The Promise

by Lesley Pearse

  Dr Towle made a gesture with his hands that implied Jimmy was in God’s hands now. ‘About a third of the patients I’ve seen so far have recovered, but none of them had such high temperatures as your husband. With any other illness youth and strength are a great advantage, but it doesn’t seem to be so in this particular one.’

  ‘We can’t lose him too!’ Belle looked at the doctor in horror. ‘Isn’t there anything you can give him?’

  ‘I wish there was,’ he said glumly. ‘Try and get him to drink warm water with a little brandy. Sponge him down, keep the room warm but well ventilated. That is all I can offer. I’ll come back this evening to see how he is.’

  All that day Belle struggled to get Jimmy to drink, and when the liquid just ran out of his mouth because he wouldn’t or couldn’t swallow, she resorted to using a glass dropper from a medicine bottle and squeezed a few drops of water mixed with a little brandy between his lips. He drifted in and out of consciousness, in and out of delirium when he said things that made no sense. But now and again he spoke a few words that she could understand.

  ‘I looked at the picture of you so often that it cracked in the end,’ was one thing. Belle knew he meant a picture that was taken of her on their wedding day. She’d found it was missing from the other photographs after he’d gone to France.

  ‘The other men used to tell me no woman could ever love a man with red hair,’ was another thing he said.

  But mostly he spoke the names of friends he’d made in the army, and although she didn’t know who they were she was glad he was thinking about good times.

  Dr Towle came back in the evening as promised, praised Belle for using the dropper and seemed pleased to hear there had been no further vomiting. ‘There is no real pattern to this disease,’ he said. ‘Some of my patients have appeared to be at death’s door, but then they recover. Others don’t seem so seriously ill and they just slip away. I find it baffling, and I so much wish there was more I could do.’

  ‘It’s a comfort that you called,’ Belle said. ‘While he’s quiet like this I feel hopeful.’

  ‘Can you cope another night with him? You look worn out, Mrs Reilly. I could find a nurse to help you.’

  ‘I think he’s better with just me taking care of him,’ Belle said, remembering the dragon of a nurse he’d sent when she lost the baby.

  ‘Well, try and get forty winks while he’s quiet,’ the doctor said. ‘I must go now, I have dozens more patients to call on. But I’ll be back in the morning, and hopefully by then there will be an improvement.’

  Belle slipped downstairs later and ate some soup, bread and cheese that Mog had prepared, but as soon as she’d eaten it she was back with Jimmy. She managed to nod off in the chair for over an hour, but awoke to find him delirious again.

  Again she sponged him down, dropped the water and brandy into his mouth, changed the sheets that were soaked with both sweat and urine, and tried to comfort him as he rambled incoherently. ‘I couldn’t find our lot,’ he said at one point, grabbing her hand so hard it hurt. ‘I couldn’t see, I kept slipping in the mud, and I fell over dead men.’

  Belle guessed he was remembering that last attack. He rattled out words that had no meaning for her: creeping barrage, Very lights, Aunt Sally and Forby. But it didn’t matter that it made no sense to her, she had a feeling he thought he was talking to another soldier.

  ‘A man was cut in half by shrapnel,’ he said at one point. ‘His bottom half kept running for a while.’

  ‘Shhh,’ she said, bathing his forehead. ‘You are safe now, you’ll never see such things again.’

  About two in the morning he became lucid for a little while. He turned his face towards her and tried to smile. ‘It is you, Belle! I thought I was dreaming. I told the lads I had to stay safe to get home to you. And I did.’

  ‘Yes, you did, and now you have to drink some of this to make you better,’ she said, offering him a glass of water. He even lifted his head on his own and drank a mouthful or two before slumping back on the pillow.

  He closed his eyes then and Belle felt he’d turned the corner and was sleeping, so she went back to her chair. Around an hour later she got up again on hearing him making an odd rattling noise in his throat. She moved the lamp a little closer to him and saw his face had grown darker, just the way Garth’s had.

  ‘Oh, please no!’ she exclaimed. She felt for his pulse and found it was weaker, and when she put her hand on his forehead it was very hot. Frantically she sponged him down again, talking to him and begging him to rally round. But there was no response. His eyes fluttered open now and again, but he didn’t even try to speak.

