‘You’ll be cannon fodder, boy,’ Jonas said, his
lip curling. ‘I’ve tried to save you from yourself, but you’re a worthless bastard who’d sell his own sister to preserve his lousy skin. Good riddance, I say.’
Incensed, Ruby grabbed Jonas by the arm. ‘Don’t talk to Joe like that.’
‘Get rid of him.’ Shaking her hand off, Jonas stormed out of the room.
For a frozen moment, Joe and Ruby stared at each other as they listened to Jonas’s footsteps echoing through the silent building.
‘He’s right,’ Joe said, at last. ‘He’s dead right. I should never have dragged you into this, Ruby.’
‘No, I won’t have that. You had no choice.’
‘I’d better go,’ Joe said, picking up his cap. ‘I’ll kip next door. Sly will give me a bed for the night.’
‘Joe, I’m so sorry.’
‘I don’t like leaving you with him,’ Joe said, giving Ruby a hug. ‘Will you be all right, ducks?’
‘Don’t worry about me. I can take care of myself.’ Standing on tiptoe, Ruby kissed Joe on the cheek. ‘Write to me when you can and take care of yourself, Joe.’
Wiping his eyes on his sleeve, Joe managed a feeble grin.
Having seen him out of the house, and after a last, wordless embrace, Ruby’s grief bubbled into anger. A thin splinter of light shining under
the door to Jonas’s office gave away his whereabouts. Ruby marched in without knocking.
‘That was cruel and uncalled for. My brother’s going off to fight for Queen and country, which is a damn sight more than you’ll ever do.’ The words tumbled out before Ruby realised that Jonas was sitting behind his desk, his head held in his hands. His silence frightened her more than his previous violent outburst. ‘Jonas?’
Without looking up Jonas shook his head.
For a moment, Ruby thought he was simply angry and ignoring her, but there was something about the hunch of his shoulders and the whiteness of his knuckles as his fingers raked through his hair that told her otherwise. ‘Jonas, what’s wrong?’
Raising his head, Jonas stared at her blank-eyed. ‘It’s Lily.’
‘She’s worse?’
‘She’s dead.’
The words hit Ruby like a punch in the stomach, knocking the wind from her lungs. Dizzied by the maelstrom of emotions that had raged within her since Joe’s unannounced arrival, Ruby’s knees gave way beneath her and she sank down on the nearest chair. ‘But – but she was getting better.’
‘She had a sudden haemorrhage this morning.’ Pushing the chair back, Jonas stood up, pacing the floor, his voice breaking. ‘She died in my
arms.’ Coming to a halt in front of Ruby, Jonas dragged her to her feet, gripping her by the shoulders. ‘Do you understand, Ruby? She died in my arms.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ Ruby said, forgetting everything in the face of such agony. ‘I’m truly sorry.’
‘But I’m not, you see.’ Jonas buried his face in her hair and she felt his whole body shaking with emotion. ‘I can’t mourn her. I’m glad she’s dead and out of her pain. I hated seeing that bloody disease eating her until she was a living skeleton. I’m glad she’s gone. What does that make me, Ruby?’
Stroking his hair, Ruby held him. ‘It makes you human.’
How long they stood there, wrapped in each other’s arms, Ruby couldn’t tell. Time seemed to have stopped, leaving them in a vacuum of shared anguish. There was no passion in their embrace and no remembrance of past anger. It was Jonas who broke away first, avoiding meeting Ruby’s eyes, turning from her with an embarrassed shake of his head.
‘You’d better leave. I’m not fit company.’
‘Of course. I’ll go first thing in the morning.’
‘What?’ Jonas stared at her, shocked. ‘No. I didn’t mean you should leave this house.’
‘I only stayed for Lily’s sake. I must go now.’
His face an unreadable mask, Jonas lifted his hands in a gesture of supplication, letting them
fall with a hopeless shrug. ‘You’ll stay for the funeral?’
‘Of course I will.’
It was the greyest of grey November days. Standing in the churchyard with the cutting east wind slicing at her black veil, Ruby glanced at Jonas who stood opposite her, the open chasm of the grave yawning between them. Less than a year ago they had gone through a similar ceremony, although in a different church, when they had buried her father. Barely hearing the vicar’s words as he tossed a handful of earth into the grave, Ruby stared at the burnished mahogany coffin with its shining brass handles. It was chilling to imagine beautiful, kind Lily, lying there alone in her permanent sleep, her lovely voice stilled for ever. Choking back a sob, Ruby glanced up at Jonas and saw the muscles in his throat working as though he too were struggling with unshed tears. There were only a few mourners gathered around the grave. Lily had no close family and it was shocking to realise that her life had been wholly centred on Jonas. Aunt Lottie and Silas had come and they were standing a little behind Ruby, but Rosetta, who was now heavily pregnant, had refused to attend.
