The Soldier's Bride (43 page)

With that she moved off to where her husband stood talking to Jack, leaving Letty utterly confused by the change of mood; she knew that for as long as she lived, she and Vinny would never again be real friends, that she would be better off erasing the whole business from her thoughts.

She moved away through the gathering that was beginning to thin as some turned their thoughts to going home and went to look for David, to suggest they too should leave, wanting never to see Vinny again.

Letty received a frantic phone call from Lucy a few days later. Dad had made a will leaving everything to Ada, including the shop and the rent from it.

‘I always thought it would be divided between us girls,’ she said, enraged. ‘But it’s all going to her! All of it. Not a penny piece for any of us! You know what she’ll do. She’ll drink it up the wall, that’s what. Well, we’re going to contest it,’ she added resolutely, as if that would magically solve everything.

For her part, Letty felt a little glad nothing of Dad’s was coming to her. She wasn’t sure why.

‘He couldn’t very well leave Ada without a penny,’ she soothed.

‘But
everything
!’ Lucy paused. When she began again, her tone was far less friendly, having detected Letty’s lack of enthusiasm for any fight.

‘Of course,’ she went on in a knowing tone, ‘I suppose Vinny’s right. It wouldn’t affect you. You don’t need any of Dad’s money. I mean, like Vinny said when she heard about the will, you’ve already had your share, long before he died. He always favoured you.’

Taken aback, Letty frowned into the phone. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘You should, Letty,’ Lucy’s reply came volleying back. ‘You moving out of Dad’s shop into Oxford Street! You don’t do that on peanuts.’

Anger rose up inside her. Her fingers whitened around the receiver. ‘Are you insinuating I used Dad’s money?’

‘I’m not,’ Lucy said hurriedly. ‘Vinny said …’

‘Ah, Vinny!’

‘I wouldn’t have given it a thought. But she said … Well, you must admit, it does look odd when you add it all up.’

‘Add what up?’ Her anger against Vinny grew. She’d tried to befriend her again, and had found her hand viciously bitten.

‘You couldn’t have saved up on your own,’ Lucy said. ‘You couldn’t have afforded the place you’ve got without some help from Dad.’

‘I had no help!’ Letty asserted. ‘I wouldn’t have his money – not after the way he and Ada walked out on me, after all the years I gave him. This place has come from
my
savings. And from what Billy’s father gave him.’

‘Yes, you did well out of Billy, didn’t you?’

It sounded nasty. ‘That’s not your business!’ Letty burst out in fury. But it was Vinny she could hear talking. Vinny’s words put into Lucy’s silly mouth. Bullets from her to fire and she stupid enough to fire them, realising nothing of the damage she was doing.

‘I saved every penny myself!’ A small lie but resentment had boiled over at the insinuations. ‘And from bits and pieces I sold …’

‘Dad’s bits and pieces?’

‘I beg your pardon?’ She couldn’t believe she was hearing this.

‘Dad’s pictures,’ Lucy reminded harshly. ‘They hung on the wall in the parlour. Where did they go? Dad never had them. We never. You’ve not got them any more. I bet they were worth a good few bob or two.’

‘Dad didn’t want them. I asked him.’

Why was she trying to justify her past actions in this way, to Lucy and Vinny, just because they were both incensed about Dad’s will?

‘Don’t include me in your squabbles, Lucy,’ she burst out suddenly, and put the phone down so abruptly her sister’s ear must have tingled.

‘Don’t take it to heart so,’ David told her when, near to tears with anger, she related it to him. ‘Leave them to it. You’ve got me.’

And she knew he was right.

‘There’s nothing they can do about it,’ Christopher observed with amusement. ‘Honestly, Mum, I’ve never heard anything like this family. Always squabbling. They’re sniffing around the wrong tree this time. When you remarry, everything goes automatically to the spouse when you pop off, unless you specifically make a new will to include issue from a previous marriage.’

He had a feeling for law, and in September went off to study it at Cambridge. Letty felt so very proud of him – and missed him dreadfully.

It might not have been so bad if she and David had been married, but her days dragged. For all the gallery took up her time, her thoughts were geared to weekends when David came, those two days of bliss.

