Authors: Jacqueline Winspear
Maisie Dobbs (14 page)
Usually Frankie would not see Maisie when he came to the house to deliver fruit and vegetables each week, but on this occasion Mrs. Crawford took no time at all to summon Maisie to see her father, for she knew that the motive for Frankie Dobbs’s appearance extended beyond urgent notification of what was best at Covent Garden market.
“Dad, . . . Dad!” cried Maisie as she went to her father, put her arms around his waist, and held him to her.
“Now then, now then. What’s all this? What will Mr. Carter say?”
“Oh Dad, I’m
so
glad you came to the house. What a coincidence!”
Maisie looked at her father inquisitively, then followed him up the outside stairs to the street, where Persephone waited, contentedly eating from the nosebag of oats attached to her bridle. Maisie told Frankie about the new position she had been offered with the Dowager Lady Compton.
“Just as well I ’appened by, then, innit, Love? Sounds like just what you need. Your mother and me always wanted to live in the country, thought it would be better for you than the Smoke. Go on. You go, love. You’ll still see me.”
“So you don’t mind then, Dad?”
“No, I don’t mind at all. I reckon bein’ down there in the country will be a real treat for you. Hard work, mind, but a treat all the same.”
Maisie gave Carter her answer that evening. It was agreed with Lady Rowan that she should leave at the end of the month. Yet even though he wanted her to see and learn all there was to see and learn, Frankie often felt as if fine sand were slipping through his fingers whenever he thought of his girl, Maisie.
M
aisie first came to Chelstone Manor in the autumn of 1913. She had traveled by train to Tonbridge, where she changed for Chelstone, on a small branch line. She’d brought one bag with her, containing clothes and personal belongings, and a small trunk in which she carried books, paper, and a clutch of assignments written in Maurice Blanche’s compact almost indecipherable hand. And in her mind’s eye Maisie carried a vision. During their last lesson before she left for Chelstone, he had asked Maisie what she might do with this education, this opportunity.
“Um, I don’t really know, Dr. Blanche. I always thought I could teach. My mum wanted me to be a teacher. It’s a good job for me, teaching.”
“But?”
Maisie looked at Maurice Blanche, at the bright eyes that looked into the soul of a person so that they naturally revealed to him in words what he could silently observe.
“But. But I think I want to do something like what you do, Dr. Blanche.”
Maurice Blanche made a church and steeple with his hands, and rested his upper lip on his forefingers. Two minutes passed before he looked up at Maisie.
“And what do I do, Maisie?”
“You heal people. That is, I
think
you heal people. In all sorts of ways. That’s what I think.”
Blanche nodded, leaned back in his chair, and looked out of the library window to the walled gardens of 15 Ebury Place.
“Yes, I think you could say that, Maisie.”
“And I think you find out the truth. I think you look at what is right and wrong. And I think you have had lots of different . . . educations.”
“Yes, Maisie, that is all correct. But what about that vision?”
“I want to go to Cambridge. To Girton College. Like you said, it’s possible for an ordinary person like me to go, you know, as long as I can work and pass the exams.”
“I don’t think I ever used the word ‘ordinary’ to describe you, Maisie.”
Maisie blushed, and Maurice continued with his questions. “And what will you study, Maisie?”
“I’m not sure. I am interested in the moral sciences, sir. When you told me about the different subjects—psychology, ethics, philosophy, logic—that’s what I most wanted to study. I’ve already done lots of assignments in those subjects, and I like the work. It’s not so—well— definite, is it? Sometimes it’s like a maze, with no answers, only more questions. I like that, you know. I like the search. And it’s what you want, isn’t it, Dr. Blanche?”
Maisie looked at Maurice, and waited for his response.
“It is not what I want that is pertinent here, Maisie, but what you are drawn to. I will, however, concur that you have a certain gift for understanding and appreciating the constituent subjects of the moral sciences curriculum. Now then, you are young yet, Maisie. We have plenty of time for more discussion of this subject. Perhaps we should look at your assignments—but remember to keep those hallowed halls of Girton College uppermost in your mind.”
T
he old lady was not too demanding, and there was the nurse to take a good deal of the responsibility for her care. Maisie ensured that the dowager’s rooms were always warm, that her clothes were freshly laundered and laid out each day. She brushed her fine gray hair and twisted it into a bun which the dowager wore under a lace cap. She read to the dowager, and brought meals to her from the main house. For much of the time, the old lady slept in her rooms, or sat by the window with her eyes closed. Occasionally, on a fine day, Maisie would take her outside in a wheelchair, or support her as she stood in the garden, insisting that she was quite well enough to attend to a dead rose, or reach up to inhale the scent of fresh apple blossom. Then she tired and leaned on Maisie as she was assisted to her chair once again. But for much of the time Maisie was lonely.
There was little conversation with staff up at the manor, and despite everything, Maisie missed Enid and her wicked sense of humor. The other members of staff at Chelstone would not speak with her readily, or joke with her, or treat her as one of their own. Yet though she missed the people she had come to love, she did enjoy having solitude for her studies. Each Saturday, Maisie walked into the village to post a brown-paper-wrapped package to Dr. Blanche, and each Saturday she picked up a new envelope with her latest assignment, and his comments on her work of the week before. In January 1914 Maurice decided that Maisie was ready to take the Girton College entrance examinations.
