The Soldier's Bride Read Online Free PDF

April,’ she said, her speech almost on par with Vinny’s these days. ‘I shall be a spring bride.’
    And: ‘Jack’s grandparents are buying us a house near where they live, in Chingford,’ she made a big thing of telling her elder sister. ‘It’s got a long garden and a proper bathroom and you pump hot water into the bath through pipes from a boiler in the kitchen. They’re ever so well off, Jack’s grandparents.’
    The look on Vinny’s face was enough to pull shades down on, Letty thought; Vinny, who’d become so stuck up since marrying Albert, having her nose put out of joint!
    Jack began coming for Sunday dinner, part of the family now, and Lucy’s cheeks glowed even brighter than usual when she and Jack came back from Victoria Park, enough to make Dad remark, ‘All I ’ope is they’re be’aving themselves. If she gets in trouble before she’s wed, I won’t be giving ’er away, yer can bet your last farthin’.’
    Letty had given up wondering if Jack would ever bring his friend along with him. He wouldn’t now. It was obviousDavid Baron had found her tiresome company, had merely been polite in saying he’d been delighted to meet her. Well, he hadn’t been her type, anyway.
    ‘Don’t know as I’d fancy all that bother tryin’ to be someone I ain’t,’ she confessed to Mum. ‘I suppose I’ll end up with someone like Billy Beans or Bert Wilkins.’ She’d given up the effort to improve her speech, since as she said, she’d probably settle down with a local boy. ‘But it don’t seem fair, do it? Vinny movin’ away to a different area now she’s all toffee-nosed. And Lucy’ll get just like her when she goes to live in ’er posh Chingford. Never mind, Mum, I won’t leave you and Dad on your own. Billy Beans does like me. If I was ter marry him eventually, you’ll always ’ave me near you.’
    ‘You could do worse, luv,’ her mother said philosophically, but her face was that of one who feared she might never see another marriage take place. ‘Both of them lads is nice-looking and presentable. And that young Wilkins boy from Ebor Street ain’t exactly hard up, him working at Watney’s Brewery in Whitechapel Road where his dad’s foreman, he’ll soon get promotion. And Billy Beans’ people are trade like us. You wouldn’t ever ’ave ter scrimp and scrape. You ain’t been brought up to that. And young Billy’s always bin keen on you, luv.’
    Billy with his bright shoe-button eyes, his broad smile on broad features, blond hair always neatly brilliantined down from a centre parting, was a better choice than sallow-faced Bert Wilkins, though Letty would never let on to Billy, mostly because it sort of spoiled the romance, imagining herself as Letty Beans. Letitia Baron would havesounded much nicer, but she shrugged off that speculation as an airy-fairy dream. Men from outside the East End didn’t marry girls from inside it. It had happened with Vinny, of course, and again with Lucy, but three times in a row was just too much to ask.
    ‘That’s Jack, I expect.’ Lucy’s voice was off-hand as the doorbell jangled. She didn’t even look up from the Rational Dress Gazette she bought every week from the newspaper shop next door to Beans Grocers. She was usually up and halfway down the stairs before the bell had stopped swinging on its single coiled spring.
    Letty heard Dad open the door, then call up, his voice sounding a little perplexed: ‘Your Jack’s down ’ere, Lucilla.’
    ‘Ain’t you going down?’ Letty prompted from the sofa. Lucy was all dressed and ready to go out. Letty herself hadn’t bothered putting on her Sunday frock. She might later, if one of her friends called, when the girls would sit and scan through back copies of old magazines.
    Lucy’s mouth was set into a sulky pout. ‘He’s got legs – let him come up.’
    ‘You ain’t had a row with him, ’ave yer?’ Something inside Letty perked up to find that all didn’t always go well with true