The Soldier's Bride (12 page)

‘It’s mine too, Dad!’ she shouted back, standing up to him because there was no alternative, defiance stiffening her spine. ‘I loved Mum too. But I do have a life to lead, and me and David thought …’

‘I don’t want ter know what you and ’im thought! If yer want the truth, I got no time fer ’im. As far as I’m concerned, he’s a bloody snob. I don’t like ’im, an’ I don’t intend tryin’ to. But I tell yer this – I ’ope and pray ’e’ll find ’imself some gel oo’s a snob like ’imself and push off.
I just ’ope ’e’ll leave you standin’ one day. Or die. It’d be a blessin’ in disguise. P’raps then you’ll find some bloke more your class. Someone like Billy Beans, ’oo can knock spots of ’im fer looks – could give yer as good an ’ome as anything that la-di-da bugger could. Even though yer’ve turned yer nose up at ’im more times than any bloke could take, he still fancies yer. P’raps it’d bring yer down a peg or two – give yer time ter think how I feel, being cast off like you’re castin’ me off, yer mum ’ardly dead and buried a year …’

He turned away, his face wet and twisted out of shape. Letty’s appetite for argument gone, she turned and ran down the stairs headlong, blindly, almost falling. In her head was some vague thought, quite unconnected with what had been said upstairs, that she must open up for their customers, that someone must be there waiting impatiently to be let in.

How could Dad have wished such a terrible thing on David? Said in temper of course. Lots of people never mean what they say in temper, but to have been devastated himself by grief and still to wish it on her, his own daughter, even in temper, like a curse … Surely he hadn’t realised what it was he was wishing on her?

Tears were flowing down her cheeks now, though she hadn’t realised she was crying. Compelled by habit to open always at nine o’clock, she fumbled with the bolts, fingers trembling, refusing to obey her. But it didn’t matter any more. Giving up, she let herself sag against the age-pitted frosted glass, stood leaning against it, sobbing out her anguish in great heaving, shuddering gasps.

Arthur Bancroft watched his daughter narrowly as she came back into the parlour after letting David out, to set about preparing for bed.

He hated Sundays when David Baron came into the flat as if it was his right. Sundays the flat wasn’t his any more. He felt in the way, the pair of them begrudging his even sitting well out of the way in the corner in Mabel’s chair. And pride wouldn’t allow him to skulk off into the kitchen to sit there on a wooden chair. Why should he? It was his home. His only escape was to go to bed. But then again, why should he?

As she took her David downstairs and through the shop to say their lingering goodbyes – and God knows what they got up to in the dark behind the door – he had sat in the parlour, too on edge now to go to bed. He had stared out at the last fading light of a miserable June evening, straining to catch the faint elusive murmur of voices. Every time they lapsed into silence he had held his breath, visualising the man holding the woman close. His thoughts had been bitter as always.

My Letitia in his arms. Damn him! Taking her from me …

‘He’s gone then?’ he growled as she came back into the room.

‘Yes. Of course.’

Her tone was sharp. It had been this way since that day when he’d lost his temper, voiced his opinion of David Baron. If only he could take back what he’d said. It drummed in his head at night, clamoured for release in apology, but he couldn’t. Not now. It would only make it worse after all this time. His only escape was in surly sarcasm, meant to scourge himself rather than censure her.

‘Good of yer to ’ave stayed in today.’

‘Weather wasn’t nice enough, was it?’ she threw back at him, the inference that it, and not he, held the greater importance for her.

‘I s’pose if it’s nice next Sunday, you’ll be off out?’

‘Don’t know yet, do I?’

Following her out to the kitchen, he watched her set the table ready for breakfast. She always did it the previous night to give herself time in the mornings to open up the shop. He had no interest in the shop any more; no interest in anything. Not even Lavinia’s new baby, George, born three weeks ago, gave life any meaning with Mabel gone.

‘If it rains as hard as today, I’ll probably stay in and keep you company again, Dad. That’ll be nice for you, won’t it?’

He curled his lip at the sarcasm as he sank down on one of the two kitchen chairs to stare into the unlit grate.

‘Don’t bother on my account.’

‘If that’s what you want, bugger the weather! We’ll go out.’

She turned abruptly to get cutlery from the dresser
drawer. She made a point of using swear words now and could feel his baleful gaze, like fingers on the back of her neck, knowing her reasons.

