The Yuletide Child, Charlotte Lamb [best novels to read .TXT] 📗

she needed without having to make any emergency dashes to hunt for things she had forgotten, but this snow was going to make life difficult, if not impossible. Even if it stopped later, temperatures would probably fall after dark; then they would get ice, turning the roads into skating rinks. Ruth didn’t fancy the idea of driving into the village tomorrow now.

Just as she was turning to put her kettle on the hob she saw something looming through the blur of whiteness which was the world outside.

Leaning forward, Ruth peered incredulously. Someone was in the field. Someone of extraordinaryshape, apparently as wide as it was high. A sort of walking blob. A white walking blob.

And what on earth was its companion? Half the size, just as white, but with what looked amazingly like horns on its head.

A primeval shiver ran down her back.

The blizzard lessened slightly a second later and she got a clearer view. The first shape she identified was Fred. A Fred made much larger and rounder by his outer coating of snow.

How stupid to be scared of Fred! That would teach her to let her imagination run away with her! But who was that with him? As the two of them came through the gate into her garden Ruth stared fixedly, trying to identify the other shape plodding slowly along, holding on to Fred’s coat. Was it...could it be...a woman under all that snow? A very fat woman.

‘Oh, my stars!’ Ruth exclaimed, almost dropping the kettle. Not fat, she realised—just very pregnant.

Putting her kettle on the hob, she hurried out of the back door. The plodding figure raised her head and Ruth felt a pang of pity as she saw the pallor of the small, delicate face. Why, she was just a child! The weariness in the big blue eyes, the tremor of the soft pink mouth, which showed no trace of lipstick, made her look about fifteen.

‘Are you okay?’ she asked the girl, knowing it for a stupid question the second she’d asked it. Of course she wasn’t okay! She was obviously limping, she had cuts and bruises on her face, and she looked exhausted and in pain.

‘Sorry to be a nuisance,’ the girl whispered. ‘Could you ring for a taxi for me...? And I ought to tell agarage. I crashed my car over there...’ She waved a hand vaguely at the field.

So that was it! Ruth said comfortingly, ‘Let’s get you indoors first. You look as if you’re chilled to the bone.’

Putting an arm around her, Ruth helped her the rest of the way to the back door. Fred followed, but Ruth firmly shut him out.

‘Wait there. I’ll sort you out later!’

He gave her a furious glare and stood there, pawing the snowy ground as if about to charge the door. She wouldn’t put it past him.

‘Don’t you dare!’ she yelled at him, before turning to look at her guest.

First things first. She couldn’t let the girl sit about in those damp clothes; she would catch pneumonia.

‘Let me take your coat and boots, then you can sit in front of the range. It’s been alight all day. These old ranges burn anything, you know. Such a blessing. I feed half my household garbage into it. I do have an electric hob, too, which is useful if you’re in a hurry, but you can’t sit in front of that and toast your feet the way you can with a range. What’s your name, by the way? I’m Ruth Nicholls.’

As she talked she unbuttoned the girl’s snow-encrusted coat and slid it off her shoulders. Her mind was working fast at the same time. She must ring Henry and get him to come out.

‘Dylan. I’m Dylan Jefferson.’

‘That’s an unusual name—Dylan,’ Ruth said, hanging the coat in her hallway to drip on to the tiled floor. ‘I thought it was a man’s name. Welsh, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, Welsh. It means up from the sea...’ Dylan couldn’t stop shivering. ‘My mother was Welsh.’

Poor girl, she looked as if she was about to give birthany minute, and Ruth did not want her doing it here. She wouldn’t have a clue how to help. The very prospect raised goosebumps on her skin.

‘And there’s that poet...’

‘Dylan Thomas. Yes, that’s why she chose that name. She was hoping for a boy, but I arrived, and she had been thinking of me as Dylan, so she decided to keep the name.’

Pushing the girl down on to a chair right in front of the range, and kneeling down beside her, Ruth began to take off her shoes and socks. Imagine coming out on a day like this without boots!

‘Oh...’ she muttered in dismay, as the second sock came off and she saw the sprained ankle, the flesh swollen and very tender, an angry red. ‘Oh, dear, this looks painful—did you do this in the crash? You don’t have any other injuries, do you?’

‘Nothing serious,’ the girl said, leaning towards the heat of the range.

Ruth could see some of them: mostly cuts and bruises on face, hands, neck, which she had noticed when she first saw the girl. It could have been worse. Dylan had been lucky.

‘I’ll ring my doctor and get him to come out and take a look at you.’ Henry would find a bed for the girl in the maternity hospital. At this time of year there were surely not many local women having babies!

The kettle was boiling, filling the kitchen with steam. ‘I’ll get you a cup of tea. Now, don’t put your feet too near the grate; you don’t want chilblains.’

Ruth busied herself making tea, covered the pot with her old knitted cosy and got out two large bright yellow mugs. But before she poured the tea she decided to ringHenry. That was when she discovered that there was no dialling tone.

Her heart sank. She put the phone back, tried again. Still nothing. The phone was as dead as a doornail.

Dylan was watching her anxiously. ‘Are the lines down? That was what I