Chapter Nine
It was some two years earlier that Maisie had first asked James about the possibility of a position for Billy with the Compton Corporation. Canada was on her mind then, as she wondered how it might be possible for the family to emigrate with some sort of work and accommodation already in place. Billy’s dream had been to embark upon a new life in Canada—but was it still a dream for him? Since moving from the dark streets of Shoreditch to a new house in Eltham—helped by Maisie—Billy had seemed more settled, though the move had not been without problems in the wake of Billy’s attack. Now she wanted to see him settled in a job with more regular hours and less risk. And she also wanted to know that he was not without work when she left, for as time went on she was gaining confidence in her decision to close the business and depart, bound for the kind of adventure that had been the making of Maurice Blanche.
For Billy to secure a new position, he must be well. She tapped her fingers against the steering wheel, and upon hearing the horn from another motor car, she pulled over into a side street and stopped the MG. She wanted to think.
When Billy had gone through a breakdown of sorts some four years earlier, she had sent him down to Chelstone, to live with her father and help with the horses on the estate. The fresh air, the slow pace of life, and the down-to-earth counsel of her father had worked magic with Billy. Doreen and the children had visited, and during his sojourn amid the rolling hills of the Kent countryside, Billy had found a measure of peace and had come to know himself again. Could that magic work a second time? Could Billy and the family return to good health following a break from their new house? The children might have a bit of trouble at the local school—their rich Cockney accents would mark them as outsiders—but she was sure they could weather it and make friends in short order. But would they welcome her interfering in their lives again? She could imagine Priscilla taking her to task about it. Then again, perhaps she should ask Priscilla—some of her ideas were on the unpredictable side of fantastic, but on the other hand, when it came to families, she had a strong practical no-nonsense streak that Maisie envied. Yes, she would talk to Priscilla.
Now it was time to return to the office, to collect Sandra and visit the homes of two of the boys who had found Usha Pramal’s body. It was as she slipped the MG into gear that she realized she did not know the name of the person who discovered the murdered Maya Patel.
“Let me see,” said Caldwell. Maisie could hear him turning a page. “Yes. Here we go. It’s not as if I’ve forgotten the name per se, but it’s one of them names that sounds as if it’s backwards. Martin Robertson. No fixed address at the time, though he has one now and we’ve asked him not to move. He’s a laborer living in digs, getting work where he can, mostly on the river. Seventeen years of age.”
“Martin Robertson?”
“That’s it.”
In repeating the name, Maisie identified the sense of familiarity upon hearing Caldwell’s words. It’s one of them names that sounds as if it’s backwards.
“Can you tell me the circumstances of the discovery, Inspector? Was he alone, and was it he who alerted the police?”
“Well, as it happens, he wasn’t alone. He was with another bloke, a—wait a minute.” Papers rustled again. “Sean Walters. Irish lad come over here to find work. Robertson saw her first and Walters ran for help.”
“What does Martin sound like, when he speaks?”
“Funny question, Miss Dobbs. You know something I don’t know?”
“Not sure—but can you tell me what he sounds like?”
“Sounds like your ordinary south-of-the-water lad to me. Why?”
“I’m not sure. It could be nothing. A coincidence, perhaps.”
“I hope you’ll tell me if it’s important, Miss Dobbs. I know how you can keep things to yourself.”
“I will. I just don’t want to be wrong.”
“All right then. Now, this won’t get the eggs cooked, me talking to you all day.”
Maisie held the receiver for a second longer, the continuous tone sounding after Caldwell had ended the call without so much as a swift “good-bye” to bracket the conversation.
Martin Robertson. She picked up the folder pertaining to the missing boy, the case she had given to Billy. Robert Martin. Son of Jesmond Martin, a stockbroker living in St. John’s Wood, and his wife, Miriam. But this boy was not yet fourteen. She looked at the date he was missed from his boarding school, Dulwich College. One week before Usha Pramal’s body was discovered floating on the canal. And Dulwich was only a bus ride from Addington Square, and the Grand Surrey Canal.
