A Dream Rides By (29 page)

Barney exhaled with a contented sigh. ‘Perhaps that will be the one,’ he whispered. He blew out the candle, kissed her forehead and then settled down to sleep.

Ling bit on her knuckles and stared into the empty void of the night.

‘Elliott.’

She could see he was about to take her hands in greeting, a translucent smile reflecting in his green-blue eyes, and so she strode past him quite rudely.

Ghost was leisurely cropping the grass while she waited patiently for her master, and she raised her head slightly when he sprang after the young woman who hurried past him virtually without acknowledging his presence.

‘Ling! For heaven’s sake, what’s the matter?’ Elliott’s voice was choked as he chased after her.

Ling suddenly halted, her vision fixed on the distant heights of Dartmoor, knowing exactly where Foggintor – and her life – lay among the bracken and gorse. And then her shoulders drooped beneath the intolerable burden of what she had to do.

Elliott had stopped dead behind her, every taut nerve stretched to breaking point. In that appalling silence, he knew. Before she even spoke. His heart tore in agony, and yet he clung obstinately to the hope that he was mistaken. But when Ling turned to him, her face was ravaged with grief. He went to step towards her and encircle her in the comfort of his arms, but she put out her hand, fending him off.

It was the most tortured moment of Ling’s life. ‘I . . . I can’t do this,’ she said in a forced whisper. ‘I love you, Elliott, but I can’t do this. It’s wrong. And . . . and your career. Everything you’ve worked so hard for—’

‘You’ve never been my patient.’ Elliott’s face was white, a mask of tight muscles. ‘It isn’t as if I’ve abused my position as your doctor. Seduced you. So I can’t be struck off for that.’

‘Perhaps not. But if it was known you were . . . seeing a married woman, it would destroy your career. People wouldn’t want to be treated by you. This is an area of staunch Methodism, Elliott. You know that. People with strong beliefs. The other doctors would be obliged to ostracize you.’

Her voice had grown stronger as she spoke, the words coming from the sensible, logical side of her brain, which for those few seconds had overtaken the quivering, crushed part of her that was slowly dying. She simply had to convince Elliott that the wondrous passion they had shared was over. No. Not over. For the love she felt for him would remain in her heart until the day she died.

She knew he would not take it easily, and he fixed her with that penetrating gaze, his face alive and intense with pain. ‘I don’t give a damn about my career! What good is my life without the woman I love? I’ve dreamt about you for so long. And now to have found you, only for you to be taken away—’

‘You’ll find someone else. You’re a good man, Elliott Franfield. Any woman would fall in love with you.’ She thought her own words would break her, and she reached out, cupping his jaw in her palm, but he pushed her away.

‘I don’t want another woman. I want
you
!’ His eyes flashed at her, hard and unyielding. ‘Yes, I can spend the years healing people. But I don’t want to wake up one day when I’m an old man and realize my entire life has been wasted because
you
haven’t been part of it!’

Torment twitched at his face, and she bowed her head, twisting her hands in a mangled knot. ‘I know,’ she murmured wretchedly. ‘I feel exactly the same—’

‘Then come away with me.’ His voice was suddenly so calm and level that she lifted her head. ‘I’ll say that I’ve decided to work in America. I’m a qualified doctor, for heaven’s sake. I can set up practice wherever I want. We can start a new life. Travel,
be
as man and wife for the rest of our days. No one would ever know.’

Ling could see the excitement igniting in his eyes, and a wistful smile dragged at her lips. ‘Dear Elliott.’ Her voice was soft, lulled, as she peeped into the wonderful fantasy he had described. ‘I really do believe you would do that. Give up everything here, just for me. But . . .
I
would know. And so would God.’

Elliott sucked a breath through his teeth. ‘Does that matter?’

‘Yes.’ Her senses were reeling away and she fought not to sink beneath the dizziness that swamped her. ‘And there’s Fanny. She still needs me. And . . . and Barney.’

‘Barney!’ Elliott’s expression was incredulous. ‘It’s because of him that we weren’t together from the start! He betrayed us—’

‘We don’t know that. Not for sure.’ Her voice was low, desperate, as she struggled to find the courage to persuade Elliott to believe what she herself was rebelling against. And yet she had to. ‘And even if he deliberately kept your note from me, can you honestly blame him? We were all so young.’ She met Elliott’s gaze for a fleeting moment, but she could not bear the anguish on his beloved face and turned away with a broken sigh. ‘What’s done is done,’ she murmured. ‘I can’t do this to Barney. He
is
my husband. He doesn’t deserve it.’

