It was dark when they returned to Belgravia in silence. Rowan was deep in thought. She had seen much that troubled her. But nothing troubled her more than her own emotions.
'You'll come in . . .'
'No, Rowan. You are tired from swimming in another pond today. A pond that, though discussed in your meetings and debates, you could not truly imagine. Poverty is something we think we understand from description. It is only when it is close to hand that we have a grasp of what it means to be unequal.'
'But what can I do?'
'No need to wear a hair shirt, Rowan. But perhaps opportunities will present themselves. One only has to ask, 'How might I serve?' Goodnight, my dear.'
Maurice bowed slightly, then left Rowan in the entrance hall of her grand home.
He had taken her to the East End of London. First to the noisy markets, which thrilled her, although she could not look directly at some of the street urchins. Then into the depths of London's poorest areas. And it seemed that always someone knew him.
'Evenin', Doc, awright then?'
'Well, very well. And how is the youngest?'
'Comin' on a treat, Doc. Thanks to you.'
Rowan didn't ask about his relationship to the people who greeted him so readily. Maurice was certainly a doctor, but after attending King's College Medical School in London, he had studied at the University of Edinburgh's Department of Legal Medicine. Rowan was under the impression that he no longer practiced. At least not upon people who were still alive.
'To answer the question that is written all over your face, Rowan--once or twice a week, I attend women and children at a small clinic. There is precious little set aside for the poor, there is a constant need for help, for . . . everything. And, of course, bringing children safely into the world and providing care when they are sick is a refreshing change for me.'
Rowan rung the bell in the drawing room. She had dismissed Carter, the butler, as soon as she arrived home, but now she craved inner warmth.
How may I serve? What can I do? What would be sensible? What would Julian say? Well, that was something she would not have to think about. If Maurice was her challenger, Julian was her rock.
'Yes, Your Ladyship?'
'Carter, I'd like some hot soup, please--something simple, nothing too clever, you understand. And a sherry please, Carter.'
'Very good, Ma'am. Cook prepared a tasty vegetable soup this afternoon, as soon as the delivery arrived.'
'Perfect. Perfect, Carter.'
Carter poured sherry into a crystal glass and held it out on a silver salver.
'Oh--and Carter. Before I forget. I would like to speak to you about the dinner next week and our guests. Lord Julian's business associates. Tomorrow morning after breakfast, tell Cook to come to my study as well. Ten o'clock.'
'Very good, Your Ladyship. Will that be all?'
Later, as Lady Rowan finished the hot soup that had been brought on a tray to the drawing room, she leaned back in her chair and contemplated what she had seen that day, and about the conversation with Maurice. It is so easy, she thought. All I have to do is snap my fingers and someone runs. Equality. Maurice is right, I can do more.
While Lady Rowan readied herself for bed in her grand house in Belgravia on that night in the spring of 1910, a thirteen-year-old girl cried herself to sleep in the small back room of a soot-blackened terraced house in southeast London. Her jet black hair, released from a neat braid and purple ribbon, cascaded over the pillow, and the deep blue eyes that so easily reflected joy were rimmed with dark circles and red with tears. She cried for her loss and cried, too, for her father, whose dreadful, deep breathless sobs echoed from kitchen below.
Maisie had held her tears back for days, believing that if her father did not see or hear her crying, he would not worry about her, and his burden would be lighter. And each day, his heart breaking, he rose in the early hours of the morning, harnessed his horse to the cart, and made his way to Covent Garden Market.
At first, after her mother died, Maisie would pinch herself three times on the right arm before sleeping, assured that this one action would make her rise at three o'clock in the morning, in time to make his tea and spread a thick slice of bread with beef dripping for him eat in front of the coal stove before he set off for the market.
'You don't 'ave to do that, love. I can watch out for meself, Maisie. You go on back to bed. And mind you lock that door after I leave.'
'I'm all right, Dad. You'll see. We'll be all right.'
But Frankie Dobbs was at a loss. A widower with a thirteen-year-old daughter. She needed more, and Lord knows that the girl and her mother had been close, thought Frankie. No, he had to find something better for the girl than for her to be little woman of the house.
Oh, there was so much that they had wanted for Maisie, the child that had come to them in later life, and who was, they said, the answer to many prayers. She was a bright one, they knew that almost from the beginning. In fact, people would remark on it, that even as a newborn it seemed that Maisie could focus on a person and follow them with her eyes. 'That girl can look right through you,' people would say, when she was still a babe in arms.
The Dobbses had been putting money away for Maisie's education, so that she could stay on at school, perhaps even go on to be a teacher. They were so proud of their girl. But the money was gone, long gone to pay for doctors, medicine, and a holiday at the seaside, just in case the fresh salty air worked a miracle. But nothing
