A butler answered the door when Maisie arrived at the Otterburns’ home and led her into the drawing room, where she was asked to await Mrs. Otterburn. Both Otterburns hailed from Canada, but whereas John Otterburn seemed to retain elements of a Canadian accent, Lorraine could easily have been pegged as the daughter of Home Counties aristocracy. She entered the room wearing a tweed skirt with kick pleats, a silk blouse, and a long cashmere cardigan. Two strings of pearls adorned her neck, and Maisie noticed diamond rings on both hands.
“Maisie, how lovely to see you. We have all been so worried about you!” Lorraine held out her hands to receive the hand Maisie extended in greeting. “How are you getting on? I am sure those who love you are glad to have you home.”
Maisie inclined her head. “Yes, indeed. It was wonderful to see my father and stepmother again.”
“Of course, of course. Do sit down, Maisie. Our coffee will be here in just a moment—I like it brewed nice and fresh. We have it sent from Jamaica, you know—Blue Mountain coffee truly is the very best.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Otterburn, I—”
“Lorraine, please. We know each other well enough by now, Maisie—you and James were frequent guests, so let’s not stand on ceremony. And I know why you are here.”
Maisie pulled off her gloves and unpinned her deep purple beret, revealing her cropped hair. Lorraine made no attempt to conceal her shock.
“It was easier to cut my own hair when I was in Spain,” said Maisie. “Long hair is a burden if you are a nurse. And I discovered that I quite like being free of the bother of long hair.”
Lorraine collected herself. “And what an adventure Spain must have been. Did you know we have friends there? Mind you, they went up into France as soon as the peasants began revolting, to coin a phrase.”
Maisie looked at Lorraine Otterburn, at the bejeweled hands, now shaking, the drawn-in cheeks, the fine, almost transparent veins lacing papery skin under her eyes. Her once-blond hair was now gray, drawn back in a chignon accentuating taut skin that, Maisie thought, reflected how her heart must feel.
“Lorraine, Spain is in the midst of a terrible war. It wasn’t an adventure, any more than going to Germany will be an adventure. It’s what I felt I must do. Now, we both know why I am here. If I’m to locate your daughter, it might help to know more about the circumstances of her flight from England.”
At that moment the butler entered, gripping the handles of a tray bearing a pot of fresh coffee, a jug with hot milk, sugar, two cups and saucers, and a plate arrayed with a selection of biscuits.
“Ah, not a moment too soon, Palmer. Just set the tray on the table here—I’ll serve. And thank you, that will be all.”
Maisie saw the butler raise an eyebrow before he offered a short bow and left the room. Lorraine poured a cup of coffee with hot milk and passed it to Maisie. “I remember you like your coffee quite milky,” she said.
Maisie smiled. “I do indeed. I find it comforting, though I also like my coffee strong—my former employer made a very good cup.”
“Yes, Dr. Blanche. I’ve heard of him—a forensic scientist, wasn’t he? One of those clever clogs they call in when there’s been a murder.”
Maisie nodded. “He was an exceptionally gifted man; it was a privilege to work with him.” She sipped from the cup and returned it to the saucer, which she held with one hand, resting it on her knee. “So—to Elaine.” Maisie took a breath and wondered how forceful she should be. “Perhaps you could tell me why you think it should be I who goes to find her, and why you think I will be successful when the men—and I would imagine women—your husband has in his employ to protect his family have failed. She is a headstrong girl, and she is clearly enjoying herself—why else would she leave a husband and child?”
John Otterburn’s wife began to cough. She patted her chest with one hand as she returned her cup and saucer to the table with the other, her eyes watering. “Do excuse me. It seems the coffee was a little hot for me.”
“Please take your time, Lorraine.”
The woman composed herself, sighing as she appeared to search for an answer to Maisie’s question. She straightened her back, a sign to Maisie that she was garnering the strength to give an honest answer, albeit one she did not like at all.
