The Soldier's Bride (22 page)

‘You’ll keep an eye on Dad for a couple of hours, won’t you?’ she begged Ada Hall, relieved that the woman expressed delight in doing that favour for her.

Billy looked grand in his corporal’s uniform. ‘I’ll be a sergeant before long,’ he boasted cheerily over pie and mash. ‘When I’ve done active service, they said I’ll get another stripe.’

‘You should have bin an officer,’ Letty told him. ‘You might have stayed in England.’

‘I should jolly well ’ope not. Why I joined, ain’t it, ter fight? Ter see a bit of action. Gawd, what’s the point bein’ in the army if yer don’t see action? No, old gel, I’m lookin’ forward to it, I c’n tell yer.’

‘But if you get hurt or … you know.’

His round blue eyes regarded her, his grin broad. ‘Don’t tell me yer’ll be ’eartbroken? I didn’t fink yer cared.’

‘I do care, Billy. I care a lot.’

‘An’ you engaged to anuvver.’

Letty’s cheeks flushed pink. She looked hastily down at her hands. ‘I’m gettin’ married in April, Billy.’

‘Yer mean yer’ve accepted after all this time? Well, blow me down!’

‘It’s true.’ Did she hear a tinge of betrayed hope beneath that lighthearted banter? ‘I’m sorry,’ she said inadequately, heard his laugh come a little sharply, with humour.

‘What yer sorry for? Ain’t nothin’ ter do wiv me, is it?’

Letty caught at her lip with white even teeth. ‘I thought … Well, I thought you … I’ve always had a soft spot for you, y’know, Billy. We’ve bin good friends. At least, you’ve always bin a good friend ter me.’

She watched him nod contemplatively, almost wistfully. ‘Yeah – a good friend.’ The next instant he had brightened. ‘Right then, eat up, old gel. It’s me last meal wiv yer before I go ter meet me doom.’

‘Don’t say that!’ she cried. ‘Not like that.’

But Billy only laughed.

Letty lay in bed Sunday morning, counting. She counted with urgency and a deal of gnawing dismay.

It was 26 February. She’d not seen her period, hadn’t seen it last month either. She’d never been strictly regular, that was true, her times never any bother – not like some girls who went through agonies of stomach pains and all that. Came and went and that was it.

But not to have taken note in January. What had she been thinking of? She should have been more concerned, she knew that now, yet had let it pass. Why, for heaven’s
sake? What brief amnesia had made her not make more of it? Stupid. And what was her excuse? That she’d been so busy with Dad’s bronchitis, it had somehow not registered. But if it hadn’t registered then, it was registering now, and realisation made her go cold beneath the warmth of the bedclothes.

A few minutes later she was chiding her silly imagination. It was fretting over David being away had made her edgy, and edgy nerves always made her irregular. Dad had been such a trial this winter too, no wonder nature was retaliating. By next Sunday she would be laughing at herself as she washed out the squares of towelling in salt water ready to boil and be used again.

From Dad’s bedroom came a chesty spate of coughing.

‘You awake?’ she called, and heard his laboured reply. ‘I’ll be up in a minute, get breakfast.’

‘All right if I lay ’ere a bit?’ he called back.

‘Lay there as long as you like,’ she returned, extra brightly. But what if … What would Dad say? What would everyone say? Not something that could be hidden. God, what was she going to do if …

Now don’t go jumping the gun, she told herself emphatically. You’re just over reacting. It’s nothing.

Springing out of bed, she dressed quickly, went into the kitchen and put on the kettle for her and Dad’s morning cuppa.

Every day she waited. You can’t be overdue two months running, she told herself. Any day now and you’ll be laughing. The days strung themselves out towards Saturday. Sunday came and still nothing. Every time she thought
about it – there were times when the day’s toil did bless her with a degree of forgetfulness – her heart would thump with sickening thuds against her breastbone.

Monday morning, as she raced for the toilet on the landing beyond the kitchen, left her in no more doubt. Being sick into the pan, she heard Dad call. ‘You orright, Letitia?’

‘Yes, Dad.’ She straightened up, wiping her mouth and moving back into the kitchen for a cup of water to rinse away the foul taste.

‘You bein’ sick or somethink?’

God, how sounds travelled in this blessed flat? ‘I must have eaten something last night.’

