The Soldier's Bride by Maggie Ford Page B

turned towards Albert who had been lethargically smoking a pipe, the moustache he had been cultivating for some months now grown thicker, the fair bristles long enough to touch the pipestem.
    ‘How about a game of cards?’
    Albert took his pipe from his mouth. ‘Don’t mind if I do. How about you, David?’
    ‘Couldn’t we all play?’ Lucy cried eagerly.
    ‘I won’t.’ Vinny kissed little Albert’s fat cheek. ‘He’s all nice and contented at the moment. If I put him down he’ll cry.’
    Dad came back into the room, adjusting his belt.
    ‘We’re going to have a game of cards, Father,’ Jack informed him with respectful enthusiasm. ‘Something the ladies can join in, if that’s all right? What about you?’
    Arthur shook his head, dropping into his chair.
    ‘Oh, come on, Dad!’ pleaded Lucy. ‘Cheer you up.’
    ‘I don’t need cheering up,’ he said glumly. ‘I’ll be going ter bed in a minute.’
    ‘It’s only ten o’clock!’ Lucy exploded tactlessly, never glancing beyond her nose to see the obvious.
    He’s missing Mum more than ever on this day, thought Letty, as she had done several times over the past few hours. Last Christmas Mum was here, with us. As ill as she was, her presence filled this flat. And now all that was left was her memory, in every cup, every saucer, in the vases on the piano, in the humblest duster Letty used to polish the furniture with. Mum gazing out from the photograph Dad refused to put away, expression unsmiling as required by the camera though her eyes smiled, the pose military for the purpose of the photographer yet something behind it radiating warmth.
    Emptiness surrounded Dad, even with his family about him, cloaked him in a sort of aura, and whatever irritation Letty had felt with him a moment ago disappeared completely. Like her sisters she was adjusting to her loss, it was in the nature of things. They were young. She had David, her sisters their husbands, each ready to challenge or enjoy what life had to offer. Dad had no such panacea, could only look back, live in the past, still living with the dead who had shaped his life.
    The telegram came as Letty was closing for dinner. Guessing its contents, she gave the boy sixpence and raced upstairs, tearing open the flap as she went.
    ‘It is!’ she laughed, reading excitedly. ‘Lucy’s baby! A girl! Six-thirty this morning, seven pounds eight ounces. A whopper for a girl. She’s called Elisabeth Lucilla. Oh, I’m so pleased for her!’
    ‘Long as they don’t call ’er Lizzy.’ Taking the telegram from her, Dad read it for himself.
    ‘She won’t shorten it. Spelt with an “s” too,’ Letty said with conviction. Nothing common for Lucy, living in posh Chingford.
    ‘Be nice ter go over ter see ’er,’ Arthur mused out of the blue as they finished the sausage and mash Letty had kept warm over the range.
    Clearing the plates, she looked at him in amazement. ‘You mean that, Dad? You’d travel all that way? The weather so cold and all?’
    Unhooking the poker from its stand in the hearth, she vigorously raked at the moribund coals in the grate until the flames began to flicker grudgingly. ‘We’d have to go by train. And we’d have to close the shop for the day.’
    Arthur reached up, propped the telegram on the mantelshelf, sank into his chair before the now blazing fire.
    ‘Can’t afford ter lose money closing up. It’d ’ave ter be Sunday.’
    Sunday? Letty’s heart seemed to plummet. With an action that was slow and deliberate her father took his pipe from its rack, his tobacco pouch from a tin box beside his chair. The smooth age-blackened leather had so absorbedthe taint of its contents over the years that the room was instantly filled with the pungent-sweet reek of Navy Cut which every evening he would cut from a plug with a penknife over a sheet of newspaper spread on the table, paring it into suitable slices and rubbing it between his palms into shag to fill the pouch for the next