My dear Flora,
We hope this letter finds you well as we are. I am now the size of a house and waddling like a duck so will be very pleased when our baby decides to put in an appearance. It should be very soon. Ben can hardly wait and is treating me like an invalid not wanting me to lift anything heavier than a kettle, so he is! Ben says when the baby is strong enough to travel he is bringing us all to London to visit the family and I can hardly wait. It is lovely being back in Ireland but I do miss you and Jai Li something terrible and often think back fondly to some of the happy times we shared.
She went on to tell Flora about what was happening on the smallholding and by the time Flora had finished reading there were tears in her eyes. Everyone seemed to have found happiness, and now she just had to pray that she would too.
She tucked the letters back in her purse and as the minutes ticked away the time until she would arrive in Jamie’s hometown, she settled back in her seat to stare at the fields from the window. Looking at the cows and sheep dotted over the bright green grass, she could quite understand why someone would prefer to live in the country rather than a city. It struck her then that all her life she had lived in built-up areas. London and New York had been very similar in many ways and it was lovely looking out at the peaceful views where everything looked so bright and clean. But the distraction provided by the scenery didn’t last long, and the bubble of nervousness that was growing in her stomach was starting to make her feel a bit sick. Would she be catching the train home with a broken heart? Only time would tell now.
It was just after lunchtime when the train drew into Trent Valley Station and as Flora emerged from the platform she peered around with interest at the little market town before approaching a man who was leaning idly against the carriage door of his horse-drawn cab as he waited for his next fare.
‘Excuse me, but would you happen to know of a place called Treetops? It’s in a village called Hartshill just outside of town.’
He nodded. ‘I know it, miss. It’s Lady Ashley’s old place, though her daughter and her son-in-law own it now. I reckon it’s some sort of children’s home.’
‘That’s it,’ she said eagerly. ‘Is it within walking distance?’
He stroked his chin. ‘Well, I’d say it’s a good five or six miles as the crow flies at least.’
‘In that case would you mind taking me there?’
‘O’ course, miss, my pleasure. Hop in.’ He politely opened the door for her and once she had climbed up into the carriage and settled against the faded leather squabs he took the nose bag from his loyal old nag and urged her into life. Soon after they passed a large market that seemed to have stalls displaying everything from buckets and bowls to buttons and bows and on the edge of it she spotted the cattle market that Jamie had often spoken of. There were crates of chickens squawking indignantly, and larger pens, where horses pawed the ground impatiently. Others contained goats, cattle and sheep and Flora wished she had more time to look around. Maybe if Jamie still felt the same, they could come here together. Then she chided herself for getting her hopes up. For all she knew, Jamie could be married by now, so she had to be prepared for heartbreak.
Finally, after passing a large, five-sail windmill and jogging through a forest, she realised she must be close as she remembered Jamie telling her about how he used to play in the forest when he was young. The cab drew to a halt before two enormous wrought-iron gates and the cabbie climbed down to inform her, ‘This is Treetops, miss. Would you like me to take you down the drive to it?’
‘No … thank you, I think I’d like to walk.’ It would be nice to see the place where Jamie had grown up, plus it might give her some time to calm down. After collecting her things together and alighting the carriage she paid the driver and added a generous tip.
He doffed his cap as he politely asked, ‘Will you be wantin’ me to wait for you, miss?’
‘No, I shall be fine from here, thank you,’ she told him, although she felt sick with nerves now. Very soon she might see Jamie again but would the encounter have the outcome she was hoping for?
She stood and watched the cab pull away, then taking a deep breath she set off down the tree-lined drive. Through the trees she could hear the sound of children’s laughter as they gambolled on the lush, green lawns. After walking some way, the house came into sight and she caught her breath. It was very large and much grander than she had expected. The sky was a deep, azure blue with powder puff clouds floating across it and there was the scent of new-mown grass in the air, and she thought what a lovely place it must have been to grow up in.
