Maisie Dobbs

by Jacqueline Winspear

  She tapped on the door of the nurses’ office, which was slightly ajar, and looked in.

  “I’m Maisie Dobbs, visiting . . . .”

  The staff nurse came to her.

  “Yes. Good morning. Lovely to have a visitor. We don’t see many here.”

  “Oh?”

  “No. Difficult for the families. But you’d be surprised what a difference it makes.”

  “Yes. I was a nurse.”

  The staff nurse smiled.“Yes. I know. His mother told us you would be coming. Very pleased, she was. Very happy about it. Told us all . . . well, never mind. Come with me. It’s a lovely day, isn’t it?”

  “Where is he?”

  “The conservatory. Lovely and warm in there. The sun shines in. They love the conservatory.”

  The staff nurse led the way down the corridor, turned left again, and opened a door into the large glass extension to the main building, a huge room filled with exotic plants and trees. Staff Nurse had not stopped talking since they left the nurses’ office; they do that to put the new visitors at ease, thought Maisie.

  “This was originally called the Winter Gardens, built by the owner so the ladies of the house could take a turn in the winter without going outside into the cold. You can have quite the walk in here. It’s a bit too big to call it a conservatory, I suppose. But that’s what we call it.”

  She motioned to Maisie once again. “This way, over to the fountain. Loves the water, he does.”

  The staff nurse pointed to an open window. “And though it’s warm, it doesn’t get too warm, if you know what I mean. We open the windows to let the breeze blow through in summer, and it still feels like summer, doesn’t it? Ah. Here he is.”

  Maisie looked in the direction of her outstretched hand, at the man in a wheelchair with his back to them. He was facing the fountain, his head inclined to one side. The staff nurse walked over to the man, stood in front of him, and leaned over to speak. As she did so she gently tapped his hand. Maisie remained still.

  “Captain Lynch. Got a visitor, you have. Come to see you. A very beautiful lady.”

  The man did not move. He remained facing the fountain. The staff nurse smiled at him, tucked in the blanket covering his knees, and then gave Maisie a broad smile before joining her.

  “Would you like me to stay for a while?”

  “No, no. I’ll be fine.” Maisie bit her lip.

  “Right you are. About twenty minutes? I’ll come back for you then. Never find your way out of the jungle alone!”

  “Thank you, Staff Nurse.”

  The woman nodded, checked the time on the watch pinned to her apron, and walked away along the brick path overhung with branches. Maisie went to Simon and sat down in front of him, on the low wall surrounding the fountain. She looked up at this man she had loved so deeply, with all the intensity of a first love, a love forged in the desperate heat of wartime. Maisie looked at the face she had not seen since 1917, a face now so changed.

  “Hello, my love,” said Maisie.

  There was no response. The eyes stared at a place in the distance beyond Maisie, a place that only he could see. The face was scarred, the hair growing in a shock of gray along scars that lay livid across the top of his skull.

  Maisie put her hand to his face and, running her fingers along the jagged lines, wondered how it could be that the outcome of wounds was so different. That scars so similar on the outside concealed a different, far deeper injury. In comparison, her own wounds from the same exploding shell had been superficial. Yet Simon’s impairment freed him from all sensation of the deeper wound: that of a broken heart.

  Simon still did not move. She took his hands in hers and began to speak.“Forgive me, my love. Forgive me for not coming to you. I was so afraid. So afraid of not remembering you as we were together, as you were. . . .”

  She rubbed his hands. They were warm to the touch, so warm she could feel the cold in her own.

  “At first people asked me why I didn’t come, and I said I didn’t feel well enough to see you. Then as each month, each year passed, it was as if the memory of you—of us . . . the explosion—were encased in fine tissue-paper.”

  Maisie bit her lip, constantly kneading Simon’s still hands as she spoke her confession.“I felt as if I were looking through a window to my own past, and instead of being transparent, my view was becoming more and more opaque, until eventually the time had passed. The time for coming to see you had passed.”

  Breathing deeply, Maisie closed her eyes and gathered her thoughts, then continued, her voice less strained as the weight of formerly unspoken words was lightened.

  “Dad, Lady Rowan, Priscilla—they all stopped asking after a while. I kept them at arm’s length. All except Maurice. Maurice sees through everything. He said that even if people couldn’t see my tissue-paper armor, they could feel it, and would not ask again. But he knew, Maurice knew, that I would have to come one day. He said that the truth grows even more powerful when it is suppressed, and that often it takes only one small crack to bring down the wall, to release it. And that’s what happened, Simon. The wall I built fell down. And I have been so filled with shame for being unable to face the truth of what happened to you.”

  Simon sat still in his wheelchair, his hands unmoving, though blood colored his skin.

  “Simon, my love. I never did tell you my answer. You see, I knew that something dreadful was going to happen. I couldn’t promise you marriage, a future, when I could see no future. Forgive me, dear Simon, forgive me.”

