The Promise by Lesley Pearse

it.
    ‘Belle!’ a tentative female voice called out. ‘Are you there?’
    It was Miranda. Belle struggled to compose herself and went into the shop. Miranda looked very elegant in a pale mauve costume and a matching small hat trimmed with artificial violets; her cheeks were rosy and she had a glow about her.
    ‘What a lovely surprise,’ Belle said, grateful for a diversion from her anger. ‘I’ve thought about you so often.’
    Miranda had written her a letter a couple of weeks ago, while she was down at her family’s country estate in Sussex. In it she had thanked Belle for her kindness and said she had fully recovered without anyone becoming suspicious.
    ‘It’s good to be back in London,’ Miranda said. ‘I so much wanted to talk to you while I was away. Mama was insufferable, more so than she usually is. She’s that desperate to get me married off she kept inviting people with eligible sons to dinner. She couldn’t have made her intentions plainer if she had actually put on the invitations that it was to find a husband for me.’
    Belle smiled. ‘And did anyone nice come?’
    Miranda rolled her eyes. ‘Awful, all of them. And besides, all they talked about was the war and joining a regiment. I was bored senseless. But how have you been?’
    ‘I was fine until a few minutes ago when Jimmy came in. He thinks he ought to enlist, but I can’t bear the thought of him going.’
    ‘Oh dear! I’m sure you can’t. But you told me before he had no intention of enlisting until it was compulsory.’
    ‘That’s what he said. But a woman gave him a white feather today and now he feels guilty and afraid people will think he’s a coward.’
    ‘Mama has joined a group handing out white feathers,’ Miranda said, wrinkling her nose in disgust. ‘In my opinion it’s bad enough for men having their peers push them into it, but now with women humiliating them, the poor dears will feel obliged to go. Women like my mother don’t think about how soldiers’ wives and children are going to manage. As I understand it, army pay is only a pittance.’
    Miranda’s sympathy for wives and children seemed like the ideal opportunity for Belle to tell her she was having a baby.
    ‘I’m not so concerned about army pay, but you see, I’m expecting a baby.’
    ‘That’s wonderful news,’ Miranda said and the warmth of her smile showed she was sincere. ‘When is it due?’
    ‘The end of February.’
    Miranda looked shocked.
    ‘Yes, I knew I was back then,’ Belle said. ‘But I couldn’t bring myself to tell you that night. Well, you know, it seemed all wrong.’
    ‘How doubly awful of me to inflict my troubles on you at such a time,’ Miranda said, moving to embrace Belle. ‘But I am very happy for you, and please don’t feel you can’t mention it for fear you’ll upset me. I can understand too why you wouldn’t want your husband joining up at such a time. But I’m sure once he’s thought it through he’ll decide against it.’
    ‘Well, plenty of other men with several children have gone,’ Belle sighed. ‘We heard just yesterday that a man from Lee Green with five children enlisted. Garth said the men in the bar were joking about it and said he was going to get away from them.’
    They spoke for a few more minutes about the war in general and Miranda said that she’d given a lot of thought to getting a job, and ultimately leaving home.
    ‘I’ve applied for several positions in the last couple of days,’ she said. ‘I’m not fooling myself, I know I have no experience. The only thing I can do which is in any way remarkable is to drive a motor car.’
    ‘Gosh.’ Belle was impressed; she didn’t personally know any men who could do that, let alone a woman. When they had first moved to Blackheath motor cars were still quite a rare sight, but in the last two years they had gradually become much more common. It was still only rich people who had them, though, and she couldn’t see that changing for a