Maurice had taught Maisie to trust coincidence. He warned her that such things happen in an inquiry, as if the time and thought put into a case drew evidence in the same way that tides were affected by the proximity of the moon. Coincidence was the way of their world, and many a case depended upon the timely entrance of that serendipitous event. Maurice had taught her so much—and much that she doubted. He had told her that cases reflect each other, and that certain lessons come in threes. A case might mirror the one before, perhaps in the relationship between suspects or in the nature of their work. The victim of a new case might have something in common with another.
She flicked the only readable page in the Robert Martin file: notes taken when she and Billy had first seen the boy’s father. Not the mother. Just the father of a missing son. She had found missing sons and daughters in the past, had seen parents relieved at the discovery—and on at least one occasion equal relief when she reported that the trail had run cold. Billy should have made regular telephone calls to their client to report on progress, though Maisie doubted he had done so. Yet she had not received an angry telephone call from the anxious father awaiting news. Was he so busy that he did not have time? Did he trust them to find his son without learning of their progress along the way? Could Jesmond Martin have been going through the motions of looking for a lost son, but with no true commitment on his part? Yes, she had known that before, a man making a promise to his wife, but lacking the conviction himself. She rubbed her neck and walked across to the filing cabinet and pulled out the rolled Pramal case map, which she unfurled across the table and pinned to keep it flat. But her thoughts were still on the man who had come to her because his son was missing.
He had made an appointment for late afternoon, explaining that he could not come earlier due to his work, which demanded his undivided attention from an early hour. She had not asked for an explanation, but Jesmond Martin seemed keen to establish his credentials as a busy, important man. He was like so many of his kind who worked in the City, as if they had been issued with a certain attitude along with a uniform. Martin wore a dark pin-striped suit, removed a top hat upon entering the room, and carried a briefcase that had without doubt been expensive at time of purchase and was now worn around the handle and the corners and along the top flap. A brand-new case at his time of life would have pointed to only recent success, whereas the age and wearing of good leather proved to be a badge of honor among businessmen of his ilk. He had given details of his son’s disappearance in a tone devoid of emotion, yet when Maisie looked at his eyes, it was as if she was staring into a well of sadness. She remembered wondering what walls of division might be at the root of family discord, and whether an argument—perhaps one of many—had inspired the son to leave his boarding school. Jesmond Martin showed no embarrassment or regret when he explained that his son, Robert, had been missing for several weeks; in fact he exuded an air of indifference as he spoke. He informed Maisie and Billy that he had at first expected the boy to return in good time and saw no reason to alert the authorities. And there had been only a brief mention of a poorly wife. Would she go as far as to say the father appeared cold? In fact, she found herself feeling rather sorry for him, for she thought he had an affection for his son that had been scarred in some way, perhaps by discord as the boy formed his own opinions of the world and no longer followed the lead of his strong—and, it would seem, opinionated—father.
If Robert Martin was indeed the boy who found Maya Patel—and until confirmed, the guess was tenuous, at best—how might it be related to Usha Pramal? She shook her head, and wrote in large letters, Robert Martin—Martin Robertson? and drew the names together in a large red circle. Martin Robertson was not a police suspect, so she had to be careful. She would have to make another call to Caldwell to gain an interview with the lad. Before turning the page she took out a photograph of Robert Martin, in his Dulwich College school uniform. “He looks barely able to wear long trousers,” she said aloud. She remembered asking for a recent photograph, not an old image from earlier in the boy’s childhood. “The features can change so much in these years, Mr. Martin,” she’d said. And they could, to be sure. But one aspect of a person’s looks rarely changed—and that was the eyes.
Maisie noticed that Sandra was clutching the passenger seat when she approached Tower Bridge. The evening was already drawing in, and motor car headlamps lit up the road as they crossed London’s most famous bridge.
“Are you all right, Sandra?”
“Yes, thank you.” She continued to grip the seat. “I just haven’t been in many motor cars, and the last one was a lot bigger than this. I’m more used to buses, or the trains. But I prefer buses. Not going under the ground.” Her eyes were focused straight ahead.
“Well, perhaps it would help if I gave you a few driving lessons—you’ll enjoy it.”
“Oh, I don’t think so, Miss. No, I don’t think I will.”
