Her task complete, she left the cottage to join Lady Rowan, who was in the distance striding as purposefully as she could across the lawns at the front of the manor.
Lady Rowan waved to Maisie with her walking stick and called out. “Good morning, Maisie,” followed by, “Nutmeg, drop it! Drop it now and come here!”
Maisie laughed to see the dog come to his owner, tail between his legs, head down, and filled with remorse.
“This dog will eat anything, absolutely anything. How lovely to see you, my dear.” Lady Rowan reached out and squeezed Maisie’s upper arm. Though she held Maisie in great affection, Lady Rowan, restrained by considerations of position and place, had only once demonstrated her feelings. When Maisie returned from France, Lady Rowan had taken her in her arms and said, “I am so relieved, so very relieved that you are home.” On that occasion Maisie was silent in her embrace, not knowing quite what to say.
“And it’s lovely to see you, too, Lady Rowan,” replied Maisie, placing her hand on top of Lady Rowan’s for just a second.
“Now then, before we get down to business”—she glanced at Maisie as they began to walk together across the lawn—“because I know you’re here on business, Maisie, what’s the news about your dear father and the young man you’re sending to help.”
“Well, I’ll see my father later, before I return to London. I’ve spoken to Dr. Simms, who thinks it’ll be another week before he’s transferred to the convalescent hospital. I think he’ll be there for about three or four weeks, according to Dr. Dene, who says it might have been longer, but he’s spoken to the doctors at Pembury, and my father is making excellent progress, even at this early stage. During that time Mr. Beale will look after the horses. Then, when Dad comes home to Chelstone, Mr. Beale will stay on at the cottage and work under his supervision.”
“Which as we both know means that your father will be hobbling over to the stables each day even though he shouldn’t.”
“Probably, though I’ve told Mr. Beale to keep an eye on him.”
Lady Rowan nodded. “I’ll be so relieved when he’s back in charge. Then I’ll feel I can leave for Town.”
“Yes, of course. Thank you, L—”
Lady Rowan held up her hand to silence Maisie, as they leaned toward each other to avoid the low branch of a majestic beech tree.
“What can
“I want you to tell me what you know about the different women’s affiliations in the war. I’m particularly interested in those women who handed out white feathers.”
Lady Rowan blinked rapidly, the sparkle vanishing instantly. “Oh, those harpies!”
“Harpies.” It was the second time in two days that Maisie had heard the term in connection with the women. And in her mind’s eye she saw the illustrated flyleaf of a book that Maurice had given her to read, years ago. A short note had accompanied her assignment: “In learning about the myths and legends of old, we learn something of ourselves. Stories, Maisie, are never just stories. They contain fundamental truths about the human condition.” The black-and-white charcoal drawing depicted birds with women’s faces, birds carrying humans in their beaks as they flew away into the darkness. Maisie was jolted back to the present by Lady Rowan.
“Of course, you were either engrossed in your studies at Girton or away overseas doing something worthwhile, so you would have missed the Order of the White Feather.” Lady Rowan slowed her pace, as if to allow memories to catch up with the present. “This was before conscription, and it was all started by that man, Admiral Charles Fitzgerald. After the the initial rush to enlist had fallen off, they needed more men at the front, so he obviously thought the way to get them there was through the women. I remember seeing the handbills starting to pop up all over the place.” Lady Rowan mimicked a stern masculine voice: “Is your best boy in uniform yet?”
“Oh yes, I think I saw one at a railway station before I went into nursing.”
“The plan was to get young women to go around giving the white feather—a sign of cowardice—to young men not in uniform. And—” she raised a pointed finger in emphasis. “And those two women—the
“You didn’t care for her, did you?”
Lady Rowan pursed her lips. Maisie realized that she was so intent upon Lady Rowan’s words that she had been ignoring the vista of the Weald of Kent around her. They had reached a gate and stile. If she had been alone, Maisie would have clambered over the stile with the same energy as the three dogs before her. Instead, she pulled back the rusty iron gate lock, and allowed Lady Rowan to walk through first.
“Frankly, no, I didn’t.” Lady Rowan continued. “She did a lot of very commendable work in bringing education to those who might not otherwise have had the opportunity, organizing children’s play groups for working women, that sort of thing. But she was an anti-suffragist, so we were like oil and water. Of course she’s long gone now, but she supported recruiting men for the trenches by this most horrible means, through the accusations of women. And as for the women themselves—”
“Yes, I’m interested in the women, the ones who gave out the white feathers.”
“Ah yes.” She sighed. “You know, I wondered about them at the time. What made them do it? What made young women say, ‘Oh, yes, I’ll do that. I’ll walk the streets with my bag of white feathers, and I’ll give one to each boy I see not in uniform, even though I don’t know one jot about him!’”
“And what do you think, now that time has passed?”
Lady Rowan sighed and stopped to lean on her walking stick. “Maisie, that question is more up your alley than mine, really. You know, the business of discovering why people do what they do.”
“But?” Maisie encouraged Lady Rowan to speak her mind.
“When I think back, it’s alarming, some of the things that came to pass. One minute the suffrage movement was seen as a tribe of marauding pariahs by the government, then, as soon as war was declared there was a division in our ranks. One lot became the darlings of Lloyd George, who persuaded women to release men to the
