Birds of a Feather

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.

“Well, I’ve already been out once this morning,” Frankie looked the clock. “But I’d best go to check on the mare again after I’ve ’ad a bit of bacon and egg. I don’t like to leave ’er for long, not with the littl’un due any minute. I’m a bit tired this mornin’, to tell you the truth, love.”

“I’ve missed you, Dad,” said Maisie.

Frankie smiled, and slid a slice of bacon and two perfect fried eggs onto a warm plate, which he put in front of Maisie. “There you are, get that down you, love. That’ll set you up for the day.”

Maisie waited for her father to depart before she in turn left the cottage, taking the narrow path that led from the bottom of her father’s garden to the Dower House grounds. At the edge of Maurice’s garden, where the man who had been feted by the governments of France, Belgium and Britain for his services during the Great War now grew prizewinning roses, another gate led to apple orchards and paddocks beyond.

“Ah, Maisie, so very good to see you.” Maurice Blanche, now well into his seventies, clasped Maisie’s hands with his own veined and bony ones.

“And you, Maurice, and you.” Maisie held his hands tightly.

“Come, child, let us sit, and you can tell me why it is that you have come to see your old teacher.” Maurice led Maisie to the drawing room, took a pipe from a stand next to the inglenook fireplace, and pressed tobacco from a leather pouch into the bowl of the pipe. Maisie relaxed into a wing chair, and watched as he held a match next to the rim at just the right angle to the tobacco, and drew several times on the pipe.

“Now then, what is the case?” He threw the extinguished match into the cold fireplace and settled into his favorite leather chair.

Maisie told Maurice about being summoned to see Joseph Waite, and the search for his daughter Charlotte. She referred to the murders of Philippa Sedgewick and Lydia Fisher, and the suicide of Rosamund Thorpe, which she intended to look into. She immediately noticed the almost imperceptible response in Maurice’s eyes when Waite’s name was mentioned.

“Maurice, I have to ask—”

“You have no doubt seen my notes on Waite from so long ago.”

“I have. Can you tell me what happened? What caused you to break off communication? I couldn’t help but think that it wasn’t like you.”

Maurice drew several more times on his pipe, then looked at Maisie intently. “Joseph Waite, as you can probably tell, is a natural and decisive leader. He is essentially a good man but at times a hard man, a difficult man. He is generous with those in straitened circumstances whom he believes genuinely cannot help themselves. He is no stranger to hard work and demands hard work from others, which is then repaid accordingly. He is, in fact, the epitome of the self-made man.”