The silence was long and oppressive, heavy with the agony that wrapped its greedy tentacles about these two lost souls. Ling’s feet were rooted to the spot as she drowned in her own misery, her heart numbing as the pain became too deep to endure. And then she felt Elliott touch her fingertips.

‘Oh, my darling Ling.’ His voice was barely a breath, like a soft mist. ‘That’s why I shall always love you. You’re stronger than I am, you see. And I shall never
ever
stop loving you.’

She was in his arms for one brief, terrible,
final
moment, swaying as she was on the brink of fainting. And then he released her, smiling down at her as his eyes glistened with moisture. ‘Go now,’ he mouthed, since his voice refused to obey him, and his arms dropped hopelessly to his sides.

Ling turned, her feet dragging, her body moving in the direction of the station while her heart remained beside the man she loved. She mustn’t look back. But she did. Elliott was watching her. Ghost nudged his shoulder, but he didn’t notice. Ling wanted . . . but she mustn’t. And so she broke into a run, blinded, stumbling. And then she heard the rhythmical drumming of horse’s hooves. She glanced over her shoulder. Elliott was galloping over the down towards Tavistock and out of her life. Just as he had entered it.

Ling picked her way along the crest of Big Tip. The sound of merry voices inside the cottage was soon muffled by the sighing wind that moaned across the moor and circled tauntingly about her head, whispering Elliott’s name in her ear. It lifted shamelessly the hem of her skirt, tugged at the shawl she pulled more tightly about her shoulders and ran its mocking fingers through her hair – since she was bareheaded, having slipped surreptitiously from the front door. Christmas Day was drawing to a close. Pewter grey clouds fringed with pearly lace scudded across a violet and amethyst sky as the light faded and the moors disappeared into mulberry shadows.

Happy Christmas, Elliott, my love
.

The words echoed in her head, driving the pain deeper into her soul. She closed her eyes, trying to blank it out, but all she could see in her mind was a picture of Elliott. Was he in the little house in Chapel Street, perhaps all alone, or more likely at his parents’ opulent villa higher up the hill in Watts Road? She could imagine him smartly dressed to please his mother, being polite to his parents’ guests, and later excusing himself to visit a patient in one of the poorer areas of Tavistock, or even the workhouse, as he was still the Medical Officer there.

There again, he might not be in the town at all. With the seed of adventure planted in his brain when she had ended their relationship back in September, he might have set out to America to start a new life. To forget her. She wished him well, but she would never forget
him
.

Oh, Elliott. She had no way of knowing what had become of him. He had not attempted to contact her, but of course there was no way he could without the risk of Barney discovering it. And she had deliberately not been to Tavistock since. She had written to Agnes explaining that now school had restarted she had found herself so busy, and what with baby Laura beginning to shuffle about the floor on her bottom and soon to be into everything, every second of the day was too precious to her. She missed Agnes’s company, but they had continued to correspond by post and Ling fell on every letter she received from Agnes as if it was manna from heaven.

Ling found herself instead drawn back to Fencott Place where she was welcomed with open arms by Rose and Seth whenever she appeared. The house was still a noisy, disordered mêleé of dogs and children and Rose whisking through the rooms like a whirlwind. The house would be quiet now, though, for the family had decamped to Herefordshire to celebrate Christmas with Captain and Mrs Bradley on their estate. Chantal Pencarrow was travelling with them in order to be with Toby, for it was one of the few chances they would have to be together before their marriage in the spring.

It seemed that weddings were in fashion. His face glowing with pride, Sam had officially announced over Christmas dinner that he and Fanny were to be wed. Ling and Barney had known since the previous evening, when Sam had sought their permission to ask for Fanny’s hand, and Fanny’s eyes had glittered a lovely blue ever since. So the announcement had been a formality since everyone already knew. Ling was sure that, had baby Laura understood, she would have been filled with joy to know that the quiet, steady, gentle man who had featured so often in her life recently was to become her father – and take the place of the rogue who really was! Oh, how thrilled Arthur and Mary would have been to know their little girl was marrying the son of Arthur’s best friend.

