A Dream Rides By
Authors: Tania Anne Crosse
| A Dream Rides By |
| Tania Anne Crosse |
| Severn House (2012) |
A captivating saga of thwarted passions, set in nineteenth-century Devon - In August 1883, the first steam train on the new Princetown branch line makes its halting passage across Dartmoor, stopping near the quarrymen’s hamlet of Foggintor. For Ling Southcott and her young sister, Fanny, this is a momentous event, for the railway will connect their isolated village to the neighbouring town of Tavistock, and even Plymouth. Ling realizes that the arrival of the railway has the power to change her life, by making the outside world accessible.
Table of Contents
MORWELLHAM’S CHILD
THE RIVER GIRL
LILY’S JOURNEY
CHERRYBROOK ROSE
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A BOUQUET OF THORNS
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A DREAM RIDES BY
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available from Severn House
Tania Crosse
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
First published in Great Britain 2009 by
SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of
9-15 High Street, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM1 1DF.
First published in the USA 2010 by
SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS of
110 East 59th Street, New York, N.Y. 10022
eBook edition first published in 2013 by Severn House Digital
an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited
Copyright © 2009 by Tania Crosse.
The right of Tania Crosse to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Crosse, Tania Anne.
A Dream Rides By.
1. Railroads–England–Dartmoor–History–19th century–
Fiction 2. Teachers’ assistants–Fiction 3. Railroad
accidents–Fiction 4. Dartmoor (England)–Social
conditions–19th century–Fiction 5. Love stories.
I. Title
823.9'2-dc22
ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-377-8 (epub)
ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-6843-5 (cased)
ISBN-13: 978-1-84751-183-6 (trade paper)
Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.
This eBook produced by
Palimpsest Book Production Limited,
Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland.
For the Uxbridge Folk.
And, as always, for my dear husband, who helped me
catch my dreams.
With grateful thanks to my publishers and my agent for bringing this work to fruition. Once again, I must thank my good friend, Paul Rendell, Dartmoor guide and historian and editor of
The Dartmoor News
, for all his input and loans from his private library. In particular, my deep gratitude goes to Dr Marshall Barr, retired physician and co-founder of the Berkshire Medical Heritage Centre, for his help with the medical matters in the story. And, finally, railway historian Nick Luff filled me in on details concerning the Princetown Railway. My thanks to you all.
One
‘Oh, Fanny! Now look what you’ve done!’ Ling Southcott sighed in exasperation. She and her mother had spent all morning washing the laundry they took in from The Saracen’s Head, the isolated coaching inn three miles away slap in the middle of Dartmoor. It was August, and heating the required gallons of water on the range in the downstairs room of the one up, one down workman’s cottage had made their red faces stream with sweat. It was a case of running back and forth to empty the pans into the washtubs outside, adding the soap flakes and the dirty linen, and plunging the wooden dolly up and down in a pall of steam. The snowy material was then rolled through the mangle and rinsed in fresh water, ready to be put through the mangle yet again. And now, as they pegged the washing on the lines that were strung across what was known as Big Tip, Fanny had dropped a pillowcase on the ground and was staring out across the moor.
Ling bit her tongue. It was hard to be angry with Fanny. As well as being partially deaf, she wasn’t quite ‘all there’, as their mother would say with a patient shake of her head. It was such a pity. A gentle, pretty child she was, like an angel. Everyone who lived at the quarrymen’s hamlet of Foggintor, high up on the lonely, windswept wastes of western Dartmoor, knew and loved her, and made allowances for her affliction. Everyone except Harry Spence, who was the bane of everyone’s life. Ling still had the remnants of a bruise on her eye from a recent scrap with him when she had felt the need to protect her vulnerable little sister from his lewd mockery. And now her heart softened as she looked from the soiled pillowcase to the slip of a girl standing motionless beside her.
‘What is it, Fanny?’ she asked as Fanny silently raised her thin arm and pointed. It was the kind of action she often performed in her muted world, her fascination drawn by a butterfly, a wheatear fluttering from stone to stone, or a buzzard circling overhead. But there was something in her expression that made Ling follow the direction of her sister’s gaze.
Her own eyes almost bolted from her head. Big Tip was literally that, a colossal mound of waste granite from the quarry accumulated over decades. The top of the dump extended outwards on the same level as the cottage gardens, and from the washing lines there was an uninterrupted view across the barren moorland. Ling’s deep, hazel eyes focused on something moving slowly around the base of King Tor, puffing little clouds of smoke as it chugged up the steady incline towards the far end of the Foggintor quarry settlement.
The very first steam train on the new Princetown Railway!
