The Promise

  ‘Jimmy!’ she exclaimed, surprised that it was him. He only ever came to the shop to walk her home when the weather was bad. But it was only three o’clock on a beautiful October day. ‘What brings you here?’

  ‘I came out to get some paint for the window frames,’ he said.

  Belle frowned. The hardware shop wasn’t up this way, and furthermore Jimmy looked a bit shaken. ‘Is something wrong?’ she asked.

  ‘Does there have to be something wrong for me to visit my wife?’ he retorted rather sharply.

  Belle went over to him. ‘There has to be something wrong for you to snap at me,’ she said reproachfully.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘But a woman came up to me and gave me this.’ He reached in his pocket and pulled out a white feather.

  Belle gasped. She had read in the newspaper just a day or two ago that there were women going around giving white feathers to men. It was a suggestion they were cowards because they hadn’t enlisted. But she had imagined these were isolated cases, a few silly women with nothing better to do with their time than harass hard-working men.

  ‘Take no notice, she’ll just be a crank,’ she said.

  ‘No, there was a group of about ten of them,’ Jimmy said, looking very disturbed. ‘They were stopping all the men. I saw Willie the window cleaner get one, also the man who sells newspapers by the station, and another man just strolling along with his wife. I was so shocked I didn’t hang around to see who else got one and came straight up here.’

  ‘It doesn’t mean anything,’ Belle reassured him. ‘No one has to join up if they don’t want to.’ Yet even as she said this a chill ran down her spine, because only a couple of weeks earlier she’d seen a huge poster put up at the station showing Lord Kitchener in uniform pointing his finger. The poster read, ‘Your Country Needs You’. She had thought at the time it sent out a powerful message.

  ‘It might not be compulsory, but maybe it’s morally right to do my bit,’ Jimmy reflected.

  Belle was frightened then. She knew when Jimmy used words like ‘morally right’ that he was already convinced about what he had to do. ‘You can’t, not with the baby coming!’ she exclaimed.

  Jimmy moved to embrace her. ‘I wouldn’t want our son or daughter to think I was a coward,’ he said softly, his lips against her hair. ‘And it isn’t as if I’d be leaving you alone to fend for yourself, you’ll have Uncle Garth and Mog to take care of you.’

  Belle stepped back from him angrily. ‘But you could be killed! Our baby won’t want a dead hero for a father.’

  ‘It won’t come to that,’ he said, making a pleading gesture with his hands.

  ‘Just go.’ Belle pointed to the door. ‘And by the time I get home I hope you’ll have seen sense.’

  He left without another word and Belle returned to her workbench. She was so angry she accidentally tore the veiling she was working on, and picked up the hat and threw it on the ground.

  The shop bell tinkled again, and thinking it was Jimmy coming back to apologize, she ignored it.

  ‘Belle!’ a tentative female voice called out. ‘Are you there?’

  It was Miranda. Belle struggled to compose herself and went into the shop. Miranda looked very elegant in a pale mauve costume and a matching small hat trimmed with artificial violets; her cheeks were rosy and she had a glow about her.

  ‘What a lovely surprise,’ Belle said, grateful for a diversion from her anger. ‘I’ve thought about you so often.’

  Miranda had written her a letter a couple of weeks ago, while she was down at her family’s country estate in Sussex. In it she had thanked Belle for her kindness and said she had fully recovered without anyone becoming suspicious.

  ‘It’s good to be back in London,’ Miranda said. ‘I so much wanted to talk to you while I was away. Mama was insufferable, more so than she usually is. She’s that desperate to get me married off she kept inviting people with eligible sons to dinner. She couldn’t have made her intentions plainer if she had actually put on the invitations that it was to find a husband for me.’

  Belle smiled. ‘And did anyone nice come?’

  Miranda rolled her eyes. ‘Awful, all of them. And besides, all they talked about was the war and joining a regiment. I was bored senseless. But how have you been?’

  ‘I was fine until a few minutes ago when Jimmy came in. He thinks he ought to enlist, but I can’t bear the thought of him going.’