The closer she got to the house the more nervous she became as memories of the times she had spent with Jamie assailed her. Images of his laughing blue eyes and his wonderful smile flashed in front of her eyes. Would he still look the same? Would he still be the same? She had no way of knowing, she only knew that the next few hours could well determine the rest of her life. Would Jamie send her away with a flea in her ear, or would he be pleased to see her? Would he even still live here or would he have moved on to pastures new? She knew that one way or another she would have the answer to all these questions soon and then at last she could start to plan her future.
When she reached the imposing oak doors she smoothed her skirt and patted her hair then, after taking a deep breath, she pulled on the large brass bell that hung at the side of the door. Within minutes it was opened by a middle-aged woman with a kindly face who was enveloped in a huge white apron.
‘Hello, love, can I help you?’ she asked.
‘Er … I was wondering if Jamie Branning was here?’ Flora answered in a wobbly voice.
‘Jamie, why yes, he’s about somewhere.’ The woman frowned as she tried to think where he might be then suddenly remembering her manners she smiled and said, ‘I’m Cissie, I live here. Well, not in the house exactly. Me an’ me husband live in a cottage in the grounds wi’ our family. But do you mind me askin’ who it is wants to see him?’
‘I’m Flora … Flora Butler. Jamie and I were friends when he was working near my home in Londo—’
‘Flora!’ Cissie snorted gleefully. ‘Well, I’ll be. You’re the one who broke ’is heart. But never mind that for now. Come in, come in. I’ll just tell Sunday you’re here then I’ll try an’ find Jamie.’
But she had no need to call Sunday for at that moment an attractive woman appeared in the hallway and after glancing at Flora asked, ‘Is this the young person who’s come to apply for the maid’s job, Cissie?’
‘No, it ain’t,’ Cissie told her, nothing like Flora would have expected a maid to address her mistress. ‘This young lady ’ere is Flora … The one who stole our Jamie’s heart.’
‘Flora!’ Sunday looked shocked then her face broke into a smile that seemed to light up the whole room. ‘Why, how wonderful! But Jamie told us you’d gone to New York.’
Flora was heartened to learn that Jamie had spoken about her. ‘I had but I came back home a while ago and …’
‘Oh, you must come in,’ Sunday urged. ‘Cissie run to the kitchen and get cook to make a tray of tea, would you, please? Then ask one of the children to run and find Jamie. I think he’s in the stables with Tom. Just tell them to tell him he has a visitor.’
Taking her elbow, Sunday led her into a large room where the table was covered with colouring books and crayons. There were toys scattered everywhere and it wasn’t anything like Flora had expected it to be from the outside. It was spotlessly clean but looked lived in and was very comfy and cosy.
‘Cissie will be in with the tea in a minute,’ Sunday told her in a state of great excitement. ‘It’s lovely to meet you, Flora, but I’m going to leave you now. I have a feeling that you and Jamie are going to have an awful lot to talk about when he arrives and you don’t want me playing gooseberry.’ And before Flora could get a word in, Sunday was gone, closing the door quietly behind her.
Flora put her bag down and crossed to one of the enormous windows overlooking
the gardens. They were just as lovely as Jamie had told her and she could see now why he loved the place so much. Cissie came bustling in shortly after to place a tray of tea on the table but then she too scuttled away like a cat whose tail was on fire.
She stood there with her back to the door, every second seeming like an hour and then at last she heard footsteps, and as the door opened she held her breath as she slowly turned. Jamie was standing there looking completely thunderstruck, but after a moment he pulled himself together and held his hand out politely.
‘Hello, Flora. I never expected to see you again. How are you?’
His formal words made her heart sink. He wasn’t pleased to see her. Still, she was here now and determined to say what she had come to say.
‘I … I’m very well, thank you, and I … I came to say I’m sorry,’ she said quietly.
He raised his eyebrow. ‘For what? Preferring to go off to New York than carry on seeing me?’
