Chapter 54
Claudette’s will had been read, and now everyone was preparing to leave. She had left the house in France to élise and her English cottage to Hélène, while Florence was to have her stocks and shares. Before they left for Devon, Rosalie drew Florence aside.
‘I don’t want to speak out of turn,’ Rosalie said, ‘but I was wondering if you and Jack already have plans for your wedding?’
‘Well … no, not really, other than thinking summer might be nice. There will still be rationing, of course, so I’m not quite sure how it will work.’
‘There’ll be a way.’
‘I made gallons of elderflower champagne in June, far more than I meant to and Jack teased me about it.’
‘Well, there you are. It’s a start.’
‘I suppose.’
Rosalie smiled warmly, her face flushing a little as she said, ‘It would give me enormous pleasure if you would allow me to be involved, pay for the wedding, the dress and so on.’
‘That’s very kind, but, well I’m just taken aback. I thought the whole thing might be a bit make-do-and-mend.’
‘We’re family. I haven’t had a family for such a long time,’ she said, and now Rosalie’s voice caught. ‘Your mother is no longer here to help you, but I am, and I know it’s not the same, but I would love to. I’m going to be in England until next August.’
Florence smiled. ‘In that case, thank you. Without my sisters here, I’ll be glad of any help I can get.’
élise and Victoria were planning to take the train to Exeter with Florence and Jack to stay until after Christmas before returning to France.
Rosalie was coming too. But Hélène, who had been invited, insisted on remaining in Stanton at Claudette’s house to see to her effects and arrange the sale of the house to take place once probate was complete.
While each of them was choosing one small treasure from the cottage as a reminder of their mother, Florence touched Hélène on the back of her shoulder.
‘I could stay too,’ she said. ‘Let me help you with everything here.’
Hélène didn’t turn round and just muttered a blunt, ‘No, thank you.’
Florence tried another tack. ‘You’ll be alone for Christmas.’
Hélène shook her head. ‘You really think I give a fig?’
‘You used to love Christmas.’
Hélène didn’t reply, just carried on picking things up and putting them down. Florence hated seeing her sister in so much pain but knew there was nothing she could do. Hélène was the good sister, the helper, the healer. The one to turn to in a crisis. Who was going to help her?
The time Rosalie, élise and Victoria spent in Devon was bittersweet.
Sweet because Florence was enjoying being around her sister and aunt and loving getting to know her small niece, who was turning out to be quite a little terror.
They sang songs together, went for walks when it wasn’t raining, and played games in front of the fire when it was.
Vicky’s favourite was ‘Ring a Ring o’ Roses’ especially the a-tishoo part when they all had to fall down and roll around the floor.
But when Vicky sang ‘Alouette, Gentille Alouette’ both élise and Florence had tears in their eyes.
‘How are you feeling about Maman?’ Florence asked élise when Jack and Vicky were out feeding the ducks in the water meadow, and they were alone together in the kitchen.
‘I always had mixed feelings about her. You know that.’
‘You looked so much like her. But I think your temperament was so different that it scared her.’
‘Really?’
‘She’d deny it of course.’
‘I’m struggling with myself a bit. I feel I should have tried to love her better …’
‘And on the other hand, maybe she should have tried to love you better. Or at least tried to show it more. I’m sure she did love you, really.’
‘Maybe. It makes her death hard to come to terms with. Not ever being able to … I don’t know … make things right between us, I suppose. It hurt that she was so uninterested in Victoria.’
Florence reached for her sister’s hand.
A little later Florence and Rosalie went for a walk together, up the track, down the hill, and into the woods. It was a cold crisp day with a seamless blue sky. Life had been so busy in Meadowbrook cottage that Florence was glad to have a little time alone with her aunt.
‘How are you now?’ Florence asked her aunt.
‘I’m just thankful I saw my sister again before she died, but I’ll always regret the years we spent apart.’
Florence didn’t reply, though she couldn’t help wondering if she and Hélène were now doomed to repeat history.
‘It’s very beautiful here,’ Rosalie said as she linked arms with Florence, ‘and the cottage is gorgeous. I can see why you love it. Jack too. He clearly adores you.’
‘I’ve been so lucky. I loved Jack from the moment I first saw him, looked up to him in fact, but … well, it was only when he helped me on the worst day of my life that I began to feel I could never trust another man but him.’
‘Do you want to talk about it?’
Florence thought for a moment. She’d come such a long way since that terrible encounter with those two vile men.
It was hard to accept that a violation, a rape like that, had really happened to her.
But accept it she’d had to, or she would never have been able to love Jack.
Maybe she never would accept it completely, but it didn’t make her shake and tremble when she thought about it and she no longer felt any shame.
‘Maybe another time,’ she said.
‘Of course.’
There was a pause.
Florence turned to look at Rosalie. ‘Your husband, Robert Beresford, do you mind talking about him?’
‘My funny, lovable, brave Bobby. I’m very happy to talk about him. Great love, if you find it, is one of life’s most precious gifts. I had that with him.’
‘It must have been terrible when he died.’
‘It was … but not for one moment did I regret knowing him. It sounds like a cliché, but he really was the love of my life.’
