The Promise

by Lesley Pearse

  For some reason the name Forbes-Alton rang a bell, but Belle couldn’t think why that was. ‘Right, Miss Forbes-Alton,’ she said firmly. ‘I’m going to shut the shop door and bathe your forehead.’

  Instinct told her that as the woman was badly shocked it might make her sick, and she wouldn’t want an audience to it. So as she shut the door, she pulled down the blind.

  First she got the woman a drink of water, and waited for a moment to check she wasn’t going to be sick, before fetching a bowl of water and a clean cloth to bathe her forehead.

  ‘I was terribly hot coming up the hill,’ Miss Forbes-Alton said as Belle began to clean her wound gently. ‘I was thinking I must get some water, but I don’t remember anything after that. Why was I in the road?’

  ‘I think you fainted,’ Belle said. ‘Have you ever done that before?’

  ‘Not since I was at school,’ she said, wincing as Belle got out a piece of grit. ‘I did it several times when we had to go to communion before we had breakfast. Did that carriage hit me?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Belle said. ‘Do your arms or legs hurt?’

  Miss Forbes-Alton ran one hand down her legs through her dress. ‘No, it’s just my head.’

  ‘You were lucky the driver managed to stop in time. He said you walked out and dropped down right in front of him. If those horses had hit you it might have been very serious.’

  Once the wound was clean, Belle went into the back room and put the kettle on to make some tea. As she waited for it to boil she looked round the door and studied the woman a little more closely. Although she was stunned and shaky, it was obvious from her voice, demeanour and clothes that she came from the upper classes. Her dainty cream shoes alone would have cost more than the most expensive hat in Belle’s shop, and her blue dress was real silk.

  ‘I have always admired your shop,’ Miss Forbes-Alton called out, surprising Belle as her voice had become much stronger. She had that clipped manner of speaking that so many of her class used. ‘Someone told my mother that you were French, but you aren’t, are you?’

  ‘No, I just learned millinery in Paris,’ Belle called back. ‘Do you live nearby?’

  ‘Yes, in the Paragon,’ she said. ‘Mama bought a hat from you when you first opened. It’s her favourite, purple velvet with sprigs of violets around the brim.’

  Belle suddenly knew why Forbes-Alton sounded familiar. It was the name of a very snooty woman who had demanded that the hat she’d bought should be sent to her home. It was only because it was Belle’s first day that she’d agreed to it, and when she’d gone round there at the end of the day, the butler had taken the hat from her without so much as a word of thanks for her trouble.

  The house had been a very grand one, but then the whole of the Paragon, a Georgian terrace of three-storey houses linked by colonnades, was grand. It was probably the best address in Blackheath.

  ‘I remember your mother,’ Belle said. ‘I delivered her hat to your home in the Paragon. She’ll be worried about you, miss. Should I telephone so someone can come and take you home?’

  Belle had only had the telephone put on in the shop a few weeks before. She’d been told by the owner of the gown shop just a few doors down that she really should have one as rich women liked to arrange a time to come and shop for gowns and hats when they could be the only customer. Until then Belle had thought a telephone a fad that would never catch on with ordinary people. But she was anxious to attract wealthier customers, so she decided to try it. Since its installation she had received several inquiries, and it was good to be able to order materials for her hats without having to make the trip to warehouses. Now she was inclined to think that in a few years all businesses and many private homes would have one.

  ‘Please call me Miranda. And no, I don’t want you to telephone anyone. I’ll be fine in a minute or two.’

  Belle made the tea, putting extra sugar in Miranda’s, and insisted she ate a few biscuits too. Her face was still very white, but then she’d noted that most women of her class looked pasty.

  ‘I’m not going to let you walk home alone,’ she said as she gave Miranda her tea. ‘I’ll come with you and I’ll advise your mother to call the doctor. I know it is very hot today, but that shouldn’t make you faint.’

  Miranda’s eyes widened with horror. ‘No! I don’t need an escort or a doctor,’ she said, her voice rising in agitation.

