Maisie Dobbs

by Jacqueline Winspear

  “Yes, I’m laying it on a bit thick. But I’m worried about him. He’s talking about going off to live on a farm in Kent. Sounds very strange to me. In fact, it sounds more than strange. Maisie, I confess, I’m frightened for James. He has been in the depths of melancholy since the war, it seems, and now this!”

  “Of course. I’ll do anything I can to help,” replied Maisie.

  “Thank you so much, my dear. What time will you be here?”

  “Will six o’clock be all right?”

  “Perfect. I’ll tell Carter. Mrs. Crawford will be delighted to see you.”

  “Until then, Lady Rowan.”

  “Take care, Maisie. And remember, I want to know everything about what you are doing.”

  “I will leave no story untold, Lady Rowan.”

  The two women laughed, bade each other good-bye, and replaced their respective telephone receivers. Without a second’s delay Maisie checked her watch. She reached into the top drawer of her desk and took out a small ledger with “Telephone” marked on the cover. Inside she made a note that the call to Lady Rowan Compton had taken four minutes. Maisie replaced the ledger and closed the drawer before walking to the window.

  Of course she would offer Lady Rowan any assistance in her power, for she was indebted to her for so much. And Maisie knew, too, how difficult the aftermath of the war had been for James—but not, perhaps, as hard as it had been for the likes of Vincent. Yet Maisie was sympathetic to his melancholy, which was as much due to a loss still mourned as to his injuries. Maisie wondered whether Lord Julian had concerns regarding the ability of his only son to take on the family’s business interests, and she was aware that Lady Rowan had often been the peacekeeper between the two. Tall, blond, blue-eyed James had always been the apple of his mother’s eye. Years ago, when his son was no longer a child, Lord Julian had been heard to say on many an occasion,“You’re spoiling that boy, Rowan.” And now the once mischievously energetic James seemed hollow and drawn. Lady Rowan had been secretly relieved when James, a flying ace, was injured—not in the air but during an explosion on the ground. She knew his wounds would heal, and that she would have him safe at home at a time when so many of her contemporaries were receiving word that their sons had been lost to war.

  Maisie turned from the window, and walked toward the door. Taking her coat and hat from the stand, she looked around the room, extinguished the light, and left her office. As she locked the door behind her, she reflected upon how strange it was that a man who had significant financial resources, time, and a beautiful house in the country would seek the peace and quiet that might dispel his dark mood by going to live on a stranger’s farm. Making her way downstairs in the half-light shed by the flickering gas lamp, Maisie felt a chill move through her body. And she knew that the sensation was not caused by the cold or the damp, but by a threat—a threat to the family of the woman she held most dear, the woman who had helped her achieve accomplishments that might otherwise have remained an unrealized dream.

  SPRING 1910 – SPRING 1917

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Born in 1863, and growing up in the middle years of Queen Victoria’s reign, Lady Rowan had delighted her father, the fourth Earl of Westavon, but had been the source of much frustration for her mother, Lady Westavon, who was known to comment that her daughter was “a lady in name only!” It was clear that, far from being content with pursuits more becoming her position and upbringing, she was happiest with her horses and with her brother, Edwin, when he came home from school in the holidays. From an early age she had questioned her father, disagreed with her mother, and by the time she was on the cusp of womanhood, caused her parents to wonder if a suitable match would ever be found.

  Maurice Blanche was ten years Lady Rowan’s senior, a school friend of her brother. At first Rowan was fascinated by Maurice during those weekends when Edwin brought Maurice home from Marlborough School.

  “His people are in France, so I thought he might like to get out for a bit of a break,” said Edwin, introducing the short, stocky boy who seemed to have little to say.

  But when Maurice spoke, the young Rowan hung on his every word. His accent, a hybrid that came as a result of his French father and Scottish mother, intrigued her. As she grew older, Lady Rowan realized that Maurice moved with ease among people of any background, often changing his accent slightly to echo the nuances and rhythm of the other person’s speech. The listener only vaguely appreciated the distinction, but nevertheless leaned in closer, smiled more easily, and probably shared a confidence to which no other person had been privy. Gradually his influence on the life of Lady Rowan challenged and inspired her, and in turn, his trust in her honest opinion was unfailing.

