The Promise

by Lesley Pearse

  ‘All that’s to be expected,’ David shrugged when she told him about it. ‘If you weren’t here I’ll bet he’d be as nice as pie to everyone and be looking forward to going home to be with you. He’s been through hell, it’s hardly surprising he’s having nightmares. But he probably doesn’t realize yet what huge strides they’ve made in medicine since this war started. They’ve learned to do blood transfusions, skin grafts for burns, stuff that we couldn’t have dreamed of before. I’ll bet there’s one of those clever blokes working on good artificial limbs right now. He’ll get a pension, he’s not going to be destitute, and he’s got you, lucky devil.’

  David was right about the enormous progress that had been made in medical science since the war began. In fact just about everything had moved on in leaps and bounds, from motor cars to aeroplanes. As a small child Belle remembered how they only had candles and oil lamps, most people had privies in the back yard, and until a few years ago omnibuses and cabs were all horse-drawn. Now electricity was commonplace, more and more people were using motor cars, and they not only had indoor lavatories but proper bathrooms too. So it did seem reasonable to believe that all this progress would mean that Jimmy might well get an artificial leg that would enable him to walk again.

  David was the one with the practical knowledge, but Vera was the one Belle could confide her more personal fears to.

  ‘It’s going to be so hard. We’re going home to where people will be talking about me and my past. I’m certain Miranda’s mother will do her best to keep the gossip going for as long as possible,’ she told her friend. ‘If Jimmy keeps up being grumpy and angry I don’t know if I’m going to be able to stand looking after him. And everyone will expect me to find myself a fancy man because of his injuries, so they’ll be watching me like hawks. I want to do the right thing, but I never claimed to be a saint.’

  ‘Take it one day at a time,’ Vera said. ‘The talk about you will stop if there’s nothing further to keep it going. Jimmy will probably be much calmer when he can’t hear guns in the distance and he’s in his own home. He will find ways to do things for himself, and you won’t be alone with him, you’ll have Mog and Garth around too. But you keep in touch with me, won’t you? I’d love to come to England before I go home to New Zealand. I’ll help you jolly Jimmy along too.’

  There was one thing though that Belle couldn’t talk to anyone about. Jimmy had said he wasn’t a man any more. She knew by this, although he wouldn’t say it in so many words, that he believed he could never make love again. As far as she knew there was no physical reason why this should be so. In her opinion, as soon as his wounds had healed up completely and he no longer had any pain, if they were in bed together he’d find it all worked the same as it always had. But she also knew that when men developed a fixation about such a thing, it often became a fact.

  If Jimmy couldn’t talk about this to her, he would never ask the doctor about it either. And she could hardly ask the doctor on his behalf.

  On top of this her mind kept turning to Etienne. By day when these thoughts came to her she would stifle them, force herself to think of something else. But she would wake in the night from steamy dreams where he was making love to her, aroused and wanting him, and that made her feel ashamed of herself.

  Then right at the end of August a letter came from him. She felt she ought to tear it up without reading it, but she couldn’t. And as she started to read she couldn’t hold back her tears.

  My dearest, darling Belle,

  I am so very sorry to hear Jimmy is so badly wounded, and I understand why you feel you must stay with him. He is a very lucky man to have you, I would willingly change places with him just to be near you.

  Even as I write this I know you will not back down from your decision. I admire your conviction and selflessness, and knowing that there is always the possibility that I might be killed before this madness ends, I have made a will leaving my little farm and whatever money I have left, to you. I have made Noah my next of kin, being the one person I know in England who can be trusted with passing it over to you.

  Should this arise, Jimmy does not need to find it strange or suspicious. He will know that I was your friend and rescuer back in Paris, and that I have no family to leave the farm to.

  Of course I don’t intend to get myself killed. I want to be back at my farm after the war, and live out my days growing lemons and rearing chickens. There will never be another woman now, as no one could fill the special place you have in my heart.

  I pray that you and Jimmy can be happy together, and I wish too that I spoke of what was in my heart back in Paris, and kept you with me. I will not write again. Nor will I come and find you. I know I must leave you to repair your life and I’m sorry if I caused you sadness; that was never my intention.

  My love always,

  Etienne

  Belle read the letter over and over again and cried at his nobility. That same evening she folded it up small and then unpicked some stitches in the lining of a little Dorothy bag she used to keep sewing items in, put the letter inside the lining and stitched it up again. She had burned all Etienne’s old letters. But she couldn’t bring herself to part with this one.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Vera sat on her bed and watched Belle packing her suitcase. ‘I’m going to miss you so much,’ she blurted out, her lip quivering.

  ‘Not as much as I’ll miss you,’ Belle said glumly. ‘I haven’t got any friends at home now Miranda’s gone and if I run into her mother I’m likely to slap her.’

  ‘What about your mother? Will you see her?’ Vera asked.

  Belle pulled a face. ‘I doubt it, she hasn’t even bothered to reply to the letter I sent telling her about Jimmy. Thank heavens for Mog; at least she’ll be pleased to see me.’

  ‘So are you taking Jimmy straight home?’ Sally called from the other end of the hut.

