Chapter 11
Florence was sitting on the uncomfortable put-you-up bed in the box room, glowering through the rain-streaked window at the hill behind the house.
The horrible little bed was so close to the sill that her knees jammed uncomfortably against it.
Seething with frustration, she itched to hit out, but all she did was clench her fists, pick up her pillow and pummel it.
It just wasn’t fair; Jack really should have told her about his wife, and she felt hurt that he’d kept such a bloody great secret from her – and from her sister too.
Hélène hadn’t known anything about this.
She heard a gentle tap at her door but didn’t respond.
A few moments later the door swung open and Jack came in.
There was no space on Florence’s side of the bed, so he was forced to stand behind her.
She kept her eyes steady but no longer seeing the view; she was only aware of the rapid beating of her heart.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he said gruffly.
‘What for?’
‘This godawful mess.’
‘The cake, you mean?’ she said, her voice as haughty as she could make it.
She could hear him almost chuckle at that and then having to restrain himself. ‘Well yes the cake, but—’
‘Just tell me,’ she said.
‘About Belinda?’
She twisted around and couldn’t disguise the anger in her voice, and nor did she want to. ‘Of course, bloody Belinda. What did you think I was asking about? The price of sausages?’
‘Well, we aren’t actually buying sausages. Gladys brings them.’
Florence rose to her feet in an instant, her anger boiling over. ‘This isn’t funny, Jack.’
‘Sorry.’
‘You should be.’
They both fell quiet. She took fierce breaths as the voices clamoured in her head. Jack’s, Belinda’s, Hélène’s, and even her own.
‘Look,’ he said, ‘we can’t talk in this tiny room. Let’s go for a walk and I promise I’ll tell you everything.’
Florence narrowed her eyes. ‘It’s still raining.’
‘Only drizzling now. Do you mind?’
‘All right. Give me a chance to change out of these wet things and dry my hair a little.’
Before this, when she’d been sleeping in the guest room, the silence had wrapped around her like a soft blanket through which nothing could intrude. Knowing he was just along the landing and that with a few brave steps she’d be by his side had been comforting. Now everything felt very different.
Instead of heading through the long grass leading to the gated water meadow, she and Jack had been traipsing up the acorn-strewn track for several minutes.
Neither of them had spoken, the silence uneasy.
So long as I don’t look at him, I’ll be safe, she told herself, deciding to leave the thrust of the conversation to him.
After all, it really wasn’t her business if he had one wife or five of them hidden about the place.
They were just friends and he owed her nothing – although her heart was aching at the unspeakable wreckage Belinda had wrought on their peaceful life.
‘Belinda and I married young,’ Jack eventually said. ‘A whirlwind romance, you know, and we barely knew each other. Every marriage has its faults, of course, and ours began to show up early on.’
He fell silent and she listened to the wind blowing the trees about. It seemed a terribly sad kind of sound. Lonely and desolate, which was rather the way she was feeling too.
‘Go on,’ she said.
‘I suppose I allowed myself to be swallowed up by work and spent more and more time down here or in other parts of the country, then later, when the war began, in France too. We dealt with the growing rift between us in different ways. She stayed on in London, living the party lifestyle with her glamorous acquaintances and her lover, Hector.’
‘She was unfaithful?’
‘Yes.’
‘She seems very bitter.’
‘She is. She’s damaged too. We both are.’
‘By the marriage failing?’
He didn’t answer, just shook his head as if uncertain and kept on walking.
The silence continued as they trudged down the hill and then took their time along one of the muddy tracks that ran through the woods.
‘You didn’t seem damaged in France,’ Florence offered in a quiet voice.
‘Much easier there. Had a job to do, and I could be a different person.’
‘I understand that, but what about when we came to Meadowbrook? Why didn’t you just tell me you were married then?’
‘I don’t know. I should have.’
‘And now?’
‘A divorce, but suddenly she’s insisting on a share of my cottage. We agreed it would remain as mine alone, and she would keep the London flat for herself. It’s in Chelsea and worth far more than my cottage, which has been mine since my grandmother died. I have no interest in the London flat.’
‘So why has she changed her mind?’
He shrugged. ‘I’m not sure. If I know Belinda, she’s just here to make trouble.’
‘Maybe she’s not ready to let go.’
‘Of what?’
‘You, I suppose.’
‘Maybe. Now she’s seen you here, it’s certainly made her more obstinate.
I’m sure she doesn’t really want me back, but she doesn’t want anyone …
Well, you get my drift. And she still has Hector, as far as I know.
But unless I give her half of Meadowbrook, she’s refusing to go ahead with the divorce. ’
Florence had been gazing down at the ground, but now glanced up at Jack, who was watching her with sad eyes.
‘Look, I’m intruding,’ she said. ‘This is between you and Belinda. I’ll go back to my mother’s, just until the war ends and then I’ll go home to France, or perhaps travel to Malta to see if I can find Rosalie.’
He shook his head. ‘That’s not a good idea. You know your aunt may not even be alive. The siege of Malta meant the country was bombed relentlessly for almost two and a half years.’
‘Why for so long? I hadn’t realised.’
‘It’s a strategically important island for the British, so Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany fought the Royal Air Force and the Royal Navy to try to wrench control from them. The place will be in ruins. You can’t go there alone.’
‘We’ll see,’ was all she said.
‘I mean it, Florence. Malta is a bad idea. The Axis resolved to bomb or starve the country into submission. It will be dangerous. And it’s fine for you to stay here.
I’m getting used to you being around. It’s just …
’ He paused and sighed. ‘Don’t go. I’ll insist Belinda leaves. She has no place here.’
But Florence felt she was the one in the wrong place.
In France she had looked after the house, the food, the garden, the animals and, of course, her two sisters, and she’d been good at it.
It had been her way of doing her bit while Hélène had worked hard as a nurse for their much-loved village doctor and élise had been helping the Resistance to fight the German occupiers.
Nurturing her family had also been Florence’s own salvation when the …
when the worst of things happened to her.
She still found it hard to say the actual word out loud.
Here, in England, she didn’t know where she belonged. Despite spending much of her childhood near London, it was the Dordogne where she really felt at home.
Jack smiled at her, but it was a weak smile and she could not return it.
As they walked back in silence, she focused instead on Claudette’s request. Rosalie.
She tried to picture the aunt she didn’t know, the aunt who had run away and she felt a rush of overwhelming pity.
To be so dreadfully alone like that. How had she managed?
Her own loneliness derailed her at times, but her situation was only temporary.
And at least she knew where her family were.
Rosalie had been out of touch for twenty years.
Surely she must have made another home for herself?
Another family even? What had she been doing for all these years, what kind of life had she led and, if she really was alive, where was she now?
Although glad it wasn’t possible to travel anywhere for now and nervous of more secrets coming to light, Florence couldn’t help speculating about what might have happened to Rosalie.