“Maisie, the dark side of my daughter’s cheerful and energetic nature was—is—a tendency to believe she can have anything she wants. For some reason, her brother managed to rise above similar traits—his father had a stronger hand with him—but Elaine, I hate to say it, was spoiled from the moment she was born. I have tried to temper my husband’s overgenerosity with the child, to no avail.”
“She is not a child. She’s a woman with family responsibilities,” said Maisie.
Lorraine pinched the top of her nose, as if endeavoring to keep tears at bay. Maisie wondered if she had been too harsh, allowing her anger to get the better of her. She took a deep breath. There were, without doubt, family tensions at play, and Maisie knew that Lorraine Otterburn was in all likelihood blaming herself for her daughter’s abdication of responsibility.
“You have a lot on your plate, Lorraine. It cannot be easy, caring for your daughter’s child, knowing she has all but left you to it.”
Lorraine Otterburn looked up at Maisie, her eyes reddened by unshed tears. “Oh, and he’s a lovely little man, really—I adore him. The nanny complains I don’t leave her enough to do, but how can I? And John goes straight to the nursery as soon as he is home. We three play together—well, as much as you can play with an infant—and now John does not even want to return to Canada, as he knows he should when the weather improves. We can’t go, not until Elaine is brought home, and certainly not without our darling boy here.”
Maisie smiled and took Lorraine’s hand. “Bear with me—I must ask these questions.”
“I know, Maisie. But first, I must answer the question I knew you would ask. The truth is, my daughter would listen to you because she wants your forgiveness. That is the bottom line, as my husband would say. She believes it was her fault, the terrible tragedy that befell you. She almost cannot bear to be with herself, so now she is living another life, and I fear that life is destroying her. She believes herself to be of no account, unworthy of her son. Frankly, I couldn’t care less about that husband of hers. The family are snobbish scavengers who are only interested in Otterburn money. They think we don’t know. Ha!” Lorraine clasped Maisie’s hand as a drowning woman might grasp the hand of a rescuer. “Elaine wants to be absolved. There was no reason for her not to fly that day, no reason whatsoever. I knew she was experiencing the unrequited love that girls of that age often indulge in, and instead of telling her to get a grip and stop her daydreaming, I allowed her to remain at home and wallow in self-interest. I bear the blame too.”
Maisie drew breath and, almost fearing the sound of her own voice, met the pressure of Lorraine’s grasp. This was her moment too, to voice words she had kept inside since the loss of her husband.
“James made the decision to fly, Lorraine. James knew what was at stake, and he broke a promise. That is the truth I live with, that my husband and child died in a moment of hubris, of—what did you call it? Self-interest? Yes. James loved to fly, and there it was, on the day he died, one more opportunity to be borne up into the clouds by a very fast aircraft, a chance to show everyone on the ground that he was still the fearless wartime aviator. More than anything, there was the desire to do his duty to his country, even though at that moment the duty could have been postponed until another day. Now he is gone, it serves neither his memory nor that of the unborn child I cherished—and indeed my life, which has to be lived—to bear ill will toward the husband I loved. That is the truth as I have come to understand it—that everything came to pass as it should, and I must remember and hold in my heart the gifts our courtship and marriage brought me. If I do not move toward light, Lorraine, I will go in the opposite direction, and I cannot do that again.” Maisie pulled her hand back and regarded her hos
tess. “And I almost slipped.”
She paused. “Elaine is in the dark place of regret. I will do my best to bring her home, but there are no guarantees. Now then—we have work to do. Another cup of coffee would go down a treat, and I have more questions for you. Her father says she has not been in contact, but I would imagine she has communicated with you, without her father’s knowledge. Am I right?”
Lorraine pressed a button behind the sofa, summoning the butler. “Yes, there has been a communiqué—a letter sent via an old school friend. That does not mean I know exactly where she is, but I do know roughly where she has taken on some sort of flat with one or two other girls.”
“Good. That’s a start. And I think it’s time to stop calling her a girl. She is a woman with responsibility to her child, her husband, and her parents. It’s time she grew up.”
