A Nightingale Christmas Promise

by Donna Douglas

  Anna looked away.

  ‘How dare you speak to me like that!’ Edward snapped. ‘You’re just the errand boy, remember?’

  ‘And you’re just the hired help.’

  Edward’s eyes narrowed. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘You heard.’

  ‘It’s time you learnt some manners!’

  ‘Go on, then. Try it.’ Tom’s voice was low and taunting.

  Anna looked up at Edward, saw the muscles bunching in his jaw. ‘Don’t, Edward. Please!’ she begged, but he was already moving towards the delivery boy, his fists clenched.

  Tom straightened slowly, drawing himself up to his full height. Anna saw his narrow face darkening, his eyes black with a stone-cold intent that terrified her.

  She grabbed Edward’s arm, drawing him back to her with all her strength.

  ‘Don’t!’ she pleaded. ‘Leave it, please. He isn’t worth it.’

  To her relief, Edward stopped in his tracks. ‘You’re right,’ he muttered. ‘I’ve got better things to do with my time than brawling with some street dog!’

  Anna turned to face Tom. ‘What was it you wanted?’ she asked, in as neutral a voice as she could manage.

  ‘Mr Beck said there was a special delivery to go up West.’ Tom glared at Edward’s turned back.

  ‘Oh, he must mean this cake.’ Anna hurried to fetch the box. ‘The address is on the label,’ she said as she handed it to him. ‘Be careful with it, the icing’s still not quite set –.’

  But Tom was already gone, slamming the door behind him so hard it rattled in its frame.

  Edward watched him go. ‘Insolent swine!’ he muttered. ‘One day I’ll knock some manners into him.’

  ‘You shouldn’t provoke him.’

  ‘I’m not afraid of him.’

  You should be, Anna thought. She had seen the way Tom had looked at him, the raw hatred in his face. Edward might be a tough East End boy, but there was something about Tom Franklin that was truly menacing.

  ‘I don’t know why your father ever took him on,’ Edward said. ‘Everyone knows the Franklins are all criminals.’

  ‘Papa likes him.’

  The Franklin family were well known locally. Four motherless boys and a drunken father, all living in squalor in the area between Bethnal Green and Shoreditch known as the Hatcheries. Anna had never been there, but she had heard tell of the dark warren of narrow alleyways and overcrowded hovels, infested with rats, bugs and diseases. It had a terrible reputation, and so did the Franklins. They had all spent time in jail, father and sons, and there were rumours that one of them had killed a man. But for some reason her father had taken pity on Tom, the youngest of the boys, and offered him a job.

  ‘How can a man ever hope to change if no one helps him?’ he had said when his wife protested. ‘People can surprise you, if you give them a chance.’

  ‘Your father’s too trusting,’ Edward said.

  ‘He’s been right so far,’ Anna pointed out. A year after her father had given him the job, Tom Franklin was still turning up for work at the crack of dawn every morning, going off on his bicycle in all weathers, with never a word of complaint. He barely spoke to anyone, but he had the rough, guarded loyalty of a dog that had unexpectedly found itself in the hands of a kind new master after years of cruelty.

  ‘You mark my words,’ Edward said. ‘One day he’ll turn round and bite the hand that feeds him. His sort always does.’

  ‘Must we talk about him?’ Anna pleaded. The truth was, Tom made her feel uneasy. She didn’t like the way he looked at her sometimes.

  ‘You’re right.’ The tension left Edward’s face, and his handsome, easy smile was back in place. ‘We can’t let him spoil this moment.’

  ‘What moment?’ Anna frowned.

  Edward reached for her hands. ‘Anna, there’s something I want to ask you—’

  ‘The loaves!’ she cried out.

  ‘What?’

  ‘They’re burning! Can’t you smell them?’ Anna pulled away from him and rushed to the oven.

  ‘Can’t you leave them a minute? They’re probably ruined anyway.’

  ‘But we might be able to save some.’ Anna threw open the heavy oven door and stepped back, coughing and choking as a cloud of acrid smoke engulfed her.

  ‘Anna—’

  ‘Quick, open a window, let some of this smoke out.’ She pushed past him, stumbling to throw open the back door.

