CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Maisie walked along the road towards her flat, her mind filled with a voice echoing down the years and an image of Enid when she last saw her at Charing Cross station towards the end of 1914. At the time, Maisie was on her way home from her first term at Girton College, a scholarship girl filled with the bounty of new learning, fresh opportunity, an engaging new friend named Priscilla – and at her first ever party, possibly even a first love – when she spotted Enid, the fellow maid with whom she had shared a bedroom in the servants' quarters at Fifteen Ebury Place. Though there was a distance between them in the bustling station, Maisie could see Enid's hand resting on the arm of an officer in the Royal Flying Corps, a young man in a brand-new uniform who Maisie knew loved gingersnap biscuits. Just a few weeks earlier, Mrs Crawford, the Comptons' cook, had penned a letter to Maisie with all the news from both Ebury Place and the family's country seat, Chelstone Manor, and among the ‘this and that' 250of life below stairs and observations of what was going on ‘upstairs,' she added that Enid had left the Comptons' employ, and was now working in a munitions factory, where the money was, according to Enid, ‘A lot better than the leftovers we get here.'

As Maisie approached the front door of her flat, her shaking hand dropping the keys, she remembered watching the couple at the railway station, and at that very moment knowing they were in love. She had stepped away in the opposite direction so as not to be seen, but as she turned for one last look, Enid met her eyes and raised her chin with a defiant pride. Her red hair was vibrant as ever, yet with livid streaks of glistening yellow due to handling cordite, a poison that discoloured the skin, leading to the girls who worked in munitions being nicknamed ‘canaries.' Later, having bid her lover farewell, Enid caught up with Maisie, and it was not long before she confided in Maisie an abiding fear that her beloved would perish, that she would never see him again. Yet as the two women stood to say goodbye, a train pulled into the station with wounded fresh from the Western Front, young men who would be transferred to the line of ambulances waiting outside to take them to hospitals around London. Orderlies were rushing back and forth, bringing stretchers to the train to help the suffering soldiers, many still in shredded uniforms covered in mud and blood. The two women talked a little more, but when Maisie expressed her concern for Enid, her friend's reply came in the form of a challenge, and with her departing comment, she changed Maisie's life.

‘You want to worry about something, Maisie? Let me give you a word of advice. You worry about what you can do for these boys … you worry about what you can do.'

Maisie missed her train, so it was late when she arrived back at 251Chelstone, where her father was the groom in charge of the estate's horses. Frankie Dobbs had news for Maisie when he met her at the station. Enid had been killed in an explosion at the arsenal while working alongside other young women handling volatile high explosives. The tragedy must have happened soon after Enid arrived for her shift. Maisie had taken Enid's parting words to heart, abandoning her studies to become a nurse, to do all she could for the boys. All too soon, she was tending the wounded and dying at a casualty clearing station in France. And the young man Enid was in love with? Viscount James Compton and Maisie were married some two decades later, in the summer of 1934. By September of the following year, Maisie was wearing the black of widowhood, a bereavement compounded by the loss of her child, for the shock of her husband's sudden death, of watching James crash to earth in an experimental aeroplane, led to the stillbirth of an almost full-term baby boy. In an instant, life ceased to have meaning for Maisie.

Yet time had marched on, the passing years bringing her the love of an adopted daughter and a new husband at an age when she thought such sweetness would have passed her by – but still, as she held in her hands the letters James Compton had sent his first love, her world had again tilted on its axis. Every last cell in her being told her she should never unwrap the parcel, never open a letter and never, ever read a line of words from James to Enid. And why was Maisie fearful of the contents? After all, the missives of two young people during late adolescence, the years before they were truly adults, were in all likelihood far from serious and might even verge on comical at times. But Maisie was afraid because she knew their love had been a secret due to their respective stations in 252life, and such a secret buried for so long could result in something unexpected and unwelcome when exposed to the light.

The telephone was ringing as Maisie entered the flat. Still clutching the parcel, she ran towards the sitting room and reached for the receiver. As she recited her telephone number, two operators exchanged instructions, one establishing that Mrs Scott was now on the line before adding, ‘Connecting you now, sir.'

‘Maisie! I thought I'd try the flat first.'

