“Oh, I needed that. A good cup of strong tea. My friend Priscilla favors one of those blends that always seem more suited to dabbing behind the ears than wetting the whistle.”
Sandra laughed. “My life might have changed, but I know how to make a good strong cuppa.” She placed the saucer on the table in front of her but held on to her cup with two hands, bringing it to her lips once again.
Maisie waited for her to speak.
“I suppose I first met Mr. Donat soon after I went to work for Lawr—I mean, Mr. Pickering. He came into the office to see Mr. Pickering, and he made a point of sitting down in front of my desk and talking to me, as if he really wanted to know who I was. He was interested in my studies, and what I had done, and when he asked what I did before I worked for you, I thought, Oh, here we go—he’ll have me chucked out now. But I went ahead. I told him, ‘I was in domestic service, sir. I was a maid in a big house in Ebury Place.’ And he didn’t bat an eyelid. Just looked at me and said, ‘Very well done, Sandra, my dear. Very well done.’ He never called me ‘Mrs. Tapley.’ And the next thing you know, Mr. Pickering is telling me he’s giving me more money because Mr. Donat said I deserved it. How about that?”
“You’ve worked hard, Sandra—going to the college while you were holding down not one but several jobs. That takes determination and spirit—an asset to any employer.” She paused. “So you liked Leon Donat?”
“Very much. And I think Mr. Pickering really appreciated his advice on business matters. At first he told me he was worried about having a partner in the business, but Mr. Donat listened to him, and only ever asked questions—and Lawrence . . . I mean, Mr. Pickering, sorry—he said that the questions made him think a lot about how he did things, especially with distribution. I mean, it’s all very well publishing all these books, but you’ve got to get them in front of people. Mr. Pickering spends a lot of time going to the universities and taking the books to show the lecturers. And we’re doing very well, all things considered. It was Mr. Donat who pushed him to look to the foreign markets, especially Germany, where they have a lot of publishing. First of all, Mr. Pickering said we couldn’t compete with the German publishers—that’s when Mr. Donat said, ‘What about translations? Sell the rights, and you don’t have to worry about sending over the books and trying to sell books published in English.’ And he was right. The first time he went, he did very well for us—treated Mr. Pickering like a son, as if it were a family business, and they both liked that. Then he went back to Germany a second time, to ‘bring home some more good news,’ he told me. He spoke several languages, by the way, whereas we would have stumbled over the German. And that’s when the terrible things happened.”
“Tell me about the terrible things, Sandra. What happened? How did you find out?”
“If I remember correctly, Mr. Donat had been away a few days, and was due back. He always went over there by aeroplane and returned by train. But this time he didn’t return when he was supposed to. Then we received a message via another publisher who had been over there. He heard Mr. Donat had been arrested and sent to a prison. I can’t even remember the charge, or if there was a charge—but when Mr. Pickering went to see a man at the foreign office, he was told the whole story. Apparently, while they were trying to secure his release, there was an indication Mr. Donat had insulted the chancellor over there, and for such disrespect and his involvement in producing antigovernment propaganda, he was imprisoned pending review of his case. That review has gone on for two years now.”
Realizing that Sandra knew nothing about the negotiations to secure Donat’s release, Maisie moved on to other territory. “Tell me about his daughter.”
Sandra blushed again, lifting her teacup. “Would you like some more? Mine’s a bit cold now—do you mind?”
“I’m all right for now, Sandra. Please, make yourself a fresh cup.”
Maisie waited again, listening to the sounds of Sandra boiling the kettle, then pouring more water into the pot and stirring the once-used tea leaves. She returned to the drawing room, the cup and saucer held with two hands. Maisie noticed she was shaking.
Sandra took her seat once again. “You know, miss, I’d worked in your office long enough to know that when the official people come to ask questions, they’re digging around for more than you think at first. I know very well that you sometimes don’t know what they’re digging for until you’ve said something and they get this little grin at the side of the mouth, as if they didn’t really know what they were looking for either, but when you gave it to them, then they knew.”
Maisie relaxed back into the wing chair and nodded for Sandra to continue. As she expected, Sandra too became more at ease. She shook her head.
