Later, wearing a long silk robe, she sat by the window looking out onto Park Lane, and it occurred to her that she should have known something had changed. After all, that red dress was a dead giveaway. And another thing: When Maisie said that she couldn’t see a future, that she knew something terrible would happen, she had lifted her hand but did not touch her eye, as one might expect if one were to predict a reflex action. Instead, Maisie touched the middle of her forehead.
UPON RETURNING TO the office, Maisie threw her coat across her desk, dragged a cushion from the one armchair, pulled her dress up above her knees, and sat cross-legged on the floor. Calm down, calm down, calm. . . . She repeated the mantra over and over again. She was appalled at herself, disgusted by her outburst. She might occasionally speak stridently where her work was concerned, and of course there was the argument with Maurice last year, but she had never, ever, taken a comment with such passion. Clearly Priscilla did not mean to insult her. Her friend’s confidence in their friendship allowed her to speak honestly, though she knew her error and apologized immediately. Why did she affect me so? Maisie breathed deeply, keen to compose herself before taking Billy’s telephone call.
As if on cue, the telephone rang. Maisie came to her feet, brushed down her dress, and reached for the receiver.
“Billy?”
“That you, Miss?” The line crackled.
“Of course it’s me.”
“Sorry, only you didn’t say the number—took me by surprise, it did.”
“What’s happening?”
“I wish I could tell you all of it, but the cat’s been put among the pigeons down ’ere, and if this goes on—”
“If what goes on?”
“Two lads from Shoreditch—’op pickers—’ave been nicked for burglary and vandalism up at the big house on the estate. They say they were just outside the gates trying to get at conkers to get a game going, but there were broken windows and some silver’s missing so they’ve been taken into custody. All the Londoners are up in arms about it, Mr. Dickon just wants the ’ops picked, and everyone reckons it was them bleedin’ gypsies what done it, which don’t make it easy for me and Doreen.”
“I’m not following you.”
“We’d not been ’ere five minutes when Doreen passes one of the gypsy women with a little girl, right little cracker, just like our Lizzie, apart from the fact she’s got curly black ’air. So, even though Doreen can barely understand a word the woman’s saying, she stops to pass the time of day when they go to the tap for water, and she takes ahold of the baby—Boosul’s ’er name; what kind of a name is that?—and so she’s looked upon kindly by the gypsies. Nothin’ wrong with that, but now me own kind are turning, callin’ us gypsy kin.”
“Boosul means beautiful. It’s a kind of slang, a derivation of the word over the years.”
“ ’ow do you know that, Miss?”
“I’ve heard it before. What else is going on?”
“The locals are a funny lot, make no mistake. And it’s not as if I’m a stranger to this sort of goings-on, but these people are another thing altogether. The ones out ’ere pickin’ are sayin’ they didn’t see anything, but are pointin’ the finger at us anyway and at the same time sayin’ they don’t want the filthy pikeys on the farm neither.”
“Sounds like rather a mess to me, and not helped by a lot of unrest among the warring tribes, so to speak.”
“You’d’ve thought we got over that when the Vikings left.” He paused. “And it’s worse than you think, Miss. These boys could be sent down for a year or more. That Sandermere bloke is askin’ for the maximum penalty—as an example, so ’e says. And the man also said there’ve been threats sent to ’im, so the police’ve been crawling all over the place. I think you should come down, Miss. There’s no one to look out for these lads—only youngsters they are, too young to weather bein’ put away. I know their families, they’re good people, and they put in a good day’s work every day for the sake of their own. You’ve got the right words, if you know what I mean. You can talk to solicitors and the police, help speak up for the lads—and you’re a Londoner. You’ll be trusted.”
Maisie sighed. She’d hoped the investigation for James Compton might be easier than this, but as it stood there were complications before the ink was dry on the contract. She reflected on the fact that, in her work, the seemingly straightforward cases were often anything but. “Alright, I’ll drive down tomorrow morning, straight to the farm. I can stay with my father at Chelstone for a few nights. It should only take me about three quarters of an hour to get there from Heronsdene.”
The call ended. Maisie replaced the receiver and returned to her cushion. She decided that, on her way out of London tomorrow morning, she would leave a note for Priscilla at the Dorchester’s reception desk, apologizing for her outburst. And she would also pen something to Margaret Lynch, though she would take care with the composing of such a letter. Having made her plans, she closed her eyes, and an image of her grandmother came to mind, as it had during the conversation with Billy. She remembered her mother laughing as her father lifted her from the horse-drawn cart that brought them from the station to her grandparents’ cottage alongside the lock. Her grandmother’s gray hair, which was once as jet as her own and her mother’s hair, was drawn back in a long braid. And though her clothes were much like those of other women of the time, she wore rings of gold in her ears, rings that Maisie’s fingers sought out as soon as she was swept into her grandmother’s arms, always to the same refrain: “Oh, my boosul girl, my boosul little girl, come to see the old old aunt.”
THREE
Maisie loved driving, loved the feel of the wind in her hair when the weather was sufficiently fine to draw back the MG’s roof, as it was today. There might be a nip of autumn on the breeze first thing in the morning, but the days were balmy, a pleasant warmth with a low sun in the sky that glinted across newly harvested fields as she made her way toward Heronsdene.
Taking the road from Tunbridge Wells to Lamberhurst, she turned at the sign for Heronsdene and slowed to a crawl when she came to the village, the road flanked by a variety of architecture, from medieval cottages to terraced houses built in Victoria’s reign. On her left, the beamed exterior of the local inn looked warm and inviting, and farther along to the right a Norman church stood buffeted by the wind as it whipped up the hill from Horsmonden. There was an assortment of small shops, a butcher, a general store, a hardware shop, and—in the middle of the street close to the church—a war memorial. The road had been divided and rerouted to accommodate this monument, erected to honor the men and boys of the village who lost their lives in the years 1914-1918.
To the left, there was a gap at the end of a row of detached buildings where Maisie might have expected to see another house, or even a shop, but the area was overgrown with weeds and a few clumps of Michaelmas daisies. The daisies were abundant at this time of year, growing along railway lines and on waste ground, and they brought color to an otherwise dull corner of the village. The road intersected here, with a sign to Dickon’s Farm indicating a turn to the left.
Maisie swung the car in the direction of the farm, passing freshly picked hop-gardens on her right. The overhead lines from which strings had been woven in spring, up and down, up and down, for the young hops to grow into fully fledged bines, were empty now, with perhaps a lone sprig of hops left high on the wire. Piles of spent bines lay in heaps, the pickers having moved on to the next hop-garden.
Pulling into the farm, Maisie parked the motor car off to the side of the rough road and went ahead on foot. The last thing she wanted was an expensive repair to the underbelly of her beloved MG. She’d prepared for such an outing, wearing a walking skirt of heavy linen with kick pleats front and back, a pair of stout shoes, and a cotton blouse the color of nutmeg. She carried a knapsack in which she’d packed sandwiches, a cardigan, a wedge of index cards tied with string, and a notebook and pen. She’d tucked a small drawstring pouch containing some tiny tools into the front compartment of her knapsack, and her Victorinox knife was nestled in the pocket of her skirt.