Patterns of Swallows (15 page)

"But what about you?
You're not used to batching it. You can't even boil an egg. What
would you do?"

"That wouldn't be a
problem, either. I'd just move back home to my old room while you're
away. Mom offered it when she heard about this opportunity for you.
Then when you're back on the weekends, I'd move back here. It'd be
just like a honeymoon cottage after a week away from each other."

"Oh!"

Ruth hadn't thought about Graham
moving back in with his parents while she was away. It sounded like
it was all arranged already. Was that what he wanted, then?

She wanted to ask, "What
about me? What about us?" but she didn't. Not if this was what
Graham wanted.

"Of course I'd miss you, if
that's what you're worried about," he said, partially reading
her thoughts.

She
could have said, "I'm worried about
me
missing
you
,"
but she said nothing. There was nothing worse than a needy, clingy,
demanding wife, after all. Or so she'd heard.

"I guess it's settled
then," she said slowly. "No other reason I shouldn't go, I
suppose. If that's how you want it."

"Look, Ruth. I know it's a
sacrifice for us to be apart, but I'm doing it for you. I thought
this would've been what you wanted. I know it was hard for you to
give up working. I know you find the time heavy on your hands at
home all day, and I appreciate you giving up the Morning Glory for
me. I really do. I know you enjoyed your job there. I just thought
this might help make up for it. And once this course is over, we'd
be together more than ever. It would be great fun to have you at the
mill. And I think you'd enjoy the work and be good at it. It's what
I thought you'd want."

Ruth was touched.

"I'm sure you're right,
Graham. I would like to learn the work. I'm sure you're right that
I'd enjoy it. It's just that the separation will be a bit hard."

"For me, too! Believe me!"

Ruth wanted to.

"But as you say, it is only
four months. Lots of other couples have had to survive years of
separation. And there's always weekends," she said.

"That's my girl."
Graham abandoned the tying of the tie and cradled her in his arms.

And so it was decided. Ruth
enrolled for the course that very day, having put her hand to the
plow.

And the day after Labour Day
found her sitting in a classroom with twenty-four other young
secretary-hopefuls, learning more than she ever thought there was to
know about punctuation.

Graham had found a rooming house
for her right in the heart of Camille and very near the school. She
could walk the five blocks easily to class in the morning. And it
was a decent place without being overpriced. Two of her fellow
secretary-hopefuls also roomed there. They seemed to be
pleasant-enough girls. Ruth decided she might not be as lonely as
she had expected. The four months would surely pass quickly.

Besides the three girls in
secretary training, there were two other boarders – both men.
They all met at the supper table her first evening in Camille.

Mrs. Goodhope, the efficient
landlady, introduced everyone all around.

"You can all start eating.
I'll do the introducing for you, seeing we've got three new girls and
one new gentleman tonight. I'll tell everyone's names going around
the table clockwise, starting with Merry. Just nod when I say your
name so the others know who you are. Meredith Vanderhoeven,
everyone. She tells me she goes by Merry, though. Then, next to her
is Lacey Dunlop. And then Ruth MacKellum. I believe you three girls
know each other. You've just had your first class together, I
think."

Mrs. Goodhope didn't bother
waiting for an answer.

"Then, myself you know.
And next me is James Hardcastle. I suppose we'll call you Jimmy,
though, won't we?" James (or Jimmy) had his mouth full of soup,
but it didn't matter. The question was rhetorical as were most of
Mrs. Goodhope's questions. She kept rolling after the briefest of
pauses.

"Then down the end is Bill
Spanner. I'm sure you young people will enjoy getting to know each
other while you're here. I'll have you know, you young ladies, that
you won't be able to believe a word Bill says. He's a scamp! You
can consider yourselves duly warned." She beamed at Bill a
moment before continuing. "The commons room is for everyone's
use, but please respect the eleven o' clock cut-off for usage of that
room. I know you young things don't need as much sleep as us older
ones, but out of consideration for those who need more, I've set
eleven o' clock as a sort of quiet time here. I keep the doors
unlocked till then. I know you're all adults. I'm not trying to set
your bedtime. It's for my sake, really. If you're going to be out
later than eleven, just ask me in advance for a key. I do hate to be
rousted out of bed in the middle of the night. And you don't want to
see me short of sleep. Everyone suffers. If you want to entertain
guests privately, you can book, what I call, the front parlour.
There's a calendar hanging just inside the door of the parlour for
that purpose. Now. Does anyone have any questions?"

Everyone looked at each other, a
little shell-shocked from the barrage of information and running
commentary.

"Good! I hope we'll all
have a nice time together. If there's anything you need, anything at
all, don't hesitate to ask. Everyone finished with soup? I'll be
right back with the roast."

When their hostess/den mother
had left the dining room, James (or Jimmy) whispered across the table
to Ruth, "I feel like I'm ten and back at summer camp."

Ruth wasn't a giggler, but she
couldn't think of anything to say, so she did her best to giggle
agreeingly. She was already learning new habits, living amongst
strangers.

"By the way, no one's
called me Jimmy in years," he said to the table. "It's
just James."

Lacey smiled across at him and
tucked a curl behind her ear. "All right then, Just James,"
she said.

