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She put off her descent to the kitchen quarters until a glance at her watch showed her she could delay no longer. While she had been unpacking it had started to snow again, and she could almost guess word for word Rex’s comment were he to find nothing hot to eat on a day like this.

But one o’clock came and went with no sign of either him or Mr Farr. Davina looked anxiously out of the kitchen window but could see that there was no sign of a let-up, for the snow was falling as fast as ever. She thought she could see a movement in the doorway leading to the barn and grabbing her thickest waterproof jacket she put it on and ran across the yard.

Peter McKay was standing just inside the barn and he turned to speak to the old shepherd who was attending to one of the penned ewes. ‘Here’s Miss,’ he called over his shoulder, holding the door wider for Davina to come in out of the cold.

‘What are you doing here at this time of day?’ Davina demanded, then cutting short Peter’s explanation that the heating boiler at the village school had broken down and given them all an unexpected holiday, she turned to ask the old man, ‘Where’s Mr Fitzpaine?’

He gave the ewe a pat, walked slowly out of the pen and slowly closed the door, while alarm rippled down Davina’s spine. ‘He went up a while ago to see all was right on account of I thought we’d more snow on’t way, miss,’ the shepherd said slowly and unemotionally, ‘but he did say as how he’d be back dinner time.’

They all heard the clatter of George’s metal shoes on the cobbles, and with a shout of, ‘Here he is I’ Peter dived for the door.

But when Davina followed the boy only the horse, his reins dangling, was coming towards the barn door. Rex could not have dismounted in the time and she was conscious of a feeling like a gigantic hand squeezing all the blood out of her body as she fought against a sick faintness.

She was brought to her senses by the old man grasping her elbow. ‘Looks as if yon pony’s run off. Gaffer’ll have a long walk home.’

‘No, there’s been some kind of an accident. Rex is too good a horseman to lose hold of the reins. I’ll get the Land Rover and go up the track.’

The old man shook his head. ‘No use, miss. Snow’s banked pretty high still from the last fall and this isn’t going to make it easier.’

‘Then I’ll have to ride up.’ Davina was suddenly ice cold. ‘Do you think you could go for help, Mr Farr?’

‘I’ll come with you,’ Peter broke in. ‘George will carry us both. Gaffer’s too big a chap for a little ’un like you to manage, miss.’

‘The boy’s right,’ the shepherd added his voice to Peter’s, and as Davina hesitated, he picked up his crook and called to his dog. ‘I’ll get going. The sooner I’m on the road the better.’ It seemed inhuman to let a man his age walk the long, unsheltered road to Camshaw, but Davina was on the horns of a dilemma. She couldn’t go in two different directions at once and the old man couldn’t drive. As if aware of her divided duties, he set off at once, and suddenly remembering that, some sort of first aid might be needed, with a, ‘Wait here,’ to Peter, Davina ran back to the house and collected the first aid box and as an afterthought the sleeping bag still on the camp bed where Rex had slept last night.

Peter McKay was already in the saddle when she emerged. She threw the bag across the horse’s rump, put her foot on Peter’s and sprang up behind the boy. As soon as he knew she was not likely to slip off, Peter turned George’s head towards the track and set off to follow the hoof marks, already beginning to be covered as the snow continued to fall.

In some places, the snow lay in drifts as high as their knees and Davina examined each one carefully as they passed. If by chance Rex had misjudged the iciness of the track and been thrown, he could be lying unconscious in one of these drifts. Davina shuddered at remembered tales of death from exposure in her native Wales when a shout from Peter brought her head round to stare over his shoulder. ‘Quick, miss, there he is!’

She looked ahead and her heart quickened, for the snow was trampled and stained with what looked undoubtedly like blood and in the middle, looking like a pile of discarded clothing, lay Rex. As soon as Peter had brought the horse to a standstill, Davina dropped to the ground, her feet slipping on the snow as she hurried to reach the unconscious man.

Rex was lying on his face, and as she reached his side, she could see blood was oozing sluggishly from a wound high on his left thigh. She turned to say, ‘Give me the sleeping bag,’ and found that Peter had already tethered the horse and was reaching up for the bag. Between them they unzipped
it and laying it out on the snow began to roll Rex gently on to the covering.

One look at his face and Davina drew in a horrified breath, for already his lips were blue. His eyes were closed and a huge purpling bruise on his left forehead told their own tale, and the movement necessary to roll him on to the sleeping bag had made the wound on his leg begin to bleed more freely.