  Sally had been much nicer since Jimmy was wounded, often making tea for Belle when she got back from visiting him, and she always wanted to know how he was getting on.

  ‘No, he’s going to a convalescent home in Sevenoaks. I’ll go there with him to settle him in, and then go on home.’

  It was October now, and Jimmy’s wounds were healing well. On days when it wasn’t pouring with rain, she often took him for a walk in a wheelchair in the late afternoon. But she couldn’t honestly say his spirits had lifted. He was cheerful enough with the other patients and the staff on his ward, but alone with Belle he was tetchy and gloomy.

  The battle at Ypres was still raging. Recently there had been a three-week bombardment in which the 1st and 2nd Australian divisions joined the British 23rd and 41st, and attacked up the Menin Road east of Ypres. The Germans fell back under the devastating fire, and the Gheluvelt Plateau was finally taken by the Allies. But it was reported that there could be no decisive victory at the half-drowned, blasted and blighted battlefield that was Ypres. The Allies would gain a few hundred yards and move to the new ground, only for the Germans to retaliate and claim it back. Many said it was a wholly futile exercise and General Haig should call a halt to it.

  But it seemed that Haig cared nothing for loss of life, or even common sense. With the British army fought out now, he planned to rely on the Anzac and Canadian troops to take what was left of the village of Passchendaele. Everyone at the hospital feared the casualties would be enormous, and for Vera, with her two brothers in the Anzacs, this was very frightening.

  ‘Take this, it will keep you warm this winter.’ Belle handed Vera the knitted comforter Mog had made for her to bring out here. ‘I’d like to imagine you snuggled up in it, I was very glad of it when I first got here and I was so cold at night.’

  Belle felt she should be happy to be going home, but she was dreading it. She might have had to work terribly hard here, but she’d experienced freedom from all the petty little restrictions and niceties that were so much a part of life at home. The male drivers treated her as an equal, her skirts had grown shorter f
or practicality, she could be herself without anyone making judgments. She loved helping out on the wards too, where she felt valued and needed.

  It seemed a lifetime ago that she and Mog moved to Blackheath and spent their days watching and listening to how the middle classes spoke and behaved so they would fit in. Now that seemed as pointless as this war; all they’d done was set themselves up to be knocked down by snobbish, narrow-minded people who were cloistered in their privileged life.

  Yet Belle was proud that she’d made her dream of opening her own hat shop happen. When she looked back on those days, marrying Jimmy and the happiness they’d shared, she saw it as a golden period when she’d thought all the bad things in the past were banished for ever.

  But it was not to be. War broke out, Jimmy went off to France, and she lost her baby.

  Yet working at the Herbert and then coming here had made her feel fulfilled again. She had come to believe that when the war ended, all the experiences she and Jimmy had gained would enable them to build a new life together that would be even better than their first year of marriage.

  That hope looked forlorn now. Her once strong, steadfast Jimmy was a broken man and would be reliant on her for everything. Thanks to Blessard, her shameful past was common knowledge. Instead of the respect and admiration she’d once had, people would whisper about her and exclude her. On top of that money would be tight too, so they’d be unable to move somewhere else and start afresh.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Vera asked. ‘You look like you are going to burst into tears.’

  ‘Just thinking how much I’ll miss all this.’ Belle managed a weak smile and sank down beside her friend on her bed. She wasn’t going to upset Vera by telling her what was really bothering her. ‘I’ll miss the chats, the laughs and the bad food. I know I’ll have my comfortable bed, Mog’s cooking and all that to look forward to, but I’m a bit scared really.’

  Vera put her arms around her and hugged her tightly. She was very intuitive and probably realized the real cause of Belle’s reluctance to go home. ‘It will come right, I’m sure of that. Jimmy will become his old self again, and the people where you live will forget about those things they read in the press. Maybe you’ll have a baby – think how good that will be! And the Americans will be ready to fight in the New Year, and the war will soon end then.’

  Privately Belle thought that the only certainty in that list was that the Americans would be fighting by January. But Vera had enough worries about her brothers’ safety without being given cause to worry about her English friend too.

  ‘I’ll be fine the minute I see the White Cliffs of Dover,’ Belle said. ‘But just make sure you come and see me before you go back to New Zealand.’

  ‘Look, Jimmy, how lovely it is,’ Belle said excitedly as the car that met them from Sevenoaks station turned into a long drive with a beautiful Georgian country mansion at the end of it.

  An avenue of trees just beginning to take on autumn colouring lined the drive. Beyond railings to the right, sheep grazed in a meadow. To the left was a garden, a large, lush green lawn with borders still bright with chrysanthemums and asters. After the bleakness of France it was good to see the English countryside unchanged.

  ‘It’s one of the best convalescent homes around here,’ Mr Gayle, their driver, informed them. He was in his fifties, a dapper man with a bald head and a thin moustache. He’d already told Belle he was a solicitor, but he had volunteered to drive wounded soldiers to and from here because his eldest son had been killed at the Somme. ‘Around the side of the house is a delightful orangery; it’s warm in there even in the depth of winter, and the men love it. They have physiotherapists come in a couple of times a week, they’ll get you moving around in no time, son. The ladies in the surrounding villages bake cakes and pies for the men, they have visiting concert parties and all sorts. The owners have been very generous, moving into the Dower House to make extra room. I think it’s wonderful that anyone would give up their home like that.’

