Free Soldier's Valentine by Lizzie Lane Page B

stacked on shelves, in cupboards and drawers, each labelled as to their content: watches; gold, watches; silver, bracelets, necklaces, rings; miscellaneous silver; miscellaneous gold – the latter, he discovered, included a number of gold teeth. He wondered what misfortune had occurred to necessitate the obvious discomfort of having a filling ripped from one’s mouth.
    Furniture was stacked and labelled in a back room, clothes parcelled and placed on myriad shelves.
    Some of the items pledged saddened him; a child’s clothes – pledged to pay for a funeral, it said in scrawled writing. So Crombie was right. His uncle had been too sentimental for his own good. The clothes were shabby, never likely to be sold on or reclaimed. He threw them into the pile he was making of items to be disposed of. It was growing swiftly.
    Other items almost made him laugh out loud or certainly raise his spirits.
    Combinations. New
    A glass eye?
    A pair of black lace garters. Never worn.
    He didn’t hazard a guess as to the reasons why any of them had been pledged. After checking the dates – years ago – he threw the items onto the pile, had second thoughts about the black lace garters and retrieved them.
    The next thing he did was to destroy the family photographs. He didn’t want them staring down at him. He didn’t want to remember who and what they were because in doing so he would be reminded of what he had done.

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    First published in 2014 by Ebury Press, an imprint of Ebury Publishing
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    Copyright © 2014 Lizzie Lane
Excerpt from A Wartime Wife © 2006 Lizzie Lane
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