t you?’ she threw over her shoulder. ‘So much warmer. And good thick curtains for the winter, and some lighter ones for summer. Perhaps a pale yellow weave for summer, to match the primrose walls.’

‘I thought we’d paper it. I want the paper we had in the hall at the flat,’ Ruth said.

‘Oh, darling!’ Elizabeth exclaimed. ‘Not William Morris willow again, surely!’

‘Didn’t you like it?’

‘I loved it,’ Elizabeth said. ‘But don’t you remember what Patrick said? He said he kept seeing faces in it. You don’t want it in your sitting room, with Patrick seeing faces peeping through the leaves at him every evening.’

Ruth reluctantly chuckled. ‘I’ll have it in the hall then,’ she said.

‘And this room primrose yellow,’ Elizabeth said firmly. ‘I have some curtain material that will just do these windows, and the French windows too. Old gold they are. Quite lovely.’

Ruth nodded. She knew they would be lovely. Elizabeth’s taste was infallible, and she had trunks of beautiful materials saved from her travels around the world. ‘But we shouldn’t be taking your things, we should be buying new.’

Elizabeth, on her knees before the French windows, scratching critically at the damp plaster, looked up, and smiled radiantly. ‘Of course you should have my old things!’ she said. ‘I can’t wait to see my curtains up at your windows and the two of you – no, the three of you – happy and settled here.’ She looked back at the damp plaster. ‘I shall get someone out to see to this at once,’ she said. ‘Mr Willis warned me it might be a specialist job.’

They moved to the kitchen, the dining room, and then to the three upstairs bedrooms. Elizabeth carried around the little stool from the sitting room, and insisted on Ruth’s sitting in the middle of each room, while she bustled with the tape measure, calling out numbers.

Empty of furniture, but with new kitchen units in pale pine and with a remodelled bathroom upstairs the cottage did look pretty. Ruth felt her spirits rising. ‘If they hurry up with the decorating we should get in before the baby’s born.’

Elizabeth, stretching across the bedroom window, nodded. ‘I’m determined to see that you are,’ she said. ‘Cream cotton at all the upstairs windows, I think, and then it matches whatever colour walls you choose. But that nice Berber-weave carpet I told you about all through the top floor.’

‘In the flat we had varnished boards,’ Ruth said. ‘I liked them.’

‘Weren’t they wonderful?’ Elizabeth reminisced. ‘Georgian pine. And you did have them beautifully done.’ She recalled herself to the present. ‘So we’ll have the biscuit-colour Berber carpet all around the upstairs floor, and pastel walls. We can choose the colours at home. I’ve got the charts.’

‘All right,’ Ruth said, surrendering her vision of clean waxed floorboards without an argument. She felt suddenly very weary. ‘The sooner we choose it and order it the sooner the house is ready, I suppose.’

‘You leave it to me!’ Elizabeth said with determination. ‘I’ll have it ready by August, don’t fret. In fact I’ll leave you to have your rest when we get home, and I’ll zip into Bath and come back with some fabric samples. You can choose them this evening and we can order them tomorrow. I’ll order the carpets at the same time.’

‘And tiles or vinyl for the kitchen,’ Ruth said wearily. ‘But I haven’t chosen them yet. Patrick was going to take me into town tonight.’

‘Would you trust me to choose it for you?’ Elizabeth offered. ‘I can look when I’m ordering the carpets. They’ve got a wonderful selection there.’

Ruth got up from the stool. Her back ached and there was a new nagging twinge in the very bones of her pelvis. The walk home over two hilly fields seemed a long, long way.

Elizabeth broke off, instantly attentive. ‘Shall I fetch the car, darling?’ she asked gently. ‘Have you overdone it a bit?’

‘I can walk,’ Ruth said grimly.

‘Or I could run home and fetch the car for you,’ Elizabeth repeated. ‘I could be back in a moment. You perch on your little stool and I’ll have you home in a flash.’

Ruth resisted for no more than a moment. ‘Thank you,’ she said gratefully. ‘I’d like that.’

Elizabeth threw her a swift smile and slipped down the stairs. Ruth heard the front door bang and her quick footsteps on the path. She sat on her own in the quiet cottage and felt the friendly silence gather around her. ‘It’ll be all right when we’re in here,’ she said to herself, hearing her voice in the emptiness of the house. ‘As long as we get in here in time for the baby. The last thing in the world that matters is who chooses the wallpaper.’

Elizabeth, half running across the fields, fuelled with energy and a sense of purpose, reached the house and picked up the ringing telephone. It was the builder, calling about Manor Farm cottage and the damp around the French windows.

‘Yes,’ Elizabeth said. ‘My cottage. You must get that damp problem cured at once, Mr Willis. My cottage must be ready by August. I have promised my son and daughter-in-law that I’ll have it ready for them by then.’

It was not ready by August. The damp under the French windows was caused by a faulty drain. The flagstones of the path outside had to be cut back and a little gravel-filled trench inserted. None of it seemed very complicated to Ruth, and she wished they would hurry the work; but in the final month of her pregnancy she found a calmness and a serenity she had not known before.

‘The work will be finished this week,’ Elizabeth said worriedly. ‘But then that room will have to dry out and be decorated. I’ve got the curtains ready to hang, and the carpet fitters will come in at a moment’s notice, but if Junior is born on time he’ll just have to come home to Patrick’s old nursery here.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Ruth said calmly.

‘Bit of a treat really,’ Patrick said. He was eating a late supper. Frederick had already gone up to bed. Elizabeth and Ruth had waited up for Patrick, who had been delayed at work by someone’s farewell party. Elizabeth had made him an omelette and he ate it, watched by the two women. ‘I like to think of him in my nursery.’

‘But I wanted to make the cottage ready for you,’ Elizabeth pursued. ‘I am disappointed.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Ruth repeated. She had a curious floating feeling, as if everything was bound to be all right. She smiled at Elizabeth. ‘I’ll be five days in hospital anyway; maybe it will be finished in time.’

Elizabeth shook her head disapprovingly. ‘In my day they kept you in for a fortnight,’ she said. ‘Especially a new mother who was completely inexperienced.’

‘We have to start somewhere,’ Patrick said cheerfully. ‘And we’ve done the classes, or at least Ruth has. I’ll have on-the-job training.’

‘If you so much as touch a nappy I’ll be amazed,’ Elizabeth said.

‘He certainly will,’ Ruth replied. ‘He’s promised.’

Patrick grinned at the two of them. ‘I am a new man,’ he pronounced, slightly tipsy from the drinks at work and the wine with his supper. ‘I’ll do it all. Anyway, even if I miss the nappy stage I’ve already bought him a fishing rod. I’ll teach him fishing.’

‘And what if it’s a girl?’ Elizabeth challenged.

‘Then I’ll teach her too,’ Patrick said. ‘There will be no sexism in my household.’

Ruth got to her feet; the distant floaty feeling had become stronger. ‘I have to go to bed,’ she said. ‘I’m half asleep here already.’

Patrick pushed his plate to one side and was about to leave the table to go upstairs with Ruth.

‘I was just making coffee,’ Elizabeth remarked. ‘I thought I’d have a coffee and a cognac before bed.’

‘Oh, all right,’ Patrick said agreeably. ‘I’ll stay down and have one with you. All right, Ruth?’

She nodded and bent carefully to kiss his cheek.

‘I won’t disturb you when I come up,’ he promised. ‘I’ll creep in beside you. And I’ll be up early in the morning too. I’ll slip out without waking you.’