The butler entered, and Lorraine asked him to bring some freshly warmed milk. As he was leaving, she added, “Oh, and please tell Nanny to bring the little man down in about half an hour. I am sure Miss Dobbs would love to meet him.”
By the time Maisie left the Otterburn home, she was anxious to visit her father. She made her way to Charing Cross, where she placed a call from a telephone kiosk to Priscilla’s home, leaving a message with the housekeeper to the effect that she would not be in town until Sunday evening, and Mrs. Partridge should not worry—she would be with her father and stepmother. Exiting the kiosk, she joined the queue at the ticket office and paid her fare to Chelstone Station, a branch-line halt requiring a change of trains in Tonbridge. That she had not brought a case with clothing did not concern her. There was still an unpacked trunk at her father’s home; it would be taken to the Dower House as soon as she was ready to resume residence. Though her tenants had left, she had not yet felt secure enough to live in the house on her own once more.
A cold rain was falling by the time the train pulled up to the buffers. Doors opened and slammed shut, and a snaking line of passengers made their way toward the exit, some taking their time, making sure they had their belongings, others rushing, knocking shoulders as they passed, tickets held out ready to submit to the collector. Soon the train was taking on passengers for the next journey, and though Maisie was not exposed to the elements as she waited to board, it felt as if the damp air had seeped into her clothing and was forming a film across her skin. She shivered and pulled her collar up around her neck. A guard opened the door for her, and touched his cap as she thanked him. Soon she was in the warmth of a first-class carriage, seated on heavy deep red velvet upholstery, a small cast-iron stove pumping out heat to keep the South Eastern Railway’s better-heeled passengers in relative comfort. She pulled a small notebook from her new black document case and began to make notes.
According to Lorraine Otterburn, her daughter had fallen pregnant and given birth to a boy just over two months before she left the country. She had been living with her husband at the family’s estate in Northamptonshire. Maisie imagined the spirited Elaine languishing in a cold mansion with many rooms and no heat. Elaine was a colorful person, filled with spirit and energy—she must have felt crushed. Granted, her father had indulged her, but he had also given her a purpose—she was an accomplished aviatrix, and he had drawn her into his covert work on behalf of the British government. Admittedly, he had his reasons—keeping such work in the family as far as he could meant keeping plans close to home. She wondered to what extent he trusted James, who was not family, though Otterburn had obviously pegged him as loyal to his country, a man who understood aviation and who knew what it was to be at war. Maisie suspected that perhaps Elaine had felt less than able to be a mother, not suited to play country wife to a tweedy peer-of-the-realm landowner. Opening fêtes and judging flower arrangements at the county show would not have gone down well with a woman used to finding parties wherever she was in the world. So she had left her child and her husband and absconded from a place she must have considered a prison.
She must miss her little man, thought Maisie, though she wondered if she were not attributing her own imagined feelings to a woman who was quite different. And why had she not just taken the boy with her to her parents’ house? It was clear they adored the child, and without doubt John Otterburn would have thrown a protective fence around his daughter. Then it occurred to her that in London, their paths would cross. Perhaps Elaine would also have found a meeting difficult in the extreme. But was such fear enough to push the younger woman so far away?
The ticket collector interrupted Maisie’s thoughts.
“Change at Tonbridge, madam.”
Maisie thanked him and settled back into her seat. Change at Tonbridge. She smiled to herself, though it was an expression of irony, not one of amusement. So many times in the past, Tonbridge had seemed to mark the place where she had to change who she was, from the London woman to the girl coming home to her father and, earlier, from the nurse who had seen so much to someone who told those who loved her, “Oh, don’t worry about me, I’m all right.” Now she would be a daughter again—ready to assure her father and stepmother that she was doing very well indeed, was thinking of the future again. She would tell them about the flats she’d seen, and that she fully intended to return to Chelstone at every week’s end, and for long periods over the summer.
