The Soldier's Bride by Maggie Ford

that way, seeing David’s face after he’d fought his way through the screeching Sunday morning market to Dad’s shop door.
    ‘You know I love you,’ she wanted to cry. ‘Show me how much you love me, David.’ Instead she said sullenly, ‘I s’pose if I lived somewhere better than what I do, you’d have taken me to see your parents by now!’ diction letting her down, proclaiming her for what she was.
    David was glaring at her. ‘To hell with where you live! You’ll not have to live here forever. It’s what you are that matters. It’s me you will marry, not my parents!’
    ‘But it’s a different matter when it comes to meeting them!’ She shot at him, then stopped. ‘Marry?’ she echoed faintly. ‘Me? You … want to marry me?’ But pride drew her up. ‘You’re only saying that.’
    She saw him frown. ‘What is wrong with you, Letitia? Of course I am saying that. How else can I say it?’
    Knowing what she wanted from him but unable to put it into words, she shrugged, defeated. ‘It don’t … doesn’t matter.’
    ‘It does matter, Letitia.’ He was pulling her to face him.‘Tell me what’s wrong? You’re not … not getting tired of me, are you?’
    Tired of him? God help her! Her whole being trembled in case he was tiring of her. Was this how he was wriggling out of it, telling her she was getting tired of him? Oh, it was unfair!
    ‘I don’t know how to tell you,’ she burst out, saw real fear come into his eyes at her outburst. ‘I know I ain’t … I’m not much ter run after. I know you could do better than me where you live. I haven’t even seen where you live, but I bet it’s posh and nice and you see all nice girls. But I …’ She stopped, wanting to say, ‘I love you.’ ‘I … well, I’ve tried, David. I have tried. I try to be ever so careful what I say, what I do – in case I say the wrong things, do the wrong things, and you’ll see what I’m really like. I …’
    She tailed off with another helpless shrug. He had let go of her shoulder, had gone quiet. She sank weakly back on the seat, staring at the cabby’s back. The man was grinning, damn him! Facing front, his features unseen, she knew by the stiffness of his neck that he was grinning, amused by the lovers’ tiff. She wanted to poke him in the back, ask what he thought he was laughing at, but that would have made her look more common than she was. And she had her pride. Why was David not saying anything?
    When he did speak, his voice was low and hesitant. The driver wouldn’t hear it above the rattle of the taxi. She could hardly hear it.
    ‘Letitia, you shouldn’t have to be careful – wary – with me. It’s I who have been – am – wary of you. No, Letitia,’ as she let out a small exclamation of surprise, ‘I have beenterrified you’ll find me … stuck up, I think it is. I am constantly weighing what I say, how I say it, in case you see me as uppish, patronising, I don’t know … I know it sounds ridiculous to you, Letitia. For one so young, so fresh, you are full of confidence. So worldly.’
    ‘Me?’ Inside her laughter bubbled, full of bitter disbelief. ‘I’ve never been further than Southend, when you took me.’
    ‘You are wrong, Letitia.’ He was speaking unusually fast. ‘All my life I have been protected by my parents, my mother especially. Even when I married …’ He hesitated as though the word might offend. ‘I’ll not say it was arranged exactly, we were in love of course, but it had been rather expected by both our families that we would eventually wed. Then, when Ann and the baby …’ Again he paused, this time the words catching in his throat.
    ‘It took me a couple of years to pull myself together. Mother was a tower of strength to me. By the time I was able to face the world, her tower had become a prison, you might say. I felt I had to justify my every movement. The smallest show of merriment and she’d hark back to my loss, as though I was being disloyal.