Authors: Tania Anne Crosse
When Fanny appeared in the doorway, the tirade of disapprobation died on Ling’s lips. Fanny resembled a little waif, her shoulders drooping and her blue eyes, far too large for her pinched, heart-shaped face, red-rimmed with tears. Clearly something was horribly wrong, and deep compassion drove the anger from Ling’s breast.
‘What on earth’s the matter?’
She felt herself trembling as she stepped forward. Fanny was in a pitiable state, strands of hair that had come loose from the single plait down her back falling wild and unkempt about her face. Ling swallowed hard. Oh, no! Surely to God Fanny hadn’t . . . hadn’t been . . .?
‘You’ve not been attacked?’ she blurted out in horror.
Fanny at once reared away, her face taking on a shuttered look. ‘Oh, no. Nort like that.’ She pushed past Ling and sat down decisively on the settle.
Ling watched her, eyebrows knitted. The worst hadn’t happened, but something else had, and she felt sick with fear.
Fanny looked up again, this time with her chin tilted defiantly. ‘I were only doing the same as you,’ she said boldly. ‘Only, unlike Barney, he won’t marry me. I only wanted a home of my own. ’Tis not such a bad thing to want, is it?’
Ling rocked on her feet and staggered forward blindly, somehow finding a chair to sink on to before she collapsed with shock. Fanny was pregnant. Her sweet, innocent little sister was pregnant. Was she sure? Fanny’s monthlies weren’t monthly at all: they were few and far between, more irregular even than Ling’s own erratic cycle. But when Ling thought about it, the only rags to have been boiled up to remove the stains the entire summer had been her own. And she had noticed that Fanny had been putting on a little weight, growing more curvaceous, but Ling had put it down to maturity. Then she thought of the times Fanny had looked pasty first thing in the morning, though that had passed now. Good Lord! She must be, what, four months gone by now? Oh, the stupid little cow! But then Ling bent under the cruel weight of her own shame. She had been guilty of the very same sin, and Fanny had merely followed her example. Only, Fanny was too ignorant, too simple, to recognize the difference in their situations. She and Barney had been betrothed. In love. But then she supposed Fanny had believed herself to be in love and her seducer in love with her. It was clearly far from the truth!
‘What’s going on? I saw Fanny come back, running like the devil hissel’ were arter her.’
Ling’s eyes swivelled round to meet the anxiety on Barney’s face. She wanted to run into the comfort of his arms, but it wouldn’t change anything. What had happened couldn’t be undone. ‘Fanny’s having a baby,’ she murmured flatly, since she couldn’t think of any other way to say it.
She saw the blood drain from Barney’s weather-browned cheeks. ‘What!’
‘We shouldn’t be cross with her,’ Ling said defensively. ‘She was copying what . . . we did. She thought . . . you thought he loved you, didn’t you, Fanny?’ she prompted as Fanny’s wide, innocent eyes moved from one to the other of them, as if she was nothing to do with what they were discussing. ‘Only, he didn’t,’ Ling concluded briefly. ‘And now he won’t marry her.’
‘Oh, he won’t, won’t he? We’ll soon see about that! So, who was it, Fanny? Who be the father?’
Fanny was visibly cowed beneath Barney’s threatening attitude, and Ling caught his arm. ‘Don’t frighten her, Barney. She’s frightened enough already.’
But Barney shrugged off Ling’s hand. ‘Who was it, Fanny?’ he demanded.
‘He said I weren’t to tell,’ Fanny said, sniffling as her tears began afresh. ‘He said ’twas our little secret.’
‘I bet he bloody did!’ Barney cried in a fit of rage. ‘Well, there be only one person round yere I knows who be cowardly and devious enough to take advantage of Fanny being so . . . so naive, and that be Harry Spence! ’Twas him, weren’t it, Fanny?’
But Fanny merely buried her face in her hands.
‘Leave her be, Barney. We mustn’t blame her.’
‘I doesn’t. That bloody bastard would’ve led her on, the filthy varmint. But I’ll damned well make sure he pays for it, the low down scum!’ And, with that, he spun on his heel and thundered out of the door.
The silence in his wake was heavy and oppressive. Ling felt weak at the knees, the situation raking up all the guilt and pain her own unplanned pregnancy had caused. At least Fanny hadn’t been responsible for the tragic deaths of their parents!
Ling knelt down in front of Fanny and took her hands. ‘Don’t worry, little maid. It isn’t so bad. We’ll sort something out.’
