Authors: Tania Anne Crosse
‘Well, don’t panic, ladies,’ he said with quiet confidence. ‘The heating pipes might have gone cold, but there’s enough of us to keep sufficiently warm, and the lamp has enough paraffin to see us through the night if we turn it down low.’
‘I’s not worried. ’Tis quite an adventure as I sees it,’ Edward Worth chirped perkily. ‘Wouldn’t mind joining the army one day. What does you think, Sergeant Watts?’
‘Well, young fellow . . .’
The sergeant’s reply was masked by other conversations starting afresh among the stranded passengers. While others chatted on, Ling was trapped in her own thoughts. After all these years, when Elliott had faded into the shadow of her memory, she was now about to spend the night with him, albeit in the company of others. Her nerves were taut, her elation sadly tempered by stinging remorse. She was married to Barney. Whom she loved.
‘You’d already recognized me, hadn’t you?’ her lips whispered, formulating the question her mind was trying desperately to deny. ‘So why didn’t you say anything?’
She was staring at her hands and her neatly bound wrist, head bowed over her lap, so she did not notice the awkwardness on Elliott’s face.
‘I thought it best,’ he answered, his voice equally hushed. ‘I assumed you hadn’t wanted to keep in touch. Sometimes it’s better not to reawaken the past.’ His words were faltering as if he, too, regretted the lack of communication between them.
It was all Ling needed and she turned to him with a rueful smile. ‘What a pity Barney lost your address. You know . . .’ Should she go on? Might he guess the true depth of her feelings, the regret that even now was almost choking her? ‘I thought of you so often,’ she continued, wrenching the tortured admission from her throat. ‘We seemed to have so much in common. You know, I went to work for Mr and Mrs Warrington. You remember them?’
‘I do indeed. But surely you weren’t in service?’
She cast a coy smile at him. ‘No. As Mistress Rose’s companion, and then to help when baby Hal was born. It was the happiest time of my life. I learnt so much from them. Mister Seth was in the army out in India and he used to tell me all about it. And he was involved in the campaign to raise the Age of Consent. You must remember that. And he’s for ever lobbying everyone in Parliament about appeal rights for convicts. He says so often it’s poverty that brings men to crime, and they pay dearly for it.’
Her heart had soared at being able to discuss such matters again, grave though they were, but she was brought up short by the frown that creased Elliott’s forehead.
‘You can say that again,’ Elliott murmured. ‘I’ve just come from the prison. They’ve no MO at present, so I’ve been standing in. I’ve just had to oversee a flogging, and, I tell you, it’s the most barbaric thing I’ve ever witnessed. I know it isn’t administered lightly nowadays, but surely they can devise less sadistic methods of punishment?’
Ling shuddered at the sickening image. This was 1891, and shouldn’t there be an answer to so many injustices? ‘I don’t suppose the world will ever be perfect,’ she replied sombrely, and no one knew the truth of it more than she did.
Elliott nodded in agreement and then they fell into an easy silence. The blizzard continued to rampage wildly across the moor, gnashing its teeth at the ensnared little train as if it would swallow it whole, piling up the snow so that the engine and its one carriage were obliterated in the ivory blanket that smothered the landscape. Those inside shared the few provisions they had, a few biscuits and a bar of chocolate. They grew tired as the night wore on, but hunger and thirst gnawed at every stomach and cold kept them from sleep.
Midnight came and went. Used to harsh conditions, the sergeant and Private Hancock finally succumbed to exhaustion, the older man snoring rhythmically and his wife, finding comfort with her head on his familiar chest, at last dozing fitfully. Ling closed her eyes, her head tipped back against the seat as she tried to block the howling gale from her ears. Would Barney be worried about her, or would he trust her to take care of Fanny and herself? And what had happened to the paper with Elliott’s address on it? Her last thought as she shivered into a broken and disturbed slumber was of Elliott, now silent and still beside her.
Ling slipped reluctantly into wakefulness. The hours of night had been passed in a somnolent haze, always conscious of the cold and the screaming wind. Ling realized with a jolt that her head was resting on Elliott’s shoulder. She went to pull away, but then it dawned on her that she would never again have the excuse to lean against him. She would savour the moment for ever, the one gleam of happiness in the dark sterility her life had become.
