The Promise

by Lesley Pearse

  They were in the main bank clerks, shop assistants and factory workers, and there were a couple of school teachers, not men used to the outdoors. The training period at Etaples might have toughened them up to some degree, but this long march was gradually weakening them to the point where dozens more might become seriously ill.

  Jimmy felt he was holding his own, but then he’d hauled heavy barrels around from the age of sixteen in all winds and weathers and his working days had always been long too. Plus he had several layers of warm, woolly underwear beneath his uniform. Yet as he lay back on his pack shivering he couldn’t help but wonder how much worse it was going to get.

  He’d heard the bad weather had brought something of a lull in hostilities at the front, but Captain Brunskill had said they needn’t think that meant they were going to be idle, as the trenches and holes the British Expeditionary Force had dug to protect themselves from the German artillery when they’d first got there were rudimentary. Their job would be to improve and extend the trenches to command a satisfactory field of fire.

  Jimmy wished he had not been so hasty in enlisting. It was clear to him now that the Germans had a formidable army, and it was said that a huge proportion of BEF had already been decimated at Mons and in what they called the Race to the Sea. Those men were seasoned soldiers, small in numbers perhaps compared to the size of the French army, but tough as old boots and trained to the hilt. Now all England could offer to swell their numbers was Kitchener’s Army, a ragbag of young lads who had left their homes in search of glory.

  Jimmy couldn’t see anything in the darkness of the barn – the fire they’d lit earlier outside had been put out by the rain – but he could hear snuffling, snoring and coughing, and he wondered too how many of the men were crying silently, wishing they hadn’t been caught up by patriotism or followed their friends who wanted to join up. But they were here now and in a few days’ time they would be at the front. There was no way back except with a serious injury; even the dead got buried here.

  Chapter Nine

  Constable Broadhead pushed his way through the throng of people in the vestibule of the court at Lewisham to catch Belle and Mog before they left. ‘I just wanted to thank you for giving your evidence today,’ he said to Belle. ‘It can’t have been easy for you.’

  Belle smiled weakly. It certainly hadn’t been easy for her to wait to be called into the court room as a witness surrounded by dirty, bedraggled people who smelled bad and looked at her balefully. She had been cross-examined about the robbery and the injuries she sustained and, even worse, had to tell the court that she’d miscarried too. But Constable Broadhead had been very kind to her, and she didn’t want to make him feel he’d added to the distress she had suffered.

  ‘I’m just relieved it’s over and that he won’t be robbing or hurting anyone else for some years,’ she replied. ‘And you did very well to bring him to justice.’

  Archie Newbold had been found guilty on all seven counts of robbery with violence and had been sentenced to ten years in prison. She was just one of several witnesses, but the judge had singled her out to compliment her on the sketch she’d drawn of Newbold, which had made the man in the dock stare menacingly at her and make her feel fearful.

  It was mid-January and snowing outside. Belle felt chilled to the marrow and completely wrung out, but not just by the trial. Yesterday they had read in the newspaper that there had been Zeppelin bomb attacks in Yarmouth and King’s Lynn in which twenty-eight people were killed and another sixty injured. Added to that were the ever-lengthening lists of those killed in action. It seemed to Belle that a very dark cloud was hanging over England, which was not going to roll away any time soon.

  ‘May I take you both for a cup of tea to warm you up?’ Broadhead asked, as if he sensed how she was feeling.

  ‘That is very kind,’ Belle replied. ‘But I think with this snow we’d be better to hurry along home.’

  ‘Who is that?’ Mog asked the policeman, indicating a tall, thin man wearing a dark coat and trilby hat. He was leaning against the wall by the court exit and looking towards them. ‘He seems to be taking a great deal of interest in us. I noticed him in the court room.’

  Broadhead glanced at the man. ‘I expect he’s a reporter. He’s probably hoping to speak to you. If you like, I’ll come out with you and see you into a cab; that should deter him.’

  Belle hadn’t noticed the man before, but having no wish to speak to anyone further that day, she took Mog’s arm and allowed Broadhead to lead the way to get them a cab.