Fanny lifted her tear-stained face. ‘I’m sorry, Ling. I really believed him. And I didn’t . . . I didn’t like doing . . . you knows. ’Tweren’t nice and it hurt. But he said ’twould show I loved ’en. And other than that, he were always so kind to me, and he gave me all those pretty things.’
Ling’s heart ached as she closed her arms about her sister. How could anyone be so callous as to trick a child like Fanny? She had never liked Harry Spence, for, like Barney, she was convinced he was the culprit. He’d always been mean and untrustworthy. It was because of his stupidity that she had nearly been crushed beneath the railway engine. He knew it and yet had always resented Barney telling the truth about it. And it was Barney who had aroused the suspicions about that stolen money. Ling had decided long ago that Harry was jealous of Barney. Was this his twisted way of getting back at him?
When Barney returned, he flung himself on to a chair, resting his elbows on his knees and rubbing his hands over his face before looking up darkly. ‘He denies it, of course,’ he said, sighing dejectedly. ‘Had the gall to grin at me and say what should I expect with someone as dim-witted as Fanny? I laid him flat cuz o’ that, and he still denied it. Said he hadn’t seen Fanny since the day of the flood.’
‘I hardly think that’s true. But I reckon it had already happened by then. I don’t suppose she went to look at the river at all. She went to see him. I’ve no doubt it was brave of him to save her from the water, but it would have suited him too. Made him a hero in her eyes, and she’ll not betray him.’
A resentful grunt escaped Barney’s throat. He stood up again, and as she was arranging the table he turned Fanny round to face him, his hands on her shoulders. ‘Listen, Fanny. I’m not cross with you. But if you says who the father is, it may be possible to at least get him to take some responsibility for the child.’
Fanny stared up at him, her eyes watery pools. ‘I cas’n,’ she answered honestly. ‘He said he’d kill me.’
Ling watched Barney close his eyes. ‘’Tis all the answer I needed,’ he mumbled.
Ling came up behind him and rested her cheek on his shoulder. ‘I wouldn’t want Fanny married to a man like that, anyway. Would you? We can take care of her, can’t we, and the child? We can’t have one of our own, so maybe we should see this as a blessing.’
Barney turned round and encircled her in his strong arms. ‘If ’twill make you happy,’ he said and smiled with such ineffable love that she began to cry.
Ling’s eyelids flickered open. She had come home for their frugal lunch and had nodded off on the settle by the warmth of the range. She had been dreaming she was walking along some beautiful foreign shore, her bare feet sinking in golden, sun-drenched sand and lapped by gentle, lazy waves. She felt soothed and relaxed, and the reality of the spartan room and the angry wind that was beginning to tear at the little cottage struck her like a sledgehammer. She was unaware of the wistful sigh that whined from her lungs. She would never visit such exotic climes. That in itself did not bother her. But if she showed Barney photographs of such places in the books she borrowed from the library, describing how she envisaged the images in colour, the sun beating on her shoulders and the smell of the sea and hot sand, he would look at her as if she were crazed. He would shrug, kiss the top of her head, and announce that he was off to play euchre with his mates, taking another coin from their now sadly depleted nest-egg.
She sagged against the back of the settle, wanting to hold on to the comforting dream a little longer. Yet as she observed Fanny through half-shut eyes, it was already slipping away. From behind, her sister was as tiny and ethereal as ever, so when she turned round to reveal her jutting stomach it was still quite a shock. Once they had given up on trying to drag the father’s identity from her, Fanny had appeared to blossom. In her childlike world, she seemed ignorant of the stigma her illegitimate baby would cause. Here at Foggintor she was one of the fold; nearly everyone felt protective towards the simple creature they had known since she was a child herself, and who had been duped by some callous blackguard.
Ling’s lips moved into a bitter line. While Fanny was bearing a child she could well do without, Ling would never know the joys of motherhood herself, and her hopes had withered away, dragging her spirit with it. She would lavish all her love on Fanny’s child, but it wouldn’t be the same. Somehow she was beginning not to care any more. Everything was falling apart. Even Barney spent most of his spare time with his male companions nowadays. He worked hard on the orders that came to the quarry, but since the completion of the second Tavistock railway there was only call for smaller items. Gone were the days when the Dartmoor Quarries had supplied stone for far away London and such structures as Nelson’s Column or the Houses of Parliament. Trade trickled on, the quarrymen only just managing to earn an honest crust. Ling couldn’t begrudge Barney time relaxing with his friends. He never came home drunk as some husbands did, but she could see their savings rapidly dwindling, not helped by Barney constantly having to help his father pay his rent. But they were surviving while others in the county starved, so she should be thankful for that. And if her dreams and aspirations had been shattered, she had accepted that years ago.
