Birds of a Feather (23 page)

Once again her thoughts centered on the Waite household, and she examined her feelings toward both Charlotte and her father. She admitted some confusion where Joseph Waite was concerned: She found his arrogance distasteful, his controlling attitude toward his grown daughter appalling. Yet at the same time she respected his accomplishments and recognized his generosity. He was a man of extremes. A man who worked hard, who indulged himself, yet who gave help freely, with kindness, if he approved of the recipient.

Could he be the killer? She remembered the dexterity with which he wielded his array of butcher’s knives. Did he have a motive? If he did, then did it explain Charlotte’s flight?

What did she really know of Charlotte, except that she was not at peace? Her father’s view of her was biased. If
only
she could meet with Charlotte Waite sooner. She needed to form her own opinion of the woman’s character. In the meantime, could she interview Fisher?

Maisie started the MG. It was time to return to her rooms at Ebury Place. She had much to consider, to plan. Tomorrow would be a long day, a day that had to begin with a difficult encounter. She must confront Billy regarding his behavior.

T
he front door of the Belgravia mansion was opened even before she reached the bottom step.

“We heard your motor car turn in to the mews, M’um.”

“Oh, lovely. It’s a cold evening isn’t it, Sandra, and a foggy one.”

“It is, M’um, and that old green stuff out there going down into your lungs doesn’t help, either. Never mind, soon be summer.”

Sandra closed the door behind Maisie, and took her coat, hat, and gloves.

“Will you have supper in the dining room tonight, M’um, or on a tray upstairs?”

Maisie stopped for a moment, then turned to Sandra. “I think I’d like a nice bowl of vegetable soup on a tray. Not too soon—about half past eight.”

“Right you are, M’um. Teresa went upstairs the minute she heard your car and she’s running you a good hot bath, what with you driving up from Chelstone today.”

Maisie went immediately to her rooms, placed her now-full document case on the writing table, and undressed, quickly replacing her day clothes with a dressing gown and slippers. Was it only on Friday night that she had left for Chelstone? She had departed again early this morning, indeed, she had arisen as soon as she heard her father’s footfall on the stairs at four o’clock; washed, dressed and quickly joined him for a strong mug of tea before he went to attend to the mare.

“I’ve added some lavender salts to the bath for you, M’um. Helps you relax before bedtime, does lavender.” Teresa had set two large fluffy white towels on the rail by the bathtub, now full of steaming aromatic water.

“Thank you, Teresa.”

“Right you are M’um. Will you be needing anything else, M’um?”

“No, thank you.”

Teresa bobbed a curtsey and left the bathroom.

Maisie steeped her body, reaching forward with her foot to twist the hot tap whenever it seemed that the water was cooling. How strange to be living in the upstairs part of the Ebury Place mansion, to be addressed as ‘M’um’ by girls doing the same job that had brought her to this house, and this life. She leaned back to allow the scented steam to rise up into her hair, and remembered the once-a-week bath that was all she had been allowed when she herself had been a tweeny maid. Enid would bang on the door as soon as she thought that Maisie had been in too long. Maisie could hear her now.
Come on, Mais. Let us in. It’s brassy out here on the landing.

And she remembered France, the cold mud that seeped into her bones, a cold that she could feel to this day. “You’re a chilly mortal, my girl.” Maisie smiled as she saw Mrs. Crawford in her mind’s eye, and almost felt the old woman’s arms around her, comforting her, as she enveloped Maisie with her warmth when she returned, injured, from France. “Let’s be having you, my girl. There, there, you’re home now, you’re home.” And she had held Maisie to her with one hand, and rubbed her back with the other, just as a mother would soothe a baby.

There was a knock on the bathroom door.

“Goodness!” Maisie gasped when she realized how long she had soaked in the bath. “Coming! I’ll be in right away!”

She quickly stepped out of the bath, toweled off, and pulled the dressing gown around her. She set her hair free, shook her head, and rushed into her sitting room. A supper tray had been placed on a small table set in front of her chair by the fire, which was glowing as flames curled around fresh coals being heaped on by Sandra.

“Better stoke it up a bit for you, M’um. We don’t want you catching cold, do we?”

“Thank you, Sandra. A cold is the last thing I want!”

Sandra replaced the tongs into a brass coal scuttle, stood up, and smiled at Maisie. “Looks like Mr. Carter will be returning next week, to get everything in its place for Her Ladyship coming back.”

