A Dream Rides By (25 page)

‘It all points to a brief heart attack, Mrs Penrith,’ he said with a reassuring smile. ‘But don’t worry. It really isn’t as frightening as it sounds. A few days’ rest and a little daily medication will put you right. Now, if you would just open your mouth for me,’ he instructed, carefully drawing a pipette of liquid from a bottle in his bag, ‘I’m going to drop this tincture on to your tongue.’

As he did so, he shot Ling a grateful glance that said he appreciated the way she had handled the situation: a glance that, under different circumstances, Ling might have basked in. But not now.

‘There. Are you feeling better now?’ Elliott asked, waiting while Agnes, looking a lot less pasty, drew in a recuperating breath and released it slowly.

‘Oh, yes, young man. I believe I am.’

‘Well, if you feel up to being moved, I want you carried to your bed. You, there!’ he called to the gardener and the coachman, who had both been hovering in great anxiety by the house. ‘I need your help to carry your mistress inside.’

Ling waited while Elliott directed the transportation of her dear friend and then followed the party indoors. This wasn’t the first time she had observed Elliott at work, and it just made her feel – oh, she couldn’t explain it – so right and natural to be by his side. It was more than a profession with him. It was a gift. The very gift of giving of oneself to help others, she supposed in the same way as she loved imparting her knowledge to her pupils, though there were precious few who really appreciated it. A gift that she shared with Elliott. And not with Barney, who saw her work as nothing more than a means of putting a few extra shillings in the pot each week. And now she was here with Elliott, who treated her on his own intelligent level and who was good and kind and thought only of others.

Her breast heaved in turmoil. Did Elliott realize the anguish in her heart, the shame that she should feel like this when she was a married woman and her dear friend was so ill?

‘Would you be able to stay for a few days?’ Elliott’s level voice dragged her back to reality. ‘I’d feel happier if she had someone with her with a sensible head on their shoulders. I’m sure she’ll be all right now, but I’d rather
you
were here just in case.’

His arresting eyes seemed to be boring into hers. She didn’t deserve this. His trust. When she was feeling something so different. It was unbearable.

Having just returned from sending a telegram to Barney, Ling sat down in Agnes’s morning room, gratefully taking the tea Elliott poured her. ‘How is Mrs Penrith now? I’m not sure I like her being upstairs alone—’

‘I wanted her to get some sleep, but I’m just going to creep in and check on her, if you’ll excuse me.’

Ling nodded and, for several minutes, sat alone in the handsome room, silent but for the steady ticking of the clock. The rhythmical, ceaseless sound somehow set her stomach churning again. Goodness, the day had turned out differently from the one she had planned. Poor Agnes, seriously ill, and Ling herself thrown back with Elliott when she had been trying so valiantly to avoid him.

‘Asleep,’ Elliott assured her as he came back in. ‘You really mustn’t worry. But seeing as Mrs Penrith gave her permission earlier for me to discuss her health with you, I shall do so. I’m as sure as I can be that she’ll make a full recovery. It seemed a relatively mild attack, and with daily medication she should be able to lead a perfectly normal life. So, can we have a little smile, now?’ he cajoled, trying to catch her eye.

Ling’s mouth twitched. Yes, she was worried sick about Agnes, but she was so frightened that Elliott might guess at the confused havoc his very presence was wreaking on her.

‘So, what caused it?’ she stammered uncertainly. She wanted to know for Agnes’s sake, of course she did. But also, oh dear God, she wanted to keep the conversation sensible, normal, so that Elliott wouldn’t suspect the way her own heart was leaping about in her chest.

Elliott spread his hands. ‘The heart can become tired over time,’ he explained patiently. ‘Why in some people and not others, we’re not entirely sure. Our diet, perhaps, how active we are, heredity. Maybe one day we’ll know more. But the heart is really a muscle, pumping the blood around our bodies. Sometimes it becomes overworked and needs to take a brief rest. This was just a warning for Mrs Penrith. A low dose of digitalis every day is bound to put it right. She might have to get used to taking life a little easier, mind. Being a widow, she might find that hard, though.’

Ling straightened her shoulders, grasping the opportunity of a practical discussion that might stop the breath fluttering in her throat. ‘She has an adviser,’ she volunteered. ‘Her husband’s business partner when he was alive. She still owns half the company. Engineering of some sort, I believe.’

