The Promise (3 page)

She sold twenty-two hats that first day, and dozens of other women who came in to look had been back since to buy. In the eighteen months since then there had been fewer than seven days in total when she hadn’t sold one hat, and those were all in bad weather. The average week’s sales worked out at fifteen hats, and though it meant she had to work very hard to keep up with the demand, and use an out-worker to help her, she was making a very good profit. During the summer she’d bought in plain straw boaters and trimmed them herself, and that had proved very profitable. Her shop was a resounding success.

‘As is everything in your life,’ she reminded herself as she turned out the lights.

Etienne went straight to the station, but having found he’d just missed a train and had twenty-five minutes to wait for the next one, he stood by the window by the ticket office and looked at the Railway public house across the street.

He had never quite understood English bars, the rigid opening hours, men standing at the bar drinking huge quantities of beer, then staggering home at closing time as if they could only face their wives and children when drunk. French bars were far more civilized. They were never seen as a kind of temple to get drunk in, for they were open all day and a man wasn’t considered odd if he drank coffee or a soft drink as he read the newspaper.

The Railway at least looked inviting, with its fresh paint and sparkling windows. He could imagine that on a cold winter’s night it was a warm, friendly haven for men to gather in.

As he looked at it, a big man with red hair and a beard came out of the front door. He was wearing a leather apron over his clothes, and Etienne guessed that this was Garth Franklin, Jimmy’s uncle. Stopping to look up at water spurting out of a broken gutter and running down the front of the building, he called to someone inside.

A younger man joined him, and Etienne knew immediately that this was Jimmy. He was bigger than he’d imagined, as tall as his uncle and with the same broad shoulders, but he was clean-shaven and his red hair was neat and slightly darker than Garth’s, perhaps because he’d oiled it down. The pair, who looked like father and son, stood there looking up, discussing the broken gutter, seemingly oblivious to the rain.

Jimmy suddenly turned, his face breaking into a joyful smile, and Etienne saw it was because he’d seen Belle coming towards them.

She was struggling to hold the umbrella over her and holding her cloak around her shoulders, but she ran the last few yards towards the men. As she reached them, her umbrella was tilted back and Etienne noted that her smile was as bright as her husband’s.

Jimmy took the umbrella from her with one hand, while with the other he caressed her wet cheek, and kissed her forehead. Just those small, tender gestures told Etienne how much the man loved her.

He had to turn away. He knew he should feel at peace to be sure Belle was truly loved and protected, but instead he felt only bitter pangs of jealousy.

Chapter Two

Belle looked up from sketching, frowning with irritation at the din coming from downstairs in the bar. She expected such noise on Saturday nights, especially near closing time, but not at eight o’clock on a Tuesday.

Mog’s homemaking skills had come into their own since they all moved to Blackheath. The living room was large, with two sash windows looking on to the street. During the afternoon and evening it was bathed in sunshine, and Mog’s choice of decor, pale green wallpaper with a small leaf motif, moss-green velvet curtains and a sumptuous Turkish carpet she had bought at an auction, was very attractive yet homely.

The previous owners of the pub had left the huge couch behind, probably because it had seen better days, but Belle and Mog had made a loose chintz cover for it and matching ones for the two armchairs they’d brought from Seven Dials. Garth was always teasing Mog about aspiring to be ‘gentry’, and said that she’d be insisting on getting a maid before long. But both he and Belle knew that she would never trust anyone else to clean her home; she loved it too much to have any outsider poking around in it.

Normally the living room was a serene retreat from the hurly-burly of a busy pub. Belle loved her evenings sitting at the table by the window working on her hat designs, but realizing that with all the noise tonight she wasn’t going to be able to concentrate, and overcome by curiosity, she decided she would go down and see what was going on.

As Garth didn’t approve of women behind the bar during the evenings, she could only peep round the door. Yet even with a limited view she could see it was filled to capacity with young men, all clamouring to be served. But the most surprising thing was that they came from all walks of life. Some were City gent types with bowler hats, dark suits and starched white shirts, others were manual workers in flat caps and grubby overalls, but almost every other occupation and style of dress between these two extremes were accounted for too. Jimmy and Garth were struggling to keep up with the supply of beer.