  But as Broadhead started down the steps, the tall man moved right into the path of the two women. ‘Miss Cooper, isn’t it?’ he said, holding out his hand to shake Belle’s.

  Being called by her maiden name was a jolt. It made Belle falter and look to Mog for help.

  ‘I know you are Mrs Reilly now, but you were Belle Cooper, were you not?’ he said, his tone oily and knowing, his eyes a yellowish-brown.

  In a flash of intuition Belle felt he must have connected her with the trial of John Kent, the man who had abducted her and sold her into prostitution because she witnessed him murder one of her mother’s girls. Kent was hanged before she married Jimmy, and she had believed when she moved to Blackheath that her past was buried and forgotten. But to deny the name of Cooper would be pointless and make her look as if she had something to hide.

  ‘Yes, my maiden name was Cooper,’ she said, trying very hard not to show any anxiety. ‘Have we met before?’

  ‘Constable Broadhead has got us a cab,’ Mog said, tightening her grip on Belle’s arm to indicate they should get away quickly. ‘We must go, can’t keep him waiting when it’s so cold.’

  ‘Blessard,’ the man said, still holding out his hand. ‘Frank Blessard of the Chronicle. No, we haven’t met before but …’

  Belle cut him off by shaking the proffered hand. ‘Good to meet you, Mr Blessard, but we must rush now.’

  As she and Mog hurried down the steps she was aware he had half pursued her with the intention of asking her something else, but she didn’t turn her head, and asked Broadhead if he would like to ride back with them to the village.

  ‘That is very kind of you. I was intending to catch the tram,’ he said, his face lighting up at the offer. ‘But if I’m not imposing, it would certainly get me back a great deal quicker.’

  ‘That man Blessard who spoke to us said he was with the Chronicle,’ Belle told Broadhead once the cab was moving. ‘I don’t know that newspaper. Do you?’

  The policeman grimaced. ‘A gutter rag. Good job you cut him short, he’d be hoping for more gory details than he got in court. If he approaches you again, just send him on his way. I’ve got no time for those jackals, they pick over a case and if they can’t find any sensational story, they make it up.’

  The snow had turned to driving sleet by the time they got back to Blackheath and Belle paid the driver, bade goodbye to the policeman and hurried indoors with Mog.

  Garth was in the kitchen. ‘Did it go well?’ he called out as they took off their outdoor clothes and boots. ‘The kettle’s on. How long did the rat get?’

  The two women joined Garth in the kitchen, going over to the stove to warm their hands. Mog told Garth the verdict. ‘But Belle’s a bit shaken, a journalist there knew her as Cooper.’

  ‘You don’t want to put no mind to that,’ Garth said, going over to Belle and putting one big paw on her shoulder. ‘Your maiden name’s no secret. Plenty of people round here know it, you was living here for months afore you was wed to our Jimmy.’

  ‘That’s all very true, but why would he use the name of Cooper when I’d only been called Reilly in the court? And there was something slimy about him,’ Belle said, leaning against Garth’s big chest for comfort. ‘I think he was at Kent’s trial.’

  Garth hugged her to him. ‘There now, don’t you be worried about that. They never brought up nothing bad about you in that trial. I’d say he got a bit excited cos you’ve been a victim of
a bad man again. That’s like human interest, ain’t it?’

  ‘Course it is,’ Mog said stoutly. ‘You being so pretty ’n’ all, your hubby off at the war and you being so clever as to do that picture of that villain. Noah would tell you there was a time he’d bite off anyone’s hand to get such a good meaty story.’

  ‘Maybe I should telephone Noah,’ Belle said, looking from Garth to Mog. ‘You know, get his advice. Somehow I don’t think I’ve seen the last of that man, and I need to know how to deal with him if he turns up again.’

  ‘As if you haven’t got enough to worry about with Jimmy,’ Mog said.

  Belle was well aware that Mog was susceptible to extreme anxiety where Belle’s well-being was concerned, and so she felt it best to reassure her.

