Chapter 4
Florence nervously brushed down her dress, glad she’d not worn anything long-sleeved.
You couldn’t be sure of the temperature in September, and her choice of outfit was perfect for a day like this.
She wiped her brow and approached an elderly station porter to ask about catching an onward train to Toddington or Broadway.
‘Sorry, miss, both gone,’ the old boy said and began to turn away, bustling with self-importance.
‘Wait … I mean, please. Could tell me when the next train is due?’
‘Ah. That’ll be tomorrow mornin’. Sorry, love. Taxi outside. Or hotel of course. We ’ave lots of ’em ’ere in Cheltenham.’ He spoke with pride and a strong Gloucestershire accent. ‘Carry your case?’
She shook her head. If she had to pay for a taxi, she’d need every penny; anyway she had so little her case wasn’t heavy.
‘How far away is Stanton?’ she asked. ‘By road, I mean.’
‘Couldn’t rightly say. Twelve, thirteen miles. Never been there meself. They say it’s pretty. Visiting someone?’
She nodded. ‘My mother.’ Thanking him, she picked up her case and headed for the exit.
The taxi was available and after agreeing the price she settled herself in the back. They set off, wending their way past the elegant buildings of the Regency town centre before reaching a road signposted, ‘Winchcombe’.
‘I thought all the signposts had been taken down,’ she said.
‘They have. Best to confuse the enemy, eh?’
‘Why’s that one still up?’
‘Search me, love, we’ve all seen one or two been forgotten. My son’s going round ripping them down hisself. You from round here?’
‘I’ve just come up from Devon.’
She saw him glance in the mirror to look at her.
‘Just you have, well … sort of an accent I suppose.’ He shook his head. ‘Maybe not an accent exactly. Perhaps just a look.’
‘I see.’ Florence was surprised. She didn’t believe she had an accent at all, and nobody had ever mentioned it before.
‘Sorry, love. Don’t mean to offend. Can’t be too careful these days.’
A little further from the town she wound down the window and, feeling the breeze on her cheeks, she glanced up and took in a lungful of fresh country air.
The earlier mackerel sky had given way to a hazy blue wash, dotted only by thin wispy clouds and in the warmth, she let her mind wander.
It was such a relief to be out of the noisy train.
Two children had squealed with laughter as they raced out of the carriage and up and down the corridor, chased by a harassed mother.
There hadn’t been so many servicemen going home on leave this time, so at least it was less smoky than the train from Southampton.
It still felt a bit odd hearing the unfamiliar English voices around her, and she couldn’t quite get used to not having to look over her shoulder for the inevitable German soldiers.
Nor the fact, as they passed a village of thatched cottages and half-timbered houses as well as some larger Victorian and Georgian ones, that it looked nothing like France.
‘Prestbury,’ the driver said, twisting round to glance at her.
She viewed the lush, still green countryside as they drove on. The road wound upwards, steadily climbing, the hedgerows bursting with berries and now she could see the early signs of autumnal red and gold dusting the trees.
‘Warm for the time of year,’ he added. ‘Indian summer. Though I like it better when there’s a bit of a nip in the air.’
He seemed to want to continue passing the time of day, but Florence didn’t feel like talking any more.
Her head was spinning as she went over what she was going to have to say to her mother, Claudette, about why she had come back to England.
She hadn’t seen her since well before the war.
Hadn’t even been to this cottage. Claudette had sold their old Richmond home after their father’s death, saying they couldn’t afford it.
Their family holiday house in France was too small for all of them, she had said, so Florence, aged fifteen, along with her older sisters, had gone to live in France while Claudette had moved into the cottage in England.
She had helped settle them in France to begin with and promised to visit occasionally but had never quite got round to it and then the war had kept them apart. But now the time had come.
The landscape turned flatter, more open, with the hay already stacked and cattle and sheep grazing contentedly in the fields, and before long they reached the first honey-coloured stone cottages of Stanton.
‘That’s the manor house,’ the driver said, ‘on your left. In 1543 it passed to Catherine Parr in her dowry. I’ve heard tell it’s haunted.’
‘By her?’ she asked, and he chuckled. She pictured a croquet lawn, a walled garden and the ghost of Katherine Parr wandering around in a long white dress.
‘What was the name of the cottage you wanted?’ he added.
