A Dream Rides By (21 page)

Ling caught the misgiving that Elliott tried to disguise, for the men had done their best, and the sergeant took charge, dividing the rations equally.

‘Here, Fanny.’

Ling passed her small piece of cake to her sister at the precise instant Elliott did the same. She met his gaze and saw that reserved smile play on his lips. But in his eyes she read something deep and affectionate, and she reared away from it.

‘Well, us two must be getting back,’ one of the packers announced, ‘if us wants to arrive afore ’tis dark. Any o’ you wants to come along? ’Twill be tough going, mind.’

Samuel Palk and the private exchanged glances, but the meagre rations had done little to revive their strength, and they all resigned themselves to another night stranded on the moor.

‘Oh, I don’t know if I can do this!’ Mrs Watts whimpered.

‘Of course you can, dearie,’ Mrs Huggins insisted. ‘See, those good men retrieved the guard’s lamp for us, and us’ve still got that brandy. And I’s sure someone’ll have us out of here come the morning.’

Ling saw the faint lift of Elliott’s eyebrows. He was worried, she could tell, and mainly about Fanny, since he kept studying her keenly. Fanny herself, though, seemed quite relaxed. She appeared to have the sole attention of the lively Mrs Huggins, and, though she must be as cold and uncomfortable as the rest of them, she was at least being admirably entertained.

Darkness closed in once more. Ling shuddered as she huddled between Fanny and Elliott, praying that the baby wouldn’t decide to put in an appearance during the night. She had complete faith in Elliott, but the crowded conditions in the carriage were hardly suitable for childbirth. Ling knew this from experience and, for the umpteenth time in her life, bit down hard on her lip. If only her own child had survived . . . Then, perhaps, as she looked at Elliott and experienced a painful longing she had no right to feel, her soul might not have been ensnared in such a tangled web.

By eight o’clock, the last drop of the heavily watered-down brandy trickled down Fanny’s throat, and the second night marooned on the train began. They huddled together for warmth: hungry, thirsty, tired and aching. It was a nightmare. And yet Ling was happy to endure it. For she could spend it, guilt free, with Elliott, and let the future take its course.

‘Good Lord, it’s stopped!’

Ling felt Elliott sit up abruptly, drawing her from the exhausted sleep she had finally succumbed to in the early hours. After the ceaseless scream of the blizzard had rampaged about the train for thirty-six hours, the silence rang in their ears. Sunlight was already gleaming through the encrusted windows, melting the snowflakes so that they ran down the panes in tiny rivulets. Elliott leaned across and, rubbing the condensation from the inside of the glass, peered through to the outside world.

As their fellow inmates came to life, a whoop of joy echoed from every pair of lips. The horrors of the two nights trapped on the train were forgotten, and Elliott heaved the door open against the snowdrift that had piled up against it. The driven snow was light and powdery, falling away easily, and, pushing the door wide, they stared out over an unfamiliar, ivory landscape that bore no resemblance to the moor they knew. The very shape of the rolling hills and high, craggy tors was unrecognizable, totally obliterated by the thick, pearly blanket, deep everywhere but heaped up in tall mounds in the oddest places, and hewn by the wind into strange and wondrous sculptures.

The instinct to escape the confines of the compartment was overwhelming, and Elliott jumped down, only to be swallowed in snow up to his middle. He turned back to the train, laughing boyishly. He held up his arms, inviting Ling to climb down beside him, and a thrill of excitement darted through her as he held her around the waist. She stood at his side drawing in the fresh, early morning air, which was sharp with the tang of frost. Their own breath wreathed about them in a cloud, and, for a moment, they were transfixed with wonderment. Despite the rigours of the previous two nights, their hearts were lifted by the beauty the blizzard had left in its wake. The rising, opalescent sun was bathing the virgin snow in gilded ripples, glittering with twinkling spangles of light as if millions of tiny diamonds had been scattered across a swathe of white velvet.

Voices behind them broke the magical spell as their male companions clambered down to join them, while Fanny and the two women looked out from the open doorway. The sight was so awe-inspiring that everyone was dumbstruck. Even those who, after a few moments of stunned contemplation, attempted to flounder through the fluffy, white mounds did so without uttering a sound. Although dawn had only just broken, the sun was dazzling on the snow, and the passengers, overjoyed at their release, blinked and squinted into the world of freedom.

