A Dream Rides By (5 page)

Not that she would have stopped him, Elliott had said, grinning with the unassuming confidence Ling had already become familiar with, just as if, she mused, she had known him all her life rather than just a few hours. And now that short, bitter-sweet time was over. The last ember of the final firework had dissipated into the black velvet of the night, and the spectators were dispersing – some homeward, while others were ambling towards the recreation room for the celebration dance.

‘Come along, girls.’ Arthur smiled at his daughters. ‘’Tis time we was getting you home.’

‘I’ll fetch my horse, then, for Ling to ride.’

‘’Tis most kind of you, young man.’

‘The pleasure’s all mine. I’ve enjoyed myself immensely.’

Ling watched through a shroud of sadness as Elliott wove his way through the crowd. Fanny was still bubbling with excitement over the fireworks, and Arthur, as a quarryman who had worked with explosives all his life, was musing as to how the gunpowder was turned to such artistic usage.

For once, the Dartmoor air was still, and the smoke from the fireworks hung in a dense, acrid cloud. As Ling, seated on Ghost, her family and Elliott followed down the side of the fenced railway track, the sounds of the continuing celebrations gradually died away. The nocturnal silence of the moor was broken only by the steady plodding of Ghost’s hooves and the occasional haunting call of a distant owl or the bark of a hunting fox. The little troop found itself cloaked in the secret mystery of the lonely upland as if the legendary Dartmoor pixies really were lurking behind every exposed granite boulder they passed. And when a group of Devon cattle loomed out of the murk, Fanny let out a squeal of fear.

‘She’s very nervy, your sister,’ Elliott observed hesitantly, keeping his voice low so as not to be overheard. ‘And she’s a little deaf if I’m not mistaken.’

‘Yes,’ Ling answered, daring to lean down a little as she was growing used to the feel of Ghost’s movement beneath her. ‘It was measles. And she’s, well, a little slow, I suppose you might say.’

‘I’m so sorry to hear that.’ Elliott released a heartfelt sigh as he watched the back of the pretty child who was walking a few yards ahead of them between her parents. ‘Some of these illnesses can have such devastating effects. Maybe one day they’ll invent a vaccine against some of them, like we have for smallpox. I really admire the way some doctors work on cures for diseases, or just understanding what causes them in the first place. Often it’s just hit and miss, so I’m full of admiration for their patience and tenacity. Not my cup of tea, I’m afraid. I prefer to work with patients rather than test tubes. It’s so frustrating, though, when there are so many people that you just can’t help.’

Ling nodded in reply. Elliott’s caring nature shone from him in every way, and Ling deeply appreciated his attitude towards her sister, when people like Harry Spence still took pleasure from making fun of her.

‘Fanny’s learnt quite a lot at school, mind,’ she told Elliott confidentially. ‘And I give her extra help at home when she needs it.’

‘I can see you’re very close. And what about you? What aspirations do
you
have for the future?’

‘Me? Oh, I hadn’t really thought.’ Ling felt herself blush at his interest. She didn’t want to tell him the truth: that she supposed she would marry Barney and have his children and be a poor quarryman’s wife for the rest of her days. So far, Elliott had no reason to think that she and Barney were walking out, and somehow she wanted to keep it that way, as if it would ruin the romanticism of the day if he knew. ‘I really enjoy teaching,’ she said instead. ‘I think I’d just like to go on doing that.’

‘Well, it’s good to know what you want to do with your life. Like me and my course.’

‘Yes, I suppose it is,’ Ling muttered almost to herself. The reminder that their relationship, such as it was, was drawing to a close, filled her with dismay as they left the railway track and turned towards the hamlet at Foggintor. A glimmer of light flickered from the upstairs window of the manager’s house, shedding a supernatural dimness on their path and making the way a little easier to see.

‘Until today I had no idea there was a village here,’ Elliott admitted, his voice low in case there were people already abed. ‘I saw the train coming round the bend and wondered about crossing the moor to get to it. And then I saw the track and found myself here. It’s dreadfully isolated.’

‘Yes, but we have each other. And the railway will be so good for us. It was really built for the quarries and the prison, but it’ll be wonderful for passengers as well.’

There was no time for Elliott to comment as Arthur, Mary and Fanny were waiting by the pathway.

