Free The House by Princes Park by Maureen Lee

hard and so fast that he felt frightened. He had the urge to smash the window, climb inside, catch Ruby by her tiny waist and twirl her round and round till they both fell dizzily to the floor in each other’s arms. Yet he knew he could never bring himself to touch her. She was out of bounds to someone like him. She was a creature from another world to which Jacob, the farmhand, didn’t belong.
    She looked so strong, and yet so frail, and there was an expression on her face that he envied, a dreamy, lost expression, as if she was somewhere else entirely than the room in which she danced. Jacob had never felt like that and he wondered what it was like. He also wondered if she remembered she had invited him to the house that night. Well, there was only one way of finding out. He knocked on the front door.
    When she answered, Jacob gasped. Her eyes werestarbright, her cheeks were flushed, and she bestowed upon him a warm look of welcome that caused his heart to pound even more.
    ‘I didn’t think you’d turn up!’ She reached for his hand. ‘Come and listen to the music. I’ve been dancing. Can you dance?’
    ‘No,’ Jacob said thickly. He allowed himself to be pulled inside and immediately felt ill at ease in the richly furnished house with carpets on the floor and ornaments and pictures all over the place. There were velvet chairs in the room into which she led him and the music was louder here. A man was singing about his heart standing still and Jacob wished his own heart would do the same. He couldn’t take his eyes away from the little curls that clung damply to Ruby’s slender neck and his hand was tingling from her touch.
    She smiled at him. ‘Would you like something to eat? There’s a big apple pie for tomorrow, but Emily won’t care if we eat it.’
    ‘Wouldn’t mind,’ Jacob grunted, wishing he didn’t sound so surly.
    He was dragged into a big scullery where he gaped at the extraordinary cream stove, the shallow cream sink, the green painted cupboards, the black and white check-tiled floor. She took a golden-crusted pie out of the larder. ‘Would you like tea or coffee?’ She gestured to him to sit at the big table in the centre of the room.
    ‘Tea.’ He had never had coffee and had no idea what it was like. She made him feel very ignorant, a bit of an oaf, with her gramophone and coffee and a scullery the likes of which he’d never seen before – he had a feeling people like her called them ‘kitchens’.
    He watched as she poured water into what was definitely a kettle, but instead of putting it on the peculiar stove to boil, she attached it to the wall with a plug. Overcome with curiousity, he said, ‘What’s that?’
    ‘It’s an electric kettle. Haven’t you seen electricity before?’
    ‘They have it in the pub by the station, The Railway Arms.’
    ‘I didn’t even know electricity existed until I came to live with Emily. We had paraffin lamps in the convent and the food was cooked in an oven by the kitchen fire. It was called a range.’
    ‘The convent?’
    She put milk and sugar on the table and sat opposite him, folding her thin arms. ‘The convent where I grew up.’
    ‘But Mr Humble said you were Mrs Dangerfield’s niece or something, a relative.’
    ‘Oh, no.’ She laughed and her wide mouth almost reached her ears. ‘I’m an orphan. The convent was an orphanage, still is. Emily just wanted a friend and she picked me.’ She preened herself.
    ‘Don’t you mind being an orphan?’ Jacob missed not having a father, but at least could boast a mother, even if she hadn’t been up to much.
    Ruby shrugged carelessly. ‘Seems a waste of time, minding. What help would it be?’
    Jacob stared at her, blinking. The fact that she was an orphan, that she didn’t truly belong in a grand house like this, had brought her, in a way, down to his level. At the same time, it only made her seem more remarkable and untouchable that she had so quickly made herself at home, fitting