whooping in such an excited state was unusual at this hour of darkness. Her weekend visits to Andrew Dene’s home in the Old Town had given her a sense of the rhythms of coastal life. She stepped to the window, and as she did so, extinguished the lamp so that she stood in darkness to draw back the blind, just slightly.
Lights went back and forth, and there was a flurry of activity close to the shingle bank where a fishing boat had just been drawn up. Maisie watched as men—there must have been three, perhaps four—unloaded a haul. She had waited many a time for the fishing boats to come in with the morning’s catch, but what she was seeing now seemed strange to her. There were no nets, as far as she could see, no barrels for the fish, and it was late for the catch to come in. A rumbling, heavy sound distracted her as a lorry appeared, backing up as far as the driver could take the vehicle to the shingle bank. She squinted; it was hard to see in the dark, though the scene was illuminated by Tilly lamps. Yes, perhaps it was a late catch. Shadows could be misleading, tricksters of light and imagination. And she was weary, with work to do. But not so weary that she would not take precautions to protect herself, even if such protection were not necessary.
Extinguishing the fire, Maisie carried the lamp into the studio where she relit the wick and, with one hand, searched down into the folds of the armchair’s seat. Her slender fingers teased out a few pennies and even a florin, a dried-up paint tube and a pencil. Pushing her hands down farther, Maisie was frustrated to find nothing of consequence, when she had been so sure that her meditation would yield the clue she needed. She returned to Nick’s living room, pulled on her hat and coat, washed the cup and saucer and placed them on the dresser. Then she waited. Waited until the only light on the beach came from the lighthouse, until the coast was clear and she could leave. With her hand held out to guide her from the carriage, she crept back towards the lean-to and claimed the MG. The engine seemed loud, but—she hoped—was probably drowned out by crashing waves as she again made her way slowly along the shingled track out to the main road.
Her route was one that took her across Kent toward Chelstone. But it was as she left the marshes that her headlamps illuminated, just for a second or two, the back of a lorry as it pulled off the main road and down a lane. She thought that the driver had probably not seen her, though she recognized the lorry immediately. It was the same vehicle she had seen at the beach.
Maisie made a mental note of the place where the lorry had turned, and, as she drove along in the darkness, she knew she would be back.
Six
Maisie had arrived late at Frankie Dobbs’s home, yet despite the hour, father and daughter sat together until the small hours, sometimes saying nothing, at other times speaking of Maisie’s work or, as now happened increasingly, talking of the past. Frankie Dobbs would begin a sentence with the words, “Do you remember when…” and continue with a story of someone he’d known as a young man while working at a racing yard, or perhaps it was a story about one of his customers, the people to whom he’d delivered fruit and vegetables on his rounds as a costermonger. But since 1914 Frankie had lived in Kent, though his dialect was easily recognizable as being from within the sound of the tolling bells of Bow, marking him as a true cockney.
Frankie no longer asked Maisie about Dr. Andrew Dene and whether their courtship might lead to him welcoming a son-in-law to their family of two. As he commented to Mrs. Crawford, the cook at Chelstone, just before she retired at Christmastime, “Well, I like the boy—London born and bred, you know. Good sort. Got feet on the ground, and does right by Maisie, but, I dunno, she never seems to…” And with that he looked into the distance, so that Mrs. Crawford touched him on the shoulder and said, “Don’t you worry about our Maisie. She’s different. I’ve said all along: The girl’s different. And she’ll find her own way. Always has, always will. No, she’s not one to worry about.” Though as she spoke, Mrs. Crawford reflected briefly on the many times she herself had worried about Maisie Dobbs.
“There you are, fresh eggs this morning and two rashers of bacon! That’ll keep you going, my girl.”
“You spoil me, Dad.” Maisie admonished her father as he sat down to tuck into his own hearty breakfast.
Frankie looked at the clock. “I’ve got to get out to the horses a bit sharpish this mornin’. I tell you, we’re doing well, with another mare due to foal soon, though it’d sit better with me if it weren’t so cold for a young ’un to come into the world. Spend all my time makin’ sure the stables’re warm.” He turned back to his breakfast, dipping bread into fried egg.
“As long as you’re not overdoing it, Dad.”
Frankie shook his head. “Nah. All in a day’s work.” Deflecting any further harking back to injuries sustained in an accident the year before, Frankie repeated some gossip heard on the estate. “Well, you’ve certainly set the cat among the pigeons, haven’t you?”
“Me?” Maisie set down her knife and fork. “What do you mean?”
“There’s talk that, what with you moving out of Ebury Place, ’er Ladyship won’t keep it on because you’ve left and there’s no one she trusts to keep an eye on the property, that she’d be better off mothballing it, you know, until that James comes back to England.”
“But she didn’t keep it on for me, Dad. I was just there as a sort of overseer, and I admit it was handy. Helped me to get some savings in the bank. I’m sure this is just hearsay, you know how they all talk.”
Frankie shook his head. “No, I reckon there’s something in it this time. Costs a lot of money to keep a house like that going, and even if they just close it up, it’ll save a bit.” Frankie paused to take a sip of tea. “But I don’t think it’s the money, myself. No, I think that ’er Ladyship just doesn’t want to spend much time up there in the Smoke. And she doesn’t want to be out with them types anymore, you know, them what don’t know there’s a slump on. Reckon the only people she ever ’eld in account were the ones like old Dr. Blanche, them with a bit of nouse.” Frankie pushed back his plate, then tapped the side of his head with his forefinger. “She don’t much mind what station a person is, as long as they’ve got something to say for themselves. So I reckon it’s on the cards, especially with Mrs. Crawford gone to ’er brother and ’is wife in Ipswich. They’ve already brought that Teresa down to work in the kitchen, but it’s not as if anyone wants a big staff anymore, not like it was years ago.”
“I hope no one really thinks this is all my fault,” said Maisie.
“No, not your fault, love, just all come at the same time. And like you said: People talk.” Frankie looked at the clock again. “You’re off in a minute, I know, so I’ll say my good-bye now. Better get over to the stable.”
Maisie kissed her father and waved him off, watching him walk slowly down the path. Frankie hated to see his daughter drive away, so she had expected him to leave before she departed the cottage. It was time he retired, and Maisie was grateful for the fact that Lady Rowan had assured her that the Groom’s Cottage would be her father’s home for the rest of his life; she had never forgotten that Frankie Dobbs had saved her horses from requisition in the war.
After tidying up the kitchen, Maisie packed her bag and left before nine, with the intention of reaching Hastings by ten o’clock. In the solitude of the journey down to the Sussex coast, she could consider the case of Nicholas Bassington-Hope against the cold light of day. And it was most certainly cold, and bright, for a clearing wind had swept across the south leaving blue skies but frosty ground underfoot.
