A Christmas Promise (16 page)

Her body, as pliable as that of a girl half her age, yielded to his touch, and Archie could practically feel the searing energy building inside her as she returned his fevered caresses again and again. He tried not to rush her, but it was so difficult, given the time they had already wasted, and as she arched her back to accept his exploring hands, her fingers clutching the back of his neck, pulled him closer. Archie groaned, as her legs wrapped around his and she silently begged him to take her now, hardly believing the long years of waiting were over.

‘Are you sure, my love?’ Archie’s voice was a low growl of agonised passion.

‘Close the curtains, Archie …’

‘I’ll get it,’ Dulcie called to Mrs Wilson, whom her husband had hired to ‘do’ for her, and to help out with the two babies as Dulcie had pointedly refused to let her husband employ a nanny for Hope and little Anthony. Persuading David that she really didn’t need full-time staff had been a work of art, Dulcie thought. He couldn’t understand that being perfectly capable of raising two children was not an impossibility to most women.

Dulcie did concede that she also enjoyed going to the salon to have her hair styled and her perfectly manicured fingernails buffed and polished at a moment’s notice without having to find a baby-sitter, and she also knew that those same buffed and polished talons were not well suited to washing dishes and doing housework. She was so lucky to have a mother’s help.

As she opened the door, Dulcie was surprised to see Edith standing on the doorstep. Edith hadn’t been to see her son for weeks now.

‘So, to what do I owe the honour?’ Dulcie’s voice dripped cynical disdain as Edith entered the richly furnished sitting room, and barely glanced at her son, who was happily swapping wooden bricks with Hope in the playpen. Dulcie didn’t wait for an answer; instead she went to get Anthony and put him on his mother’s knee.

‘Mind me stockings, Dulcie. We haven’t all got rich husbands who can afford more.’

Unceremoniously, Edith plonked the irate child, who wanted to get back to his building blocks, onto the cream-coloured sofa, where he promptly wiped the contents of his streaming face on the plush armrest.

Dulcie made a mental note to call Mrs Wilson to clean it up after Edith had gone.

‘I can’t stand it any longer, Dulcie!’ Edith said histrionically as she sank down into the sofa while her son, catching sight of Hope gurgling happily in her playpen, climbed down from the sofa and crawled towards her.

‘How long has he been able to do that?’ Edith’s eyes opened wide in surprise and Dulcie felt a glimmer of satisfaction.

‘Oh, a good two months now, Edith. If you came to see him more often you would see he progresses every single day.’ She watched as Anthony and Hope played a little game of catching fingers through the bars of the playpen, and Dulcie couldn’t contain the sigh of satisfaction. Her sister, as she should have known, had gone back on her word after Anthony was born, and decided that David and Dulcie could not adopt the boy legally, so now she swanned in and out of his life whenever she pleased.

‘What do you mean, you can’t stand it, Edith? You can’t stand what?’

Dulcie’s blunt manner was exactly the same as it always had been when dealing with her sister, and she had no intentions of changing it. ‘You’re not coming over all melodramatic again, are you, Edith? Having one of your “turns”?’ Dulcie knew that whenever Edith’s life was not going the way she wanted it she would always find an ear to cry down around here. And Dulcie was getting sick of it, as it usually heralded another broken relationship.

After their mother died, Edith had flounced off to live with a theatre producer in Bloomsbury but, given Edith’s puffy red eyes, Dulcie gathered there had been a breakdown in that relationship, too.

‘How’s Gregory?’ Dulcie asked, prodding her sister’s pain a little more.

‘He’s threatened to leave me … Oh, Dulcie, what will I do without him? I have to go … I have to be with him!’

‘Go where?’ A toss of Dulcie’s blonde curls accompanied her words as she rang a little bell on the side table. In moments Mrs Wilson, motherly and plump, came into the room and Dulcie nodded towards the children.

‘Come on, my darlings,’ Mrs Wilson said sweetly, taking both children, ‘come and get some of Mrs Wilson’s lovely apple pie.’ She turned to Dulcie. ‘Would you like tea, Mrs James-Thompson?’

‘No, thank you, Mrs Wilson, that’s all for now.’ Dulcie didn’t want any interruptions while she was listening to her sister’s tale of woe …

‘So you want to go abroad to entertain the troops?’ Dulcie asked, and for once she was truly lost for words.

