The Promise
Lesley Pearse
Penguin UK (2012)
Rating: ***
Tags: WW1, Historical Fiction
* * *
Synopsis
The Promise will take you on a breathtaking journey into the battlefields of the First World War. War threatens to take all she has loved and lived for . . . On the outbreak of war, Belle Reilly's husband Jimmy enlists and heads for the deadly trenches of northern France. But Belle knows she cannot stand idly by when so many are sacrificing their lives. Volunteering to help battlefield wounded, Belle is posted to France as a Red Cross ambulance driver. There, a tragic accident brings her face to face with Etienne - a man from her past she's never quite forgotten. Torn between forbidden passion, loyalty and love, Belle is caught in an impossible situation. Will she succumb to the dark forces of this most brutal of wars? Or will fate intervene and finally lead her to lasting happiness? The Promise vividly describes life behind the front line and the tragic choices that war forces people to make.
LESLEY PEARSE
The Promise
MICHAEL JOSEPH
an imprint of
PENGUIN BOOKS
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Acknowledgements
By the same author
Georgia
Charity
Tara
Ellie
Camellia
Rosie
Charlie
Never Look Back
Trust Me
Father Unknown
Till We Meet Again
Remember Me
Secrets
A Lesser Evil
Hope
Faith
Gypsy
Stolen
Belle
To Maureen with love
Because you’re worth it.
Chapter One
July 1914
Sheltering from the heavy rain in a doorway, he looked across the street to the little bow-windowed milliner’s.
Just the name ‘Belle’ in gold italic writing above the window made his heart race a little faster. He could see two ladies silhouetted inside, and the way they moved suggested they were excited by the pretty hats on display. He had achieved his objective, to discover if Belle had realized her dream, but now he was here, so close to her, he wanted much more.
A plump, rosy-faced matron joined him in the doorway to shelter from the rain. She was struggling with an umbrella which had blown inside out. ‘If it don’t stop raining soon we’ll all get webbed feet!’ she remarked jovially as she tried to right her umbrella. ‘I don’t know what possessed me to come out in it.’
‘I was thinking the same myself,’ he replied, and took the umbrella from her to straighten out the spokes. ‘There you are,’ he added as he handed it back to her. ‘But I expect it will do the same again in the next gust of wind.’
She looked at him curiously. ‘You’re French, aren’t you? But you speak good English.’
He smiled. He liked the way English women of her age didn’t hold back from asking complete strangers questions. French women were much more reticent.
‘Yes, I am French, but I learned English when I lived here for a couple of years.’
‘Are you back here on holiday?’ she asked.
‘Yes, visiting old friends,’ he said, for that was partially true. ‘I was told Blackheath was a very pretty place, but I didn’t pick a good day to visit it.’
She laughed and agreed no one would want to walk on the heath in such heavy rain.
‘You must live in the south of France,’ she said, looking at his tanned face appraisingly. ‘My brother holidayed in Nice and came back as brown as a conker.’
He had no idea what a conker was, but he was glad the woman seemed prepared to chat, hoping he might learn something about Belle from her.
‘I live near Marseille. And that shop over there reminds me of French milliners,’ he said, pointing to the hat shop.
She looked over to it and smiled. ‘Well, they say she learned her trade in Paris, and all the ladies in the village love her hats,’ she said with real warmth in her voice. ‘I’d have popped in there myself today if the weather wasn’t so bad, she’s always got time for everyone, such a lovely young woman.’
‘So she has good business then?’
‘Yes indeed, she gets ladies coming from all over to buy from her, I’m told. But I must make my way home now or there won’t be any dinner tonight.’
‘It was a pleasure talking to you,’ he said, and helped her put her umbrella up again.
‘You should go over there and buy your wife a hat,’ the woman said as she began to walk away. ‘You won’t find a better shop, not even up in Regent Street.’
After the woman had gone he continued to look across the street to the shop, hoping for a glimpse of Belle. He had no wife to buy a pretty hat for, and he hardly needed an excuse to drop into an old friend’s shop. But was it wise to stir up the past?
He turned to look at his reflection in the shop window beside him. Old friends back in France claimed he’d changed in the two years since he last saw Belle, but he couldn’t see any difference himself. He was still as lean and fit: hard work on his small farm kept him that way and his shoulders were even broader and more muscular. But perhaps his friends meant that the old scar on his cheek had faded and contentment had softened his angular features to make him look less dangerous.
