A Christmas Promise (6 page)

‘Hey, daydreamer, are you listening to me?’ Rick nudged her elbow and Tilly could feel the heat rise to her cheeks.

‘Sorry, I was miles away,’ she said hurriedly. She gave a self-conscious laugh, knowing that she didn’t feel the same way about Rick as she did about Drew. But she was a fool to continue having feelings for a man who obviously didn’t care about her at all, and could forget her so easily when he was with his own people. Maybe it had been a narrow escape, she mused. How awful would it have been if she had travelled all the way to America to be with Drew, only to find out he didn’t want her as much as he had said he did.

Looking out of the window, Tilly watched the countryside flashing past. Tomorrow was her twenty-first birthday and she would be legally old enough to call herself an adult and do exactly as she pleased. But would she? That was the question that was circling in her head.

She had made the decision to serve abroad so that she could decide once and for all what kind of person she truly was, and the last few months had proved to her that she had outgrown her youthful ways. Nobody, in this day and age, had dreams beyond living another day, she was sure. And her girlhood dreams of a wonderful white wedding were now just a dream …

‘Hey, sleepy head, we’re nearly there …’

Through half-closed lids Tilly saw Rick smiling at her from the seat opposite … How handsome he looked …

The news that Drew was getting married exploded all Sally’s hopes of him and Tilly ever getting back together again. She had heard from his nurses that he’d had many attractive young ladies visit him, and this was understandable, he being the son of one of America’s wealthiest families – he was bound to have elegant women around him.

However, Sally would always think of him as just … Drew. Drew, who was welcomed into Olive’s home, as all their sweethearts had been. Wilder, Dulcie’s beau, who had been killed after her sister got her claws into him and before Dulcie married David, or George before he lost his life at sea, even Ted, who treated Agnes more like a sister than his fiancée – Olive had welcomed them all. But Olive had watched none of them as closely as she had watched Drew, imagining at first that he would break her daughter’s heart. And it looked as if she had been right. Tilly had heard nothing from this young man from the day he left her to go back to America over a year ago.

On the advice of Drew’s father, Olive thought it best not to tell Tilly that Drew had been injured and was at death’s door: Tilly would be better off without the aggravation an invalid might cause. However, Sally knew how much in love the two young people had been, even if their parents had not, and she recognised how much they meant to each other. It shone from their souls every time they looked at each other, and she knew that they had eyes for nobody else in the room. So it was not surprising that the news of Drew’s impending nuptials caused Sally’s heart to sink now, as hopes of a happy ending for Tilly dwindled to nothing.

‘Well, look after yourself, Drew,’ Sally said, giving him a friendly hug. ‘It was a pleasure to have met you and I hope you are very happy.’ And before Sally could disgrace herself, she choked back her disappointment, and with a tear in her eye she gave Drew a quick peck on the cheek before hurriedly leaving the room.

Taking deep breaths, she headed towards her office at the end of Men’s Surgical and closed the door behind her. Picking up the cup of now tepid tea, which one of the young probationers had kindly made for her earlier, Sally sighed. It would have been so wonderful if Tilly could have had her fairy-tale romance. Who would have known how things would turn out at the start of the war, she thought as she recalled Tilly and Drew who, like the two star-crossed lovers Shakespeare had once written about, had been young and in love, and gave the impression that for them life would be happy ever after. If only life were like that, she thought.

Looking through the small office window onto the ward, Sally could clearly see Callum, his head resting at an angle on the immaculately starched pillow, his dark unruly hair unusually neat, combed back off his forehead, showing three faint surprise lines and a splay of laughter lines around the outer corner of his eyes. He looked peaceful now, Sally noticed. As she watched his restful slumber, allowing herself the luxury of prolonged observation, the ghost of past anger seeped from her heart. In another time, given the chance, she had so very easily fallen in love with Callum.

She experienced that zing of delight the first time she ever set eyes on him when Morag brought him from their native Scotland to her own home in Liverpool. She had never seen a man more handsome – and when he spoke: she remembered how the rich Celtic timbre of his voice washed over her and she thought she had died and gone to heaven.

Sally sighed for lost chances. That was then.

As she put back her cup on to the saucer she knew things were so much different now. She must put those silly thoughts from her head: they both led different lives now and the one person who had bound them together was gone.

Absent-mindedly picking up the patients’ notes that were awaiting her instruction, Sally heard the urgent tap on the office door and called for whoever it was to enter.

