We'll meet again

That'll please him. How are you, Miss? I've been run off me plates of meat this morning." I had to get used to his Cockney rhyming slang and discovered that his "plates of meat" were his feet. He told me his trouble and strife (his wife) had been bombed in her place in Bow.

"Kitchen ceiling come down. What a mess! It was a job to clear it up.

She said: Did that Hitler think she was his housemaid? Pity he couldn't clear up his own mess.”

His conversation was always accompanied by those winks, to which I had now become accustomed, and bursts of laughter. I always felt the better for having seen him.

Yes, I did enjoy those days. I had made a habit of spending an hour or so with Tristan in the mornings before I left for the Priory and again after I returned home. I would sit with the children and read them a story while Nanny Crabtree watched, nodding with pleasure. I was sure she was thinking that this was how a mother should behave (not going off gallivanting, with foreigners), for, of course, Nanny Crabtree had never accepted that amnesia story.

"Loss of memory, my foot," she had said. "That Dorabella's not the sort to go losing her memory. No, she'll be up to something.”

And Violetta had said: "We must tell Nanny the truth. She'll be terribly shocked, but she'll forgive you, and in any case, she won't rest until she knows what really did happen.”

Then there was Simone. I met her frequently about the estate. She had turned out to be different from the quiet, earnest girl who had arrived in England with her one desire to fight for her country.

She never seemed to want to talk about Jacques. Well, nor did I, so that was no hardship. She had seen very little of him during their childhood, and then she had gone to live with the aunt in the country.

She was lighthearted and frivolous in a way-not unlike myself.

She told me about one of the men on the farm who was pursuing her. He was a typical Cornishman, Daniel Killick by name, and she made me laugh by her efforts to reproduce his accent, and was really funny about their attempts to communicate-her English being a little limited and her accent not helping, the Cornish expressions were incomprehensible to her.

We giggled a good deal together, and, I must say, it was a relief at that time, for the gloom of war could be very depressing.

Of course, she wanted to know about me. I told her about Dermot and she was naturally aware of my affair with Jacques. She said he had always had love affairs and he had stayed with me longer than with most and, after all, it was I who had walked out on him.

Very soon I was telling her about Captain Brent.

"He is charming, that one," she said. "Like my poor Daniel? Oh, no! Quelle difference! Tell me. I am all nose.”

"Ears," I corrected her and we giggled. I told her of my meeting with the captain on the cliffs and how our friendship had progressed from there.

Life was full of interest at that time. Even those boring Germans had turned to the Russians, which everyone thought was a "good thing" for us, if not for the Russians.

It was a warm day-oppressively so. I decided to go down to the town to order a few things. There were always certain goods we needed. I had plenty of time, so I walked over the cliffs, did the ordering and then made my way to the cottage. A storm had been threatening all the afternoon, and there were thunder clouds over the sea. As I emerged from the town I heard the first clap of thunder.

Then the rain came teeming down and by the time I reached James's cottage my thin dress was soaked; there was water in my sandals and my hair was streaking round my face.

Fortunately, James was in.

Stating the obvious, he cried: "You're drenched!”

"That's putting it mildly," I said.

"Hurry and get those things off.”

"Where's Joe?”

"Gone into Bodmin to get some stores. Get to the bathroom and I'll find something for you to put on. Then we'll dry those wet clothes.”

I went up the stairs to the small bathroom. James left me there and in a few moments returned and handed me a toweling dressing-gown. I took off my clothes, dried myself vigorously, and wrapped the dressing-gown about me. It was huge-being his own.

I came out. He was in the bedroom, sitting on the bed.

He said: "That's quite becoming. I thought it was an insignificant thing-until now.”

"It's rather large.”

"Well, I am a little bigger than you.”

He stood up and put his hands on my shoulders.

There is no need for me to go into details: it was inevitable. It was so romantic, if a somewhat stereotyped situation. It was like something in a play. The hero and heroine are thrown together... the car breaks down ... or the girl is caught in the storm ... never mind what manipulations are undergone to get them into this situation. But there it is... thrust upon them.

He slipped the dressing-gown from my shoulders. Now was the time for me to express outraged protests. But did I? Of course not.