The Promise by Lesley Pearse Page A

wanted to scream out because she was in so much pain. But somehow she managed to do it. She opened her eyes once on hearing a tin being opened and saw him stuffing the biscuits it contained into the pockets of his coat.
    The pain was so bad that the room began to swirl around, and the last thing she remembered thinking was that she was going to be sick.
    ‘Mrs Reilly! Mrs Reilly!’
    She heard a man’s voice as if from a great distance away, and forced her eyes open.
    ‘Oh, thank heavens!’ he exclaimed. ‘I thought for a minute …’ He broke off. ‘Now, don’t move, there’s broken glass everywhere. I’m going to call for help.’
    Belle was aware enough to know it was Mr Stokes the cobbler from next door, but she didn’t know why she was in such pain or lying on the floor which was covered in glass. It only came back to her when she heard several other male voices and recognized one as Dr Towle’s.
    She had thought Dr Towle rather pompous when she called on him about her pregnancy. He was tall and rather handsome with thick black hair and deep blue eyes, and she had felt that perhaps his manner was such because so many women patients doted on him. But now, as she registered the kind and gentle way he examined her as she lay on the shop floor, and his genuine outrage that she could be attacked in such a way, she realized he wasn’t just a handsome stuffed shirt, but a compassionate man.
    She managed to tell a policeman who was there too about the intruder who had robbed and attacked her, then Garth appeared and with the aid of another man they had put her on a stretcher and carried her home.
    ‘You were subjected to a horrifying attack,’ Dr Towle said sympathetically some time later when she was back at home in her own bed. ‘But I had you brought back here instead of getting you to hospital as I believe you will recover quicker with Mrs Franklin nursing you.’
    Belle wasn’t able even to nod to show her appreciation that she was back with Mog and Garth.
    ‘Is the baby all right?’ she managed to ask as he used a little silver trumpet-like instrument to listen at her belly.
    ‘His heart is still beating,’ Dr Towle replied, patting her hand in sympathy for her anxiety. ‘But it is essential you stay in bed, as I suspect you have a couple of cracked ribs. I have strapped them up to enable them to heal. But there is little I can do about your shoulder; it is not broken – the pain you feel is the severe bruising from a heavy blow. You will be in pain for a few days, and it is quite common after such a shock to feel very low for a time. But all this will pass, and I shall be calling to see you every day.’
    After giving Mog some further instructions, and some medicine to ease Belle’s pain, the doctor left.
    ‘You poor love,’ Mog said, bending over the bed and stroking Belle’s hair back from her face. ‘I just hope they catch that fiend that did this to you. Garth said one of the police told him there was a similar attack on a shopkeeper in Lewisham just last week. They think it was done by the same man.’
    ‘I thought he was going to kill me,’ Belle said weakly. ‘Did he smash up the whole shop?’
    ‘Garth said it was a mess, but men always exaggerate when they are angry. I’ll go up in the morning and see for myself and clean it up. But you won’t be going back there, my girl!’
    ‘Mr Stokes found me,’ Belle said. ‘Did he see the robber?’
    ‘Only a man fleeing up towards the heath,’ Mog said. ‘Apparently he was shutting up his shop as the man came haring out of yours, and at the same time a policeman came up the street. But Mr Stokes told Garth he thought you were dead at first.’
    ‘Don’t let’s tell Jimmy about this in our letters,’ Belle begged her. ‘I don’t want him worrying about me.’
    ‘I’ll need to talk to Garth about that,’ Mog said. ‘He’s so angry he wants to lash out. But I think you are right, telling Jimmy would serve no useful