‘Thank you so much for everything,’ Arthur said, shaking Elliott’s hand. ‘I think Ling can manage now. ’Tis only a few yards.’

‘No, no. I insist on taking her to your front door.’

Ling was gripped by a sudden panic. She didn’t want Elliott to see their humble abode. He had treated her like an equal, but the tiny cottage was so cramped and lowly that it would accentuate horribly the differences between their backgrounds. Differences that could never be bridged, and she wanted to hug the dream, unspoilt, to her heart for ever.

‘I can manage, honestly,’ she protested.

‘No. I really don’t want you putting any weight on that ankle for several days. If you tripped again, I’d never forgive myself.’

He led Ghost forward, following between the two sets of cottages. Ling held her breath. This was it. Before she knew it, Elliott had lifted her down from the saddle and was carrying her up the garden path, past Arthur’s immaculate rows of vegetables and through the yard where earlier that day, she and her mother, with Fanny’s dubious assistance, had sweated over another consignment of laundry. Thank goodness there was no sign of it now. She didn’t mind Elliott believing that her father’s skills provided them with a decent life. But she didn’t want him knowing that, despite what she herself earned as the school assistant, her mother had to take in washing so that they could maintain a reasonable standard of living.

Elliott’s eyes swept about the small, spartan room, not judging it but looking for somewhere to deposit his burden. There was no such thing as an armchair, only a rustic settle and four kitchen chairs around the table, one of which Arthur pulled out for him. Ling felt the shame burn in her cheeks, relieved that at least the straw palliasse she slept on was stored out of sight during the day.

‘Well, I’d better be off,’ Elliott announced, and Ling’s heart groaned. ‘Keep off your foot for some days and keep it elevated as much as possible.’

‘Yes, I will,’ she promised, though inside she was aching. ‘And you take care on the way home.’

‘I’ll follow the track along to the main road, so I’ll be all right. I won’t get lost and, with any luck, there might even be some moonlight.’

‘Well, thank you, Elliott.’ She almost choked as she used his name for the first – and last – time. ‘For everything. And especially for saving my life.’

‘Don’t mention it. Goodbye, then, Ling. And I hope your ankle recovers soon.’

And he was lost from her view as her parents wished him well and showed him out of the door.

‘What an extraordinary day!’ Arthur declared. ‘Now, up to bed with you, Fanny. ’Tis very late.’

And before too long, Ling was snuggled up on her mattress on the floor. She couldn’t sleep, turning the day’s events over in her mind. The massive engine came back to her then, huge and horrific and ready to crush her in its hungry jowls. Her heart raced with crippling terror at what had so very nearly happened. And then the handsome face of her saviour swam into her weary mind and tears of regret trickled down her cheeks.

Barney Mayhew cavorted around the dance floor with all elegance of a prize bull. He was broad of shoulder and strong, and you couldn’t have it all ways. He was proud of his physique, of the hard nature of his work at the quarry. And you wouldn’t catch him dandying up and down the room as he was convinced that milksop would have done if he’d been there and not gone off to fetch his white charger to take Ling home on, just like some bloody knight in shining armour! Oh, yes, Barney had seen them as he had waited in the queue at the doors to the recreation room, and resentment had seethed within him. It wasn’t Ling’s fault, of course. It was her father’s, dismissing him from the room like that. Not that he could blame him, he supposed. He liked and respected Arthur Southcott. He had been happy to pass on his skills, a better, steadier worker than his own father.

No. It was that bloody foppish rake who had ruined everything! A second later and it would have been Barney down there on the railway track, dragging Ling clear of the train. Wasn’t he furious at himself, at his own inability to move a muscle, so shocked had he been? He had felt sickened to the pit of his stomach, and the vision of the roaring, hissing monster about to crush his darling . . . He couldn’t help his own natural reaction, the vicious trembling that had paralysed him.

A lump the size of an apple swelled in his throat. Dear God, he loved Ling so much, and, when all was said and done, he should be thanking the young gentleman, whoever he was, from the bottom of his heart for saving his beloved girl. He hadn’t realized he had stopped still, the swirling dancers spinning past him unnoticed, as he imagined the horror of his life without Ling, of a gravestone, perhaps cut by his own hand, with her name . . .

