A Girl Called Hope Read online

  She really was to blame. Ralph had admitted he hadn’t wanted to leave his parents’ house, and his reluctance to move in confirmed that. She had forced the move on him and the result was an accident that might have ruined his life. The doctor had been vague, yet his words – now clearly remembered – and the expressions on the faces of the kindly nurses all gave clear indications that the injuries were serious. For once she believed Marjorie’s spiteful remarks; the accident was due to her determination to have her own way.

  Marjorie went home but didn’t even try to sleep. While Freddy dozed on the couch, she wrote a message to Phillip that she would send by telegram the following day, telling him to come home, that his brother had been seriously hurt.

  *

  When the telegram arrived at the North Wales address, Connie put it beside Phillip’s plate on the breakfast table and he read it, considered it nothing more than a ruse to persuade him to go home for a dreaded family Christmas and lazily threw it into the rubbish as he had done with all of his mother’s letters. Connie read it and tried to persuade him to at least phone the hospital and ask about Ralph.

  ‘No need,’ he insisted. ‘Ralph has probably had a boil lanced or something. Very dramatic, when she wants her own way, is my mother.’ Connie pleaded but to no avail.

  *

  The days following the accident were filled with hospital visits. Ralph underwent two operations and the results didn’t offer much hope of recovery. The doctors told Hope that, for the foreseeable future. Ralph would be confined to a wheelchair.

  ‘It’s too early to know for certain whether there will be sufficient improvement for him to walk, possibly with aids, at some time in the future, but better you think of the short term and make arrangements for him to get the help he needs.’

  ‘What will he need?’ she asked, her voice trembling.

  ‘A bed downstairs would be advisable, rather than having to arrange for someone to carry him up and down each day. I always think it’s better for a crippled patient to be down, where he’s part of the family during the day, rather than upstairs on his own.’

  It was hearing the word crippled that upset her the most. With Davy in his pram, she walked miles through the roads and lanes trying to force herself to accept what the doctors were saying. Ralph was unable to walk and he would depend on a wheelchair for getting around, perhaps for ever. And the fault was hers.

  Christmas came and went with Hope hardly being aware of it. She replied to greetings cheerfully called as she went about her tasks, waving to some of the new neighbours and accepting their kind thoughts, which she passed on to a completely uninterested Ralph.

  Kitty and Bob called often, and it was they who gave Davy the fun of the season, playing games, admiring his toys and sometimes spending time with him while Hope visited Ralph.

  Throughout the month of January, Hope visited the hospital every day, often sitting in the waiting area for most of the visiting hour, while Marjorie refused to leave Ralph’s bedside. Sometimes a nurse, aware of what was happening, insisted on Marjorie leaving and allowed Hope to sit with her husband.

  Marjorie rarely spoke to Hope and even Davy’s cheerful and active presence, when Hope took him in an attempt to cheer Ralph, didn’t take away the cold anger that distorted her face whenever she and Hope met. It was only Freddy who offered a little friendship, and even that was muted when his wife appeared.

  Hope would try to amuse Ralph and make him smile at some of the things young Davy had done that day. She tried to sound positive and talked encouragingly about when he would be allowed home. The truth, the dreadful truth, was that he knew once he left hospital he would be confined to a wheelchair, possibly for life. His eyes stared at her from a pale face, and, although the words were never spoken, she knew he blamed her for insisting they left Ty Mawr.

  *

  When she wasn’t at the hospital Hope spent a lot of time in the garden. Snow and frost made it impossible to do very much, but she cut away the dead remnants of the previous summer’s display and cleaned the homemade, somewhat battered greenhouse ready for a new season. Freddy came once and helped her build a bonfire, but he didn’t stay very long. She learned from others that he spent a lot of time at the Ship and Compass, although he never showed signs of excessive drinking.

  Bob and Geoff called often, and they advised her on what she might grow. One day, when the three men were there together, glad of an escape from thoughts about Ralph’s condition, they sat and wrote out an order for seeds and listed the plants she would need.

