The Soldier's Bride Read Online Free PDF Page A

see why Jack was so scared. Her father was a quiet man, a bit stubborn but never the argumentative sort, and he already looked on Jack as a very worthy young man, very suitable.
    Jack always came about two o’clock, after Sunday dinner. Washing up done, Mum having her usual Sunday afternoon lie down with a glass of Guinness – to do her blood good, as she always said – Dad down in his shop,Lucy sat by the window in her Sunday best. Her bridesmaid’s dress still to be modified, she was in her dark blue suit and a high-necked cream blouse, her cream straw hat pinned to her hair. She looked a picture, her back stiff with anticipation as she waited for Jack.
    Letty sat at the table, her weekly copy of Peg’s Paper under her elbows, her chin in her hands. She too was in her Sunday best, though she wasn’t going anywhere. But just in case.
    It was another lovely sunny day. The sash window pushed up as far as it would go for some fresh air, was also admitting a musty taint of bird droppings from the cages stacked against the shop front next door. The voices of the dealers loading them on to barrows to cart away, the market having closed, seemed to be almost in the room.
    ‘I wish we didn’t have to live here.’ Lucy, her speech grown very cultured in preparation for Jack’s arrival, wrinkled her nose delicately. ‘It does stink sometimes. And I can smell the brewery.’
    Her remark suddenly awoke Letty’s senses to odours that normally passed unnoticed, acclimatised as she was, having lived with them all her life: a compound of rotten cabbage leaves, sewage, horse manure, and the sour reek of Trueman’s Black Eagle Brewery in Brick Lane that hung in the air day and night, worse some days than others, especially when they cleaned out their vats. Today it wasn’t so bad, being Sunday, but Letty found herself suddenly embarrassed by the combination of odours.
    If David Baron did appear with Lucy’s Jack, what on earth would he think, his nostrils assaulted by this stink ofthe East End, having to pass by the market traders, their language somewhat more than ripe at times? The market being closed yesterday, the street had been quiet. But today… For the first time in her life Letty too found herself wishing she lived in some more wholesome area.
    ‘Vinny’s lucky, moving out to Hackney,’ Lucy muttered petulantly, playing with her gloves and gazing out of the window.
    ‘Well, when you marry Jack, you’ll be leaving too,’ Letty said, but Lucy gave her a petulant look.
    ‘When he gets down to talking to Dad! You’d think he was an ogre or something. Jack don’t seem to have any courage sometimes.’
    When he did arrive, he’d obviously found some degree of it. He didn’t come upstairs immediately as he usually did. To Lucy that meant only one thing, and her hopes were rising.
    ‘He’s talking to Dad about us.’
    Unable to sit any longer, she began roaming the room, peeping out of the door, straining her ears. Hearing her prowling outside her bedroom, Mum got up, and came into the parlour, her rest having imparted a high colour to her parchment cheeks, giving her a deceptively healthy look.
    ‘Jack’s talking to Dad,’ Lucy told her, her own cheeks aglow with premature delight. ‘It must be about us!’
    ‘Now don’t get excited, luv.’ Mabel smiled tolerantly, but there was no holding Lucy who continued to pace the floor.
    When Jack came upstairs he was with Dad. Arthur had opened a couple of bottles of brown ale, which was enoughfor Lucy. Her face radiant, she threw herself at Jack, all but upsetting his glass in the impact.
    ‘Jack! You did it! You did it!’ she shrieked. ‘Oh, you did it!’
    She and Jack went up West to buy her engagement ring, a band of three diamonds and two deep red rubies few boys around here could have afforded and which she flourished whenever anyone came near. She drove everyone half round the bend talking about her wedding.
    ‘We have planned the wedding for next