‘Paying someone else would cut down the profits,’ she said.
‘At first it would. But if you picked the right person, say your friend Miranda, you’d be free to make hats all the time. You could keep your special designs just for your shop, and maybe sell more ordinary ones to other shops, say in Lewisham or Greenwich.’
‘So are you saying you’d let me keep the shop?’
Jimmy smiled as he saw her eyes brighten suddenly. ‘I’m your husband, not your keeper,’ he said. ‘I know most men think the two go hand in hand, but then, I grew up with my mother running a dressmaking business, and no man throwing his weight around. She always said that women were really the stronger sex. I’ve only got to look at you and Mog to see that’s true.’
Belle took his hand, lifted it to her mouth and kissed it.
‘But you won’t go back there until Dr Towle says you are well enough,’ he warned her. ‘And until you have an assistant.’
Belle looked at him for a moment or two without speaking and a tear trickled down her cheek.
‘What is there to cry about?’ he asked.
‘You just do that to me,’ she said. ‘It’s because you are always so understanding and thoughtful. I am so lucky to have you.’
Jimmy leaned over and kissed her. ‘Well, let’s just hope Uncle Garth isn’t determined to be lord and master because I think it’s time I went and told him our plans. I’ll take the sketch down too and ask him to take it to the police tomorrow.’
It was still dark the following morning when the alarm clock went off. Jimmy stopped it and moved to get up.
‘One last cuddle,’ Belle said sleepily.
He turned back to her and carefully put his arms around her, avoiding her bruised shoulder and ribs. Her warm body seemed to melt into his and he breathed in her lavender smell and wished with all his heart he didn’t have to catch that train. Her hair against his cheek was silky, her body beneath her white cotton nightdress was so soft, and he had no idea how long it would be before he could hold her like this again.
‘I have to go now,’ he whispered. ‘You stay here and go back to sleep. I don’t want you trying to come downstairs – saying goodbye here is better.’
He kissed her gently, then wriggled away and got out of bed, lighting a candle so he could see to find his clothes.
He sensed she was watching him as he washed his face and cleaned his teeth at the washstand.
‘Put on that new vest Mog knitted for you, it will be cold on the ship,’ she said as he pulled on his trousers. Mog had sponged and pressed his uniform, and Garth had dubbined his boots for him, their little way of showing how much they cared. Just now he wished there was less evidence of love for him, that Mog wouldn’t be downstairs ready with a mug of tea, a packet of sandwiches to take with him, and extra warm socks and a new scarf tucked into his kit bag. Such loving care made it so much harder to leave.
Finally he laced up his boots and went back to kiss Belle one last time. He wanted to tell her that if he shouldn’t come back, she was always to remember that having her to love had made him the happiest man in the world. But he couldn’t put the idea that he might be killed into her head. Nor must he put it in his own either; he must only ever think of the future they’d share when the war was over.
‘I love you,’ he said simply, and pulled the covers back over her and tucked her in.
He allowed himself one long last look, a picture that he could hold in his head however bad things got in France: the black storm of curls on the pillow, blue eyes brimming with tears and her soft, full mouth trembling.
‘Take great care of yourself and write to me every day,’ he said softly before blowing out the candle and then turning to go out of the room.
He had to stop at the top of the stairs to compose himself. In this house he could be just a husband, but once out of the door he had to be a soldier, and put aside fear and sentiment.
The sound of Jimmy’s heavy boots on the road outside a little later made Belle cry. She heard the train coming into the station soon after, and then the chugging sound as it left, carrying him away from her.
Meg came upstairs then, and as expected she opened the bedroom door to look in, but Belle pretended to be asleep, knowing that sympathy would just make her feel worse. She cried on and off all morning; now that she’d lost the baby, Jimmy had gone, and knowing there was a possibility he might never make it home again, she felt completely bereft.
It didn’t help that Mog was sharp with her for not eating her breakfast or her lunch.
‘I understand perfectly that you are feeling down in the dumps because Jimmy’s had to go back,’ she snapped. ‘But not eating won’t bring him back, all it will do is stop you from getting stronger again. I’ve got better things to do than keep coming up here with trays of food which you won’t even try to eat.’
When Belle heard footsteps on the landing around two in the afternoon, she thought Mog was coming back to give her a further lecture, and she buried her face in the pillow to feign sleep again, but as the door opened it was Miranda’s voice she heard.