Her head wagged from side to side as she wrung her hands together. ‘It wasn’t like that, I promise. After we argued that first time, I went to meet you the next week to say I loved you and wasn’t going to go, but you weren’t there. I kept going back every Sunday, waiting to see if you’d come, but you never did. And then I went to your lodging house to try to find you, but you’d moved away, so I thought you’d changed your mind. That you didn’t love me after all.’
He shrugged.
‘And then when I came back … Mrs Merry told me that you had come to see me and she’d told you that Connie and I had already sailed. She kept your letters from me too. She was afraid that I was changing my mind, you see? She didn’t want Connie to have to travel alone so soon after losing her father.’
His face gentled a little and he sighed. ‘Well, it’s all in the past and over and done with now, isn’t it? We’ve both probably grown up an awful lot since then. It clearly just wasn’t meant to be.’
She stared at him long and hard before saying quietly, ‘Do you really believe that, Jamie? Because I’m not ashamed to admit that there has never been a single day that I haven’t missed you since we’ve been apart. I wrote so many letters to you but never had the courage to post them. They’re all here, look.’ She slowly withdrew the bundle of letters tied with ribbon from her bag and placed them down on a small table. ‘Perhaps when you do read them, if you want to that is, you’ll see just how much I do care for you! It was only when Connie and I were on our way that I realised what a fool I’d been to even consider going in the first place, even though I thought you didn’t care, I should have stayed and tried to come and find you here. But clearly your feelings have changed now, and I understand. It’s been a long time, after all.’ Humiliation and pain were threatening to swamp her and suddenly she just wanted to be gone. Somewhere far away where she could lick her wounds and tell herself what a fool she’d been.
‘Goodbye, Jamie. I’m sorry to have troubled you,’ she said in a strangled voice as she grabbed her bag and headed for the door, but just then it was flung open and Cissie and Sunday stood there side by side looking for all the world as if they were ready to do battle. They had seen how much he had pined for the girl yet now she was here he was willing to let her go again.
Over my dead body! Cissie thought. ‘Just what the hell do you think you’re doing sending this girl away when you’ve done nothing but moon about over her like a lovesick cow for years?’ she demanded with her hands on her hips.
Jamie flushed with temper. ‘You’ve been eavesdropping at the door the pair of you, haven’t you?’
‘Aye, an’ it’s a good job we did an’ all, ain’t it?’ Cissie snapped back with no trace of shame. ‘I know exactly why you’re sendin’ her away but perhaps you should tell her the reason an’ then let her make a decision on what happens next. The poor lass clearly loves you or she wouldn’t have come all this way now, would she?’
Jamie’s temper drained away as he looked towards Flora who was watching him avidly.
He looked back at Cissie and the woman who had been the only mother he had ever known and told them quietly, ‘All right, you win. But could you please leave us alone now and give us some privacy. I mean properly leave us alone!’
‘With the greatest of pleasure, you daft young oaf,’ Cissie replied, and taking Sunday’s elbow she led her smartly from the room with a big, satisfied grin on her face.
For a moment the two young people stood facing each other, then Flora asked falteringly, ‘So what did Cissie mean, Jamie?… That she knew why you were sending me away? Did she mean that you do still have feelings for me?’
‘Of course I do!’ He ran his hand through his hair distractedly in the way she remembered so well. ‘I’ve never stopped loving you … but it’s too late for us now.’
‘Too late?’ She looked confused. ‘But why is it too late?’
He sighed. ‘It’s too late because war is going to be announced any day now and I … I’ve already signed up for the army. I’m leaving to start my training in Wiltshire in two weeks’ time. Do you understand what I’m saying? I’m going to fight and there’s a chance I might not come back … I couldn’t expect you to wait for me under those circumstances.’
Flora’s face darkened as she went to stand in front of him and now it was she who was angry. ‘Cissie was right, you are a silly oaf,’ she scowled. ‘I love you so much I’d wait for you under any circumstances, forever if need be!’
‘You would?’
She nodded and as his arms came around her, she said more gently, ‘I would, but only on one condition. If you’re not going for two weeks then we have time to get a special licence and you can make an honest woman of me before you leave.’