Maisie had been pleased with Sandra’s report on her “little chat” with the two boys she’d seen outside the school. She had encouraged them to tell her how scared they were when they saw Usha Pramal’s body, and that they’d both had bad dreams ever since. She’d asked them if anyone else had seen the body, and she’d discovered that they hadn’t seen any strangers in the area either before or after the flash of green-slimed peach silk had caught their attention. Both boys lived at home with their parents, as would be expected, and both had paper round jobs before school in the morning, and quite far from home, considering the area; they were mainly delivering to bigger houses just off the Old Kent Road. If the boys had work to do after school—looking after the younger ones, perhaps, while the mother went out to an evening job, and before the father came home—they had little time to skim stones across the canal. Sandra had asked how friendly they were with the older boys, and learned that they all lived on the same street. “So we’re a gang,” said one of the boys. Sandra had asked them about their “gang” and discovered that it was just the four, a little group of boys who had been in and out of each other’s houses for years, whose mothers chatted over the garden fence or while hanging out the washing. They might well grow up to marry each other’s sisters or cousins, because that’s how it was on the streets; people who had lived cheek by jowl with each other, who had seen babies born, and who had gathered when one of their own passed away, were like a clan. Only a moonlight flit with parents who couldn’t pay the rent took the children away from friends who were like family. Would they lie to protect each other? Yes, without a shadow of doubt, they would lie.
The two older boys lived on opposite sides of the street, just a few doors away from each other. Before they alighted from the MG—which was surrounded by a clutch of children almost as soon as Maisie parked on the street—she turned to her secretary.
“Look, let me talk to the father and mother—or whoever’s at home—and you have one of your chats with the boy. You seem to be very good with the youngsters. I really want to know exactly what they saw, who they saw, and if there was anyone new around lately. These boys are on the streets before and after school, and they hear their parents talking, too. They’ll close ranks if ever someone from the street is fingered for a crime. But no one suspects the boys of anything, and as long as they’ve done nothing wrong, I believe they’ll talk to you as easily as the younger ones.”
Maisie emerged from the MG at the same time as Sandra closed the door on the other side.
“Right then, who wants to earn a penny?”
The hands shot up, all the children focused on Maisie.
“Good. There’ll be a penny each for looking after my motor car—not a scratch, not a bump, and no bits hanging off when I get back. All right?”
“All right, Miss,” they said in unison.
A baby screamed from within the house as Maisie rapped on the rough and splintered door of the Flowers’ house.
“Tony! Tony! Get off yer bum and see who that is at the bloody door. And wipe your sister’s nose while you’re at it.” There was a pause. “I don’t bleedin’ care what you’re doin’—and don’t whine that it’s always you. I don’t care who it always is, but I want you to answer that door—and if it’s old man Walsh, tell him I’ll pay him next Friday.”
Maisie and Sandra looked at each other.
“Sometimes,” said Maisie, “the time you choose to call upon someone is not necessarily the most convenient time for them.”
“You’re not kidding, Miss.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll slip into my best local vernacular,” said Maisie.
The door opened. A boy, tall for his age, Maisie thought, pulled his arm away from his runny nose. “What d’yer want?”
Sandra stepped forward. “Tony! I’ve heard all about you from your gang of friends; they say you’re one of the best. You look after everyone, don’t you?” Her accent had changed. Maisie thought she sounded like Enid, with whom she’d shared a cold bedroom at the top of 15 Ebury Place, oh so long ago. Enid was always trying to improve herself, and had developed an incongruous posh edge to her Cockney accent. Maisie’s local dialect had never been as pronounced, though it was noticeable enough at the time. But it had changed gradually in those early years while taking her lessons from Maurice, so that, like a piece of fabric gently warmed and fashioned into a hat, her diction had taken on a new shape, a new roundness with distinct turning points, so that by the time she went up to Girton College, she might have been taken for a clergyman’s daughter. But more important, she could put it on when she liked; years of blending with those of a higher station meant that she could assume the clipped tones of the aristocracy if it helped her gain information she wanted. But now, in this street, losing the odd “h” in pronunciation might not be a bad thing—and it seemed that Sandra had the accent down pat.
“So, what if I do?” asked Tony Flowers.