  In the course of his life’s work, Maurice Blanche could count among his friends and colleagues: philosophers, scientists, doctors, psychologists, and members of the judiciary. It was a self-designed career that had rendered him invaluable to an extraordinary range of people, whether government ministers, those investigating crime, or simply people who needed information.

  In 1898, the year in which Lady Rowan celebrated the tenth anniversary of her marriage to Lord Julian Compton, it was clear to Maurice that Rowan needed to be engaged in more than simply London’s social calendar. Her only son, James, had just been sent away to a preparatory school, an inevitable event Lady Rowan had dreaded. During a heated political discussion Maurice dared the very vocal and opinionated Lady Rowan to follow her own challenging words with actions.

  “It’s not enough to say that you want equality, Ro. What do you intend to do about it?

  Lady Rowan swallowed hard. Soon after, she became a fully fledged and active suffragette.

  Eleven years later Lady Rowan Compton shocked Belgravia by marching on Westminster, demanding the vote and equality for women, rich and poor. Lord Julian was long suffering, but the truth of the matter was that he adored Rowan and would walk on hot coals rather than cross her. Questioned about his wife’s involvement, Lord Julian would simply reply, “Oh, you know Ro, once she’s got the bit between her teeth . . . .” and people would nod sympathetically and leave the subject alone, which was exactly what Lord Julian wanted them to do. However, it was Maurice Blanche who challenged Rowan once again on the depth of her commitment.

  “So you march on Westminster, and you have these meetings with your sister suffragettes, but what are you actually doing?”

  “Maurice, what do you mean, what am I doing? This house is full of women meeting together three times a week—and we’re forging ahead, make no mistake!”

  Lady Rowan had barely taken a sip from her glass of sherry when Maurice issued an instruction. “We’re off. Got something to show you. Go and change. Plain walking skirt and a jacket will do. And good sturdy shoes, Rowan.”

  Blanche stood up and walked toward the window, a move that suggested she should be quick.

  “Maurice, you had better have good reason—”

  “Hurry up, Rowan, or I shall leave without you.”

  Lady Rowan went immediately to her room, and when Nora, her personal maid, came to ask if she was needed, she was turned away.

  “No. That’s quite all right, Nora. I can help myself, you know.”

  Lady Rowan dressed quickly, with only a cursory glance in the mirror. She cut a handsome figure, and she knew it. Not that she was quintessentially pretty, but with her height and aquiline profile, she was striking. She was an athletic woman, a keen and competitive tennis player, an accomplished equestrienne, and a notoriously reckless skier on the slopes of Wengen until she was well into her forties. Her once rich chestnut hair had dulled slightly and was peppered with gray, but mercifully her weight had changed little since the day of her marriage. On the day Maurice Blanche demanded she accompany him, Lady Rowan Compton was forty-seven.

  Rowan was excited. Maurice was prodding her at a time when life had lost some of the edge it had had in her youth. Yes, she was involved in the suffragette movement, she had her horses at the coun
try estate, and of course there was the London social calendar, engagements and reciprocal entertainment making up an important part of her life in town during the season. James had just finished his schooling. She had looked forward to his company at home when his school years were over, but she rarely had it, for no sooner had he returned from the city than he seemed to vanish again. James was a man now, if still a very young one.

  As she dressed, Lady Rowan tingled with anticipation, Maurice might provide her with a diversion to fill a gap that seemed to be widening with the passing years. She returned to the drawing room, and they left the house quickly. The two old friends walked along the tree-lined street, conversation unnecessary, although Lady Rowan was aching to know where they were going.

  “I’m not saying that you are not busy, Rowan,” Maurice broke their silence. “Not at all. And the cause is a worthy one. For women to have a place of account in this society, they must have a political voice. And having had one queen on the throne in the modern age does not constitute such a voice. But Rowan, with you the voice always comes from a safe place, does it not?”