Ling’s heart gave a bound of excitement. Over the past two years, they had watched the track being constructed across the moor to the terminal at the prison settlement two miles away at Princetown. She had read that at the bottom end, the line swung westward to join the existing Great Western Railway at Horrabridge, connecting passengers to the main line and the entire national network. Oh, what a difference it was going to make to their restricted lives!
Ling beamed across at Fanny, her face illuminated with the spark of mischief that frequently heralded some mad escapade. ‘Look! A train!’ she called to anyone who might be listening, and grasping Fanny’s hand, ran with her towards the quadrangle of little cottages.
‘Mother! It’s the train!’ she yelled gleefully as they scudded past the long, narrow gardens that radiated from the outer side of the square. In the gardens grew row upon row of vegetables, essential for supplementing the men’s meagre wages. Ling saw her mother look up in amazement as she bailed out the water from the washtubs with an old enamel jug. But Ling didn’t wait for a reply and instead raced with Fanny to the end of the gardens and skidded around the corner.
It seemed that they weren’t the only ones to have spotted the train, even though it was well camouflaged against the green and brown of the moor and was really only distinguishable by the grey-white smoke coming from the steam-engine chimney. The news had spread in moments. It was shortly after midday on Saturday, and as the men and boys who worked in the massive amphitheatres of Foggintor quarry knocked off for their well-earned half-day they joined Ling and Fanny as they made their way towards the post-and-wire fencing that separated the railway track from the surrounding moor.
‘We’d better wait for your mother,’ Arthur Southcott told his daughters as he found them in the gathering crowd, and Ling turned impatiently to watch her mother pant up behind them.
‘Well, I never did!’ Mary exclaimed as she reached them. ‘All they delays over the past weeks, and now the thing arrives totally unannounced! We could’ve missed it!’
‘Best hurry then!’ Arthur called to his family, and they ran along the wide path, laughing and joking and making a grand commotion as they joined the other men and their wives and children, all anxious to see the first great iron horse to conquer the rugged heights of Dartmoor.
‘Well, this’ll be a day to remember! August eleventh, 1883! Summat to tell our grandchildren one day, eh, Arthur, don’t you think?’
Ling looked up at the beaming face of her father’s best friend, Ambrose Tippet, but she was damned if she was going to stand at the back of the crowd to witness this historic moment!
‘Get out of the way, Barney Mayhew, you great lummox! Let the little ones see!’ she said as she gathered up the smaller children and ushered them to the front.
The healthy, glowing face of the young lad blocking her way split with a grin. ‘Not till you gi’e us a kiss, Miss Southcott,’ he teased.
Ling gave a light giggle and planted a hearty kiss on his cheek. A chorus of jaunty ribaldry bantered about them, for everyone knew that Barney and Ling were walking out. Besides, this was a moment of deep joy and expectation, and everyone was in convivial mood.
Barney obediently stood back, and Ling felt his dark eyes, full of admiration, upon her. The children, Barney’s two younger brothers among them, all stood in an orderly line under her direction. She was proud to have their respect as their school assistant. She loved her work and tried to make afternoon school – when she was in charge – everyone’s favourite time, singing and playing learning games with her pupils. Her heart would swell as, out of the corner of her eye, she caught Mr Norrish, the school teacher, looking on approvingly while he supervised the little tykes who had been naughty in the morning and so had to repeat their formal lessons instead.
‘I’m really proud of you, you know,’ Mr Norrish had said, taking her aside when she had shortly been expecting to leave the schoolroom behind for ever. ‘Always stood out from the rest, you have. And I’ve really enjoyed those extra history and geography lessons I’ve given you after school each day. You’ve taught both your parents to read and write, and you’ve even cultivated your speech. So, how would you like to become my assistant? You know how Mrs Warrington is so keen on schooling for the little ones? Well, she’s willing to pay you four shillings a week.’
That had been nearly three years ago, but the vivid memory flashed like a beacon across Ling’s brain. It was no time for such thoughts now, though, as she eagerly watched the smoke-snorting engine labouring along the track. She knew it would not be stopping since there was no station here, just a siding where it was planned that goods trains would call three days a week to transport the stone. Any passengers from Foggintor would be obliged to walk into Princetown before they could ride in one of the carriages that were trundling towards them now. The clattering engine was looming larger and larger, gathering speed as the track became less steep, the wheels turning faster, clickety-clack, on the metal rails. On spying the festive throng, the driver blew the whistle three times, and the gigantic train thundered past with a whooshing roar, making the ground tremble beneath the spectators’ feet. Some threw their caps in the air, others waved with abandon to the dignitaries on board, children squealed with delight or screamed in terror. And then it was gone, wending its way, quite straight now after its tortuous climb, to the end of its journey.