She dared to open one eye a fraction and in the faint glimmer from the lamp she studied Elliott’s firm jawline, shadowed with overnight stubble, and she could just see the long, brown lashes of one eye fanned out on his high cheekbone. His looks were not as striking as Barney’s had once been, but he was nonetheless a handsome man whose face portrayed a reserved inner strength. The kind of face one would trust implicitly.
Oh, why was she instinctively comparing him with Barney? She loved Barney. Didn’t she? He was good and dependable, had never failed in his duty to care for her mother before she died and, of course, for Fanny. There was tension between them at times, but only because of the demands old Mr Mayhew unfairly put upon his son and, Ling’s heart admitted with a wrenching sigh, her inability to produce a child. Would that blessing have clinched their contentment? Perhaps. But Ling knew deep inside that she had always needed more to her life than being a quarryman’s wife. It was something her father had recognized, not a desire for wealth or an easy life, for she was not afraid of hard work and making do, but a desire for the riches of the mind. The happiest time of her life had been when she worked for the Warringtons because she had
learnt
so much.
And then there had been Toby Bradley. He was engaged to Chantal Pencarrow now. Ling had never met the Pencarrow family over at their farm near Peter Tavy, and, because of his naval training, Toby was rarely able to accompany his parents on their visits to Fencott Place. But, whenever Ling did see him, they were like old friends because they communicated on a different plane. The same plane that had attracted her to Elliott all those years ago and that had instantly attracted her to him again. And that was the difference. With Barney, life had been fun, easy-going, relaxed and steady. But the fun was long gone, and she was pledged to Barney for life.
Elliott began to stir, and Ling quickly drew away. She felt Elliott slowly stretching beside her, heard him stifle a yawn. He turned to her, blinking the sleep from his eyes, and seeing her awake, smiled softly at her. And her heart turned over again.
‘Did you get some sleep?’ he whispered.
She nodded. ‘I wonder what the time is. It’s still dark.’
Elliott took out his pocket watch and tilted it into the dim glow of the still burning lantern. ‘Half past five. And hark at that wind still,’ he added, raising his eyes to the roof of the train. ‘It hasn’t let up all night.’
Ling glanced about the compartment. There were dark patches on the floor where some of the snow had melted, while in other places little white drifts had been heaped up inches deep.
Ling shivered. ‘I’m so cold,’ she muttered under her breath, ‘and stiff as a poker.’
Elliott breathed in through his teeth. ‘Yes, so am I. When everyone wakes up, we must do some exercises to get the blood circulating. That’ll warm us up, and once it’s light we’ll see what can be done to get us out of here. But look,’ he invited her a little hesitantly, raising his arm, ‘if you don’t think it inappropriate, snuggle up to me. It’ll help keep us both warm.’
Ling’s eyebrows arched. No, she didn’t think it inappropriate at all! She was so cold, she was beyond caring, and it wasn’t just body heat that began to ease the cramps of cold as she leaned against Elliott and he put his arm around her, drawing her close. A beacon of warmth began to glow inside her. And for that short while before their companions started to stir, she was going to cast her conscience aside and relish every moment.
‘I’m worried about Fanny,’ she said a little later, voicing her thoughts. ‘Will she be all right?’
‘She needs some fluids. We all do, but Fanny especially. Let’s keep our fingers crossed she doesn’t go into labour. Has she seen a physician at all?’
‘No.’ Shame made Ling drop her voice even lower. ‘We don’t have a lot of money. I’m the schoolmistress now—’
‘Really? Well, congratulations. You deserve it.’
‘Only because Mr Norrish left. They don’t really like married women as teachers, but they couldn’t get anyone else. Because I’m a woman, they pay me less, and there hasn’t been so much work at the quarry lately. We manage, but there’s little to spare. And the father of Fanny’s child has abandoned her. We don’t even know who it is, though we have our suspicions. And Fanny herself won’t say.’
‘Poor girl might not even realize how she became pregnant. Plenty don’t.’
‘Oh, I think she does. Strung her along until he got what he wanted and then dropped her like a stone.’
‘Typical.’ Elliott gave a bitter shake of his head. ‘I’ve seen it often enough. I’m the MO at the workhouse as well, you see. The post usually falls to the most junior physician in the town. All good experience, mind. So I could well end up delivering Fanny’s baby anyway.’
‘She’ll be in good hands then.’
