A Christmas Promise

by Annie Groves

Olive felt the roughness of his jacket against her cheek. It felt safe and comforting, and she knew he had forgiven her; if ever she needed him, Archie would be there for her. Inhaling the fresh, clean smell of his newly washed shirt, Olive wondered if Archie could feel the guilty hammering of her heart against his chest, as his closeness awakened something she hadn’t felt for years and years. Surely at almost forty years of age she was too long in the tooth to be having fanciful notions now.

  ‘My God,’ Archie groaned as he buried his face in her neck, ‘you are the most beautiful woman …’

  ‘Oh, Archie,’ Olive gasped, hardly able to breathe now as her heart swelled with emotion. She knew that the nearness of this wonderful man, the kindest person she had ever met, was an intoxicating sensation. She embraced him as she might cling to an oak tree in a lashing gale. If she let him go now she was lost. This is all she ever wanted, all she ever dreamed about.

  They had danced around each other for a long time; he had been getting over his wife’s death and Olive had been too worried what the neighbours were thinking. But all that was behind them now, she thought, as he pulled her closer. His hands, so gentle yet so strong, edged her further back, gently eased her onto the sofa, and all the time his eyes, liquid with desire, were drowning in hers. Neither of them could pull their gaze from the other.

  ‘Oh, Olive, I have missed you so much,’ Archie groaned as his confident hands produced a low moan from Olive.

  She didn’t care that it was not yet nine thirty in the morning, she didn’t care that Nancy Black might knock at any moment, she didn’t care that the fire wasn’t lit as her fevered flesh craved his touch. She wanted – no, needed – to feel his skin on hers.

  Archie could feel his self-control weaken as other parts of his body strengthened and grew. He had needed Olive so much for so long now that he couldn’t recall a day when he hadn’t loved her. No matter how much he tried, he could not diminish the wild beating of his heart. Gently easing her back against the cushions, he lowered his head and her lips eagerly accepted his ardent kisses. Immediately, they were both lost in a turbulent frenzy of swirling passion.

  Her body, as pliable as that of a girl half her age, yielded to his touch, and Archie could practically feel the searing energy building inside her as she returned his fevered caresses again and again. He tried not to rush her, but it was so difficult, given the time they had already wasted, and as she arched her back to accept his exploring hands, her fingers clutching the back of his neck, pulled him closer. Archie groaned, as her legs wrapped around his and she silently begged him to take her now, hardly believing the long years of waiting were over.

  ‘Are you sure, my love?’ Archie’s voice was a low growl of agonised passion.

  ‘Close the curtains, Archie …’

  SIXTEEN

  ‘I’ll get it,’ Dulcie called to Mrs Wilson, whom her husband had hired to ‘do’ for her, and to help out with the two babies as Dulcie had pointedly refused to let her husband employ a nanny for Hope and little Anthony. Persuading David that she really didn’t need full-time staff had been a work of art, Dulcie thought. He couldn’t understand that being perfectly capable of raising two children was not an impossibility to most women.

  Dulcie did concede that she also enjoyed going to the salon to have her hair styled and her perfectly manicured fingernails buffed and polished at a moment’s notice without having to find a baby-sitter, and she also knew that those same buffed and polished talons were not well suited to washing dishes and doing housework. She was so lucky to have a mother’s help.

  As she opened the door, Dulcie was surprised to see Edith standing on the doorstep. Edith hadn’t been to see her son for weeks now.

  ‘So, to what do I owe the honour?’ Dulcie’s voice dripped cynical disdain as Edith entered the richly furnished sitting room, and barely glanced at her son, who was happily swapping wooden bricks with Hope in the playpen. Dulcie didn’t wait for an answer; instead she went to get Anthony and put him on his mother’s knee.

  ‘Mind me stockings, Dulcie. We haven’t all got rich husbands who can afford more.’

  Unceremoniously, Edith plonked the irate child, who wanted to get back to his building blocks, onto the cream-coloured sofa, where he promptly wiped the contents of his streaming face on the plush armrest.

  Dulcie made a mental note to call Mrs Wilson to clean it up after Edith had gone.

  ‘I can’t stand it any longer, Dulcie!’ Edith said histrionically as she sank down into the sofa while her son, catching sight of Hope gurgling happily in her playpen, climbed down from the sofa and crawled towards her.