It was Fanny who spotted him first. Bone-weary as her companions, she could not find the words to cry out. Instead, she noiselessly raised her hand and pointed, and it was only Ling who saw her as she turned back to grin at her sister.

‘Fanny?’ she frowned, pushing her way back through the snow. ‘What is it?’

‘Man,’ was all Fanny could muster.

A dart of horror shuddered through Ling’s body. Could it be the engine driver, for no one knew what had become of him? Had the poor man been so disorientated by the blizzard that he had walked round in circles and perished alone, out on the moor yet within yards of the train? Ling made her way back to Elliott, her heart pounding, and whispered in his ear. His concerned eyes met hers and then, without a word to the others, who were now finding their tongues and congratulating themselves on their survival, he began to force a path through the snow in the direction Ling had indicated.

Ling watched him go, a horrible sinking feeling in her belly. And then she heard Elliott’s voice raised in delight and the amazed calls of another human being. Ling stumbled forward in the channel Elliott had created through the drift, astonished then as the level of snow suddenly dropped to no more than a few inches. And there, a mere two hundred yards from the train, a farmer was busy extricating some sheep from another deep drift and had now stopped to greet with pure astonishment the stranger approaching him across the white wilderness. Rescue was at hand! And Ling’s fears that Fanny might go into labour on the train dissolved as Elliott and the farmer came towards her.

‘Farmer Hilson,’ he introduced himself. ‘Proper mazed, I be! Had no idea you was yere. Cas’n see the train under that there heap o’ snow, and us only yards away.’

‘Not surprising with that blizzard,’ Elliott said.

‘What a night!’ Farmer Hilson replied.

‘
Two
nights.’

‘What! You’m been stuck in that there train since Monday?’

‘And we’ve three other ladies on board.’

‘Well, ’tis lucky my farm be not too far away. You must all come home to me. Accounted for all the sheep, I has, though I reckon there’ll be plenty of other farmers who cas’n. So let’s get they other womenfolk off the train.’

He led the way back to the carriage. Ling’s legs were unsteady, and a grateful wave of pleasure rushed through her as Elliott took her arm. Did he know how she felt? Her admiration for his intelligence and worldliness rekindled, and now strengthened with the desires and yearnings of adulthood? Did he feel the same, or would he be horrified to know how she was drawn – nay, confused – by his masculinity when she was married to another man? But what did it matter? It was too late. She had been betrayed long ago, and this interlude would soon,
must
soon, be forgotten.

‘Careful now, miss,’ Sergeant Watts warned, but, with the help of the men, Fanny climbed down safely from the carriage. It was only when they turned back to assist Mrs Watts that Fanny suddenly hunched her shoulders over her jutting abdomen and released a squeal of pain.

Ling’s heart contracted. ‘Elliott!’ she breathed as Fanny turned her wide, cornflower blue eyes on her.

Elliott was instantly at her side. ‘Now there, Fanny,’ he said, so calmly that Ling at once felt the salve soothing her apprehension. ‘Lean on me and breathe slowly and deeply. Like this. Breathe with me.’

Fanny seemed instantly relaxed, and Ling felt that terrible pang of emptiness. If only she’d had Elliott to deliver her first stillborn child. If only she’d had
some
medical help, but there had been no time to fetch a doctor, the prison surgeon only arriving when it was all over. At least Barney had been right in wanting to get Fanny somewhere where care was available, even if it was within the austere and loveless walls of the workhouse. But, if only . . .

‘There. It’s easing off now,’ Elliott announced as his palm rested on Fanny’s stomach. ‘That’s your first contraction. It means your baby’s on the way. So the sooner we get to this farmhouse the better.’

They made a motley band, lurching through the deep snow. Tired, numb with cold, almost beyond hunger. Sergeant Watts was virtually carrying his wife, who had collapsed from exhaustion, and Private Hancock came to his assistance. Samuel Palk managed to chivvy along Mrs Huggins, who had become oddly quiet, and young Edward Worth was moaning loudly about dereliction of duty at having to abandon his mailbags.