  ‘Oh dear! I’m sure you can’t. But you told me before he had no intention of enlisting until it was compulsory.’

  ‘That’s what he said. But a woman gave him a white feather today and now he feels guilty and afraid people will think he’s a coward.’

  ‘Mama has joined a group handing out white feathers,’ Miranda said, wrinkling her nose in disgust. ‘In my opinion it’s bad enough for men having their peers push them into it, but now with women humiliating them, the poor dears will feel obliged to go. Women like my mother don’t think about how soldiers’ wives and children are going to manage. As I understand it, army pay is only a pittance.’

  Miranda’s sympathy for wives and children seemed like the ideal opportunity for Belle to tell her she was having a baby.

  ‘I’m not so concerned about army pay, but you see, I’m expecting a baby.’

  ‘That’s wonderful news,’ Miranda said and the warmth of her smile showed she was sincere. ‘When is it due?’

  ‘The end of February.’

  Miranda looked shocked.

  ‘Yes, I knew I was back then,’ Belle said. ‘But I couldn’t bring myself to tell you that night. Well, you know, it seemed all wrong.’

  ‘How doubly awful of me to inflict my troubles on you at such a time,’ Miranda said, moving to embrace Belle. ‘But I am very happy for you, and please don’t feel you can’t mention it for fear you’ll upset me. I can understand too why you wouldn’t want your husband joining up at such a time. But I’m sure once he’s thought it through he’ll decide against it.’

  ‘Well, plenty of other men with several children have gone,’ Belle sighed. ‘We heard just yesterday that a man from Lee Green with five children enlisted. Garth said the men in the bar were joking about it and said he was going to get away from them.’

  They spoke for a few more minutes about the war in general and Miranda said that she’d given a lot of thought to getting a job, and ultimately leaving home.

  ‘I’ve applied for several positions in the last couple of days,’ she said. ‘I’m not fooling myself, I know I have no experience. The only thing I can do which is in any way remarkable is to drive a motor car.’

  ‘Gosh.’ Belle was impressed; she didn’t personally know any men who could do that, let alone a woman. When they had first moved to Blackheath motor cars were still quite a rare sight, but in the last two years they had gradually become much more common. It was still only rich people who had them, though, and she couldn’t see that changing for a long time.

  ‘I got Papa’s chauffeur to teach me while I was in Sussex,’ Miranda said airily. ‘I thought with so many men going off to the war, there might be an opening for a woman. Motor cars are very hard to start though, you need brute strength to crank that handle. I’ve been reading up on how they work too. I don’t want to look foolish if it breaks down.’

  ‘I’m so pleased you are sounding so organized and optimistic,’ Belle said.

  ‘Well, you know who I have to thank for that,’ Miranda replied, raising her eyebrows. ‘Now you’ve told me your news, perhaps there’s a way I can repay you for all you did for me. I could mind the shop if you wanted a rest or to go somewhere.’

  Belle was touched. ‘That’s very thoughtful of you,’ she said. ‘But I think I’ll be giving up the shop well before the baby arrives.’

  ‘Oh no!’ Miranda exclaimed. ‘You can’t, you are so talented and everyone loves your hats so much. Can’t you get a nursemaid in?’

  ‘I’d never do that,’ Belle said in horror.

  Mirand
a laughed. ‘No, I don’t suppose you would. But I fared much better with a nursemaid than I would have done with my mother.’

  ‘There is one thing I must ask,’ Belle said. ‘Are you really all right? I don’t mean ill or anything, but have you got over it?’

  Miranda’s face clouded over. ‘I had a few days when I felt weepy and sorry for myself,’ she admitted. ‘But it was better when I got down to Sussex. I went on walks, busied myself learning to drive, and visited some of Papa’s tenants. I’ve never done that before; I think what happened to me opened my eyes to the real world. They were probably astonished that I was showing an interest in their gardens, children and whether or not the roof leaked. Some of those people are so desperately poor, it made me realize that I wasn’t so badly off.’

  They chatted until it was time for Belle to close the shop. As she was locking the door behind them, Miranda put her hand on Belle’s arm and squeezed it. ‘I hope Jimmy doesn’t join up, but if he does, remember you’ve got a friend in me.’