Dad’s cough rumbled towards her. ‘Can’t see ’ow. I ’ad the same as you an’ I feel orright.’

‘Things affect people different,’ she said, heard acquiescence in the chesty clearing of his throat, and smiled slowly.

Odd how with the knowledge comes the will to face up to a thing and see it in perspective. She was marrying David in April. Why get all in a sweat about her condition? She’d be married before it ever showed, and to blazes with those who wanted to count on their fingers.

She would write to David and tell him. He’d be thrilled to bits. Might even arrange to get the wedding brought forward. She wrote the letter then went down to open up as the postman arrived with one from David.

Letty put her own letter to one side, feverishly opened that from David, heart pounding excitedly. But as she read, all her joy faded, replaced by disbelief.

Darling Letitia, my sweetheart, how can I tell you? Our division has been told just a moment ago that we are going overseas. We embark tomorrow morning. No idea where. Not much time to write with all that is going on here, except to say you cannot imagine how completely devastated I am …

How devastated
he
was! Letty felt she was about to collapse, the words seeming to swim off the page before eyes that refused to focus properly.

I know you must feel the same, and I cannot be there to comfort you. But I pray to God to send me back to you as swiftly as possible. I pray you will be strong to face however long our parting will be with all the courage and fortitude I know you to possess, and I pray fate will be kind to us and reunite us before we hardly know it. My love, I know I shall be
in your arms again soon; that this war will not last much longer. Have to finish now. Being called away. Everything here is in turmoil. So for now, my love, please be strong. I love you. I love you.

The last words, written in haste, had become so virtually illegible that Letty could decipher them only with difficulty, except that she knew them instinctively, words of love, melting into the hasty kisses he had scrawled.

Vaguely she saw her own letter lying on a table where she had left it. The sight dragging her out of the state of shock that threatened to engulf her, one hand flew to her throat in panic. It had to reach him before he left!

Galvanised into sudden action she snatched it up, whirled round to yell up the stairs to her father still making his way through his breakfast: ‘I’ve got to go out!’ Her own voice sounded unfamiliar, high with urgency. ‘To post a letter.’

‘Post a letter? ’Oo’s goin’ ter look after the …’

Letty didn’t wait for the end of his protest, was outside before he’d completed it, hurrying to the slim red postbox at the end of the street as fast as the narrow hemline of her skirt allowed.

If David didn’t get this letter in time … Did they send letters on to troops going overseas? She didn’t know. All she knew was that he must learn her news. Not that it helped her, left to face the pointing fingers of condemnation of others.

But she didn’t think of that as she ran, breathless, to the pillar box, thrust the letter in and ran back; nor for some
time afterwards, not until the shock had lessened some days later, though even then it seemed she was living in a dream, merely going through the motions of living from day to day, hardly aware of what she was doing while Dad looked on, frowning, that she might be going down with something.

By the following week he was looking at her critically, mystified by the listlessness that had now descended upon her. It was only a matter of time before he began to grow restive, began to take exception to his own peace of mind being affected by her attitude.

‘What’s up with you?’ he demanded, eyeing her reproachfully as, with the shop closed for dinner, she dished up a lamb stew she had left simmering all morning. ‘You ain’t ailin’ or somethink?’

‘There’s nothing wrong with me.’ Swiftly she cut two thick slices of bread for him, cut a thin one for herself as he folded his together to dip into his stew.

‘Don’t tell me nothink’s wrong with yer. Eatin’ more like a sparrer lately. No wonder yer look all skinny. Look at yerself. Yer look like yer’ve found a penny an’ lost a pound. Ain’t yer not feelin’ well or somethink?’

‘There’s nothing wrong with me, Dad,’ she repeated, sitting down at the table to nibble at her slice, toy with the tiny bowl of stew she had ladled out for herself. A week since David had gone. Where was he now? Was he lonely, unhappy? His health, was it good, bad? Was he …

‘Yer could have fooled me!’ Pushing aside his potatoes and dumplings Dad dunked his bread again, angrily. ‘If yer not ill, then fer Gawd’s sake cheer yerself up! Goin’ around with that boat race of yours as long as a kite, sulking all
over the place. I suppose that bloke of yours ’as bin sent abroad and won’t be comin’ ’ere any more. Well, it makes a change fer me, not ’aving you go out every weekend. Nice ter ’ave a bit of company now ’e’s gorn. That’s when yer face ain’t as long as me arm. Gawd knows what I’ve done ter ’ave yer mopin’ all around the place.’