Ling felt herself blush, and she was glad Elliott couldn’t see her face. But she had obviously embarrassed him as she heard him mumble, ‘I’d like to think so.’ An awkward silence followed, and Ling was thankful when he spoke again. ‘And what do your parents think of all this?’
Ling’s heart sank like a lead weight. ‘They both died some years ago,’ she told him.
‘Good Lord, I’m sorry.’ Elliott’s sympathetic tone was genuine. ‘But they were still young.’
‘My father . . . had an accident—’ her voice faltered at the dreadful memory – ‘and my mother was so distraught that she lost her mind. She kept wandering, and one night we lost her. She died of exposure out on the moor. A little like us.’
‘Oh, I somehow think we’ll survive.’
Elliott’s voice was warm and encouraging, but just then the other passengers started to wake up, with groans of discomfort, and Ling swiftly pulled away. Beside her, Fanny wriggled and fidgeted, heaving herself forward.
‘I need the privy summat desprit,’ she whispered in Ling’s ear.
Ling bit her lip. So did she, and she knew from her own experience of pregnancy that Fanny must be bursting. But Elliott must have heard as he was already opening the carriage door. Driving snow whipped into the compartment again, and Elliott disappeared into the darkness. He was back in a matter of minutes, though, and knocking on the door.
‘Blowing a blizzard still, I’m afraid,’ he called as Sergeant Watts opened the door and took possession of the bucket Elliott had purloined from the fireman. ‘Gentlemen, we must give the ladies some privacy. Be careful as you get down.’
The female companions were left alone to complete their ablutions, Mrs Huggins taking the lead by announcing she didn’t have anything different from any other woman and that if Fanny didn’t use the bucket first, she would. Mrs Watts took more persuading, but at last they were all more comfortable. It was just as well, for the moment they had finished, and the men clambered back inside, the wick in the lamp dried out and the flame flickered and died.
‘Seven o’clock,’ Elliott spoke into the shadows. ‘As soon as it’s light enough, the fireman and guard are setting out for Dousland Station, but the blizzard’s still raging. Do any of you gentlemen want to risk going with them? It certainly isn’t wise for any of the ladies to go, and I think I’d better stay. In case I’m needed,’ he added under his breath.
Everyone seemed to agree that it was more sensible to stay put. Outside, the wind still pounded the falling snow against the windows, and visibility was reduced to a matter of yards, even when full daylight eventually came. And when the engine driver later announced that he, too, was to strike out for Dousland, the trapped passengers felt their end was nigh.
‘Now don’t worry, my dear,’ Sergeant Watts declared, turning to his wife whose face was grey with fear. ‘I’ve faced worse than this. One time out in Zululand . . .’
The story kept them diverted for half an hour since the sergeant was an imaginative narrator, and Ling was quite sorry when it seemed there was no more to tell and the continuing gale was once more all that assailed their ears. Every so often, Elliott insisted his fellow travellers carry out some exercises, but space was severely restricted and hearts became heavier as time dragged on. Minutes ticked by, and hours seemed like days, while outside the snow continued to drive across the already obliterated landscape in blinding sheets. Stomachs were painful with hunger and, more seriously, nine throats were parched.
In a courageous effort, Elliott braved the weather to gather a fistful of fresh snow. It refused to melt, and when it finally did there was but a spoonful for Fanny to suck from his palm – since her need was the most urgent – and Elliott’s hand was blue and rigid with cold. That stroke of ingenuity having failed, they all tried to ignore their thirst, so when, around three o’clock in the afternoon, a commotion outside led them to haul two intrepid railway packers from Dousland Station up into the cramped compartment, there was jubilation on every elated face.
‘The guard and fireman told us you was stranded yere,’ one of the rescuers declared cheerfully. ‘Mercy they got through! Took us two and an ’alf hour to get yere, an’ we losed our way several times.’
‘Cas’n see the railway track,’ the other fellow chipped in. ‘Cas’n hardly see the train, neither! ’Tis just like a heap o’ white. Got some vi’tals for you, mind. Tidd’n much, but ’twill keep you going.’
‘Oh, good man!’ Elliott led a chorus of gratitude. ‘Plenty to drink, I hope. It’s what we need most.’
‘Bottle o’ watered-down brandy were all we could find. And the missis made you up some bread and butter and some cake we had left over.’