‘Freddy, I’ve brought your nephew, Freddy, to meet you. How I wish you could be here to meet him properly.’
Flora felt Cyrus’s arm round her shoulder. Freddy’s little hand clasped hers, as she read the inscription on the cross marking her brother’s grave: ‘Frederic Hatton, Private. Essex Regiment – killed in action 1916.’
‘Doesn’t the cemetery look lovely? The French people have done our soldiers proud.’
Flora nodded; she knew this was as painful for Cyrus as it was for her, and that he was trying to distract himself from the emotions that threatened to overwhelm them both.
Flora’s mind showed her her time with Freddy, from first meeting him on the station all those years ago, to when she held him in her arms as he died. A young man, barely sixteen years old, but a brave soldier.
After a moment they turned away. This was the most difficult thing for Flora to do, because what had just happened was like a final goodbye.
Cyrus didn’t speak as they got into the car. But as they drove away, his chatter was about vineyards, and in particular the Phylloxera bug that had all but destroyed the wine industry in France some fifty years previously, and which had left many vineyards deserted. This gradually helped Flora to think of other things than the pain of those she had lost. His enthusiasm was inspiring and gave her hope for their future.
‘The agent that I wrote to replied, with a particular vineyard for sale in Languedoc-Roussillon in south-west France. He said that at one time it was the best in the region, but the family never recovered after the Phylloxera epidemic. Sadly, the stress killed the father, and the son took his own life. The wife went back to her family in Spain. The vineyard has been run by two tenants since then, but neither really had the funds to restock it properly, and so it is now for sale. I’m very excited to see it, Flora. There is a chateau that is in need of repair, and ten acres of land.’
‘Will this Phyll-whatever-it-was come back?’
‘Very unlikely, as they now graft vines from North America onto the natural French vine. These North American vines are resilient to the bug.’
‘How did you learn so much about it all, in such a short time?’
‘It isn’t a short time, darling. It has been a dream of mine for many years, since we studied the subject in our botany class. I became fascinated by how a little bug can destroy thousands of vines. That led to my interest in the whole process of wine-making. It hasn’t been an all-consuming interest, as my music has always been that, but a sort of hobby that I enjoyed reading about. And then, in the prisoner-of-war camp, there were some French officers. With me being able to speak the language, I got along really well with them. One, Monsieur Raynard d’Olivier, was from Languedoc. We spoke for hours about vine-growing. His family owns a vineyard. Sadly, he died of dysentery. I vowed that one day I would visit his family and tell them of our friendship and how it helped us both.’
Flora put out her hand and laid it on Cyrus’s knee. ‘The lives of so many have been torn apart.’
‘Yes, darling. So many gone. But those of us who are left must build a new world. Remember, they are saying that the war was the war to end all wars, so we have brought peace to the world. Now we have to make it an even better place.’
The French countryside sped by – areas that looked green and peaceful, but that had seen thousands of deaths in their fields.
It was two days later when they arrived in the Languedoc area. The vineyard they were to look at was in the village of Laurens in Hérault. The houses of the village were large and would once, Flora knew, have been painted white, and their windowboxes would have been full of trailing flowers. Now paint peeled from their closed shutters, and bricks showed through, where once plaster had covered them. Every house was in need of a fresh coat of whitewash.
Some children were playing near a three-foot-high wall. The boys were dressed in dark all-in-one suits, with the trousers flaring just below their knee. The girls were mainly in navy-coloured frocks with high necklines and long sleeves. One boy had a hoop and stick and was trying to keep the hoop running along the road, while the others laughed at his antics.
It was a welcoming, if shabbily attired group as the children ran towards them when they pulled up, all of them excited to see such a car in their village. And maybe the first car they had ever seen in their lives, as there was no sign of any other vehicles. A horse and trap were tethered to a fence a short distance ahead, but that was all in the way of transport that Flora could see.
Cyrus got out and answered their questions, making the children laugh and promising them a ride in the car, in return for the many favours he would need as they settled in. ‘The first favour is for you to take me to the house of Madame Ferrouk, as we are to lodge in her house.’
The children shouted, ‘Let me show you’, ‘I know Madame Ferrouk’ and ‘This way – follow me.’ One enterprising young boy said, ‘Let me sit in your car and take you there. These others will take you along the paths, but I will take you the route of the road.’
This seemed the best offer, and so Juan Felipe started his friendship with them.
‘My family is from the other side of the Pyrenees, in Spain. But my father came here looking for work.’
‘Did he find work?’
‘Not yet, Monsieur. But he is a fine wine-grower. His father – my grandfather – lost our land to gambling. He was not a good man.’
Neither of them commented on this, as the boy looked forlorn.
‘Here it is, the house of Madame Ferrouk. I’ll help you with your bags.’
‘Thank you, Juan. We are staying for a few weeks, so no doubt we will see you often, and I would very much like to meet your father. I may be able to offer him work in the future.’
When Juan left them, he had a shiny coin in his hand and a big grin on his face. ‘I will tell my father that you wish to see him. He will be here quicker than a hare can run away from his gun!’
They both laughed at this.
Madame Ferrouk’s house was a three-storey building and stood on a corner, with views towards the village, but a backdrop of the magnificent Pyrenees in the distance. Flora caught her breath with the excitement that overcame her, and for the first time in a long while felt a deep happiness and peace enter her. She looked at her Cyrus, his tall, handsome figure climbing the steps to the house, and thought how very much at home he seemed. Eagerness and hope shone from him. How much he deserved them to. They had been through an abyss of misery, separation and loss, but now they had the rest of their lives in front of them. Those lives were shaped by their past, but they were also full of promise. They would work hard to build a better world for their family.
She didn’t dwell on how fractured that family was, but thought of all they had to look forward to: being together in a place where no one could hurt them or point the finger at them.
Flora clasped little Freddy’s hand and held her ever-increasing stomach with her other hand as she climbed the steps. Hope filled her heart for their new beginning. At last the happiness she had been seeking was firmly within her grasp.