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 wantmeback, 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.
