Florence regarded the cream and red cigarette pack still lying on the table and then at the engraving on the lighter.To my darling Belinda,it said. ‘I don’t smoke,’ she eventually replied and coughed as if to prove it.
‘Of course you don’t.’ Belinda narrowed her eyes. ‘Tell me. What is a little girl like you doing setting her cap at the great John Jackson?’
Florence swallowed and passed her another slice of toast. She tried to deny it but knew she had failed the moment she felt her cheeks reddening. Damn it. It seemed that Belinda, this paragon of elegance, could see right through her.
‘Oh, he’s glamorous, I’ll give you that, with all his tales of derring-do. But it’s what’s beneath the surface that counts. Wouldn’t you agree?’
Florence chewed the inside of her cheek.
‘Anyway, can’t sit here chatting all day. Must get on. I assume you don’t mind me using the antiquated washing facilities first. Honestly, this place.’
As the woman left, Florence banged her teacup down with a clunk. Was there anything going on under Belinda’s smart, superficial surface? Or was she all bitch?
Florence went through to the living room and looked out towards the road, not knowing if she wanted to see Jack or dreaded seeing him. She leant against the deep window frame. These walls tell stories, Florence thought, and she loved a good story, devouring novels whenever she could. Jack’s grandmother had accumulated so many and she picked out one now.Cold Comfort Farm, a comic novel by an English author called Stella Gibbons. Florence needed something to laugh about.
After having had breakfast with Belinda, she’d felt like chucking the cake in the bin but couldn’t bring herself to waste food, and maybe Jack had a reasonable explanation. But what? Her mind kept snagging at that, but she arranged the cake on the kitchen table along with a cake knife and some pretty plates, in case Jack arrived back while she was out. Then she pulled on her wellingtons and went outside, glancing up at banks of thick clouds. Dark in the middle, their top edges were lined with silver and in between slices of palest blue. Would the clouds bring rain, or would the blue sky win the day? She hoped the threat of bad weather would recede and even though she was wearing her best dress, she decided to get as far away from the house as she could.
Instead of walking across the flat water meadow and then the hill beyond, she opened the gate nearest to the house and climbed the steep hill behind it, where sheep were grazing. At the top she stopped to catch her breath and looked down at Jack’s house cradled between the hills and the woods, now turning red and gold. The sky grew a little darker, the clouds so low she felt she couldalmost reach out and touch them, but Belinda’s presence was too unsettling for her to go back so soon. Hopefully, the rain would hold off long enough to still get in a decent walk.
From where she now stood, she could see across the rounded rolling hills and valleys of Devonshire, the winding lanes, the thick hedgerows, the oak thickets, and the stretches of mixed woodland. She chose a direction and carried on over the crest of the hill before descending the other side and then following a track lined with blackberry bushes. It stretched as far as the eye could see, deep into the woods beyond. All she could hear was the wind, intense now as it whistled through the flickering leaves.
She walked for a long time, deep in thought, before turning to head back just as the first drops of rain began to fall. A fine drizzle, that’s all, she told herself. Of course, she’d known the warm September weather couldn’t last and here they were in early October and it was as if a curtain had fallen, leaving the sunshine behind it.
‘It’s autumn now,’ she said out loud and could feel the trees whooshing in agreement. Within half an hour the rain was coming down in sheets so thick that she could barely see the path. And after such a long spell of dry weather, the ground quickly turned slippery. Florence could smell the rich dark scent of soil, as rain quenched the earth’s thirst and soaked into the parched undergrowth. Normally she enjoyed the peace of walking in wet weather, the feeling of inner calm and being in tune with nature. She used to believe in rain fairies and watersprites. She didn’t any more, of course, but she missed the innocent girl she’d once been and mourned the loss of her peaceful childhood world that had been so brutally destroyed.
She wasn’t dressed for a deluge like this and before long, her hair was soaked, hanging in strings down her back and her carefully chosen dress was sodden and clinging to her legs. She scolded herself for dashing out without a mackintosh or umbrella, although now the gusting wind would have blown it inside out within seconds.
At the top of the hill, she glanced down, hoping to spot the cottage again, but the rain had obscured it so completely she wondered for a moment if she was even in the right place. She made her way down as carefully as she could, but the grass was so slippery she lost her footing, only just managing to save herself in time. She carried on cautiously, but the lumps and bumps on the hill were terribly uneven and she caught her foot in a hole she hadn’t spotted, this time falling forward onto her front. Winded, she lay there for a second, feeling tears coming, but after a moment struggled to her feet. She glanced down at herself; her beautiful dress streaked with mud and patches of grass stain. She wiped the wet hair from her brow. Everything had gone wrong since Belinda arrived. Everything. She’d been so happy baking a cake for Jack and looking forward to seeing him, but now all she could hope was that she’d have enough time to clean up before he arrived.
As she reached the house, she saw it wasn’t to be. Jack’s father, Lionel, was opening his car door and about to getin, his coat pulled over his head, when he glanced up and saw her bedraggled state.
‘My dear girl. What happened to you?’
She shrugged. ‘I took a tumble.’
‘But why were you out without a coat?’
‘Didn’t think the rain would come on so fast or so hard.’
He nodded. ‘It can do.’
‘So, I take it Jack’s back?’
‘Dropped him off ten minutes ago.’
‘You know his wife is here?’
‘Unfortunately, yes. Listen, try not to worry about Belinda. I don’t think … well, I hope she isn’t dangerous. She hasn’t been … Well it should be Jack who tells you really.’
‘That’s what Gladys said too.’
‘She was right. Nice to see you again, Florence.’
Unable to delay going inside any longer, Florence drew in her breath and let it out in a puff. She walked around to the back door. In the porch, with one hand on the wall to balance herself, she pulled off one wellington then the other, leaving them where they fell, and then she pushed open the door. Jack was in the kitchen, his back against the Aga and looking strained, while Belinda sipped a sherry and blew smoke rings that floated up towards the ceiling. The atmosphere felt fraught.
‘Hello,’ Florence said, distinctly at a disadvantage with her bedraggled hair and wet dress. ‘Welcome home.’
Jack gave her a tight smile. ‘Thank you.’
