The weather was crisp, but fine enough for Andrew Dene and Maisie to walk to the pier after a quick fish-and-chips lunch. The sun was higher in the sky and had it been warmer, one might have thought it summer.
“I cannot believe you removed all that lovely batter before eating the fish!” Andrew Dene teased Maisie.
“I love the fish, but don’t really care for batter. Mind you, the chips were tasty.”
“But you fed most of them to the seagulls, and they’re fat enough already!”
They walked in silence. Maisie looked at her watch once again.
“Do you know how many times in one minute you’ve looked at your watch? I know you can’t find my company that tedious. You should break yourself of the habit.”
“I beg your pardon?” Maisie’s eyes widened. She had never met a man of such impertinence. “I was going to say that I ought to be turning around, to get to my motor by—”
“Half past one? Ish? Yes, I haven’t forgotten. Have you made any headway today, Miss Dobbs?”
“I’ve certainly gleaned more information, Doctor. It’s putting the pieces together in a logical form that’s the challenge. Sometimes it’s guesswork all the way.”
“Anything more I can do to help?” They were strolling back to the car, Maisie consciously keeping her hands deep in the pockets of her raincoat, holding tight to the linen handkerchief that held the third feather. She would not look at her watch again until she was well away from Andrew Dene.
“No . . . yes, yes there is, actually. Tell me, Dr. Dene, if you were to name one thing that made the difference between those who get well quickly and those who don’t, what would it be?”
“Phew. Another simple question from Maisie Dobbs!”
“I’m serious.”
“And so am I. It’s a tricky one, and one that you are probably more qualified to answer than I. You were a nurse and, more important, you have training in psychological matters.”
“I’d like your opinion. Please, take a stab at it.” Maisie turned toward him as she walked, challenging Dene to respond.
“Well, if I were to name one thing, it would be acceptance.”
“Acceptance? But doesn’t that stop the injured or wounded from trying to get better?”
“Ah, now you’re playing devil’s advocate, aren’t you? In my opinion acceptance has to come first. Some people don’t accept what has happened. They think, ‘Oh, if only I hadn’t walked up that street when I did,’ or in a case like your father’s: ‘If only I’d known the ground was that wet and that Fred, or whatever his name was, had left his tools in the way.’ They are stuck at the point of the event that caused the injury.”
“Yes, I think I know what you mean.”
“So, in the case of the soldiers who find it difficult to move on— and of course, some have had terrible injuries that all the therapeutic assistance in the world can’t help—but those who find it difficult to accept are stuck in time, they keep thinking back to when it happened. And it’s not so much, ‘Oh, I wish I’d never enlisted.’ In fact most say, ‘At least I went,’ but instead it’s a case of ‘If only I’d ducked, jumped when I could have, run a bit faster, gone back for my friend.’ And of course, it all gets mixed up with the guilt of actually surviving when their pals didn’t.”
“So what’s the answer?”
Dene stopped as they came alongside the MG, and Maisie leaned on her car, facing the Channel, her face warmed by the sun.
“I wish I had one, but, I would say that it’s threefold: One is accepting what has happened. Three is having a picture, an idea of what they will do when they are better, or improved. Then in the middle, number two is a path to follow. For example, from what I’ve heard about your father, he’ll make a good recovery: He’s accepted that the accident happened, he has a picture of what the future holds for him when he’s better—ensuring that the colt is in tip-top condition ready for training at Newmarket—and in the middle he’s already aware of the steps that he’ll take. At first he’ll only be able to stand for a minute or two, then he’ll use crutches, move on to walking sticks, and then the casts will come off. Dr. Simms will give him instructions as to what not to do, and the sort of activities that will set him back.”
“I see.”
“There are gray areas,” Maisie resisted the urge to look at her watch again as Andrew Dene went on. “For example, if we take Mr. Beale— oops, you had better get going, hadn’t you, Miss Dobbs?” Andrew Dene opened the door of the MG for Maisie.
“Thank you, Dr. Dene. I enjoyed our lunch.”
“Yes, I did too. I look forward to seeing your father at All Saints’ soon.”
“ I’ll be in touch with the administrator as soon as I can confirm the arrangements.”
“Right you are, Miss Dobbs.”
Phew! What a character he is! Still, Maisie found Dene to be interesting, engaging, challenging—and fun. He was able to laugh at himself. But there was something else about him, something that nagged at her, that she both liked and found confusing at the same time: He seemed to know who she was. Not by name. Not by accomplishment or by profession. No. There was more than that to her identity. Andrew Dene understood her roots. Even if he had never been privy to her story, Maisie knew that he understood her.
Following her father’s accident, and the talks at the hospital with Maurice and later her father, Maisie had been able to recollect more of the times spent with her mother. She remembered being in the kitchen, a girl of about nine. Her mother had been telling her the story of how she’d met Maisie’s father and known straight away that Frankie Dobbs was the one for her. “I set my hat for him there and then, Maisie, there and then.” And she’d laughed, wiping the back of her sudsy hand across her forehead to brush back ringlets of black hair that had fallen into her eyes.
Maisie wondered about the business of setting one’s hat for a man, and how a woman of her age might go about doing such a thing.
As she drove along, up over the ridge toward Sedlescombe, her thoughts shifted to Joseph Waite and the many tragic events that had befallen him. A father and brother killed in mining accidents, a wife dead in childbirth, a son lost to war, and an estranged daughter whom he tried to control without success. Hadn’t Lydia Fisher indicated to Billy that Charlotte had been something of a social butterfly? But as she passed into Kent at the boundary near Hawkhurst, Maisie checked herself, and the certain pity she had begun to feel for Joseph Waite. Yes, she felt pity. But was it pity for a man who had stabbed three women, quite literally, in cold blood?
Perhaps Charlotte Waite had the answer. Tomorrow she would be able to judge Charlotte for herself. Was she, as her father believed, a ‘wilting lily’? Or, was she, as Lydia Fisher had intimated to Billy, a habitual bolter? Magnus Fisher’s account did not help. But each narrator’s story revealed only one perspective, one representation of the person that Charlotte revealed herself to be in their company. Where did the truth lie? Who was Charlotte, really?
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Thursday greeted Kent with driving rain and howling winds. Maisie looked out at the weather from the cozy comfort of the Groom’s Cottage, shivering but not at all surprised.
“Typical! Bring in the clouds for a drive to the marshes!”
Today she would make her way across Kent again and on through the relentless gray of the marshlands, where people—if she saw any— would be rushing along with heads bent, anxious to get to and fro from work or errands. It was a day when locals tried not to venture outside and even farmworkers found jobs to do in the barn rather than out in the fields. Today she would finally meet Charlotte Waite.