  ‘I’m not too worried about him, he’s fine really, just grousing in his letters cos he’s missing us all and fed up with being cold and wet all the time,’ she said lightly. ‘He said his feet aren’t nearly as bad as most of the other men’s. And if he can’t grouse to us about it, who can he grouse to?’

  Belle was in fact very worried about Jimmy as she could sense the misery between the lines in his last letter. He had said he’d been to see the MO about trench foot, but then added his wasn’t anywhere near bad enough to get him sent to hospital like some of the other men. He’d said it was lucky Mog had knitted him so many pairs of warm woollen socks as he’d been able to change them frequently, but drying them out was the problem.

  Belle knew trench foot was caused by standing in water for long periods. It made her shudder to think of the conditions the soldiers lived and fought in over there.

  There was so much about a soldier’s life that was unfair. If they were wounded in battle they would get an army pension, but those who became disabled in some other way or just became sick through the conditions they lived in, got nothing.

  Jimmy had made what passed for a joke in his letter about how the only way to get home was on a Blighty ticket. By that he meant a serious wound or an ailment that couldn’t be treated at the front. He’d said that one man in his regiment had shot himself in the foot, and claimed it was an accident while he was cleaning his gun. Another soldier was seen waving his arm above the trench, clearly hoping the Boche, as the soldiers called the Germans, would shoot him.

  Belle didn’t think he’d mention such things unless he too had toyed with the idea of doing something similar. He’d also told her about being part of a patrol sent over into No Man’s Land at night to reconnoitre, and how one night the Germans had sent up flares and he described himself like a rabbit stunned motionless by a bright light when he should have dropped to the ground. He’d gone on to joke that it seemed the Boche couldn’t be bothered to shoot him.

  But Belle realized that there was nothing funny about it; he’d clearly frozen with terror. Bad as it was to imagine him that way, somehow it seemed worse to think he didn’t dare admit it for fear of being seen as a coward.

  Belle was horrified by the way most people were glorifying the war. She wondered if they’d still feel the same if they lost a family member. The newspapers veered between reporting German atrocities – everything from killing babies and raping women to torturing prisoners of war – and jubilantly encouraging everyone to believe the Allied armies were winning, regardless of the already horrific losses. As soldiers weren’t allowed to say exactly where they were, and wouldn’t be able to tell the truth about how the war was going, even if they knew, no one could be sure what was really happening there.

  ‘Are you all right, Belle?’

  Mog’s voice cut through her reverie, and she looked up with a faint smile. ‘Yes, I’m fine. I think I’ll go up and light the fire in the living room and write to Jimmy. He’ll want to know how it was today.’

  ‘Don’t give that reporter another thought,’ Mog replied. ‘By the time he’s sat through the rest of the cases tried today he’ll have forgotten all about you.’

  Belle wrote her letter to Jimmy. She told him nothing about Blessard, only about the other witnesses and the outcome of the trial. She mentioned that it had been snowing, which had now turned to sleet, and that she was opening the shop again in a week’s time. She had found a source of stylish fur hats and matching muffs which should sell well and give her time to design and make hats for the spring.

  But as always, most of her letter was filled with little details of home life, how concerned she, Mog and Garth were about him, and how much she missed him.

  The picture she drew at the bottom was of a pig wearing a judge’s wig, as she’d noticed that morning that the judge resembled a pig, with very small dark eyes and a nose more like a snout.

  On a separate piece of paper she sketched Blessard as she remembered him. A bony face, bad skin, thin lips and a small, light brown moustache, but she found she couldn’t remember the shape of his eyes, only the cunning in them.

  Was her past about to come back and haunt her?

  Six weeks after the trial at nearly four in the afternoon Belle wrapped up warmly in her brown fur hat, brown tweed coat and a thick blue scarf Mog had knitted for her, to go up to the shop. As it was snowing hard that morning, Belle had remained at home to work on some new designs and left Miranda to open the shop. In the dark the snow looked very pretty; there had been so little traffic all day that even the road was covered in a good two inches. Mog had said it was daft to go up there as there wouldn’t have been any customers in this weather, but Belle needed some fresh air, and she wanted to see Miranda.