  ‘Anna, please—’

  ‘That’s better.’ She breathed in the cold, fresh night air. From beyond the yard wall she could hear the rumble of barrow wheels on the cobbles as the hawkers and costermongers packed up their wares in nearby Columbia Road. ‘It’s a shame about those loaves, though. All your hard work spoilt.’

  ‘Never mind the loaves.’

  ‘But it’s such a waste …’

  ‘Anna, for God’s sake! I’m trying to ask you to marry me!’

  She turned slowly to face him. ‘What?’

  Edward let out an exasperated sigh. ‘This is not how I meant to do it,’ he said. ‘I had it all planned. I was going to go down on one knee. I even had a ring, look!’

  He pulled the small box from his apron pocket and held it out to her. ‘I wanted it to be special,’ he said. ‘Because I know how much you love Christmas.’

  Anna couldn’t speak. She stared at the ring, sparkling in its box, then back up to his face.

  Then the door opened and her father, mother and Liesel trooped in.

  ‘We heard shouting,’ said Friedrich. ‘Have you asked her yet?’ Edward nodded. ‘And?’

  Dorothy sniffed the air. ‘Did those loaves catch fire?’

  ‘Never mind the loaves!’ Friedrich dismissed impatiently. ‘Our daughter is getting married!’

  ‘I don’t know if she is,’ Edward said. ‘She hasn’t answered me yet.’ He looked at Anna. ‘Well?’ he said. ‘What do you say?’

  Anna stared back at him. He looked genuinely anxious, as if he could ever have doubted the answer to his question.

  ‘I say yes!’ she said.

  Much to Anna’s mortification, her father insisted on telling every customer who came into the shop that she was getting married. Not only that, he dragged her out of the kitchen and paraded her in front of everyone, so she could hear their congratulations.

  She could just imagine what they must have made of her, standing there looking so thin and bedraggled in her stained apron, next to Edward. He looked so handsome, tall and well-built, with his fair hair, blue eyes and dazzling smile, she was sure they must all have been wondering how she ended up with someone like him. She could hardly fathom it herself.

  As soon as the last customer had gone, Friedrich closed up the shop and invited all the neighbours round to celebrate. There were the Hudsons who ran the butcher’s next door, and the Wheelers who owned the café on the corner and always brought their bread and cakes from her father. Then there was Mr Gold who had just opened a clothing manufacturer’s with his daughter Rachel. They crowded into the tiny shop, and Mr Hudson brought a jug of beer from the Angel and Crown on the corner and they all toasted the happy couple.

  Anna stood among them, engulfed by their good wishes but too dazed to take them in. She kept looking at the ring on her finger, expecting it not to be there.

  Then her father made a speech. ‘Thank you, my friends, for coming to celebrate our special day,’ he said, beaming round at them all. ‘I am so happy to welcome Edward into our family. Ever since I took him on as my apprentice, he has become like a son to me. And I hope he has come to look on me as a father.’

  Anna stole a sideways glance at Edward’s profile. He had grown up in the Barnardo’s boys’ home in Stepney Causeway after his mother died and his own father abandoned him. He never talked about it; she could only guess how difficult and painful his childhood had been.

  ‘And now he will be part of our family,’ Friedrich went on. ‘And I cannot tell you, my friends, how proud and happy I—’


  The back door slammed then, startling them all. A moment later Tom appeared in the kitchen doorway, a cake box in his hands.

  Edward let out an angry sigh. ‘Trust him to turn up and ruin everything,’ he whispered.

  The delivery boy glared round at the assembled company, his body taut, instantly on the defensive.

  ‘She sent it back,’ he blurted, holding out the cake box.

  Anna glanced at her mother. Dorothy Beck’s face was a blank mask, but her lips were white with anger.

  ‘No matter.’ Friedrich moved towards Tom, smiling in greeting, his hands outstretched. ‘You must join us, my boy. We’re celebrating. Anna and Edward are engaged, isn’t that wonderful?’

  Tom shot a dark look at Edward but said nothing.

  ‘You must have a glass of beer …’ Friedrich started to say, but Tom cut him off.

  ‘I can’t stop.’