Letty listened to him going on, closing her mind to it, tried not to react. That at least was easy enough. She no longer had the will nor the strength even to bother.

Dad having his usual afternoon nap, Letty took the opportunity to slip out for a walk to clear a muzzy head and a vague feeling of claustrophobia.

Drawing deep breaths of the fresh spring air, she moved through the leftover litter of Club Row, now quiet and deserted but for a few stragglers still clearing up after the hubbub of the morning’s market. Reaching the end of the road she turned automatically into the Bethnal Green Road, continuing without much purpose in her direction.

Sunday afternoon. People sleeping off their Sunday dinners, the weather bright but a bit too chilly still for most to walk it off, made everything lovely and quiet. It smelt of Sunday too, cleaner, fresher than weekdays, a hint of roast Sunday dinner hanging in the air. Even the shabby Bethnal Green Road shops had a clean look today, being closed. Occasionally she glanced at them in passing; little food shops, their blinds down; larger shops that sold shoes, haberdashery, dresses, hats; shuttered greengrocers, fishmongers; the multiple windows of Wickhams with their fancy beige striped blinds.

Despite the chill, she walked slowly. May. Quite likely she’d have been married for two weeks now. David was somewhere in the Dardanelles where the Allies were fighting the Turks. She had received one letter from him, ages ago, dated several weeks before. He couldn’t have received that first hastily posted letter of hers for he made no mention of his joy at her news. She’d written several times since, telling him of it, but hadn’t had any letters from him for a few weeks now. Her time seemed to be spent these days waiting for the postman, hoping. Sometimes she couldn’t bear the thoughts that raced through her head.

The papers reporting on the Turkish campaign had not given her much encouragement to feel easy. The Turks appeared to be a formidable and vicious foe by the accounts she’d read, avidly looking for hope as the allied advances were repelled. How was David? How would she know if he were wounded or worse? She wasn’t his wife, wasn’t entitled to be informed if anything had happened to him.

She ought to contact his parents. They’d have news, could relay it on to her – if they were sympathetic enough to her feelings to do so.

Lost in thought, she had walked the entire one mile length of the road, passing the empty stalls of Bethnal Green’s market, the railway bridge with its painted advertisement for Frederick Causton & Sons Ltd, Joinery and Moulding Mills, throwing its shadow across her, before she realised how far she had come.

Pausing outside the Salmon and Ball pub on the corner of Cambridge Heath Road, she half turned to go back then changed her mind. She needed time to herself. The clock
on the small cupolaed tower of St John’s Church across Cambridge Heath Road showed ten to three. Ample time before going back to the aimlessness her life had become, to think, to wallow in a little self-pity without duty getting in the way.

The crossroads here were tremendously wide, gave space to breathe after the narrow streets around Club Row. Amazing how, amid the tatty confines of the East End, there could exist spacious gardens, pleasant buildings, a museum set amid trees, leafy walks. She felt suddenly if briefly free, and with new eagerness made her way across the wide road with its ornately railed off urinals in the middle and its double tramlines, silent on Sundays, through the wrought iron gates of the railinged enclosure to St John’s Church.

It hadn’t been all that long a walk, one she’d done many times in the past, happily, laughing with girlfriends as she went. Was it her condition or simply lassitude of mind, but she felt strangely exhausted as she sat down by the church steps, shivering as a cold light breeze found its way under her coat collar.

She glanced down at the shapeless garment. All her clothes these past few weeks were purposely loose, and shapeless, hiding the bulge, that was as yet mercifully small. Even so, she would eventually begin to show, and then what?

The sensible thing would have been to try to rid herself of it as soon as she’d discovered her plight, David no longer here to lend it respectability. She had thought of it but, fear of the deed apart, couldn’t bring herself to destroy what was David’s. Too late now.

Surreptitiously, as if even here in this quiet place the action might be seen, her hands traced the small bulge beneath her coat, noticeable to her exploring fingers. There was Dad to face yet. He’d be appalled, full of disgust, unable to believe what he saw, curse her for a whore. Sooner or later, though, it would have to be faced.