There was no triumph to hurting him. But he had hurt her. Let him know how it felt. Even so, there was no pleasure in it. If anything it hurt her the more to be this way towards him. Anyway, one week from today she would be twenty-one and he could do nothing about where she went or what she did. Next week she vowed she would put on her engagement ring, waggle it in front of him and dare him to stop her marrying David. Then again, could she bring herself to do that? Would natural love and emotion still rule, keep her as servile as ever?

The shop bell jangled sharply, making her jump as Billy Beans burst in, his wide bright blue eyes gleaming with excitement.

‘There’s somefink goin’ on up Whitechapel Road. There’s coppers all over the place. Crowds of people. On the corner of Sidney Street.’

He’d taken to popping in quite a lot since the girl he’d been walking out with had transferred her affections to another. Had been going out with her for some two years on and off, often more off than on, it seemed to Letty, until finally a more attractive face than his, so he said, had terminated their walking out together for good. Letty thought the girl, who came from somewhere the other side of Brick Lane, must have been barmy even to consider Billy, with his fair wavy hair and strong broad face, inferior in looks to this other lad.

A thick, well-cut moustache, which Letty strongly suspected he had grown for the girl’s sole benefit, added to his strong good looks.

‘Sidney Street?’ she queried, turning back to what she’d been doing before he’d burst in, meticulously wiping the grime of ages off a gilt picture frame she’d just bought for ten and six.

‘You know!’ Billy was waving his arms about. ‘Mile End Road and Cambridge Heaf Road. You know. The crossroads there.’

‘Of course I know. By the London Hospital.’

‘That’s right. Just been seein’ me bruvver in there. ’Ad operation on ’is ’pendix. But ’e’s orright now.’

Letty went and closed the shop door which Billy had left wide open in his excitement, letting in the cold. Born in a field, Bill. Never seemed to feel the cold; always too animated, she supposed. And it was cold, only into the seventh day of the New Year, 1911.

Billy was going on. ‘Someone said they got some bloke ’oled up there. ’Eard they’ve called out the army, and the ’Ome Secretary too. Someone said he saw him gittin’ aht of a automobile wiv ’is top ’at and cigar an’ everyfink. Wish I’d seen ’im. Aint never seen no one important. Someone said they’d cornered a Russian anarchist. I bet ’e was after our new king and ’im not bin on the frone a year yet.’

Letty, smiling obliquely, went on with what she was dong, losing interest in his tale, her mind wandering.

She liked Billy. Dad was right, if only he’d said it in a kinder way, that had she not met David, it could very well have been Billy she’d be going out with. He’ll make
someone a really good husband one day, she thought with a small pang of regret, not because she wasn’t his wife but because at twenty-one she was still no one’s wife.

Had she been told she must wait almost four years to marry David, she’d have deemed it a lifetime. Had she been told she’d still be as far away as ever from marrying him, she’d never have believed it.

So many things got in the way. Dad’s chill last winter had made him susceptible to bronchitis, her time constantly taken up soothing his rumbling cough with big spoonfuls of linctus and boosting his flagging spirits with big doses of encouragement that left her too drained to take much note of the passing of time, of events.

The death of Edward VII last year and the coronation of George V had taken second place to looking after Dad; the excitement of last year’s general election had passed her by, with more things pressing upon her nearer home.

Last June Vinny had another baby, George; nearly lost him, Vinny herself ill for a long time, the baby having to have a nurse. Vinny seldom came to see Dad, Lucy even less now she had her daughter.

Hating to upset Dad further with talk of marriage, of leaving him, like her sisters, to pay him only occasional visits, she’d put off any talk of it time and time again. That she’d marry David no matter what she had no doubts, but in a while she kept telling herself; not just yet. She pleaded with David: a few more months, just a few more months. The months had stretched and stretched. Five more and she’d be twenty-two, and still no nearer being married.

‘D’yer fancy comin’ ter see what’s goin’ on?’

She brought her mind quickly back to Billy. ‘Where?’

‘Over ter Sidney Street. See what’s goin’ on.’

‘They wouldn’t let us anywhere near it. And I can’t really leave the shop.’

‘Yer could ask yer Dad ter give an eye.’

Billy, like most around here, was aware that her father was very seldom in the shop these days. People no longer asked for him. Under her hand it was thriving again, bringing in good money. The window displaying clean and well-displayed bric-a-brac enticed people in, especially the more well heeled who came to the Row out of curiosity.