  ‘What nice people they sound, Jimmy. Fancy giving up their house for the wounded,’ Belle said from the back seat. She wished he would just show some appreciation and enthusiasm. They had left the hospital in an ambulance early that morning along with five other men with Blighty tickets. All five of them had been excited about going home, even the ones with worse injuries than Jimmy. But he’d ignored their jokes and refused to talk. On the ship from Calais he’d insisted that Belle move his wheelchair away from them and just sat in sullen silence.

  ‘If they’ve got a Dower House they’re hardly roughing it,’ he said.

  Belle was mortified. Jimmy never used to have a chip on his shoulder about the wealthy upper classes, but he seemed to have developed one now. He didn’t appear to see that he was lucky to be sent to a place like this, which was usually for officers.

  Two hours later Belle found Mr Gayle waiting in his car by the front door to drive her back to the station. It was dark now and very chilly.

  ‘Did your husband settle in well?’ he asked as he started the car.

  ‘I can’t really say, he hardly said a word,’ she said. ‘I must apologize for him, he isn’t normally rude to anyone, but he’s down in the dumps.’

  ‘It affects men in different ways, as I’m sure you know as you’ve been working in France,’ he said. ‘I have met men so badly injured they really have no quality of life left, yet they are optimistic and cheerful, while others with quite minor injuries rage about everything. But once away from the sound of guns and all the pressure of war, even the most difficult of men usually come round. He’s a lucky man having such a pretty and devoted wife. He has a lot to be thankful for. It’s the ones who have been gassed, blinded and paralysed that I feel most sorry for. They don’t have much of a future.’

  Belle had thought Haddon Hall simply wonderful and was so grateful to Captain Taylor who had pulled strings to get Jimmy in here. He was helped into a wheelchair when they arrived and wheeled to the dormitory he would share with five other men on the ground floor. It was a lovely room, very light and bright, with a whole wall lined with books because it had been the library. They were shown the bathroom, newly built on the ground floor with a hoist to help those who needed it to get into the bath. There was a billiards room, a drawing room complete with piano and comfortable chairs and couches, the dining room, and finally the orangery Mr Gayle had already mentioned. There were board games, jigsaw puzzles, water-colours for those who could paint, and one man who had lost both legs was building a model ship.

  They’d had afternoon tea in there too, scones, sandwiches and cake, all of which were delicious, but Jimmy barely said a word.

  ‘Now, when you’re coming back to visit him again, telephone and I’ll either come and pick you up myself or get someone else to do it,’ Mr Gayle said, handing her his card. ‘We all appreciate how difficult it can be for the wives and mothers of the wounded boys, especially those who have small children and live a long way away.’

  ‘I wondered about getting digs here to make it easier to visit,’ Belle said. ‘Do you think that’s possible?’

  ‘I can put out a few feelers for that,’ he said. ‘As you’ve been an ambulance driver, would you be willing to do some driving here?’

  ‘By all means. I worked at the Royal Herbert as a nursing aide too before going to France,’ she volunteered. ‘I’d be happy to do that again as well.’

  ‘You are a very plucky young lady,’ he said, glancing sideways at her. ‘I do so hope your husband will rally round while he’s here. He needs to take advantage of all the help and advice on offer.’

  ‘I’m sure he will,’ Belle said. ‘I’ll leave him for a couple of days to get used to it all. He seems to be gloomier when I am around.’

  ‘I expect he’s afraid of losing you,’ Mr Gayle said. ‘Men can be very stupid, they often lash out at the very one they should be cherishing.’

  Belle paused for a moment as she came out of Blackheath station. It felt like years sinc
e she’d left that April morning with Miranda, yet it was only six months ago. She remembered how they had tried to behave like sensible, responsible adults because Miranda’s parents, along with Mog and Garth, were seeing them off, yet in reality they were dizzy with excitement, intoxicated with the thrill of freedom. They had laughed all the way to Dover, unaware then that they had signed up for something that would test them in every possible way, and with no glamour at all.

  Within three months they had developed muscles in their arms that a prize fighter would be proud of, they’d found lice in their hair, they’d slipped over in mud so often that it hardly registered. They rarely had time to arrange their hair, the most they could do was wash it and scrape it back into a bun. Some days they got drenched to the skin in the rain, other days they were soaked in sweat. They lived in a hut Miranda said was barely fit for cattle, and they ate food that at home they would have baulked at. They knew they were only one small link in the great chain of wartime administration, but they took pride in getting the wounded to the hospital as quickly yet as gently as possible, and offering what comfort they could.

  Miranda had found the love she’d dreamed of. She might only have had a few short weeks with Will, but at least she didn’t die never experiencing the bliss of true passion.

  As Belle looked across the street at the welcoming lights of the Railway, she knew she must guard against ever letting Mog know that she too had found that bliss. While she doubted Mog would condemn her for it, confiding in her would make it harder to wipe Etienne from her mind. And she must do that.