  “You should have been on the march, Maurice. That wasn’t safe at all.”

  “I’m sure. But we both know that I’m not talking about marches. I’m talking about the safe place that we remain in, within the world we were born to. Swimming forever in the confines of our own pond. Socially, intellectually—”

  “Maurice—”

  “Rowan, we will speak again of equality later, for it is equality that you claim to want. Now then, we must wait here for an omnibus.”

  “A what? Now, I told you, Maurice—we should have called for the motor.”

  “No, Rowan. We are stepping out of your pond today. I have the fare for us both.”

  It was dark when they returned to Belgravia in silence. Rowan was deep in thought. She had seen much that troubled her. But nothing troubled her more than her own emotions.

  “You’ll come in . . .”

  “No, Rowan. You are tired from swimming in another pond today. A pond that, though discussed in your meetings and debates, you could not truly imagine. Poverty is something we think we understand from description. It is only when it is close to hand that we have a grasp of what it means to be unequal.”

  “But what can I do?”

  “No need to wear a hair shirt, Rowan. But perhaps opportunities will present themselves. One only has to ask, ‘How might I serve?’ Goodnight, my dear.”

  Maurice bowed slightly, then left Rowan in the entrance hall of her grand home.

  He had taken her to the East End of London. First to the noisy markets, which thrilled her, although she could not look directly at some of the street urchins. Then into the depths of London’s poorest areas. And it seemed that always someone knew him.

  “Evenin’, Doc, awright then?”

  “Well, very well. And how is the youngest?”

  “Comin’ on a treat, Doc. Thanks to you.”

  Rowan didn’t ask about his relationship to the people who greeted him so readily. Maurice was certainly a doctor, but after attending King’s College Medical School in London, he had studied at the University of Edinburgh’s Department of Legal Medicine. Rowan was under the impression that he no longer practiced. At least not upon people who were still alive.

  “To answer the question that is written all over your face, Rowan—once or twice a week, I attend women and children at a small clinic. There is precious little set aside for the poor, there is a constant need for help, for . . . everything. And, of course, bringing children safely into the world and providing care when they are sick is a refreshing change for me.”

  Rowan rung the bell in the drawing room. She had dismissed Carter, the butler, as soon as she arrived home, but now she craved inner warmth.

  How may I serve? What can I do? What would be sensible? What would Julian say? Well, that was something she would not have to think about. If Maurice was her challenger, Julian was her rock.

  “Yes, Your Ladyship?”

  “Carter, I’d like some hot soup, please—something simple, nothing too clever, you understand. And a sherry please, Carter.”

  “Very good, Ma’am. Cook prepared a tasty vegetable soup this afternoon, as soon as the delivery arrived.”

  “Perfect. Perfect, Carter.”

  Carter poured sherry into a crystal glass and held it out on a silver salver.

  “Oh—and Carter. Before I forget. I would like to speak to you about the dinner next week and our guests. Lord Julian’s business associates. Tomorrow morning after breakfast, tell Cook to come to my study as well. Ten o’clock.”

  “Very good, Your Ladyship. Will that be all?”

  Later, as Lady Rowan finished the hot soup that had been brought on a tray to the drawing room, she leaned back in her chair and contemplated what she had seen that day, and about the conversation with Maurice. It is so easy, she thought. All I have to do is snap my fingers and someone runs. Equality. Maurice is right, I can do more.

  While Lady Rowan readied herself for bed in her grand house in Belgravia on that night in the spring of 1910, a thirteen-year-old girl cried herself to sleep in the small back room of a soot-blackened terraced house in southeast London. Her jet black hair, released from a neat braid and purple ribbon, cascaded over the pillow, and the deep blue eyes that so easily reflected joy were rimmed with dark circles and red with tears. She cried for her loss and cried, too, for her father, whose dreadful, deep breathless sobs echoed from kitchen below.