“My friend just wants to talk to you, if that’s all right with you,” said Maisie. “It’s about the Indian woman—and don’t worry, you’re not in any trouble. We want you to help us, that’s all. So, can I go back and have a word with your mum while you help out Mrs. Tapley here?”
Tony kicked at the front tiled doorstep, which his mother had clearly tried to keep tidy with Cardinal polish.
“All right, then.” He turned into the passageway behind him. “Mum! Mum!” he bellowed. “Mum, there’s a woman here to see you. Not the bailiff. About the Indian woman.”
“Well, I can’t come out there now, can I?” his mother screamed back.
Maisie nodded at Sandra and crossed the threshold, stepping over toys in the passage while making her way to the back of the two-up-two-down terrace house, which smelled of boiled cabbage.
“Hello, Mrs. Flowers. Thank you so much for letting me come in to see you.”
“Where’s that boy gone now?” The woman looked up from nursing her baby. She seemed thin and harried, her hair gathered up by a scarf tied at her crown. Many poor women were known to feed the breadwinner in the family first, and themselves last, after the children, and Tony Flowers’ mother seemed true to type. “Sorry and all that, but the scrap’s got to have something before I go out to my job. Never a spare moment.”
“Tony’s with my assistant, Mrs. Flowers. I’ve come to see you about him finding the Indian lady, in the canal.”
“Not that again. We already had the police round here. People don’t like seeing police come to a door, do they?”
“They certainly didn’t where I come from. In Lambeth.”
“Well, you’d know, wouldn’t you? So, what do you want with me, then?” The baby stopped suckling, and without looking at her child, Tony Flowers’ mother rested the baby against her shoulder, pulled her underclothes and blouse back across her breast, and patted the little girl’s back.
“I wonder what Tony told you about it all,” asked Maisie.
“Just that they saw something in the canal, and when they tried to find out what it was, turns out it was one of them Indian women. Been shot, she had, right there.” She stopped patting the baby’s back for a second and touched the middle of her forehead. “Had terrible nights at first, he did. I’d hear him screaming, waking up the other kids. I thought it would go on forever. His father said he’d have to get a bit of backbone, otherwise if he ever saw what he saw in the war, well, he’d end up loony.”
“Did he ever say anything about seeing anyone else that day—or even in the days before he and his mates found the body?”
Mrs. Flowers looked towards the window, almost as if she could see beyond the glass, which she couldn’t due to the film of soot on the outside, and condensation on the inside. “I’m trying to think—it was weeks ago now, and what with all I have to put up with, it’s a wonder I remember yesterday, never mind a month or even a fortnight gone.” She sighed. “It was well before that, but I do remember Tony being late coming home, and because I had to get to work, I went up the road towards the canal—as you’ve cottoned, that’s where these boys go to get up to no good. Anyway, I saw them in the distance, and called out to Tony, and he came running. Now, when I looked at them, the boys in the distance, the sun was in my eyes, and you know how it is in the afternoon—it can blind you, it can, when it’s bright. Well, I could have sworn I saw five boys together, not the usual four—and them four are like that, you know.” She held her hand away from the baby’s back again, and twisted her forefinger and middle finger, like the base of a vine. “Thick with each other, they are. But anyway, he came along, and I gave him a piece of my mind, and I said to him, I said, ‘Who’s your new mate then?’ And he said, ‘Oh, no one.’ ‘No one?’ I said. ‘Funny no one with two legs, a head, and two arms, eh?’ She leaned towards Maisie. “I don’t want my kids getting into trouble, Miss—what’s your name?”
“Maisie Dobbs.”
“Well, like I said, I want my four to keep away from trouble, because trouble will find them round here, no two ways about it. Yes, you don’t have to look far for trouble, because it’s waiting for you. That’s what I say.” She looked at a clock on the mantelpiece. One hand was broken in the middle and the glass cover was cracked. “Blimey, I’d better be off—got to get down to the soap factory. We might not have much, Miss Dobbs—but by heck we’re clean in this house.” She stood up, and Maisie came to her feet. “Here, hold her a minute.” Mrs. Flowers gave the baby to Maisie and ran along the passage, yelling at the top of her voice. “Tony. Would you come in here and watch this baby now!”
