The Soldier's Bride

by Maggie Ford

  Vinny’s home was near to Epping Forest too. Letty’s thoughts were already running on Epping Forest as she passed a hand appreciatively over the smooth bodywork. From now on they could drive there – drive anywhere – spend hours together without ever worrying about train and bus and tram timetables.

  But so late in the afternoon, would they get to Vinny’s and back before dark? Dad wouldn’t be too pleased being left on his own at such short notice.

  ‘We’d be ever so late getting home again,’ she aired the thought, and David gave an explosive laugh.

  Buying this had made him feel as light-headed as though he’d had a drink, could conquer the world. He flung one arm across its leather seat back, enticing her to get in beside him.

  ‘It’ll take only half an hour in this,’ he said brightly as, unable to resist, Letty tentatively opened the door and slid into the seat. The devil inside David was brandishing its three-pronged fork and he laughed wickedly. ‘Let’s see Albert’s expression when we show him.’

  ‘It’ll be dark before we get back.’ Letty’s face was sober now. Dare she say it? To rush off without any warning and leave Dad all that time. He’d go all ill-done-by. She’d feel guilty. For days afterwards life would be miserable. She hated those kind of days.

  David was cheerfully unsuspecting. ‘It’s midsummer, darling. It won’t get really dark for hours. It’s only just seven o’clock now.’

  ‘There’s Dad’s supper.’ Letty knew instantly it had been the wrong thing to say, seeing David’s face cloud briefly. But he brightened the very next second. Nothing was going to spoil his triumph.

  ‘We could take him along if you like?’ But a lack of enthusiasm had entered his exuberant tone. This evening he wanted Letty to himself. ‘Obviously, if he doesn’t want to, I’ll make certain we’re back before it’s too dark. Half an hour to get there. An hour or so with them. Half an hour back. But if you’d prefer …’

  Letty shot him a look. It was enough to tell her exactly what he was thinking. His joy in the new automobile was fast being dampened at the thought of asking her father along, knowing he’d refuse, knowing she’d be thrown into misery by his refusal. Her chin would go up, of course, determined not to let him spoil her few hours out of his sight but, as always, she’d be pulled apart, a mouse between two predators.

  Letty could see David was doing his best to put on a brave face, and her chin did indeed go up. She came to an instant decision.

  ‘It don’t matter, David. He’ll be fine on his own.’ She was already out of the seat. ‘Wait there. It’ll only take me a tick to get me ’at on.’

  Determination always gave her speech a hard aggressive cockney edge and David smiled, loving her for it, loving her resolve.

  She found Dad in the kitchen, Braces dangling around his hips, his shirt collarless, he was trimming his moustache in front of the mirror over the sink. Scissors poised, he turned to see the twin spots of high colour in her cheeks, the glow in her eyes giving them an even greener hue that meant only one thing, but she voiced it for him.

  ‘David’s downstairs.’

  She sounded breathless. The way she looked, as though on the point of taking off on new wings, told him her mind was already made up to go out with her precious David Baron.

  Albert Bancroft’s mind savoured its own bitterness. A wonder she even bothered coming up to tell him. His earlier good humour doused in a single swoop, tonight he’d be on his own, knowing all her attention would be given up to David Baron, and sod how he felt – up here all alone.

  ‘And guess what he’s done, Dad? He’s gone and bought a motor car. A proper motor car. Come and take a look. Oh, it’s smashing!’

  Arthur Bancroft grunted, turned back to snipping the stiff greying hairs on his upper lip. The small oval water-stained mirror reflected his faded blue eyes, baleful, full of possessive jealousy.

  ‘I s’pose yer goin’ out in it with ’im?’

  ‘He’s going to take me over to see Vinny and …’

  ‘Lavinia!’ he interrupted savagely without a pause in his snipping.

  ‘Lavinia,’ she echoed meekly. It wasn’t the time to get on any high horse. ‘David asked if you’d like to come with us. Be nice for you to see Vin … Lavinia. Make a change. Make the weekend nice for you.’

  But all her coaxing fell on deaf ears. Nothing was going to suit Dad. He made a point of it now.

