A Christmas Promise (19 page)

‘Stand back, Olive, I’ll see to this.’ Archie’s laughter from moments ago died away and was replaced with the steadfast professionalism he was renowned for. Olive did as she was told. Archie was the perfect man for a situation like this. If burglars had managed to force their way in there was plenty to steal as Olive had only finished making her Christmas presents this morning. She had spent many long hours knitting and sewing remnants to make clothing for the girls and for little Alice – not to mention Agnes, their hostess for Christmas.

‘Oh, Archie, be careful,’ Olive said, as Archie quietly crept towards the front-room door, which was not closed tight. Archie waved Olive’s fears away and she was quiet.

Suddenly, Archie flung the front-room door open and roared – scaring the life out of Tilly and Janet, who were sitting on the sofa chatting.

‘Oh, Archie, I nearly died of fright! We didn’t hear you come in!’ Tilly gasped, and Olive, thrilled her daughter was home, hurried towards her, arms outstretched.

‘Oh, darling, why didn’t you let me know you were coming home? I’d have been here to meet you! And it’s lovely to see you again, Janet.’

‘We only got here half an hour ago.’ Tilly laughed, as she hugged her mother. ‘There’s fresh tea in the pot; you don’t mind, do you?’

‘Of course I don’t mind,’ exclaimed Olive – anything for her darling daughter.

They all settled down to their tea and a good old catch-up, and Olive sighed, thankful she had taken Drew’s letter out of the rack on the mantelpiece and put it into her bag for safe-keeping. She wouldn’t tell Tilly about it just yet. Sometime over Christmas would be soon enough, maybe …?

‘Do you think Agnes would mind if we came to the farm, too?’ Tilly asked.

‘I think she’d be very upset if you didn’t,’ Olive replied, thrilled that they were all going to be together at Christmas. She needed the distraction now.

‘Excuse me,’ she said, feeling the lurch of her stomach, which threatened to disgrace her.

‘Olive, are you all right?’ Archie sounded very concerned, but Olive didn’t have time to answer as she rushed to the bathroom.

Olive tried to quell the rising nausea all the way to Surrey in Archie’s car and she hoped her stomach bug would not spoil her little holiday with the family.

‘You’re very quiet, Olive,’ Archie said with concern. The whole family now knew they were a couple and voiced the opinion that it should have happened ages ago. ‘You look very pale.’

‘Just tired, I expect, Archie.’ Olive managed a wan smile and settled down for the rest of the journey, wishing it was a bit lighter so the scenery might take her mind off her biggest worry, now that Tilly was home.

‘Well, I’m sure Agnes will revel in spoiling you,’ said Archie, who had spoken to Agnes on the telephone back at the police station earlier. ‘She can’t wait to see everybody.’

‘She will be so pleased to see Tilly again, just as I was,’ Olive said.

‘D’you think Agnes will let me ride one of the horses?’ Barney asked from the back, sitting between Tilly and Janet, who had Alice on her knee. Sally could not get the time off work to go to the countryside, Christmas being one of the busiest times at the hospital.

‘I can’t see why not,’ Archie offered. ‘As long as you don’t go galloping off into the distance.’

‘They’re shire horses, Archie,’ Olive laughed. ‘They tend to plod rather than gallop.’

‘It would be like a ten-ton truck heading towards you if one of those broke into a gallop,’ Barney said enthusiastically, and they all laughed knowing that Barney still had a bit of the daredevil in him.

‘Oh, darling, are you sure you’re not sickening for something?’ David asked, taking hold of Dulcie’s hand. The children were tucked up in bed with the promise of a visit from Santa, and Mrs Wilson had gone home for the Christmas holiday.

‘It’s nothing, David. Don’t fuss, darling. I’ll be fine.’ Dulcie didn’t want anything to ruin their perfect evening. Tomorrow, she would give him the best present he could ever wish for.

‘You have me worried now, Dulcie,’ David said. ‘Tell me if you are feeling unwell.’

‘Yes, David, I do feel a little unwell but it will pass,’ Dulcie said, tucking her feet under her on the sofa and snuggling into her husband, admiring the flames of the open fire flickering in the cosy darkness of the room and watching the shadows dance on the wall.

‘What is it, my swan, tell me!’ David’s own health had improved in leaps and bounds since he had been in the care of his beautiful wife, and regular check-ups with a new consultant had allowed him to become the husband that Dulcie deserved. He couldn’t bear it if there was something seriously wrong with her. They had a new understanding of each other since their first tentative lovemaking turned into a thing of deeply loving wonder, and he thanked the Lord for his good fortune in meeting Dulcie.

‘I was going to tell you this tomorrow, as an extra Christmas gift, because it is a gift, David, the most precious gift I can ever give you.’ She had so longed for him to come home this evening, suspecting that she would never be able to keep the news from him until tomorrow. ‘We are going to have a baby!’ Dulcie saw the look of disbelief in David’s eyes.

‘A baby  … ?’ He eyes widened and when suddenly Dulcie began to laugh so did he.