‘Mark – oh, Mark, I am so glad to hear your voice.'

‘Hon – what is it? You're upset – I can hear it in your tone. Is Anna okay?'

‘Yes, yes – and I'm sorry. It's been a long day already, and I'm not even near getting on my way back to Chelstone.'

‘Well, hurry up, because I'll be headed there soon.'

‘You're here in England? Mark, that's wonderful.'

There was a second's silence. ‘Maisie? What's wrong? Is it your dad? Are you ill?'

‘Mark, I am well, truly. I'm just a bit weary – but I'm now so much better knowing you're on British soil. Are you in Southampton?'

‘Yep. It's been a long run, via Gander and then Lisbon, as usual, with one diversion to Shannon. If I see the inside of another 'plane, I will just walk off. Anyway, I'm catching a train in about forty-five minutes, so I'll be late home to Chelstone – any chance George could pick me up from the station?'

‘I'll do it, Mark – I'll be there.'

‘Okay, hon. Can't wait to see my girls.'

Maisie nodded, holding her hand to her mouth and trying not 253to give in to tears as she heard the long tone of the disconnected telephone call. At once she began to gather the various items she wanted to take back to Chelstone, pushing them into her old carpet bag. She wavered over the parcel of letters, but pressed it in on top of a pair of shoes and a jacket more suited to the country than the town. She hurried towards the front door, but the telephone began ringing again. Despite not wanting to linger, she knew she had plenty of time to reach Chelstone railway station before Mark's arrival – he would have to change trains at least twice – and if her home telephone were ringing, it might be important. She dropped the carpet bag, rushed back to the sitting room and answered the call.

‘Miss – it's me.'

‘Billy? Are you alright? You don't usually telephone me here.'

‘Got time for a word, miss? You sound as if you've been dashing around.'

Maisie took a deep breath. ‘I've plenty of time – what's happened? Is it Will?'

‘He's been keeping to Dr Dene's instructions, and I reckon we're on the straight and narrow. But I keep thinking about what your friend Mrs Partridge said about that dragon, you know, the one that comes up again and again. Anyway, you remember when you sent me off to the country, years ago, when I had them … well, the problems with taking stuff I shouldn't and my legs hurting. You sent me down to Chelstone, and it did me the power of good, working on the farm and moving my arms and legs in special ways like that bloke taught me to. It helped me in my head too. I've not forgotten it – I reckon it saved me, gave me something to fall back on.'

‘I know, Billy – sounds like you think Will could do with a dose of the same.' 254

‘It's Doreen who's doing the thinking, to tell you the truth – and she's just given me a piece of her mind, and I don't mind saying, I reckon she might be spot on.'

‘You're going to have to explain, Billy – I'm not a mind-reader. Not all the time anyway.'

There was a pause, and Maisie knew Billy was trying to frame his story.

‘Well, we were talking about Will – he was upstairs in bed. Sleeps like the dead, you know, and then he starts screaming in the night. It's like he was a little nipper again, having nightmares, only now he shouts out "Tenko, Tenko, Tenko!" I go in and sit with him, put my arm around him so he goes to sleep again. Or Doreen goes in. I know there's some who'd say we shouldn't do that with a grown man, that he's just got to knuckle down now he's home, but what can you do? I'm not about to leave him in that state, am I?'

‘You're doing everything you can, Billy.'

‘Anyway, I said to Doreen that Mrs Partridge called the memories the dragon you have to keep mollified. Those were her words, weren't they?'

‘Yes, that's right.'

‘Doreen looked at me, and I could see she was ready to have a go. "I've had enough of this dragon lark," she said. "That dragon has to be knocked out once and for all, so he never wakes up again. And another thing," she says, "I reckon dragons get more dangerous and thrash around when they're getting weaker – so tell that to your Mrs P. If her dragon is off the leash, it means she's getting better and he knows he's losing his bottle, so don't give him power by talking about him. When the dragon is going down, that's when you have to be made of steel, not straw. Our boy will 255get back to his old self by looking ahead – by seeing how things could be for him, not down in the cellars of his mind where the dragon lives. And if we put everything we've got into helping him get stronger, he'll be able to do a St George and put a sword right through the blimmin' thing."'

