Scold's Bridle

remember the fun and the excitement. She had crept out of a downstairs window at two o'clock in the morning to be enveloped in her lover's arms. They had smoked and drunk and talked by candlelight in the privacy of the parked van and, yes, all right, he wasn't particularly well educated or even very articulate, but that didn't matter. And if what happened afterwards had not been part of her gameplan, then that didn't matter either because, when it came to it (her eyes belied the words) she had wanted sex as much as he had.

Cooper longed to ask her, why? Why she valued herself so cheaply? Why she was the only girl in the school who fell for it? Why she would want a relationship with an illiterate labourer? Why, ultimately, she was so gullible as to imagine that he wanted anything more than free sex with a clean virgin? He didn't ask, of course. He wasn't so cruel.

The affair might have ended there had she not met him by sheer mischance (Cooper's interpretation, not hers) one day during the holidays. She had heard nothing from him since the night in the van, and hope had given way to depression. She was spending Easter with her grandmother at Fontwell (she usually went to Fontwell, she told Cooper, because she got on better with her grandmother), and caught the bus to Bournemouth to go shopping. And suddenly there was Dave, and he was so pleased to see her, but angry, too, because she hadn't answered his letter. (Sourly, Cooper imagined the touching scene. What letter? Why, the one that had got lost in the post, of course.) After which they had fallen into each other's arms in the back of the Ford, before Dave had driven her home and realized (Cooper reading between the lines again) that Ruth might be good for a little more than a quick tumble on a blanket when he felt horny.

'He took me everywhere that holidays. It was wonderful. The best time I've ever had.' But she spoke the words flatly, as if even the memory lacked sparkle.

She was too canny to tell her grandmother what she was doing-even in her wildest dreams she didn't think Mathilda would approve of Dave-so, instead, like a two-timing spouse, she invented excuses for her absences.

'And your grandmother believed you?'

'I think her arthritis was really bad about then. I used to say I was going somewhere, but in the evening she'd have forgotten where.'

'Did Dave take you to his home?'

'Once. I didn't like it much.'

'Did he suggest you steal from your grandmother? Or was that your idea?'

'It wasn't like that,' she said unhappily. 'We ran out of money, so I borrowed some from her bag one day.'

'And couldn't pay it back?'

'No.' She fell silent.

'What did you do?'

'There was so much stuff there. Jewellery. Ornaments. Bits of silver. She didn't even like most of it. And she was so mean. She could have given me a better allowance, but she never did.'

'So you stole her things and Dave sold them.'

She didn't answer.

'What happened to Dave's job with the tarmac crew?'

'No work.' She shrugged. 'It's not his fault. He'd work if he could.'

Did she really believe that? 'So you went on stealing from your grandmother through the summer term and the summer holidays?'

'It wasn't stealing. I was going to get it anyway.'

Dave had indoctrinated her well-or was this Ruth herself speaking? 'Except that you didn't.'

'The doctor's no right to it. She's not even related.'

'Dave's address, please, Miss Lascelles.'

'I can't,' she said with genuine fear. 'He'll kill me.'

He was out of patience with her. 'Well, let's face it, it won't be much of a loss whichever way you look at it. Your mother won't grieve for you, and to the rest of society you'll be a statistic. Just another young girl who allowed a man to use and abuse her.' He shook his head contemptuously. 'I think the most depressing aspect of it all is how much money has been wasted on your education.' He looked around the room. 'My kids would have given their eye-teeth to have had your opportunities, but then they're a good deal brighter than you, of course.' He waited for a moment then shut his notebook and stood up with a sigh. 'You're forcing me to do it the hard way, through your headmistress.'

Ruth hugged herself again. 'She doesn't know anything. How could she?'

'She'll know the name of the firm that was employed to do the drive. I'll track him down that way.'

She wiped her damp nose on her sleeve. 'But, you don't understand, I have to get to university.'

'Why?' he demanded. 'So that you and your boyfriend can have a field day with gullible students? What does he deal in? Drugs?'

Tears flowed freely down her cheeks. 'I don't know how else to get away from him. I've told him I'm going to Exeter, but I'm not, I'm trying for universities in the north because they're the farthest away.'

Cooper was strangely moved. It occurred to him that this was very likely true. She did see running away as the only option open to her. He wondered what Dave had done to make her so afraid of him. Grown impatient, perhaps, and killed Mrs. Gillespie to hasten Ruth's inheritance? He resumed his seat. 'You never knew your father, of course. I suppose it's natural you should have looked for someone to take his place. But university isn't going to solve anything, Miss Lascelles. You may have a term or two of peace before Dave finds you, but no more. How did you plan to keep it a secret? Were you going to tell the school that they were never to reveal which university you'd gone to? Were you going to tell your mother and your friends the same thing? Sooner or later there'd be a plausible