“Look, I realize I should have let you know before now, but I thought it best to tell my parents I had briefed you to look into Nick’s accident. Of course, even though I swore them to secrecy, they told Nolly, who has completely gone off the rails about it. Not that I’m scared of Nolly, but she can be such a bloody nuisance, even though one always feels sorry for her…but I’m fed up with dancing around her moods.” She clambered from the MG, walked toward her father and kissed him on the cheek. “Hello, Piers, darling, let me introduce my old friend from Girton, Maisie Dobbs.”
The Bassington-Hope patriarch held out his hand to Maisie, who immediately felt his warmth and strength. He was tall, over six feet in height, and still walked with the bearing of a younger man. His corduroy trousers were well kept, if slightly worn, and along with a Vyella shirt and a rather colorful lavender tie, he wore a brown cable-knit pullover. His ash-gray hair, which matched that of his eyebrows, was combed back, and his steel-gray eyes seemed kind, framed by liver-spotted furrowed skin at the temples and across his brow. Though Georgina had portrayed her parents as being somewhat eccentric, Maisie had been prepared for unusual behavior but was surprised when the woman used her father’s Christian name. As she observed the pair, she gained an immediate sense of Piers Bassington-Hope and suspected he might well use any appearance of eccentricity to his advantage, should such a thing be necessary.
“Delighted to meet you, Miss Dobbs.”
“Thank you for inviting me to your home, Mr. Bassington-Hope.”
“Not at all. We’re so glad you’ve come and that you’ve agreed to help Georgina here. Anything you can do to put her mind at rest, eh?”
Bassington-Hope’s smile of welcome was genuine but could not camouflage a gray pallor that pointed to the man’s sorrow at losing his eldest son. It didn’t escape Maisie’s notice that he used his smile, punctuating his words to great effect, as if to suggest that any investigation was purely for Georgina’s emotional well-being, an indulgence of her unsettled state. She suspected that, as far as Nick’s father was concerned, the matter was closed, with no further questions on his part. She wondered how Nick’s mother was bearing up under the weight of the family’s loss.
“Come along, Mrs. Gower has put up a tea, the like of which we have not seen in years! Your favorite this weekend, Georgie—Eccles Cakes!” He turned to Maisie. “Our children may well have grown, but Mrs. Gower feels a certain need to fill them up with their favorite foods when they make a weekend visit. Nolly’s here all the time, poor girl, but of course, if Nick were here…” The man’s words trailed away as he stood back to allow the women to enter the drawing room before him.
Even before she reached the drawing room, Maisie thought she would need a week to absorb her surroundings. Had this been Chelstone, or perhaps one of the other grand houses she had visited in the course of her work, the decor would have been more reserved, more in keeping with what was considered good taste. There were those adherents of Victorian mores who covered every table leg in sight and who filled every room with heavy furniture, plants and velvet curtains. Others adopted a softer approach, perhaps using those older pieces of furniture but blending them with brighter curtains and light, cream-painted walls instead of a forbidding anaglypta. Then there were those who had plunged headfirst into what the French had termed Art Deco. But for most, the decorating of a house was often a question of balancing personal taste with available funds, so even in the grandest homes, a blend of furniture and fittings illustrated the family’s history as well as investment in a few new pieces—a gramophone, a wireless, a cocktail bar. But this, the decor in the Bassington-Hope house, represented a departure she found at once stimulating and a little alarming.
In the entrance hall, each wall was painted a different color, and not only that, someone—perhaps a group of people—had left their mark by adding a mural of a garden of flowers and foliage growing up from a green skirting board. It appeared as if ivy had snaked in from the exterior of the house. On another wall, a rainbow arched over a doorway, and even the curtains had been dyed in a variety of patterns to match the artistic frivolity around her. An old chaise longue had been recovered in plain duck, then the fabric painted in a series of triangles, circles, hexagons and squares. Avant-garde tapestry wall hangings and needlepoint pillows of red with yellow orbs or orange with green parallel lines added to the confusion of color.
The drawing room seemed to be named more for the activity that went on there than as a place to which guests would withdraw for tea or drinks. The walls were painted pale yellow, the picture rail in deep maroon, while the skirting boards and doors were hunter green. When she had the opportunity to look more closely, Maisie saw that the beveled edges of the paneled doors were finished in the same burgundy, along with the window frames.
Georgina’s mother turned from her place in front of one of two easels set alongside French windows, wiped her hands on a cloth and came to welcome Maisie, who thought she was as colorful as the house itself. Her gray hair was coiled and pinned on the top of her head in a loose braid, with wisps coming free at the back and sides. A paint-splashed blue artist’s smock covered her clothing, but Maisie could see the lower half of a deep-red embroiderd skirt. She wore hooped earrings, and bangles of silver and gold on her wrists. She looked like a gypsy, reminding Maisie of the Kalderasa immigrants who’d flooded into London’s East End some twenty years earlier, bringing with them a mode of dress that had been adopted by many of those tired of dour, lingering Victoriana.
“Thank heavens Georgina found you. With Nolly driving, we thought she might insist on completing her errands first before running Georgie to the station to meet you. We were worried you’d be left in the lurch.” Emma Bassington-Hope clasped Maisie’s hand between both of her charcoal-stained hands. “As you can see, Mrs. Gower has laid out a magnificent tea—did you tell them, Piers? Come along, let’s sit down to our feast and you can tell us all about yourself.” She turned to her daughter and husband. “Throw those books on the floor, darlings.”
Becoming comfortable on a settee covered in floral fabric, she beckoned Maisie and patted the place next to her. Georgina and her father seated themselves in armchairs that reminded Maisie of old gentlemen in the midst of an afternoon nap. The settee springs had softened in the middle, so that, despite the large feather cushions, Maisie couldn’t help but lean toward her hostess. It was as if the settee was conspiring to bring her into the woman’s confidence, which wasn’t a bad thing, as far as Maisie was concerned.
“Emsy, Maisie is here on business, remember. She will have to ask you some questions.”
Maisie smiled and raised a hand. “Oh, that’s all right, Georgina. Later. There’s plenty of time.” She turned to Emma Bassington-Hope, and then to Georgina’s father. “You have a lovely house, so interesting.”
Georgina poured tea and passed cups to her guest, then her mother and father before offering cucumber sandwiches. Emma continued the conversation with Maisie.
“Well, it is a wonderful house for people who love to paint. We’re surrounded by the most exquisite countryside—we grow all our own vegetables, you know—and we have all this space to experiment with. And Piers and I have always been proponents of the notion that our canvases do not have to be squares constructed of wood and cloth.” She pointed at her daughter. “Why, when Georgie was a child, she would compose whole stories on the bedroom walls, then Nick would come in and illustrate them—we still have them, you know. Couldn’t bear to paint over them, and now, of course, it’s even more…” She held her hand over her mouth, then reached for the edge of the painter’s smock and pressed it against her eyes.