Angela Cranley paused at the top of the hill to catch her breath. The path from Fittlescombe along Devil’s Dyke and up to Saddlescombe Farm, once home to the Knights Templar and now a popular rest stop and tea room for walkers, was one of the steepest in the South Downs, affording spectacular views. Gringo was too old and infirm to manage such a long hike, so Angela had gone alone, heading out early on this beautiful, misty September morning.
I’ll miss this place, she thought wistfully, gazing down at the ancient landscape, shrouded in mist like a grey veiled bride. The legends of the devil and his wife being buried beneath the seven grassy humps at the foot of the valley were almost as old as the hills themselves. On her way up to the summit, Angela had walked through an Iron Age fort and past a thousand-year-old water mill, the oldest still operational in England. The Hamptons were beautiful in their own way, a different way. But there was nothing there, nothing in the whole of America, like this. The chalk hills, steeped in myth, the ruins and the old churches, the villages and the woods and the burbling river Swell, unchanged over countless generations. To belong to a place like Fittlescombe was more than a case of knowing your neighbours or volunteering for the village fete. It was to feel a kinship with everyone who had gone before, every grave in St Hilda’s churchyard, every soul who, like you, had been lucky enough to call this magic valley home.
She told herself every day that they were not leaving forever. Furlings was only on a one-year lease. It was still theirs. She and Brett would still return to it. They would live out their old age here, and be buried one day among those familiar St Hilda’s graves.
Crossing the stile, she carefully made her way down the steep bank on the other side. A figure of eight would take her back through Brockhurst woods, past the Harwiches’ hidden Hansel and Gretel house and back to Fittlescombe via Gabe and Laura Baxter’s farm. As she walked, her thoughts drifted to Brett. He’d left for New York yesterday, to finalize things at the new house and ‘tie up some business’, whatever that meant. He’d seemed in an odd mood, tetchy and distracted, and a tiny note of anxiety had crept into Angela’s heart. She didn’t regret her decision to move with him to America. Brett felt they needed a new start, and he was right. The marriage had to come first, especially now, with an empty nest looming. But the fact remained, leaving Fittlescombe and Furlings was a sacrifice for Angela, a sacrifice she was making for him. The least he could do would be to acknowledge that, and act happy about it. Brett had a business to go to in New York, an entire life outside their marriage. Angela had Brett. Everything she’d built up here: her charity work in the village; the History of Art classes she’d started taking at an adult education college in Chichester with Max Bingley’s encouragement; her friendships, with many of the locals but particularly with Max; all that would be gone. She couldn’t face it if they got to East Hampton and Brett descended into another of his black moods. If he shut her out here, she had a support network to fall back on. In America she’d be utterly alone.
She walked on, trying not to think about it. By the time she reached the outskirts of the village, the early morning fog had cleared, and with it her doubts and fears. Jason was coming down for lunch today, an unexpected visit that had lifted her spirits immensely. Fittlescombe had already shed the last vestiges of summer, but now dazzled in its autumn colours of brown, yellow and gold. It was cold enough for a fire. Even at this hour there were trails of smoke rising from some of the cottage chimneys, the smell of the burning wood mingling deliciously with the crisp morning air. Angela had asked Mrs Worsley to make a shepherd’s pie for lunch, one of Jason’s childhood favourites, to be followed by apple crumble. Furlings’ orchard had produced a bumper crop this year, the poor trees bent double with the weight of so much fruit.
In less than a month I’ll be on a plane, thought Angela. I must drink it all in. Relish every minute.
Jason stretched out his long legs in front of the fire in Furlings’ drawing room and waited for his mother to return with the tea.
He’d completely funked it so far. They’d spent lunch making small talk about Angela’s upcoming move, Furlings’ new tenants and the Hamptons house, which sounded beautiful, although Jason could tell his mother had misgivings about the whole American adventure.
It was two weeks since the awful, fateful day when Maddie Wilkes had walked in on him and George together. So much had happened since then, it felt like two years. Maddie had instigated divorce proceedings, which looked set to be bitter, but as Tati predicted she had backed off from the idea of making a public scandal out of her private family drama. George had moved out, and was staying at a flat in Sloane Gardens, a few yards from Jason and Tati’s house.