As soon as the mare was stabled, Maisie called out and walked toward her father. “Can I help?” She reached forward to kiss his stubbled cheek and looked around the yard. “Jester is still out. I take it James Compton is hacking.”
Frankie nodded. “Should be back any minute, if he knows what’s good for the horse. That sun goes down fast this time of the year, and what with all his time over there in Canada he forgets.” At that moment, the sound of a horse’s hooves, echoing like slow castanets, clattered across the cobblestones. “Talk of the devil.” Frankie winked at Maisie.
Unlike Sandermere’s horse, Jester had been given a cooling walk before being brought into the stable yard. Standing tall at the withers, the horse was a prize hunter, and James was ensuring the gelding’s fitness for the coming hunt season, for which he had decided he might remain in the country.
“Nice ride, sir?” Frankie took hold of the reins and, out of habit, held his hand to Jester’s nose, to feel his breathing, and then to his flank. “He’s doing well, this one. Stamina good?”
“Didn’t show any signs of fatigue, so I think you’ve got the feed just right, Dobbs. I’m amazed how he’s come along since I was last at Chelstone.” James dismounted and reached into his pocket for a sugar cube, which he held out on the flat of his hand for the horse to take. “Maisie, can’t say I’m surprised to see you here. Do you want to see me?”
“Yes, I do.” She paused, as Frankie led the horse away to his stall. “Would it suit you if I helped my father here for a while? Then we can speak when you’ve had a chance to change.”
James looked down at his hacking jacket, breeches and boots, all splattered with a dusty mud kicked up by fresh rain and sandlike topsoil. “Not a bad idea. Come over to the house at seven. I am sure my mother would like to see you.”
Maisie nodded accordance, while James turned and walked across the yard toward the manor house. Frankie was using a damp cloth to clean the horse, then brushes and a soft towel. Maisie picked up a cloth and worked on the opposite flank. The horse turned to nuzzle her while she worked, and she gave him a playful tap on the nose as she brushed.
“It still makes you feel a bit odd, me going up to the house, walking in the front door, and sitting down with the Comptons, doesn’t it, Dad?”
Frankie sighed. “Can’t say as it sits well. Makes me wonder about my station, though I should be used to it by now, what with all they’ve done for you and, on the other hand, what you’ve done for them. Thinks the world of you, does Her Ladyship.”
“And she’ll never forget that you saved her hunters in the war, Dad. Look how you’ve advised her on breeding racehorses. You’re not the head groom here so much as her racehorse expert, and she knows it.”
Frankie looked up from his work. “Well, like you said yourself, it still makes me feel a bit odd. I’m best when everyone knows where they stand. Reckon most folk are like that, even if you’re able to do things differently.”
Maisie said nothing, and soon her father stood back, rubbed his hand down the horse’s neck, and said, “Now then, mate, I’ll get your bucket and you’re done for the day.”
FRANKIE, LIKE MOST of those who work on the land, had his tea as soon as he could eat after the day’s work was done. And, like the gypsies and those who picked the hops, tea was a hearty meal with meat and vegetables, a repast cooked to replenish energy stores for another day of toil ahead. After sharing her father’s evening meal, Maisie walked across the lawns to the back entrance of Chelstone Manor. There was no reason why she could not use the front door, for her position as a professional woman had given her the confidence and leave to make her entrance in an appropriate fashion. However, she enjoyed seeing old friends and the place where she once worked herself—though that was in her salad days when she was green and young, like a sapling that can be bent and twisted to all manner of shapes. It had taken years to find a mold that was her own. Indeed, she felt as if she were bending and twisting again, finding some truth to who she was before the juice ran from the branch and she was finally formed.
Mrs. Crawford, who had been cook when Maisie first came to work for the Compton family, was now retired, but the butler, Carter, was still a prominent member of the household staff, though likely to leave his employer soon, for he was finally showing his age. The once-stalwart bearing now seemed burdened, the sergeant-major shoulders less able to fill his tailored jacket, and he had to lean forward and cup his hand to an ear when spoken to. Maisie knew Lady Rowan would never give him notice, for the woman who once would provoke an argument at a supper party, just to wake everyone up, had come to dislike change, feeling more comfortable with the status quo.
“Maisie Dobbs! The stranger returns!” Carter came toward her and took both her hands in his own.
“Mr. Carter, it’s lovely to see you. Sorry I’ve not been in to visit you, but each time I’ve come down to see my father, I’ve barely had the time.”
He shook his head. “I still look at you and see that young girl who almost cost me my job.” He turned to the new cook, a thin woman who had none of Mrs. Crawford’s ample welcoming folds that had comforted Maisie when she returned from war, wounded and spent. “Reading in the library at two in the morning, she was—and caught by Her Ladyship,” he continued, looking now at Maisie. “But it turned out alright, didn’t it?”
Maisie laughed and looked at her watch. “I’ve a few minutes before I have to go upstairs to see Master James, so I’ll have a cup of tea, if the kettle’s on.” James Compton was still known as Master James to the older staff at Chelstone Manor. The protocol appropriate for his position in childhood had been extended by his father when, years before and on the cusp of manhood, James had demonstrated particularly juvenile behavior. His father at once decreed that he should be known by his boyhood nomenclature until further notice. Maisie thought that James Compton, though wounded in the war, and now an accomplished businessman, still earned the title Master on occasion.
The cook nodded to Carter and turned to the stove, and in the meantime staff came through the kitchen to greet Maisie. When the tea was ready, Carter invited her to join him in his office—a small room adjacent to his quarters—where the tea tray was set between them, and Maisie poured.
“I still can’t get over how well you’ve done, Maisie. I suppose I should call you Miss Dobbs and be very proper.”
“No, you shouldn’t, Mr. Carter.” She handed him a cup of tea, then thought to ask a question. “Mr. Carter, I wonder, do you know anything about Heronsdene? You’ve lived here for years now, and even before that, before the household moved to Kent, you were here on and off throughout the year, weren’t you?”
“I should say that Mrs. Crawford would have been the one to answer that question. She knew more about the village. I was completely taken up with the estate and with the comings and goings of the house, generally overseeing—well, you know my job. But Mrs. Crawford knew who was who on account of having to order food for the estate. She only wanted the best suppliers, the ones who delivered when they said they would, with prices you couldn’t beat if you tried, and who could come up with a miracle if Her Ladyship suddenly decided to invite the Prime Minister for supper—which as you know, she does when she wants to have one of her political arguments, with everyone talking at odds across the table and all thinking they’re the only one who’s right.”
Maisie frowned. “I’m just curious about the village, and I thought you might know something about it.”
Carter shrugged. He’d been leaning forward to hear Maisie, but not having quite caught her words, he continued on. “She swore by the bakery there. Swore by it. Couldn’t say enough about Mr. Martin and his breads and pastries. Remember that cake, the one we had here for your leaving party when you went up to Cambridge? Mrs. Crawford ordered it ’specially. She said she couldn’t do any better herself, that the prices were good, and he never let her down.”