But if only the knave who had saved her in his place not been so young and good-looking and a
bloody doctor!
Well, he couldn’t be a
proper
doctor, even Barney could work that one out, as he only looked a few years older than himself. But, damn him, he had clearly impressed the Southcotts – and Ling, too, by the starry-eyed way she had been looking at him. Barney had been so looking forward to spending the festive day with her and to the romantic atmosphere he was sure the evening would create. And when he thought about it, everything had been ruined by that idiot, Harry Spence. Oh, Barney could cheerfully murder him!

‘You’m not still angered with us, are you?’

‘Pardon?’

Ling blinked thoughtfully. It was Saturday morning two and a half weeks after the grand celebrations to mark the opening of the railway, and Ling was thinking of the young gentleman who had saved her life and whom she had not clapped eyes on again since he had ridden off into the darkness.

The weather had been glorious for the past week, and Ling had sat outside with her leg elevated, unable to assist her mother with the laundry. She had devoured the newspapers and had been shocked to read about the eruption of Krakatoa and its dreadful consequences. But that was on the other side of the world, and her young mind kept drifting back to the realms of fantasy, daydreaming of how life might be as a doctor’s wife.

Even now as she was trying out her ankle, she could see Elliott’s concerned face. It seemed to obliterate everything about her, from the men calling to each other to the clanking of hammer on anvil in the nearby smithy, where Jake Stevens and his boy would be sharpening drill-bits and chisels and mending links in the huge chains that were used on the cranes. So, when Barney had hailed her, his voice had sliced through her reverie and brought her, reluctantly, back from another world. She sighed with a helpless sense of futility, folding the dream away as she dragged herself back to the present.

‘I said, I hope you’m not still angered,’ Barney repeated. ‘’Twasn’t my fault, you knows. ’Twas Harry Spence, larking about like the soft idjit he is. Pushed us, he did, and—’

‘Of course I don’t blame you, silly.’

‘Really? You’m certain? I mean, you’ve bin proper distant—’

‘Have I?’ She felt her cheeks flame crimson as she prayed he wouldn’t guess at her innermost thoughts. Ridiculous, the aspirations that kept wandering into her head. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, Barney. I don’t mean to be. It was just all such a shock—’

‘Barney? Oh, there you are! Skiving as usual. Come on, lad, work’s not over yet. I needs your help with that there bench we blasted earlier. Oh, good-day, you. How’s that foot?’

‘Much better, thank you, Mr Mayhew.’ Ling nodded at Barney’s father, and out of the corner of her eye she saw Barney pull a mocking face, for if anyone ever shirked his duties it was Mr Mayhew himself!

‘Good to hear it,’ the man grumbled, not sounding the least pleased. ‘Come on then, Barney. Work to be done.’

As Barney turned to follow him, Ling heard the heavy rumbling of the train as it passed the quarries on its winding descent towards Horrabridge. The sound sent a strange shudder down her spine. Her adventurous heart was yearning to take a ride in one of the splendid carriages, and yet her desire was tempered with the memory that the railway had very nearly taken her life.

‘Tell the time by that there train,’ Barney grinned. ‘Pity ’tis not arter us finishes for the arternoon, mind. Us could’ve gone into Tavistock to look at that there new swimming baths. Mind you, ’tis a daft idea if you ask me. What does us want to larn to swim for?’

He ran after his father and Ling shook her head with a smile. The idea of the town’s swimming pool, opened exactly a week ago, appealed to her sense of fun. Perhaps she could take Fanny one day when her ankle was better. She had read in the newspaper that it only cost tuppence and you could hire bathing suits. It would be lovely to splash about in the water and learn to swim, and perhaps she might meet Elliott in the town and . . .

But then there was the train fare. Ling’s heart sank. They lived comfortably but there was never a penny to spare, and none of them wanted to take in lodgers as Widow Rodgers next door had to. She and her two young daughters slept in the bedroom while their two stonemason lodgers slept downstairs on a mattress. Ling knew her father would never submit to such invasion of his privacy.

Ling tossed her head. She must stop these pipe dreams, these ideas above her station. It was just because of a few hours spent in Elliott Franfield’s company, one chance meeting. She was nothing more than a quarryman’s daughter who, one day, would be a quarryman’s wife. Barney’s wife.