They traipsed along the corridor for what seemed like an age then, thank God, Florence spied two seats and, stumbling over her own feet, she hastily claimed them. Once settled in the carriage, she leant her head back in relief. She would survive this, she told herself. She had survived much worse. And then she fell asleep, vaguely aware of the station stops and only opening her eyes properly when Jack shook her and told her they were almost there. She glanced out of the window as the train pulled into Exeter station and then came to a shuddering, screeching, stop. She spotted a poster with a head andshoulder image of the British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, and a quote from him, too. ‘Let us go forward together’ it proclaimed. Yes, she thought. We all need to go forward, and she would just have to find a way to stop herself from looking back.
She felt light-headed as she and Jack straightened up, then stood to stretch their legs and smooth down their crumpled clothes. Tired, hungry, filthy dirty, they were home.
Home, she sighed. Where was that now? It was Jack’s home they were going to. They retrieved their bags from the luggage rack overhead, climbed down from the train and made their way out of the station.
Forty minutes later as Jack’s father, Lionel, drove them downhill along a bumpy gravelled track, Florence caught her first glimpse of the Devonshire cottage. She gaped at it from the front passenger window, blinking rapidly and feeling she’d arrived in the borderlands between what was real and what was not. Thatched and tucked into a cosy space between green forested hills, it had surely grown out of the meadow that lay in front of it. A fairy-tale cottage. And, except for the suicidal scuttling pheasants attempting to escape the wheels it was completely silent. There could be no greater contrast between what they had been through than this and just the sight of it revived her.
‘A place to restore the heart and soul,’ Lionel said with a knowing look back at Jack as they drew closer. ‘Glad to see you safely back in Blighty, son.’
‘Two sides of the house are backed by hilly oak thickets,’ Jack said, on a more practical note. ‘A steep hill slopes down to the house on the third side and, as you can see, a brook and water meadow borders the approach. Magnificent walks in every direction.’
‘Like a sanctuary,’ Florence said, breathing properly for the first time in weeks. ‘And the hills standing guard.’
‘Hope it will be a sanctuary for you, my dear,’ Lionel said and coughed awkwardly, as if that might have been a bit too personal for a first meeting.
Florence smiled at him.
‘Can’t drive across the brook in winter, mind. Have to park this side of it, but you can always cross by foot on the stone slabs over there when the water is flowing,’ he added. ‘Will be absolutely fine now though. Had a go at mowing the lawns myself, but the grass was too long and too thick. Needs a scythe, Jack.’
‘I don’t think I’ve seen a more romantic place in my whole life,’ Florence said, glancing at the teeming wildflowers, the tangled rose bushes, and the clematis cascading over the front of the cottage. ‘Mind you, the climbers need a good pruning.’
‘Like to garden, do you, my dear?’ Jack’s father asked.
He was tall and solidly built, a bear of a man with a full head of grizzly salt-and-pepper hair and ruddy cheeks. Probably a little too fond of a glass of port, she thought privately. She did her best to resist the image of her garden at home in France as it flashed into her mind and almost stopped her breath. She swallowed. ‘I adore gardening,’ she managed to say.
‘She’s something of an expert, Dad,’ Jack added.
Lionel drove over the shallow brook and pulled up outside the cobbled pathway to the house, near a massive horse chestnut tree. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘Welcome to Meadowbrook. But for the farmer’s wife, you won’t see another soul. And the old boy up at the manor never comes down here.’
‘I love it,’ Florence said. ‘Thank you so much for driving us. Sorry we’re so filthy.’
‘Not at all. The house has been well aired and there are a few basic supplies. Bread, milk, bacon, and so on.’
‘Thanks Dad,’ Jack said and clapped his father on the back. ‘I don’t know about Florence, but more than anything I need to sleep.’
Florence glanced down at the ingrained dirt in her nails. ‘Me too and tomorrow a bath.’
Jack gave her a weary smile. ‘I think that can be arranged. Come on. Ready to go inside?’
CHAPTER 2
Devonshire, 1944
The next morning
How could she be the person she was before? She couldn’t, but still the past drew her back. All night, dreaming, Florence had longed to stumble upon a garden just like hers in the Dordogne. But it wasn’t a garden she found; in her dream it was a cemetery with her name carved on a headstone, paper roses strewn before it. Torn between worlds, in that hazy state before the day opened properly, her mind felt clouded, her heart unsettled, but then she heard water running over stones. From her bedroom window the evening before, she had spotted that the garden briefly dipped downwards, so the water was a little deeper there before it vanished under shrubs and bushes. Things became clear again. England, the early morninglight here more fragile than it was at home, diffused. And then tapping. She heard someone tapping on her door. Barely able to remember the strange dream now, she heard Jack’s voice and rubbed the sleep from her eyes just as he poked his head around the door.
‘Sorry to disturb. You all right?’
She pulled the sheets up to her chin, acutely aware she wasn’t wearing a nightdress. Last night, Jack had dug out a long-sleeved winceyette nightie that had once belonged to his grandmother, but she hadn’t liked to say how much she hated the horrible itchy thing.
Jack ran his fingers through his hair, leaving it tousled, and didn’t quite meet her eyes.
‘You didn’t disturb me,’ she said. ‘I was half awake.’
‘Good. I thought you might be hungry.’
‘Might be? I’m famished!’
