The Soldier's Bride Read Online Free PDF Page B

love – compensating in some way for that nagging sense of defeat still lingering inside her even after all these weeks.
    ‘No, I haven’t had a row with him,’ Lucy said sharply, then bit at a lower lip that had begun to work. ‘Well, who does he think he is – telling me them suffragettes are getting too big for their boots and he’d soon put a stop to me ifI behaved like that? Just because I said women should have more rights. He said a woman should know her place. Well then, let him do the running and come up here instead!’
    Dad’s voice came down again. ‘He’s coming up. And tell Letitia there’s someone down ’ere for ’er too, if she cares ter come down.’
    Letty looked enquiringly at her sister, but Lucy was already on her feet, doing a lot of hurried hair patting and frill pinking, in a fine old two-and-eight for one vowing a second ago to keep her fiancé dangling.
    As Letty passed Jack at the top of the stairs, she smiled at his worried expression, stifling an impulse to say, ‘Don’t worry – she’s not planning to be a suffragette!’
    Mum’s weary voice followed her down the stairs. ‘Whoever it is, you can’t go out until after dinner. I’ve only just got the ’taters on, and the meat’s only ’alf done.’
    ‘Orright, Mum,’ she called back, prepared to relay the fact to her friend Ethel who was always calling before dinner. Her mum never got dinner until she came back from the Carpenters Arms in Hare Street, her chosen local rather than the Knave of Clubs on the corner. Her meal was often as late as four or five o’clock and Mum’s heart had too often melted at her pinched longing expression at the aroma of cooking and put a bit on a plate for her. Ethel would gollop it down, saying, ‘Yer won’t tell me mum will yer? She’ll get ever so annoyed. She don’t like everyone feedin’ me.’ Mrs Bock liked her pint or two at the Carpenters Arms, could hardly afford to feed her brood, but had her pride. And someone else feeding her kids did it no good at all.
    It wasn’t Ethel Bock standing by the door as the shopcame into view at the bottom of the stairs, but a tall figure, his hat in his hands – a pale grey homburg that matched an immaculate suit cut in the latest fashion Letty only ever saw in the West End when she and Ethel went to gape at the toffs.
    She stopped abruptly on the last stair as her caller’s resonant voice met her.
    ‘Good morning, Letitia.’
    Her first thought was her dress – the old blue dress, worn for much of the week. What sort of awful picture must she present to this well-dressed man? She shot a desperate glance towards her father, beaming his approval at her caller for having spoken her full name to his satisfaction.
    Her voice, when she found it, sounded high and squeaky. ‘Mr Baron … I … didn’t expect to see you.’
    She was put in an even greater fluster by Dad quietly passing by her, prudently going upstairs to leave the two of them alone, his face split in that silly grin of approval.
    As David Baron came slowly towards her, Letty found her shoulders hunching forward, her hands fluttering about the front of the faded dress in some attempt to hide its appearance. She wanted to say something but her lips felt stiff. It was David Baron who spoke, completely in charge of himself when she was standing there like a chastised child, almost trembling embarrassment.
    ‘I’ve wanted to call on you since your sister’s wedding,’ she heard him saying through her confusion. ‘My work kept me away. You must have thought I’d forgotten you. I’m sorry.’
    ‘Oh,’ Letty said awkwardly. Outside she could hear theshouts of the street traders. People passing were glancing casually through the dusty window at the bits of bric-a-brac lying there. ‘What do yer … What do you do then, your work?’ she amended hurriedly, her vowels still flat to her ear for all she was watching the ts and aitches, though he didn’t seem to notice.
    ‘My