They were both silent. All you could hear were their footsteps and a few birds shifting in the trees.
‘Do you think you’ll ever marry again?’
‘No. I have my life in Mdina, and Gerry and I will get on with the final volume of Addison’s work while I’m in London.’
‘You’re fond of Gerry?’
‘Very. He’s my best friend. And a best friend is a fine thing indeed.
I have other friends in Malta too. Otto – he’s a journalist and Tommy-O, a cross-dressing singer, although I see less of him now that he’s no longer performing.
And of course, after all you’ve done to find me, we two will be enormous friends as well.
And I hope you will come back to Mdina and stay with me. ’
Florence smiled. ‘I would love that.’
But as she thought about friendship and what it meant, she realised that Hélène and élise had always been her very best friends and now one of them was not and that made her sadder than she could ever have imagined.
The days soon passed and once Christmas was over élise and her daughter went back to France and Rosalie left for London.
The house had been packed to the rafters with laughter, and tears, but was so quiet now it left Florence feeling low.
She put a brave face on it for Jack’s sake, because with the unfinished apartment to complete in Malta, in January he’d be going too.
‘You could come with me,’ he said on their last evening.
She shook her head. ‘I’d rather just stay here. I have my job at the manor. I was lucky they agreed to take me back. And I have my writing. After everything, I need to feel settled.’
‘I’ll only be gone for a few short weeks and when I’m back, we can plan the wedding.’
She smiled. ‘Our lovely summer wedding. Actually, Rosalie offered to help and to pay.’
He looked surprised. ‘She didn’t need to.’
‘She really wants to. And isn’t it traditional for the bride’s family to bear the cost?’
He laughed. ‘I suppose it is. Summer still sounds good to you?’
‘Absolutely. I’d hate it to be cold and wet.’
He touched her cheek. ‘It will work out you know.’
She frowned, unsure, and then realised why he was saying that.
The argument with Hélène. She’d been trying to put it to the back of her mind but had failed miserably.
She’d tormented herself over a letter she’d written but when both Jack and élise had insisted it would be best to leave Hélène alone for now, she had torn it up. But she hated feeling so helpless.
The morning of Jack’s departure came round quickly, with a grey sky and the wind and the rain beating hard on their bedroom window.
‘Bugger,’ he said. ‘I was hoping we’d get out for one last walk before I leave.’
‘There is something I’d rather do,’ she said with a suggestive laugh, then she climbed on top of him and leaning over, kissed him hard on the mouth.
As the winter dragged on, Florence longed to speak to Hélène with love and hear her sister reply in the same way as she used to do.
Instead, all she could see was her Hélène’s tight, pale face when they’d spoken beside their mother’s grave.
It had been awful. Her sisters had been the ones who’d loved and accepted her funny little ways.
Teased her. Called her their little witch when she spent hours stirring a pot on the stove, her days growing and pickling vegetables, and the moments when, balanced precariously on the table, she reached up to hang herbs to dry from the ceiling hooks.
She sifted through layer after layer of happy memories.
And terribly sad ones too. Victor’s death, Violette’s suicide.
She missed her sisters with such an ache inside her and tried to nurture the hope that Hélène would come round, accept what had happened, forgive her. But would she even come to the wedding?
Jack wrote by airmail to say he missed her and asked if she was all right.
‘I’m fine,’ she’d written in her reply, for how could she tell him how she really felt? I’m bloody lonely and very sad.
Of course, being married would be an ending of sorts for the sisters, although an ending had already happened when she’d been forced to leave the Dordogne.
She began to think more seriously about the wedding because Hélène would not be her only problem.
Should she invite her father Friedrich and her half-brother Anton?
Both German, they’d hardly be welcome so soon after the war.
The January days stretched out cold and hard, the need she had for forgiveness becoming corrosive.
When she should have been happy about her love for Jack, she felt guilty, although Rosalie was coming down for a few days and Florence was looking forward to planning the details of the wedding with her and Gladys.
February was strangely less depressing than January and then towards the end of the month, not long before Jack was due back, Florence realised she had missed a second monthly period.
She had assumed the first absence was because of her grief over Claudette’s death and despair over Hélène’s coldness, but the second?
There had to be a different reason for that.
She made an appointment with the doctor where she supplied him with a urine sample and then went home.
Two weeks the doctor had said, then call me.
It was the longest two weeks of her life.
Florence hugged the possibility to herself, didn’t tell a soul what she suspected, and all the time she was thinking of Jack’s face when she told him.
She saw the first wild snowdrops in the woods and grew excited, then some early daffodils came up in the garden.
They’d have to bring the wedding forward of course if … if … if.
Then early one morning she called the doctor from the telephone box at the crossroads and he spoke in a cheerily brisk voice.
‘Congratulations, my dear,’ he said. ‘I’m assuming your fiancé will be pleased.
A bit cart before the horse, of course, but since the war everything is pear-shaped.
You’ll make a wonderful mother. Come in and see me soon for a physical examination. ’
‘Well, I’d better get weaving,’ she said, ‘and thank you. Thank you so much.’ Once outside, delirious with excitement, she laughed and laughed, and then as she walked down the track towards Meadowbrook and home, she cried tears of joy.