  Belle was immediately suspicious. Most people would be grateful for help and support if they’d had some kind of turn which could have resulted in serious injury or death. And if Miranda’s mother couldn’t even carry a hat box home with her, she was hardly likely to have raised a daughter who was independent.

  ‘Could it be that you’ve been up to something today which you don’t want your family to know about?’ she asked lightly.

  ‘You are direct to the point of rudeness,’ Miranda replied, looking down her slim, aristocratic nose. ‘I appreciate that you’ve helped me, but I don’t think that gives you the right to question me.’

  Belle shrugged. It seemed Miranda was as hoity-toity as her mother. She guessed that she’d been brought up to believe that people in ‘trade’ should kowtow to the upper classes. ‘I believe that any woman should offer the hand of friendship to another if they feel they have a problem. I surmise by your prickliness that you know exactly why you fainted, and you are afraid that if I walk you home your mother will insist on you seeing a doctor.’

  Belle was merely stabbing in the dark, but when she saw the look of alarm on Miranda’s face she knew she’d touched a nerve.

  Maybe it was just that she’d felt dizzy so often lately. There had even been a couple of times when she’d thought she was going to faint. And Miranda had no wedding ring on her finger, not even an engagement ring. Was she in that kind of trouble?

  Belle was well aware that she might very well offend Miranda and that could cause a great deal of trouble for her. But it wasn’t in her nature to look the other way, not when her instinct told her someone needed help, so she went over to her and knelt down by her chair. ‘Are you having a baby?’ she asked quietly. ‘You can tell me to mind my own business if you like, but if you are, you need to confide in someone. You can trust me, I won’t tell a soul.’

  Miranda didn’t have to reply. Tears sprang to her eyes and she covered her face with her hands, all haughtiness gone.

  Belle felt a huge wave of sympathy. She was familiar enough with upper-class society to know that a baby born out of wedlock would create a terrible scandal.

  ‘Can’t you get married quickly?’ she asked, putting her arms around Miranda to comfort her.

  ‘He’s already married,’ Miranda sobbed. ‘I didn’t know that, not when it happened. But it doesn’t matter now because I went to see a woman today and she dealt with it.’

  Belle’s stomach turned a somersault. One of the girls at Martha’s in New Orleans had gone to a woman who had ‘dealt’ with her unwanted pregnancy. She knew what it entailed.

  ‘You went to see someone today? Did she do it with soapy water and a douche?’

  Miranda nodded. ‘I thought it would come away while I was with her, but she told me to go home and it would happen in a few hours. As I was coming up the hill from the station I felt dizzy, then the next thing I knew, you were there.’

  Belle sensed that Miranda was naive enough to imagine that aborting an early pregnancy was quick and painless. Clearly the abortionist hadn’t enlightened her for fear of losing the fee.

  ‘How do you feel now?’ she asked, putting a hand on Miranda’s stomach. She was very slender but held in by a firm corset.

  ‘I’ve got a dull ache,’ Miranda said.

  Belle took a deep breath to steady herself.

  She knew the sensible thing was to let Miranda go home as she had already planned; after all, she was nothing to her. But she doubted Miranda had any idea of how fierce the pains would be, or that she was likely to lose a lot of blood. Holed up in her bedroom,
it was doubtful that she could go through that without crying out. And with a house full of servants, and a bossy mother, her secret would soon be out and she’d be ruined.

  Belle couldn’t bear the thought of any woman having to face such an ordeal alone.

  ‘Haven’t you got a friend you could go and stay with for the night?’ she asked.

  Miranda looked puzzled. ‘Why would I want to do that?’

  Belle sighed, wondering how anyone could be so stupid. ‘Because you might need help. It’s a messy business,’ she said.

  Miranda’s pale blue eyes became wide with horror. ‘Then I couldn’t go to anyone I know! They’d all be outraged. What am I going to do? You’re frightening me.’

  Belle held Miranda’s hand and looked at her hard. She wasn’t exactly pretty, her nose was too sharp, her lips too thin, but there was something very attractive about her, even with her red-rimmed eyes. Belle thought back to all the tight spots she’d been in herself. She’d found her way out of most of them without help from anyone, and become stronger for the experience. But she couldn’t bring herself to let this girl lose everything by sending her home. She felt her mother was the kind who would disown her if she was shamed by her.