‘It’s a sad occasion,’ Lottie said, sniffing into a lavender-scented handkerchief. ‘So young and so beautiful.’
‘That’s the truth,’ Silas said, attempting to light a cigarette in the teeth of the wind.
‘Are we invited back for a drink?’ Lottie whispered in Ruby’s ear.
Ruby shook her head. ‘No, no one is.’
‘Bit mean I call it.’ Using his coat as a wind-break, Silas managed to strike a match and light his Woodbine. He inhaled deeply, allowing a trickle of smoke out through his nostrils. ‘Bloody mean, as it happens. Shouldn’t wonder if we all comes down with lung fever after standing around in this weather.’
Lottie dropped her handful of soil onto the coffin and wiped her hands together. ‘May the poor soul rest in peace. She never had much of a life with him.’
As Jonas moved away from the grave Ruby made to follow him. ‘I’d better go, Auntie.’
Lottie’s thin fingers snagged Ruby’s sleeve like a bramble. ‘You’ll be moving out, then?’
‘Are you offering me a room, Aunt Lottie?’
‘Take my advice, cara. Move as far away from Raven Street as you can. Jonas Crowe is trouble and you’re a good girl. You don’t want to end up like your sister.’
Freeing her arm, Ruby looked Lottie straight in the eye. ‘There’s nothing wrong with Rosetta. She was just unlucky, and she’d never have got into trouble if you hadn’t put the ideas into her head.’
‘Sly, are you going to let her talk to me like that?’ Lottie grabbed Silas’s arm.
‘Leave it out, Lottie,’ he said, exhaling a plume of smoke into the frosty air. ‘Let’s get out of this place. It’s giving me the creeps.’
Leaving them nattering and grumbling, Ruby walked over to where Jonas stood waiting for her. ‘They’re all expecting to be invited back for a bit of a do,’ Ruby said, indicating the group of mourners, hovering like crows over carrion.
‘I’m not in the mood; they can want all they like. Are you coming?’ Jonas held out his arm.
Ruby hesitated, knowing that everyone was watching. She slipped her hand through his arm. ‘I’m coming, but only to collect my things and then I’m moving out.’ Holding her head high, she walked with him to his motor car. Let them talk and make up stories; at this moment she really did not care.
Handing her into the motor, Jonas cranked the starting handle, and when the engine kicked into action he leapt in beside her. ‘You don’t have to leave. You can stay for as long as you like and I won’t bother you.’
Holding on to her hat as the motor surged forward, Ruby stared at his set profile. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘Are you afraid of what the gossips will say?’
‘No. I expect it’s already been said a hundred times or more.’
‘You needn’t be afraid of me. I’m not a monster.’
Angling her head, Ruby gave him a sideways glance. ‘Tell that to the poor people who’ve suffered at the hands of your street gang.’
Honking the horn at a cart obstructing their way, Jonas turned his head to look at her. ‘That really bothers you, doesn’t it?’
‘I despise your way of life and what you do. Oh, I know most of it is just petty crime – the gambling, the illegal fights and the other things that go on in Raven Street – but what your thugs do to ordinary people struggling to make a living is unforgivable and detestable. You live your way, Jonas, and I’ll live my own way.’
‘Poor but honest?’ Jonas said, with wry twist of his lips.
Turning her head away, Ruby didn’t answer. When he pulled in at the kerb outside the house, she jumped down without waiting for him to help her. Running up the steps, she let herself in at the front door, acutely conscious that Jonas was only a couple of steps behind her. Turning, she handed him the key. ‘I shan’t be needing this any more.’
‘You can still change your mind.’ Jonas stared down at the key lying in the palm of his hand.
‘I’ve arranged to share a room with some of the other probationer nurses.’
‘Please yourself.’
‘I will.’
‘And don’t worry, I’ll continue to pay for your tuition until you qualify.’
Ruby stopped with one foot on the stairs, jerking her head round to stare at Jonas in horror. ‘You never paid. It was …’
‘The handsome young doctor?’ Jonas let out a crack of laughter that echoed around the high ceilings in a mocking echo. ‘Sorry, my pet, but it was paid for with some of the ill-gotten gains that you so disapprove of.’
‘You’re lying.’
Jonas shook his head. ‘Sorry to disappoint you, but it’s true.’