  Belle knew that night as she and Jimmy got into bed that he had made up his mind. The bar had been quiet and he’d been up and down the stairs, sitting for a few minutes with her but saying nothing, then going back down. She guessed by his strained expression that he wanted to talk, but was afraid of it turning into a row. Belle was aching to get it all out in the open, but she knew Jimmy well enough to be aware that he liked time to weigh up situations for himself, and if she pushed him too hard now, she might regret it.

  But now, as he curled his body around hers just as he always did, she could almost hear his brain whirling with conflicting emotions.

  She knew he wasn’t afraid for himself, only of leaving her. She knew too that if she cried and pleaded with him, he could be persuaded out of it. But was it right to do that when he felt it was his duty to go?

  Belle guessed that he was very aware that the Railway didn’t really need both him and Garth to run it, especially now that so many of their once regular customers had already left for France. He probably felt guilty each time he heard that someone else had enlisted when he was young and healthy and had no good excuse to stay home. A baby on the way certainly wouldn’t be considered a valid excuse for not enlisting, as most men distanced themselves from the whole thing and left it to their wives’ mothers and sisters to offer support.

  Belle knew too that Jimmy would make a good soldier; he was brave, strong and intelligent. Other men liked him and she had no doubt he’d soon get promoted because he had the qualities needed for leadership.

  However terrified she was that he might be wounded or even killed, one of the things she loved most about him was his honourable nature. She didn’t like to see him in turmoil, trying to balance what he perceived as his duty against her reaction. She had no doubt he was afraid she would see it as him deserting her, and that would drive a wedge between them.

  She loved him too much to prolong the confusion he was in. She knew she had got to be as brave as he was and let him do what he felt was right.

  Taking his hand lying on her hip, she squeezed it. ‘I don’t want you to go,’ she said softly in the darkness. ‘I’m not like you, I don’t care about King and Country, I’m selfish enough to want everything to stay the same cosy way it is now. But I know you have principles, and if you feel you must go and fight, then I’ll support your decision.’

  ‘Really?’ he whispered back. ‘You see, although I don’t want to be apart from you, when your country is at war that isn’t a valid excuse for wriggling out of fighting. Almost all the men who’ve already gone must have had sweethearts or wives they didn’t want to leave, but they found the courage for it. That white feather today will be just the first of many if I stay. Some people will say that I’m not only a coward, but I’m profiting from the war. I couldn’t live with that.’

  Belle clung to him, biting her lip so she wouldn’t blurt out that she didn’t care if he was called a coward as long as she had him home with her. ‘I know, I couldn’t bear that either,’ she lied.

  ‘I wish I did believe it will all be over by Christmas,’ he said, drawing her into his arms. ‘I wish I could promise you too that I’ll come home safe and sound. But I do believe that as God kept you safe and brought you back to me after all you went through when you were abducted, then he wouldn’t be so cruel as to let me be killed in France when we’re expecting our first baby.’

  Belle wasn’t so sure God worked that way. She thought it was more likely that he put some people on this earth to be tested again and again. She and Jimmy had had two years of sublime happiness, and perhaps that was all they could expect.

  He moved his right hand down on to her belly, stroking the small curve as if silently trying to tell his child that he loved it and that he intended to be the best of fathers.

  ‘So when will you go to the recruitment place?’ she whispered, moved by his sensitivity.

  ‘Tomorrow,’ he said. ‘No point in prolonging the agony.’

  The weather turned suddenly autumnal on the day Jimmy went to the recruitment office. The temperature dropped and it was wet and windy, bringing down showers of golden and russet leaves that until then had been beautiful. To Belle it was an omen that all the happiness they had shared was ending, but she bit back her tears and packed warm thick socks, underwear, soap and some little comforts in a bag, trying hard not to dwell on whether the precious two days they had left together would be the last.