‘What on earth’s going on?’ she asked Mog, who was washing glasses in the kitchen. ‘There must be at least eighty men in there. What made them all come in tonight?’

‘They’ve all been enlisting in the army,’ Mog said, and shook her head as if she was bewildered by such madness.

On 4 August, two weeks earlier, Germany had invaded Belgium and therefore England had declared war on Germany. Since then no one had talked about anything else. The newspapers were full of it, men stood on street corners discussing the likely outcome, even the women who came in to Belle’s shop talked about it, some afraid that their husbands or sweethearts would join up, others claiming it was every able-bodied man’s duty to go and fight.

Belle knew, as everyone did, that the British army was small, but it was also often said that its soldiers were better trained than any other European army. She hadn’t expected that ordinary men like these would start clamouring to join up.

‘What, all of them?’ Belle exclaimed as she peeped round the door to the bar again. ‘They aren’t even men, they’re mostly boys!’

Now she knew what had caused their excitement, their flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes made her feel chilled. She had recognized a few of them as sons, brothers or husbands of women she knew, and wondered what their reaction would be to their menfolk enlisting.

‘There was a soldier playing a bugle outside the church hall apparently,’ Mog said, as if that was an excuse for them to be so impulsive. ‘Garth went by there this afternoon and saw them flocking in to sign up. He came back with a similar light in his eyes, but mercifully they’re refusing anyone over forty.’

Belle felt a pang of fear run through her. ‘Jimmy wouldn’t want to join up too, would he?’

‘Not if he’s got any sense,’ Mog said, grimacing as if the thought appalled her. ‘But men are funny creatures – who knows what goes on inside their heads? Most of them just want a bit of adventure, so let’s hope it’s true that it’ll all be over by Christmas.’

Garth opened the bar door and called to Mog to hurry up with the glasses and asked her to come and serve too. Belle thought he must be hard-pressed to lose his prejudice against women behind his bar as she went upstairs again. But once back in the living room she found herself worrying about Jimmy.

Up until now his view had been that soldiering was for professionals, not a bunch of hot-headed amateurs. Yet whatever he said, Belle suspected that pressure from other men and a surge of patriotism might very well change his mind. Mog was probably right in saying that most recruits just wanted an adventure, but some of their number would be killed or wounded, and Jimmy could well be among them.

Just the possibility of losing Jimmy made her eyes fill with tears. She couldn’t, and didn’t want to, think about life without him. She wiped away a stray tear, not understanding why in the past few weeks she’d become so emotional about everything. Only the previous day she’d burst into tears on opening a box of trimmings from her supplier and finding he’d sent four rolls of red ribbon instead of one each of red, pink, blue and yellow.

But then ever since the day in June when Etienne turned up at the shop, she’d not been herself. The weather had turned very warm just after his visit, bringing in a sudden demand for straw boaters. She’d had some put by, already trimmed, so there was no real need for panic, but she did panic, rushing down to her supplier in Lewisham and buying up almost his entire stock. Yet instead of buckling down and getting the hats trimmed up, she found herself idly staring out of the shop window. She’d nodded off several times during the day, then at night couldn’t go to sleep. She could be hungry all day, yet when Mog dished up the evening meal, often her appetite had gone. Her ability to concentrate appeared to have left her too; she couldn’t seem to stick at anything for more than half an hour.

At first she thought it was just because Etienne had stirred up old memories; she certainly had been guilty of frequent daydreams. But now she wondered if it was just the war, as it was hard to look ahead when you couldn’t foresee what the future might bring. Yet could impending war and uncertainty really account for her feeling over-emotional, woolly-headed and weary? She hadn’t confided in Mog or Jimmy because there was nothing tangible to describe, and anyway she was afraid to say anything to either of them in case she let slip about Etienne calling on her.

She felt bad about that. What could be more natural than sharing the delight in seeing an old friend again? But of course the truth was that she was afraid she would say something that would make Jimmy realize her feelings for Etienne had been more than just friendship.

