Philippa Gregory - The Little House

She sat out of arm’s reach on the window seat.

‘Come here!’ he said.

She went, slowly, to the bed. Patrick drew her down and wrapped his arms around her. ‘That’s wonderful news,’ he said. ‘D’you know you couldn’t have given me a better Christmas present! When did you know?’

‘Three weeks ago,’ Ruth said unhelpfully. ‘Then I went to the doctor to make sure. It’s true. I’m due in the middle of August.’

‘I must phone Mother,’ Patrick said. ‘Oh, I wish you’d told me yesterday. We could have had a real party.’

Ruth disengaged herself from the embrace, which was starting to feel heavy. ‘I didn’t want a real party,’ she said.

He tried to twinkle at her. ‘Are you feeling shy, darling?’

‘No.’

‘Then…?’

‘I didn’t particularly want a baby,’ she said. ‘I didn’t plan to get pregnant. It’s an accident. So I don’t feel like celebrating.’

Patrick’s indulgent gleam died and was instantly replaced by an expression of tenderness and concern. Gingerly he got out of bed and put his arm around her shoulders, turning her face in to the warmth of his chest. ‘Don’t,’ he said softly, his breath sour on her cheek. ‘Don’t talk like that, darling. It just happened, that’s all. It just happened because that’s how it was meant to be. Everything has come right for us, and when you get used to the idea I know you’ll be really, really happy. I’m really happy,’ he said emphatically, as if all she needed to do was to imitate him. ‘I’m just delighted, darling. Don’t upset yourself.’

Ruth felt a sudden bitterness at the ease with which Patrick greeted the news. Of course he would be happy – it would not be Patrick whose life would totally change. It would not be Patrick who would leave the work he loved, and who would now never travel, and never see his childhood home. For a moment she felt filled with anger, but his arms came around her and his hands stroked her back. Ruth’s face was pressed into the warm, soft skin of his chest and held like a little girl’s. She could feel herself starting to cry, wetly, emotionally, weakly.

‘There!’ Patrick said, his voice warm with love and triumph. ‘You’re bound to feel all jumbled up, my darling. It’s well known. It’s your hormones. Of course you don’t know how you feel yet. There! There!’

‘She’s very wound up at the moment,’ he whispered to his mother on the telephone. Ruth was taking an afternoon nap after a celebration lunch in the pub. ‘I didn’t dare call you earlier. She didn’t want you to know.’

Elizabeth’s face was radiant. She nodded confirmation to Frederick as he registered the news and stood close to Elizabeth to overhear their conversation. ‘Wait a moment,’ Elizabeth said. ‘Your father wants a word.’

‘Do I hear right? A happy event?’ Frederick exclaimed.

Patrick chuckled. ‘I have to whisper !’ he said. ‘She’s asleep and she swore me to secrecy.’

‘Wonderful!’ Frederick said. ‘Clever girl! And congratulations, old man!’

There was a brief satisfied silence.

‘Bring her over,’ Frederick said. ‘We’ll crack a bottle on the baby’s head. Can’t celebrate over the phone.’

‘I can’t,’ Patrick said again. ‘I tell you, I am sworn to utter secrecy. She doesn’t want anyone to know yet. She’s all of a state. A bit weepy, a bit unsure. I don’t want to rush her.’

‘Oh, don’t talk to me about weepy!’ Frederick said comfortably. ‘Your mother cried every day for nine months. I thought she was miserable, but then she told me she was crying for happiness.’ He gave a slow, rich, satisfied chuckle. ‘Women!’ he said.

Patrick beamed into the phone. He very much wanted to be with his father. ‘I’ll come to see you this evening,’ he said. ‘I’ll make some excuse. I won’t bring her, we’ll have our celebration drink, and next time we come she can tell you herself, and you can both be absolutely amazed.’

‘I’ll put a bottle on ice,’ his father said.

‘Patrick?’ his mother asked as she came back on the phone. ‘Ruth is quite all right is she?’

‘It’s all a bit much for her, that’s all,’ Patrick said. ‘And you know how much her job meant to her. It’s a big shock.’

‘But she does want the baby?’ Elizabeth confirmed. ‘She is happy about it?’

‘She’s over the moon,’ Patrick said firmly. ‘She’s happier than she knows.’

As Ruth’s pregnancy progressed, she found that Patrick’s determination to move from the flat was too powerful to resist. In any case, the flat belonged to his father, and his father wished to sell. There was little Ruth could do but mourn their decision and pack as slowly and unwillingly as possible. Most days she did not go into the radio station, taking calls and preparing work at home. On those days the estate agent might telephone and send potential buyers to look at the flat. Ruth would show them around without enthusiasm. She did not actively draw their attention to the defects – the small-ness of the spare bedroom, the inconvenience of the best bathroom being en suite with their bedroom – but she did nothing to enhance their view of the flat.

It could not work. They were selling at a time of rising prices and rising expectations, and there were many people prepared to buy. Indeed, by playing one couple off against another Patrick and Frederick managed to get more than the asking price and a couple of months’ delay before they had to move out.

‘But the cottage isn’t even bought yet,’ Ruth said. ‘Where are we going to live?’

‘Why, here of course,’ Elizabeth exclaimed. She reached across the Sunday lunch table and patted Ruth’s unresponsive hand. ‘It’s not ideal, my dear, I know. I’m sure you would rather be nest building. But it’s the way it has worked out. And at least you can leave the cooking and housework to me and just do as much of your radio work as you want. As you get more tired you might find that a bit of a boon, you know.’

‘And she’ll eat properly during the day,’ Patrick said, smiling lovingly at Ruth. ‘When I’m not there to keep an eye on her, and when she doesn’t have a canteen to serve up lunch, she just snacks. The doctor has told her, but she just nibbles like a little mouse.’

‘I don’t feel like eating,’ Ruth said. The tide of their goodwill was irresistible. ‘And I’m gaining weight fast enough.’ Against the waistband of her skirt her expanding belly was gently pressing. At night she would scratch the tight skin of her stomach until she scored it with red marks from her fingernails. It felt as if the baby were stretching and stretching her body, her very life. Soon she would be four months into the pregnancy and would have nothing to wear but maternity clothes. Already the rhythm of trips to the antenatal clinic was becoming more and more important. Her conversations with Patrick were dominated by discussions about her blood pressure, the tests they wanted their baby to have, or, as now, her food. Even her work had taken second place. Only the project about the early industry of Bristol was still interesting. Ruth was reading local history for the first time, and looking at the buildings around her, the beautiful grand buildings of Bristol built on slave-trade money.

‘Don’t nag her, Patrick,’ Elizabeth said. ‘No one knows better than Ruth what she wants to eat and what she doesn’t want.’

Ruth shot Elizabeth a brief grateful look.

‘And you will be absolutely free to come and go as you wish while you stay here,’ Elizabeth said. ‘So don’t be afraid that I will be fussing over you all the time. But a little later on you might be glad of the chance to rest.’