‘We talked about you taking Anthony after he was born, didn’t we?’ Edith asked.

‘If I remember rightly, you asked me to adopt him, but as yet you haven’t signed the legal papers David had drawn up.’

‘That’s what I’ve come to tell you,’ Edith said. ‘I will sign the papers. Where are they?’

‘Well, obviously David will have to be here to make it all legal and binding.’

‘There is just one thing, though, Dulcie …’ Edith said hesitantly. ‘I need … no, that’s not right … I thought that … seeing as you and David love Anthony so much and have all the money in the world to give him a great future … And seeing as I have nothing …’

‘Oh, come on, spit it out. How much?’

‘I don’t want your money, Dulcie!’ Edith cried, but Dulcie knew her sister better than that; if a girl could have her parents believe she was killed in a bomb blast and not have the decency to get in touch to allay their fears, she was capable of doing anything.

‘It would only be a loan. I’d pay it back – every penny!’

‘How could you, Edith? Anthony is a baby, how can you ever think of selling him?’ Dulcie felt her stomach turn, knowing her sister had stooped to a new low this time.

‘He’s a reminder, Dulcie, can’t you see that?’ Edith’s eyes were full of tears now. ‘Every time I look at him I see his father’s face, and do you know something – I can’t bear it! I just cannot bear to look at him.’

‘Oh, my word!’ Dulcie cried. ‘You want to sell your own son! He has done nothing to deserve you, Edith. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.’ Dulcie went over to the bureau, where David kept papers and files, and she took out a chequebook he left her for household items. She looked down at the cheque book, feeling soiled in some way at what she was about to do.

‘I’ll pay you back, Dulcie,’ Edith said, her voice so pathetically low that Dulcie could barely hear her.

‘I don’t want you to pay me back, Edith. I just want you to take this.’ She had written a substantial amount of money on the slip of paper and she watched as her sister’s eyes widened. ‘Is that enough?’

‘More than enough,’ Edith answered, and Dulcie slipped a sheet of paper and a pen in front of her. As Edith picked up the pen to sign away all legal rights to her son, Dulcie put her hand out to stop her.

‘Mrs Wilson, would you be kind enough as to come in here, please?’ Dulcie called from the sitting-room door. Moments later, Mrs Wilson came bustling in.

‘What can I get you, Mrs James-Thompson?’

‘Would you be kind enough to witness the signature of my sister and me? David has already signed.’

‘Certainly,’ said Mrs Wilson, before she too signed to say she was a witness to Edith Simmonds signing away any responsibility for the life of her own son, Anthony. And Dulcie, on signing her name at the bottom of the page, knew she had a little bit of Wilder her sister had no claim to now.

‘I know you will show him the love I can’t give him right now … You haven’t been through the same things I have, Dulcie.’ Edith’s eyes were pleading as she gathered her bag and gloves.

‘No, Edith,’ Dulcie said in a dull voice, recalling the horror of her own mother taking her to a backstreet abortionist, remembering how close she had come to actually killing her own darling girl. ‘Poor, poor you! You’ve never had it easy.’

Dulcie moved from her sister as if she was contaminated, but she knew the gesture was lost on Edith when she said, ‘You understand me so well, Dulcie, but then –’ she looked down at the cheque – ‘throwing money at lost causes must make you feel much better these days?’ Edith’s top lip curled slightly,

‘Unless you ain’t noticed, Edith.’ Dulcie reverted to her old vernacular in the blink of an eye. ‘I ain’t got nothin’ to be ashamed of.’ Dulcie’s voice was a low growl now, a sure sign to Edith that her sister’s back was up and she knew she had to be careful.

‘Well, just so you know, I am not a lost cause either. I’ll be on the up one day – I’ll be famous, and rich.’

‘And look down your nose at anyone you please, hey, Edith?’ There was certainly no love lost between them now, and Dulcie, suddenly calm, realised that there was no point in yelling the odds at Edith. It went in one ear and out the other.

