Rejection Runs Deep (The Canleigh Series, book 1: A chilling psychological family drama) by Carole Williams (uplifting novels TXT) 📕

any standards.  Just a row of similar terrace houses on the opposite side of the road with a couple of giggling nurses she knew, dressed to the nines and wearing lots of make-up, walking towards the city centre.  A tired looking young male doctor Ruth was friendly with, emerged from one of the houses and headed towards the hospital.

Ruth looked sorrowfully around the flat.  It seemed another world from the luxury of Canleigh.  Her parents hadn’t been too happy with her living here, quite happy to foot the bill for a more upmarket apartment in a more salubrious part of Oxford but Ruth had been adamant this area was where she wanted to be, amongst the many other medical students and nurses who lived here.  She stood up and wandered from tiny room to tiny room.  It was functional but cheap and drab, all the more apparent after enjoying such opulence during the last two days.  The furniture was tatty and the furnishings of dull browns and oranges, there was no bath in the bathroom, just a shower that proved to be annoyingly temperamental if one was in a hurry, and the cooker and fridge in the tiny kitchen certainly hadn’t been purchased with Ideal Homes in mind.  It was basic and up until now, Ruth hadn’t given it a thought.  She had been brought up in the expensively furnished beautiful six-bedroomed detached house belonging to her parents and although Ruth wasn’t normally one to crave the finer things in life, after enjoying the luxury and grandeur of a Georgian mansion owned by a Duke, it looked … well, it looked distinctly cheap, tatty, and not very desirable.

Unpacking her clothes in the bedroom, she remembered how nervous and excited she had been on Friday before Richard picked her up and how her expectations on how the weekend would turn out had certainly been wide off the mark.  On the journey from Leeds Ruth had gone over every scene played out this weekend and how she felt about the Canleigh family.  Richard and Delia’s histrionics had frightened her.  She shuddered, glad she wouldn’t have to cross Delia’s path again and hopefully wouldn’t have to see Richard any longer.  She daren’t think about Charles but Vicky was lovely and certainly hadn’t deserved that awful betrayal from her sister and her boyfriend.  Ruth felt dreadfully sorry for her and hoped they would meet up again when Vicky returned to Oxford.  That’s if she was still here.  Nerves kicked in again as she thought of the conversation she was going to have with her parents … but there was no point in putting it off any longer.

Ruth stared at herself in the mirror.  “Come on, girl.  Do it.  Do it now,” she said, trying to bolster every bit of courage she could muster, drawing herself up to her full height and taking a deep breath.

Her mother answered the phone.  Her clipped, impatient tones indicating she was busy and had no time for social chitchat.

“It’s me,” said Ruth feebly.  Why did her mother always make her feel inferior and stupid, wiping away any confidence almost immediately?

“I’m sorry, Ruth.  I haven’t time to talk now.  I’m in the middle of dressing for dinner at the Davidson’s … I’m already far behind schedule and your father is insisting on driving and you know how slow he is.  They only live an hour away but he’ll probably make it two … so I want to set off early.  We mustn’t be late.”

Ruth pulled a face.  Neil Davidson was one of the top Neurologist’s in the country and his dinner party guests consisted of boringly, snobby people with medical backgrounds.  Her mother was always delighted to be invited and talked about nothing else for days afterwards.  Ruth had been on the guest list on one occasion, found the whole evening to be depressingly stuffy, and hoped she wouldn’t be invited again.

“Right.  Well, I need to see you … talk to you both.  As soon as possible,” Ruth said quickly, not wanting to annoy her mother any more than was necessary.

“We really don’t have time now, Ruth.  Come to tea next weekend if you’re free.  Sunday would be perfect.  We’re rather up to our eyes in it before then.”

“Fine,” Ruth mumbled.  “I’ll see you on Sunday then.”

She put the phone down, irritated, but a little relieved.  The evil moment was put off for a while longer and would provide more time in which to decide exactly what to say.  Although she knew she wouldn’t be given much opportunity to speak at all after the initial announcement that she was giving up medicine.  They would both explode.  It wasn’t going to be a pleasant experience but it would be easier to present them with a fait accompli.  First thing in the morning, she would visit her tutor at St. Hilda’s to advise him that she wasn’t carrying on and then was nothing anyone could do about it.

Then she had to decide exactly what she was going to do for the rest of her life.  She had a little money of her own so could survive for a while without rushing into anything.  There was no point in jumping from the frying pan into the fire so volunteering would be a good solution until a serious decision about her future career could be made.  The idea of working with animals was dismissed.  Perhaps Africa instead, or some other part of the world where volunteers were always needed.  The head office of Oxfam was in Oxford so she could pop in after she had spoken to her tutor and see if there were any openings for her.  That would be an exciting and different challenge, keep her well out of the way of her parents’ wrath, provide time to plan for the future … and help push the haunting memory of Charles’ eyes into the realms of the past.

Charles.  She