  Maisie looked around, trying to see what Simon’s stare focused upon, and was surprised to see that it was the window, where they were reflected together. She, wearing her blue suit and a blue cloche, her hair in a chignon at the base of her neck. A few tendrils of hair, always the same few tendrils of black hair, had flown free and fallen down around her forehead and cheeks. She could barely see his facial wounds in the reflection. The glass was playing tricks, showing her the old Simon, the young doctor she had fallen in love with so long ago.

  Maisie turned to face Simon again. A thin line of saliva had emerged from the side of his mouth and had begun to run down his chin. She took a fresh linen handkerchief from her handbag, wiped the moisture away, and held his hand once again, in silence, until the staff nurse returned.

  “How are we, then?” She leaned forward to look at Simon, then turned to smile at Maisie.“And how about you?” she asked.

  “Fine. Yes, I’m fine,” she swallowed and returned the nurse’s smile.

  “Good. Bet you’ve done him the world of good.” Staff Nurse looked at Simon again and patted his hand. “Hasn’t she, Captain Lynch? Done you a power of good!”

  Simon remained perfectly still.

  “Let me lead you out of the maze here, Miss Dobbs.”

  As she walked away, Maisie stopped to look back at Simon, then at his reflection in the windowpane. There he was. Forever the young, dashing Simon Lynch who had stolen her heart.

  “Will you come again?”

  They had reached the main door of the house. A grand house that was now a home for men stranded in time by the Great War, men trapped in the caverns of their own minds, never to return.

  “Yes. Yes I will come again. Thank you.”

  “Right you are then. Just let us know. Loves a visitor, does Captain Lynch.”

  Maisie drove back into London, waving to Jack Barker as the MG screeched around the corner into Warren Street, before stopping at her new office in Fitzroy Square. She parked the car in front of the building and watched as Billy positioned a new brass nameplate with tacks, then stood back to appraise the suitability of his placement before securing the plate with screws. He rubbed his chin and moved the plate twice more. Finally he nodded his head, satisfied that he had found exactly the right place for her name, a place that would let callers know that M. Dobbs, Psychologist and Investigator, was open for business.

  Maisie continued to watch as Billy worked, polishing the brass to a glowing
shine. Then Billy looked up and saw Maisie in the MG. He waved and, rubbing his hands on a cloth, walked down the steps and opened the car door for her to get out.

  “Better get weaving, Miss.”

  “Why, what’s happened?”

  “That Detective Inspector Stratton from Scotland Yard, the Murder Squad fella. Been on the ‘dog and bone’ four times already. Urgent, like. Needs to be ‘in conference’ with you about a case.”

  “Golly!” said Maisie, grabbing the old black document case from the passenger seat.

  “I know. ’ow about that? We’d better get to work, ’adn’t we, Miss?”

  Maisie raised an eyebrow and walked with Billy to the door. She ran her fingers along the engraving on the brass plate, and turned to her new assistant.

  It was time to go to work.

  “Well then, Billy—let’s get on with it!”

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  First and foremost, I am indebted to Holly Rose, my friend and writing pal who read the initial tentative pages of Maisie Dobbs and pressed me to continue. Adair Lara, my writing mentor, was the first to suggest I consider writing fiction, and later, after my “accident horribilis,”when Maisie Dobbs was barely half written, insisted that convalescence was an ideal time to finish the book—broken arm notwithstanding.

  I have been truly blessed in my association with Amy Rennert and Randi Murray of the Amy Rennert Agency, for their wise counsel, wonderful humor, hard work, and most of all, their enthusiastic belief in Maisie Dobbs. I am equally blessed in my editor, Laura Hruska, who has the qualities that make her one of the best—including, I believe, psychic powers that enable her to see into my mind.

  My godmother, Dorothy Lindqvist, first took me to London’s Imperial War Museum when I was a child, an experience that brought a new reality to my grandfather’s stories of the Great War of 1914–18. Now, years later, many thanks must go to the museum for its amazing resources, and to the staff who were most helpful during my research visits.

  The following people kindly responded to emails and phone calls, providing me with detail that has brought color and texture to the life and experience of Maisie Dobbs: Kate Perry, Senior Archivist at Girton College; Sarah Manser, Director of Press and Public Relations at The Ritz, London; Barbara Griffiths at BT Group Archives, London; John Day, Chairman of the MG Car Club Vintage Register; and Alison Driver of the Press & PR Department of Fortnum &Mason, London. For his dry wit and dogged investigative skills, my utmost gratitude goes to Victor—who knows who he is.

  On a personal level thanks must go to my parents, Albert and Joyce Winspear, for their great memories of “old London,” and their recollections of my grandfather’s postwar experiences; my brother, John, for his encouragement;my friend Kas Salazar, who constantly reminds me of my creative priorities; and last—but certainly not least—my husband and cheerleader, John Morell, for his unfailing support, and for sharing our home with a woman called Maisie Dobbs.