  ‘I’ve said it before an’ I’ll say it again, no one’s goin’ ter get me in one of them there stinkin’ rattlin’ things!’

  From the corner of his eye he saw her stiffen, her chin go up. He shrugged and continued to trim his moustache. ‘Don’t s’pose it matters ter you if I go or not. You’re still goin’, ain’t yer? Out till all hours.’

  ‘I’m never out till all hours.’ Her tone was affronted. ‘I’m always back before you go to bed. At least if you go to bed normal times. Well, are you coming or not?’

  But she already knew his answer.

  He stopped trimming to shake his head briefly. ‘Can’t see meself stuck in the back of that contraption, actin’ the gooseberry. You don’t want me with yer, anyway, you an’ ’im, if truth’s known.’

  ‘Well …’ Her words trail off, her lips tight. ‘He only asked.’

  Head up, she turned on her heel, went resolutely into her bedroom, the one that had once been her sisters’.

  She returned moments later wearing a cream-coloured tam o’shanter that went well with her navy blue dress. David had bought it for her for her birthday. Very fashionable, the narrow hem of the three-tiered skirt high enough off the floor to show her slim ankles.

  She’d been over the moon about her present, hardly even looked at the brooch he himself had bought her. He took second place to her bloody fine David in everything these days.

  Arthur felt a force inside him endeavouring to make him ignore her, but she looked so attractive, her figure slim and shapely, her cheeks glowing, that a wave of affection constricted his chest.

  ‘I’m going then, Dad.’ Her obdurate tone cut through his momentary softness.

  He grunted, kept his eyes on the mirror, conscious of her moving off, her footsteps an angry clatter on the stairs.

  ‘And don’t yer let ’im get up to no good with yer in that fancy machine of ’is!’ he yelled after her departing footsteps, hearing the shop doorbell jangle fiercely and the door crash to.

  ‘Don’t let ’im,’ he muttered, his voice like dead leaves rustling along the pavement. ‘Don’t let ’im take yer away from me. What’ll I do if you go?’

  For a moment longer he gazed at his reflection in the mirror, then moved away, dropping the scissors despondently on to the upturned wooden lid of the copper that served for a draining board.

  In his thoughts he followed them; saw the glowing faces of two people in love; heard their secret laughter – his daughter no longer a girl but a woman who after six years being courted must know the man who courted her, every inch of him. And did he know every inch of her?

  He forced that thought from him, but still he followed them. The man’s face, as he drove the automobile, would be smiling, intent on the road ahead. The woman, head reclined on the seat back, hair blowing loose from under the tam o’shanter. She’d perhaps take it off, let her hair blow freely.

  At Lavinia’s they would laugh and talk around the tea table, play with the grandsons he himself seldom saw, for his eldest daughter rarely came to the flat. They’d talk about things that he sitting on his own in this flat would not be sharing in. Left out. No one to give a toss about him. Bloody families! Unspoken words raged in his head. You bring ’em up, care for them, work, sweat, so they’d be a bit better dressed, better fed than some around here. And what d’you get for it? They turn into bloody snobs who don’t want to know where they were brought up. Too bloody stuck up to show their faces in the place where they were born and brought up.

  Then, saying their goodbyes to Lavinia and Albert and their new posh house, the man and woman
would climb back into the motor car, drive slowly through the dusk … Arthur pulled aside the heavy lace curtain at the parlour window, white from Letitia’s recent washing and well starched. She did a good job of starching. The sky beyond, shot with thin lines of dark clouds, was tinged by dusk’s last translucent shades of green and dull rose.

  In the dusk the man and woman would drive slowly along the edge of the forest with its big quiet trees and its dark shadows. In one of those shadowy places, the man would bring the vehicle to a halt, would turn off the engine, would turn to the woman, his arm around her. He would pull her to him, kiss her, embrace her, fondle …

  ‘Bleedin’ bloody tyke! Them dirty ’ands of ’is all over ’er! My daughter! Means ter take ’er away, if ’e can. But I ain’t goin’ ter let ’im – by Christ I ain’t goin’ ter!’