  ‘Jimmy, you must stop this,’ she said in the firm voice she used to speak to the soldiers in the ambulance. ‘You can get better, you must get better. Do it for me, don’t leave me alone.’

  Suddenly Mog was beside her. Small in stature she might be, but she seemed to fill the room with determination. ‘Come on, Jimmy,’ she said. ‘Don’t upset Belle like this. We both need you. We love you.’

  His eyes opened. ‘I love you both,’ he said in a rasping whisper. ‘Look after one another, I can’t stay any longer.’

  Belle looked at Mog in horror and could see from the expression on her face that she knew he was dying.

  ‘I never told you before but I think of you as my son,’ Mog said. ‘I’m that proud of you!’

  He tried to smile, but it was just the slightest movement of his lips. ‘You were like a mother to me,’ he whispered. ‘Don’t let Belle grieve for me. Stay close to her.’

  ‘I’m here, Jimmy,’ Belle said. ‘And I’m telling you that you must fight this.’

  His eyes turned to Belle and his hand fluttered as if he was wanting to lift it to touch her face. ‘My Belle, my beautiful Belle,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry for everything, but it’s for the best.’

  Belle picked up his hand and kissed his fingers. ‘You’ve got nothing to be sorry for, and it’s not for the best,’ she said brokenly as tears rolled down her cheeks.

  She felt his hand go limp in hers and her fingers felt for his pulse. She could feel nothing.

  ‘Oh, Mog!’ she cried out.

  It was Mog who took Jimmy’s hand and laid it down. She closed his eyes and kissed his cheek. ‘Goodbye, son,’ she whispered. ‘Garth and your mother are waiting for you.’

  ‘No, Jimmy,’ Belle sobbed. She slid down on to her knees on the floor, her head resting on his chest. ‘There was so much more I wanted to say to you.’

  The two women stayed there for some time, both crying, then Mog got up and lifted Belle up, rocking her against her shoulder the way she used to do when Belle was a small girl.

  ‘Everything is worse in the night,’ Mog said softly. ‘But he was right, it was for the best. He hated being so helpless. He knew it would never get better for him. You come and get into bed with me now. We can’t do anything until it’s light.’

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Belle heard a knock on the side door of the pub as she and Mog were sitting in the kitchen, but she ignored it. It was a week since Jimmy’s funeral and people had been knocking ever since. Occasionally it was someone calling to offer help and sympathy, but mostly just to ask when the bar would be open again. There was a notice pinned to the door that it was closed due to bereavement, but that had not deterred them.

  Both Belle and Mog were finding it hard to get through each day. Time hung on their hands with no one for them to take care of. They felt empty and tearful and had no real idea of which way to turn. The constant knocking made it worse, as it was a reminder there were decisions to be made.

  The knocking grew louder. ‘It could be Dr Towle,’ Mog said.

  Belle got up wearily. Mog might be right, at the funeral the doctor had said he’d pop by in a week to see how they were.

  ‘All right, I’m coming,’ she muttered as she walked to the door.

  But it wasn’t the doctor, it was Noah. He took off his hat as he saw her and smiled
hesitantly.

  ‘Oh, my goodness,’ she exclaimed. ‘Noah! What a surprise!’

  It was at least three years since she had last seen him, but although his impeccably tailored pale grey tailed coat, waistcoat, pin-striped trousers and hand-made shoes told of his success, his rosy, still boyish face held an expression of such sympathy and understanding that Belle was taken right back to the time in Paris when he’d done so much to help her. Just seeing him made her instantly feel better.

  ‘I hope I haven’t called at a bad time? I was in France and didn’t get your letter till I got back yesterday,’ he said. ‘I can’t tell you how sorry I am that I wasn’t here to support you and Mog when you needed it most. Both Lisette and I wept for you both when we read your letter, and we were so sad that we’d missed the opportunity to pay our last respects to both Garth and Jimmy.’

  His sincerity was very touching and it pulled her together. ‘I wouldn’t have wanted you to come and risk infection,’ she said. ‘But I am so pleased to see you now. We haven’t been opening the door to anyone, but I’m very glad I did this time. Come on in.’