‘I don’t look …’ Edith sighed, but what was the use of trying to explain to Dulcie? She had everything: a wonderful husband, a gorgeous house and two kids who thought the world of her. Edith – feeling sorry for herself – knew she had a voice and a fat manager who threatened to dump her in the street with nothing if she didn’t do this tour … The next Vera Lynn? Hardly. She had to borrow this money off their Dulcie just to eat and pay her rent, but she wasn’t going to tell her ladyship that – imagine the crowing.

‘So, when do you ship out on this tour of a lifetime, Edith?’ Dulcie’s voice held a note of scorn as she watched as her sister dissolve into a fresh flow of tears, but then Dulcie relented. She knew she could not turn her back on her family; it wasn’t something one did, and if her money helped their Edith, it would make her the better woman, right? David was always going on about helping people less fortunate.

‘We ship out on Friday,’ Edith sniffed; she was going to wipe Gregory’s eye with this cheque – see how quickly he dismissed her then!

‘Let’s have a cup of tea. We can talk properly then. Mrs Wilson will look after the kids.’

‘Children – Mrs James-Thompson – they are children; kids are young goats.’

Dulcie threw back her head and laughed. ‘Quite right!’

‘Are you going to let the hired hand talk to you like that?’ Edith whispered as the tears suddenly dried up.

‘About this producer chap of yours?’ Dulcie listened while Edith told her all about the impresario who had taken a shine to her when she was on stage one night. ‘Gregory has secured a tour to end all tours – at the end of it he said I will be more famous than Vera Lynn! That’s why I need the money, for the travel and costumes …’

‘And what about Anthony? Does Gregory even know he exists?’

‘It’s my career, Dulcie. I can’t sing with a baby on the hip, but when I make it …’

At least she had the good grace to look shamefaced, Dulcie noticed, as Edith lowered her head and, barely shaking the titian curls, she said in a low voice, ‘He would leave me, he would drop me like an incendiary as soon as he found out.’

‘And you’d take it out on the child; blaming him for the glittering career you never had!’ Dulcie knew her sister so well: nothing got in the way of her dream, not even her own child.

‘I’ll write – just to see how he’s doing. You can tell him if you like – when he’s older.’ Edith’s voice was barely above a whisper, and Dulcie shook her head as she sadly watched her sister turn and walk out of the door.

‘No! Don’t do that, please.’ Carlo’s voice echoed around the cow shed as Agnes settled herself down on a three-legged stool. Old Darnley had told her there was nobody else to do the afternoon milking and as she was in charge it was up to her to get on with it.

Feeling apprehensive, Agnes knew that she had to get to grips with all manner of chores she had never been expected to do and she had faced them with resilience and fortitude until now.

‘What’s the matter, Carlo?’ Agnes’s brow furrowed as she stopped blowing into her hand before milking. ‘I don’t want to give the cow a shock with cold hands.’

‘The animal is not the only one who will get a shock, Miss Agnes,’ Carlo said, trying to suppress a smile. ‘He is a bull – you will get no milk from him.’

‘Oh, my word!’ Agnes’s hands flew to her mouth, hardly able to believe that Darnley had let her lead this huge beast into the milking parlour. ‘He must be laughing up his sleeve at me,’ she said, feeling the hot colour flood her cheeks but she realised it was no use trying to be coy about it when Carlo threw his head back and howled with laughter until the tears ran down his cheeks.

‘I am so sorry, Miss Agnes, I do not wish to upset you,’ he shrugged as a warm smile played about his handsome mouth. ‘I am so sorry. Please forgive my outburst.’

‘I will have a go with one of the other cows then,’ Agnes said, trying to hold on to as much dignity as she could muster.

‘I will go and round up the cows and bring them to you,’ Carlo said graciously, and Agnes thanked him, but a few moments later she could hear his laughter halfway across the field.

When he came back some time later he was quite sober.

‘Here, let me show you. I do this in Italy from a little boy – it is easy, just be gentle, talk to them.’ Agnes watched as the handsome Italian sang a soothing song to the contented cow, and she decided that he was one of the nicest people she had ever met.

‘Here,’ said Mavis, one of the three land girls, coming into the milking parlour a little later, ‘did you know that Darnley, the one on the crutches, is passing food out of the back gate and pocketing the money?’

‘Are you sure, Mavis?’ Agnes asked as Carlo led the milked cow from the parlour.