  In the darkening parlour, Albert, sitting in Mabel’s wooden armchair beside the empty grate, pulled himself up sharp. Talking to himself now, was he? That’s what old age did for a person. All the anger of a moment ago seeped out of him, left him as empty as the grate. His faded blue eyes roamed the shadows of the room.

  ‘I’m gettin’ on. Gettin’ old. Fifty-six. Christ, what’ll I do if ’e do take ’er away from me?’

  With slow effort, like one suffering from arthritis, he heaved himself out of the chair, felt along the mantelshelf for matches, shook the box to ascertain its contents. The struck match filled his face with its yellow glow, touched the ornaments on the mantelshelf. He moved to the centre of the room, reached up, pulled the slender chain of the centre gas light. Escaping gas hissed quietly, then plopped as he applied the lighted match. The mantel spluttered, its light sickly green, then settled, hissed steadily, the light becoming incandescent.

  In the darkness of the trees on the edge of Epping Forest, David leaned over, kissed her, a soft gentle kiss. Letty lay in his arms, trying not to think of Dad, wanting only to savour those soft, gentle kisses that said so much. But at the back of her mind she couldn’t help thinking of Dad.

  ‘It’s getting late, David.’

  ‘Not that late,’ he murmured, oblivious to all else but her, lying in his arms for him to pour his love into her. The night breeze touching their faces, she returned his kisses. His hand kneading her breast through the navy blue dress made her sigh, want to rid herself of the heavy hampering clothes.

  They were going to make love, here, in the shadows. She knew it, wanted him to love her, her hand behind his neck holding his lips to hers, her blood coursing. Yet, prodding the back of her mind, it’s getting late. Dad’ll be wondering …

  Hardly aware why or that she had done so, her muscles tensed themselves.

  ‘David, we should be getting back.’ They came of their own volition those words, not at all as she had intended.

  ‘Stop worrying, darling.’ David’s voice was hoarse with eagerness.

  But her worrying only became stronger, made her even more rigid.

  ‘David …’

  ‘Stop worrying.’ His breathing had become harsh, his hands had become urgent, seeking her. But they threatened too. Threatened to sweep aside all care, all conscience.

  ‘No, David – don’t.’

  The habit of obligation, a cruel invader, without her realising it, dominated her. How she hated it, but like a helpless victim she had to surrender to it. One small compensation – there would be another time when she would be totally at liberty to forget everything and allow herself be made love to with all indulgence. One hour earlier she would have. But now …

  ‘David, it’s late!’

  The sharpness in her voice brought him abruptly to himself. Leaning back from her he misread her anguish of indecision for rejection, was staggered for a moment, even as he realised it wasn’t rejection of him but the influence of one who, for all he was miles away, might as well have been sitting behind her, frowning hostile disapproval. Someone against whom he could never hope to compete if he tried for a million years.

  Sitting back to stare into the dusk, his lips tightened. ‘Right! Let’s get you back home to your father. That is what’s worrying you, isn’t it? Him. I take second place and always will. Then by all means let me get you home!’

  The engine, still hot, roared into life without needing to be cranked.

  On the verge of tears, Letty wanted to cry out, no, she didn’t want to go home, wanted him to make love to her. But there’d be no mending what had just passed between them. David was beyond being consoled. He drove in brooding silence. She too sat silent, counting the interminable miles home, the drawn out creeping of the next forty minutes it took to reach there.

  Outside the shop, he switched off the engine. His body sagged limp against the seat back. He didn’t look at her.

  ‘Letitia.’ His tone, so grimly decisive, frightened her. ‘I apologise for losing my temper. I have been thinking, bringing you home this evening …You and I – we are getting nowhere. All this waiting. We … I’m getting older. It has been six years, Letitia. A man can have only so much patience and mine is running out. I think it’s time we made up our minds. You whether you really do want to marry me or whether you feel you must spend the rest of your life looking after your father, and I must decide whether to wait for you for the rest of my life if you can’t leave him. But in all truth, Letitia, it is asking too much of anyone. I’ve no idea what decision you will come to, but mine is that I can no longer consider having to wait indefinitely for you. It’s up to you, Letitia, to say which course you will choose.’