  The garden hadn’t been neglected, in fact the ground was in good condition and ready for planting. She had never had a garden before, and had no experience of anything larger than a window box, and the garden at Ty Mawr didn’t have anything other than lawns and shrubberies and an area of soft fruit looked after by Freddy.

  Forced to dig up lawns to grow vegetables during the war, Marjorie had employed gardeners to put it back to its original state the moment restrictions were eased. That Freddy had been disappointed, having enjoyed the delight of growing food, was something of which she was unaware. Ty Mawr had always been neat lawns and flowering trees and shrubs, and that was how it would stay.

  One afternoon, Hope had returned from a visit to the town to place her small grocery order, when she saw that the gate was unlatched. They’d had a visitor. Her heart began to race. It was probably Marjorie, no one else was likely to call on a Monday. It was a busy day and the neighbours would be washing clothes and bedding, and clearing up after the weekend.

  She took a deep breath for the condemnations to come. She pushed the door but it was still locked. Not Marjorie then. She wouldn’t have hesitated to use the key Ralph had given her and wouldn’t have needed to lock it again from the inside. She went to where she kept a spare key, saw it was missing and went inside.

  It wasn’t until she looked out of the lounge window into the garden that she saw that her visitor was her father-in-law. She went in to the kitchen and swiftly filled the kettle, set it on the gas stove and then went to greet him.

  The ground was thick mud – in fact, she had been told by Bob Jennings that more harm than good would come of trying to work the ground at this time – so she was curious as she went out to see what he was doing.

  ‘I thought I’d dig a trench for runner beans,’ he explained. ‘Nice and deep, then you can throw all your kitchen waste in and some old newspapers, too, to hold the moisture. Make the roots go down a treat it will.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said hesitantly. ‘But isn’t it rather long?’ The trench was only a couple of feet wide but the area he had marked out stretched for about twenty-five feet.

  ‘They’re so easy to grow.’ he said. ‘Wonderful to watch them. What you don’t use you can sell. Everyone loves freshly picked beans.’

  She doubted being able to sell them, but she told him it was a wonderful idea and thanked him profusely for his hard work.

  ‘Bob Jennings helped,’ he said cheerfully. ‘He reminded me they need to be planted north to south so they get the sun one side in the morning, the other side in the afternoon. Now, what about a cup of tea, eh?’

  Hope guessed that the activity was cathartic. The unaccustomed exercise was a time-filler and hopefully would encourage sleep.

  She made tea and brought out a few of the oddly shaped biscuits she and Davy had made. In the chilly garden, dressed in thick outdoor clothes, Freddy explained how much he had enjoyed growing things during the war.

  ‘I didn’t want to lose the vegetable garden when restrictions were lifted, but you know how Marjorie likes everything to look orderly. Turned over soil, untidy planting, wheelbarrows, pots, strings and things just didn’t appeal. She wanted smooth lawns and orderly shrubs. Even though the government still asks us to grow as much food as we can.’

  As always the conversation led by one route or another to discussing the progress of Ralph. As they walked back inside, she said, ‘I think I’d like to work on the gard
en. It’s been well tended and it would be a pity to let it go. Will you help me?’

  Freddy willingly agreed to spend a few afternoons with her, and she felt a surge of optimism. It was as though the promise of a garden blossoming and giving its bounty was a sign that other things would work out too. Ralph would recover, and even if he couldn’t win any races he would be able to walk, even if it meant using sticks. Being an accountant, he would be able to return to work.

  She went to see him that evening, having left Davy with Kitty and Bob, wanting to see him alone to tell him how hopeful she felt, to encourage him to think enthusiastically about his homecoming. The doctor asked her to go into his office and there she was told that after another small operation, mainly to ease the pain, he would be coming home, but the prospect of him ever walking again was too remote to consider.

  Ralph’s silence when she entered his room was frightening enough, but then, quietly and with apparent calm, he told her that he held her responsible for his situation. He spoke so gently that it was almost unbelievable that his accusations were so cruel.