The magnitude of what he had just said stunned Ruby into silence. All the time she had been thinking that it was Adam who had made it possible for her to pursue her dream of becoming a nurse. It had never occurred to her that Jonas had lied when he had denied being her benefactor. The thought made her feel physically sick. She had just berated him for the way he made his money, but she had been benefiting from it all along. Too angry, mortified and disgusted to speak, Ruby walked slowly up the stairs to collect her suitcase.
She had considered leaving all the clothes that Jonas had bought for her, but she had come to the conclusion that such an empty gesture would hurt her more than it hurt him. Instead, she had
just left the lavender-blue silk gown neatly laid out on the bed, together with the outfit that she had worn to Pamela and Adam’s engagement party. Ruby picked up her case, taking a last look round the room that she had come to love, in spite of everything, and made her way down the stairs for the last time. Jonas was nowhere in sight and Ruby let herself out, closing the door behind her. It was raining.
The room she shared with two other probationer nurses was small, cramped and shabby. The linoleum on the floor was cracked and draughts whistled up through the exposed floorboards. The fire smoked and they had to stuff newspaper in the window frames to stop them rattling. At night the temperature dropped so alarmingly that Ruby had to pile her spare clothes on top of the thin coverlet and even then she was chilled to the bone, curled up in bed with her teeth chattering until she fell asleep from sheer exhaustion. In the morning, the windowpanes were iced up on the inside and the water in the jug on the washstand had formed a small skating rink. The one advantage of the lodging house was that it was close to the hospital, but it was hardly home from home and Ruby hated it. She hated the lack of privacy and, although she didn’t like admitting it, even to herself, she missed the luxury of her room in Raven Street.
Silently grieving for her friend, Ruby’s conscience constantly reminded her that Lily had loved Jonas. She had betrayed Lily when she had wanted Jonas to make love to her for a second time. On the first occasion it had been against her will, but on the evening when they had dined together and she had drunk too much wine, she had wanted him – Jonas had walked away.
The rain had turned to sleet, covering the pavements with shimmering pearls of ice that melted instantly, leaving pools of black slush. Slipping and sliding, Ruby was relieved to have reached the hospital without injury. Almost immediately, she was aware of a tension in the atmosphere like the twanging of a plucked violin string. The whole hospital was buzzing with talk of the continued siege of Ladysmith. Ruby had read about it in the newspapers and, although she was sorry for the people besieged in the town, it was almost impossible to imagine the reality of their plight in a land so far away. Hurrying through the groups of people chatting in the vestibule, she found Pamela in the nurses’ room, her face crumpled in the first stages of a good howl.
‘What’s happened?’ Ruby placed her arm round Pamela’s shaking shoulders. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘I’ve begged him not to go but he won’t listen to me.’
‘Who won’t listen to you?’ Ruby’s stomach muscles contracted in fear.
Fumbling for her hanky, Pamela blew her nose. ‘Adam is leaving for South Africa to work in a field hospital with Sir Frederick Treves. I’ve pleaded with him not to go but he says it’s his duty. Can you believe that, Ruby?’
‘When?’ Ruby licked her dry lips, her heart pounding inside her chest. ‘When is he leaving?’
‘Tomorrow. He only told me last night because he was too much of a coward to tell me before. We’re supposed to be getting married in June. How could he do this to me?’
‘Nurse Chadwick!’ Sister Tutor stuck her head round the door. ‘You’re supposed to be on duty in Female Medical.’
Bristling and ready to defend Pamela, Ruby frowned. ‘Nurse Chadwick has had some bad news, Sister.’
‘And you’re supposed to be in Outpatients, Nurse Capretti.’
‘Her fiancé is about to leave for the war in South Africa.’
‘We all have to do our bit and Dr Fairfax knows his duty. Now get back to work, Nurse Chadwick, or I’ll have to report you to Matron.’
‘I’m going, Sister,’ Pamela said, wiping her eyes. ‘Sorry, Sister, it won’t happen again.’ She hurried out of the room, blowing her nose.
Sister Tutor held the door open glaring at Ruby
with her lip curled like a terrier about to snap. ‘Nurse Capretti.’
‘Yes, Sister.’ Ruby scuttled past her, heading for Outpatients, but once she was out of sight, she made a detour to Men’s Surgical where she knew she would find Adam.
He was checking the dressing on an amputation stump when Ruby found him. He looked up with a smile that made it seem to Ruby that the ward was awash with sunshine, although outside it was still dark with sleet being tossed against the windowpanes like handfuls of gravel. ‘That’s splendid, Tom,’ Adam said, placing a piece of gauze over the wound. ‘Nurse will put a clean dressing on in a minute.’ Pulling the curtain around the bed, Adam signalled to the young nurse hovering with a tray of bandages and lint. He turned to Ruby, smiling. ‘What can I do for you, Ruby?’