In the New Year, from a pure need to occupy herself, she arranged an exhibition of a young Italian painter’s work. Her very first attempt at exhibiting a single artist, her reward was a succession of sleepless nights, telling herself she had overstepped the mark into a world she was not yet fully conversant with. But there had to be a first time. The exhibition turned out to be a success well beyond what she’d expected.

David came to the opening, congratulated her, told her he was proud of her, praised her courage. But she hadn’t done it for that, wished she hadn’t done it at all.

In late-spring she was persuaded to try another exhibition by an English newcomer whose work included wonderful industrial landscapes. A large manufacturing company pounced on him and commissioned a vast painting for the foyer of each of its many branches around the country.

For Letty, the financial rewards of both launchings were of less consequence than the prestige they brought. Ironic really. All her life she had dreamed of becoming someone of note. Now that it was knocking on her door, all she wanted was to push it away, longing only to be on her own with David, quietly and simply married.

Evenings were the worst, when she sat alone wondering what he was doing, if all he had told her about his wife was true; that she was a cold bitch, that she had no love, no care for him, wanted only to enjoy herself with those of her own sort. Those long solitary evenings added weight to her suspicion with nothing to allay it. Sitting at the table balancing books or checking diaries, a cup of coffee growing cold beside her, meagre meal uneaten, she would look up to stare meditatively at the wall and her lips would tighten at thoughts of David.

By the weekend, all her frustration at his not being beside her, and suspicion that he was having a gay old time without her, spoiled their time together. She a fury, he standing meek and browbeaten, uncertain what had caused the furore.

‘You know what the cause is!’ she yelled at him. It was August – holiday time. Families thronged main railway stations, loaded down by suitcases; sturdy young men with rucksacks were bound for the Lake and Peak Districts; groups of office and shop girls were all flowered dresses and giggles looking to find a likely lad on some crowded south coast beach. Letty could only sit in her flat, waiting for David.

They would have a meal together, take in a theatre, would make love in her bed, would awaken on Sunday morning and she’d prepare breakfast. Sunday would be spent taking in the sunshine in one of London’s parks. The day drawing to a close, they would make hurried love and he’d go back to his large house in Barnet and to Madge, leaving Letty to her lonely bed.

Today they’d taken advantage of the lingering August evening, and had sat quite contented by the river at Richmond. They’d driven back to the flat in the purple dusk. They’d had coffee, been laughing at a joke – she couldn’t remember what it had been. Then for no reason it had all boiled up again. It always did.

‘You know what the cause is!’ she hurled at him again, striding around the room. ‘It’s her! And you! How many more years do I sit here waiting for you to come and favour me with your presence once a week? Have you told her about Christopher yet? No! Your son, and you’re ashamed to reveal him to anyone.’

‘You’re talking rubbish, Letitia.’

‘Don’t Letitia me!’ she blared, hating him. But it would end the same way. She would rant and rave, slay him with
her tongue, reduce herself to a quivering heap of misery, cry on his shoulder, apologise for having been so horrible to him, would let him take her to bed and make love to her. But as yet she had not reached that stage.

‘How long do you expect me to go on like this?’ she ranted. ‘Years ago you accused me of delaying things, not wanting to marry you. The boot’s on the other foot now, isn’t it? It’s you expecting me to wait until you’ve enough courage to make the break. But I’m not prepared to wait forever. If you don’t tell her about Chris soon … If you don’t force her to divorce you, then we might as well part.’

How many times before had she said that? How many times had she seen him looking at her, his face pale with concern, seen him gnaw his lip, helpless, because Madge refused to give him his freedom and she herself refused to live with him until he was free. Why did she and Madge lead this gentle man a dog’s life? Was it because he
was
so gentle? And what was really so bad about David living here, though still married to another?

His face was pale. Not pale … grey. Breathing as if his chest hurt, he was rubbing one hand hard along his left arm.

Letty stopped ranting and looked at him. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘Nothing.’ He winced. ‘Just an odd pain. I get it now and again.’

‘Where?’ It hit her that he wasn’t young any more – was fifty-four.

‘Nowhere in particular.’ He was massaging a region near the centre of his chest.

Alarm spread over Letty, fear gathering. ‘Have you seen a doctor?’

He was smiling at her, straightening up, glad that her temper had receded. ‘It’s a touch of indigestion, I expect.’

‘How long have you had it?’ She was all attention now, voice full of love and concern.