Maisie ran the telephone cord through her fingers, a habit when she was engaged in a more serious conversation. ‘The dragon thrashing around because he's losing power? Hmmm, I think she has a point. Mind you, I don't think Will is quite at that stage – his recovery is still very new – but if you think he would do well in the country, then I will see what I can do to help him navigate the way ahead.'

‘Thank you, miss. He'll come through it all. I'm sure of that. After all, we love our boy, and like I said, you're not supposed to say that sort of thing about a grown man, but he's our son and he's been to hell. Half of him is still there, and we've got to get him out.'

‘How about Bobby and Margaret Rose?'

‘Bobby? What can I say? Doreen and me, well, we've decided that it's his life. He served his country so he deserves to make up his mind about what he does next and where he goes. As for Margaret Rose – she's a diamond, that girl. Helping out with her brother and determined to be a nurse now. As long as there's no wars for her to be sent off to, I don't mind at all.'

‘Good,' said Maisie. ‘Look, I must go now, Billy. And … and tell Doreen I think she could well be right, about the dragon.'

Later, as she made her way out of London and on towards Chelstone, Maisie's thoughts lingered on the fate of the dragon inside her. It was in full flourish, its tail churning back and forth, 256thrashing up memories of those souls she had gone to war with and the ones who didn't come home. For years she had walked along the street from her garden flat to Priscilla's house, the mansion her friend had purchased from Margaret Lynch, the widowed mother of Dr Simon Lynch, Maisie's first love. She remembered Simon taking her to meet his parents, and the feeling that his mother and father were tolerating the match because it was wartime, whereas if their son had not been in uniform, they might well have opposed his choice, given that she was the daughter of a different class of people. She and Enid had been in the same boat – not top drawer at all and both in love with what some would have termed ‘one of their betters' – yet not only had Maisie weathered the prevailing winds against her, but the reading of Maurice Blanche's will following his funeral had made her a wealthy woman, and a woman of means had the power of choice. But even before the legacy that changed her circumstances, Maisie knew that money could never take away the ache of grief.

Another thought crossed her mind, but she pushed it aside, knowing it was the dragon again, tempting her into the depths of dark thinking. It would not have been the first time doubt had hovered in her thoughts like a hornet with a vicious sting – but she wondered if the extent of the inheritance from Maurice rendered her more attractive to James Compton, or to his parents.

Oh what does it matter?thought Maisie, in an attempt to brush off the notion. James has gone now. She shook her head, feeling her eyes moisten. And so has Enid. 257

The following morning, with Mark's arm around her shoulders as they walked across fields towards the neighbouring stables, their daughter running ahead in anticipation of her father's opinion regarding the purchase of a horse, Maisie felt that all was well – her family were around her, and only that mattered in her world. After visiting the horse, they would stroll home to the Dower House before lunch, and Maisie would continue on to the manor, where she would visit Lady Rowan and coax her into sitting down to share a meal with them. They would celebrate Mark's return together and the possible new member of their animal family.

‘I can feel every darn meeting I had last week just slipping away,' said Mark as they walked. ‘I mean, I was only one person on the hinterland of these big shots, but there was a lot of tension in the talks.'

‘You've a couple of days now before you return to the embassy,' said Maisie. ‘But you don't want to go back, do you?'

‘Maisie, like you I went through one war and that was bad enough, even though America was late to the ball. But this war has left misery such as I have never seen before, and my job has taken me into some terrible situations.' He shook his head. ‘I've just spent the past week being a fly on the wall at meetings where my government is being asked to give Britain billions of dollars because it's bankrupt. I've just about had enough.' He rubbed his free hand across the back of his neck, as if in an attempt to knead away the tension. ‘I mean, look at it, across Europe there are orphans everywhere. There are children who have never had any rock-solid stability in their lives and barely clothes on their backs. And there are women picking over bombed-out buildings to find their family treasures – and the gem they are searching 258for could just be a photograph of someone who died long ago, not something big that can be valued in dollars, pounds, marks, guilders or francs. Anywhere Hitler invaded, people are starving, shell-shocked, and by god I'm a lucky guy to come home to this.' He held out his hand in a sweep towards the undulating Wealden countryside. ‘We've had it bad here in Britain, but at least Hitler never occupied this country – and it's the people who stopped it. They deserve more. Everyone deserves more.'