  ‘You sent me out knowing I was unhappy, knowing my mind was all over the place. We shouldn’t have been there. Mum didn’t want us to go. Dad liked having us there and I was happy living in Ty Mawr. Only you were insistent on us leaving.’

  Stricken with shock Hope could only stare at him. The voice was Ralph’s but the words were Marjorie’s. He hit his useless legs and, still without raising his voice, said, ‘These would still be working if it weren’t for your determination that we needed a place of our own.’

  Hope was stunned. Had he honestly forgotten his insistence on going out that night? Or, she suddenly remembered, that the initial idea of moving out and finding a place of their own had been his? Oh, she’d agreed, enthusiastically, but the original suggestion had been his. She had forgotten that, since he had become so reluctant under pressure from Marjorie. Now he believed the poison his mother was whispering into his ear.

  Tears began to fall and Hope whispered, ‘You know none of that is true, darling. Moving to Badgers Brook was what we both wanted. Perhaps we were wrong, and if that’s the case we’ll put it right. You get well again and, if you hate it so much, we can move back to Ty Mawr. Anything you want we can do. Promise me you’ll try to relax and concentrate on getting well. Davy and I need you with us so desperately.’

  He didn’t reply. From the closed expression on his thin pale face, she wasn’t even sure he had heard.

  A bell rang to warn visitors it was time to leave, and she bent over the bed to kiss him. He caught hold of her coat and pulled her close to him. She put her hands around his cheeks preparing for a proper, loving kiss, but he hissed, ‘I overheard the doctors talking, so stop lying to me. They know I’ll never walk again, thanks to you! Never, never, never!’ He turned his head away from her and refused to say another word.

  *

  Ralph’s homecoming was a sombre affair. Kitty and Bob stayed in the house with Davy while Hope went to the hospital and arranged for his transfer into her care. She was frightened, wondering if she could cope with all she would have to do for him, wondering, too, how difficult a patient he would be. At his insistence, he was taken straight up the stairs to the bedroom, where a fire burned cheerfully. Marjorie sat beside him while Hope prepared a meal. Kitty and Bob left, having been ignored by Marjorie, and promised to call later.

  For three days he hardly spoke and then he asked to be carried downstairs to spend the day near the fire, where he could look out into the garden. Bob and Geoff would have helped, but before she could ask them Peter Bevan called with her order of vegetables and, hearing the situation, went up and carried Ralph down.

  Hope had prepared the newly arrived couch to receive him and, with blankets and pillows and plenty of newspapers and books, he settled, again in almost complete silence, to fill his days. He insisted on having a bed set up in a corner of the room and declared his intention of staying there permanently.

  Although the nurse called and tried to encourage him to do exercises and use the wheelchair that stood waiting for him, he refused. He made no effort to extend the severe limitations of his life. Until one day, when he was alone apart from his father, who had been working on the garden, he reached over and pulled the hated wheelchair close to the bed.

  Ralph’s arms were still strong and, with his father’s help, he managed to get into the wheelchair. He manoeuvred himself from bed to chair and back again. He didn’t go any further than the kitchen, but Freddy was delighted.

  Hope tried to sound encouraging, loving, strong, but Ralph treated her like a servant, only speaking when he needed something done. Freddy was upset by this, knowing Marjorie was encouraging her son to continue to heap blame on his wife instead of coaxing him to rebuild a life for himself, and improve his existence by his own efforts.

  Bob and Freddy built a ramp to enable Ralph to go outside, hoping that when winter gave way to spring he might be tempted to widen his world. Ralph told them to take it up as he had no intention of ever going outside to be laughed at or pitied.

  Peter occasionally called when he had finished his delivery rounds, staying for a cup of tea and spending a little time with Davy while Hope did a few of her many tasks.

  February was dull and bitterly cold but just occasionally produced a day of sun that confused people into believing spring had arrived. Marjorie came every day to sit with her son, firmly closing the door against Hope and little Davy. Their animated conversations left Hope feeling utterly alone, so rarely did they include her in their whispered words and laughter. The animation when his mother was there fell from him like a cloak when she left. He seemed unaware of Hope, and Davy had given up trying to interest him in his daily discoveries, or the pictures he produced.