‘Well, at least she won’t have any financial worries,’ Elliott commented. ‘Unlike many of our patients, poor devils. Most of us only charge them a nominal fee, but we make up for it from those that can afford it. Still seems wrong, though, taking money from people because they’re sick. But as long as I have enough to survive, I’m happy. My mother isn’t, mind. She considers we should charge professional fees to everyone and leave those who can’t afford it to suffer.’

‘Well, I think she should be proud of you!’ Ling bristled, wondering at the indignation that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end and praying that Elliott hadn’t noticed the vehemence that had trembled in her voice.

Apparently, he hadn’t, as he gave a wry smile. ‘Oh, she is! When it suits her, that is. “My son, the physician.” But she does nothing but complain that I can’t afford a housekeeper. And if she knew that we doctors give our services free at the cottage hospital, she’d have a blue fit! But that’s how it works, you see. Most of the physicians in the town devote a certain time for free. There’s the matron to be paid, though, and various overheads, of course. But various companies about the town pay in, and there’re other benefactors and church collections and so forth. So the patients themselves are charged very little. It seems to work quite well, and it’s a good deal more pleasant than the workhouse.’

‘Oh, I never realized. I’d heard of the cottage hospital, but I didn’t know how it worked.’

‘Trouble is, we could really do with expanding. Larger premises. Mind you, being in West Street, it’s mighty convenient for me. Just a few minutes’ walk away. I get enough exercise walking all over the town, running often if it’s an emergency.’

‘But you have Ghost. I was so pleased to see you still have her.’

‘Yes. My mother wanted to sell her when I went to London, but I managed to persuade her otherwise. She’s such a perfect mount. So calm and unruffled, and yet she can still go like the wind. William, Dr Greenwood, he rents the field behind his house and Ghost shares it with his horse. I was at William’s today, so it was quicker to ride here than to walk.’

‘And how is your house coming on?’

Elliott smiled ruefully. ‘Not as quickly as I’d have wished. I have a decent consulting room and a clean bedroom to sleep in, but the rest of the place is still a shambles. And the garden! It’s like a jungle this weather. I’ve had a go at it, but it grows up again so quickly. But why don’t you come and see for yourself? It would be lovely to have a proper visitor. I don’t hold a surgery on Thursdays, though I can still be called out.’

His eyes were shining with enthusiasm, his eyebrows arched in a way that Ling found hard to resist. Guilt tugged at her heart, but she turned her back on its gnawing teeth. Surely, it could do no harm?

‘Yes, I should like that,’ she said, and she smiled back.

Harry Spence sauntered towards the centre of Princetown. It was Saturday afternoon and he was on his way to an assignation with the pretty young barmaid from the Plume of Feathers. Last week they had ensconced themselves safely at the back of a straw-filled barn, and what a delight she had been! Her lust had been even more insatiable than his own, and she’d tempted him, touched him, exposed herself to him. Not like the few occasions he had taken Fanny Southcott. He’d had the devil’s own job to persuade her that he loved her – coaxing and flattering her. She’d been like a frightened mouse, lying there petrified, not moving an inch and refusing to remove a single item of clothing, so all he’d seen of her was a glimpse of her thin thighs as he’d lifted her skirt. It had been over in a matter of minutes, no fun at all. He had been well rid of her. Not like . . . well, he couldn’t remember her name. But his mouth salivated at the thought of the pleasures to come.

It was as he ambled along past the shops in Caunters Row, eagerly anticipating the afternoon’s activities, that he saw her. He stopped in his tracks. For there in front of him stood the said Fanny Southcott, looking totally different. Still beautiful, with that wispy, fairylike quality to her, but with an air of confidence that had never been there before. Her blonde tresses were evidently scooped up in a knot beneath a nearly new, fashionable boater. Her high-necked blouse and the light bolero she wore over it both looked as if they had just come from the dressmaker, as did the serviceable but elegant skirt that fell from her tiny waist. She was leaning forward, cooing over the infant that lay in the perambulator she was pushing. Perambulator! Not the home-made wooden box on wheels that most fathers knocked up in the back shed, but a proper affair with shining coachwork and a folding hood. It must have cost a fortune!