‘Flora Butler, are you proposing to me?’ His face was as bright as hers now as she nestled her head on his shoulder and sighed contentedly.
‘I suppose I am.’ She looked up at him. ‘So … what’s your answer?’
‘Well, never let it be said that I didn’t do the right thing.’ And then his lips were on hers and suddenly all was right with the world.
Straightening up from the keyhole, Cissie smiled at Sunday who was standing anxiously behind her.
She put her thumb up. ‘Seems like we have a weddin’ to plan,’ she told her, and arm in arm they went to the kitchen to celebrate with a good strong cup of tea and share the happy news with their husbands.
Epilogue
March 1919
Flora shifted her weight as she tried to get comfortable in the armchair and glanced out of the cottage window to where Constance, her four-year-old daughter, was playing in the garden. Spring was upon them and daffodils and primulas were peeping through the earth but it still tended to be cold in the wind so Flora had made sure the child was well wrapped up in a warm coat and bright red hat, scarf and gloves that she had knitted for her. She smiled fondly as she watched her gambolling about the garden with her puppy, a mischievous Jack Russell terrier that she and Jamie had bought the child for her last birthday. The two of them were inseparable. Patch, as Constance had named him, even slept on the child’s bed at night.
She turned her attention back to the room then to make sure that everything was just right for her mother’s arrival. Jamie had gone to meet her from the train and they should be home very soon now, provided the train was on time. She had planned to go to London to attend church with her mother for the Mother’s Day service, which was the next day, but because she was so advanced in her pregnancy her mother had decided that it might be safer if she came to Flora instead. Now the little cottage in Mancetter that had been a wedding present from Sunday and Tom, Jamie’s adoptive parents, gleamed from top to bottom and a cheery fire was burning in the grate, turning the highly polished brass fender to molten gold.
She smiled reflectively. The last four years had been full of ups and downs. She and Jamie had married in the tiny church in Mancetter – the village where they now lived – before he left for his army training, and the time they had shared befo
re he left to fight had been all too brief. And then two months later, Flora had discovered that she was carrying his child. Little Connie was now referred to as their honeymoon baby, but she had been two years old before Jamie finally got to meet her when he was shipped home after being shot in the leg during the Battle of the Somme.
Flora had prayed that this would be the end of the fighting for him but once the leg had healed somewhat, Jamie had insisted on going back. Shortly after, his leg had become infected and gangrene had almost cost him his life. Flora had spent weeks in a hospital in Plymouth with him after he had been shipped home for the second time, as he hovered between life and death, until the surgeons finally decided that the only way to save him would be to amputate his leg below the knee.
Jamie had been devastated whereas Flora was simply relieved when at last, following the operation, he slowly started to make a recovery. However, when he finally returned home on crutches, Jamie was a changed man and had slipped into a deep depression.
‘What use am I to man or beast now?’ he would ask Flora as she tenderly nursed him back to health.
‘You’re alive, that’s all that matters,’ she would tell him over and over again. But Jamie had seen sights that would haunt him forever. His best friend had died in his arms on the battlefield and there had been nothing whatsoever that Jamie could do to save him. He had seen men buried still alive in thick cloying mud and lived in rat-infested trenches, and it had taken a long, long time for him finally to return to being the man she had known before he went to war. Thankfully the year after he lost his leg he was fitted with a prosthesis and although he had suffered terribly getting used to it, it made him feel like a man again and once he had learned to walk on it he had found himself a job in the post office sorting office in Nuneaton, which had given him back his pride.
There had been a difficult time again last year when she had given birth to a stillborn son, which brought back horrible memories of poor Jai Li’s ordeal, as well as the little soul she had been unable to protect on the Titanic. She and Jamie had grieved deeply for the little boy, and though she knew she was not to blame, Flora had felt guilty; she knew how much Jamie longed for a son. On top of which, after all the tragedy of the previous years, the baby had represented hope for the future for them. But now, with this new little one about to arrive, they had managed to come to terms with their loss.
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