“I don’t know if I said anything wrong that day, when Mr. MacFarlane was there. They asked me all sorts of questions, about how often I’d seen Mr. Donat, and whether I’d ever met his family. I told them I’d met his daughter, Edwina, but only the once.” Sandra sighed. “It was a silly bit of conversation, really. They asked me a lot of questions about her, whether she was interested in the business, what she was like. So I told them she was nice enough, a very quiet sort of person. And she was a tallish woman, ‘about Miss Dobbs’ height,’ I said. Apparently her mother dying made her ill, so Mr. Donat sent her overseas for a while to get a bit of sun. But she came back even worse, coughing and having a terrible time with her breathing. She’d never married, either—but that’s not so unusual for a woman of her age, what with the war.”
Maisie felt her eyes smart. She reached down into her bag for a handkerchief, then brought her attention back to Sandra, who returned her gaze with heightened color.
“And I suppose that’s when I saw MacFarlane look at me as if I had given him a grain of something.”
“I think he always looks a bit like that, Sandra.” Maisie sipped her tea. “What else do you know about Mr. Donat’s incarceration?”
“Well, he’s been in there a bit over two years, I would say. Mr. Pickering was doing a lot to try to get him out, but then the foreign ministry told him to draw back. Mr. MacFarlane informed him the situation was in capable hands, and that Mr. Donat’s release would be secured in good time, though there were channels to go through. It was all very well having channels, Mr. Pickering said, but in the meantime Mr. Donat might die. We’ve had news from our various business contacts over there, and it is not at all a promising situation.”
Maisie allowed a moment of silence as she framed her next question.
“Sandra, I can only say that there is a plan in progress, but I am telling you in confidence. You cannot tell anyone, and not even Lawrence Pickering at this point. That is something I think I can trust you with.” Maisie looked at Sandra—at her eyes, so wide and intent, and the way she’d leaned forward. She knew Sandra was aching to ask more questions, but she pressed on with her own. “Is the company all right for money, given Mr. Donat’s absence?”
Sandra nodded. “Oh, yes, he left everything very well tended. His bankers make sure his companies have their running costs covered, and of course each of his businesses has a manager in place to oversee everything. He stepped back from running things years ago.”
“Except to sell textbooks,” said Maisie.
Sandra laughed. “Oh, I think he fancied writing one. When I first met him, he didn’t strike me as a businessman, though he’s been very successful. No, he’s more of your absentminded professor type—he seems to bumble, and then he’ll take you by surprise with a really difficult and interesting question. And he has a heart of gold, really he does. Family is important to him—and his businesses are his family too.” She paused and sipped her tea again. “I think he liked helping with the publishing side of things. It gave him a chance to talk to these professors about our books, to get into a room with a scientist, a mathematician, or an engineer. He loved discussing new inventions, new discoveries. And believe me, in this job you hear from a lot of slightly barmy but very bright people.”
Maisie laughed as she rose to her feet. “Well, I must be off now. Mrs. Partridge will be ringing everyone in her address book trying to find me if I don’t return to her house soon.”
“Um, Miss Dobbs—Maisie—will you be wanting the flat back again? I mean, I can move out—after all, this is your flat, and I know it was only for a short term, renting to me, and—”
Maisie held up her hand, shaking her head. “No, really, stay here for as long as you wish, Sandra. The flat holds too many memories for me and, well . . . you know.”
“I didn’t know how to say it to your face, how sorry I am. I couldn’t believe it when I heard—I mean, you were so beautiful when you walked down the aisle, and you both looked so happy. We were all just overjoyed to see you content, and the smiles across your faces, you and your husband.” Tears welled in Sandra’s eyes. “I mean, I know how it is. I saw my Eric die a terrible death, and—”
Maisie put her hand on Sandra’s arm. “It’s all right. You came through, and look at you now. You will never forget, but you’ve endured, and you have made so much with your life. I will use you as my example, dear Sandra.”
Sandra pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve and pressed it to her eyes. “It’s just terrible, the things that happen to people. To you. To Mr. Donat. And look at Billy and how he and Doreen lost their little Lizzie.”
Maisie put her arm around the younger woman’s shoulder, and they stood for some moments before Maisie declared that she really had to be going.