  The doctor called regularly, the hospital monitored his healing, and every time he was examined Ralph expected there to be an improvement. The day the doctor told him sympathetically that it was better to expect none, then if it came it would be a wonderful gift, was the day he gave up on the dream. The day was bright and sunny, the air crisp and fresh, a day for having fun, and the contrast was too much.

  He ate very little lunch and refused a five o’clock tea-time snack, giving the plateful of small sandwiches and tempting cakes to Davy to put out for the birds. While Hope was bathing Davy and getting him ready for bed he made his move.

  His arms were strong, and he managed with the ease of secret practices to get into his chair from the bed, where he still sat for much of the day, and go outside. The ramp made by his father and Bob, which he had sworn never to use, was wide with a rough finish and a gentle slope and easily managed. He spun the wheels and was soon making his way along the path and into the lane.

  It was almost dark and the lane was never busy at this time. No one was likely to see him. There was a hill leading down from the other side of the woods, narrow, with a badly worn surface. The hedges had been neglected and were straggly, reaching out across the already limited access. Because there was a better road to make the same journey, this one was rarely used.

  Pushing aside the over-long branches of bramble and the blackthorn, which would soon to burst into a beautiful display of white lace, he looked down the steep path and assessed its dangers. At the bottom, the road ran beside a long drop into a field beside the brook that ran through the woods. The fence had rotted and disappeared years before.

  He reached the point from where the steepest descent began without seeing anyone and, with a strange haunted look on his pale, thin face, he lined up the chair. Covering his eyes with his hands and gritting his teeth, he released the brake.

  *

  Hope didn’t miss him until the stories she had been reading sent Davy into a relaxed sleep. She stayed a while even then, watching him and wondering how this unhappiness was affecting him. Gathering darkness changed the room into a cosy place with night lights glowing from the top of the cupboard and near the window. Marjorie told her it was wrong
to pamper the boy with a light, but she knew that the strange house and the utter darkness due to its position at the edge of the woods might worry him. Ty Mawr, on the main road, had never been so completely dark.

  Darkness had fallen while she had been with Davy. Ralph was unable to turn on the gas light, but she was surprised that he hadn’t lit his torch. Feeling guilty for neglecting him, she lit the centre gas light, pulling the chain and waiting for it to brighten fully, talking to Ralph as she did so. She wasn’t surprised when she had no reply to her cheerful call and the promise of a cup of tea. When she looked at him to ask what he wanted for supper, she gasped. Ralph’s bed was empty, the blankets folded neatly and placed on the pillows. Alarmed to see that the wheelchair was missing, she ran up and grabbed the sleeping Davy and went outside.

  She called, ran around the house in case he had decided to look at what she had been doing in the garden, then ran down the path and called on Kitty and Bob. Others, including the police, were called, and the search went on with more and more anxiety as the night’s chill brought added fears.

  It was more than four hours before they found him, and that was only due to a poacher cutting down the narrow road to go into the wood unobserved. He had lifted him back into his chair, covered him with his coat and met a frantic Hope not far from the end of the lane.

  The doctor was concerned. He spelled it out carefully, a warning to Hope that Ralph was seriously depressed and hadn’t come to terms with his condition. That he had tried to kill himself was not said, but it was in the air between them.

  The doctor reminded them, Hope, Freddy and Marjorie, that to attempt suicide was a crime, and if he had been convinced that was what had taken Ralph to that lonely place he should report it to the police, who had already questioned him. ‘However,’ he said, raising a hand to silence them. ‘I’ve persuaded them to give him the benefit of the doubt as he insists he had been trying to master the wheelchair as a step towards returning to work.’ He lowered his voice even further and went on. ‘The onus is on you, as his family, to watch him, protect him. While you’re with him, you must encourage him to be more hopeful of an improvement. Concentrate on what he can do, don’t remind him of what he cannot. Don’t remind him of his lack of mobility, but concentrate on his ability to cope.’