I
n March, Maurice accompanied Maisie to Cambridge for the examinations, meeting her early at Liverpool Street Station for the journey to Cambridge, then on to the small village of Girton, home of the famous ladies’ college of Cambridge University. She remembered watching from the train window as the streets of London gave way to farmland that was soft in the way that Kent was soft, but instead of the green undulating hills of the Weald of Kent, with hedges dividing a patchwork quilt of farms, woodland, and small villages, the Cambridgeshire fens were flat, so that a person could see for miles and miles into the distance.
The grand buildings of Cambridge, the wonderful gardens of Girton College two miles north of the town, the large lecture hall, being taken to a desk, the papers put in front of her, the hours and hours of questions and answers, the nib of her pen cutting into the joint at the top of the second finger of her right hand as she quickly filled page after page with her fine, bold script, were unforgettable. Thirst had suddenly gripped at her throat until she felt faint for lack of breath as she left the hall, whose ceiling now seemed to be moving down toward her. Her head was spinning as she leaned on Maurice, who had been waiting for her. He steadied her, instructing her to breathe deeply, as they walked slowly to the village teashop.
While hot tea was poured and fresh scones placed in front of them, Maurice allowed Maisie to rest before asking for her account of each question on the examination papers, and her responses to them. He nodded as she described her answers, occasionally sipping tea or wiping a crumb from the corner of his mouth.
“I believe, Maisie, that you have done very well.”
“I don’t know, Dr. Blanche, sir. But I did my best.”
“Of course. Of course.”
“Dr. Blanche. You went to Oxford, didn’t you?”
“Yes, indeed, Maisie—and I was only a little younger than you at the time. Of course, as I am male, a degree could be conferred upon me. But there will be a time, I hope before too long, when women will also earn degrees for their advanced academic studies.”
Maisie flicked the long braid of jet black hair from her shoulder and felt its weight along her spine as she sat back in her chair to listen to Maurice.
“And I was also fortunate to study in Paris at the Sorbonne, and in Edinburgh.”
“Scotland.”
“I’m glad to see that you have a grasp of geography, Maisie.”
Maurice looked over his spectacles at Maisie and smiled at her.“Yes, the Department of Legal Medicine.”
“What did you do there, Dr. Blanche?”
“Learned to read the story told by a dead body. Especially when the person did not die of natural causes.”
“Oh . . .” said Maisie, temporarily bereft of speech. She pushed away the crumbly scone and took a long sip of the soothing tea. Maisie slowly regained energy after the ordeal of the past few hours, which she had endured along with several dozen other hopeful students.“ Dr. Blanche. May I ask you a question?”
“Of course.”
“Why did you want to learn about the dead?”
“Ah. A good question, Maisie. Suffice it to say that sometimes one’s calling finds one first. When I first came to Oxford it was to study economics and politics; then I went to the Sorbonne to study philosophy— so you see we have similar interests there—but it was as I traveled, seeing so much suffering, that medicine found me.”
“And legal medicine? The dead bodies?”
Maurice looked at his watch.“That is a story for another time. Let us now walk over to the college again, where no doubt you will be studying later this very year. The gardens really are quite lovely.”
T
he Comptons had gathered a coterie of important and influential guests, not only to sample the delights of a July weekend in the country but for animated discussion and conjecture upon the discord that had been festering in Europe since June, when the Austrian archduke was assassinated in Serbia. It was predicted that the conflict, which had started two years earlier, in 1912, in the Balkans, would become general war, and as the Kaiser’s armies reportedly moved into position along the Belgian border, fear of its escalation grew. Dread stalked Europe, snaking its way from the corridors of government to the households of ordinary people.
Carter was in full battle mode for the onslaught of visitors, while Mrs. Crawford held her territory in the kitchen, blasting out orders to any maid or footman who came within range of her verbal fire. Lady Rowan swore she could hear Cook’s voice reverberating through every wooden beam in the medieval manor house, though even she declined to intervene at such a time.
“Rowan, we have the very best cook in London and Kent, but I fear we also have the one with the loudest voice.”
“Don’t worry, Julian, you know she’ll pipe down when everything’s in its place and the guests start to arrive.”
“Indeed, indeed. In the meantime, I wonder if I should tell the War Office about her, in advance. She could put a seasoned general to shame—have you seen how she marshals her troops? I should have every new subaltern serve in Cook Crawford’s battalion for a month. We could overcome the Hun by launching meat pies clear across France and into the Kaiser’s palace!”
“Julian, don’t be absurd—and don’t be so full of certainty that Britain will be at war,” said Lady Rowan. “By the way, I understand that our Miss Dobbs received a letter from Girton this morning.”
“Did she, by Jove? Well, not before time, my dear. I don’t think I could bear to look at those nail-bitten fingers holding onto the tea tray any longer.”
“She’s had a hard life, Julian.” Lady Rowan looked out of the windows and over the land surrounding Chelstone Manor. “We can’t presume to imagine how difficult it has been for her. She’s such a bright girl.”