The dog left Maisie at the MG, vanishing into the bushes on a shortcut to the village. Maisie knew she would see her soon enough. Pulling up outside the inn, she waved to Fred Yeoman, who was sweeping the street outside the residents’ entrance.
“Miss Dobbs, didn’t think I’d see you again.”
“How are you, Mr. Yeoman?”
“Mustn’t grumble. Bit quiet now, not so many day-trippers passing through.”
Maisie nodded. “Stormy, today, isn’t it?” She looked back at clouds gathering in the distance, then at the innkeeper. “Tell me, where does the gypsy’s dog stay?”
He stopped sweeping and leaned on his broom. “Strange old thing, that one. She stays with her mistress, sleeping on that grave as if the old lady were about to get up at any minute and walk off with her. I call out to her some nights, save a bit of broth for her, you know, put out a bowl here by the door. She’ll come across, eat it up, then go back to her place. And the funny thing is, it’s as if she knows we’ve done right by her, because I’ll go out the next morning, and find a hare by the door, freshly caught, like it’s her payment.” He shrugged. “Whyte says he’ll build a kennel for her, put it in the churchyard, but we’ve some cold nights coming, and she’ll freeze. Mind you, she’s used to it, I suppose.”
Maisie glanced toward the church. “Yes, I suppose.” She paused, then turned back to Yeoman. “I’d better be off. Remember me to the villagers, say I asked after them.”
“Right you are, Miss Dobbs—oh, and before you leave, go down to the old bakery site. We’ve had a bit of a go at it, you know, in case he ever comes back.”
She walked toward the church, stopping alongside the waste ground. The overgrowth had been cut back, old bricks removed, and a series of flower beds tilled. Copper markers indicated where bulbs had been planted, and when Maisie looked closer, she smiled. According to the markers, in spring there would be a profusion of tulips in this very place. She turned toward the church, stopping alongside the war memorial where Willem van Maarten’s name remained among those of the village who gave their lives in the war. She thought of Simon and of the thousands of other young men who had returned wounded. They are the forgotten, thought Maisie. The ones who came home alive, to linger—perhaps for years—before death claimed them or they brought about their own end. She pulled up the collar of her mackintosh and went on to the church.
Lying across Beulah’s grave, the lurcher wagged her tail as Maisie approached. She stopped briefly, with head lowered, in front of the graves of Jacob, Bettin and Anna, and saw that the headstone had been changed, with the name VAN MAARTEN now scored into the granite. Was it another grain of atonement on the part of the villagers, or had Webb paid for the alteration? She knelt down next to the gypsy’s dog, ruffling her ear as she spoke quietly and with kindness to the animal.
“You can’t stay here, jook. She’s not coming back, she’s gone. Come on, you’ve been here long enough. She wouldn’t want you to stay longer.”
Maisie came to her feet and, though the dog did not stir, she raised her head to be fondled.
“One last temptation for you, jook. I know a lovely man who would look after you forever, and I think you could look after him too.”
Still the dog did not move. Maisie gave her a final pat and left the churchyard. She looked back at the gray clouds and, feeling a spatter of rain, began to run to the motor car. She opened the door just as the rain came down, shaking droplets of water from her hair as she started the engine. She was about to pull out, looking back to ensure that a tractor had not come around the corner, when she saw the lurcher running toward her. She clambered from the MG and opened the passenger door. The dog leaped in, sitting on the seat as if she belonged.
“Good, you listened to me. Now then, jook, let’s take you to meet Frankie Dobbs.”
Later, as Maisie sat by the fire, she looked across at her father, his newspaper opened to the racing pages as he squinted to read by the light of an oil lamp. The lurcher was settled at his feet, her head resting atop his crossed ankles. She had claimed her new owner and, following an initial element of doubt on his part, Frankie had taken her into his heart, already reaching down to touch the dog’s fur with every turn of the page.
MAISIE HAD NOT visited the Lynch home in Grantchester since the night of Simon’s party in 1915. Unsure of her emotions, she drove with care, rehearsing conversations and anticipating questions. But when she arrived, Margaret took both her hands in her own and made her welcome. The house seemed more cozy than she remembered. She thought her youth, and the fact that she had allowed herself to be intimidated by such an invitation, would have made even a smaller house seem like a mansion when she was eighteen. The room where she had danced with Simon was, admittedly, spacious, but Margaret had ushered her into a small sitting room overlooking the gardens.
They spoke of Simon, though not of his passing. Margaret told stories of her son’s boyhood and youth, of the ambition that brought him to medicine, and his decision to join the Royal Army Medical Corps as soon as he’d qualified. Then, later, the women together made their way to the meadow, unlatching the gate that led from the gardens to the fields beyond. The late-afternoon light was rendered colorless, grained by a rising fenland vapor, so that to stare into the distance was like looking at a photograph taken long ago.
Margaret chose a place beyond the trees, where they stood for several moments. Then she handed a small pewter urn to Maisie. “Would you . . . ?”
Maisie looked up at the trees to ascertain the air’s direction. She unscrewed the lid and set it on the ground. Then, with one hand on her heart, she reached out with the urn and carefully tipped Simon’s ashes into a gentle breeze.
HER FINAL ACCOUNTING complete at last, Maisie sat back from the dining table at her flat in Pimlico, closed her journal, and set the cap on her fountain pen. She pinched the bridge of her nose to ward off fatigue, then walked to the window. It was late, dark, and as she stood looking out at the swirling pea-souper smog, she rubbed her arms for warmth. She remembered scattering Simon’s ashes and reflected again on the burning of Beulah’s vardo. She could almost hear once more the way Webb had first played a lament that day, then changed the tempo and changed it again so that, with each new tune, something of the gypsy woman’s life was commemorated—her vivacity in youth, her laugh, her wisdom, the fields she called home, and her wanderings along the country lanes. Then it was done, the mourning not confined to that which was dark and shadowed by loss but also rejoicing in the life that must go on.
She ran her hands along the edge of the fine walnut gramophone given to her by Priscilla and then, almost without thinking, lifted the lid and began to turn the handle at the side. She took out her one record, by a gypsy now famous in Paris, a man who had blended French passion with the spark of the Roma. And as the beat began to reverberate around the room, with violin and guitar cutting through the silence, Maisie felt the rhythm in her feet, her body, and her arms, and she remembered the gypsies moving to the music, pounding the ground in a celebration of the spirit.
So, alone in her flat, Maisie Dobbs danced.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
To my friend Holly Rose—as always, thank you for being the first and most important reader of my work. Your thoughtful commentary and unfailing support are so deeply appreciated—thank you.
To my parents, Albert and Joyce Winspear—thank you for your wonderful stories about being “down hopping” and for providing me with the circumstances that formed my own memories of those good times. And to the Webbs, wherever they are, for the gift of friendship to two just-married escapees from post-WW II London who came to Kent to start life anew—you are remembered with great affection, and I have cherished my parents’ stories of your kindness.