Visitor
"I hope you don't mind, but it's chicken," Joan said as she carried a large casserole to the table. Plenty of chickens on Joan's farm.
Louisa smiled graciously, "Heavenly smell," she answered their hostess.
Martin merely nodded as he had nothing to add to the conversation. He snuck a look at his watch. It was already 6:15, past his carbohydrate curfew and soon enough, after eating a meal filled with fats, carbs and sweets, he'd start nodding off.
Joan added, "And a strawberry spinach salad. Mrs. Rudd brought over some great looking spinach, and I found some wild strawberries out on the point in a sheltered spot," Joan said. "And berry crumble for afters." She looked at Martin happily. "I picked the strawberries near where we used to take a hamper, Marty, when you were little."
A hamper on the point, yes, Martin recalled for he knew the spot well. It was the place from which his aunt would watch John Slater sail away on his boat after one of his visits. The man was now dead, but he had been the rival of Joan's affection for a very long time. Relations between Uncle Phil and Joan had degraded, and Slater had shown up at the right time. As a boy, Martin had no idea of those goings on, until years later. Well, let the dead rest, thought Martin; Phil and Salter were both dead now.
"Oh, I love berry crumble," Louisa said.
And with the crumble would come tea and a chat, Martin grumbled mentally. So much for reading the rest of the medical manual on home childbirth delivery. He'd been surreptitiously learning it so as not to alarm his wife. He had delivered exactly three babies in his life; the first two in hospital of course, and the third Louisa's bridesmaid - what's her name. He looked around Joan's dining room. The couch in the front room was rump sprung, and the bedrooms were all upstairs, so if Louisa was here, and well advanced in labor she'd likely not be able to climb the stairs. He tapped on the dining table. Uncle Phil had built it from salvage found on the beach. He peered underneath at the sturdy legs. It would do, if it had to. The table it would have to be, if needed.
Joan ladled out the meals and set the filled plates in front of each. "Marty?" she asked him with irritation. "Something the matter?"
His head shot up, to see the women staring at him; Louisa on his left, Joan on his right. "No," he snapped.
"You sure?" Louisa smiled, taking his hand. "Tell us."
Martin opened his mouth to explain his idea, when the crunch of tires on the gravel drive sounded, and then a car motor shut off.
Joan stood up, looking towards the window which faced the drive. "Now who can that be?" She put her table linen down and was heading towards the kitchen door, when it sprang open.
A tall, rather austere looking woman came in from the kitchen, and set down a small piece of luggage as a well as a briefcase.
Louisa saw the figure lower the hood of her mackintosh and saw a head of gray hair.
The figure uttered, "Hullo. Dinner party? But I see I am interrupting."
Beaming, Joan ran over to hug the woman. "Oh, Ruth! Where did you come from?"
"Good to see you as well, little sister," the woman replied as Joan wrapped her in her fleshy arms. The gray-haired head turned blue eyes toward Martin. "Hullo, nephew." Then she cast those penetrating blue orbs on Louisa. "And you must be Martin's wife."
Louisa examined the new arrival. Slightly shorter than Joan, and with gray hair, not white like Joan. Sensible shoes – flats – a blue tweed skirt, and as she unbuttoned her rain gear, saw that she wore a blue blazer over a cream blouse. Louisa stood up, her shoulders thrown back, as she had to do lately, and she had to put a hand on the chair back to steady herself as she rose.
"And pregnant," Ruth muttered. "I see Martin, that you got off to quite a running start."
"Aunt Ruth!" Martin remonstrated with irritation. "Yes, uhm, this is Louisa Glasson, uhm, Ellingham… my wife."
Louisa walked up to the woman, Aunt Ruth, obviously, who she'd heard of but never met. She held out her hand, and Aunt Ruth forced herself away from Joan's clinging arms to face her.
Holding out her right hand, the newcomer stiffly shook Louisa's outstretched hand. "How do you do?" she asked in a formal but gloomy tone.
"Nice to meet you," Louisa said, trying not to bite her lip. Martin had said that his Aunt Ruth was a criminal psychiatrist specialized in treating violent people, most of whom in custody at one of Her Majesty's prisons. Martin had told her Ruth Ellingham (never married) had a stellar career, treating murderers and so forth. Horrid, thought Louisa, but fascinating in a gruesome way.
Ruth looked the young woman up and down for a few seconds, concentrating briefly on the protuberant and pregnant belly and breasts. Green was a good choice for the maternity dress, Ruth thought, it complimented the girl's eyes. Girl? Ruth asked herself. Not a girl; must be late thirties if she was a day. But oh my that luxurious and long auburn hair. Ruth primped her own hair, still damp from the rain. "She is…" she stopped to amend the sentence, "You are beautiful, my dear," she told a very nervous Louisa. Then she turned her head to face her nephew. "You certainly lucked out, Martin. Lovely hair and eyes. Quite unlike that other one. Susan, was it?"