  Maisie had held her tears back for days, believing that if her father did not see or hear her crying, he would not worry about her, and his burden would be lighter. And each day, his heart breaking, he rose in the early hours of the morning, harnessed his horse to the cart, and made his way to Covent Garden Market.

  At first, after her mother died, Maisie would pinch herself three times on the right arm before sleeping, assured that this one action would make her rise at three o’clock in the morning, in time to make his tea and spread a thick slice of bread with beef dripping for him eat in front of the coal stove before he set off for the market.

  “You don’t ’ave to do that, love. I can watch out for meself, Maisie. You go on back to bed. And mind you lock that door after I leave.”

  “I’m all right, Dad. You’ll see. We’ll be all right.”

  But Frankie Dobbs was at a loss. A widower with a thirteen-year-old daughter. She needed more, and Lord knows that the girl and her mother had been close, thought Frankie. No, he had to find something better for the girl than for her to be little woman of the house.

  Oh, there was so much that they had wanted for Maisie, the child that had come to them in later life, and who was, they said, the answer to many prayers. She was a bright one, they knew that almost from the beginning. In fact, people would remark on it, that even as a newborn it seemed that Maisie could focus on a person and follow them with her eyes. “That girl can look right through you,” people would say, when she was still a babe in arms.

  The Dobbses had been putting money away for Maisie’s education, so that she could stay on at school, perhaps even go on to be a teacher. They were so proud of their girl. But the money was gone, long gone to pay for doctors, medicine, and a holiday at the seaside, just in case the fresh salty air worked a miracle. But nothing had worked. Frankie was alone with his girl now, and he was afraid. Afraid that he couldn’t do well by her, that he had nothing left to give her. No, it was settled. He had to find a place for Maisie.

  It seemed to Frankie that even Persephone, his old mare, had lost pride in her step. Frankie always made sure his horse and cart were well turned out; it made a difference to business. He might be a costermonger, but there was no excuse for looking shabby. With trousers pressed under the mattress each night, a clean white collarless shirt, fresh brightly colored neckerchief, his best woolen waistcoat, and a cloth cap set jauntily on the side of his head, Frankie himself was always well turned out. “Just because I use me
’ands to make a livin’ doesn’t mean to say I can’t do with a bit of spit and polish,” Frankie had been heard to say.

  And as he climbed up onto the driver’s seat of his cart, Frankie was more than proud of his shining horse and the gleaming leather and brass traces. Persephone, a Welsh cob, trotted proudly down the street, lifting her hooves high as if she knew how good she looked. But since the death of Maisie’s mother, Frankie’s inner malaise was felt keenly by Persephone, who now trotted in a desultory manner, as if the family’s grief had added several hundredweight to her load.

  In the kitchen of the house in Belgravia, Carter and Lady Rowan’s cook, Mrs. Crawford, were deep in conversation about the morning’s meeting to discuss the week’s dinner plans.

  “What time will Mr. Dobbs be here, Cook? You’ll need to have a complete list of fresh vegetables for Lady Rowan, and your menu planned for the week.”

  Cook rolled her eyes. Just what she loved, being told how to do her job.

  “Mr. Carter, menu suggestions are in hand. I asked Mr. Dobbs to stop by again today to give me a list of what is best at market this week. He is going out of the way to be at our service, poor man.”

  “Yes indeed, Cook. Mr. Dobbs certainly has his hands full. I quite agree.”

  Outside the rear entrance of the house, a horse and cart came to a halt. They could hear Frankie Dobbs talking to Persephone, putting on her nosebag of oats, telling her he wouldn’t be long, then setting off down the stairs that led to the back door of the kitchen.

  “That’ll be him now.” Cook wiped her hands on a cloth, and went to answer the door.

  “Mr. Dobbs,” she said, standing aside so that Frankie Dobbs could enter the large warm room. As he removed his cloth cap, Mrs. Crawford cast a glance at Carter, frowned, and shook her head. Frankie Dobbs looked pale and drawn.

  “Good morning, Mr. Dobbs. How are you?”