Ruth resigned her appointment. She went to Paris; not being analytical, she did not know why she spent six months as a volunteer worker in a crèche. But the babies here were vaguely unsatisfactory, and she started the new school year at Hemel Abbey, a praiseworthy but indistinguished replica of Mardean on a less ambitious scale.
Here began that rare association with Herbert Cudden which baffled the romantically-minded commentators. From the first she was able to talk to Herbert without any artificial coldness. From a different angle he found something of the same restfulness in her, for he had always been self-conscious with other women. Ruth, obviously, would never expect him to make love to her. There sprang up, hardly a deep friendship — rather an intimate palliness utterly untouched by romance.
In her first year she bought Wood Cottage. A few weeks after she had settled in she cut the first of the baby pictures from a magazine. In six months, when she had cut another dozen, she began to paste them into a scrapbook. During the years that followed the number of pictures grew. There was nothing secret about it. She would snap village babies with her Kodak, explaining that she was fond of pictures of babies, though they they were so difficult to take. All the same, she never showed the scrapbook to anybody until she showed it to Herbert on the night of the murder.
Herbert used the cottage almost as a club. He came at routine times, always to lunch on Wednesdays and Sundays. She allowed him to pay half the cost of the food and a few pence over in part payment of the village woman who prepared it. Thus nearly nine years slipped by before Rita Steevens came and changed Ruth’s perspective.
One evening, when the pupils were away for the halfterm weekend, Ruth met Herbert and Rita together, and was astonished by the look she surprised in Herbert’s eyes. For a second she had seen him young, vigorous, commanding — definitely among “the men” — in Corinne’s sense of the word. An hour later he came to the cottage and told her, as a great secret, that he had fallen in love with Rita. Ruth expressed sincere delight. A new, inner life was opened to her. At first Rita was cold, almost suspicious. She accepted Ruth’s offer to share the cottage with indifference, bargaining shrewdly over her share of the expenses.
By the end of the term she had yielded and was accepting Ruth as mentor and general benefactor.
Ruth was determined — one might say fiercely determined — that life should give to Rita what it had denied to Ruth. She positively groomed those two for each other, and without a single back thought of malice. In her dream life, Ruth had already elected herself an honorary auntie.
A little before six on the night of the murder, while Rita was visiting in the village, Calder had rung to ask Rita to catch the eight-fifty bus — the last — and spend the night at Lynmouth. As the bungalow had no telephone, Calder would meet the bus on the chance of Rita coming. Ruth said she would deliver the message if Rita returned in time.
But when Rita came in, shortly after seven, Ruth did not deliver the message. It was the only occasion on which she treated Rita improperly — her selfish motive being that, living by deputy in Rita, she wanted Rita to meet Herbert as arranged. Also, she had just completed her plans for the wedding present, and wanted to tell Rita, and enjoy her surprise.
“You aren’t meeting Herbert until nine,” she said some time later. “Let’s go and sit up at the pool. It’s such a lovely night, and I’ve heaps to talk about. I’ll disappear before Herbert comes.”
“Righto! This skirt is a bit floppy about the hips. D’you think my suede belt would go with it?”
“It would be just right. I hoped you would wear it.”
Ruth, herself dowdy, had become the arbiter of dress. Ruth had designed the pinafore dress of pale green with the underbodice of yellow and had it made by a London-trained woman living in semi-retirement as the village dressmaker. Ruth added: “What do you think of my new jumper?”
“That yellow would clash horribly with the yellow of my pinafore frock,” said Rita. “And the collar looks stuffy. You’re better at dressing me than yourself. I wonder why. Ruth — why is it?”
“I suppose because I wish I had been like you when I was your age.”
Rita felt resentful without knowing why as they set out together, reaching Drunkard’s Leap before eight.
“Mind darling, you’ll tear your frock!” There was light enough for Ruth to notice that the iron bracket of the bench had worked loose. “The screws have rusted away. They ought to have been painted. I’ll tell Miss Harboro.” Ruth tugged the bracket and it came clean away, a flat iron bar three feet long with a right angle turn of three inches. She leaned it against the bench so that the estate handyman would see it. They sat down, and Ruth turned the conversation in the direction of her wedding present.
“You and Herbert — your heads are in the clouds, as they ought to be. You haven’t thought, for instance, where you’re going to live, have you?”
“Oh, Herbert’s looking round for something. He likes that sort of thing. And if he can’t find anything, there are lots of furnished rooms in the village.”
Though it was barely dusk, the full moon shimmered on the surface of the pool. It was a lovely spot, thought Ruth, for Herbert and Rita to meet.
“Furnished rooms are all right when you are single — awful when you’re married.” Ruth paused, enjoying her moment. “You’re going to have Wood Cottage.”
“But — d’you mean you’re leaving Hemel and want to get rid of it?”
“No, dear, I don’t mean that. I mean I want you to have it. I shall take Mrs. Cumber’s two rooms, and you needn’t worry about me. I shall be quite comfortable.”
Rita was not worrying about Ruth’s comfort. She was feeling that, notwithstanding innumerable small benefits, there was rather too much Ruth in her life. Again came that undefined resentment that had welled up during their dress-talk.
“But, Ruth... of course, it’s awfully kind of you to offer to sell it to us, as I know you like it, but I doubt whether Herbert could afford—”
“Darling, there’s nothing to afford! It’s my little wedding present. I was in Barnstaple this morning, and fixed the title deeds and the rest of it with a solicitor. It’s all settled bar formalities. You can talk it over with Herbert tonight.”
“I simply don’t know what to say!” Rita’s voice was sulky. “Ruth, dear, don’t you see it’s impossible! You’re only a little bit better off than we are, and — it’s accepting too much.”
What did it matter how much she gave them. Their life was hers. Her life would be fulfilled in the lives that were to come.
“Darling, it’s not a matter of giving a present that costs a lot of money. It’s a matter of sharing happiness. You know what a lot you and Herbert mean to me. And we’ve got to look ahead. In a year’s time there may not be only the two of you to consider.”
For a moment Rita was fogged.
“Do you mean we might have a baby?”
“Of course I do!” Ruth laughed happily. Rita laughed too, but a different kind of laugh.
“But I shan’t be having any babies.”
“One shouldn’t say that — it might turn out to be true.” It was no more than a mild reproof. Then sudden fear clutched at Ruth. “Rita, there’s nothing wrong with you physically, that way, is there?”
“Certainly not!” The girl bridled. “But there’s no need to have all that bother if you don’t want to — and I don’t want to. I’m not the type. And I loathe babies anyway — yells and mess and bother!”