Authors: Tania Anne Crosse
She waited. Observed with a smile the shining brass plate screwed into the wall.
Dr Elliott Franfield, MD.
Some children were playing further along the otherwise quiet street. The sunshine warmed her back. And her spirits plummeted as, after all her struggling with her conscience, she realized that no one was in.
She turned away, disappointed and empty. It was not to be, and she would have to return to her frustrated, disconsolate life on the moor. She had clicked the gate-latch closed behind her and taken several steps along the road when she heard a door open and a male voice called out after her.
Ling spun on her heel. There was Elliott, his head poking out from the front door, his face pleated with anxiety and his entire body tensely poised. He was dressed in some old corduroy trousers held about his slim waist by a leather belt, and a striped, collarless shirt, open at the neck and with the sleeves rolled up over his strong but slender forearms. His light hair fell waywardly over his forehead. Something tightened in the pit of Ling’s belly.
‘Ling!’ His mouth spread into a welcoming smile. ‘I was worried it might be an emergency. I was out doing battle with the back garden and wasn’t sure if I’d heard the front door or not. Oh, it’s good to see you! Do come in. Take a look round and see what I’ve done. I’ll just go through to the back and wash my hands.’
He left Ling alone in the hallway, and all at once she felt peace and calm settle over her. The walls had been painted a brilliant white, banishing the gloomy atmosphere of her earlier visit. The floor gleamed, and a pair of small, nicely turned chairs stood one on either side of an equally small table, perfect for waiting patients in such a confined passage. The door to the front room was ajar, and Ling couldn’t resist walking inside. Elliott really had transformed it into a professional consulting room. The walls here were a soft, pale green with curtains of a slightly darker hue at the now sparkling windows. On the shining floorboards stood a large, beautifully carved desk and a matching chair, and on the nearside of the desk were two chairs of equal quality, for a patient and their companion. Against the wall behind was a massive bookcase crammed with well-thumbed volumes of, Ling assumed, medical treatises. In one corner was an examination couch with a screen folded back against the wall. The whole effect was finished off with several smart oil-lamps.
‘So, what do you think?’
Ling glanced over her shoulder as Elliott appeared on the threshold, lounging languidly against the door frame.
‘I’d say you’ve worked wonders! I love the colour of the walls. And the furniture’s beautiful.’
‘Ah, well, having a father who’s built his empire on furniture and suchlike does have its advantages,’ Elliott said wryly. ‘There’s no way I could have afforded such lovely pieces myself.’
Ling nodded, running her finger along the edge of the desk, and then her eyes focused on the large print at the top of a small pile of pamphlets.
‘What’s this?’ she asked innocently. ‘
The Law of Population
? What does that mean?’
‘It’s advice on contraception,’ Elliott replied easily from the doorway. ‘It’s really hard sometimes to get information through to the poorer classes, and they’re often the ones who need it most. They find it hard to discuss such matters even with a physician, so I lend them copies of this pamphlet. Those that can read. It’s by Annie Besant. You might have heard of her. A fantastic woman! I met her once in London.’
Ling suddenly felt her heart fragment at his words. ‘No. I’ve not heard of her,’ she answered feebly, the old, familiar pain raking her throat. ‘Life isn’t always fair, is it?’ she murmured distractedly. ‘There’s those that have so many children, they don’t want any more. And there’s people like me, who desperately want a child and can’t have one.’
Her voice faded away in a thin trail and she stared down blindly at the desk. She heard Elliott come softly up behind her and she wanted so much to turn round and face him with a bright smile. But it was impossible, and she slowly sank beneath her own misery.
‘I hate seeing you so unhappy, Ling.’ Elliott’s voice was low, tender with compassion, so close she could feel his breath fanning the back of her neck below her upswept hair. ‘I just wish, as a physician, there was something I could do to help. And as a friend.’
Oh, dear God! She wanted to weep, to have Elliott take her in his arms so that she could sob against his shoulder, release her heart from the fetters that bound it. Let her tears wash clean the muddied depths of her soul. But she mustn’t. And so she turned, a wistful smile curving the corners of her mouth.
