The Promise (27 page)

But although from humble origins, Will was a gentleman. He treated Miranda with great tenderness and respect and he seemed to like everything about her. No one had ever done that before, not even her own family. She wanted to spend her life with him in America after the war was over, to embrace his life and forget her old one. She really didn’t care if she never saw her own family again.

Will opened the car door as Miranda rushed over. ‘Hi, beautiful,’ he said, his teeth very white in the darkness.

She scrunched up the wet coat, pushed it over into the back seat and got in, turning to him eagerly.

‘Hmmm,’ he said after the longest, deepest kiss. ‘That was worth waiting for. I hope you can get away this weekend, I’ve found a place for us to stay.’

‘Yes, I’ve fixed it,’ she said, leaning into his shoulder. ‘But you will be careful, you know what I mean?’

‘Sure, honey, I’ll keep it covered,’ he chuckled. ‘I don’t want you having a baby, not till we’ve been married a respectable time.’

‘Married?’ Miranda exclaimed.

He laughed. ‘I guess I should’ve asked you properly. l had planned to at the weekend, but it just slipped out. But what d’you say? Will you marry me when all this war madness is over?’

Miranda threw her arms around his neck. ’I’d marry you tomorrow, even in this madness,’ she said, covering his face with kisses.

He took her hands and held them, kissing her fingers. ‘I can’t offer no guarantees about where we’ll fetch up,’ he said. ‘I could be posted anywhere, but I know I want you to be with me wherever that is.’

‘I wouldn’t mind if we had to live in a desert, on top of a mountain or on the moon, as long as you are with me,’ she said, and tears of joy ran down her cheeks.

‘Hey, don’t cry, honey,’ he said, wiping the tears away with his thumb. ‘I already told my folks about you in a letter and I know they are going to love you as much as I do. What’ll your folks have to say?’

‘I wish I could say they’d be overjoyed,’ Miranda said sadly. ‘But I’ve already told you what my mother’s like. I don’t care though, my life will be with you and they’ll have to lump it.’

‘They’ll think I’m not good enough for you?’

‘Nobody would be, not unless Mother knew the family and they were close to royalty,’ she sighed regretfully. ‘But don’t concern yourself with that. You’ll be marrying me, not my mother.’

Belle was asleep when Miranda crept into the hut well after twelve that night. She was so excited that she just had to wake her friend.

‘Surely it’s not morning yet?’ Belle muttered groggily as Miranda shook her.

‘No, it’s not, but I have something to tell you that can’t wait till morning.’

There was just enough moonlight for Miranda to see Belle rubbing her eyes. ‘This had better be good,’ she said.

‘It is. Will proposed. I’ll go back with him to America when the war’s over. Isn’t it wonderful? I’m so happy!’

Belle sat up then and groped for Miranda’s hand to squeeze it. ‘It is wonderful news, I’m really glad for you. But will you get married here?’ she whispered.

‘We haven’t decided that yet. I’d like to, but he wants his family to be there. We’ll talk about it more at the weekend.’

‘Are you going to tell your parents?’

‘No, Mama will just be horrid about it. I shall present them with a fait accompli.’

‘I hope the wedding’s here, then I can be with you,’ Belle said. ‘But can I go back to sleep now?’

‘It’s “may” I go back to sleep,’ Miranda said with a giggle. She was always correcting Belle’s speech – it was a long-standing joke between them that she was her grammar coach.

‘May you bugger off then,’ Belle said. ‘And don’t forget I’m to be matron of honour.’

On Saturday it was dry for once, though still chilly. Just that afternoon one of the French ambulance drivers had said that this was the wettest summer he could remember. There were huge puddles all around the hospital grounds, which gave everyone a clear idea of how appalling the conditions were for the men at the front.

Miranda met Will at six o’clock in the usual place for their night away. It was the first time since the night they met that she’d seen him in daylight and she could see the car had been washed and polished. So was he; Miranda could smell lemon soap on him as she kissed him, and though he was in his uniform as always, it was freshly pressed, his boots gleaming with polish.

‘I thought tonight would never come,’ he said, nuzzling his face into her neck. ‘I took a lot of stick from the other guys; they said I was watching the clock all day.’

