An Incomplete Revenge

James tilted his chair forward, almost but not quite to the floor. “Yes, that’s true, to a point. But it’s not something we would set out to do.”

Maisie deliberately relaxed her shoulders and allowed her hands to rest in her lap, crossing one leg over the other as she did so. “No, I wasn’t suggesting you would. I have undertaken work for the Compton Corporation before, and understand the integrity inherent in your procedures. However, you will negotiate a lower selling price, won’t you?”

James paused. “Of course. I’m a businessman, and even though we will not court controversy, there is an opportunity here for a revised deal to be brokered.”

Maisie nodded. “Yes, I thought so.”

“Does your question pertain directly to the brief?”

Maisie leaned forward. “In a way it does. If I am to reach any conclusions, or present a comprehensive report, I must understand the nature of the relationship between the Compton Corporation, your representatives, and the Sandermere estate. Your answers have simply raised more questions in my mind about Sander-mere’s actions.”

“What do you mean?”

Maisie sighed. “In military terms, James, I have a sense that he is in the process of shooting himself in the foot.”

“Good for us!”

Maisie stood up. “Ah, not if you want that clean sale, it isn’t—and certainly not in the period of time you’d like.” She held out her hand to James. “I will be in touch. In the meantime, it’s a bit late to see Lady Rowan now, I expect she’s with Lord Julian in the drawing room, sipping sherry.” She stepped forward, placing her hand on the back of James Compton’s chair. “You know, you really must be careful, James, you’ll come a cropper if you keep teetering back and forth.” She smiled. “Don’t summon Carter. I’ll see myself out.”

DEEP IN THOUGHT, Maisie meandered slowly back to the Groom’s Cottage, her father’s home. Carter’s knowledge of the dead Martin family in Heronsdene had piqued her interest, not least because of the tragic consequences the war had laid upon them. An entire family wiped out by conflict, three at home, one overseas. Yes, perhaps it was a blessing the son was lost. She imagined how it might have been had she returned from France, with her wounds as they were, only to find herself orphaned. Just the thought brought tears to her eyes, and she ran to the cottage, colliding with her father, who had just walked out into the night to collect wood for the fire.

“What’s all this, what’s all this, Maisie?” asked Frankie, as she enveloped herself in her father’s embrace. “What’s happened to upset you so, love?”

“Nothing, Dad. I was just thinking, that’s all.”

“Well, you’re home now, so you can stop that—I never did hold with too much thinking. Now then, help me with some wood. The nights are beginning to blow up a bit chilly, ’specially with this rain coming out of nowhere. A nice fire will set you right, you’ll see.”

TEN

Maisie remained at Chelstone until Sunday morning, when she left early to be in Richmond by eleven o’clock. Morning visiting hours ended at noon at the convalescent hospital where Simon had been cared for since the war. She would have one hour to be with a man who could not respond to her conversation, who did not see her, and who was not aware of her presence.

As was her habit when she visited, she parked the car close to an ancient oak tree at the far end of the graveled turning circle close to the former mansion that was now a place of retirement and care for those soldiers, sailors and airmen who had lost their minds to war. Most of the patients had been infantrymen, many of them officers, as the clinic was a private concern for those with families who could afford such attention.

Maisie made her way along the gravel and, as always, walked across the lawns to a stone wall overlooking the Thames, from which the mansion, built on a hill, commanded a panoramic view. She rested her hands on the wall, closed her eyes, and breathed deeply. Maisie had been well tutored in the stilling of the mind, in the practice of drawing strength of spirit in quiet contemplation. Now she sought to dampen the stirring of doubt, the sense that she could no longer face the young man she had loved at a time when life was slipping from him. She leaned forward and rested her head on her hands. But we are neither of us young anymore. Though she knew very well that the years were drawn on Simon’s face, when she thought of him, it was that boyish man she saw, the newly minted military doctor with whom she had fallen in love, and he with her. And when she slipped into the chair alongside his bed, closed her hand around his, and whispered the words, It’s me, Maisie, I’ve come to see you, she would lean over and kiss his forehead at the very place where fragments of shell had burrowed into his skull and he had been lost to her forever.

A breeze blew up from the river, and Maisie moved away from the wall, took one more deep breath, then turned and made her way back to the main door of the clinic.

“Good morning, Miss Dobbs. Not very nice out, is it? Sign here, please, and I’ll call staff nurse. The captain’s been moved; he’s in another ward now.” The receptionist enunciated every word in her singsong voice, framed by lips coated liberally with cherry-red lipstick, which, as always, matched the long nails that clicked on the telephone dial as Maisie completed the visitors’ book.

Maisie signed her name and pushed the book back to the receptionist. “Thank you. I see I’m the only visitor today so far.”

“Yes, though his mother does try to get in every other day.”

Maisie nodded, then turned, as she was greeted by the staff nurse. “Good morning, Miss Dobbs. Follow me, and I’ll take you to Captain Lynch.”

They walked along corridors with polished wood floors, bouquets of flowers set in white jardinieres, and a fragrance free of the usual hospital hallmarks—the odor of human wastes masked by disinfectant and bleach. Passing the entrance to the hospital conservatory, formerly the winter garden where the ladies of the house would take a turn when frozen weather forced them to remain indoors, Maisie thought back to other times and past visits, when she would sit with Simon close to the fountain, or perhaps alongside an open window. With his pale blue pajamas and navy dressing gown, and a rich tartan blanket across his knees, he was a silent partner to her conversation. She would speak of her cases, knowing the confidence would be kept, and tell him about her father, and perhaps even speak in lowered tones of a man she had dined with, or accompanied to the theater. And always she spoke of those years when she did not come, when her fears and reticence following her own convalescence caused her to stay away. At the heart of her angst had been the shell shock she suffered. Like a dragon, leashed and sleeping, it threatened to rear up at any time, to take her by the throat in its enflamed jaws and crush every