  On the morning Jimmy was to take the train to London Bridge to join the other men in the Royal Sussex regiment, the sky was as leaden as Belle’s heart and a cold wind whistled under the back door. Garth made jovial remarks over breakfast about how good the send-off had been in the bar the previous night, but it was clear he was also dreading the moment his nephew would leave. Mog’s face was wreathed in sadness as she packed sandwiches and cake for Jimmy to take with him, and Belle couldn’t trust herself to speak.

  At eight the four of them were at Blackheath station and Belle clung to Jimmy while Mog and Garth looked on. When the first of their customers had joined up, they’d both stood outside the pub cheering them on their way, but since then they’d seen casualty lists and the reality of war had set in. Now anxiety was etched in their faces.

  ‘You’ll be in my heart every minute of every day and night,’ Belle whispered. At London Bridge Jimmy would board a troop train to Dover, then travel by ship to France where he would do his basic training in Etaples.

  The platform was crowded with groups of friends and relatives who had come to see their men off. Some were mere boys, being fussed over by tearful mothers and sisters. There were some men already in uniform, perhaps returning from leave, a handful of smartly dressed officers, but far more men of Jimmy’s age. Belle guessed that like Jimmy they had thought the initial rush to join up was foolhardy, but now in the wake of white feathers and Kitchener posters felt they had to go.

  She noticed that one of the wives was heavily pregnant, and her face was blotchy as if she had been crying all night.

  ‘And you will be in my heart for every second,’ Jimmy whispered in her ear. ‘Don’t get used to taking up the whole bed. I’ll probably prove such a bad shot they’ll send me straight back to you.’

  Belle forced a smile. Jimmy had been making jokes about going ever since he signed up. But his bravado wasn’t fooling her; she knew he was scared.

  She could hear the train coming, and knowing that meant she had only a minute or so more with him brought the tears to her eyes that she’d been fighting back since she woke a couple of hours earlier with him making love to her. Every caress had been so tender, each kiss so sweet, that it seemed impossible death would ever separate them, but now as the train chugged ever closer that didn’t seem so certain.

  ‘Let me come to London Bridge with you,’ she begged him.

  ‘No, my darling,’ he said, putting his arms around her and holding her tight. ‘It’s bad enough saying goodbye here. It would be even worse there, and you’d have to
come back alone.’

  ‘You will write, won’t you?’ she asked.

  ‘Of course I will, every day if I can, but the post will probably be slow, so don’t get upset if there’s a delay.’

  The train was coming into the station now, smoke billowing around them as the engine passed. Jimmy kissed her again, then turned to embrace Mog and Garth.

  ‘You keep safe for us,’ Mog said in a trembling voice.

  ‘Keep your head down, son,’ Garth said gruffly. ‘Don’t be a hero, leave that to someone else.’

  All at once the train doors were open and the guard was blowing his whistle to tell everyone to get in. Belle caught hold of Jimmy and hugged him hard. ‘I love you,’ she whispered as she stood on tiptoe to kiss him. ‘Keep safe for me.’

  He had to break away and get on the train, but after closing the door he leaned out of the open window, blowing kisses to her. The final whistle went, the train began to move, and Belle walked along beside it, gradually moving faster with it until she was running, tears rolling down her cheeks.

  She saw Jimmy wipe his eyes and mouth the words ‘I love you’, then suddenly she’d run out of platform and had to stop. It was only then she realized she wasn’t alone; at least twenty other women had done the same as her. And they all stood crying at the end of the platform until the train was out of sight.

  It struck her then that this was the first time she’d ever seen such a public display of emotion, and she turned to a girl even younger than herself who was crying hysterically and put her arms around her.

  ‘I’m sure they’ll be all right,’ she murmured comfortingly.

  ‘Why did he have to go?’ the girl sobbed. ‘I begged him not to.’

  ‘Because they believe it’s the right thing to do, and we must be strong and admire their conviction and courage,’ Belle said.

  As she and all the other women turned to go back along the platform, many of them reached out to touch another’s shoulder or arm, just a small gesture of shared sorrow and understanding. It reminded Belle of the way it had been with the other girls in Martha’s sporting house in New Orleans: silent but deeply felt sisterhood which in its way was more comforting then mere empty words.