  ‘Then you must take the cake with you, as a Christmas gift from our family to yours.’

  Tom’s dark eyes narrowed warily, as if he was not sure whether Friedrich was making fun of him or not.

  ‘Look at him,’ Edward muttered. ‘And to think, all your hard work will be wasted on that bunch of savages!’

  Anna didn’t reply. There was something almost pitiful about the young man as he stood there in his shabby clothes, so out of place in the middle of the party.

  But then he looked up and caught her eye, and the cold, implacable contempt she saw in his face chilled her.

  Tom Franklin didn’t need or want her pity, she could tell.

  Anna left the party as soon as she had a chance and slipped up to her room to catch her breath. Everything was happening so fast, she needed a moment to stop and take it all in.

  It was dark, and as she went to light the gas lamp beside the bed, a voice came out of the shadows, making her jump.

  ‘Leave it. I like the dark.’

  Anna swung round. As her eyes grew used to the darkness, she could make out her sister’s shape, curled up on the double bed they shared.

  ‘Liesel? What are you doing up here? I thought you’d be enjoying the party.’

  ‘It’s your party, not mine.’ Her sister’s voice was sulky. ‘No one would even notice if I was there or not.’

  Anna stifled a sigh. There was no talking to her when she was in one of her moods.

  ‘Don’t be so dramatic.’ She lit the lamp and turned it up, filling the room with a soft glow. She crossed the room to the mirror and examined her reflection. She looked even worse than she’d imagined, her hair hanging in lank strands around her pale, tired face.

  ‘The belle of the ball,’ Liesel said sarcastically.

  ‘Don’t.’ Anna tried to pull her hair back into the nape of her neck, but that only drew attention to her odd, bony face.

  ‘Here, let me,’ Liesel sighed. She clambered across the bed to where Anna stood. ‘You need to make it softer, like this …’

  Anna watched her sister artfully twisting, combing and pinning, gradually shaping her hopeless hair into something that looked almost pretty.

  ‘When are you going to marry him?’ Liesel asked suddenly. Anna looked at her sister’s reflection. She was still combing away, her expression intent.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Not for a while, I suppose. We’ll have to save up, find somewhere to live –’

  Liesel was silent, tugging the comb through her hair. Then she suddenly blurted out, ‘I don’t want you to go.’

  Anna smiled. ‘But you’re always telling me how you can’t wait for me to leave home, so you can have this room to yourself!’

  ‘Yes, but I didn’t mean it.’ Liesel threw down the comb and wrapped her arms around her sister’s waist in a fierce, sudden hug. ‘Why do things always have to change?’ she whispered. ‘I like it here, with you and Mother and Papa.’

  ‘So do I.’ Anna stroked Liesel’s soft curls. Her hair smelt of baking spices from the kitchen. ‘They won’t change,’ she said. ‘Edward and I won’t get married for a long time. And even when we do, we’ll still be working here at the bakery every day.’

  ‘Yes, but it won’t be the same, will it? You’ll be married.’

  ‘I’ll still be your sister, Li. And even if things do change, it will be for the better.’

  ‘Do you promise?’

  Anna thought for a moment. She was perfectly content, she realised. She had everything she wanted. Edward loved her and wanted to marry her, she had a close family around her, a comfortable home and work that she enjoyed. When she looked into the future, all she could see was more love and happiness coming her way.

  She only wished she could have bottled this moment, so she could treasure it forever.

  ‘I promise,’ she said.

  Chapter Two

  September 1914

  But Anna couldn’t keep her promise. As the hot, sultry days of summer passed, the mood seemed to darken and grow heavy, like the sky before a thunderstorm.

  Around the world, alliances were made, promises given and treaties sent back and forth. The talk of war spread like a contagion, as an old, long-buried hostility and mistrust towards Germany resurfaced. It was all anyone seemed to talk about, in the bakery and on every street corner. Every day the newspapers urged the government to take action and purge their old enemy. Music hall performers sang patriotic songs, and it was impossible to walk through Victoria Park without seeing kids acting out imaginary invasions, taking it in turns to play the dreaded Hun.