Martin stiffened. "Oh… no, you must mean… Edith." Sweat broke out on his palms and in his armpits.
Ruth cocked her head. "Edith? Was that her name?" her brow furrowed. "Ah yes! The ginger one. Well whatever her name, that one was so awful. So glad you didn't stick it out with her."
"No," Martin said, coughing into his hand. "Yes, I mean..."
Ruth chuckled then released Louisa's damp hand. "Sorry Louisa, this is what you hear when an old woman has driven all the way from Bournemouth as a surprise. And black mobile spots most of the way or I would have phoned." She shook her head. "Rain as well, buckets, and then the sheep." She shuddered. "There must have been around a hundred sheep wandering all over the road. A moveable and woolly roadblock."
"And this was nearby?" Louisa asked, quite alarmed.
"Oh about three miles up that a way," Ruth threw a pointed finger over her shoulder.
Louisa and Joan said together, "Trevnail's."
Louisa scooped up her handbag and took out her mobile. "They don't have very good fences, up there, I'm afraid." She stepped into the kitchen. The others could hear her make a call and then say, "Hello, Mrs. Trevnail? This is Louisa Ellingham. Right, from Portwenn. Someone… well, it seems your sheep are out once more. All over the road."
Everyone in the house heard a screech of rage across the line. "Alf! You lazy good for nothing sod!" came a loud female and harassing voice. "The sheep are out! AGAIN!"
Louisa snapped her phone closed. "Sorry. Common occurrence with sheep. They like to push on fences. The Trevnail farm is just up the road, and…"
"With bad fences," Joan interrupted. "Or lack of. Fences cost money." She grinned apologetically at her thinner sister.
Louisa thought the pair looked slightly like the comedy duo Laurel and Hardy, at least as to their physiques; fat and thin. "I think it likely it was more like 40 sheep," Louisa threw out.
Ruth shook her head. "Forty or a hundred, there were too bloody many."
Louisa nodded. "I'd better call PC Penhale to get him up there to help." She excused herself into the kitchen to call the village policeman.
Joan asked her sister, "What were you doing in Bournemouth?
Ruth grunted. "Oh, such a dreary meeting of headshrinkers. Boring seminars the last three days, and when I looked at the agenda for this afternoon's session I just could not bear it any longer. I do think that most practitioners in this day and age have no skills whatsoever in stringing more than eight words together to make an intelligent thought. And to stand up and speak about their observations and studies? Pish. A waste of air." She shook her head. "Ghastly." She turned towards Joan. "I could kill for a glass of red, or just tea if you have it."
"Yes, yes of course. I'll get the kettle on. Have you eaten? Hungry?"
Ruth sniffed the air. "Oh, I could eat."
"Right," Joan replied. "Now give me your mac, and I'll get another plate and things." She went into the kitchen and started to hum a little tune.
Ruth smiled after her sister. "Always did that when she was happy. Making Joan happy… I ought to visit more often." Martin and Ruth were still alone, so Ruth lowered her voice, "Martin."
"Ruth," Martin responded.
She raised an eyebrow. "I heard you'd gotten hitched. Joan had mentioned there was a baby on the way and from the looks of things," her curved hand indicated a large belly, "Well advanced."
"Thirty weeks. Yes," Martin answered.
Ruth began to say, "A bun in the oven…"
Martin cut her off with, "Ruth! That bun in the oven, as you describe it… is our…" Martin's throat went dry, "our child. Show some respect, Ruth. Good God."
"Right," Ruth said. "Joanie says schoolteacher."
"Head Mistress," Martin bristled.
"I see," Ruth shrugged. "Well, your lookout."
Martin felt his pulse jump. "What's that supposed to mean?"
Ruth looked around her sister's dining room at the peeling paint and then stared at a water mark on the ceiling. "Well, Cornwall. And no more surgery. So now it's General practice I hear?" she sniffed.
"Yes," Martin told her. "It's my job." He braced himself for more distinct approval.
Ruth looked over her shoulder towards the kitchen where Louisa and Joan still were. "Is it the baby? That it? Got her preggers so you stayed?" she whispered.
"NO! Louisa is my wife!" he hissed. "And I love her."
Ruth sniffed air slowly into her nose. "I see."
"What in bloody hell is that supposed to mean?" Martin asked.
Ruth shrugged. "Nothing."
"Good!" Martin told her, then stomped away from his aunt - whom he had not seen for fifteen years, to use the loo, and to escape.
Author's note:
I am sorry that I have been away from the keyboard for some while, traveling and so on. I initially thought that I could move this story along with the calendar and wrap it up on the Ellingham baby's birthday in July. Well, life got in the way, and other adventures – in my life – and in this tale, happened.