On Saturday afternoon Maisie and her father pulled themselves away from a warm log fire to walk a favorite route through the village, then out along a country lane and across winter-sodden fields, close to the edge where the mud was shallow. On the other side of a stretch of land in the midst of being tilled, a farmer was encouraging his horses to pull harder against the traces, while the plowboy led the team around a corner to carve another row. They stopped to watch for a while, each with their own thoughts. Then father and daughter strolled on in silence for a few moments.
Finally Maisie spoke. “Dad, I want to explain how sorry I am that I stayed away so long, and why I didn’t come home with you after being in hospital in Toronto.” Unsure of her words, she looked up again at the horses and the plow and the farmer pressing his body forward, as if to give more power to the task. “I know it’s a while ago now, but I still can’t really explain what happened to me after James died. I was paralyzed, in a way—there was nowhere I could get comfortable, and I couldn’t face coming home. And then I went to Spain, and it seemed the best thing to do—to be of help to people was a way to banish the dreadful memories, and—”
Frankie stopped walking and laid a hand on her arm. “You’ve no need to start saying sorry to me. You were grieving, Maisie, and there’s no prescription for it, nor any right way to go about it. After your mother passed away, I was lost—and I think I forgot that you’d lost something too. And what did I do? I sent you off into service, because I didn’t know what to do with myself or you. I’ll tell you now, knowing you won’t hold it against me, but it was more to do with me being at sea with myself than with thinking it would be good for you, though it’s all turned out right for the best, hasn’t it? I’m not going to rake over old pasture, but I’ve come to an age where I’ve seen people lose the people they love, and I’ve been through it myself. There’s no proper way to go about what comes afterward. You just put one foot in front of the other and you get on with it the best you can. Trouble is, your best ain’t always the best for those who want a say in the matter. But you’ve not done poorly by anyone, Maisie. You had to look after yourself, and now you’re home. That’s what matters. We’re all coming through it in our way. Brenda and I set a lot of stock by James, and of course his mother and father loved him, but we all have our own way of going about these things, and no one can criticize anyone else for how they do it.”
“But Brenda said—”
“I was all right, Maisie. Just creaking a bit more about the knees and back, but I was all right. Brenda just wanted you home where she could take care of you, but I said to her, ‘She’ll come home when she’s good and ready—she won’t let us down.’ And you haven’t. You’re home.”
“Yes, I’m home, Dad.” She paused. “But I’ll be away for about a week or so starting next Monday. Then I’ll be back in England and not going anywhere for a long time.”
“Going on a little holiday, love?”
“Not a holiday, though it will be nice, I think—I’ve got to go to Paris to take care of some matters to do with Maurice’s estate. Nothing too taxing.” She turned to her father and linked her arm through his. “And when I get back, I’ll be with Priscilla during the weekdays until I find my own flat, and here at week’s end. I can’t miss Brenda coming up to the Dower House to cook Sunday dinner, can I?”
Frankie nodded in the direction of the plow. “Taking his time getting that done, ain’t he?”
“The soil’s probably a lot deeper than he thought.”
“Should have left it for a finer day.”
Maisie stopped, her hand in the crook of her father’s arm, and looked across the field toward the farmer, who now seemed to be having words with the plowboy. “Yes, I suppose he should.”
And as they walked on in silence, she thought about her return to London on Monday. There she would meet MacFarlane for a journey to another location—he had not revealed the proposed destination—where she would be plunged into intense preparation for what was to come. She knew that by the end of the following week she would be leaving the country with a gun in her hand, and she would know how to use it if it became necessary to protect herself or those in her charge. She would undergo a briefing and be tested time and again, and she would receive clearance to leave for Munich not only with her schoolgirl knowledge of the German language refreshed but with a deeper understanding of Leon Donat. She would know the city inside and out, her every step planned. Except, that is, for her diversion to a place known as Schwabing, which was apparently where many artists, actors, and writers lived. Elaine Otterburn had mentioned the area in a letter to her mother, and Lorraine believed she was living in the midst of the Bohemian enclave.