As she dragged the silk scarf from about her neck to form a tourniquet she said, ‘Do you think you could ride back and see if you can get to Mr Farr? Tell him Mr Fitzpaine will need a doctor,’ she added, and without a word, his usually healthy tanned face pale with shock, Peter scrambled back into the saddle and was gone. Left alone, Davina made sure the bleeding had been stopped, put a large dressing on the deep laceration in Rex’s leg and pulling the sleeping bag over him, zipped it as far up as she could.

Until someone came it was essential to keep him as warm as possible, one tiny portion of her brain was saying, and another, ‘Time the tourniquet. If no one comes within twenty minutes you’ll have to loosen it.’ Wishing Rex would give just one small sign of life, she lay full length and put her arms right round him, hoping that a little of her body warmth would penetrate and perhaps drive that death-like look from his face.

Frequent glances at her wrist watch told her it was only twelve minutes, but to Davina it seemed like hours when she heard voices and the sound of several pairs of feet told her that a relief party had arrived.

She looked up and saw that not only Mr Farr but Jim Thomas and three burly farmhands were coming along the track. Two of them were carrying a sort of hurdle, Davina noticed as, feeling slightly foolish, she got to her feet.

‘Good thing I was up this way,’ Jim greeted her. ‘What’s the damage?’ and he knelt down and slipping a hand under the cover, took Rex’s pulse.

‘He’s got a horrible gash in his leg. Look, he must have come off on that flint,’ Davina pointed to a blood-stained stone sticking up out of the snow. ‘I put on a tourniquet about fifteen minutes ago. But I can’t tell if he’s broken anything.’

‘Not to worry. You’ve done marvels. We’ll carry him back to the farm and then I’ll run him straight to our little community hospital. There’ll be someone there this time of day who can patch him up. Probably Tom. He’s on duty today, I know.’

Davina watched as two of the farmhands lifted Rex, sleeping bag as well, on to the hurdle, then said slowly, ‘You’ll let me know, Jim?’

‘Course I will. As soon as he’s been attended to,’ Jim answered cheerfully, taking his comer of the hurdle, and the men set off with their burden.

She was left suddenly conscious of being soaking wet and shivering with cold. The old man, waiting with stoical resignation in the driving snow, saw she had registered his presence and smiled encouragingly.

‘Let’s get you home now, missie. I told the lad to stable the horse. Fair shook up, he were, at seeing Gaffer had taken a fall. We could all do with something hot to warm our insides. Off we go!’ and putting one horny hand under Davina’s upper arm, the old man marched her back along the track at a brisk trot.

Peter was sitting glumly in the kitchen waiting, but a, ‘Come along, lad. Take missie’s coat. I’ll pour the soup,’ roused the boy to activity.

Davina found herself stripped of her anorak and wet footwear and pushed into a chair beside the fire. She gave a groan as feeling began to return to her frozen fingers and as he gave her a cup of hot soup the old shepherd said, ‘Get that down you, miss. Then I suggest a hot bath. Peter and me’ll manage fine.’

When Davina emerged from the bathroom some time later, warm again and clad in thick, dry clothing, the old shepherd had cleared away the lunch and he and Peter were washing up. The snow, Davina saw, had stopped and a fitful sun was trying to peep between the clouds.

Mr Farr saw the direction of her gaze. ‘Me and the boy will just sec everything in the barn is all right, then I daresay you’ll be wanting to get to the hospital. We’ll come and show you where it is.’

Thank goodness Rex had fitted snow chains, Davina thought as she fought to steer the car down the winding moorland road. She could see now the sense of the posts on either side, for without them she would have had difficulty in the gathering dusk of an early winter afternoon of keeping to the road. They were just on the outskirts of Camshaw when Jim Thomas’s station wagon came into view and he honked for her to stop.

‘Tom was there, and one of the visiting consultants from Carlisle. Rex was lucky, because it was clinic day and he’s having the very best treatment. Want me to come with you?’

‘Good idea, Mr Thomas.’ Mr Farr was already climbing down from the cab. ‘Me and the boy were only along to show miss the way to the hospital. She can follow you.’

His manner brooked no argument and Davina sat alone in the Land Rover and waited for Jim to turn. Once at the hospital they were met by the Sister, who smiled at Jim and when she heard who Davina was said, ‘Mr Fitzpaine’s doing fine. You can go in and look at him—but mind you, he’s not properly round yet.’