The baby rested her head against Maisie’s chest, and closed her eyes. Not a cry or a whimper. She closed her eyes and began to sleep. Maisie walked towards the door, and along the passageway, remembering, at that moment, the comfort she felt when she held little Lizzie Beale years ago. Now this child’s soft downy hair was under her chin, and as if she could not help herself, Maisie kissed the top of her head.
When she had thanked Mrs. Flowers and pressed a sixpence into Tony’s hand, she nodded at Sandra. They were ready to leave. Mrs. Flowers had taken the baby from Maisie, handed her to her son, and rushed into the house to grab her coat and a rather battered hat.
“Oh, Tony,” said Maisie, as she distributed pennies to the children gathered around the MG—a group that she could have sworn had grown larger since they first parked the motor car. “Tony, before you go in, what was the name of the other boy who sometimes came along by the canal?”
Tony rolled his eyes. “Oh, him. He’s not in the gang. Not one of us lot.”
“But what’s his name?”
“Marty. Said his name was Marty.”
“Was he around much?”
Tony Flowers shrugged. “Sort of. Said he didn’t know anyone much, so he just sort of followed us along the canal, or down the market, which is where we go of a Saturday morning sometimes.”
“Do you know where he lives?”
The boy shrugged. “Nah. He’s just around sometimes.”
“Is he older than you?”
Another shrug. “Dunno. Reckon he works on the docks somewhere.”
“What makes you think that?”
“His hands. Got all that hard skin, when you look at them. You know, like he’s been picking up heavy boxes all day.”
“You don’t shy away from a bit of hard graft either, do you, Tony? Your hands don’t look too soft.”
The boy blushed and shrugged as he held the baby tighter. “Gotta get her in now.”
“Yes, I think she looks like she needs a nap. But Tony, do you know if your friend is in? Sydney Rattle, along the road?”
“Nah. He’s just got another job. Nights. His mum found it for him, so he works days, then goes out again after his tea. Won’t be back until late. Only comes out with us on a Saturday afternoon now.”
“Can I come and see you again, if I need to?”
Tony Flowers shrugged again. “S’pose so.”
“And if you remember anything else about Marty, would you try not to forget?”
He nodded. “Yes, Miss. I’ll remember.”
“Tony,” asked Maisie, her voice lower, “did this Marty scare you?”
Another shrug. “I dunno, Miss. He wasn’t like us. He was different.”
“Thank you, love. I bet your mum thinks you’re a real diamond. Here, buy yourself some sweets.” She slipped another sixpence into his pocket. He blushed again, nodded his thanks, and took the baby back into the house.
Soon Maisie and Sandra were back in the motor car, driving towards the Elephant and Castle and Waterloo Bridge.
“How did you know there was another boy?” asked Sandra.
“His mum mentioned it.”
“But he never told me there was anyone else.”
“It was how I asked. He’d just had the baby put in his arms, so although he is protective of his little sister, he’s also a bit softer on the inside when he’s holding her. And I didn’t ask him if they’d seen anyone else, I just asked the name of the other boy—I didn’t give him a chance to say there wasn’t someone.”
“Oh, of course.” Sandra paused, as if committing what Maisie said to memory. “So, I wonder, why did the younger ones lie?”
Maisie sighed. “It could be that they wanted to protect their group, or that they don’t like saying anything without the older boys there. Or they might be embarrassed—perhaps Marty has something that marks him as different, for example. If he’s that much older than them their parents would get suspicious, especially if he’s an outsider. He could have some information on them that they don’t want to go any further—perhaps he saw them getting up to some mischief that the local bobby won’t be too happy to know about.”
“What’s your guess, Miss?”
“I would say that on the one hand these boys feel sorry for him—he might be lonely, perhaps—but he’s not like them in some way. He’s an outsider. And I think they’re also scared of him. Perhaps he has a confidence that they don’t, and instead of knowing about something they’ve done wrong, he might be one of those youngsters who eggs on the others to get up to more serious mischief, calling them names and intimidating them when they don’t. But I could be completely wrong, and I might be thrown by putting two and two together and getting five, which is why everything goes on the case map. But tell me about your conversation with Tony.”