‘He’s not at all well at the moment. I couldn’t really come. Sorry, Billy,’ she said, and watched his resigned shrug as he waved and left.

Upstairs after she closed she rubbed Dad’s chest with winter green ointment, and put a few drops of Friars Balsam in a bowl of boiling water for him to breathe in to ease his tubes.

‘Won’t be long till you’re rid of me,’ he croaked as she told him about Billy asking her to pop down to Whitechapel. ‘When I’m gorn yer can go orf and ’ave a good time with anyone you fancy.’

‘Don’t talk so silly, Dad!’ She turned on him sharply in the midst of laying the table for supper. ‘Anyone’d think you were at death’s door. Anyway, I wouldn’t have gone out with him.’

‘Yer would ’ave if it ’ad been David Baron,’ he muttered, watching her as she turned her attention to cutting the bread. ‘Like a shot you would ’ave.’

‘You know that’s not true, Dad.’ Letty sawed with angry energy at the loaf she was cutting. ‘It’s you who begrudge me the bit of time I do have for myself. I do all I can for you, willingly.’ She heard him give a snort. ‘Yes, Dad, willingly! You can’t say I don’t. All I ask for is a young man like other girls have, and … Oh, I’m sick of going over the same old ground with you!’

Dropping the slices of bread on to a plate, she turned to confront him. ‘Why can’t you find one good word for him? You’re always going on about Albert and Jack, how well they’re doing. David has just as good prospects as them. His dad’s business will be his one day. But you don’t want that for me, do you? You want me – all to yourself. I manage your shop for you. I manage it very well. I’m too valuable to lose. But don’t be too sure of me, Dad. One day I might get so good I’ll get me own shop, and whether he marries me or not, I’ll be off, looking after me own business.’

He hadn’t said a word. Seldom did these days, let her rant and rave and ignored her. Frustrated, she took the soup off the hearth where it was keeping warm, ladling some into a basin to slam it down on the table.

‘There’s your supper! Don’t say I don’t feed you!’

For a while longer he stared at her, then slowly lowered his eyes, his cough rumbling deep in his chest. ‘Is that what yer think of me, Letitia? That I don’t appreciate what yer do?’

Before the hurt tone, her anger softened, even though she knew he was manipulating her to suit himself. ‘I don’t think that at all, Dad.’

‘Yer sisters don’t care if I live or die, so long as they
ain’t affected. My deepest wish is ter see you ’appy. I just need a bit of time. Since I lost yer mum …’

‘Dad!’ Anger began to mount again. ‘When are you going to get over it? How much more time do you want? And what happens to me in the meanwhile? I’m nearly twenty-two. How old will I be when you decide you can cope on your own? When I’m forty-two? When I’m too old to marry? You’ve
been
married, Dad. I’ve not even had the chance!’

She fled, slamming the door of her bedroom behind her to throw herself across her bed, ignoring his gentle tap on her door, his concerned cajoling voice, until he gave up and went back to his supper, his rumbling cough plaguing her with guilt for her outburst.

Slowly she sat up, gazed at the closed door. If only he wasn’t so afraid of life. How would she feel, frightened of being forsaken, no one else in the world to care about her? But he knew she cared. He’d refused point blank to live with her and David when they married, or have them come to live with him. The even-tempered, wouldn’t-hurt-a-fly sort of person, who underneath was pure bloody-minded. How well she’d grown to know him since Mum had died. The father who had shone like a god in her child’s eyes had proved to be clay through and through. And yet … poor Dad, full of fear. He must be feeling wretched, that cough tearing at him so. She ought to try and relieve it a bit for him …

She gave a deep resigned sigh, got up and opened the door, going to the kitchen to get the winter green jar from off the shelf.

The headlines stated SEIGE OF SIDNEY STREET, with beneath that lurid accounts of the whole drama, the Home Secretary Mr Churchill calling out the army to deal with a man suspected of being involved in what were termed the Houndsditch Murders, the cornered villain said to be one Peter Piatkow alias Schtern, otherwise known as Peter the Painter. The paper described him as twenty-eight to thirty, five foot nine, sallow, with a black moustache. It painted a dramatic picture of exchanges of gunfire that ended when the house in which three ‘anarchists’ had been cornered had gone up in flames, only two bodies being later recovered, neither of them Peter the Painter’s. The reporter already described him in the same vein as Jack the Ripper of legend.