Read Online In the Springtime of the Year by Susan Hill - Free Book Online
Authors: Susan Hill
Ads: Link
embarrassment or mistrust. The afternoon trailed on and none of them went home and their voices rose and fell and buzzed about like insects trapped in her ears. The tiredness came back, deadening her limbs, she had not the will or energy to try, again, to return home. Her eyelids felt swollen and sore. She could not move, she might never move again.
*
The room was empty. They were all of them gone. The table was a mess of empty plates and doilies and spoons. The silence brought her back to herself.
She let Alice take her up the stairs and into the bedroom they had made ready for her. It was very clean and cold, very small, there were no ornaments or pictures, and the sheets were bound tight as bandages over the bed.
Knowing that she would not sleep, she did not bother to disturb them, nor to undress, except for her shoes and stockings They were forcing her to take part in some curious ritual of their own and she had no strength left in her to battle with them. But what good she could be doing, what duty she fulfilled by spending this one, enforced night in the house of her dead husband’s family, she could not fathom. Did not try. Her brain ached with tiredness and with the emotions that had overtaken her, one after another and so completely, in the course of the past four days.
Nobody came to her, and she did not want any false gestures of friendship. But, lying on the high, narrow bed, and hearing the movements all about the house, she wanted someone, anyone, some touch or word.
For the beginning of the night, she listened to the keening of Dora Bryce, it came to her as clearly as if there were no walls to the house. It was a terrible noise, she was ashamed of the woman for making it, and ashamed of herself, because she could not. It rose and fell, in a mad, distracting rhythm of its own, and then, in the aftermath, a muffled sobbing, and the rumble of Arthur Bryce’s voice. There were footsteps up and down the staircase. Alice was there with her mother, and she too was crying. Ruth’s body was rigid. The night was the length of all the nights she had ever lived through. Outside, the wind made a thin, high sound of its own, as it passed by the house.
Once, she got up and looked out of the window, and saw steely clouds moving fast over the face of the full moon, and the words of a ballad about death jazzed inside her head.
‘They planted an apple tree over his head,
Hum. Ha. Over his head.’
Dora Bryce’s crying died away, the house was quiet. Then, Ruth might have cried. But would not, not here. There was some pride damming up her own grief, she would not let them hear, as they had not been able to see, earlier, what she felt.
It seemed more than ever strange, that this family should be Ben’s, that someone like him should have come from such people. Or Jo, for Jo did not belong here either. Only Alice was at one with them, only she had inherited their narrowness and lack of heart.
Ben had brought her to Foss Lane a week after they met. Because already, after that short time, they knew, both of them, their future was as inevitable as that the trees should continue to grow. He had called for her, on a Sunday afternoon, at Godmother Fry’s, and Ruth had been anxious in case what she was wearing was not right, was too formal or else too plain, was showy – in some way unsuitable. Ben had laughed at her. ‘It’s you,’ he said, ‘they’re going to meet you, aren’t they? They won’t mind what you wear, they won’t notice.’
But he must have known that that was not true, that her dress and every detail about her, hair and shoes and bracelet, would be what they saw first, and scrutinised, and judged her by. She had wanted to be friendly, become a part of them. Now, she knew that no matter how she had looked, what she had worn or said or done, none of it would have made any difference, they had disliked her in advance. Any girl who might take Ben away could not be approved of, or accepted.
This
*
The room was empty. They were all of them gone. The table was a mess of empty plates and doilies and spoons. The silence brought her back to herself.
She let Alice take her up the stairs and into the bedroom they had made ready for her. It was very clean and cold, very small, there were no ornaments or pictures, and the sheets were bound tight as bandages over the bed.
Knowing that she would not sleep, she did not bother to disturb them, nor to undress, except for her shoes and stockings They were forcing her to take part in some curious ritual of their own and she had no strength left in her to battle with them. But what good she could be doing, what duty she fulfilled by spending this one, enforced night in the house of her dead husband’s family, she could not fathom. Did not try. Her brain ached with tiredness and with the emotions that had overtaken her, one after another and so completely, in the course of the past four days.
Nobody came to her, and she did not want any false gestures of friendship. But, lying on the high, narrow bed, and hearing the movements all about the house, she wanted someone, anyone, some touch or word.
For the beginning of the night, she listened to the keening of Dora Bryce, it came to her as clearly as if there were no walls to the house. It was a terrible noise, she was ashamed of the woman for making it, and ashamed of herself, because she could not. It rose and fell, in a mad, distracting rhythm of its own, and then, in the aftermath, a muffled sobbing, and the rumble of Arthur Bryce’s voice. There were footsteps up and down the staircase. Alice was there with her mother, and she too was crying. Ruth’s body was rigid. The night was the length of all the nights she had ever lived through. Outside, the wind made a thin, high sound of its own, as it passed by the house.
Once, she got up and looked out of the window, and saw steely clouds moving fast over the face of the full moon, and the words of a ballad about death jazzed inside her head.
‘They planted an apple tree over his head,
Hum. Ha. Over his head.’
Dora Bryce’s crying died away, the house was quiet. Then, Ruth might have cried. But would not, not here. There was some pride damming up her own grief, she would not let them hear, as they had not been able to see, earlier, what she felt.
It seemed more than ever strange, that this family should be Ben’s, that someone like him should have come from such people. Or Jo, for Jo did not belong here either. Only Alice was at one with them, only she had inherited their narrowness and lack of heart.
Ben had brought her to Foss Lane a week after they met. Because already, after that short time, they knew, both of them, their future was as inevitable as that the trees should continue to grow. He had called for her, on a Sunday afternoon, at Godmother Fry’s, and Ruth had been anxious in case what she was wearing was not right, was too formal or else too plain, was showy – in some way unsuitable. Ben had laughed at her. ‘It’s you,’ he said, ‘they’re going to meet you, aren’t they? They won’t mind what you wear, they won’t notice.’
But he must have known that that was not true, that her dress and every detail about her, hair and shoes and bracelet, would be what they saw first, and scrutinised, and judged her by. She had wanted to be friendly, become a part of them. Now, she knew that no matter how she had looked, what she had worn or said or done, none of it would have made any difference, they had disliked her in advance. Any girl who might take Ben away could not be approved of, or accepted.
This
Similar Books