  ‘How long has he been able to do that?’ Edith’s eyes opened wide in surprise and Dulcie felt a glimmer of satisfaction.

  ‘Oh, a good two months now, Edith. If you came to see him more often you would see he progresses every single day.’ She watched as Anthony and Hope played a little game of catching fingers through the bars of the playpen, and Dulcie couldn’t contain the sigh of satisfaction. Her sister, as she should have known, had gone back on her word after Anthony was born, and decided that David and Dulcie could not adopt the boy legally, so now she swanned in and out of his life whenever she pleased.

  ‘What do you mean, you can’t stand it, Edith? You can’t stand what?’

  Dulcie’s blunt manner was exactly the same as it always had been when dealing with her sister, and she had no intentions of changing it. ‘You’re not coming over all melodramatic again, are you, Edith? Having one of your “turns”?’ Dulcie knew that whenever Edith’s life was not going the way she wanted it she would always find an ear to cry down around here. And Dulcie was getting sick of it, as it usually heralded another broken relationship.

  After their mother died, Edith had flounced off to live with a theatre producer in Bloomsbury but, given Edith’s puffy red eyes, Dulcie gathered there had been a breakdown in that relationship, too.

  ‘How’s Gregory?’ Dulcie asked, prodding her sister’s pain a little more.

  ‘He’s threatened to leave me … Oh, Dulcie, what will I do without him? I have to go … I have to be with him!’

  ‘Go where?’ A toss of Dulcie’s blonde curls accompanied her words as she rang a little bell on the side table. In moments Mrs Wilson, motherly and plump, came into the room and Dulcie nodded towards the children.

  ‘Come on, my darlings,’ Mrs Wilson said sweetly, taking both children, ‘come and get some of Mrs Wilson’s lovely apple pie.’ She turned to Dulcie. ‘Would you like tea, Mrs James-Thompson?’

  ‘No, thank you, Mrs Wilson, that’s all for now.’ Dulcie didn’t want any interruptions while she was listening to her sister’s tale of woe …

  ‘So you want to go abroad to entertain the troops?’ Dulcie asked, and for once she was truly lost for words.

  ‘We talked about you taking Anthony after he was born, didn’t we?’ Edith asked.

  ‘If I remember rightly, you asked me to adopt him, but as yet you haven’t signed the legal papers David had drawn up.’

  ‘That’s what I’ve come to tell you,’ Edith said. ‘I will sign the papers. Where are they?’

  ‘Well, obviously David will have to be here to make it all legal and binding.’

  ‘There is just one thing, though, Dulcie …’ Edith said hesitantly. ‘I need … no, that’s not right … I thought that … seeing as you and David love Anthony so much and have all the money in the world to give him a great future … And seeing as I have nothing …’

  ‘Oh, come on, spit it out. How much?’

  ‘I don’t want your money, Dulcie!’ Edith cried, but Dulcie knew her sister better than that; if a girl could have her parents believe she was killed in a bomb blast and not have the decency to get in touch to allay their fears, she was capable of doing anything.

  ‘It would only be a loan. I’d pay it back – every penny!’

  ‘How could you, Edith? Anthony is a baby, how can you ever think of selling him?’ Dulcie felt her stomach tur
n, knowing her sister had stooped to a new low this time.

  ‘He’s a reminder, Dulcie, can’t you see that?’ Edith’s eyes were full of tears now. ‘Every time I look at him I see his father’s face, and do you know something – I can’t bear it! I just cannot bear to look at him.’

  ‘Oh, my word!’ Dulcie cried. ‘You want to sell your own son! He has done nothing to deserve you, Edith. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.’ Dulcie went over to the bureau, where David kept papers and files, and she took out a chequebook he left her for household items. She looked down at the cheque book, feeling soiled in some way at what she was about to do.

  ‘I’ll pay you back, Dulcie,’ Edith said, her voice so pathetically low that Dulcie could barely hear her.

  ‘I don’t want you to pay me back, Edith. I just want you to take this.’ She had written a substantial amount of money on the slip of paper and she watched as her sister’s eyes widened. ‘Is that enough?’