‘I was too,’ she admitted. ‘We were very busy, and the gears kept sticking in my ambulance, so my arm aches from trying to whack it in. I hoped I’d have time for a bath before meeting you, but no such luck. And you look so smart and spruced up.’

He had never looked quite so handsome. His skin was golden, his eyes were shining and his dark hair was so neat and well cut. Her heart was thumping with anticipation at the night ahead, but she wished she’d had time to make herself beautiful for him.

‘You look gorgeous to me, good enough to eat,’ he said. ‘I’d better whisk you away before you change your mind.’

Despite France being a war zone and all the destruction caused by it, battlefields where no tree or bush was left standing, the mass graves, hastily built hospitals, supply dumps, and roads teeming with lorries, gun carriages, horse-driven carts and marching soldiers, just a few miles away from this ugliness it was still a rural idyll. People often commented on this, and as Will drove Miranda away from the hospital in the direction of Rouen, she saw this for herself. The countryside here was still pretty, fields with green crops, pastures with grazing cows and old people carefully tending vegetable patches.

‘It’s lovely,’ she said as they made their way down the narrow country lanes. ‘I can smell new-mown hay and damp earth, and so many wild flowers. It’s like being back in Sussex, so different from around Camiers.’

Will smiled at her. ‘Just don’t expect the Waldorf, honey. The French officer who told me about it spoke English as bad as my French; he might have been telling me it was a dump for all I know. But he did say he took his lady friend here, and contacted them for me.’

‘I’m impressed that you can find your way, I haven’t seen any signposts,’ she said.

‘Don’t praise me yet, we might never find it,’ he laughed.

‘Here we are,’ he said a little later, pulling up by a picturesque but crumbling old stone house with peeling shutters. The sun was a big fiery ball, just sinking down behind the house, giving it a pinkish glow.

The faded sign said ‘Le Faisan Doré’. Miranda knew
doré
meant golden, but she didn’t understand the other word. The place might look a bit shabby, but compared to a chilly hut with a tin roof, surrounded by mud, it was a palace.

The inside was equally shabby, but quaint, the way so many old country houses were in England. The front door led straight into one large, low-ceilinged room. To the right of the front room was a bar and sitting area; some of the chairs and couches had stuffing coming out of them, and the rugs over the stone floor were threadbare. To the left was a dining area with scrubbed plain wood tables which were being laid for dinner by a skinny young lad of about fourteen. There was a roaring fire on each side of the room, and a plump, smiling-faced elderly woman came forward to greet them, immediately offering them a glass of red wine.

She said in rapid French that if they wanted dinner they must order it now, as they were always busy on Saturday nights. It seemed there was just one dish on offer, and Miranda only recognized the word ‘
boeuf
’ in her description. She translated this for Will and he nodded agreement.

They sat by the fire to warm up while they drank their wine, and when he’d finished laying the tables the young lad showed them to their room which was up the staircase at the back of the bar.

Miranda gasped with delight as the lad opened the door at the back of the house. It was as shabby as downstairs, yet it was the kind of comfortable, faded grandeur she remembered in her grandparents’ home when she was small. There was an old and beautiful walnut bed with a matching armoire and dressing table and by the window overlooking fields was a small round table with a vase of pink roses sitting on it.

Will had to duck his head to avoid the beams on the ceiling, and as the boy backed out grinning at them, Miranda prodded the bed and thought it must have a feather mattress as it was very soft.

‘What d’you think, honey?’ Will said, looking anxious.

‘I think it’s lovely,’ she said truthfully. She might have stayed in far more beautiful rooms in the past, but this one looked romantic and cosy. ‘Just the perfect place to spend our first night together.’

She pulled back the faded chintz counterpane and to her surprise the bed was made up with lace-trimmed linen. It was a little creamy with age, but ironed smooth, and she could smell lavender. When she opened a second door it led to a small room with a bath and a bidet. On turning on the tap it was an even bigger surprise to find the water was piping hot.

Back at the hospital they were lucky to get more than three inches of hot water in the bath before it ran cold. Sally had said they’d fixed it that way so no one would linger in there, and no one did as the bathroom was a stark, draughty place. She looked round at Will in delight.

