"She nice to you, love?"
"She's all right, Dad. Blows hot and cold, though. One minute she seems full of the joys of spring, and the next, well, I just keep out of her way."
"I might've guessed. Your carrottops are always the same. Remember, love, the more you're yourself, the more it's like you've just put iron shoes on yer feet--they'll 'old you to the ground when that 'ot and cold air comes rushing from 'er direction. That's the key with that sort."
Maisie nodded, as if to take in this important advice, and continued with her story. "The other thing about Enid is that I think she's sweet on Master James."
Frankie laughed again. "Oh! I see it didn't take you long to get wind of the goings-on! What's 'e like, then, this James? Bit old to be called 'Master,' in' 'e?"
"Well, apparently, so I heard Cook saying, His Lordship gave instructions that Master James should be called Master until he proved his worth. Or something like that. He comes into the kitchen sometimes, you know, of an evening, after dinner. I've watched him. He comes in to see Cook, and as he walks by Enid, he always winks at her. She goes all red in the face and looks the other way, but I know she likes him. And Cook pretends to tell him off for coming into her kitchen, as if he was still a little boy, but then she brings out a big plate of ginger biscuits--which he gets stuck into while he's standing there in the kitchen! Drives Mr. Carter mad, it does."
"I should think it does! Likes order, does Mr. Carter. Now then, tell me about the 'ouse itself."
And Maisie smiled, glad to be in the easy company of her father, a man who was given to remark that a person could take him as they found him, there were no airs around Frankie Dobbs. And Frankie was more at peace now. Life itself was easier--easier now that the man knew his daughter to be in good hands. Easier now that the bills were being paid. Yes, thought Frankie Dobbs as he walked with his daughter in the park, it was all getting easier.
Maisie was fascinated by the library. It was well used, for both Lord and Lady Compton enjoyed literature, politics, and keeping up with the fancies of intellectual London. But when Maisie opened the door and brought in the coal scuttle at five in the morning, it was a quiet room. The lush velvet curtains kept drafts at bay and allowed warmth to seep into every corner after Maisie had lit the fire ready for whoever would use the room that morning.
Each day she lingered just a little longer before kneeling down to the fireplace, before her hands were blackened by the lighting of fires. Each day she learned a little more about the depth and breadth of knowledge housed in the Comptons' library, and each day her hunger grew. Gradually she became braver, first tentatively touching the leather binding as she read the title on the spine of a book, then taking the text from its place on the shelf and opening the fine onionskin pages at the front of the book.
The library seized Maisie's imagination, rendering the small public library with which she was familiar a very poor runner-up in her estimation. Of all the rooms in the house, she loved this the most. One morning, as she replaced a book to attend to the fireplace, a thought occurred to Maisie.
After her mother's death, she had been used to rising at three in the morning to make her father his tea. It had never hurt her then. In fact, she considered getting up at half past four to be "lying in." So, what if she got up at three in the morning and came down to the library? No one would know. Enid could sleep through the roof falling in over her head, and she had started coming up to bed late over the past week anyway. Lord knows where she had been, but it certainly wasn't out, because Carter locked up the house as if it were the Bank of England every night. She dreaded that Enid might be with Master James. Just two weeks ago, as she was leaving Lady Rowan's sitting room, where she had been sent to collect a tray one evening, Maisie saw Enid and James together on the first-floor landing. Without being observed by them, she watched as James ran his fingers through his fair hair and continued speaking with Enid, his gray eyes intent upon her response to his question. Was it a question? Surely it was, because she saw Enid shake her head and look at the carpet, while brushing her right shoe back and forth across the fibers.
And now Enid was never in bed before midnight--which meant that, thankfully, she would be deep in slumber by three o'clock. Maisie resolved to come to the library when the house was asleep. That night, before pulling up the covers and extinguishing the small lamp beside her bed, Maisie pinched the skin on her right arm sharply three times to ensure that she would awake in time to put her plan into action.
The next morning Maisie awakened easily by three o'clock. A chill in the attic room tempted her to forget her plan, but she sat up, determined to go through with it. She washed and dressed with hardly a sound, crept out of the room carrying her shoes and a cardigan, and felt her way downstairs in the dark. In the silent distance, the kitchen clock struck the single chime of a quarter past the hour. She had almost two hours before the coal scuttles had to be filled.
The library was silent and pitch black as Maisie entered. Quickly closing the door behind her, she lit the lamps and made her way to the section that held philosophy books. This was where she would start. She wasn't quite sure which text to start with, but felt that if she just started somewhere, a plan would develop as she went along. The feeling inside that she experienced when she saw the books was akin to the hunger she felt as food was put on the table at the end of the working day. And she knew that she needed this sustenance as surely as her body needed its fuel.
Maisie's fingers tapped along the spines of books until she could bear the electric tingle of excitement no longer. Within minutes, she was seated at the table, opening The Philosophical Works of David Hume, and drawing the desk lamp closer to illuminate the pages. Maisie took a small notebook and pencil from her apron pocket, set it down on the desk and wrote the title of the book and the author's name. And she read. For an hour and a half, Maisie read. She read with understanding on a subject she had barely even heard of.
As the library clock chimed a quarter to five, Maisie turned to her notebook and wrote a precis of what she had read, what she understood, and her questions. The clock struck five, Maisie put the notebook and pencil away in her apron pocket, closed the book, replaced it ever so carefully on the shelf, extinguished the desk light, and left the room. She closed the door quietly behind her and went quickly downstairs to fill the coal scuttles. Just a short while later she opened the library door again. Without looking at the shelves, as if eye contact with the spines of the beloved books would give her game away, she set the coal scuttle down and knelt by the grate to build and light the fire.
Each weekday morning Maisie rose at three to visit the library. Sometimes a party at the house would keep the Comptons up until the small hours, and the change in routine made the library expeditions a risk she could not afford. She was liked in the house, though she had been spoken to by Lord and Lady Compton only once, when she had first arrived.
Half past two. Maisie crept out of bed. It was earlier than usual, but she couldn't sleep. She had gone to bed early, so it would be just as well to get up now. Enid slept soundly, which hardly surprised Maisie as the girl hadn't been in bed long. She was becoming a late one, that Enid. As late as Maisie was early. One of these days we'll meet in the doorway, thought Maisie. Then we'll have to do some talking.