  As the door closed behind him he put his arms around Belle and hugged her tightly. ‘I know a gentleman isn’t supposed to take such liberties,’ he said gruffly. ‘But you know that I’ve always thought of you as family.’

  Belle hugged him back and kissed his smooth cheek, which smelled of sandalwood shaving soap. ‘If I could’ve picked a brother, I’d have picked you,’ she said, emotional tears springing into her eyes. ‘Shall we go in the kitchen? Mog’s just made some bread.’

  Mog appeared then in the kitchen door, her apron and her cheeks still dusted with flour. ‘Oh, Noah,’ she cried and ran over to embrace him, ‘how good it is to see you! We were only saying this morning that you’d know what we should do.’

  ‘Dear Mog,’ he said as he held her. ‘I am so sorry you lost Garth. I thought I’d still be seeing him when he was a very old man. It was such a cruel blow for both you and Belle to lose your husbands. How did you get through two funerals?’

  Because of people’s fear of infection and their own grief, both Belle and Mog had agreed that Jimmy’s funeral should be a very quiet one. They had served tea and cake afterwards to the few people who had insisted on coming, but the number of people who came to the church and those who left letters of condolence and flowers at the pub showed how highly Jimmy had been thought of.

  ‘We coped quite well until the day after Jimmy’s,’ Mog said, wiping her eyes on her apron. ‘But it’s been awful since.’

  Noah looked at Belle and she nodded to confirm this. There had been nothing to fill the void the men had left. The place was too quiet, too tidy. Even the closed bar seemed like a reproach. But even if they had felt up to opening it again, there were proprieties of mourning to think about. It wouldn’t be seemly for two such recently widowed women to be working in a public place.

  Mog had pointed out that even if they wanted to open again, neither of them had the strength to bring up barrels from the cellar, or had any real knowledge about the different kinds of beer or how they should be treated because Garth had always handled that side of the business.

  It was only today that Mog had rallied herself enough to make some bread. Up till now they had been picking at food left from the tea after Jimmy’s funeral, as neither of them had any appetite.

  Noah’s presence in the kitchen was like a light being switched on. Mog made tea, laid her fresh bread, still hot from the oven, on the table, got out the butter and cheese, and as she busied herself she told Noah how it had been.

  He had always been a good listener. As Mog talked and poured the tea, he nodded, taking it all in.

  ‘Tell me how it was after Jimmy came back from France,’ he asked Belle after a little while. ‘It must have been very difficult for both of you.’

  Belle made her account as brief as possible. She and Mog had talked and talked about it all week, and they were now at the point when they didn’t wish to go over it again.

  ‘You tell us about Lisette, and Rose and Jean-Philippe,’ she said after telling him the absolute minimum. ‘We could do with hearing something cheerful.’

  ‘We rented a cottage in Devon to get them away from London,’ he said. ‘I thought the children needed some sea air, green fields and less sadness around them. I couldn’t stay with them for the whole time unfortunately, I had to go over to France. But Jean-Philippe learned to swim while I was away and it was good to see roses in their cheeks and Lisette looking more relaxed when I got back. She wanted to come today but I thought it was better to come alone.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have wanted her to come here so soon after,’ Belle said. ‘A mother needs to stay healthy for her children.’

  ‘Lisette thumbs her nose at the risk of infection,’ he smiled wryly. ‘She wanted me to stress that isn’t the reason and to ask you both if you’d like to come back with me today and let her look after you for a while.’

  ‘That is so kind,’ Mog said, her lower lip quivering. ‘You married a good one, Noah.’

  ‘As we all did,’ he sighed. ‘Without Garth and Jimmy’s influence in the past, I wouldn’t be where I am now, nor would I have Lisette. I don’t really need to tell you how much we care for you.’

  ‘You always did have a way with words,’ Belle said fondly. Noah had never suffered from the usual male reticence to say what was in his heart. But he was a man who backed up his words with action too, and she knew any advice he gave them today would be sound.