He put his arms around her and kissed her. ‘I can see by the look on your face that you are dying to get in the bath, so I’ll go down to the bar and have a drink and wait for you there. Come down when you’re ready.’

Once again Miranda was touched by his sensitivity. She had fully expected him to leap on her as soon as the bedroom door was closed, and though she wanted him badly, she also wanted everything to be right.

She had come wearing a blouse and skirt so as not to attract any attention to herself when leaving the hospital. But she’d packed a dark red velvet dress which she hadn’t even told Belle she had brought from England. Once she’d seen how they were to live at the hospital it looked ridiculously unsuitable. All these weeks it had remained in the tissue paper she’d packed it in at home, and she’d thought she would never get the opportunity to wear it.

While the bath was running she took it out, and to her joy found it had remained uncreased.

Will was on his second brandy, watching the place fill up with French officers in their grey uniforms who had come for a meal, when he saw them all turn to look at the stairs.

Miranda was coming down and she looked sensational. She’d twisted her blonde hair up and secured it with a couple of tortoiseshell combs, and her dark red dress clung to her curves and flattered her pale English complexion. The neckline was cut to expose her creamy shoulders, and the skirt flowed out behind her as she swept down into the dining room. With a sparkly necklace, matching ear bobs and dainty shoes, she could have stepped out of a fashion magazine. Will felt a surge of pride that she was his girl.

‘Will I do?’ she whispered to him as she reached him.

A lump came up in his throat. She looked what she was, a high-class girl from a privileged background, and he could hardly believe she would love him.

‘You’re kidding! You’d do for the President himself, let alone a humble sergeant.’

‘I have to own up to something,’ he said later as they sat at a table by the window. The place was crowded now, and the young lad who had shown them to their room was playing an accordion. The meal was steak and frites, the steak bloody but very tender, and the wine fruity and heady.

There were four or five other women around the room. They were well dressed, but drab compared with Miranda. She had already remarked that she believed them to be wives rather than girlfriends, as they looked very comfortable and weren’t talking to their men much.

‘I hope it isn’t that you have a wife already,’ Miranda said. ‘If it is, I might throw this glass of wine over you.’

‘Certainly not,’ he laughed. ‘It’s an embarrassing confession.’

‘You have an artificial leg?’ she suggested with twinkling eyes. ‘That’s fine, I can cope with that.’

‘I think you would’ve guessed that some time ago,’ he said. ‘No, it’s my name.’

‘What’s wrong with Will?’ she asked.

‘You think it’s short for William?’

Miranda nodded. ‘Isn’t it?’

‘No, it’s Wilbur.’

She spluttered with laughter. ‘Wilbur?’

‘I’m afraid so. Can you live with that?’

‘Well, I really don’t know. It is rather grim. Belle will have hysterics if she comes to our wedding.’

‘Then we’d better get married in secret. And soon too, because after tonight I’ll need to make an honest woman of you.’

She just looked at him, her sparkling eyes saying all he needed to know. His father had once told him that when he met his mother he felt a pang in his heart, and he knew then it was true love. Will felt that same pang now; everything he wanted in life was right here in front of him.

‘I’d marry you tomorrow if it was possible,’ she said softly.

As dawn broke and the first rays of light came through the edges of the curtains, Miranda leaned up on one elbow to look at Will. He had fallen asleep, one strong tanned arm over her, his face squashed into the pillow. She could hardly believe how wonderful his lovemaking had been. It had wiped out everything that had gone before, the humiliation that Frank had made her feel, the knowledge that her mother didn’t care much for her, and the sense that she wasn’t worth much.

He had kissed every inch of her, even places that made her blush to think about, caresses of such tenderness that he’d made her cry. Lovemaking with Frank had been hot and steamy, but she knew now what had been missing; he’d never made her feel like a goddess the way Will had. There had never been such joy and sweetness, or unhurried delight in pleasing each other.

She ran her hand lightly over his back, revelling in his smooth, silky skin and taut, muscular buttocks. Looking at his perfection, she felt a pang of fear that he might be wounded when he had to go into battle with his regiment. Daily she felt horror at all those young men maimed and disfigured, but the thought that it might happen to Will was unbearable and tears started up in her eyes just at the thought of it.