MAISIE STOOD AT the bottom of a gentle hill looking up at the knob of trees spread over the brow. As clouds scudded across the sky casting shadows below, the woodland was at once in shade and then as brightly lit as if it were a prop on the London stage. The caravans were drawn close together; she counted five, each with a tent pitched next to it. Then, to the left, another caravan was set apart. Lower on the hill, six stocky cobs grazed on lush grass. Maisie raised her hand to shield her eyes and watched them amble a few yards to a fresh patch, then run together for no reason at all, kicking up their heels before coming back to graze once more. She remembered going with her father to buy a horse at Stow-on-the-Wold, during the gypsy horse fair. Her mother did not come, and later, as she came of age, Maisie realized it was a journey her father would probably have preferred to make alone, but the respite from their daughter’s childish energy provided rest for his wife, who was ill, and delight for a girl who had begun to understand that her mother was failing.
As they had walked along the rows and rows of horses and ponies, her father stopping to ask a question or reaching down to run his hands up and down the legs of a cob, she asked, “How do you know which one’s the right horse?” And he replied, “Well, we’re looking for a thick, strong, hairy leg at each corner and a twinkle in the eyes—and we’re waiting for one of ’em to choose us.” They came home with Persephone in the goods wagon of the train, then rode her from Paddington to her new home in a warm, cozy stable under the dry arches of Waterloo Bridge.
The horses looked up as Maisie passed, then went on with their grazing. She approached the gypsy camp, calling out, “Hello,” though she did not expect an answer, with everyone picking until at least four o’clock. She took care, as she walked past each caravan, and did not pry, for that was not her purpose—not in the way of picking through belongings while the owner was absent, anyway. To her right, just before she reached the caravan set apart, the one she knew belonged to the gypsy matriarch, a path led into the wood. She checked her watch—it was still barely past one o’clock—and walked along the path, emerging in a clearing, with sunlight glinting through tree fronds overhead. A single wisp of smoke snaked up from the ashes of this morning’s fire, and with each gentle murmur of breeze the embers radiated their red heat and then grew dim, as if breathing their last before finally crumbling to ash.
Logs had been cut and positioned around the fire, and a black pot with long iron utensils had been pulled to one side. Remembering her dream, Maisie was not moved, nor did she feel fear, remaining in place while she considered the case, which had now developed into more than a simple fact-finding exercise for James Compton. Were the gypsies guilty of breaking into the Sandermere estate? How was the crime linked to other events, as described to her by James and also detailed in his notes? And what of Heronsdene, this place where people were so tight-knit they did not report damage to their property by fire? Yes, she would have to find a way to broach that subject, while at the same time acquiring an understanding of the people. More than anything, she wanted to know why driving through the village had caused her to shiver and the hair on her neck to bristle. Could it simply be a mood of dissent between the landowner and the village, or was it caused by the incoming workers from London and the gypsies?
Maisie turned and shivered again, only this time she felt as if she were being watched. Looking around, she saw no one, so, throwing her knapsack over one shoulder, she moved without haste to the mouth of the clearing, to the sunlit field beyond the canopy of trees. As she stepped out, close to the single caravan set apart from the rest, she felt a clench around her free hand and looked down. A lurcher held Maisie in a viselike grip, yet the bitch had drawn her lips across her sharp teeth, as if she had chosen to do no harm, only to keep the interloper in place until her mistress returned. Maisie breathed in and out slowly, then spoke to the dog.
“There’s a good girl. I’ll be no trouble to you. But if you’re to hold me hostage, then I want to sit down.”
No growl issued from the dog, but her small, sharp, glistening eyes did not move from looking up, straight into the eyes of her catch. Maisie had recognized the dog to be a lurcher, the mongrel they called the dog of the gypsies, a first cross between a greyhound and a collie. It was a dog, they said, with the speed of the one and the canniness of the other. Lur, as she knew already, means thief in the ancient Romany language. And it was no good breeding two lurchers to get a litter either, for only that first cross produced the true lurcher—the gypsies knew their dogs and horses.
The dog allowed Maisie to edge toward the steps of the lone caravan, where she sat to wait, using her free hand to take out her sandwiches. Of course, she could have used her knife or taken tools from the small pouch with an intention to wound the animal, but she knew that, however fast her reflexes, the dog would be faster—and the animal meant her no harm as long as she did not try to move farther. There was no escape to be had, which was likely just as well. She thought she might be expected here, in any case. Leaning back against the caravan door, Maisie lifted the sandwich to her lips to eat, and felt a single wet stream of drool issue from the lurcher’s jaws to trickle across her captured hand.
IT MUST HAVE been when the dog released her grip that Maisie awoke. She did not start when her eyes met the eyes of the gypsy woman, standing with her long gray hair drawn back in a patterned scarf, hoop earrings, dark ridges of lines above and between her eyes, and ripples of skin where her cheeks had sagged with age. Instead, Maisie came to her feet and, looking down—for the woman just reached Maisie’s shoulder—she simply inclined her head and smiled.
“My name is Maisie Dobbs, and I have come to see you.”
The woman nodded and placed a wicker basket filled with freshly picked Michaelmas daisies on the ground. “They call me Beulah.” She looked Maisie up and down. “Get away from them steps so’s I can get to me vardo.” She turned to the other gypsy folk who had gathered around when they returned to find a gorja woman waiting.
“It’s kushti.” It’s good. “She’s alright. Now get on.” Her language was thick on her tongue, her words barely mumbled, yet her instruction resonated though she had not once raised her voice. Without looking at Maisie, she took her kettle out from under the caravan, along with the bowl for washing her hands.
“Carry this for the old auntie you’ve come all this way to see. You’d better come sit and talk.” And with that she whistled for the lurcher, who walked behind her into the clearing, moving from side to side so that Maisie remained in third place and could neither walk beside nor in front of the dog’s mistress.
FOUR
Maisie emerged from the clearing as the late-afternoon sun began to give way to a dusky early evening light, the mellow echo of horses nickering as she passed by on her way down the hill. Billy might have expected her to drop in to see the family before she left the farm, but though she could see hoppers gathered around the cookhouse, she was late already and did not want Frankie Dobbs to worry.
Easing the MG out onto the road, Maisie thought the village seemed quiet for a September evening, when folk might be expected to be walking along to the local inn for an ale to talk of the day, the weather, the harvest just in, or the hop-picking. It was the time of year for ease, as barley was cut to form sheaves across the sundrenched stubble that remained and hay was rolled into bales or set in stooks; for easy ambles along narrow country lanes and memories exchanged of years gone by. It was a time for bottling and drying vegetables for the winter table, and for rich summer pudding filled with berries to be set in a cold larder, the juices to mingle. But there seemed to be little of the season’s joy in Heronsdene, a mood, as she’d reflected earlier, that might be connected to the influx of outsiders.