“Much like the chat I had with the younger boys—nothing more, nothing less, though he is older, and seems more thoughtful. He sounded brotherly towards them, as if he looked out for them.”
“That sums up the children here, growing up together. They probably fight like cats and dogs at times, but they protect each other as well.”
“What’s next, Miss?”
“I’m going to see Jesmond Martin, the father of the missing boy. I’ll ring from the office and go over there this evening, if I can. In any case, there’s a lot of catching up to do on that inquiry as it is.”
“Do you think Billy will be all right, Miss Dobbs? Will he come back to work?”
“Let’s wait and see, eh?” Maisie felt a catch in her throat as she spoke. She took a deep breath. “In any case, did you manage to find out the name of that lecturer, at the art college?”
“I’ll have it tomorrow morning—seeing my friend at class this evening.”
“Oh, do you want me to drop you anywhere, Sandra?”
“Just by Charing Cross, that would do well enough—but only if it’s not far out of your way. Thank you.”
Some twenty minutes later, as Maisie pulled away from Charing Cross Station, she looked back at Sandra. Her glance came at what must have been an inopportune moment, for it was just in time to see Billy emerge from the station, smiling as he limped towards Sandra.
Maisie returned to the office and made the call to Jesmond Martin, which was answered by a housekeeper, who informed her that Mr. Martin was not yet home from work, and in any case was expecting guests this evening. Maisie left a message that she would like to speak to him as soon as possible, and wondered if she might call at his office—she asked the housekeeper to pass on a message at her earliest opportunity, requesting he call her in the morning. Having made that call, and another to Mr. Pramal’s hotel, she picked up the receiver one more time.
“Maisie, darling,” said Priscilla as soon as she heard Maisie’s voice. “Are you coming to supper soon? The boys so want to see James again. Directly I tell them you’re coming, they’ll be camped out on the stairs waiting for him, wearing aviator goggles.”
“Yes, we’re looking forward to seeing them, too, but I wondered, Pris—have you got a moment this evening, if I come over now?”
“Drinks at the ready, Maisie. Three quarters of an hour, then?”
“About that—and a cup of tea would be just fine.”
“For you, perhaps, but not me!”
Maisie smiled and shook her head. “In a while, Pris.”
“Crocodile. See you then!”
It seemed to Maisie that Priscilla’s sons were all growing up faster than ever. The eldest, Thomas, was almost as tall as his mother, and the youngest, Tarquin, had lost the babyishness of earlier years, despite still being without the front teeth he’d lost in a spat at the first school he’d attended upon the family’s move from Biarritz back to London. The contretemps with another boy—possibly due to his coloring; Priscilla’s sons were tanned by the Riviera sun, and all had her rich dark-copper hair—resulted in his brothers diving into the fray to protect their younger sibling. This act of loyalty—or wanton pugilism, according to the headmaster—led to their suspension and subsequent transfer to another school, one for the sons of a more international group of parents.
“Mummy’s in the drawing room, Tante Maisie,” said Thomas, who had greeted her with a kiss to each cheek.
“Is Uncle James with you?” asked Tarquin, looking down the steps towards her motor car.
“I’m afraid not—but he’ll be with me next time.”
“Excellent!” said Timothy. He was looking at Maisie through a pair of large goggles, while wearing a leather aviator’s cap.
“You look like the Red Baron, Tim,” said Maisie.
“No, not me. I’m going to be like Captain Albert Ball.”
“Let’s hope not,” added his older brother. “He came off worse after a bit of a spat with von Richthofen, you know.”
“Well, I’ll be him before he went down, then,” said Timothy.
“And I’ll be better than both of you, because I’ll be Uncle James,” said Tarquin.
“That’s quite enough of that!” Priscilla’s voice silenced her sons. “You’d better set a course for upstairs right now. Where’s Elinor? Oh lummy, she’s still out on her half-day. All right. Tom, you’re it—I don’t want to hear one single scream, or a ball hitting the wall. Elinor will be back in half an hour, and she will report to me if my sons have not acted like the sort of gentlemen that will make their mother proud. And your father will be home in an hour, so let that be a warning.”