Maisie stopped and turned to her husband. ‘But what do you want to do, Mark?'

‘I wanted to come home and be the happy-go-lucky guy for you and Anna.' He looked down at his feet, then back to Maisie. ‘I want us to have a home that's ours, not just yours and I moved in – but ours. And it's the right time – Lady Rowan will bounce back, she may be eighty-two now but she's a game old lady, and she deserves to live in the Dower House. Didn't her own mother go on until she was ninety-three? I know how the history works – the Dower House is her proper place now, according to the way things have been done for centuries with her kind of people. Let's build our own house, Maisie. Let's build something together.'

Maisie took a deep breath, thinking of the home that Maurice had loved and bequeathed her. But perhaps Mark was right. And she could take the first step, couldn't she?

‘Hey, we'd better get going,' said Mark. ‘Look over there – Anna's almost at the stables, and I don't want her to start doing a deal before I get there!'

The deal was indeed done within another hour. Theodore – the bay fifteen hand Cob – would be brought to the stables at Chelstone Manor at some point during the following week. Maisie knew 259only too well that in time it would be important for a companion for Theo to be found, a prospect that made her smile when she imagined riding out with her daughter.

Frankie Dobbs and Brenda were waiting at the Dower House to hear the news, so while Anna, her father and Frankie went to the manor's stables to make plans for Theo's arrival, Brenda said she wanted to get busy, so she would make some sandwiches for lunch. With her family occupied, Maisie decided to go to the library to catch up with some paperwork before going to see Rowan.

She sat down at the oak desk and pulled the parcel of letters towards her, knowing temptation would get the better of her.

With care she pulled on the ribbon and the bow slipped from the knot. She could see ridges and fading where it had been tied for years, and retied again in a different place after Mary had decided against reading each one of them, which Maisie thought took admirable self-control. She had no doubt that Enid had hidden the letters before leaving her employer – she would not have trusted any hiding place in a dormitory filled with other munitions workers, girls who would have clustered around to read found love letters. She suspected Enid had hidden the letters at Ebury Place with the intention of retrieving them when she returned after the war, even if she remained in situ only for as long as it took to secure another job and a place to live.

As she unfolded the brown paper and lifted the first letter, she was surprised. She had assumed the letters were sent later than the postmark indicated. But these letters were sent in late 1908 and 1909. She closed her eyes and tried to remember what she had been told about James's sojourns in Canada, where he was sent to work for the Compton Corporation, which had valuable interests 260in timber and mining. As she understood the chain of events, he had been dispatched when Lord Julian decided his son should learn every aspect of the businesses he would one day inherit, and in the process not become the worthless heir to a fortune. She remembered James returning to England at the outset of war, and without delay receiving a commission in the Royal Flying Corps – she assumed his immediate promotion was due to his father's contacts at the War Office.

Tapping her fingers, Maisie retraced her own history at Ebury Place. She was thirteen when she was brought to the house in 1910 to work as the most junior of maids. She had been assigned a bed in the room she would share with Enid on the top floor of the house. Enid was rendered more senior due to Maisie's employment – was she sixteen or seventeen? Maisie couldn't quite remember, and that was the trouble with Enid anyway – you never knew if she was embellishing a story, though to Maisie she always seemed much older and more worldly. To be fair, although they both wanted to ‘get on' in life, Enid's dreams were different – she wanted to be a lady, to wear the most luxurious silk gowns and be the mistress of a grand house. Indeed, she spent good money purchasing copies of The Lady, the journal for women of a certain station. And she practised her diction, often endeavouring to hide her Cockney accent by adding h where it had no place at all. Maisie smiled, recalling the time Enid was talking about Kent, the hop gardens and the ‘host houses.' Without thinking of how it might embarrass Enid, Maisie had commented, ‘You mean "oast" house,' Enid. There's no h on that word.' The memory of Enid's efforts was bittersweet, and her defiance when she said, ‘We're as good as any of them, you and me, Mais, and posh doesn't make you any better than the next woman.' 261

Flicking through the letters, Maisie noted that Enid had kept them in order of date received, so she took a deep breath and opened the first, catching her breath at a script that was recognisable as that of her late husband – who would have been in his late teen years at the time.

