IT WAS AGAIN suppertime when Maisie arrived at her father’s cottage at Chelstone Manor and, as before, Frankie had prepared a hearty repast for his daughter. Maisie remained concerned about her father’s health, though his recovery from an accident some eighteen months earlier had been considered excellent by the local doctor. But he was getting on in years. It had often occurred to Maisie that, with the exception of Priscilla, those closest to her were in their twilight years, and she dreaded the losses that might come in quick succession. Her attempts to broaden the scope of her friendships were, in part, due to such fears.
Frankie dished up dinner almost as soon as Maisie walked in the door.
“Been a man here asking for you.” He ladled a hearty helping of stew into the broad-lipped soup bowls, while Maisie cut and buttered bread in the thick slices her father favored.
“Me?” She held the knife suspended above the bread.
Frankie nodded. “Not what I would call a nice chap, either. What was that man’s name? S . . . Son . . . San—”
“Sandermere?”
Frankie pointed the ladle at her. “That’s it. Sandermere. The one you asked about the other day, and I said I’d heard of him. Well, he came here on a big bay hunter. Fair sweating it was. I offered to walk the horse around, cool it down while he had a cup of tea—don’t like to see a horse in a state like that—but he just went off again, cantering down the road like a highwayman. I thought to myself, Who does he think he is? Coming in here like he’s Dick Turpin, all steamed up and having had a few, if I’m not mistaken.”
Maisie frowned. “I wonder how he knew where you lived. And that I might be here.” She began to cut the bread again. “More to the point, I wonder what he wanted.”
“Well, I didn’t like the man. A fella who treats an animal like that is a man to keep clear of, as far as I’m concerned.” He lifted up his knife and fork. “And Dr. Blanche didn’t take to him either.”
“Maurice?” Maisie sat down, picked up her spoon, and began to sip the broth before starting on the thick wedges of brisket.
“He was walking back from the manor when that bloke turned up. I saw him, just watching, taking it all in. Then, when he rode off on that poor horse of his, Dr. Blanche came over and asked me about him.”
“Did he say anything else?”
Frankie reached for a slice of bread and looked at Maisie directly. “As a matter of fact, he did. Said that, if you’ve time, he’d like to see you. Seemed very . . . concerned, I think is the word. Yes. Didn’t like what he saw. And to tell you plain, neither did I.”
Maisie looked at the big round clock on the wall and then back toward her father. “If it’s alright with you, Dad, I think I might wander over to see him after we’ve had supper.”
“Don’t mind me, love. In fact, if you’ve to deal with the likes of that man who came today, and Dr. Blanche can give you a spot of advice, I reckon you should go and see what he has to say”
Maisie nodded. “Yes, I’ll do that.” She smiled. “The stew’s lovely, Dad.”
WHEN FATHER AND daughter had cleaned the kitchen following their meal, and Frankie was seated by a fire with his newspaper, Maisie pulled on her jacket and walked toward Maurice’s house via the garden entrance. She made her way up to the house and saw Maurice silhouetted against the windows of the conservatory. He would have seen the torch she carried.
The main door was already open by the time she arrived at the front of the house, and Maurice himself was waiting for her on the threshold.
“Ah, Maisie, I am so glad you have come.” He reached out to her with both hands, which she took in her own.
“It has been a long time, hasn’t it, Maurice?”
“Come, let us go to the drawing room—a fire’s just been lit. We’ll have an after-dinner drink together, and we can talk.” He turned to her as he walked, “Like old times.”
Even as they walked the few steps from the door to the drawing room, Maisie knew that Maurice Blanche was gauging her emotional well-being, was mirroring her pace, her stance, her demeanor, to ascertain—what? Her stability? Her strength? She knew he would want to know exactly how she was feeling, as that information would dictate how he opened their conversation. Only this time she would be the one to begin speaking.
“I have some news, Maurice.” She sat down as he pulled a cord to summon his housekeeper. “Some sad news.”
“Yes, I know. You carry the weight of bereavement, of loss.”
She nodded. Though she had also carried, for almost a year now, a resentment regarding Maurice, this animosity was rendered weak under the weight of her desire to speak of the events of last night. “Simon is dead, Maurice. He’s gone.”
Maurice handed her a glass of port and sat opposite her in his favorite wingback chair. He set a crystal glass with two fingers’ worth of single-malt whisky onto a small table at his side and reached for his pipe, which he tapped against the brick of the fireplace before taking up his tobacco pouch. Then he responded to her announcement. “It was past his time, the poor man.”
Maisie nodded. “Yes, it was.” She spoke quietly. “I don’t know how I feel, Maurice.”
Her former employer and mentor regarded her, then turned to his pipe, pressing the bowl against the tobacco in the pouch and filling it so as not to waste even a strand. “Do not expect to know how to feel, Maisie. You buried your grieving for years, not only for Simon but for your own lost innocence. And the death you saw as a girl in France—that is the most terrible loss of innocence.” He paused while he held a match to his pipe and drew against the flame. Then he looked at Maisie. “Last year was a watershed for you, your collapse in France reflecting a weight of emotion, of remembrance, that could not be borne any longer. Do not try to second-guess your responses. Otherwise you will encounter guilt if you have reason to embrace laughter, or you will draw away from those things that bring you joy, because you will be trying to feel a certain way, a way expected by a broader society.”
“I was with Priscilla today, and we were laughing at her boys. When it came time to write to Margaret Lynch, I found I was taking myself to task for those moments of lightness.”
“The challenge with death is that it can lift a burden, and we feel those two sensations—the lightness you speak of, along with melancholy, of loss. You have already suffered one, Maisie, so do not be taken aback when there is only one remaining and it is the one that brings with it moments of levity.” He paused, as if taking care to look for stepping-stones as he negotiated difficult terrain. “Cast your mind back to the time when you were seeing Andrew Dene.” Maisie sat straighter in her chair, as if to brace herself, but Maurice continued. “Though you had happy times, and he certainly could make you laugh, you always carried the obligation you felt toward Simon. Of course, I understand that there were other difficulties, but do not underestimate your feelings, and don’t draw back from doors that open, now that the one closed for years has locked forever. Simon’s spirit is at peace. Allow yours to be free as you live.”
Maisie sighed. She would consider Maurice’s words later, in her room in her father’s house. For now, though she had opened the subject, she wanted to deflect the conversation away from Simon, for his death was ground upon which she, too, stepped with care. “My father said you saw the man who came looking for me today.”
Cradling the pipe by its bowl in one hand, Maurice reached again for his single malt. “Not a particularly nice character, if I may say so.”
“Far from it, I’d say. I wonder how he might have known my father lives at Chelstone.”