Free Ruby Flynn by Nadine Dorries Page B

punish them, carrying an education they could never possibly use. But now, for the first time, as she looked around the room and saw the bookcase, Ruby felt that maybe she could put her learning to some use. She was surprised at her own reaction. She saw the challenge before her and felt excited to embrace it. She willed Lady Isobel to accept her. She truly wanted to help.
    *
    That night in the dark of the bedroom, after Jane had fallen asleep, Betsy and Ruby turned in their beds to face each other.
    ‘Well, ye have heard her pitiful crying now,’ whispered Betsy. ‘Jesus. She may be thinner than a trickle of water but she can give out something mighty when she wants.’
    ‘I remember a girl at the convent who sounded just the same,’ Ruby whispered back. ‘She had been brought in from one of the farms. Found alone, trying to survive by herself, Sister Francis said. A priest brought her in and she was covered in lice. Maria said that she was the child of a brother and sister and that her own mother had been the child of a brother and sister and that was the reason why she was as mad as she was. Screamed the place down she did.’
    ‘Well, the crying, it can scare you if ‘tis bad enough,’ said Betsy. ‘You should have heard her after each of the boys died, my God, ‘twas awful. Jimmy says that when her and Lord FitzDeane have gone themselves, her screams will haunt the castle, so they will.’
    ‘How long have ye known Jimmy for then?’ asked Ruby. ‘You never stop talking about him. It seems to me that Jimmy is the only person who works at this castle.’
    Betsy squealed indignantly, but her voice trembled slightly as she admitted that she did indeed nurture a secret passion for Jimmy. As Ruby felt her eyes close, Betsy talked on, describing how her first kiss with him had almost made her faint herself.
    ‘I don’t think anyone will ever want to kiss me,’ whispered Ruby.
    ‘Sure they will now, why not, you’re gorgeous so ye are. I know someone meself already dying to catch yer eye, so he is,’ said Betsy.
    Ruby wanted to know who it was, she would have loved to have known his name, but before she could respond, her heavy eyes won the battle and sleep claimed her.
    *
    It took only a few days before Ruby made a breakthrough with Lady Isobel and then a further week before they were getting along well. The first challenge had been to coax her out of her nightdress in the mornings and to consider dressing into day clothes.
    For a few days, they were at war and she threw the clothes back at Ruby, until one morning the buckle from Lady Isobel’s belt caught Ruby in the eye. Furious now, Ruby hissed back at her, ‘Do that once more, and I’ll throw them back at you and see how you like it.’
    There were just the two of them in the room. Lady Isobel stared at Ruby for a full minute and Ruby thought, Here we go again, I’m in trouble .
    Nursing her eye, Ruby bent down to pick the belt up from the floor.
    Lady Isobel whispered, ‘I’m sorry.’
    She was so quietly spoken, Ruby almost didn’t hear. As Ruby rose from her knees she laid the belt gently across Lady Isobel’s lap. Softly done, but the message was clear. This morning was the last fight.
    ‘That’s all right,’ she said calmly. ‘I know you didn’t mean it. I know how you feel.’
    Their eyes met and bewilderment sat in those of Lady Isobel. A silent question burnt deep within. In Ruby, she had recognized her own pain and loss.
    They both knew they had crossed a bridge together and that there would be no more tantrums.
    Out on the landing, Ruby found a worried Betsy hovering behind the door, about to burst in to find out what was happening. She was enraged when she saw the bleeding scratch on Ruby’s eye. While she had been looking after Lord Charles’s rooms on the first floor, she had noticed the huge effort Ruby had been making with Lady Isobel.
    ‘Don’t let her bully you like that,’ she said, dabbing the scratch with cold water