Traffic was mercifully light as Maisie made her way to Ebury Place. As rain spattered across her windscreen, compounding the dregs of a yellowish-green smog, Maisie thought not of the work ahead, but of her father, Frankie Dobbs. Whenever she visited her him, he assured her, “Me? Don’t you worry about me, love. I’m awright, like a sheep in clover down ’ere.” But Maisie did worry, yet was ashamed that her concern had not led her to visit him more often.
She entered the house by the kitchen door. When the Comptons arrived back in town she would resume using the front door, which would once again be opened by Carter, the Comptons’ long-serving butler. And once again Mrs. Crawford, who had put off retirement for just one more year—to add to last year and the year before’s “one more year”—would be mistress of all she surveyed in the kitchen. Maisie would straddle two levels of household life and knew only too well that her good standing both upstairs and downstairs was was terrain to be negotiated with great care.
She placed her document case on the writing table in her sitting room and slumped down into the armchair by the fire, which was already burning brightly. Home. Was this home? Had she been too easily persuaded by Lady Rowan to reside at Ebury Place because she did not want to refuse the woman who had given her so much? When had she last felt truly at home?
Sighing, Maisie moved to draw back the long curtains and looked out at fog swirling around a streetlight. Soon the days would be longer and, she hoped, warmer. London’s smog would dissipate as coal fires were extinguished and hearths cleaned out for the summer. As she looked at the streetlight illuminating the twists and curls of fog in front of her, Maisie remembered the small soot-blackened terraced house in Lambeth where she had lived with her parents. With both parents, that is, until she was thirteen, when her mother died in Frankie Dobbs’s arms, her last words instructing him to do right by their girl. Her last true home, she remembered, had been with her father, until he had done his best for her by finding a place in service at the Ebury Place mansion of Lord and Lady Compton.
There was a knock at her door. Maisie called out, “Come in.”
Sandra opened the door quietly and smiled. “Good evening, M’um. Would you like supper in your rooms or in the dining room, M’um?”
Maisie smiled. She was M’um again, upstairs. Maisie checked her watch. Seven o’clock. A plan was forming in her mind, inspired by the prospect of an evening alone in her rooms. Though she could not identify a place that was now home, there was a person who was home, and Maisie acknowledged her yearning to be with him.
“Sandra, I wonder if you could pack me up something for me to eat in the car, perhaps a piece of pork pie, or a cheese sandwich—and a bottle of Vimto or something like that?”
“Oh, M’um, you aren’t going out in this, are you?” Sandra nodded toward the fog, which seemed to be growing thicker outside.
“I don’t think it will be any better first thing in the morning, do you? I’ll collect my supper on my way to the motor car. I just have to pack a few things, then I’ll come straight down to the kitchen.”
“Right you are, M’um. I’ll have it all ready when you come down.”
“Thank you, Sandra.”
Maisie edged the MG out of the mews behind Ebury Place and into the damp London night. She drove through south London carefully, making her way along the Old Kent Road, and on toward Sevenoaks, Tonbridge, and from there along narrow country lanes to Chelstone.
As Maisie left London behind, the smog gradually dispersed, leaving only a light rain to contend with. She uncovered the small wicker basket positioned on the passenger seat beside her, and reached for a sandwich. There was something soothing in this journey through the night, with only the flash of headlights as an occasional car passed. The engine rumbled confidently, and Maisie considered not only aspects of her own life that lately seemed to claim attention when she least expected such interruption, but the lives of Charlotte Waite and her women friends.
Keeping her right hand on the steering wheel and her attention on the road, Maisie reached out with her left hand to the basket again, took out a linen cloth, and wiped her hands and mouth. She reached for the bottle of Vimto and pulled the cork out with her teeth. Sandra had already removed the top and replaced the cork halfway to make it easier for Maisie. She took just a few sips, then set the open bottle carefully in the basket, using one hand to tuck a table napkin around it, to keep the bottle upright and within easy reach. She slowed down as rabbits scurried across the open road, requiring that she swerve around them as they froze in the beam of the headlamps.
At last she reached Chelstone. She drove first through the village, where the lights were still on at the Fox and Hounds, probably for the landlord to see by as he pushed a heavy broom across the flagstone floor, for it was well past last orders. Finally, she turned into the carriage sweep leading to Chelstone Manor, the gravel spitting and crackling under the weight of the MG’s tires. A few lights were on at the manor house. The Comptons—especially Lady Rowan—kept late hours. Maisie passed the Dower House, where Maurice lived, and turned left several yards along. The lane narrowed as she parked outside the Groom’s Cottage, and quietly took her bags from the car before tiptoeing along the path. And as she looked in through the latticed window, Maisie saw her father, illuminated by the mellow light cast by a single oil lamp, staring into the fire.
As flames reflected on the folds and furrows of his face, Maisie realized there was another reason at the heart of her reticence to visit Frankie as often as she might. Though still vital, he was now an old man, and she did not want to confront the truth of the matter: that the person who was home to her was in his twilight years and might be taken from her at any time.
“Oh, Dad,” whispered Maisie, as she ran to the back door and let herself into her father’s house.
She awoke the next morning to the smell of bacon cooking on the wood-fired stove in the kitchen below. As splinters of sunlight cast a morning glow across her counterpane, she leap out of bed, took her old woolen dressing gown from behind the door and, ducking her head so as to avoid the low beams, ran downstairs into the kitchen.
“Morning, Dad.”
“And a very good mornin’ to you, love.” Frankie Dobbs stood at the stove and turned two thick rashers of back bacon. “Two eggs or one? Collected them myself this mornin’, so they’re nice and fresh. None of your shop-bought nonsense, sittin’ in a warehouse for days before it gets to your plate.”
“One egg’ll be lovely, Dad.” Maisie poured tea for Frankie and herself from a brown earthenware teapot.
“I expect you’ll be off to see Dr. Blanche as soon as you’ve ’ad your breakfast, eh, love?”
Maisie looked up at Frankie, knowing that he expected her to leave, to go immediately to the house of her teacher and mentor. How many times had she spent a moment with Frankie only to seek Maurice’s company and counsel for hours? Though she had little time to spare, Maisie sat back in her chair.
“No, I don’t have to hurry, Dad. I thought we could chat until you go out to the horses.”
Frankie beamed at his daughter.