It was as plain as the nose on her face that she couldn’t have a better husband than Jimmy. She didn’t think that many one-time whores could claim they’d never had their past thrown back in their face in a moment of anger or jealousy.

But Jimmy had never done that. He was kind, steady, sensitive to her needs, and would do absolutely anything for her. Yet even more unusual, and something she truly valued, was that she had the kind of freedom in her marriage that was almost unheard of. He never interfered with her business, he was proud that she was doing so well, and if she should fail, she knew he’d be supportive. And he worshipped her.

Common sense told her that even if Etienne had told her he loved her when they were in Paris, and she’d married him instead of Jimmy, it would never have become the kind of serene relationship she had now. Noah had been right when he pointed out on the journey back to England that Etienne was dangerous. He didn’t mean that Etienne would ever physically hurt her, more that he was a deep, complicated man with a complex and dark past.

But he was gone for good now. By now he might even be fighting the Germans. She just hoped he would stay safe.

‘Penny for them!’

Belle spun round in her seat at Mog’s remark. She’d been so deep in her guilty thoughts that she hadn’t heard her come into the room.

Marriage had done wonders for Mog. All through Belle’s childhood in Seven Dials, she had been a kindly and loving mouse. She’d scuttled about her work, cooking, cleaning and mending, always in dark, shapeless clothes, her hair scraped back tightly from her face. She had seemed much older than Annie, Belle’s true mother, even though they were the same age.

Now her clothes were fashionable, fitted well and showed off her small but shapely body. She might have a few strands of grey among the brown now, but she wore her hair in a chignon, with a few loose curls around a face that glowed from fresh air and happiness. She might be thirty-eight, but today, in a pink- and black-striped dress with pin tucks on the bodice, she looked ten years younger.

Mog had made her dress herself, but she was such a skilful seamstress that it could have come from the very expensive gown shop further up Tranquil Vale. She told anyone who asked that she’d been a housekeeper before she married Garth, and they assumed by her demeanour that she’d worked for gentry.

No one would ever guess she had spent her entire adult life until now as a maid in a brothel, and carried inside her head more knowledge about that profession than the whole female population of Blackheath.

‘You were miles away,’ she said to Belle, smiling fondly. ‘Care to tell me about it?’

Mog had been like a mother to Belle for her entire life, and she was the one Belle could normally confide in about anything. But she couldn’t admit anything about Etienne, Mog would be horrified that any man other than Jimmy ever crossed her mind.

‘My thoughts aren’t worth anything,’ Belle sighed. ‘It’s just the war, the madness down in the bar. It’s unsettling.’

Mog looked down at the hat Belle was drawing, frowning because she saw it was almost funereal, not Belle’s usual frothy style. ‘You’ve been looking a bit peaky for a couple of weeks now,’ she said. ‘You couldn’t be up the duff, could you?’

Belle’s mouth dropped open in shock, partly at Mog using the kind of slang she used back in Seven Dials, but even more because it had never occurred to her to consider she might be having a baby.

‘No, of course not,’ she said. ‘Well, I don’t think so. I can’t be! Can I?’

Mog chuckled. ‘Well, if I didn’t know you better I’d have thought you didn’t know how babies are made,’ she said.

Belle blushed and giggled. Since Mog married Garth she never said anything about Belle’s time as a whore, and even when she spoke about the days when she was the maid and Belle’s nursemaid in her mother’s brothel, she somehow avoided all reference to what went on elsewhere in the house. So the oblique reference to it now was surprising.

‘I hadn’t considered that possibility,’ Belle replied.

‘Well, consider it now,’ Mog said tartly. ‘I noticed you turned green last night when I was preparing that ox tongue. You couldn’t get out the kitchen fast enough.’

‘It was just that it smelled funny.’

‘Maybe so, but it’s never bothered you before. When was your last monthly?’

Belle tried to think. She could remember one back in May when there was a brief heatwave, but that was all. She told Mog this. ‘That isn’t to say I haven’t had another one, I just can’t remember,’ she added.