The vision of Fanny walking down the aisle on Sam’s arm drove away Ling’s melancholy. She should get back to the festivities. Just because her own heart was breaking, she must not spoil Fanny’s happiness. And she spun on her heel and marched brusquely back to the cottage.

‘If anyone here present knows of any just cause or impediment why these two persons should not be joined in holy matrimony, you are to declare it, or else for ever hold your peace.’

Ling caught Fanny’s eye and grinned. Her sister was radiant, her cheeks blushed a pale rose beneath the gauzy white veil that billowed down over her golden curls from the mother-of-pearl comb that held it in place, all lent to her by the generous Rose Warrington. Fanny looked a picture, an ephemeral angel, as she turned back to gaze devotedly into Sam’s pride-flushed face. Ling’s heart turned over with contentment, and she glanced down with a broad smile at little Laura, who was resting, placid as ever, on Ling’s hip in time-honoured fashion. Oh, what a joyous day! Even the February weather had remained quiet as a lamb, the cloudless sky providing a bright, sunny afternoon for the service in Princetown’s church.

‘She cas’n marry ’en. The babby’s mine. She should be marrying me!’ The coarse bellow echoed inside the vast roof vaulting of the church like an explosion.

The entire congregation gasped in unison as an appalled silence rained down like shards of glass. Shocked murmurs, then, and, as angry footsteps thundered down the aisle, every head turned to see who the malicious intruder could be. Many of them had instantly recognized the voice, of course, and so had the bride’s sister.

‘Ling!’ Fanny’s wail was pathetic as she turned not to Sam but to Ling, her thin arms instinctively stretching out to find the comfort and strength that had protected her all her life.

Ling’s heart was breaking out of her chest, and she pushed past Barney, thrusting Laura into his arms as she did so, ready to face the enemy with venom on her tongue. Fanny stumbled into her embrace and Ling murmured some soothing endearment, but her narrowed eyes were scorching dangerously into the approaching figure. Harry Spence met her gaze and visibly faltered, glancing about him as if he expected someone to come to his assistance. No one did. But not only was his injured pride festering because Fanny had chosen that milksop Sam Tippet over him, but, with the Warringtons involved, he had sniffed money again. Money that he could profit from, and if he had to fight for it then he bloody well would!

‘How dare you!’

Ling’s hissed words attacked him before he even reached the horrified group by the altar steps, and his defence was to direct a deprecating sneer at her as he attempted to brush her aside. He failed. Ling stretched up to her full height, turning Fanny towards Sam who had stepped forward, white-faced and trembling, to take his bride.

Anger, outrage, burned into Ling’s gullet, and she fought the desire to fly at Harry’s face with nails outstretched like claws. Instead, she glowered at him, her eyes almost on a level with his and glinting with ice.

‘Perhaps we could discuss this in the vestry?’ the vicar’s voice, toneless with shock, suggested from behind her, since it was the first time in his forty years of service that he had ever heard an objection.

‘No, I bloody well won’t! Everyone yere knows I be the father and—’

‘This is a House of God! And I would thank you to—’

Ling had glanced over her shoulder, but Barney was saying nothing, though his eyes were darting darkly between Harry and Sam and the vicar, who was quite rightly defending his church and the God he served. But Ling could see that no one was about to say anything to help her sister, so it was up to her now.

‘No one knows anything of the sort, you blackguard!’ she cried. ‘If you think you can come barging in here, making false accusations—’

‘
I
be the father. So you can go to hell—’

‘No.
I
am.’

Sam had stepped forward, his face like paper. Ling looked at him and her heart bled. Dear Sam. He was willing to bring shame on himself in order to protect his beloved Fanny. But everyone knew he couldn’t possibly be Laura’s father, with his blue eyes and fair hair almost matching Fanny’s, when Laura was as dark as the feather-spitting devil who ranted before them now. Not even Harry had expected Sam to make the claim, and, for a moment, it took the wind out of his sails and gave everyone a chance to think.

‘I have to tell you that it doesn’t matter who the child’s father is,’ the vicar took the opportunity to announce. ‘Miss Southcott is free to marry whoever she pleases.’