  ‘You say you don’t know which way to turn,’ Noah said, looking from Belle to Mog. ‘On the way here I was thinking that might be the case, and I do have suggestions that might help.’

  ‘It’s the pub really,’ Mog said wearily. ‘We don’t know how long we should be seen to be in mourning, not just wearing black, but before it would be acceptable to open the bar again. We are both perfectly capable of serving at the bar, and we know a little about ordering beer and spirits. But there is so much more we don’t know, Noah, and the pub needs a strong man at the helm.’

  ‘Yes, of course it does,’ Noah said. ‘Most of your anxieties could be solved by taking on a manager. Neither of you would need to be seen in the bar then. But let me tell you, the etiquette of mourning is virtually dead itself. Almost everyone in the country is mourning someone. Widows have to go out and work to keep their children, and people can’t afford to spend what little money they have on black clothes. I understand you both think it right and proper to be wearing black for a while, and not appearing in public places. But quite honestly, only very old people with a limited outlook would expect you to stick to that now.’

  That had been Belle’s view too, but Mog had been affronted when she raised it, and insisted they both wore black dresses. Noah could say such things to her, however; Mog saw him as the fount of all knowledge.

  ‘A manager?’ Mog said. ‘I hadn’t thought of that. Wouldn’t that be too expensive?’

  ‘You won’t have any money coming in if you keep the pub shut,’ he said. ‘I could help you with advertising for someone and interviewing the applicants.’

  ‘Yes, but it would be so easy for a manager to fiddle us,’ Belle said. ‘You know how it is, Noah, men in this trade are not always the most honest. Garth himself knew every trick in the book.’

  Noah nodded agreement. ‘I think the real question is whether you even want to stay here.’

  Belle and Mog looked at each other. ‘I don’t particularly,’ Belle said. ‘But then, it all belongs to Mog now. She has to decide how she feels.’

  Mog looked troubled. ‘I don’t really want to be here any more either, not after so much sadness. But I’d feel I was letting Garth down by leaving. He loved this place.’

  ‘He loved you more,’ Noah pointed out. ‘I know he wouldn’t turn a hair at you selling it. Remember his views on women in bars!’

  Both Belle and Mog managed a weak smile. ‘He’d never have allowed anyone in a skirt to come t
hrough the doors if he’d had his way,’ Belle said.

  ‘Well, he did mellow on that,’ Mog chipped in. ‘I was serving with him for most of the war. Only because he couldn’t really afford to pay a barman, and he did eventually let soldiers bring their wives and sweethearts in there too.’

  ‘So we agree then that he wouldn’t expect you to try and keep running it?’ Noah said. ‘I think we also know he’d turn in his grave if it failed. So why not sell it, Mog? You could buy another little business that you both liked and would be good at. Maybe Belle could make hats again? A tea shop? A small hotel?’

  ‘I’d love a tea shop,’ Mog said. ‘One of those pretty places with a garden where we could serve tea outside during the summer.’

  Belle smiled. Mog had mentioned that in the past, and she certainly had all the talents to make it a success. It was also good to hear her talking with some animation again. ‘Wouldn’t you miss the friends you’ve made here?’ she asked.

  ‘What friends?’ Mog said with a touch of bitterness. ‘The women who snubbed me when they read all that about you? They only came round later because I was useful to their different causes.’

  ‘That was a shameful episode,’ Noah agreed. ‘And it is another very good reason for upping sticks and moving away. Unless of course you both feel you need to be close to where Jimmy and Garth are buried.’

  ‘Garth said such things were sentimental nonsense,’ Mog said sadly. ‘And if Jimmy had been buried in France, Belle wouldn’t have been able to visit his grave.’

  ‘Then there’s nothing stopping you. I think you need to be born into the licensing trade to be really good at it, not to mention being as hard-headed as Garth was. I’d say you two would be much happier with a more feminine business.’

  ‘I certainly wouldn’t want to have to clean out that lavatory at the back every day for the rest of my life,’ Mog grimaced. For a second she looked and sounded much more like the old Mog.

  Noah grinned. ‘Well, would you like me to contact agents to sell it? You could do that yourselves of course, but they might browbeat women into settling for a lower price.’