‘But how?’ David’s beautiful hazel eyes were wide in wonderment, as Dulcie stopped laughing and said, with a huge smile on her face, ‘Oh, David, I will tell you the facts of life sometime; you really must stop throwing your trousers on my side of the bed!’ And then, in true uproarious East End style, Dulcie threw back her head and laughed until tears ran down her face. But her laughter ebbed when she noticed that David was crying. She turned fully to face him now, her hands cupping his face, and she gently kissed his tears away.

‘I told you everything would be all right, didn’t I, David? I told you we would find a way.’

‘You did my darling,’ David said tenderly, ‘but I never dared believe it.’

‘Well, you can believe it now, my love, because Dr Harris said so.’

‘We’ve got a goose for dinner as well as duck and chicken,’ Agnes said enthusiastically, thrilled that her ‘family’ were all here to help her celebrate her first Christmas at the farm. ‘Carlo prepared it and the girls chopped down the tree.’

‘Shouldn’t that be the other way around?’ Barney asked, perplexed, while everybody laughed. They were having such a good time catching up with all the news since Agnes left Article Row. Olive was amazed she had taken to country life so well. And the darkness didn’t seem to bother her any more, even when she went outside to get another log for the fire.

‘We all muck in around here, nobody stands on ceremony, and you can see how beautiful the countryside is, in all its glory, when it goes light,’ Agnes said proudly.

Barney asked if he could ride one of the horses.

‘If you’re anything like I was when I first saw them you’ll be terrified,’ said Agnes, laughing. ‘They are huge.’ She seemed so contented, sitting beside the crackling fire and drinking a warm, very alcoholic toddy that Carlo had been brewing since the summer.

‘Carlo has slotted into the festive spirit with such ease,’ said Agnes. ‘We have mixed Italian customs with our own so he doesn’t feel too homesick.’

‘Miss Agnes is a very generous woman,’ said Carlo, and as everyone settled down for an evening of easy good-humoured friendliness they accepted Carlo for who he was.

‘More toddy?’ Carlo said with a gentle Italian intonation, and Archie eagerly lifted his glass.

‘I don’t mind if I do, old boy,’ he laughed, feeling very merry indeed. ‘Go on, Olive, have a sip. It’s a warm fruit punch, it won’t do any harm,’ Archie urged, but Olive shook her head. She had felt bilious all day, and now her stomach had settled she didn’t want to tempt fate by drinking something that was making Archie decidedly jolly.

*

‘We did it, my darling, we really did,’ David said, protectively holding his wife just as the wailing of the siren started. He looked concerned now, glancing over to the already-packed bag near the doorway. ‘Darling, there is something I have to say now and you are not going to like it.’

‘I’m not moving out of London, David. I can’t leave you here alone. How would you manage?’ Dulcie said quickly as she had done so many times before, gathering her babies to take to the shelter.

David was as agile as any man with two good legs now, and he picked up his daughter, while Dulcie picked up Anthony and, sitting him on her hip, she took hold of the ever-ready shelter bag and headed to the lift that David had specially installed to take them straight to the shelter below.

‘Oh, hang on a minute, I’ve forgotten my novel,’ she said, quickly going back for her copy of
Three Weeks
by Elinor Glyn, a notoriously risqué novel in which a young British aristocrat is seduced by an exotic foreign queen. It was a story Dulcie would never have dared to read in front of her mother.

‘I’ve heard that story is very racy,’ David smiled.

Dulcie had the good grace to blush, before saying, in the only way she knew, ‘How d’you think I got in this condition in the first place?’

As they made their way down to the underground shelter of the cellar below David’s offices, they were still both laughing. However, their frivolity was short-lived. Just after they settled down, the entire cellar shuddered under an enormous blast! Suddenly, as Dulcie tucked the two children under her body, she realised David was right: it was no longer safe to stay in London, and she was being very selfish keeping her babies here now.

‘David, do you think you could work from a farm?’

‘By the sound of it, I think I may have to, my darling,’ David said, wrapping his arms around his family as the building gave another shudder.

‘We were supposed to travel down tomorrow, do you think we could go today?’ Dulcie asked, clinging to him.

‘Of course,’ David answered, looking worried now, ‘everything will be fine.’

When the raid was over and the all clear sounded, Dulcie and David were horrified to discover that the back of David’s office at the law firm had gone completely, and now Dulcie’s flippant remark about working in the country seemed likely to become a reality.

In no time at all, even before they were told it was safe to do so, Dulcie and David had filled the car with as many of their possessions from the flat as they could possibly get into it, and they were on their way to Agnes’s farm.

Sally and the rest of the nurses, porters and staff at Barts were moving those patients who were able under their beds in case one of the bombs hit the hospital. The ones who could not be moved were secured as much as possible by mattresses around their beds, while the nurses sat holding their hands, praying they would be spared.