Fanny struggled on, supported on one side by Elliott and on the other by Ling, who refused to leave her sister’s side despite Farmer Hilson’s attempts to take her place. Oh, thank God Elliott was there! And the last Ling saw as they turned their backs on the train was the adjoining compartment, which had not had its cracks and crevices stuffed with handkerchiefs and paper. It was so strange, uncanny, for the seats were almost indistinguishable from the floor, encased in a solid block of white, which clung in strange and wonderful shapes to the wire-mesh of the luggage racks. And Ling realized with a shudder of horror just how close to death they had come.

‘Ling!’

Elliott’s urgent whisper roused Ling from an almost unconscious sleep. Earlier, to Farmer Hilson’s wife’s astonishment, her husband had waved the exhausted passengers into the massive kitchen. After a hearty breakfast with endless mugs of steaming tea, the party had quickly recovered from its ordeal. Following a brief rest, the gentlemen and tough Mrs Huggins set out on foot, the latter declaring that a little snow never hurt anyone and that she was looking forward to walking through the magical land into which the moor had been transformed. Only Mrs Watts remained, so frail that the kindly farmer’s wife had put her to bed in one of the upstairs rooms, Sergeant Watts staying at the farmhouse to take care of her.

Though her labour was only in its early stages, Fanny’s contractions were growing more frequent, and Mr and Mrs Hilson had given up their own bedroom, it being the largest in the house. Elliott had examined Fanny with such swift dexterity that her embarrassment was over almost before it began, and then to Ling’s relief she’d dropped instantly into the sleep of the dead.

Ling had sunk slowly into the depths of an old but comfortable armchair, and at long last, she’d been able to succumb to her exhaustion. Her stomach had been fluttering nervously, holding her in a remorseless grip until her restless mind could take no more and she’d slipped into an abyss so deep that there was nothing but black, thoughtless stillness. So when Elliott roused her, her wandering eyes focused on his face in total bewilderment for some seconds before everything fell into place.

‘What’s the matter?’ she demanded, cringing that in her anxiety her tone sounded quite rude and blunt, when Elliott,
dear
Elliott, had been caring for her sister while she slept on. For several hours, apparently, as it was already getting dark again.

Elliott put out a hand, resting it reassuringly on her arm, and for a few delicious seconds that shaft of warmth overwhelmed her once more.

‘Nothing to worry about,’ Elliott was saying in a low voice. ‘You know I said the baby’s head wasn’t properly engaged? I’d expected it to move down as labour progressed, but she’s almost fully dilated and the baby’s presenting with a shoulder. She’s going to want to push soon, but she mustn’t until I’ve moved the head into the correct position. So I want you to help her, talk to her, anything to stop her pushing. Just wish I had some nitrous oxide – laughing gas – to help her.’

Ling was listening intently. She was ready to lavish all her frustrated love on the baby her sister was about to bring into the world, but what if . . . what if the infant didn’t survive or dear, sweet, vulnerable Fanny gave her own life in the process? The idea was unthinkable.

‘Ling, listen to me.’ Elliott’s tone was touched with a sharp authority. ‘It’s by no means the first time I’ve done this. It really isn’t a problem, but I do need you to help. She trusts you more than anyone in the world. And
you
need to trust
me
.’

Ling gazed back at him. Yes, she trusted Elliott implicitly. A moan drew her to the bed, and she took Fanny’s outstretched hand as another contraction clamped the girl’s bulging abdomen. And then Elliott was there, issuing instructions as he gently manoeuvred the baby into a better position.

‘All right now, Fanny. On the next one, you can push.’

She did. Though she screamed and gripped Ling’s hand with excruciating force, Elliott encouraged them throughout with progress reports, and within half an hour a wriggling, squirming, miniature human being slithered into the world.

A little girl. Who cried healthily as the young doctor examined her gently and expertly. Then he wrapped her in the shawl Mrs Hilson had provided, and handed her to her astonished and overwhelmed mother while he got on with the business of delivering the afterbirth and stitching the neat little nick he had made to stop Fanny tearing as the head was delivered. Fanny scarcely noticed his attentions, her rapt eyes fixed on the minuscule form in her arms: downy, blood-smeared hair stuck to her skull; button nose; pale, wrinkled eyes; and tiny, rosebud mouth, which finally stretched in a toothless yawn and went on working even when the eyelids had closed in sleep. Ling watched, lost in wonderment, her cheeks wet with tears of joy – and grief that this was what she had been denied.