David shrugged dismissively. ‘A few weeks. It’ll go.’

‘I think you should see a doctor,’ she stated flatly, knowing she wouldn’t feel easy until a doctor had indeed confirmed it to be just a touch of indigestion. For that was all it was, she was sure of it, she told herself firmly.

‘What d’you expect me to do about it?’

Madge fitted a cigarette into an ivory holder. Holders were going out of fashion. Filter-tipped cigarettes were used straight from the packet or box, extracted with exaggerated sophistication by film stars like Katherine Hepburn and Ginger Rogers. But Madge had reached an age when unconsciously she clung to some of the elegant mannerisms of an earlier era, and still preferred a holder. Blowing the perfumed smoke of a Passing Cloud from her pursed lips, she turned to look at David.

‘If you’re thinking of playing on my sympathy, you can think again. I’m not at all impressed.’

David regarded her from where he stood by the art deco fireplace Madge had just had put in; she was always having something done to the house.

‘It wasn’t said to impress you. I merely thought you should know.’

‘And how long did the doctor give you?’ Her attitude was indifferent, and David grimaced.

‘You are a fantastic bitch, Madge. It wouldn’t bother you if he gave me just six months, would it?’

‘And did he?’ She bent to flick over a page of sheet music from
Bitter Sweet
, propped up on the grand piano she had also recently had installed on a whim. She hadn’t learned to play it, of course.

‘He said I have every likelihood of making it into a ripe old age.’

‘Pity!’ Madge smiled and wandered away from the piano. ‘Pity for you, I mean. Good try, darling. But I’ve no intention of divorcing you if you fell at my feet gasping out your last but one breath.’

David spread his hands in appeal. ‘What do you get out of this, Madge? You don’t want me. I make no difference to your life. I’m never seen with you. You go your own way. I go mine. You have friends who have divorced. It’s no longer a stigma.’

She turned on him, her tone light. ‘Let’s just say I don’t like playing second fiddle to anyone, least of all your mistress. Runs an art gallery, doesn’t she, your Letitia? One of those odd sort, is she, all trailing scarves and Bohemian skirts? Oh, come, David, you don’t expect me to relinquish you to someone like that.’

He gave her a level stare. ‘There is one thing I have never told you. Perhaps I should have. It’s that I have a son by her.’

‘My God!’ Madge executed a shocked look, as false as her eyelashes, one hand spread dramatically across her
breast. ‘Don’t tell me you can still do it! A bit of a surprise for you, wasn’t it? Her too, I should imagine!’

David suffered the bubbling laughter. ‘His name is Christopher. He’ll be twenty this year.’

‘So long ago? Oh, I can forgive you then, darling. How you must have suffered. So that bit of information is supposed to shock me into a fit of fury strong enough for me to fling divorce papers in your face? Wrong again, darling. I’m sorry to be such a bore, David. But the truth is I am having a quite wonderful time with my friends and don’t intend to go all gloomy on them in a sordid divorce.’

Quite suddenly the laughter left her. Twin lines appeared each side of her mouth and between the finely arched eyebrows. She looked down and stubbed out the cigarette in a pink marble ashtray. ‘As far as I am concerned, David, you can die my husband, but you’ll never die my ex-husband. Is that clear?’

‘Clear enough, Madge.’ He moved away from the fireplace. ‘And I shall make something clear to you. You can do what you like about it. The house – everything – is yours. I shall live elsewhere.’

‘Everything?’ Her mirthless laugh followed him as he left. ‘Daddy will be pleased!’ As if that too was a threat.

Henry Lampton was seventy-eight. Madge was his only child after he had lost a son and a daughter from childhood illnesses and his last surviving son, who would have taken over his business, had been killed early in the Great War. Since then, Madge had been his life’s blood – as he had often told David.

Confined now to a wheelchair, Henry Lampton hadn’t been near the boardroom for years, not since his wife had died four years ago. In his large house in rural South Mimms, he was cared for by a resident nurse, housekeeper and gardener.

Thin and shaky, wrapped in a thick tartan shawl this cold January morning, he hugged the blazing fire in the drawing room where he sat. His rheumy eyes nevertheless held the dark ones of his son-in-law as David sat opposite. Henry’s quavering voice held a bitterly sarcastic tone.