Chapter 3
‘Oh, you must be Gladys,’ Florence said, ‘from the farm.’
The woman bent down to pick up a basket, its contents covered by a tea towel displaying a Union Jack, the red and blue faded with age and the white rather grey. ‘I am indeed, and this here … is Gregory,’ she said and laughed, her eyes crinkling up.
Florence glanced down at the duck now waddling into the kitchen behind the woman.
‘Comes everywhere with me. Hope you don’t mind.’
‘You are both most welcome. Jack told me you might be popping in.’
‘Out, is he?’
Florence nodded.
Gladys glanced at the letter lying on the table. ‘Don’t want to disturb you if you’re busy.’
‘Oh, I’m not. It’s just a letter from my mother. She’s expecting me the day after tomorrow and she’s sent directions about how to get to her place in the Cotswolds.’
‘She’ll be happy to see you. Jack said you have sisters still living in France.’
‘Yes. Hélène and élise. I’ve written to let them know I’ve arrived here, but you never know with the post. I haven’t heard back so I just hope they received it.’
‘I’m sure you do, love. It must be hard.’
‘It is. I don’t know how they are or what’s happening over there now. Hélène is a nurse you know, for the local doctor, and élise is expecting a baby. I worry about them.’
‘And you’ve come all the way over here …’ Gladys glanced at her with a question in her eyes. ‘To be with your mother?’
Florence couldn’t tell her the truth about why she’d risked such a long and hazardous journey to England, so after a moment she simply said, ‘It’s rather a long story, but yes.’
Gladys seemed to catch her reluctance and changed the subject. ‘Here, I’ve brought a couple of bits for Jack.’
She plonked the basket down on the table and whipped off the tea towel with a flourish.
Florence glanced down at a beautiful brown loaf nestling in the middle of the basket along with a bottle of something golden. She sniffed. ‘You’re very kind. The bread smells divine, and I can’t wait to know what’s in the bottle.’
Gladys smiled. ‘Gooseberry wine.’
‘How lovely. I used to make fruit wines in France.’
‘Miss it, do you dear? It must feel strange for you coming here while we are all still fighting this terrible war and everyone so weary and plain.’
‘It is. But it was worse in France.’
‘Yes, at least we don’t have the Nazis over here. But the fighting’s gone on too long and everyone’s worried for their menfolk over on the Continent or out in the East.’
Florence murmured that she understood.
‘And people are hungry, them that’s in town that is. Us, with the farm, we’re all right. We grow veg to send to the hospitals here, you know.’
Florence nodded, noting the tone of pride in the older woman’s voice.
‘We all do our bit. I wanted to send food to the Red Cross to parcel up for our boys overseas, but they only need tinned food. You know, condensed milk, Spam, corned beef, processed cheese. Stuff that doesn’t go off. The boys mostly want chocolate and tobacco. That sort of thing.’
For a moment Gladys looked terribly glum but then seemed to rally. ‘Stay with your mother long, will you?’
Florence sighed. She had hardly any money and would have to search for work of some kind to earn her keep while at her mother’s and eventually she’d need to find herself somewhere to live.
She felt anxious just thinking about it.
How was she going to be able to make a new life in England during a war?
‘Everything is a bit up in the air,’ she said.
As if picking up on her turmoil, Gladys patted her hand. ‘One thing at a time love, that’s what I always say. Now I’d better be off, or my old man will think the Hun have taken off with me.’
Florence smiled. ‘Thank you for the bread and wine.’
‘Not at all. You look tired, my dear, do look after yourself. Off we go, Gregory,’ Gladys said and left the house with a little wave to Florence.
On the morning she was due to leave, Florence was feeling flustered as she finished ironing the green-and-white spotted dress she’d adapted from one of Jack’s grandmother’s. She heard him calling her and glanced up as he came into the kitchen.
‘There you are,’ he said, frowning as he scrutinised her face, ‘and looking a bit overheated. Fancy a stroll in the garden before I take you to the station? There’s time and it might cool you down.’
‘I just need to finish this and get dressed. “Make do and mend” as the posters say. Must look reasonable to go to Maman’s.’
‘Bag all packed?’
She mumbled a reply, fighting tears. She didn’t feel ready to leave Devon and couldn’t bear the thought of saying goodbye to Jack.
‘Chin up,’ he said.
She gave him a half smile, grabbed the dress, and ran upstairs to slip into it. Maybe leaving here really would be for the best. She liked Jack, she really liked him, but her sister, Hélène … She couldn’t complete the thought.
They trailed around the garden avoiding the shade cast by the hill behind the house and walked instead where sunlight slanted through the trees.
Florence glanced at Jack and saw his face patterned with ribbons of light.
Lionel’s dog followed behind, sniffing the earth around the tangled rose bushes, the overgrown buddleia, and the red and yellow dahlias, all the time sending the pheasants scattering up the hill.
She watched the dog, tasting the fullness of a late British summer on her lips, and imagining the autumnal fruit to come.
Before long these warm days would end and, much more imminently, her time with Jack. Would she ever see him again?
The dog barked and she realised she’d missed something Jack had said.
‘Sorry, what did you say?’ she asked.
‘I asked if you’d like to know how this cottage came to be in my family?’
‘Of course,’ she said, sensing from Jack’s bright tone that he was trying to focus on something other than her leaving. For both their sakes, she thought. Or maybe not. Perhaps he was only trying to lighten the moment to make her feel better.
Florence forced a smile.
He scratched the back of his neck. ‘My little Meadowbrook cottage is on the estate of, and was once owned by, the family of eighty-five-year-old Lord Hambury.’
‘The old boy up at the manor?’
‘Yes. As a young man, the previous Lord Hambury had a secret “liaison” with the family’s nanny, my great-grandmother, Esther.’
She nodded, listening to him, but also aware of the circus of thoughts going in her own mind.
‘When Hambury’s wife, Maud, discovered them in bed, there was a godawful scene.
As the story goes, priceless crystal goblets were hurled at their heads.
Esther was turned out without a reference, but Lord Hambury had fallen in love with her, so he ordered the renovation of Meadowbrook and gave the place to her, deeds and all.
’ Jack paused and looked at her. ‘Florence, are you listening?’
She blinked rapidly. ‘Yes, of course. I wouldn’t have liked to have been his wife. She must have been spitting nails.’
‘I’m sure she was livid but there was nothing she could do. Hambury supported Esther financially until she married and my grandmother was born, though nobody knows if she was the child of Lord Hambury or not.’
‘Golly. So, you could be the illegitimate great-grandson of a lord.’
He laughed. ‘Knew you’d like this story.’
And for a moment she imagined she could hear Hambury and Esther murmuring in the dark. But they would be friendly ghosts, those two. Perhaps not so his poor wife.
She sighed. It was time and she didn’t want to prolong the pain of parting any longer.
‘Right,’ she said a bit too briskly. ‘I suppose we’d better get weaving.’
He nodded and something twisted inside her as he gave her a look she couldn’t decipher.