Davina turned to Jim, but for once he was strangely backward. ‘Go on, I’ll wait for you here.’

Following the Sister into a small six-bedded ward, Davina saw Rex had been put in the bed nearest the door and was lying with his head turned away.

She walked round the bed and pulling up a chair sat down gingerly. Rex’s eyes were closed, but his breathing was healthily regular and the blue which had so frightened her had gone from his lips.

In fact, she thought, leaning an elbow on the bed to study his face more closely, he looked curiously young in the white hospital gown, and if one ignored the bruise on his forehead as if he had just fallen asleep. Unable to resist the temptation, she had given his cheek a butterfly kiss when Rex’s eyelids quivered and then lifted.

There was a silence as he blinked, made an obvious effort to focus his eyes and then smiled, not the kind of sardonic curl of the lips to which Davina was accustomed but a tender smile, one with infinite allure that made her draw in her breath. He reached out a hand and as she instinctively took it between her own he said in a faint, faraway voice, ‘Hello, darling! Fancy seeing you here. Like a raw beginner, I came off.’ He stopped to yawn, ‘Lord, I’m tired,’ and his eyes slowly closed.

Davina hardly heard the ward Sister’s voice saying, ‘He’ll sleep now, probably for hours. Nothing you can do by staying. Come along tomorrow afternoon,’ before, her mind in a whirl, she was outside the ward doors. She was only barely aware of Jim’s hand steering her outside, his rather anxious, ‘Sure you’re all right?’ as he helped her into the Land Rover. She pulled her thoughts back from a seventh heaven where they had been floating ever since she had seen Rex’s smile and heard his loving words to say, ‘I’m fine, and thanks for all you’ve done, Jim,’ before starting the journey back to the lonely farmhouse.

But it didn’t seem lonely tonight, she thought, for every part of it held reminders of Rex. A boot lying on its side in the porch, his spare work jacket on the hook behind the door, a packet of tobacco still unopened on the dresser, and going into the study, all his books and papers as if he were about to come in and sit down.

Which if all went well, he would be doing very soon, Davina thought, and wondered when the doctors would let Rex come home. Home! She had never in her wildest dreams imagined thinking of Nineveh Farm as ‘home’. Yet didn’t people make a home? Four walls and a roof would be home if Rex was there to share it with her.

Next morning Davina worked with but one thought in mind—the afternoon’s visit to the hospital. She had found out visiting hours began at two, but she was at the hospital long before that, a bag containing Rex’s shaving things, clean pyjamas and dressing gown in one hand, a bundle of magazines and books in the other. She was in the waiting room patiently watching the clock when a nurse came in. ‘Sister would like to see you.’

Puzzled, Davina followed the girl into the ward Sister’s glassed-in cubicle. ‘Mr Fitzpaine
is
going on all right?’ she asked as the Sister pushed forward a chair.

‘With Mr Ballard, not to mention our own Dr Mulholland, to patch him up, of course he’s all right!’ Even her cap seemed to crackle with indignation as she took the bag from Davina’s hand and gave it to the waiting nurse. ‘However, I feel after concussion, one visitor at a time is quite enough. I wonder therefore if you’d mind waiting in the waiting room until Mr Fitzpaine’s fiancée has gone. She told me she only had a few minutes as she’d an appointment, so I stretched the rules and let her go in and see him ahead of time,’ the Sister ended.

Davina, a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, was looking through the glass into the ward beyond where at the nearest bed, two people seemed to be oblivious to their surroundings. Adele had drawn a chair close to the bed and with her head almost touching Rex’s was talking earnestly. As he smiled and nodded, Davina turned away and said in a wooden voice, ‘Thank you, Sister.’ She saw a look of surprise cross the ward Sister’s face as she got to her feet and escaped to hide her despair in the now crowded waiting room.

At least a tear or two was to be expected in hospital, Davina thought, as she blew her nose and wiped her eyes, wishing she could have walked out there and then. But the Sister knew she was here and might ask embarrassing questions, for it was certain now that yesterday Rex must have mistaken her in his only half-conscious state for Adele. It was even possible he had no recollection whatsoever of that episode which had made such an impression on her mind. What a fool she’d been, Davina thought, after all that had gone before to even dream Rex could have had such a dramatic change of heart.