Free Echoes of a Promise by Ashleigh Bingham Page A

released his grasp, ‘you and I have much to talk about because Christmas is fast approaching and the puddings are hanging in the pantry. Your dear mama has asked me to arrange the festivities here again, so we’ll decorate the house with holly, have the piano tuned, and ask cook how many geese we need to prepare. Oh, little one, I wonder where your Uncle Peter and the captain will spend their Christmas this year?’ She hugged him tightly and spun in a circle. ‘Soon they’ll be sailing back to England! Soon, soon, very soon you’ll meet your Uncle Peter.’
    She sat down at the kitchen table with Mrs Dobson, the cook, to discuss menus for the guests. Where will I spend Christmas next year? she asked herself and went upstairs to checked the visitors’ bedrooms, and then down again to talk to the staff who were rearranging chairs in the drawing room and setting out extra card tables. Will I be aboard the Fortitude next year, sailing across some great blue ocean? Will we be eating bananas and coconuts on a white beach beside a coral lagoon?
    With Emily’s wretched sickness sometimes confining her upstairs for days, it was Victoria who again took on the role of mistress of the house, greeting the relatives, allocating bedrooms, arranging the seating at dinner.
    Martin never failed to kiss her cheek and thank her at the end of each day. ‘I don’t know how we’d have managed without you, my dear sister.’
    It wasn’t a burdensome job; in fact, she enjoyed it. But nevertheless, she was bone weary by the time the last party had been waved off and the staff began the task of restoring order in the old house. She was on her way upstairs to gossip with Emily when a footman hurried after her. ‘A letter just come by special delivery for you, ma’am.’
    She frowned at the handwriting on the envelope and continued to walk slowly upstairs as she ripped it open. At first it was impossible tocomprehend the words on the paper, written by a shaking hand and signed Henry Latham . Her eyes skimmed the pages again in disbelief. No! This had to be some mistake; it could not be true. It couldn’t be! Peter could not have become so ill that he died out there in the Indies. So suddenly! So far away.
    The pain inside her was beyond tears and she was suddenly swamped by a huge, cold and angry emptiness. Her heart thudded and she gasped for breath. Why was the captain telling her that Peter had been stricken with a tropical fever in the Celebes, just when she had begun to count the weeks till they’d be reunited? Peter had said that he’d soon be on his way back to her. Of course he was sailing back for her. She was waiting for him, wasn’t she? He’d promised that he would come back.
    Her whole body began to tremble and she seemed to have forgotten how to breathe as she burst into Emily’s room to stand panting at the foot of the bed, ashen-faced.
    ‘Oh, Vicky, what is it?’ Emily threw off her covers and held out her arms.
    Victoria rushed into her sister’s embrace while a silent scream of agony caught in her throat. She felt her heart shatter as her world was tipped off its axis. Oh, Peter! My Peter! No, no, no! Don’t leave me. You promised to come back for me and I promised to wait for you. I am waiting, see? I will always be waiting. Peter, come back, please come back.
     
    ‘Poor Victoria – Ah! To be widowed so young.’
    ‘Poor Victoria, such a tragedy. But just look how bravely she’s holding up,’ the neighbours and relatives whispered to each other when they called at Cloudhill to offer their condolences.
    Each morning she woke with the feeling that she’d been hollowed out in one vicious scoop by some malevolent force. While in company she resolutely hid behind a mask of calm civility to coverthe rage of grief tearing at her insides night and day. She endured the platitudes delivered by well-meaning people who called in a seemingly never-ending stream and referred to her constantly as poor Victoria . She