As Barney came in through the door, a vicious blast of air licked hungrily at whatever it could and tossed the curtains in the air. Barney quickly shut the door but even then the wind whistled beneath it, and Ling met Barney’s gaze as he warmed his hands by the range.
‘Food be on the table, Barney,’ Fanny said, smiling proudly. ‘And then would you mind if I takes a little rest on your bed?’
‘Course not. You goes on up,’ Barney mumbled as he sat down at the table. ‘That old wind be getting up. Strange when February were so calm and mild. But ’twould seem this month’s plunged us back into winter.’
Ling’s lips twitched. It was invariably windy up on the exposed ridge where the cottages were situated, and she had other matters on her mind. ‘I’m worried about Fanny,’ she said, her words low though Fanny was unlikely to hear from upstairs. ‘I reckon she’s near her time, and she’s so big and with her being so small-framed. And, well, I don’t think she’ll stand the pain. I know what it’s like.’ She lowered her eyes, her voice petering into a thin trail. ‘I’ve been there myself. But never with a full-term child,’ she went on more strongly now. ‘And I’m worried it’s too big for her. We could end up losing her as well as the baby.’
Barney finished chewing and swallowed, washing down the morsel of food with a swig of lukewarm tea. ‘So you wants her to have a doctor for the birth.’
‘I think she should see one
now
, before it comes. Being out here, if it comes at night—’
‘’Twill cost some,’ Barney considered.
‘I know. But we still have some of that money left.’
Barney looked up sharply. ‘But ’tis all we has. I works as hard as I can, you knows that, but trade could easily fall right off and we could have nort coming in for weeks. Us’d be relying on that money to survive.’
‘And there’d be a lot more of it left if you weren’t for ever paying the rent for that good-for-nothing father of yourn and wasting money on gambling!’
‘I doesn’t spend that much,’ Barney snapped defensively. ‘And ’tis my family we’re talking about yere.’
‘And Fanny’s my sister, and it’s her
life
that could be at risk. And if it weren’t for
my
connections with Mistress Rose, we wouldn’t have had that money in the first place.’ She shook her head agonizingly as she failed to hold back the words that had been sticking to her tongue for years. ‘Much as I love you, Barney, I sometimes wish to God I’d never had to leave the Warringtons and marry you. My life could have been so different and my parents might still have been alive!’
Barney stared at her aghast. His jaw dropped open and then snapped shut again in retaliation. ‘Well, if you thinks so highly of the great Warringtons, why doesn’t you go to them for help now?’
Ling glared at him, fists clenched at her sides. ‘I couldn’t possibly ask them after all they’ve done for me in the past! And have you no pride, Barney Mayhew? That money’s
mine
, and if I want to spend it on my sister’s health, then I will. Besides, if we go to the prison physician, it won’t cost as much as getting one from Tavistock.’
‘There bain’t one at present – at the prison, I means. Medical assistant but no proper doctor as I’ve yeard tell.’
‘Oh.’ Ling felt the anger deflate inside her and a niggling concern took its place, her thoughts now occupied with how to
find
a physician, never mind how to pay for one. Perhaps she would have to enlist Rose’s help after all.
‘Let’s not argue, Ling,’ Barney begged, taking her hand. ‘I’s certain there must be an answer. In fact . . . now don’t be angered with me, but, well, what about the workhouse?’
‘The workhouse!’
‘Why not? ’Tis not like it used to be. There be a special wing for having babbies for girls like Fanny. She don’t have no money of her own. And Walkhampton Parish be part of the union, so she qualifies. She’d be well cared for, and if she goes there now, afore the babby comes, ’twould solve the problem of fetching a doctor out yere. Could take hours, and, as you say, it could be too late.’
Ling frowned. She didn’t like the idea of leaving Fanny all alone in the bleak edifice at the top of Bannawell Street, but everything else Barney had said was undeniably true. ‘So how do I get her into the workhouse?’ she asked unsurely.
Barney sniffed and shook his head. ‘I’s not rightly sure. Back along, you had to apply to the Board of Guardians, but that were when ’twas for the able-bodied, I thinks they used to call it, and you had to prove you was destitute and couldn’t find work. But nowadays, I believes ’tis mainly for orphans and the old and infirm. And girls like Fanny. A letter from Mr Warren, being our preacher, might help, mind. But I reckon if you takes Fanny there and just leaves her on the doorstep, they’ll take her in. Anyways, I must get back to work while I can. ’Tis getting that windy, we might have to stop. Cas’n use the cranes in a gale.’