“Oh, and Sandra,” she said as she reached the door. “It’s quite all right, you know, that you and Lawrence have become more to each other. You aren’t betraying Eric—had you not known such love, you might never have loved again. It was his gift to you. So no need to hide, if you are indeed involved in more than publishing books together.”
Walking toward the bus stop, Maisie considered her words, and wondered if she would ever accept the opportunity for love again, and how it might feel. For now, though, she had work to do. Work had brought her through the steepest arc of her grief, and work had saved her in the past, when she was no more than a girl, in France. Perhaps stepping into the shoes of a very sick woman to bring a much-loved man home would help her in more ways than she might imagine. But how would Leon Donat react, when he learned his daughter’s health was so compromised?
Maisie pulled her silk scarf up around her neck and made her way to the Embankment, where she knew she would find a taxicab. Time to go back to Priscilla’s house in Holland Park, time to walk into the warmth of her friend’s embrace and the noisy ebullience of her three boisterous sons. She imagined them sliding down the long banister, yelling, “Tante Maisie, Tante Maisie, look at me!” And she would watch, and laugh, and know that this was as good as home, for now. In just two days she would travel to an as yet unspecified location, where Robert MacFarlane would teach her how to kill a man. Tomorrow, though, she would visit Lorraine Otterburn. A mother whose daughter was so lost, she had abandoned her own child.
CHAPTER 4
“The son who will set me off in the direction of the lunatic asylum is Timothy,” said Priscilla. The two women were sitting in the breakfast room the following morning, Priscilla at the head of the table, Maisie to her right. “He’s the unpredictable one. I mean, I can depend upon all three to be naughty, to find trouble where there should be none, but Tim can be quiet, and when he is not making a sound, then you know some sort of devilishness is being planned. My mother always said, ‘It’s the quiet ones you’ve got to watch.’ And I have to confess, he reminds me so much of my brother Peter.” She barely paused before continuing. “Thomas is becoming a more sensible person, and—I might add—he shows every sign of being something of a ladies’ man, which we will have to see off in short order. I don’t mind a healthy interest in girls, but I do not want a Lothario in my midst. I want sensible boys.”
Maisie looked at her friend across the table. She wished she could assuage her friend’s fears. It seemed to her that every morning, Priscilla raised more and more concerns about her sons. Some were quite insignificant, although without doubt, the loss of all three of her brothers in the war, and the later discovery that one of them, Peter Evernden, had been working as an intelligence agent behind enemy lines, affected her deeply. Maisie smiled and reached for Priscilla’s hand. “You would hate having completely sensible boys. Come on, you love it, Pris—you love every bit of it.”
“Mark my words. Thomas is maturing into a good young man—albeit one with a glint in his eye—and Tarquin is still a naughty little boy. But Timothy—beware the boy who has secrets, Maisie. Anyway, you’re one of the most beloved people in his world, so if necessary I will prevail upon you to help.” Priscilla twisted a cigarette into the holder. “Assuming you might stay for a while.”
“I think I need my own flat, Pris, and I don’t want to go back to Pimlico. Too many memories. I know Lady Rowan would love me to live at Ebury Place, even though she concedes it’s too big for one—but again, it has too much of the past leached into the walls for me. In any case, it’s rented to a diplomat at the moment, some sort of consular official from a far-flung corner of the Empire, and I know there’s that second cousin in the family, Edward, who has his eye on it.”
“Of course you couldn’t go back there. But I do wish you would stay with us for a while, really I do. I am the lone woman with all these men, and it is quite lovely having you here.”
“Well, seeing as I have not found anything that makes me want to take a second look, I will be among you Partridges, and indeed my father and Brenda, for a little while.” Maisie sat forward. “Priscilla, I—”
“Oh, dear—when you call me Priscilla, I worry. It means you’re about to ask me something, and I should have to be on my toes when I answer.”
“Just wondering about Elaine Otterburn. What do you believe made her run? I mean, to abandon her baby. What do you think?”