Harry had never been very bright, but he made up for it in cunning, and he was quick enough when it came to money. He could
smell
it. Fanny must have had a windfall of some sort to afford new clothes
and
a perambulator. Where had it come from? Harry didn’t much care. All he knew was that he had never received a penny for risking his own life to save Fanny’s in the swollen waters of the Walkham, and now his payment was due. Even if it meant marrying the girl, it didn’t matter. She might lie like a block of ice in bed, but her purse would make up for it. And there would be nothing to stop him satisfying his desires elsewhere.

‘Fanny! What a pleasure to see you.’ He stepped forward, raising his hat politely. ‘How are you?’

Fanny straightened up and the colour drained from her elfin face.

‘My goodness, you’re looking well,’ Harry continued in as friendly a manner as he could muster. ‘Shall we take tea in the tea rooms? I should like so much to treat you. And is this my child?’ He grinned, turning his attention now to Laura, who gurgled happily up at the stranger. ‘What did you have, a boy or a girl?’

Fanny’s knuckles began to turn white as they gripped the handle of the perambulator. ‘A . . . girl,’ she stuttered, and she looked likely to faint as Harry plucked Laura into his arms and jiggled her up and down.

‘Hello, my little love,’ Harry crooned. ‘You’m my daughter, and I’m going to make it up to you. Yes, that’s right.’ He nodded as Laura gave him her gummy smile. ‘I’m your dada!’

‘Oh, no, you’re not!’

He hadn’t seen Ling sweep out of the grocer’s, dropping her basket and moving so swiftly that she had snatched Laura from his grasp before he knew what had happened. Anger shot through his veins and it was all he could do to stop himself attempting to wrest the brat from that bloody harridan’s arms again. But he must contain his fury if he was to stand a chance of wheedling his way back into Fanny’s affections.

‘Ling, what a pleasant surprise!’ he purred. ‘I’d just invited your sister to take some refreshment in the tea rooms. Won’t you join us?’

‘Not over my dead body! And you can keep your hands off the baby!’

‘Oh, come now! She is my daughter, after all.’

‘Oh, no, she isn’t.’ Ling’s voice was cold, like ice, her eyes sparking with rancour as she clutched Laura fiercely to her chest. ‘Fanny’s never named the father, not even to us. It could be anyone.’

‘So your sister’s a whore now, is she?’ Harry sneered triumphantly, his patience beginning to fray.

‘I’m sure you’re not the only varmint low enough to trick an innocent young girl,’ Ling spat back. ‘But while I have no doubt that you’re the king of such underhand treachery, don’t fool yourself you’re the only such blackguard hereabouts! And there’s no way you or anyone else can prove you’re the father. And what would you want with the responsibility of someone else’s child? Now get out of the way before I call the constable!’

Wrath suffused into Harry’s face and his hands balled into fists at his sides, shaking as he fought to stop himself punching Ling Mayhew in the face. But he was sly enough to know when the force of the law could be brought against him. And the witch was right in one thing. He didn’t want the by-blow, only the money it could bring with it. He would bide his time, wait for another opportunity to waylay its stupid and gullible mother. A time when her bloody sister wasn’t there to protect her. And he’d find a way to get back at
her
too!

He scowled like some demon from hell as he watched them walk away, dressed smartly in Rose Warrington’s cast-offs and pushing the perambulator the kind woman had lent them.

Ling briskly turned off Tavistock’s Plymouth Road before she changed her mind. She had been to visit Agnes Penrith, who, after two weeks of complete rest, was looking her old self. It was wonderful to see her recovered, and the lively conversation helped to seal Ling’s mind to the decision she would have to make when she arrived back in the town centre.

But she had already made it, hadn’t she? Otherwise, she wouldn’t have chosen a Thursday. Her heart was thumping nervously, not only with guilt at what she was doing but also with the excitement of seeing Elliott again. Excitement she must conceal, for Elliott must never know what she felt for him, but which seemed to have given her a new reason for living.

She paused fleetingly by the front gate, which she noted had been repaired. It swung open easily when she pushed it, as if the final barrier to her hesitation had been swept aside. She was visiting a friend, no more than that, she told herself. A friend, who just happened to be of the opposite sex. Taking a deep breath, she stepped up to the front door and rapped loudly with the knocker.