Maisie remained in front of the door for a moment before walking back out onto the Winchester Road to collect her motor car. She wondered how the men working for Yates fared in the countryside—Hampshire had not been their first stop, and it would not be their last. Most airfields were situated in rural areas, and the painters were, in general, city men who had grown up on the streets, not close to fields and farms. She wondered if, at the end of a long day, perhaps feeling less than well, given the circumstances of the job gleaned so far, the local pubs might have offered the only place for the young men to relax. On the one hand, that might have given Joe a sense of being at home, or it might have presented him with a dilemma—too much like home.
Pulling up alongside a telephone kiosk, Maisie took the opportunity to place a call to Brenda, who would be at the Dower House, the home bequeathed to Maisie years earlier by her mentor, Dr. Maurice Blanche. Brenda and Maisie’s father stayed during the week to care for Anna, the evacuee girl who had been billeted with them. Maisie drove down from London on a Thursday or Friday, returning to her flat in Holland Park on Monday morning, though if she were not busy it had become easy to linger for one more day. Sometimes two.
“The doctor’s been,” said Brenda. “She came over poorly and was running a temperature and he says it’s definitely measles. The poor little mite is really under the weather. Doctor Stringer says it will run its course, but he said a few of the children locally have gone down with it a lot harder than he’s seen before. He reckons the little ones take on more than we think they do, so they’re—what did he say? Oh yes—vulnerable. Mind you, he’s young—got all these new-fangled ideas. He told me he wanted to join up in the medical corps, but couldn’t on account of his limp—had polio as a boy and reckons he’s a lucky one because he didn’t end up in a wheelchair.”
Maisie knew that when her stepmother began to talk without stopping, it was generally because she was worried.
“I’ll come home as soon as I can—let’s see how she is tomorrow. Is everything else all right?”
“I was getting to everything else—the doctor also says that the outbreak of measles will get worse if they start a second evacuation. There’s all those children who went back to London—like those boys who were here—and what with Germany going into Holland and Belgium, and now France, they’re closer to an invasion, so the boys could come back to us, you never know. The new billeting officer came around today to check on Anna, so I told her she wasn’t to be bringing any more children to the house until little Anna was well over the measles.”
Maisie put her hand to her forehead. “Oh, poor Anna. Do you need any extra help?”
“A child lying quiet in her bed isn’t a nuisance. The Ministry of Health inspector is though.”
“What do you mean?” Maisie knew the Ministry of Health had jurisdiction over orphaned children, and a certain level of influence over where they should be placed. While she had documents signed by Anna’s grandmother before the elderly woman succumbed to a respiratory disease, her guardianship of the child could still be challenged. However, Maisie’s solicitor had considered the guardianship documents to be solid—at least until the war was over.
“She was checking on the evacuees, and knew about Anna’s situation, so she was just asking questions about any plans to place her with a family. She didn’t want to see her—she only found out about the measles outbreak when she arrived at the school, so she wasn’t exactly keen to get close to any children. More’s the pity because I’ve heard a few things about those poor little tykes over at Turner’s Farm. They say old Jim Turner has his evacuees out working at five in the morning, before they go to school, and as soon as they’re home, they’re working again. I told the billeting officer about it, but all she could say was that they were a good family and the children did not seem ill-treated. I felt like telling her to put her glasses on!”
Maisie consulted her watch, and was about to speak when Brenda began again.
“Your father and I take it all in our stride, and Anna is no trouble—even as ill as she is. Emma won’t leave her side, and even Jook has been up the stairs to sit in the room, and you know how that dog is with your father. If dogs could get measles, those two hounds would be down with it too by now. Anyway, one more thing—your friend Priscilla has been on the telephone. Wants to know where you are. She says it’s important.”
Chapter 4
It was Maisie’s understanding, having spoken to one of the farm workers before she made her way back to Whitchurch, that there were several air force stations within a few miles of the farm. When she considered the reasons for such a cluster, two factors came to mind. The first was proximity to the coast, and the ports of Southampton and Portsmouth. Second was the land itself and the flight path bombers might take in the direction of towns to the northeast and to London, though airfields in the southeast—such as Tangmere, Kenley, Hawkinge, and Biggin Hill—were situated to protect the capital.
More questions queued up to be answered. Why did Yates not know the exact whereabouts of the crew? Most likely they did, but the fact that they were working on a government contract meant that secrecy was of the utmost importance—she could not expect them to have spoken freely to Billy. He could, after all, have been a spy—and hadn’t the whole country been warned about the possibility of Nazi spies lurking among the general population, camouflaged by—perhaps—a British education and friendly demeanor or being a good neighbor? But what about Joe? Was his desire to be his own man overriding an ever more serious health condition? A young lad of fifteen might not consider it urgent—perhaps the headaches were easy to brush off. And who was his visitor?
Maisie’s thoughts darted from one question to the next, as if she had skimmed a stone across the realm of possibilities, and was now watching ripples of suspicion form around the contours of information she had gathered so far. She checked her watch again—a wristwatch given to her by her late husband, James Compton—and looked up at the darkening sky. One more telephone call before she made her way back to the farm. She dialed the operator, gave the number, placed the requisite number of coins in the slot, and waited until she could hear the ring, and then a voice on the line.
“Partridge residence.”
Maisie pressed button “A” to release the coins and begin the call. “Elinor—Elinor, I recognized your lovely Welsh lilt. Is Mrs. Partridge at home?”
“Oh hello, Miss Dobbs—I mean, Your Ladysh—”
Maisie cut off the boys’ nanny before she completed the little-used title bestowed upon Maisie on the day of her marriage to James.
“I have to be quick, Elinor—I’m in a telephone kiosk in Hampshire, and I only have a few coins on me. Is Mrs. Partridge there?”
“You just missed her. She’s taken the boys—Tim and Tarquin—out for supper.”
“Is anything wrong? I received a message that she was out of sorts.”
“It’s Tim—giving her a bit of trouble again. As you know, he’s not been quite the same since Tom joined the air force, and he can’t seem to wait until he gets his turn when he comes of an age to be called up. Too keen to join the navy, that one. But it won’t be long, the way things are going—and more likely, he’ll have to go where they put him, which might be right into the army.”
“He does seem to be causing Mrs. Partridge some grief, and he has a sharp tongue on him when he likes, I know that.”
“He’s too much like his mother—quick with the wit, but it can cut like a knife when he wants it to. Between us, she doesn’t like it because she knows where he gets it from.”
“Oh dear. I’ll be back in London soon—tomorrow afternoon, hopefully—and I can usually get Tim to wind his neck in.”