Maisie shook her head. “Mrs. Mason’s granddaughter has been billeted with us, in Kent. I wanted to see her, to tell her that the little girl is well. Mrs. Mason is the only parent the child has ever known, as her mother died several years ago.”
“Oh, poor little lamb—I suppose I daren’t even ask about the father.” The nurse placed a hand on the screen, but did not pull it back. “She’s very poorly,” she whispered. “The doctor says she has a respiratory disease, but she’s not up for even an exploratory operation. She’s very weak. She’ll come to for long enough to take some soup, or a cup of tea, but then she sleeps again. We keep them at this end, when it gets to this stage.”
“How long does she have?” said Maisie, her voice low.
“I’d be surprised if she’s still with us this time next week,” said the nurse. “A few days ago, I thought it would be more, but she goes downhill every day. We do all we can for her—we’ll drain her lungs tomorrow morning, and she’ll be more wakeful and be able to take more food. We’re just trying to keep her comfortable. Doctor wondered why on earth she didn’t come in sooner—he said more could have been done if she hadn’t left it to the last minute.”
“She had the child to consider. I daresay it was easy to put it out of her mind, perhaps thinking she would get better if she ignored it.”
“That’s what a lot of people do. Anyway, she might wake up—give her arm a little squeeze and tell her you’re here.” The nurse pulled back the screen to enable Maisie and Billy to approach Louisa Mason’s bedside. “There’s one chair—and don’t sit on the bed, sir. Sister will have you thrown out.”
Billy positioned the wooden chair for Maisie to sit next to Anna’s grandmother. He stood behind her.
Maisie leaned forward and laid a hand on Louisa Mason’s arm. The limb was thin and blue-veined, the bones at her wrists and along her knuckles sharp and prominent, as if she were no more than a skeleton wrapped in gray tissue paper.
“Mrs. Mason. Mrs. Mason, can you hear me?” Maisie took the woman’s hand in both her own, rubbing her fingers back and forth as if to encourage the flow of blood through her veins. “Mrs. Mason.”
The woman’s lids flickered, as if she wanted very much to open her eyes, but the effort was too much for her.
“Take your time, I’m not going away,” said Maisie.
At last the eyes opened. Maisie reached for a water pot, its long spout designed to assist a patient to drink without sitting up. “Are you thirsty?”
The woman nodded, so Maisie stood up, placed a hand behind the woman’s head to support her, and steered the spout into her mouth. The woman sucked in three mouthfuls, and nodded again. Enough. She smiled, and Maisie at once saw something of Anna in her grandmother.
“Who are you?” Mason’s voice was rough, as if her throat were sore and inflamed.
“My name is Maisie Dobbs. This man works with me. We’re not from the authorities, but he helped me to find you. Your granddaughter, Anna, has been billeted with my family in Kent. I came to find out more about you—and her. And to tell you she is doing well.”
Tears welled up in the woman’s eyes. Maisie took a clean handkerchief from her pocket and with a gentle, light hand pressed away the drops of moisture.
“She’s a gem,” said Mason. She began to cough again, then tried to catch her breath, which came in an urgent, rasping wheeze. “A gem. I didn’t know what else to do—I knew I couldn’t take care of her anymore. She was the one doing the caring, not me. So I had to get her away.”
“Mrs. Mason, had she started school?”
The woman shook her head. “I taught her to read at home. I taught Anna her letters and her numbers. She’s a bright little girl. But I didn’t want them taking her away from me. And I didn’t want her at school, to be bullied.” Each word was uttered as if the next would never follow, but her determination to speak now was fierce.
“She’s a very beautiful child,” said Maisie.
“But she’s not quite like the other children.”
Maisie looked at Billy, and he shook his head.
“She’s doing well now, you know. We have a dog who doesn’t leave her side—the dog’s owner died, so we brought her home, and she has really taken to Anna.”
Mason closed her eyes and swallowed, then opened her eyes again. “Mary wouldn’t give her up, and I wouldn’t send her to the orphanage. We had people round from the adoption societies, but you never know what’s going to happen to the baby, do you? You hear terrible things.”
“That’s in the past now, Mrs. Mason. But I have to know—do you have her birth certificate? It’s important to know where it is.”
“Are you sending her away?”
“No, she’s staying until the war’s over, then we’ll have to see. But the billeting officer was talking about finding a birth certificate.”