A young nurse came in and said in a quietly concerned tone, ‘Sister, I think you’d better come and have a look at this!’

Sally did not go haring down the ward between the regimented, iron beds as the young nurse had done; instead she followed at a more dignified pace and reached Callum’s bed almost at the same time.

‘What is it, Nurse?’ she said, watching the nurse gently easing back the covers from Callum’s chest. Sally observed that he didn’t move a muscle as his striped pyjamas were being opened. Moving forward, Sally watched as the nurse removed the surgical dressing that covered the wound where his appendix had been removed.

To her horror she noticed a vivid, puce-coloured wheel of infection surrounding the stitched area out of which a foul-smelling, pale green fluid oozed. Immediately Sally rolled up her sleeves and set to work. She didn’t need a thermometer to know that Callum had a raging temperature and she could hear the shallow rasp as air struggled to reach his lungs. There was no mistaking the sudden onset of pneumonia.

‘When was his wound last examined?’ Sally tried to stem the rising panic in her voice, knowing that infection killed more soldiers than actual bullets did.

Article Row, even at this late hour, was still illuminated by the daylight that was now triggered by double summertime, while the fresh breeze, sweet with the tang of the recent rainfall, gently billowed the net curtain through the two-inch opening of the sash window in Ian Simpson’s spare front bedroom.

Drew listened intently, hearing the rumbling in the distance. He could feel his heart hammering in his chest in anticipation of Tilly soon being here. He’d heard Tilly’s mother talking to Nancy Black earlier, saying she had received a telegram, and Olive was all excited, telling Nancy that Tilly was due home at nine p.m. and would get a taxi from the station. Vaguely, he wondered where she had been.

Clambering slowly off the bed, Drew could feel his strength coming back at a steady pace. There was no rush to be at the window. Given the distant sound of the engine he knew the taxi hadn’t turned into Article Row yet.

He intended to resume work on his father’s newspaper, as, frustratingly, he had been exempted from military service on medical grounds. But this wasn’t going to stop him serving his country in other ways. He would work alongside the troops to report their plights and successes – but there was something else he had to do first.

A rush of adrenalin made his heartbeat accelerate. He could feel Tilly’s imminent presence even though he could not see her. He had waited a long time for this moment and he didn’t want to mess it up. For the first time in over a year, he would see her again. He would gaze into the heavenly sea-green of her eyes framed by her lovely dark hair and he would tell her how much he had missed her.

He had dreamed of this day for many, long and agonising months. At last, the time had come when he could hold her in his arms and tell her that he had come back to make her his for ever. She had never sent his Harvard ring back to him so that proved she still loved him, and he would explain the reasons he had not got in touch. He never wanted to put his beloved Tilly through all that worry and heartache.

He had deliberately aimed for the eve of her twenty-first birthday to return to Article Row because he knew they would not have to then wait a moment longer than was necessary to become man and wife. He had got the special licence and the rings – a better gift for her twenty-first birthday he could not imagine – and he had booked the little bed and breakfast where he and Tilly had once stayed. It was the idyllic place where they had once exchanged vows in the moonlight and would now finally consummate their love for each other.

He could hear the oncoming hackney cab rumbling around the corner, its distinctive engine noise breaking the quiet, dignified silence of Article Row, and he could feel the hairs on the back of his arms stand on end, and the lurch in the pit of his stomach as he anticipated the first sight of his girl in almost a lifelong year of torment. Stepping back, not wanting to reveal the surprise just yet, Drew anticipated her look of surprise when they met up again, knowing she would be thrilled. And as he recalled the sweet pressure of her lips on his he could contain himself no longer. He had to go down there now and take her in his arms and tell her how much he had missed her, and then he would do what he had dreamed of for so long.

The young nurse grabbed the notes from the bottom of the bed while, on Sally’s orders, another probationer went to fetch a consultant, and very soon Callum was being thoroughly examined. Pulling the stethoscope from his ears the senior doctor looked grave.

‘Can I speak to you in your office, Sister?’

Sally knew that the news was not good. Her heart was pounding as she led him to the office.

There was no preamble in his brisk manner, which the younger nurses so admired in the mature specialist. ‘If this man does not get the medication he desperately needs soon he will die. There is a serum … It is in its experimental stages.’