‘Oh, my poor Belle,’ she exclaimed.
Belle hauled herself up to a sitting position. She had forgotten that Miranda was coming. Had she remembered, she might have asked Mog to put her off. But now she was here, with a large bouquet of hothouse flowers in her arms, Belle couldn’t bring herself to be churlish.
‘How nice of you to call,’ she said weakly, very aware of Mog standing just behind Miranda, poised to say something if Belle didn’t show some genuine appreciation.
‘I was absolutely horrified when Mr Reilly told me about the attack, and I’m so very sorry for your loss,’ Miranda said. ‘I’ve been down in Sussex so I didn’t know. I wish there was something I could do or say to make you feel better.’
‘I feel better already just seeing you,’ Belle said. ‘Do come in and sit down. Are those beautiful flowers for me?’
Mog smiled, clearly relieved Belle wasn’t going to be awkward. ‘Would you both like some tea?’ she suggested. ‘And I’ll take the flowers if you like and put them in water.’
Miranda said she’d love some tea and pulled up a chair to the side of the bed. Mog left the room, taking the flowers with her.
‘You’ve been crying,’ Miranda said as the door closed. ‘But that’s to be expected, especially now Jimmy’s gone back to France. I bet you feel everything’s been snatched from you?’
‘Yes, that just about covers it,’ Belle sighed. ‘I don’t know what I’d do if I lost Jimmy too. He’ll be sent to the front very soon, and though he might have learned how to shoot straight, I doubt there’s a way of teaching men how to dodge the enemy bullets.’
‘He struck me as very level-headed and intelligent,’ Miranda said. ‘He also has a lot to come back for. I’ve an uncle who is a brigadier; he once told me that soldiers who have nothing to lose can be a liability. They are frequently very brave, but also foolhardy. The ones with everything to lose like your Jimmy don’t take risks which would endanger them or their fellow men, and they are ultimately the best to command.’
‘That’s comforting,’ Belle smiled weakly. ‘But help me out of this wallowing in self-pity. Tell me what you’ve been doing.’
Miranda flicked back the elegant silky scarf at her neck with a gesture that said she had quite a lot to tell. ‘Well, strange as it might sound, I’ve been helping out in a small hospital down in Sussex,’ she said. ‘Most of the patients were wounded officers and because I could drive I was taking them on to convalescent homes, or to their own families when they were well enough to travel. But it ended because someone made a fuss about a woman doing men’s work.’
‘How ridiculous!’ Belle exclaimed. ‘Surely most men who can drive have enlisted?’
‘It doesn’t seem so,’ Miranda said glumly. ‘I was just a volunteer of course, and quite honestly I felt it was churlish of them to refuse my help. It was suggested I could become a VAD and help with the sick and wounded if I wanted something to do. But I do hate this notion that women are only good for washing people and rolling bandages. As you can imagine, my dear mama thinks that a well-brought-up young lady shouldn’t even be doing that.’
Miranda launched into telling Belle about a scrape she’d got into while driving. In the dark she had taken the wrong fork on a country lane, and ended up getting stuck in mud in a wood with a patient who couldn’t walk.
‘It was frightful,’ she said. ‘I had to leave him in the car and walk to find the nearest farm to get help. It was tipping down with rain and my shoes and coat were quite ruined. When I finally got a farmer to take me in his tractor back to the car to pull it out, the wretched patient took me to task for not checking he had some matches to light his cigarettes before I set off. I ask you! There he was sitting in the warm and dry, complaining that he hadn’t been able to smoke, when I’d walked about five miles and looked like a drowned rat!’
Belle spluttered with laughter. Miranda did give the impression of being somewhat callous. The patient probably thought she’d gone off to the nearest hotel to get a bed for the night and had forgotten where she left him. ‘So what’s next then?’ she asked. ‘Handing out cups of tea to soldiers while they are waiting for the troop trains?’
‘I have been asked to run a tea stall,’ Miranda said. ‘But it will be hell. I’ll be stuck with a bunch of women like my mother all day. Don’t know that I could stand that for long.’
‘You could come and help me in the shop when I’m better,’ Belle said impulsively. ‘Jimmy said I could go back as long as I have someone else there. He even suggested you. I’d pay you of course, and you’d be ideal. Look at you, a fashion plate!’
