Birds of a Feather

“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.

“Ugh,” uttered Maisie as she ran to the MG.

George joined her, wearing the sort of foul-weather clothing one usually associated with fishermen.

“Going to catch a trout for tea, George?”

“No, Miss. I’d’ve thought catching things was more in your line of work.”

“I deserved that, George.” Maisie laughed as George lifted the bonnet to turn on the petrol pump, the first of five steps to start the MG. “Thank you for coming out.”

“Saw you running across in this rain, Miss, and wanted to make sure you got off safely. Pity you’ve got to go somewhere today, so you mind how you go, Miss. Take them corners nice and easy.”

“Don’t worry, George.”

“Know what time you’ll be back? Just so’s I know?”

“I won’t be back to Chelstone today. After Romney Marsh, I’m off to Pembury to visit Mr. Dobbs, and afterwards straight on to London. I expect to return to Kent as soon as I can to see my father.” Maisie waved good-bye to George, who patted the back of the MG with his hand before running into the garage and out of the rain.

Apple orchards that were filled with blossom only yesterday were now sodden and sorry. Tall cherry trees bent over and the branches of roadside elder laden with bloom seemed almost to ache with the task of standing tall. Maisie hoped that the storm would pass, that the trees and land would dry quickly, and that spring, her favorite season in Kent, would be restored to its resplendent richness soon.