‘You know, I’m ashamed of it, but sometimes I feel glad I’ve not had Barney’s child,’ she found herself admitting in a hoarse whisper. ‘It’s a poor marriage if we need a child to bring us back together. I mean, I’m still fond of Barney, but . . . I sometimes wonder if I ever
really
loved him. We were only childhood sweethearts, and if it hadn’t been for . . . If it weren’t for that one, stupid mistake, I’m not sure we’d ever have been married. My parents would both have been alive still and . . . and I wouldn’t have been trapped. It’s my own fault, I know, but it’s hardly a good reason to bring a child into the world.’
She had been staring sightlessly at the open neck of Elliott’s shirt, unaware of the tears that meandered down her cheeks like silver pearls until Elliott delicately thumbed them away. She looked up then and her heart tripped. Those intense, green-blue eyes seemed to delve deep into her soul, holding, mesmerizing her, his handsome, sensitive lips so close . . . and it just felt so right, so
meant
, when they brushed almost imperceptibly against hers. It was like some sweet unguent soothing her wounded soul, and her heart overflowed with peace.
He pulled away, leaving her breathless. Light-headed. ‘Oh, may God forgive me,’ he mumbled. And as Ling opened her eyes, he staggered backwards, his hand over his mouth and the blood drained from his face. ‘Oh, God, Ling, I’m so sorry.’
They stared at each other across the few feet that separated them, Elliott’s eyes wide with shock at his own actions while Ling’s lips slowly dragged apart.
‘Don’t be,’ she heard herself say, and she watched the horror on his face slacken as his forehead moved into a questioning frown. She stepped forward, her head bold and erect and her heart flying. Her eager mouth sought his again, tingling as they touched, feather-like at first, enticing, drawing her on, entangling her in some sublime force she had never known with Barney, and she clung to him hungrily, knowing that this was passion far beyond anything she had experienced before.
Had Elliott taken her upstairs there and then, she would have been willing, but he suddenly drew back, running his hand through his hair and his expression confused and appalled.
‘This is
wrong
, Ling,’ he muttered, and he shot out of the room, leaving her swooning where she stood. Elliott had kissed her, and, if it was the only moment of true passion in her entire life, she would take the memory of it to her grave.
She followed him on unsteady legs into the back room where she found him spooning tea-leaves into a pot. ‘We . . . we let ourselves get carried away,’ he stammered, and Ling could see his hands were shaking.
‘No. Not carried away.’ Her voice was small, her words slow and carefully chosen. ‘
I
wasn’t, anyway. I love you, Elliott. I think I always have. Ever since you rode past me on Ghost. Even before you rescued me from under the train.’
Elliott blinked at her, and his eyebrows shot up towards his hair. ‘Do you really think so?’ And then he suddenly laughed aloud. ‘And when I saw this lanky young wench with a halo of chestnut hair, I really thought she’d taken me to heaven with her, and I’ve thought of no one else ever since! All those years in London, when I longed to receive a letter from you so that I could write back. If only . . .’
He stopped short, and their broad smiles slid from their faces. ‘If only Barney had given me your note,’ Ling finished for him.
They stared at each other for a full minute, their young hearts racing and ready to explode. Then Elliott sucked in his lower lip. ‘We must think this through carefully, Ling. We must both decide what we really want.’
But, in truth, they both already knew.
When Elliott opened the front door the following Thursday afternoon, he had his answer. No sooner had he closed the door behind her than Ling was wrapped in his embrace, and the intense joy of being with him again galloped up and down her spine. He kissed her tenderly, ecstatically, without the deep force of the previous week, but just as passionate for that.
The kettle was already singing on the range in the back room, cups arranged on their saucers, and Ling felt the pulse that pounded at her temples ease with a touch of amusement. The English idiosyncrasy of the obligatory cup of tea was clearly deep-rooted with Elliott. Perhaps he was as nervous as she was, but he was certainly a gentleman, and he pulled out a chair for her at the table. Then he picked up a pair of oven gloves, opened the oven door and removed a bun-tin with six sad-looking mounds of cake mixture in it.
His face fell. ‘Oh dear,’ he mumbled. ‘Aren’t they supposed to expand or something?’
Ling gazed at him, her hesitation fleeing as she tried not to laugh at his crestfallen expression. ‘They’re not cooked yet, and I don’t think the oven’s hot enough. Put them on the top shelf, and maybe by the time we’ve made the tea they’ll be ready. They mightn’t rise, though, now you’ve taken them out. And, well, to be honest, I’ve only just had lunch with Agnes,’ she concluded.