Priscilla lit the cigarette, snapped the lighter shut, and inhaled deeply. “You mean, apart from being a selfish child in the body of a woman?” She tapped the lighter on the table as she appeared to ponder the question, then removed the cigarette from the holder and pressed it into the ashtray. “You know, I’m beginning to feel very guilty every time I light up a gasper when you’re in the room—despite your confession to having been a secret smoker after . . . well, anyway, after what you’ve been through.”
“There’s something you’re not telling me, isn’t there, Priscilla? About Elaine.”
“Oh, blast! Look, there really isn’t anything to tell. It’s just something Lorraine said that made me think, and she would never have said this to you. But as you probably know, Elaine had a terrible crush on James. Terrible. Typical of her age—what was she when we saw her at that party, before you were married? Twenty-one? Twenty-two? I warned you about her then. Anyway, according to Lorraine, the girl got herself into quite a state after you were married, and she found it difficult to be in the same place as you and James. Frankly, she could have done with a mother who brought her up short instead of indulging her. I would have, if she were my daughter. If ever a girl needed a mother with a bit of iron in her spine, it was that one.” Priscilla paused, as if weighing whether to go on. She sighed and began speaking once more. “According to Lorraine, on the day James died, Elaine maintained that she could not go to the airfield because seeing you—in full bloom, as it were—together with James was just too much. That’s why she didn’t fly that day.” Priscilla picked up the discarded cigarette, pulled off the crushed end, and relit it without using the holder. “I should have kept my mouth shut. I’m so sorry.”
Maisie at first could not speak, then found her voice. “I suppose I knew that, really. I cannot say it makes me feel any more kindly toward her, but . . . but I suppose . . .” She heard her voice catch. “I was going to say, ‘I suppose she’s young.’ But Pris, as you have said in the past, when we were that age we’d already been to war, we’d already seen terrible things, and there’s no
thing to excuse her abdication of responsibility. I mean, how old is she now, twenty-five? And where is her baby?”
“With Lorraine. And a nanny, of course. He was with the father, but the chinless wonder could not cope, even with the nanny—I mean, really, he only had to swan in once a day to wave a rattle in front of the child’s face, but apparently it’s all too much for him. Ditto his parents, who do not want an abandoned Otterburn child in their midst, especially as they didn’t approve of the match. You see, Elaine’s husband, he without a backbone as well as a chin, only wanted the stardust that came with squiring around a very vivacious young woman. And she threw in her lot with him—child on the way and all that. His parents love the fact that there’s a veritable mound of Otterburn money, and it flows quite readily, but at the end of the day they consider the Otterburns colonials—and colonials in trade, into the bargain. So any chance to get rid of the baby is to be welcomed, though a bit tricky, as the child is the heir. Mind you—heir to what? The son-in-law’s people have nothing but a money-soaking pile somewhere in the shires, where they cannot even afford to heat more than one room at a time. All title and no substance. One would have thought it was a match made in heaven—wealth on one side and a heritage on the other.”
Maisie sighed, pushed back her chair, and leaned toward Priscilla, kissing her on the cheek. “I don’t think I needed to be party to the family’s problems, Priscilla, but it puts it in perspective a bit.” She rested her table napkin to the side of her plate and stood up. “Anyway, I’ll be out for a few hours this morning—perhaps I can take Timothy to a picture show when there’s something good on at the cinema. I know he loves those American cowboy films.”
“You spoil them, Maisie. You indulge their independent whims—you’ll make terrors of my sons.”
“They’re already terrors, Pris. That’s entirely down to you!”
Maisie left the house twenty minutes later, her stout brown shoes suggesting a woman who would not be climbing aboard a bus or taking the Tube. The Otterburns’ London mansion was situated opposite Hyde Park, and she’d already decided a brisk walk in the wintry sunshine would be in order. In truth, Priscilla’s news had unsettled her deeply. She still considered Elaine Otterburn to be a self-indulgent young woman, one whose negligent attitude had led to James’ death. But on the other hand, Maisie also knew that she could not hold Elaine completely accountable. It was James himself who’d decided to fly that day. It was James who broke his promise not to pilot an aeroplane again, not with a baby on the way. The test flight could have been canceled, could have fallen to someone else, but James wanted to fly. The boy in the man had jumped at the chance to be aloft with the birds on a fine day.