  ‘You can stay here,’ she said impulsively.

  ‘Here?’ Miranda looked around the shop as if bewildered at the suggestion.

  ‘I didn’t mean here in the shop,’ Belle hastened to explain. ‘I meant out in the back room. I can make you comfortable there. There’s water and a lavatory just out the back. I’ll stay and take care of you too. But you must telephone home and make some excuse.’

  ‘You’d do that for me?’ Miranda’s eyes filled again. ‘But you don’t know me! And besides, you are married, won’t your husband expect you home?’

  Belle knew Jimmy would be horrified at her getting involved, but she had no intention of telling him anything, at least not until it was over. She’d speak to Mog and get her help.

  ‘I’ll be truthful. I don’t want this,’ Belle said simply. ‘But I couldn’t have it on my conscience if I sent you home and you had no one to take care of you. Your reputation would be ruined if this got out. I’ve met your mother, remember? I can’t see her being very kind to you.’

  ‘Why would you care?’

  ‘Let’s just say it’s because I’ve had some hard times in the past. Now, who could you tell your mother you are staying with?’

  ‘Well, I told her this morning that I was going to see a friend who lives in Belgravia. I do sometimes stay overnight there.’

  ‘The telephone is there.’ Belle pointed to it. ‘Use it.’

  Belle went into the back room as Miranda asked the operator to put her through. She just hoped it wasn’t possible for Mrs Forbes-Alton to find out that the call had come from Blackheath and not Belgravia.

  The back room was the same width as the shop, but not as long, and a door at the end opened on to the small walled yard where the lavatory was. On the left of the room there were shelves to the ceiling filled with boxes of trimmings, canvas and rolls of felt. Beneath it was her workbench with her blocks and the steamer for shaping hats. To the right behind the door into the room were the sink, gas ring and a small stove she lit in cold weather. If she moved the small table beyond that, over by the workbench, she could make a bed of sorts on the floor.

  Fortunately she had a few cushions, old ones from Seven Dials which she’d brought up here with the intention of making new covers for them. There was also an old but clean dust sheet left from when the shop was decorated.

  She could hear Miranda speaking on the telephone, and it sounded as if her mother wasn’t at home and she was giving a message to one of the servants. It was terribly hot, so Belle opened the back door and pulled the beaded curtain across it which kept out flies, then laid the cushions down and covered them with the dust sheet.

  ‘Mama and Papa have gone out and they won’t be home until late this evening,’ Miranda said from behind her. When Belle looked round she was standing in the doorway looking down anxiously at the makeshift bed. ‘That was just as well as Mama would probably have quizzed me endlessly.’

  ‘That’s good. But I will have to leave you for a little while and run home,’ Belle said. She could see Miranda was becoming frightened now that she knew it wasn’t going to be the way she had expected. But Belle had no choice but to leave her alone. She had to go home and give an excuse to be away for the night, and she also had to get some clean sheets, towels and other necessities.

  ‘Don’t be scared, I won’t be long. Why don’t you take off your dress and corset? You’ll be a lot more comfortable, and I’ll bring you back a nightdress of mine to wear.’

  Belle went out through the back door and into the narrow alleyway, telling Miranda she would come back the same way. As she made her way home she was mentally making a list of things she would need, and what she would say to Jimmy.

  Luck was with her. Mog was alone in the kitchen making a cake and she said Jimmy and Garth had gone into Lewisham together to order some new chairs for the bar.

  Belle found it impossible to tell Mog lies, so she blurted out the truth about Miranda.

  ‘I know what you’re going to say,’ she said as she finished. ‘I should have sent her home and not got involved, but I can’t, Mog.’

  Mog looked stricken and didn’t say anything for a moment. Belle could almost see the conflicting emotions running through her.

  Finally she made a gesture with her hands, an acceptance that Belle had no real choice but to help the girl. ‘I think I would’ve done exactly the same. But Belle, these things can go badly. I’ve heard of women dying from it. You promise me that if anything goes wrong, if she becomes feverish, you’ll telephone the doctor?’