Miranda was wearing a silver-grey costume with a long, slender skirt; around the neck of the fitted jacket she had draped a fringed silk scarf in shades of blue and silver with just a hint of pink. Her plain, grey-brimmed hat had a band of the same material as her scarf.
‘You don’t mean it, surely?’ she said, looking very surprised.
‘Of course I do,’ Belle insisted. ‘I’ve got to employ an assistant, but it makes far more sense to have someone with a bit of flair and presence than some lumpen shop girl who has only ever cut up cheese.’
Miranda laughed. ‘Oh Belle, I’d be in my element as I adore hats. Heaven only knows what Mama will say though.’
‘Maybe you could tell her you’re just helping me out? Make it seem more like a mission of mercy than a job?’
At that both girls burst into giggles. In Belle’s case it was because she could imagine the formidable Mrs Forbes-Alton all puffed up with indignation, airing her views on common shop girls as if they were a species of rodent.
‘She’ll say, “You can’t be serious, Miranda! People will suspect you of being a suffragette,” ’ Miranda said, imitating her mother’s voice. ‘She thinks anything slightly subversive is an indication of suffrage.’
‘Mog has great sympathies with suffrage,’ Belle said. ‘And so have I. Why shouldn’t women vote?’
‘To tell the truth, I agree,’ Miranda confided. ‘If women were in control there wouldn’t be wars. We’ve got better things to do with our time than digging trenches and shooting people.’
‘So what would you be doing with your time if you could do anything you wanted?’ Belle asked.
‘I wouldn’t mind an afternoon with a wonderful lover,’ said Miranda.
Her unexpected and saucy reply took Belle right back to lazy days at Martha’s sporting house in New Orleans. The girls there had always been warm and open, and she missed that kind of feminine banter. Miranda hadn’t been as explicit as the girls there would have been, but the fact that she felt secure enough to speak out showed that she really did see Belle as her friend.
Miranda put her hand over her mouth. ‘Oh, that was so tactless of me after all you’ve been through,’ she said, blushing furiously.
‘Not at all,’ Belle laughed. ‘You’ve cheered me more than you can imagine.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, really. It’s lovely that you didn’t feel you had to pussyfoot around me.’
They were still laughing when Mog came in carrying a tray with the flowers in a vase and tea and cake for them both. ‘I heard you laughing from downstairs,’ she said. ‘Let me in on the joke?’
‘It was just something silly about one of Belle’s customers,’ Miranda said. ‘It just tickled us both.’
‘Well, it was good to hear,’ Mog said. She put the tray down on the dressing table and placed the flowers on the chest of drawers. ‘I’ll leave you to be mother, Miss Forbes-Alton,’ she said as she turned to leave.
Belle spluttered with laughter. ‘Miranda, you are as good at lying as I am,’ she said.
‘Something I learned to keep dear Mama sweet,’ she replied. ‘She would go up in a puff of smoke if she heard me wishing for an afternoon with a lover.’
All at once Belle saw why Miranda had been so reckless with Frank. She might have been somewhat naive when she met him, but she wasn’t the delicate little flower Belle first took her for. She was an adventuress at heart, and it was only her lack of experience with red-blooded men that had caused her to be fooled by her more practised seducer. It seemed they had even more in common than she’d originally thought.
Miranda stayed with her until almost five o’clock, and the time passed in a flash as they talked about anything and everything. It was only as Miranda realized the time and said she must go home that she became serious.
‘I know I haven’t asked you how you feel about losing your baby,’ she said, and she leaned over and caressed Belle’s cheek, her pale blue eyes full of sympathy. ‘Please don’t think it’s because I don’t care, because I do, deeply. But after what we’ve been through together, I didn’t feel I had the right to ask such a thing because you probably imagine I never felt the loss of my baby.’
Her sincerity touched Belle.
‘I know exactly what you mean, Miranda. It was for the same reason that I didn’t tell you I was having a baby that night. We’ve both lost our babies, whether intentionally or accidentally, and the sorrow inside us is the same. I think you were very brave to come and see me; you must have been afraid that I might have turned against you. But you’ve made me feel better, given me hope that I will get over it in time. That is much more valuable than mere words of sympathy.’