Ten years ago, in his mid-twenties, when he’d needed to be able to strike fear into people, he’d taken some pride in hearing that his blue eyes were icy and there was menace even in his voice. But while he knew he was still capable of violence if it was needed, he had retired from that world.
If the older woman’s praise for Belle was representative of how everyone in this genteel village felt about her, the more scandalous parts of her past couldn’t have followed her here. That was good. He of all people knew how past mistakes, wrong turns and shameful episodes were often very hard to live down.
Now, as his mission had been accomplished, he knew the wisest thing would be to go back to the station and catch a train into London.
The tinkling of a door bell alerted him that someone was leaving Belle’s shop. It was both the ladies, who he guessed were mother and daughter, for one looked to be in her forties, the other no more than eighteen or so. The younger one ran to a waiting automobile with two pink- and black-striped hat boxes in her hands, while the older woman looked back into the shop as if saying goodbye. Then suddenly he could see Belle in the doorway, as slender and as lovely as he remembered, wearing a very demure, high-necked pale green dress, her dark shiny hair piled up on her head with just a few curls escaping around her face.
All at once he didn’t want to be wise; he had to speak to her. The rumblings of war which had st
arted a year or two ago had become increasingly louder in the last year, and since the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria back at the end of June, war was now inevitable. Germany would undoubtedly invade France and as he would have to fight for his country, he might not live to see Belle ever again.
As the two women drove off, Belle closed the shop door. Unable to resist the impulse now she was alone, he darted across the street through the rain, pausing for just a second or two to watch her through the glass in the door. She had her back to him as she arranged some hats on little stands. There was a row of tiny pearl buttons down the back of her dress, and he felt a pang of jealousy that he would never be able to undo them for her. She bent forward to pick up a hat box from the floor and he had a glimpse of shapely calves above pretty lacy ankle boots. He had seen her naked at the time he rescued her in Paris, and felt nothing then but concern for her, yet now the sight of just a few inches of leg was arousing.
She turned as the door bell tinkled and on seeing him her hands flew up to her mouth and her eyes opened wide with shocked surprise. ‘Etienne Carrera!’ she exclaimed. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’
Her voice, the deep blue of her eyes and even the way she said his name made him feel weak with longing. ‘I’m flattered that you remember me,’ he said, removing his hat with a flourish. ‘And you are looking even more lovely. Success and married life suit you.’
He took a couple of steps nearer her, intending to kiss her cheek, but she blushed and backed away as if nervous. ‘How did you know I was married and here in Blackheath?’ she asked.
‘I called in at the Ram’s Head in Seven Dials. The landlord there told me you’d married Jimmy and moved to Blackheath. I couldn’t leave England without seeing you, so I caught the train out here in the hope of finding you.’
‘After all you did for me I should have written to you when I got married,’ she said, looking both anxious and flustered by his sudden appearance. ‘But …’ she faltered.
‘I understand,’ he said lightly. ‘Old friends who have been through so much together do not need to explain. I always knew from the way Jimmy never gave up in his quest to find you after your abduction that he must love you very deeply. So I am just happy that things worked out for you both. I heard that he and his uncle have a public house here.’
Belle nodded. ‘It’s the Railway, just down the hill. I’m sure you remember me telling you about Mog, my mother’s housekeeper. Well, she married Garth, Jimmy’s uncle, two years ago in September, then Jimmy and I got married soon afterwards.’
‘And you got your hat shop at last!’ Etienne glanced appreciatively at the pale pink and cream decor. ‘It’s lovely, as feminine and chic as you are. A woman out on the street told me you couldn’t get better hats even in Regent Street.’
She smiled then and seemed to relax a little. ‘Why don’t you take off that wet raincoat and I’ll make us both a cup of tea?
‘Are you still on your farm?’ she called as she went into a little room at the back of the shop.
Etienne hung his coat on a hook by the door, and brushed his damp fair hair back with his hands. ‘I am indeed, but I also do a little translating, which is the reason I came to England to meet with a company I have done work for in the past,’ he called back.
‘So your life is about more than chickens and lemon trees now?’ she said as she came back into the shop. ‘Please tell me you have kept to the straight and narrow?’
Etienne put his hand on his heart. ‘I promise you I am a pillar of polite society,’ he said, his voice grave but his blue eyes twinkling. ‘I haven’t escorted any more young girls to America, and neither have I rescued any from the clutches of madmen.’
He had never forgiven himself for not making a stand when the gangsters he had worked for back then blackmailed him into delivering Belle to a brothel in New Orleans. He might have partially redeemed himself two years later when he rescued her in Paris, but in his eyes that didn’t wipe the slate clean.