  It all made Anna feel very uncomfortable, especially when she heard rumours of how Mr Speer’s pork butchers in Gossett Street had been attacked by vandals. But she knew her father was too well known and well loved in the area to suffer a similar fate. So she went on working in the bakery kitchen every day, kneading dough and shaping loaves and doing her best not to think about what was going on beyond the back door. Edward read the newspapers and avidly devoured every word. Anna refused to listen when he talked about things he had read.

  ‘Don’t,’ she said. ‘The way everyone’s going on, anyone would think it had already happened.’

  ‘It’s only a matter of time.’

  Anna shook her head. ‘Papa says it’s all nonsense. We won’t go to war.’

  ‘But after what they did to Archduke Franz Ferdinand—’

  ‘Why should we start fighting over a place we know nothing about?’ Anna cut him off. ‘Half the people in Bethnal Green have never been further than Shoreditch, and yet they’re talking about the Balkans as if they’re next-door neighbours!’

  ‘That ain’t the point. We promised Russia—’

  ‘I don’t want to hear about it,’ Anna snapped. ‘Please, Edward. Can’t we just be happy while we have the chance?’

  Their chance didn’t last long. On a grey day at the beginning of August, the storm finally broke. Germany invaded Belgium, and the following day Britain declared war.

  ‘They say huge crowds gathered outside Buckingham Palace to see the King and Queen,’ Anna told her father, as he slashed the tops of a row of loaves waiting to be baked. ‘There was so much shouting and cheering when they came out on the balcony, you could hear it halfway up the Strand.’

  ‘It is wrong, all wrong.’ Her father shook his head. ‘Imagine cheering because you are going to war. And what is the King thinking? The Kaiser is his cousin, for God’s sake!’

  ‘The Kaiser is also cousin to the Czar,’ Edward pointed out over the clatter of the tins he was emptying into the sink. ‘But that didn’t stop him declaring war on Russia.’

  Within days of war being declared, her father was ordered to go down to the town hall and register as a foreigner. Anna’s mother had to go too. When she returned, her face was flushed with anger.

  ‘Do you know, the man behind the desk had the cheek to ask me why I married a German!’ she said. ‘I told him, if it’s good enough for Queen Victoria then it’s good enough for me. That shut him up!’

  She was trying to make light of it, but
Anna could tell she was shaken by the experience.

  Then Edward joined the queue of eager young men down at the recruiting office. He was most dejected when they turned him away.

  ‘They’re sending trained reservists and experienced soldiers first,’ he said to Anna while they worked in the kitchen together. ‘They said I’m to turn up for weekly drill practice, and they’d call me for training when they needed me. But I daresay the war will be over long before then.’ He looked gloomy at the prospect.

  ‘I’m sorry, Edward.’ Anna did her best to hide her relief. ‘I know how much you wanted to go.’

  ‘It’s not that,’ he said. ‘I don’t want anyone thinking I’m a coward.’

  ‘No one would think that.’

  ‘I don’t know about that,’ Liesel said from by the sink where she was running the tap over some tins. ‘I saw a woman give a boy a white feather on the bus yesterday. She told him he should be ashamed of himself for not fighting for his country.’

  Anna gasped. ‘What a horrible thing to do!’

  ‘You don’t know what it’s like,’ Liesel said over the rush of running water. ‘It feels as if the world is going mad. War, war, war, it’s all everyone talks about.’

  ‘Not here.’ Edward smiled across the counter at his fiancée. ‘Anna doesn’t like talking about the war, do you, my love?’

  ‘I know,’ Liesel said, turning off the tap. ‘She pretends it’s not happening because she’s safe in this kitchen.’

  ‘I do know what’s happening, thank you very much,’ Anna snapped back, stung. For a moment she went on beating the cake mixture she was preparing, then said, ‘As a matter of fact, I was thinking of volunteering myself.’

  She looked up at them. They were both staring at her in disbelief.

  ‘You?’ Edward said.

  ‘Why not? Mary Hudson next-door has started working in a munitions factory. And a few of the girls down at the church are taking first aid lessons so they can join the Voluntary Aid Detachment. I feel as if I should do something.’

  ‘And what are you going to do?’ Edward asked. ‘Bake cakes for the soldiers?’