  He’d never spoken like this before, so stern, so solemn, so blunt. Letty’s reaction, the threat of an empty future stretching ahead of her, was instant. Her voice echoed along the dim street.

  ‘David, don’t say things like that! You can’t leave me – not after all these years …’

  ‘Exactly.’ He turned to her now, in the fitful glow of the sparsely set gaslamps, his face full of pain, tender love, fear. ‘After all these years. For how many more do I stand in the background watching you give three-quarters of yourself to your father and the remaining quarter to me? Perhaps I’m not being fair to want you all to myself, but I don’t feel you’re being fair either. I’m not asking you to stop loving your father. I’m asking you to love me …’

  ‘But I do!’

  ‘Not as a woman should love a man, Letitia. It’s ludicrous, the way you expect me to hang around. I can’t take it much longer. I don’t want to leave you, darling. I merely said, we must come to a decision soon. It can’t go on as it is.’

  ‘Oh, it won’t David!’ She clung to him now. ‘I’ll sort something out about Dad. I’ll tell him he’s got to face facts. I’ll tell him he can’t have me round him forever. I want to be married and be like everyone else and have a husband and a family. I will do something, David. Please trust me. I will! I promise!’

  ‘You’ve promised before.’

  ‘But I will, this time I will. I prom –’ She’d already said that, couldn’t say it again. It meant nothing to him. ‘Oh, David darling, don’t frighten me like this. I don’t know what I’d do without you.’

  She knew she sounded dramatic, but desperation and wretchedness made her so. Her world was being demolished. Then, from deep inside, there came a feeling of defeat, a strange unwanted stillness that seemed to flow over her and through her, sapping all her will to fight, a sort of deadness, or was it pride instilling her with perverse stubbornness?

  She sat still, head up, staring blankly in front of her, yielding herself up to that pride. She sensed him looking at her, but when she returned his look, he glanced away.

  ‘I think it might be a good thing,’ he said slowly as if to himself, ‘if perhaps we don’t see each other for a while.’

  ‘Please don’t say that, David.’ Although she had interrupted him sharply, she was surprised at her own tone – low and even and without tremor, without any note of pleading even, as she said please.

  ‘I was going to say, for a couple of weeks perhaps,’ he
finished. ‘It might give both of us time to reflect on what is happening to us.’

  ‘David …’

  ‘I think you had better go in, Letitia,’ he said abruptly. ‘Your father’s waiting up for you.’ He glanced upwards and, following his eyes, Letty saw the dull glow of gaslight through the brown curtains.

  Without waiting for her reply, he got out and came round to open the door on her side of the motor.

  ‘Will I see you tomorrow?’ Trying to smother the note of pleading, her voice sounded stiff, its tone flat. David was looking down at the pavement, avoiding her eyes.

  ‘I’m not certain what I’ll be doing. Next Sunday perhaps. I’ll write to you in the week, let you know.’

  Before she could argue he had kissed her briefly on the cheek and was making his way back around the vehicle.

  Her earlier stubborn pride reared up instantly, whispered crazily: If that’s the way he wants it. She felt she was choking. And someone was weeping in an empty room deep inside her own body. Beyond that she seemed incapable of thought. As if her mind and body belonged to someone else she walked to her door, fumbled for her latch key, pushed it into the keyhole and turned it, gently pushed the door. The bell jangled. You could never creep in without anyone inside being warned, no matter how carefully the door was opened.

  Letty turned, looked back. The vehicle’s engine had been ticking over all this time. She hadn’t noticed. And now, without even looking at her, David released the brake, moved off slowly.

  She watched it go towards Arnold Circus. He would most probably go through Calvert Street, coming out on to Shoreditch High Street to go diagonally northwards across London towards the elegant serenity of his nice home in Highgate. Another world, one which if she was really brutal with herself, didn’t include her. Never had. Not in six years it hadn’t. She felt strangely and unexpectedly deceived. All these years she’d been deceiving herself really.