‘Yes. Of course you have.’ His eyes met hers, suddenly dancing rakishly, and he threw up his head with that wonderful, soft laugh. ‘Oh dear, what an idiot I am, trying to impress you with my non-existent culinary skills! I’ve never baked a cake in my life. Casseroles and stews are more my line.’ He paused, his eyebrows raised quizzically. ‘What
am
I doing, babbling on about my dietary arrangements when the loveliest woman in the world has come to visit me?’
It was Ling who was grinning now at his boyish expression. ‘No!’ She giggled, light-hearted now the initial tension had subsided. ‘I want to know everything about you. What you were like as a little boy, for instance.’
‘As a boy?’ he asked in surprise as he proceeded to make the tea. ‘Quite serious and well-behaved, as I remember. It was as an adolescent that I began to rebel. I mean, not seriously. But I began to see
beyond
my mother’s circle of friends. Tight-laced lot they were. Are. My father, now, I’ve always got on rather better with him. He’s more open-minded about people. But,’ he said more sombrely as he poured the scalding liquid into the cups, ‘what about you? What was your childhood like?’
Ling tipped her head sideways. ‘Hard,’ she replied thoughtfully. ‘My father was a quarryman at Foggintor all his life. We always had the open moor to play on, and I’ve always loved living there. But, I don’t know how to put it, you can feel trapped up there. Until the railway came. And I met you.’
She saw the muscles of his handsome face tighten, and she lowered her eyes as doubt clouded her resolve once more. What
was
she doing here? She had Barney. But Barney had betrayed her all those years ago. Or had it merely slipped his mind? She supposed she would never know.
‘Come and see what I’ve done in the garden.’
Elliott’s voice was expressionless as if he, too, could make no sense of his conflicting emotions. Ling followed him outside, her legs unsteady. On the upper two terraces, Elliott had hacked the waist-high growth down to ground level, and the first flat surface beyond the yard had been worked to a perfect bed of finely raked earth.
‘I’m going to sow grass seed,’ he told her. ‘At least then I’ll have somewhere to sit out. When I have a spare moment,’ he added with a grimace. ‘And when it’s not raining.’
He raised his eyes towards the dark sky as rain started to fall in large, heavy droplets, and they both instinctively turned back into the house. As they went inside, the familiar churning gripped Ling’s stomach. They had both been delaying the moment, knowing what it was they truly wanted but also knowing it was unutterably wrong.
‘You’d better take off your jacket. Hang it on the back of the chair to dry. I must say, you look very smart.’
‘Mrs Warrington, you remember? She gave it to me. She’s very generous.’
Ling arranged the tailored jacket so that it did not crease and found herself facing Elliott across the small room. She saw the smouldering fire in his eyes, his face creased with the same pain of self-denial that was tearing her apart. The space between them suddenly disappeared and he was kissing her lips, soft as the touch of gossamer, her forehead, the tip of her nose, the fine line of her jaw. She felt his fingers fumbling with the buttons of her blouse and his hand slipped inside, gently cupping the swelling of her breast through her chemise. She could feel her heart pounding beneath his touch. Oh, Elliott! She loved him with a passion that confounded her own understanding, a passion against which she was powerless. Her own fingers entwined in his thick hair, her mouth seeking his again, her mind, her body, totally ready to give herself to him.
‘Damn!’
So lost had she been in that state of frenzied euphoria that she had not heard the frantic knocking on the front door at first. But Elliott had, and he quickly smoothed down his hair as he rushed to the front door.
‘Oh, Doctor, ’tis my little girl!’ Ling heard a desperate voice say as she buttoned up her blouse. ‘She cas’n breathe!’
‘Give her to me.’
Elliott’s efficient tone drew Ling to the door. A short, thin woman clad in little better than rags was standing on the doorstep, relinquishing a small child into Elliott’s arms.
‘Please save her!’ the woman squealed as she tottered inside on the brink of collapse. ‘I cas’n bear to lose her.’
The young mother’s howl of despair wrenched at Ling’s heart. She knew herself the agony of losing a child, even if her own had been a tiny, lifeless form when it had entered the world. She instinctively put her arm around the stranger as they followed Elliott into his consulting room. The little girl was already lying on the couch, her body writhing as she fought to draw breath and her pinched face turning blue.