The boys ran upstairs, and Priscilla greeted Maisie. “Not that their father is good for any discipline, and they know it. Come on, let’s go and have a drink.”
Maisie thought they must look like bookends, each taking up one end of the sofa, with shoes kicked off and knees drawn up. Yet they were bookends only to a point—Priscilla was a woman of easy elegance, and even at home in London she often seemed to have arrived fresh from Paris. On this day she was wearing a white silk blouse with navy blue silk trousers and a wide cummerbund-style belt. Her hair was pulled back in a chignon, bringing an even bolder look to her face—Priscilla had deep brown eyes, high cheekbones, and a nose that on another women might have seemed long, but on Priscilla added to the impression of a personality to be reckoned with. But Maisie knew Priscilla’s Achilles’ heel—the memory of her beloved brothers lost in the war, and the dreadful fear that she might lose her sons. And she knew Priscilla had often dulled that fear with alcohol.
“What news? You sounded worried,” said Priscilla.
“I am. It’s about Billy.”
“It’s been about Billy for a long time, hasn’t it, Maisie?”
“I need your advice.”
Priscilla sipped her gin and tonic, holding it close to her mouth for another sip as she spoke. “I love it when you ask for my advice; it makes me feel quite clever.”
“I wouldn’t be asking if you weren’t quite clever,” said Maisie. She put her drink on the side table, though she had yet to lift it to her lips. “I think Billy needs a break from London, even from the new house. He wasn’t well enough to come back to work, and frankly, I think he’s having some sort of breakdown.”
“That poor family—what with Doreen, and now Billy. It’s not surprising that he’s having trouble—he’s had to have backbone enough for both of them for a long time.” She sipped again, then, still holding the glass, rested it on her knee. “I know this seems harsh, but she’s not the first to lose a child, and she won’t be the last. I’ve as much compassion as the next woman, but as far as I’m concerned, she has to buck up.”
“We’re all different. I do feel for her.”
“And so do I. But life goes on. Her husband needs life to be a bit lighter if they are to come through these setbacks, grim as they are.”
“Yes, you’re absolutely right, which is why I’m here. When he had something of a breakdown about four years ago, he went down to Chelstone for the summer, to work with my father. With everything that’s happened, and—”
“And the fact that if you try to mend the broken fence again, it will be one time too many.”
“Exactly—you said yourself that I shouldn’t interfere. So, I wondered if, well—you see, I think the risks involved in more recent cases have told on him. There are late hours, and that attack has laid him very low. He would go to the ends of the earth for me, I know that, but I just don’t want to send him on that sort of journey anymore. There’s the possibility of a job at James’ company, but in the meantime, I thought some fresh air and a different place would do wonders for them all.”
“Maisie, you can’t save Billy by proxy. I have a feeling that you are about to inquire if I need more help at the house, and if I could speak to Mr. Alcott and ask him about taking on some more help, now that the gardens will have to be sorted out, the leaves raked in a few weeks, and the gardens generally put to bed for the winter.”
Priscilla often referred to her family’s country home as “the house.” She had inherited the estate after her parents’ deaths during the influenza epidemic following the war. For a while she found shallow solace in a round of parties in Biarritz—until she met the very solid Douglas Partridge, who had given her a reason for living once more.
“Well, I thought it might be a good idea, what with one thing and another,” said Maisie. “But talking about it aloud, well, it wasn’t so bright, was it?”
“Not really, but on the other hand, you don’t come up with bad ideas very often. It’s not right, and besides, he’d know, and more to the point, Doreen would see your fingerprints all over the idea.” Priscilla put down her cocktail on the table adjacent to her side of the sofa, and picked up her cigarette case and a long ebony-and-white cigarette holder. She proceeded to push a cigarette into the holder. “There’s more to it, isn’t there,” said Priscilla. She lit the cigarette, inhaled, and blew a perfect smoke ring upwards.
“There wasn’t, until this evening.” Maisie took up her drink and sipped.
“Go on.”
“I have a feeling that Billy might be having some sort of romantic affair with Sandra.”
Priscilla’s eyes widened. “Oh, that’ll rock the bloody boat. I can see the whites of Doreen’s eyes already.”
Maisie nodded. “I know. Me too.”