Maisie’s eyes filled with tears, as thoughts of Simon—banished to the back of her mind following the difficult conversation with Priscilla—claimed her once again.
“What’s up, love? What’s pulling at you?”
Maisie bit her lip, then left her chair to kneel at her father’s feet. “Simon’s dying, Dad.”
Frankie enveloped her in his arms as if she were still a child.
FATHER AND DAUGHTER spoke long into the night, first of Simon, whose demise had been expected years before, in the weeks following his wounding in France. But with the passage of time, his half-life, an existence that saw him lingering between this world and the next, became something to which both his mother and Maisie had become accustomed. Then Frankie asked Maisie if she intended to see Maurice, who was at home in the Dower House at Chelstone Manor. In response, Maisie shook her head, and Frankie chose to let the matter rest, for now.
AT BREAKFAST, FRANKIE broached the subject again, after sliding an egg, two rashers of bacon, and a slice of fried bread onto Maisie’s plate, straight from the pan. He served himself, then sat down at the heavy wooden table across from Maisie, as she poured tea for them both.
“I reckon Dr. Blanche would like a visit from you before you leave.” He did not look up but cut into his bread and dipped it into a fresh golden-yolked fried egg.
“I’m busy—short on time, Dad.”
Frankie set his knife and fork on the plate in front of him. “Maisie, I’ll speak plain. You can be a stubborn one when you like, and—I’ll give you this—you know your mind and you’re usually right. But I don’t know about this business with Dr. Blanche.”
“Dad—”
Frankie raised a hand. “Hear me out, love. Hear me out.” He paused while Maisie fidgeted, cutting into her bacon, then leaving it on her plate as she settled back to listen. Frankie continued. “When you first started lessons with Dr. Blanche, all them years ago when you were in service, I’ve got to admit I wasn’t at all taken with it. I was grateful to ’im and Lady Rowan for giving you the opportunity, but I—”
He paused. A man of few words, Maisie’s father was unused to expressing himself with such candor.
“I was a bit put out, to tell you the truth. I wondered if that man wasn’t more of a father to you than me, what with all his education. But now I’ve come to know ’im, since I came down to work at Chelstone. And after my accident, when he made sure I was well looked after, I saw that what he had was respect for you, for what you’ve done, how far you’ve come. I don’t know what this argument is all about, but though I don’t have your learning under my belt, I’m not silly and I can work a thing or two out. All I can say is, if Dr. Blanche kept something from you, it wasn’t out of not trustin’ you. No, it was for reasons of protectin’ you, right or wrong.” He lifted up his knife and fork again. “And sometimes you’ve just got to say fain-ites—you’ve got to call a truce, with yourself as much as anyone else, and then get on with bein’ mates again.”
Maisie sighed and poked at her breakfast. “I—” she began, but realized that she was about to justify her actions, or lack thereof, again, and simply added, “Nothing. Let’s eat our breakfast before it gets cold.”
“Right you are. I just wanted to say my piece.”
“And I’m glad you did.” She looked up at her father, changing the subject. “I think I’ll try to stay in Heronsdene tonight, if I can get lodgings at the inn. I want to spend a bit of time closer to my work for a couple of days, but I’ll be back again on Friday night.”
Frankie nodded and stood up, taking his plate to the sink, where he set it in a bowl of water. He washed his hands, then came to Maisie and kissed the top of her head. “I’ll be off to the stables now.” He turned to take his jacket from a hook behind the door. “Mind how you drive, round these little lanes. Not like some of them new big roads you’ve got used to.”
“Alright, Dad.”
MAISIE DID NOT leave the table for some time. Finally, she sighed and set about tidying the kitchen before she gathered her belongings ready to set off. It was not yet seven o’clock, so she pulled on a pair of Wellington boots and stepped out the back door and into the garden. Long and narrow, the garden was almost entirely given over to vegetables, yet roses grew along the fence on all three sides. The cultivation of roses was an interest Frankie and Maurice Blanche shared, so the men had become friends of a kind across the fence that divided their respective homes, though the Dower House, situated on an incline close to the boundary of Chelstone Manor, was decidedly more grand than the humble Groom’s Cottage it looked down upon.
Maisie went straight to the end of the garden, the heavy dew wet across her boots, and looked out at the fields and woodland beyond. She was eternally glad that her father had come to live at Chelstone in 1914 and would be allowed to remain in his cottage until the end of his days. She shuddered to think of such an event, for he was her only family, and he was past seventy.
As she turned to leave, she stopped to look at the Dower House, where she could just about see the roofline and, to the fore, the glass-paned conservatory where Maurice would be taking breakfast, dipping freshly baked bread—his one indulgence—into the strong French coffee he favored. And as she stood there, remembering times past, when they would speak together of a case in hushed tones, she saw movement just beyond the windows of the conservatory. Maurice Blanche was watching her, his newspaper under one arm. He raised a hand to shield his eyes from the searing early morning sunlight that bathed the room, then waved, and after a lapse of some seconds Maisie waved in return. She knew he waited for her to unlatch the gate and walk along the path, across the lawn, and through the rose garden up to the conservatory. He may have already asked for an extra cup and saucer to be brought, just in case she came to join him. But she wouldn’t. Not today. She wasn’t ready for fain-ites yet.
FIVE
Maisie stopped on the outskirts of Maidstone as soon as she saw a red telephone kiosk alongside a row of shops. The directory inquiries operator found the firm of White, Bertrand and Spelton without much ado, giving Maisie their address as well as a telephone number, though Maisie declined to be connected.
Parking her motor close to the old Corn Exchange, Maisie soon found the solicitors’ offices on the High Street. She did not have an appointment and did not want to attempt to make one at short notice, either—such a move would have meant immediate refusal, she suspected. However, though she did not secure an audience with Mr. Spelton, who had been assigned to represent the two boys from Shoreditch, she was able to speak with his clerk, who informed her that the young men were being held on remand at a reformatory school for juvenile criminals and would stand trial for breaking and entering, malicious damage, and theft. With luck, they would serve a sentence of between three to six months, seeing as this was a first offense, though the victim was strongly protesting such a short incarceration. The clerk noted that it was lucky they were not yet of an age—sixteen—where they would be sent to borstal. “Then they’d know all about it,” he commented.
Maisie asked a few more questions, then left. As far as she understood, at a reformatory school the boys would not be subject to either a birching if they stepped out of line or a leather across the palm, though the punishment would not be a pleasant experience either. But no matter how seemingly lenient the sentence, her task was to prevent its being passed down.