My darling Enid,

I miss you terribly. My life is so colourless now – no one to make me laugh. There's no one to tell me I'm good as I am, and no lovely girl to dance with when no one's looking. I worry about you – we've really made quite a mess of things, haven't we? But we can start again, and I swear all will be well and we will live happily ever after. How do you feel? I've wondered …

Clutching the fine paper upon which James had penned his love letter, Maisie folded her arms on the desk before her and rested her head. She began to weep, not because she was concerned that James had not loved her – of that she was sure, and it was a mature love, a love that came when neither expected it – but because of what had come to pass between two young people. Had she any need to read further? She believed she knew the rest of the story, that a puppyish longing had been thwarted before such a time as it might have been extinguished by the onward march of years – yet at the same time, she felt the constituent pieces of another mosaic slotting into place to form a different picture. This was an image her heart told her existed; she only had to read on to confirm it. But did she dare?

‘Hon—' 262

Maisie looked up at her husband, standing in the doorway. ‘Mark, I'm sorry—'

‘Brenda's been calling – honey, what is it?' He stepped into the library and knelt alongside her. ‘What's eating you, Maisie? I don't like to see my wife so sad.'

‘Just … just the past, I suppose.' Maisie rested her head on his shoulder.

‘You want to run those thoughts straight out of town, Maisie – locking eyes with the demons of the past never did any of us any favours. Only look back when you can laugh about it.'

Maisie and her husband stood up at the same time, as Mark reached into his pocket for a handkerchief.

‘Here, let me.' With a gentle touch, he wiped the tears from her cheeks. ‘Now, tell me what's going on.'

She ran her fingers across the pile of envelopes. ‘These letters. They're from James to the girl who was a maid at the Ebury Place house when I started work there. She was a few years older than me – and she was killed in 1914. She worked at the Woolwich Arsenal – munitions.'

‘And I suppose they were young lovers wrapped up in an illicit affair – Romeo and Juliet all over again.'

Maisie nodded. ‘I think any notion that they were like Shakespeare's wronged pair is gilding the lily a bit. James was sent to Canada to learn the family business – and if truth be told, I would imagine it was to get him away from Enid. He must have been about eighteen or nineteen at the time.'

‘I thought he went later on?'

‘That's true. He had a bad time after the first war, a malaise and despondency that went on for a while, so he was dispatched 263over to Canada again. We got to know one another when he came home to run the Compton Corporation from London. He was much healed by then.'

‘And he pursued you.'

‘In a manner of speaking.' She smiled. ‘I suppose I had him running around a bit.'

‘Poor guy – you did that to me too. So, there's nothing interesting in the letters, other than two kids talking about love while they're still green.'

‘I expect so.'

‘Come on – let's go and have some lunch. Rowan's already here – I knew you were busy, so I walked over with Anna. She couldn't wait to tell Grandma Rowan all about Theo. I just hope he doesn't become "Theo the Terror horse".'

‘Oh don't, Mark. I'll be even more worried – but my father knows a horse and he says he's a gentleman.'

‘That's three of us in the family then!'

Later, after a simple lunch comprising sandwiches and cups of tea, during which Rowan seemed to be more like her old self, Maisie accompanied her across the lawns at the front of Chelstone Manor house. Maisie thought she could almost see a cloud of melancholy lingering around the older woman's heart, yet during the long lunch, she had made a few jokes and told stories of horses she had owned over the years, thrilling Anna with comments such as ‘He was a terrible cheat, that horse' or ‘When my back was turned, he would throw his feed bucket at me if he thought he had been shorted' and ‘That mare was a sage old bird. The way she would look at me – as if my very presence were a slight on her character.' 264

Now the two women were silent as they walked at a slow pace, Rowan's arm through Maisie's, her other hand clutching a walking stick.

‘Old age is a bloody nuisance, if I may say so,' said Rowan.

‘You may, and I believe you. But you and my father continue to amaze me – Rowan, you still have so much vim and vigour.'

‘Been bashed around a bit lately, Maisie. I feel bruised everywhere and it all hurts.'

‘I know – it will take time, but you were sparkling company today. Anna was delighted.'