‘I just saw him with me own eyes,’ said Mavis. ‘I’m telling you, Agnes, you want to get shut of them Darnleys. They’re milking you dry, girl. Before you know it they’ll have syphoned off any profits this farm might make.’

‘I’ll keep my eye on them, Mavis. Thanks for the tip-off,’ Agnes said quietly.

Standing behind two red-tabbed brass hats, who were talking to each other in the lift as she made her way back up to her office, Tilly realised that they must be totally unaware of her presence if the conversation they were having was anything to go by.

Tilly could clearly hear them discussing the events of the British Eighth Army landing at the toe of Italy last September, just after her birthday, she recalled.

‘Then when the American Fifth entered Naples in October we forced the Germans to fight long and hard for every gain …’ said the voice of an American commander.

Tilly sighed. The Americans always think they can do the job better … she thought.

‘Now we’re holding the line of the Volturno River in the west …’

‘But isn’t it the Biferno River where they are preparing their main defences?’ asked his English companion.

‘Of course … the Gustav Line, along the Garigliano and Rapido Rivers below Monte Cassino …’

Tilly had heard enough.

‘Ahem,’ she gently cleared her throat to let the two officers know she was present. This news had been kept out of the national newspapers and out of earshot of the general public, and she didn’t think it was right she should be present when tactics were being discussed in such a casual manner.

‘After you, miss,’ the high-ranking American said, looking a little sheepish, and as Tilly stepped out of the lift she smiled, knowing her small admonishment had left the two red-faced commanders to ponder their indiscretion.

Settling down at her desk to finish an urgent report, after everybody else had finished for the day, Tilly worked diligently in the empty office. She had been working for about half an hour when the constant ringing of the telephone in the journalists’ office next door made it difficult for her to concentrate.

‘Oh, do shut up!’ Tilly said aloud. However, the relentless ringing finally told her there was nobody in the office to answer it and as the noise got the better of her nerves, she scraped back her chair and impatiently marched to the journo room through the adjoining door.

Tilly threw back the door with such force it banged against the adjoining wall and she snatched up the phone in a none-too-patient manner.

Her voice was terse when she said through gritted teeth, ‘Extension 647!’ It was the number of the journalists’ telephone and as she waited for a reply she was already formulating a memo of complaint to the switchboard operator who had allowed the call through when she had been told distinctly that Tilly was not to be disturbed. Tapping her short, neatly manicured nails impatiently on the desk she listened as the call was put through.

Then stopping mid-tap she heard the male American voice on the other end of the line and recognised it immediately! Usually, any American accent would send her heart racing and causing her memories to flood back to happier times, but this was one she would forever recognise even among a million others.

‘Hi, is Brad there? Tell him it’s Drew.’

Suddenly, his voice awakened the longing that was never far from Tilly’s heart and she knew for sure that the wound of eternal love for the most wonderful man in her life had never healed; it had never even begun to heal.

Gripping the telephone so tightly her fingernails embedded into the palm of her hand, she only just managed to suppress her incredulous gasp of shock with the fingers of her other hand. Surely, it couldn’t be?

What should she do? Should she just hang up? No, he would only ring back again thinking he had been cut off.
Breathe!

Her heart was hammering in her chest now and she had to drag a straight-backed chair to the desk and sit down. Tilly couldn’t think; her brain had frozen. All those questions she had rehearsed since Drew had gone back to America dissolved into nothing; all those answers she was looking for disappeared …

‘Hello? Is anybody there? Hello.’

Those few short words, spoken over the crackling line in a small office tucked away in the centre of Whitehall, were all it took to connect Tilly Robbins and Drew Coleman together after being apart for so very, very long and suddenly … for what reason she didn’t know … she couldn’t bring herself to speak to Drew Coleman.

‘I’m afraid there is nobody of that name here, caller.’

Tilly’s voice was professionally efficient. She had grown accustomed to his absence, she may even have got used to not having him around. A lot had changed since he’d been gone. She had changed. And although she hadn’t lost Drew because he had died and experienced the loss of him, like Sally and Agnes had grieved for George and Ted, her heartache was different. Because her sweetheart was still alive, breathing the same air, looking up at the same sky, hearing the same news, and he could walk right back into her life any moment. And that was what she had grieved for: the lost months of uncertainty, the longing, the hoping and praying he would be just around the corner. That she would bump into him at any moment … but now she had got over all that, she told herself. She had a new life. One that didn’t include Drew Coleman. And no matter how much her heart wanted to scream and cry and beg him to come back, her head told her she would never be able to trust him again. She had no intentions of crying herself to sleep every night and wandering around in a daze of barely living, praying he would come back to her again …

‘Hello, ma’am?