‘I really don’t believe you could ever be a pillar of society,’ Belle giggled.
‘Do you doubt my word?’ he said with pretended pique. ‘Shame on you, Belle, for having such little faith! Have I ever lied to you?’
‘You once told me you’d kill me if I tried to escape,’ she retorted. ‘And you later admitted that wasn’t true.’
‘That’s the trouble with women,’ he smiled. ‘They always remember the little, inconsequential things.’ He reached out and touched a pink feathered hat on a stand, marvelling that her determination and talent had paid off. ‘It’s your turn to tell the truth now. Is your marriage all you hoped for?’
‘Much more,’ she said, just a little too quickly. ‘We are very happy. Jimmy is just the very best of husbands.’
‘Then I am happy for you,’ he said and gave a little bow.
Belle giggled again. ‘And you? Do you have a lady in your life?’ she asked.
‘No one special enough to settle down with,’ he said.
She raised her eyebrows questioningly.
He smiled. ‘Don’t look like that, not everyone wants marriage and stability. Especially now with war coming.’
‘Surely it will be averted?’ she said hopefully.
‘No, Belle. There is no chance of that. It is only weeks away.’
‘That’s all men talk about these days,’ she sighed. ‘I get so weary of it. But look, why don’t you come home with me now and meet Jimmy, Garth and Mog? They’ll be so excited to meet you after all this time.’
‘I don’t think that would be appropriate,’ Etienne said.
Belle pouted. ‘Why ever not? You saved my life in Paris, and they’ll be very disappointed and puzzled that you called here but wouldn’t come and meet them.’
He looked at her thoughtfully for a moment. ‘When you moved here you also left the past behind.’
Belle opened her mouth to protest but shut it again, realizing he was quite right. From the day she married Jimmy she had firmly closed the door on her time in America and Paris. Etienne may have opened it again by coming to see her, and she was glad he had, but Jimmy might not see it that way.
‘What about Noah?’ she asked. ‘Will you see him? You became such good friends when you were searching for me, and I’m sure you’ll remember Lisette who took care of me in the convent before you took me to America. Noah fell in love with her, and they are married now with a baby on the way. They have a lovely home in St John’s Wood.’
‘I have kept in touch with Noah,’ Etienne said. ‘Not perhaps as well as I should have, but then he’s a journalist and writing comes much easier to him than it does to me. But he is such a well-known columnist now that I can even read his work in France. In fact I’m having lunch with him tomorrow, near his office. We will always be friends, but I won’t call at his home. We both feel Lisette needs no reminders of the past, especially now with a baby coming.’
Belle gave a rueful smile, understanding exactly what he meant. Lisette had also been forced into prostitution when she was a young girl, which was why she had been so kind to Belle. ‘Respectability comes at a high price. I like Noah and Lisette very much, but although we keep in touch, and visit each other now and then, we are always careful to avoid talking about how and why we met. I know that is the right thing to do now both Lisette and I are married, but it does prevent us from being really close friends.’
‘Does the past affect your relationship with Jimmy?’ Etienne asked, his eyes boring into her, daring her to lie to him.
‘Sometimes it does,’ she admitted. ‘It’s like having a splinter in your finger which you can’t get out, yet you can’t help but prod it.’
Etienne nodded. He thought her description very apt. ‘For me too. But in time a splinter works its way out and the hole it left will become filled with new memories.’
Belle laughed suddenly. ‘Why are we being so gloomy? For all of us – you, me, Jimmy, Mog, and Lisette too – despite all the troubles we
had, good came out of it. So why are humans so perverse that they choose to dwell on the bad times?’
‘Is it the bad times we dwell on, or the beautiful moments that lifted us up during the bad times?’ he asked, raising one eyebrow quizzically.
Belle blushed, and he knew she remembered only too well the moments they’d shared.
Despite being taken against her will to America, Belle cared for him when he was seasick on the voyage. Long before they reached New Orleans they had become very close, and on the night of her sixteenth birthday she had offered herself to him. He didn’t know how he restrained himself that night; he wanted her despite his wife and two young sons at home. The memory of her firm young body in his arms, the sweetness of her kisses, had inflamed him so often over the years. Yet he was very glad he hadn’t succumbed to her charms that night – he carried enough guilt about her without that too.
‘Whenever I read anything about New York I think of you showing me all the sights,’ she said. ‘I have to take care I never mention that I’ve been there, or I might have to explain when and who I was with. I never asked you if you enjoyed those two days too. Did you?’