‘Six years old. Can you believe it? Your brother James was very handsome, and had certain attractions, but he made my child’s life hell on earth with his moods and his sullenness. My other child, Raymond, was killed, you know, a few years ago. He was the elder, and my husband was killed in Algeria, so I am the widow and I am cared for by Florence now that she has, at last, come home from that house. My house. Left to me by my father, who bought it for me, which was very kind, don’t you think?’

‘Very.’

She refilled her can. ‘There is little enough kindness in this world, Mr Colco, believe me. Little enough. I am a widow now and Florence is an old maid. And we know.’

I looked up at her, I confess, startled. I’d been looking vaguely at the bronze heron and thinking how hideous it really was, hardly listening to her ceaseless chattering and her pushing and shoving about of the potted plants. She caught my sudden look instantly, continued watering.

‘But she is married? She married James?’

Madame Prideaux dribbled the last contents of her little can over a fern.

‘In one way perhaps. Wedded by mutual consent, without benefit of priest or church, a wedding ring exchanged, and a mutual agreement to love, honour and even, I think, to obey or something – one was not there to hold the candle, you see? Under a tree in the full moon on some beach on Porquerolles. Such foolishness.’

I sat in silence. I felt that to interrupt would be unwise; let her continue, if she would. And she did.

‘They went away for a month together, a little holiday of love and adoration, all nonsense of course! The marriage … But when they returned it suited the village very well to believe that all was as it should be, and so she moved into the house with him. Voilà! Everything was normal and natural. But they have no deeds, and no marriage. In the law my child is unmarried. She is only married in her own mind.’

‘Did you know, Madame?’

She laughed dryly. Refilled the watering-can, straightened her cardigan which had risen up over her broad backside. ‘For a little time, no. But…’

She now attacked some wispy plant with striped leaves, tut-tutting with anger. ‘White-fly! They are impossible. I get them on my pelargoniums and that’s the end of them. They are almost impossible to eradicate.’

‘You were saying that for a time you believed that James and Florence were really married?’

‘So I was. Yes, I did. For a little time. But you can’t conceal a terrible lie so easily. Oh, romantic, I agree – they always wanted to get married but disliked the idea of churches and all the tra-la-la which goes with weddings normally, so they did it their way. Foolish children. They were caught out in their sin …’