Biting her bottom lip, Tilly knew she should just hang up. Obviously, Drew had not recognised her voice. It would be so easy to cut all ties in the same way he had so callously severed their once-beautiful relationship. Her stomach was doing somersaults now and the room had grown uncomfortably hot. As Tilly took the telephone from her ear to hang up she heard Drew’s anxious, almost reedy voice on the other end of the line.

‘Hello?’ There was an impatient tapping noise followed by another. ‘Hello?’

It was no use, Tilly could not cut him off the way he had done to her. Despite her resolution, hearing his voice had awakened in her all of those feelings of love and longing that she had been trying so hard to suppress. It was an almighty effort even to speak.

‘I’m afraid the person you wish to speak to is unavailable, caller.’ Tilly’s voice came out as a croak through her dry throat and lips. Obviously, with her short, curt answers he did not recognise her voice. From the few short words he had spoken, Drew sounded upbeat, making Tilly feel even more aloof. There was a fine line between passion and hate, Tilly believed, and she had loved him with such passion it overwhelmed her. She had lived him, breathed him, thrived on every compliment, withered on every moment he wasn’t with her. It was a full day’s work loving Drew Coleman and she didn’t know if she could spare the time now, like he couldn’t spare the time to tell her it was over even when he had declared … It would be easier if she cut him out of her life – easier to feel the exquisite agony of denial and live with it for ever. She didn’t have the strength to lose him all over again.

‘Please ring back tomorrow, caller.’ Tilly’s tone was professional, unemotional. There was a silence on the other end of the line and after a short while she too began to wonder if they had been cut off. Just as she was about to replace the black Bakelite receiver onto the cradle Drew’s voice came back … a little hesitant at first.

‘You know …’ he sounded so hesitatingly intimate she could imagine his handsome expression, ‘you sound an awful lot like a girl I used to—’

A girl you used to know
– is that all I am to you? her silent thoughts screamed inside her head.

‘Maybe all English girls sound the same, sir.’ Tilly knew her answer sounded coldly brusque, but she could not allow her will to falter. However, her short reply did not have the desired effect when she heard Drew’s excited response.

‘Tilly! Tilly, is that you? It is you, isn’t it?’ He sounded like an excited ten-year-old at a birthday party, and Tilly, despite her efforts to let her emotions get to her, felt hot tears running down her cheeks. He remembered her! Drew actually remembered her – and, fleetingly, she felt pathetically grateful.

‘Hello, Drew.’ Her voice was low and cracked. Then she was silent, frantically gathering her thoughts, unable to speak for the tightening in her throat, her eyes so blurred with tears that she couldn’t even make out the numbers on the dial of the telephone. ‘How are you?’ It was such a mundane question, an enquiry anybody in the street would make; old friends who weren’t close and who were just asking out of politeness … not a man asking the question of his girl, who had worn the ring he gave her next to her heart since the day he vowed to marry her …

‘I’m fine, and you?’ Tilly pressed her fist to her lips to prevent the sob escaping when Drew’s voice came rushing down the line.

‘Gee, I’m swell, honey—’ He stopped abruptly.

He called her ‘honey’ – like he used to – like there had been no separation, no absent letters … And then he was speaking again

‘Never mind about me, how are you?’ Drew’s voice sounded happy, too happy, almost like he used to sound when he was hiding something …

‘I’m good,’ Tilly said. ‘I’ve been going out with Rick Simmonds, you remember Rick?’ Tilly knew that telling him about Rick was cruel and childish, but she was unable to stop herself. She wanted to hurt Drew now, make him jealous, make him see that she had got over him and she wasn’t pining on a shelf.