‘Can we try it?’ Sally felt desperate. Morag would have wanted her to do everything in her power to make her brother well again.

‘The early signs are that it has showed results bordering on the miraculous …’

‘Are you talking about penicillin?’ asked Sally. She had worked closely with army medics who had seen the phenomenal effects of the new drug, conceived here in London and developed in greater quantities in the United States.

‘The new wonder drug, as it is now being called, is said to be having such brilliant results with injured servicemen in the field that there was an urgent recommendation to the War Production Board to take responsibility for increased production,’ the doctor said.

‘Can we get hold of any?’ Sally asked.

‘I don’t want this being spoken about outside this office, Sister,’ his voice was so low she could barely hear it, ‘but I do have a little of this serum in my laboratory. However, I am not sure if it will be enough to get this chap through the crisis …’

‘Oh, please, God let it be enough!’ Sally prayed, her hands never still as she tidied her desk.

‘Back in July,’ the consultant said, ‘the WPB drew up a plan for the mass distribution of penicillin stocks to Allied troops fighting in Europe. After a mouldy cantaloupe was found to produce good quality penicillin in Illinois, some of it was sent here.’

‘Oh, Doctor, you must try!’ Sally cried. ‘You have to give it a chance; he must not be allowed to die!’

‘We, as always, Sister, will do our best,’ the doctor said as, coat-tails flying behind him, he hurried off to his laboratory.

Sally closed her office door quietly behind her. There were only two times in her life that she could remember feeling as desolate as she did now: the first was when she was told her mother was dying – and the second was when she died.

‘Something tells me you have more than a professional interest in this particular patient, Sister?’ There was a ghost of a smile playing around the consultant’s lips as he came back to her office some time later, and, if Sally hadn’t been so frantically worried about Callum, she may well have attempted a modicum of outraged indignation. But, as it turned out, she knew she would do anything she had to do, if only it would save Callum’s life.

The black hackney cab stopped outside Tilly’s house a few doors down and Drew watched the door open. At the same time, from the front door of number 13, volleyed a cacophony of female voices, and the dignified peace of Article Row was shattered by feminine squeals of delight, putting paid to any hope of the quiet romantic reunion he had dreamed of. Drew could handle all of that, but what he hadn’t expected was the sight of Tilly being helped out of the cab by another man – an English soldier!

He watched as she alighted onto the pavement and his breath caught in his throat when he saw she was in uniform! He never guessed she would join the Forces. He imagined that she was still working in the Lady Almoner’s office at Barts Hospital, and all those weeks and months he was confined to bed in a private ward he hoped that he would catch sight of her while praying she didn’t find out he was a patient there. But now he knew why he hadn’t seen her. A mixture of fear and loving admiration filled his heart and Drew wanted to go to her immediately. There was so much they had to catch up on.

But the tall, good-looking guy who was paying the cab driver then stood back, almost indulgently, smiling as all the females from number 13 crowded around Tilly. They were all talking excitedly together, and Tilly was laughing as tears ran down her face while the man he now recognised as Dulcie’s brother, Rick, put his arm around his girl and Drew felt his whole world implode.

He hadn’t reckoned on Tilly taking up with another guy. She promised. They had made a deal right there in that little church. He told her they would be together for ever. She promised. She said she would love him for ever. He swore he would love her eternally. She promised …

In his heart, Drew knew that Tilly had every right to find another guy. He had been away so long … He guessed she wouldn’t … that’s all.

Stepping back into the shadows, his hands clenched tightly, Drew realised he had left it too long without getting word to Tilly about their future. It was his own fault that she had met someone else, he scolded himself. What made him think that she would be here, waiting? He would have to be crazy to think other guys wouldn’t fall head over heels for her, especially now she was wearing the uniform of the Auxiliary Territorial Service.

After spending months on his back, struggling to gain enough strength before they could even operate, not knowing if he would be able to move his legs, Drew hadn’t imagined he and Tilly would not be together for the rest of their lives. He couldn’t bear the thought of her seeing him as an invalid after the stories she had told him of her mother’s own struggle: how her own disabled husband had succumbed and died, leaving her with a small child to rear alone. He could not put his darling girl through that.

Yet, it was the thought of Tilly being within reach that had given him the courage to learn to walk. He had vowed that she would never see him bed-bound and feel the pity her own mother must have felt looking after her father. It had just never crossed his mind that she would take up with another guy.