  The bowed shop window always looked inviting in the dark as the light from the shop streamed out on to the pavement. Belle paused for a moment, looking at the display of the fur hats and muffs in the window.

  Beyond the window display she could see Miranda standing on a stool, rearranging hat boxes on a shelf. She looked elegant as always in a plum-coloured wool dress with a matching small jacket trimmed with velvet and her blonde hair plaited and wound around her head.

  She jumped down from the stool as the shop bell tinkled and Belle came in. ‘I didn’t expect you to come up today,’ she said, looking both surprised and pleased. ‘But I’m very glad you have because I’ve had some hideous people in here today and I wanted to share the experience with you.’

  Belle smiled. Miranda liked dramatic words; hideous was one of her favourites.

  ‘In what way hideous? Ugly, rude, badly dressed?’

  ‘Hideously boring mostly. One woman regaled me about her precious cat who had just passed on. I ask you! How can anyone expect me to listen to the virtues of a ginger tom for over an hour without yawning? Then there was that woman that wears a kind of turban and sniffs all the time.’

  Belle laughed. She knew exactly who Miranda was referring to, the woman came in all the time but had never once taken off the curious turban to try on a real hat. Belle had always suspected she might be bald. ‘I take it business has been hideous then?’

  ‘On the contrary, I’ve sold four fur hats and three muffs,’ Miranda said gleefully. ‘Also, that ghastly Miss Orwell who looks like she has a permanent bad smell under her nose came in with her mother to see if you would make her a headdress for her wedding in April. She also wants something for her bridesmaids. I said you’d telephone her and arrange an appointment to discuss what she wants.’

  ‘That’s marvellous,’ Belle said. ‘We must endeavour to try and like the ghastly Miss Orwell. Fortunately she is quite pretty, so one of my stunning designs won’t look out of place on her.’

  They both laughed. One of their delights was to ridicule the customers they didn’t like, even though they were always charm itself to the women’s faces. Belle went through to the work room to check on the little stove that kept the shop warm and banked it up for the night. ‘Shall we have a cup of tea before we shut up?’ she called back.

  Belle often wondered what she would do without Miranda as her friend. They had a similar sense of humour, conversation never dried up between them and she trusted her completely
. Much as she loved Mog and Garth, they were rather limited as they had little interest in, or knowledge about, anything beyond the pub and family. Miranda on the other hand had travelled; she was interested in all kinds of things, and had a joyous nature that even her overbearing mother had not been able to subdue.

  ‘Or we could shut up the shop and have a glass of that sherry left over from Christmas,’ Miranda called back.

  ‘I knew I hired you for more than your good looks,’ Belle said, taking the bottle down from the shelf. ‘Lock the door and pull down the blind.’

  A few minutes later they were both in the work room, sitting by the stove with a glass of sherry in their hands.

  Belle had admitted to Miranda a few days earlier that her heart wasn’t in the shop any more. Miranda hadn’t taken her seriously then, assuming she was just having a bad day. Belle knew she had to make her see that it was more than that.

  ‘I wish I didn’t have to bring this up again, Miranda,’ she said. ‘But I really don’t want to carry on with the shop. I know you love it, and that you think I’ll get my enthusiasm back, but I won’t. I’d sooner do something for the war effort.’

  ‘But it’s such a success!’ Miranda protested. ‘I can run it for you. You just stay at home and make the hats.’

  ‘I don’t even feel the same about the hats either,’ Belle admitted. ‘And the lease will be up for renewal soon. They are bound to put the rent up and I really can’t bear to commit myself for another three years. Especially if the war drags on.’

  Miranda looked at her appraisingly for a moment. ‘Even when we re-opened at New Year I did notice a slump in your flair and your enthusiasm. I didn’t remark on it because I hoped it would come back eventually.’ She paused for a moment, as if thinking what to say. ‘But if you feel it is never going to, I can see why you would want to give up. But war work! I know they want people in munitions, but I can’t see you doing that. They need nurses too, but you aren’t one. I suppose you could volunteer as an orderly, but do you really want to do the mucky jobs?’