‘Are you walking out with a chap, Nurse?’ asked a sailor so frail after his recent operation that he was unable to be moved from his bed. It was at times like this that Sally really missed Morag, who used to have the patients singing in the darkness and, if it was an all-male ward, secretly enjoying the mucky jokes that were infused with double entendres that used to make Sally blush, but not any more.

‘There is someone I write to,’ Sally said enigmatically, feeling the colour rush to her cheeks and knowing that was the first time she had actually admitted that to anybody, except herself.

‘I’ve got a girl back home in Fife,’ said the young sailor, and Sally felt the almost imperceptible twitch of his fingers as another bomb went off.

‘When we get you over this operation you will be transferred back home and your girl will be waiting for you.’ Sally gently patted his hand even though her heart was racing in her throat. That last bomb had been close. ‘It’ll all be over soon.’

She turned to the young man, who had been so brave, saving three complete strangers from a bombed-out warehouse while he was on leave from his ship, but she could tell immediately, when she saw his eyes staring fixedly at the ceiling, that his breathing had stopped. He was past saving anybody else now, and after checking there were no vital signs she gently closed his eyes.

Such a waste of a fine young life. Damn this bloody war, Sally silently railed as she went to find a doctor to confirm the death.

‘Is there room for any more?’ Dulcie cried, as Agnes opened the door and squealed with delight, urging her into the spacious farmhouse.

‘Look who’s here, everybody!’ Agnes cried, as she took little Hope from her mother and ushered them into the large kitchen where everybody was casually sitting around the table. The men were swapping war stories and the women were peeling what seemed like every imaginable vegetable in the country.

‘Dulcie!’ Olive cried. ‘We thought you weren’t coming until Boxing Day.’ Then she noticed that Dulcie’s usually immaculately coiffured hair was riddled with cement dust and splinters of wood. Olive’s hand flew to her mouth but she could not keep the gasp of horror from her voice when she said, ‘Oh, no! Was it bad? Has anybody been hurt?’

‘They called it the little blitz on the news,’ Dulcie said, as suddenly, in the arms of the woman who loved her like a mother, she burst into tears.

Soon, the children were all tucked up in a huge bed under the eaves of the farmhouse, while the adults gathered to discuss the latest bombing raids to hit London.

‘You are all welcome to stay here, you know,’ Agnes said, hoping that they would not return to the carnage back in London.

‘Let’s talk about it tomorrow,’ Dulcie said. ‘My eyes are like buttonholes. I can’t keep them open.’

‘Yes, my darling, you must get your rest, especially now.’ David looked at his wife and the adoration when their eyes met could not be ignored.

‘Is there something you two want to tell us?’ Archie exclaimed as the drink loosened his tongue.

David looked at Dulcie and she nodded to him, taking his hand as he said, ‘My wife and I are proud to announce we are having a baby.’ The roars of delight shook the foundations of the farmhouse, Agnes was sure, as delightedly she hugged Dulcie close while Archie and Carlo slapped David good-naturedly on the back.

‘Good show, David, jolly good show!’ Archie then poured out some more fruit punch and they drank a toast.

‘It would be a marvellous show if the men could have the babies,’ Olive laughed, and everybody joined in.

‘To the future!’ Archie laughed. Olive hadn’t seen him so relaxed in a long time. And then she realised that she hadn’t felt this relaxed herself either.

A white blanket of hoarfrost covered the fields and farm buildings the following morning, giving the city dwellers cause to gasp in wonderment. ‘Oh, it looks so beautiful,’ said Olive, looking out of the sitting-room window. This was a far cry from the broken, soot-covered remains of London buildings. Her heart soared as Barney pointed out the different birds he recognised from his school books, as Olive listened to the loud distinctive song of the chaffinch, with his smart blue-grey and rusty pink plumage, which could be heard from the hedgerows.

‘Merry Christmas, my love,’ Archie said, handing Olive a small, square, brightly covered box after the others had made their way to the kitchen. Olive’s brow furrowed as she gazed at the gift and, looking up at Archie, she could see he looked a little nervous.

‘Open it. I can’t wait until later. I want to know what you think.’

Olive tore at the paper as thoughts of saving it for salvage were quickly dismissed. Inside the paper a perfect dark blue leather box held a beautiful diamond ring.

‘Will you marry me, Olive?’ Archie asked, and, before she could answer, he said quickly, ‘That isn’t my first wife’s engagement ring, Olive … I don’t want you to think …’

‘Shut up and kiss me, Archie.’ Olive laughed as tears of joy ran down her cheeks. ‘Of course I’ll marry you!’ And, feeling more like a girl of sixteen than a woman whose daughter was a serving member of the ATS, Olive stood on tiptoes and flung her arms around Archie’s neck, and when they finally, and reluctantly parted they were surprised to see the room full of people.

‘Oh, Mum, I am so happy for you!’ Tilly laughed, and clapped her hands along with everybody else, thrilled that her mother had finally found the happiness she deserved.

‘She didn’t even know the difference between a bull and a cow,’ laughed Mavis, who had stayed on at the farm for Christmas.