The Grafton Girls - Annie Groves [81]
Ruthie made a small choking sound of agreement through the tears that were streaming down her face.
‘Aw…sweetheart, don’t…’ Glen begged her rawly. ‘I can’t bear to see you cry.’
‘I can’t help it,’ Ruthie sobbed. ‘Your poor cousin. What a truly dreadful thing to have happened, Glen. At least my mother had all those years with my dad. Some days, though, she’s worse than others. The doctor says that he doesn’t know whether or not she’ll ever get properly well,’ she admitted.
Glen squeezed her hand again, and gave her an understanding look before saying, ‘I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch before now, but I was waiting for this to arrive.’ As he spoke he released her hand to reach into his jacket pocket for an envelope, which he handed to her.
‘What is it?’ Ruthie asked uncertainly without taking it.
‘It’s a letter from my folks, welcoming you to the family,’ he told her quietly. ‘You know I said that I wrote to them telling them that I’d found the girl I wanted to marry?’
Ruthie nodded disbelievingly.
‘Well, I knew they’d write back, and Mom put this letter for you in with mine. She said to tell you that you’re to write back and send her some photographs so that she can get to know you ready for when the war is over and I take you home with me.’
‘Oh, Glen.’ Fresh tears filled her eyes and flooded down her cheeks. She had felt so lost and broken-hearted these last few days. They had showed her how deep her feelings for him were, but they had also showed her something else. Something that hadn’t really mattered when she had thought he had walked away from her, but which mattered very much now. All the more so in the light of what he had just been saying to her about his mother.
‘Aren’t you going to open Mom’s letter?’ he urged her.
‘I can’t marry you, Glen,’ Ruthie told him miserably. ‘I just can’t.’
‘You can’t say that,’ he protested. ‘You don’t mean it. You love me. I can see it in your eyes.’
She shook her head. ‘That doesn’t matter. At least it does, because I know I will never ever love anyone else. Oh, Glen, don’t,’ she protested breathlessly, but without any real conviction or denial in her voice when he took hold of her and tugged her into the protective shadow of an overhanging tree and kissed her fiercely.
‘You love me. You’ve just said so,’ he told her thickly when he had stopped. ‘And I sure as hell love you.’
‘I know,’ Ruthie agreed wretchedly, ‘but can’t you see? I can’t marry you and go back with you to America when the war’s over, Glen. What would happen to my mum?’
They had walked as far as the allotments and although she tried to object when Glen pushed open the gate that led to them she still let him walk her through it and down to a small wooden bench he had spied from the road.
‘We shouldn’t be here,’ she protested. ‘It’s Mr Taylor’s allotment and—’
‘There’s no one here, and if this Mr Taylor should come and ask us to leave, then I’ll explain to him that I needed somewhere to talk to my girl. The only girl for me, Ruthie, because that is what you are.’
She could feel herself trembling as he wound his fingers between her own and then clasped his in her palm.
‘Handfast, my mom told me this is called,’ he whispered to her. ‘It’s what people used to do if there was no church for them to be married in. Don’t worry about your mom. We’ll take her with us.’
Ruthie gazed up at him. ‘Can we do that?’ she breathed unsteadily.
‘Sure we can,’ he told her firmly. ‘Now promise me there won’t be any more talk about you not marrying me, and then read my mom’s letter.’
‘Yes, Glen,’ Ruthie told him demurely, before exclaiming in delighted shock, ‘Glen, no, you mustn’t kiss me, not here!’
‘Then quit looking at me like that,’ he told her, ignoring her command, to take her in his arms and kiss her very thoroughly indeed.
Naturally it was quite some time before she came back down to earth enough to open Glen’s mother’s letter, reading it slowly and with growing joy, breaking off every now and then, to exclaim, ‘Oh, Glen,