‘Dulcie’s brother, yeah, I remember …’ There was a silent pause and then for a short while a heavy silence hung between them. When Drew finally did speak he sounded as if he was choosing his words carefully. ‘He’s a great guy … one of the best …’

Tilly wanted to scream at him, to ask him how he could have left her after all of the promises that they had made to each other, after all of the dark times they had been through together: the Blitz, the time he was nearly killed in a raid, that unforgettable night when they had made their solemn vow to each other … But she didn’t. Her pride wouldn’t let her.

‘How’s your mom? Good, I hope,’

‘Yes, she’s good,’ Tilly answered automatically, feeling the rigid pressure between them grow. She could hardly believe that here they were, exchanging pleasantries, almost like strangers. Tilly tried to keep her tone nonchalant but her stomach was in knots.

‘It’s been a long time,’ Tilly managed to say, her voice trembling as she longed to ask why he had run out on her and never got in touch.

‘I know, sweetheart, far too long …’ Drew sounded full of regret, and a fizz of pent-up emotion shot through Tilly.

She wanted to ask a thousand questions, she wanted to tell him how she had suffered, how her life had changed so much because of him. She wanted to tell him that she was going away to a place where she might get killed – she wanted to make him feel as bad as he had made her feel. But she wouldn’t. She couldn’t. She could never hurt him the way he had hurt her.

‘I’ll be in London next week, honey – can you meet me?’

‘No, Drew, I’m sorry.’ Tilly’s wasn’t sure where she found the strength to get the next words out, but she did, ‘I’ll be moving on next week and I won’t be in London, that’s for sure. It was nice to hear from you, Drew, but I really have to go now. And anyway, any spare time I have is spent with Rick.’

‘Oh, I see.’ He sounded crushed. ‘Tilly, listen, there’s something—’

‘Let’s just remain good friends, hey, Drew?’ Tilly’s heart was breaking as the words left her lips but she knew that if she let her guard down now, even a little, it would be too late and she’d never have the strength to do it again. Letting him believe that there was something solid between her and Rick even though there really wasn’t – she and Rick both knew that – was the best thing in the long run. But she couldn’t let Drew back into her life now. If she did there was no saying where it would lead, and someone would get hurt – and that someone, Tilly suspected, would be her. ‘I will leave a message for Brad. Goodbye, Drew.’ Tilly put down the handset, tears streaming down her face. She didn’t wait for Drew to say goodbye – not again.

‘Looks like you’re off, too,’ Rick said to Tilly as they stood in the middle of the parade ground, their kitbags at their feet. Tilly felt a tinge of sadness that Rick was being shipped out to Italy to join his regiment, but there was no mistaking the look of eager anticipation in his eyes.

‘I’m not sure where we’re going, though,’ Tilly answered. She didn’t tell him that she had spoken to Drew the night before, just as she didn’t tell Drew she was being shipped abroad.

‘I can’t wait to get back with the boys, in the thick of it once more,’ Rick laughed, but Tilly could tell he was nervous and presumed he would be until he got back with his comrades.

‘Tilly … You know I said …?’ Rick, for once, was having trouble saying what he thought but Tilly knew exactly what was on his mind. They had met up and gone dancing and been to the pictures together, but Tilly felt more like Rick was her brother than anything else. The passion that she and Drew had fought just wasn’t there in the same way. Speaking to Drew last night had made Tilly realise that it wasn’t fair of her to keep Rick hanging on. It was better to let him go and find someone else to love him like he deserved to be loved. With his natural good looks and charm, Tilly doubted he would be without a girl for long.

‘Rick, before you go off, there is something I want to say to you,’ Tilly took a deep breath and looked Rick straight in the eye. ‘You’ve been the best fun in the world and I’ve had a wonderful time being with you, but—‘

Rick out his finger to her lips and stopped her, ‘Hey, now, Till – no need to say any more. You’re a great girl and we’ll always be friends, won’t we?’

Tilly nodded and lowered her eyes, lest he see the sadness there.

‘Someone else got the best of your love, Tilly,’ Rick continued. ‘And I hope the daft beggar realises that you’re the best thing that ever happened to him – before it’s too late. I’ll always have a soft spot for you. Maybe if things were different—’

Tilly was finding it hard to hold back the tears threatening to overwhelm her.

‘I knew that this day was coming, but you’ll always mean the world to me, Tilly.’ He, gently lifted her chin to meet her eyes and as he looked at her now, Tilly could see he meant every word.