‘Anna is delightful, my dear. Such balm for an old woman's soul.'

As much as she wanted to ask questions about James, instead Maisie decided to broach the subject of even more young people coming to Chelstone Manor, and her idea for their futures. Rowan did not interrupt, as was often her habit – even Lord Julian would often become exasperated when his wife could not wait to add her opinion to a conversation. But as they walked, she listened to Maisie with close attention.

‘I think it's a very good idea. Whoever heard of a perfectly good house sitting all but empty while an old woman rattles around in it only to hide when the tourist types come rambling through? Do you think we can get it done? I mean, Julian's bequest was quite specific, though I am sure he would have been all for this idea.'

‘What you mean is, you would have twisted his arm,' said Maisie.

‘Same thing.' Rowan laughed – the first time since Lord Julian's death that Maisie had heard her throaty chuckle. ‘One thing about husbands is that they don't know what they want until their wives 265tell them. Then they swallow it up and spit it out as their idea – and I don't mind, as long as I get my plans on the table and into play. Anyway, what does Mr Klein say?'

‘I had a quick word on the telephone, and he thinks it will work nicely. It's good publicity for the Trust – relinquishing a bequest for a period of time so the young refugees and our own homeless quartet can be set on the right path for the future. He thinks he can press for two years' grace.'

‘Very good. Plenty of room in the Georgian wing, and I will settle in the older wing. I will have that lovely view of the gardens, and you will still be close, which is excellent, plus I will see much more of your lovely Priscilla. She's such a hoot!'

Maisie laughed. ‘Oh, she's definitely a hoot by any measure, Rowan – but it will do her good too. She has had some struggles since the first round of operations on the burns, and what with her sons having more or less left home, she's been looking for something to completely engage her, and she is very good with the young.'

Rowan was quiet for a few moments, then as they neared the entrance to the manor house, she turned to Maisie. ‘You know, I always thought I was very good with young people, but I made rather a hash of things with my own son. I've been thinking about it a good deal since Julian died.'

‘James thought the world of you, Rowan – don't be hard on yourself. I'm sure he was a handful as a boy.'

Rowan shook her head. ‘He may have reignited a love for his mother later, when he was in his thirties, but in his teen years, I didn't do very well and neither did Julian.'

‘You don't have to look back, Rowan. James was a happy man – 266we were blissfully content and would have remained so had it not been for the accident. He wasn't even meant to be flying that day, as you know – he stepped in to help out.'

‘He was a fool.'

‘Please, Rowan – let's not …'

‘The trouble is, I don't know what I could have done to make it all much more palatable.'

‘Make what so much more palatable?'

Rowan shook her head, dismissing her own comment. ‘You're right – no looking back at the past. It's losing Julian that's done it – bereavement makes you turn your head and look at what might have been, and what you could have done instead. But all in all, even though I admonish myself for sending James off to Canada, it was all for the best.' She turned to Maisie and kissed her on the cheek. ‘Yes, all for the best – and he married you, and your family has become such a gift. You've made up for all that was lost.'

Lady Rowan Compton smiled and raised her walking stick when she saw Mrs Horsley waiting for her. She squeezed Maisie's arm and walked on alone towards the front door of her home, her shoulders square, and with only a swift touch of her cane to the ground. Maisie waited until Mrs Horsley waved to let her know that Lady Rowan was safe inside. She watched as the door closed, then turned and made her way to the Dower House. Brenda and Frankie had repaired to the drawing room and were napping when she arrived home, while a note was left on the kitchen table to the effect that Mark, Anna and Little Emma had decided to go for a long afternoon walk across the fields before dusk drew down on the remaining daylight. There was little to do, nothing urgent, no telephone calls to disturb her, so Maisie went to the library, where she put a match 267to the kindling laid ready in the fireplace. As the flame caught the rolled paper and splintered wood, she added a few coals followed by a log. Turning to the desk, she gathered the clutch of letters and sat in front of the fire, ready to confront truths for which she had no evidence, but which – she realised – she had always known in her heart. By the time her husband and daughter returned – and Brenda's voice could be heard in the distance maintaining that she didn't know about anyone else, but she was ready for another nice cup of tea – perhaps all the mosaic pieces would have fallen into place.