Bill looked like anything but a
scamp. It was hard to imagine Bill being remotely scamp-y. It was
also hard to imagine that Mrs. Goodhope saw him as part of "you
young people" and "you young things," but then age and
youth are relative terms, and he was certainly younger than Mrs.
Goodhope.

He was dark-haired, balding a
little in front, with a long, almost solemn, face. Maybe it was his
serious look that had occasioned Mrs. Goodhope's warning. If he had
any sense of leg-pull at all, his foolery would surely be taken for
gospel truth.

Before the meal was over, they'd
all learned (if he was to be believed) that Bill was in vacuum
cleaners (which presumably meant he sold them), and James was taking
civil engineering.

Ruth couldn't help but notice
that James looked at her from time to time as they made their way
through the introductions and the soup and the roast beef and the
rhubarb crisp. What she couldn't understand was why. She wasn't
used to being noticed, and she certainly couldn't imagine what a
reasonably attractive young man could find in her that would keep
drawing his eyes back.

She didn't realize it, but there
had always been a quality about Ruth that would have intrigued any
astute observer at once. I think that quality was the lack of the
desire to impress. She was normally almost completely
un-self-conscious around strangers simply because she never imagined
any stranger would bother to notice her.

In recent days, however, casual
observers had begun to sit up and take notice. Maybe it was the
haircut. Or maybe it was just Graham.

Graham had changed her. I could
see it when they began going around together. From that time on, she
carried a sort of glow around with her that being loved by one such
as Graham gave her.

Very pretty girls like Lacey
grow so used to attention they imagine, when in need of a plaything,
that just a smile and a toss of the curls will land a James
Hardcastle at their feet.

The surprising thing was James
hadn't landed. He hadn't seemed to notice Lacey at all. Or at
least, not to notice her as anything out of the ordinary.

Ruth decided she'd only imagined
the glances James had sent her way that first evening. Or maybe
there had been food between her teeth or something on her face, and
he hadn't known how to tell her.

When he made a point of talking
to her more than the others at meals, she wrote it off as pity on his
part; he was probably just being kind to the quiet, awkward girl.

No one could have been more
shocked than she when, before their first week of life in Mrs.
Goodhope's rooming house was completed, James approached her after
supper one night in the commons room.

"There's a harvest dance
happening at the recreation centre tonight. I don't know anyone else
in town to take, so I thought I'd see if you were free and cared to
go. How about it? Should we go and shake a leg together?"

Ruth fumbled for an answer.

"I'm sure Lacey would go
with you," she said finally.

"But I'm not asking Lacey.
I'm asking you."

Ruth had no idea what the social
niceties called for in the situation. It had never occurred to her
that she, as a married woman, would have need of learning the
societally-approved manner for turning down an offer for a date.

Her
main difficulty lay in the fact that she didn't know if James
was
asking
her on a
date
,
as such. Maybe this was just the way of the world outside of
Arrowhead. Maybe it was considered perfectly proper for a young,
single man to extend a friendly invitation for a dance to a young,
married woman. She knew one thing. She had no intention of going
anywhere with James Hardcastle. At all. But how could she let him
know her reasons without making it sound as though she assumed he was
asking her on, well, on a
date?
If it was a perfectly proper (proper for Camille), friendly
invitation, he would surely be offended when she responded as though
she thought it was improper.

In the end, she threw social
niceties to the wind and stated the plain truth.

"I'm married," she
said.

"Oh! I didn't realize ...
I mean, I saw the ring and all, but I didn't realize you were still
married. I thought maybe you'd lost your husband, and that's why you
were here taking the secretary's course. I mean, I guess I just
never thought a married woman who still has her husband would be
rooming and boarding ... I hope you don't think I'm just some 'fast'
kind of guy who tries to take out married ladies. I really didn't
know."

"It's all right. I know my
situation's a little unusual. Don't worry. I won't think you're
'fast.' Or if I do, I promise not to hold it against you."

James laughed and relaxed a
little.

"Well, it was mostly just
because I really don't know anyone else here I'd like to take. We
could still go, y'know, if you felt like it. I promise to behave
myself now that I know you're a married woman."

Ruth smiled, but shook her head.

"Guess I might ask Lacey
after all, then." James went off to find her.

The rocky beginning developed
into a comfortable friendship. She never would go anywhere with
James, more for what people would think than for any danger she
feared for either herself or him, but they spent most evenings in the
commons room with some of the others, playing whist or pinochle or
singing around the piano (the surprising Bill Spanner was somewhat of
a genius on the instrument) or just talking. There were many good
talks shared between Ruth and James especially. James became Ruth's
closest friend in Camille, seeing there was no one else she felt like
herself around. His presence made her time in Camille bearable.

But she lived for weekends.

The James incident had an
unexpected effect on Ruth, however. She began to worry about things
she never had before in her married life. James had assumed she
wasn't married because she had no visible husband. Would anyone
assume that Graham wasn't married?

But, of course, that was just
foolishness – fretting about vapours. Graham was in Arrowhead
where everyone knew them. Or mostly everyone. Or everyone who
needed to know them.

Besides, the James situation had
turned out to be very easily handled. No doubt, if Graham ran into
any similar situations, he'd be just as capable of handling them.

All the same, she made up her
mind not to say anything about the James situation to Graham unless
it came up or he asked. She'd just as soon not bother him with it.