  ‘More than enough,’ Edith answered, and Dulcie slipped a sheet of paper and a pen in front of her. As Edith picked up the pen to sign away all legal rights to her son, Dulcie put her hand out to stop her.

  ‘Mrs Wilson, would you be kind enough as to come in here, please?’ Dulcie called from the sitting-room door. Moments later, Mrs Wilson came bustling in.

  ‘What can I get you, Mrs James-Thompson?’

  ‘Would you be kind enough to witness the signature of my sister and me? David has already signed.’

  ‘Certainly,’ said Mrs Wilson, before she too signed to say she was a witness to Edith Simmonds signing away any responsibility for the life of her own son, Anthony. And Dulcie, on signing her name at the bottom of the page, knew she had a little bit of Wilder her sister had no claim to now.

  ‘I know you will show him the love I can’t give him right now … You haven’t been through the same things I have, Dulcie.’ Edith’s eyes were pleading as she gathered her bag and gloves.

  ‘No, Edith,’ Dulcie said in a dull voice, recalling the horror of her own mother taking her to a backstreet abortionist, remembering how close she had come to actually killing her own darling girl. ‘Poor, poor you! You’ve never had it easy.’

  Dulcie moved from her sister as if she was contaminated, but she knew the gesture was lost on Edith when she said, ‘You understand me so well, Dulcie, but then –’ she looked down at the cheque – ‘throwing money at lost causes must make you feel much better these days?’ Edith’s top lip curled slightly,

  ‘Unless you ain’t noticed, Edith.’ Dulcie reverted to her old vernacular in the blink of an eye. ‘I ain’t got nothin’ to be ashamed of.’ Dulcie’s voice was a low growl now, a sure sign to Edith that her sister’s back was up and she knew she had to be careful.

  ‘Well, just so you know, I am not a lost cause either. I’ll be on the up one day – I’ll be famous, and rich.’

  ‘And look down your nose at anyone you please, hey, Edith?’ There was certainly no love lost between them now, and Dulcie, suddenly calm, realised that there was no point in yelling the odds at Edith. It went in one ear and out the other.

  ‘I don’t look …’ Edith sighed, but what was the use of trying to explain to Dulcie? She had everything: a wonderful husband, a gorgeous house and two kids who thought the world of her. Edith – feeling sorry for herself – knew she had a voice and a fat manager who threatened to dump her in the street with nothing if she didn’t do this tour … The next Vera Lynn? Hardly. She had to borrow this money off their Dulcie just to eat and pay her rent, but she wasn’t going to tell her ladyship that – imagine the crowing.

  ‘So, when do you ship out on this tour of a lifetime, Edith?’ Dulcie’s voice held a note of scorn as she watched as her sister dissolve into a fresh flow of tears, but then Dulcie relented. She knew she could not turn her back on her family; it wasn’t something one did, and if her money helped their Edith, it would make her the better woman, right? David was always going on about helping people less fortunate.

  ‘We ship out on Friday,’ Edith sniffed; she was going to wipe Gregory’s eye with this cheque – see how quickly he dismissed her then!

  ‘Let’s have a cup of tea. We can talk properly then. Mrs Wilson will look after the kids.’

  ‘Children – Mrs James-Thompson – they are children; kids are young goats.’

  Dulcie threw back her head and laughed. ‘Quite right!’

  ‘Are you going to let the hired hand talk to you like that?’ Edith whispered as the tears suddenly dried up.

  ‘About this producer chap of yours?’ Dulcie listened while Edith told her all about the impresario who had taken a shine to her when she was on stage one night. ‘Gregory has secured a tour to end all tours – at the end of it he said I will be more famous than Vera Lynn! That’s why I need the money, for the travel and costumes …’

  ‘And what about Anthony? Does Gregory even know he exists?’

  ‘It’s my career, Dulcie. I can’t sing with a baby on the hip, but when I make it …’

  At least she had the good grace to look shamefaced, Dulcie noticed, as Edith lowered her head and, barely shaking the titian curls, she said in a low voice, ‘He would leave me, he would drop me like an incendiary as soon as he found out.’

  ‘And you’d take it out on the child; blaming him for the glittering career you never had!’ Dulcie knew her sister so well: nothing got in the way of her dream, not even her own child.