  ‘Of course,’ Belle replied. She had already invented a little cover story for an emergency: that the close shave with the carriage earlier in the day had made Miranda start to miscarry and she’d let her stay in the shop rather than try to get home.

  It was so typical of Mog that she didn’t waste any further time with a lecture, but flew upstairs and found sheets, a couple of towels, a blanket and some clean rags for the blood flow. She was down again in a trice, even before Belle had finished eating a hastily made sandwich.

  Mog also had some medicine in a brown bottle. ‘Give her a couple of teaspoons of this every three or four hours, it will help the pain and keep her temperature down,’ she said. ‘Now, I’m going to tell Jimmy you’ve gone over to see Lisette for the night as Noah is away and she’s lonely. He’ll be fine about that, with her in the family way an’ all. But you’ll have to straighten it out with Lisette later so she doesn’t let the cat out the bag.’

  Belle ran upstairs to get a few things, and when she got back she found Mog packing an overnight bag, and another smaller one with a jar of soup to heat up, some apple pie and a small bottle of brandy.

  ‘Just some bits in case you are hungry,’ she said, taking the things from Belle’s arms and putting them in the bag. ‘And brandy in warm milk might help to settle her afterwards.’

  Belle put her arms around Mog and hugged her tightly. ‘You are such a good person,’ she said. ‘Thank you for not being angry with me.’

  Mog pulled away, but held Belle’s arms and looked straight at her. ‘How could I be angry with you for having a big heart?’ she said. ‘I’ll pop up there tomorrow morning before the men are about. Just to see how she is. Keep her clean, boil some water up for washing her down below. She might be sick when it finally happens, don’t be too alarmed by that. But if she loses consciousness or there is a fast flow of blood, call the doctor immediately, whatever she says.’

  Belle realized then that Mog must have helped girls through this before, just another part of her past she had never revealed.

  ‘I will,’ she said, suddenly scared by what she had let herself in for.

  Mog hugged her again. ‘I’ll be there with you in spirit, if not in the flesh. Now go, before Jimmy gets bac
k.’

  Miranda was sitting on a stool by the open back door when Belle came struggling through the yard gate with her two big bags. She was still dressed and her face looked grey with anxiety.

  ‘It’s so hot,’ she whimpered. ‘And my stomach aches.’

  ‘That’s a good sign,’ Belle said briskly. ‘It means it’s starting to happen. Why didn’t you take off your dress?’

  ‘I couldn’t do the buttons,’ she said. ‘We have a maid at home, she always does that.’

  ‘Well, there’s no maid here,’ Belle said, and putting down the bags, she turned Miranda around and unfastened her dress. The corset beneath her petticoat was laced so tightly it was a miracle she could breathe. Belle quickly unlaced it for her. ‘Take everything else off too,’ she said, and rummaged in the overnight bag for the nightdress she’d brought for her.

  Miranda turned away as she took off her chemise and camisole, and Belle winced as she saw the vivid red marks the corset had made on her naked back and waist. She slipped the clean nightdress over Miranda’s head, then indicated she was to take off her drawers and stockings too.

  ‘I’m going to heat up some water for you to wash yourself properly down there,’ Belle said. ‘But sit down for now while I make up the bed for you.’

  It was dark by nine o’clock and much cooler. Miranda lay on the bed, now made up with clean sheets, and Belle had brought one of the shop chairs in to sit on. Miranda had eaten a little soup and bread, and seemed more relaxed, and with just the light Belle used on her workbench, the workroom looked cosy.

  ‘Tell me about the man,’ Belle said. She could see Miranda was having regular pains, but so far she said they were no worse than her monthlies. ‘Is he someone your family knows?’

  Miranda had already said she was one of four children: two older brothers who were both married with homes of their own, and a younger sister called Amy who was twenty and engaged to a solicitor. Miranda was twenty-three.

  When Belle had asked her earlier what her father did for a living, Miranda had looked surprised. ‘A living?’ she’d said. ‘He runs the estate in Sussex of course. Is that what you meant?’