‘Little Charity. And I don’t think it’s haunted. My mother said it’s up the hill just after the post office.’
Each house and cottage flanking the quaint high street as it climbed the hill was constructed of the same golden stone, and many of them were swathed in climbing roses or the last of the year’s honeysuckle.
Some of the buildings were grand, others less so, but the entire place looked as if it had been forgotten, lost somewhere in a sleepy past. She imagined the people who must have once lived there: the women in their long dresses and bonnets, the laundress in her oversized apron, her bare arms muscular, the kids playing tag and marbles or rolling their hoops over the cobbles.
When the driver pulled up opposite a small village green just before the street climbed even higher, she paid him, got out, and surveyed her mother’s cottage.
Drenched in sunlight, there were three small-paned windows upstairs and two similar ones below.
She’d been warned in the last letter that it was tiny, with two bedrooms and only an outside toilet.
Florence found it impossible to imagine her poised and very fussy mother coping with that during a muddy English winter.
There was a minuscule front garden with a low hedge and as she approached the pillared porch – framed by autumnal Virginia creeper – the front door swung open.
Claudette stood waiting in the doorway, a tight smile on her face, and to Florence it was as though her entire childhood had suddenly appeared there beside her.
‘Chérie, you made it. Come on in. We’re very simple here. I hope you understand.’
Her mother was speaking English, never usually her first choice, but Florence supposed after living in England for so long, especially on her own here, she’d got used to it.
Her hair, with a few silver threads in it now, was neatly drawn into a chignon at the back and, elegant as ever, she wore a grey pencil skirt and pale pink twinset with a single row of pearls.
Just as she had done when they lived in Richmond.
Florence went to her, pasting a smile on her face despite feeling a huge distance between them. Her mother looked older, not quite like herself, and was she a little bit thinner too? Seven years was a long time.
After a brief hug, Claudette took her hand. ‘Chérie, I don’t understand why you would travel to England while the war is still going on. You didn’t say anything in your letter. Why did you take such a risk?’
‘It’s a long story, I—’
‘You weren’t happy there?’ her mother interjected. ‘I thought you were happy.’
‘Well …’ Florence paused to think about how to reply. ‘I was happy, Maman, up to a point.’
‘So why come back?’
‘The war changed things,’ Florence said, dodging the question, not quite ready to tell her mother the truth. She spoke brightly as she carried on. ‘I told you how I did all the gardening, baking, preserving, and so on? I really loved it.’
‘Mmm.’
‘You should have seen the garden. It was wonderful. I grew all kinds of vegetables, and we had chickens and goats and—’
Claudette hardly seemed to be listening. ‘Heavens, what are we doing chatting like this and still in the hall?’ she said, interrupting Florence. ‘I’ve lit a fire in the living room. It is a bit cold today.’
Florence frowned. She’d been thinking how lovely it was to have such a warm sunny day, just when you thought the summer was fading.
As she put her case down, a simple hall mirror – or looking glass as her mother would say – caught her eye, placed exactly opposite the front door.
How like her mother, never known to bypass a chance to admire her own appearance.
This time, however, Claudette didn’t even glance at it, though Florence did, patting her unruly blonde curls.
In the tiny hall a large marmalade cat lay dozing on a chair beside a small table on one side and a grandfather clock on the other. The cat opened one green eye to scrutinise her for a moment and then, apparently satisfied, went back to sleep.
‘You have a cat.’
‘Not mine. Belongs to … well, belonged to an old dear who passed over.’
‘She died?’
‘Such an unpleasant word. Anyway, the cat just moved in. I like it.’
‘What’s it called?’
‘Franklin Robinson,’ she said. ‘I call him Robby. Would you like tea?’
Florence raised her brows. Since when did her mother keep cats and drink tea? Through all the years they’d lived in England growing up, when her father was alive, her mother had been resolutely a Frenchwoman, even though she might have dressed like an English lady of the manor.
While Claudette clattered about in the kitchen, Florence looked around the sitting room.
The low-ceilinged room was pretty, and she spotted some of the old familiar furniture from their English home: the yellow and blue needlepoint cushions on the two armchairs and a navy blue and white rug that used to be in her parents’ bedroom.
But with a roaring fire on the go, it was sweltering, and she longed to throw open a window.
After a few moments, her mother returned carrying a tray of tea things.