  ‘I’ll write – just to see how he’s doing. You can tell him if you like – when he’s older.’ Edith’s voice was barely above a whisper, and Dulcie shook her head as she sadly watched her sister turn and walk out of the door.

  ‘No! Don’t do that, please.’ Carlo’s voice echoed around the cow shed as Agnes settled herself down on a three-legged stool. Old Darnley had told her there was nobody else to do the afternoon milking and as she was in charge it was up to her to get on with it.

  Feeling apprehensive, Agnes knew that she had to get to grips with all manner of chores she had never been expected to do and she had faced them with resilience and fortitude until now.

  ‘What’s the matter, Carlo?’ Agnes’s brow furrowed as she stopped blowing into her hand before milking. ‘I don’t want to give the cow a shock with cold hands.’

  ‘The animal is not the only one who will get a shock, Miss Agnes,’ Carlo said, trying to suppress a smile. ‘He is a bull – you will get no milk from him.’

  ‘Oh, my word!’ Agnes’s hands flew to her mouth, hardly able to believe that Darnley had let her lead this huge beast into the milking parlour. ‘He must be laughing up his sleeve at me,’ she said, feeling the hot colour flood her cheeks but she realised it was no use trying to be coy about it when Carlo threw his head back and howled with laughter until the tears ran down his cheeks.

  ‘I am so sorry, Miss Agnes, I do not wish to upset you,’ he shrugged as a warm smile played about his handsome mouth. ‘I am so sorry. Please forgive my outburst.’

  ‘I will have a go with one of the other cows then,’ Agnes said, trying to hold on to as much dignity as she could muster.

  ‘I will go and round up the cows and bring them to you,’ Carlo said graciously, and Agnes thanked him, but a few moments later she could hear his laughter halfway across the field.

  When he came back some time later he was quite sober.

  ‘Here, let me show you. I do this in Italy from a little boy – it is easy, just be gentle, talk to them.’ Agnes watched as the handsome Italian sang a soothing song to the contented cow, and she decided that he was one of the nicest people she had ever met.

  ‘Here,’ said Mavis, one of the three land girls, coming into the milking parlour a little later, ‘did you know that Darnley, the one on the crutches, is passing food out of the back gate and pocketing the money?’

  ‘Are you sure, Mavis?’ Agnes asked as Carlo led the milked cow from the parlour.

  ‘I just saw him with me own eyes,’ said Mavis. ‘I’m telling you, Agnes, you want
to get shut of them Darnleys. They’re milking you dry, girl. Before you know it they’ll have syphoned off any profits this farm might make.’

  ‘I’ll keep my eye on them, Mavis. Thanks for the tip-off,’ Agnes said quietly.

  SEVENTEEN

  Standing behind two red-tabbed brass hats, who were talking to each other in the lift as she made her way back up to her office, Tilly realised that they must be totally unaware of her presence if the conversation they were having was anything to go by.

  Tilly could clearly hear them discussing the events of the British Eighth Army landing at the toe of Italy last September, just after her birthday, she recalled.

  ‘Then when the American Fifth entered Naples in October we forced the Germans to fight long and hard for every gain …’ said the voice of an American commander.

  Tilly sighed. The Americans always think they can do the job better … she thought.

  ‘Now we’re holding the line of the Volturno River in the west …’

  ‘But isn’t it the Biferno River where they are preparing their main defences?’ asked his English companion.

  ‘Of course … the Gustav Line, along the Garigliano and Rapido Rivers below Monte Cassino …’

  Tilly had heard enough.

  ‘Ahem,’ she gently cleared her throat to let the two officers know she was present. This news had been kept out of the national newspapers and out of earshot of the general public, and she didn’t think it was right she should be present when tactics were being discussed in such a casual manner.

  ‘After you, miss,’ the high-ranking American said, looking a little sheepish, and as Tilly stepped out of the lift she smiled, knowing her small admonishment had left the two red-faced commanders to ponder their indiscretion.

  Settling down at her desk to finish an urgent report, after everybody else had finished for the day, Tilly worked diligently in the empty office. She had been working for about half an hour when the constant ringing of the telephone in the journalists’ office next door made it difficult for her to concentrate.