“Thank you, my dear. It’s thoughtful of you to pay a visit.” He leaned forward and pressed his cheek to hers. “Please come in—my housekeeper has laid out lunch in the dining room. Did you have a good journey?”
Maisie replied that it was a lovely day for driving, warm with the promise of an Indian summer. She followed Donat into the dining room, aware of his fragility, still. After the housekeeper had helped him into a chair, Maisie took her seat and poured water for them both. The housekeeper returned with a platter of steamed fish and serving bowls with small white potatoes, peas, and runner beans.
“I have a young man staying here now. He was sent to help me with drawings, but he’s quite good company, so he’s living in the room over the garage. It was built by the last owner for his chauffeur, and it’s come in handy, as Andrew is very good with engines and keeps my motor running quite nicely too. He drives me anywhere I need to go.” Donat stopped speaking to press a hand to his chest and catch his breath. “In fact, I occasionally have another visitor, and they get on very well. I could even be accused of matchmaking.” He looked at Maisie as she took up the silver water jug to fill his glass. “Elaine comes every other week or so—she brings her boy. That’s indeed nice at my age, to have a young person around me. She was quite the surprise, Miss Otterburn.”
“Really?” said Maisie. “Perhaps she’s finding her feet.”
“Perhaps she is—and though I cannot say I hold with this sort of thing, I think it will be better all around when her divorce is made final and she receives her decree absolute. She’s used some money she earned to rent a flat in London, but she’s told me she’ll be going to Canada just as soon as she’s free to do so, and can take the boy with her. Lovely little man, he is—such a smile. I would rather they stayed, to tell you the truth. I miss Dina so very much, and it’s nice to think . . .” He seemed to look into the distance as Maisie served the fish and vegetables. “I wish Edwina had known motherhood—such a shame.”
“Her fiancé perished in the war, didn’t he?”
“And she was never the same after that. She didn’t lock herself away, but for her there was only the one true love.”
Maisie nodded and waited for the right moment to speak of Munich once more.
“Mr. Donat, do you mind if I ask you something? I know you were taking money to Elaine in Munich, but I think some details are missing. Just to put it to rest in my mind, perhaps you can tell me more.”
He lifted his hand from the table with some difficulty and placed it on her own. “Yes, I think I owe you an explanation or two, don’t I?”
“It would help me. I like to sew up things in my mind—in my work, I used to call it my ‘final accounting.’ It was something I was taught a long time ago, that it’s a way of picking up all the pieces we can when something important has happened. It’s rather like making sure we know where every penny has gone after we’ve been shopping. It’s not always possible, but I do my best.” She took a sip of water. “Why did you agree to bring the money to Elaine? I mean, I can see how she might have met Ulli Bader and Anton Schmidt—there was the connection of knowing England, and people overseas like connections—but you are not thought to be best friends with John Otterburn.”
“Oh, I’m all right with him—he’s just a fiercely competitive man, and of course we moved in the same circles. When I won a contract that he thought he had in the bag, people said it was like the hare and the tortoise—and I know I look like an old tortoise now!”
“But there’s something else, isn’t there?”
Donat nodded. “Yes, there is. And perhaps you are only the third person who knows this.” His eyes filled with tears. “Lorraine Otterburn and I . . . well . . . we had an affair, for a time. Not a long time, but it was a heady moment for us both. I loved my wife dearly, but—who can say? Summer madness twenty-six years ago, and of course, Lorraine is a very dear woman.”
“And—”
“Elaine does not know, but as you saw, she is drawn to me—like a homing pigeon, now that she has found me. She’s a lot like John, no doubt about it, but I think she’s discovering what it’s like to be another kind of person. And now we are joined by what happened in Munich—I agreed to do something without a shred of doubt that it was the right thing to do, and she brought me home when you asked it of her.” He laughed. “My goodness, but she is a fearless woman—you should have been in the aircraft with her. I was so very ill, but I knew I was in safe hands.” He took a bite of fish and a few sips of water. “As I understand it, she made a dreadful error where you are concerned, my dear.”
“In the past, Mr. Donat. It’s in the past.” Maisie wanted to move the conversation onto another aspect of the journey to Munich. “You were involved in the Voice of Freedom, weren’t you? And I think it might have been more than that.”
“Very observant of you, Maisie. Yes, I was.”