“Ah, then we’ll know all about it, eh, Sandra?” Maisie smiled at the maid, taking her table napkin and setting it on her lap. “Mmm, this soup smells delicious!”

Sandra bobbed and nodded her head. “Thank you M’um .” But instead of leaving, she seemed to waver. “Not as many staff as there used to be, are there?”

“Certainly not as many as before the war, Sandra.” Instead of taking up her soup spoon, Maisie leaned back in the chair and looked into the fire. “No, definitely not. And if you asked Mrs. Crawford, she’d tell you that there were even more before His Lordship bought the motor cars, when there were horses in the mews, and grooms.”

Sandra pursed her lips and looked at her feet. “S’all changing, isn’t it, M’um? I mean, you know, we wonder why they keep this place up, now that they spend more time down at Chelstone.”

Maisie thought for a while and replied. “Oh, I think they’ll keep Ebury Place for a few years yet, at least until Master James comes back to England. After all, it is part of his inheritance. Are you worried about your job, Sandra?”

“Well, we all are, M’um. I mean, I hope you don’t mind me saying this, and all, but things are changing. Not so many girls are going into service these days. But, you know, it’s funny, like, when you can see change right before your eyes.”

“Yes. Yes, you’re right. We’ve seen a lot of changes since the war.”

“I think people are trying to forget the war, don’t you, Miss? I mean, who wants to be reminded? My cousin—not the one what died over there, but the one who came home wounded from Loos—he said that it was one thing to be remembered, and quite another to be reminded every day. He didn’t mind people remembering what he’d done, you know, over there. But he didn’t want to be
reminded
of it. He said that it was hard, because something happened to remind him every day.”

Maisie thought of her bath, and how the sheer pleasure of it was a reminder of the past. Even if the reminder was of the opposite sensation, that of cold, of discomfort.

“Well, I’d better be getting along, M’um, let you eat your supper. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Sandra. And Sandra, don’t worry about things changing. It usually turns out for the best.”

Maisie finished her soup and leaned into the chair again to watch the hot coals turn to embers. She would make up the fire just a little before going into her bedroom, knowing that as she drifted into slumber, the tray would silently be taken from her rooms in the same way that a breakfast tray would silently appear as she was pinning up her hair in the morning. The conversation with Sandra had sparked her thoughts in another direction. Perhaps
she
was ready for change. Not outwardly, though she knew that exterior transformation was a signal of inner change, but in what she envisioned for her future. Yes, perhaps that was a subject worthy of consideration.

As Maisie settled back into the pillows, she thought of the fine line between remembrance and reminder, and how a constant reminder could drive a person to the edge of sanity. Could drive a person to drugs or drink, to anything that took away the past’s sharp edges. But what if the reminder was another human being? Then what might happen?

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

M
aisie rose early. She washed quickly and dressed in her blue suit, with the collar and cuffs of a white linen blouse just visible underneath. Anticipating a chilly morning, Maisie remembered her navy blue coat, along with her old cloche and black gloves. She grabbed the black document case and left the room quickly.

She was about to open the disguised landing door that led to the back stairs and down to kitchen, when she thought better of it. The girls downstairs might be embarrassed. She would use the main staircase. Then she could knock at the door in fair warning. Straddling the line of her position in the household required some thought.

Maisie knocked, waited a second or two, then poked her head around the kitchen door without waiting for a reply. “Good morning everyone!”

There was a collective gasp from Sandra, Teresa and Valerie. “Oh, Miss, you gave us a fright!” said Sandra. “I was just about to start your breakfast.”

“Sorry to scare you. I thought I’d have breakfast in the kitchen, if that’s all right.”

“Of course it is, Miss. Of course. At least your hair’s nice and dry this morning!”

“Your usual, Miss? Porridge, Hovis and marmalade? You’ll need to stoke up the fires this morning, it’s cold out there. They reckon we could be in for a wintry Easter this year.”

Maisie smiled, noting the change of address again, from “M’um” to “Miss.” Maisie felt like a citizen of two countries, neither here nor there, but always somewhere in the middle.

“Easter’s still a fortnight away and I need to be quick today. I’ll have just a slice of Hovis toasted and a nice cup of tea, thank you.”

“Right you are, Miss. Cup of tea coming up, and toast to follow. Are you sure you don’t want a nice boiled egg?”

Maisie shook her head. “Tea and toast will be plenty for me this morning, Teresa.”

Maisie took some letters from her document case and began to read. She was aware that the girls had exchanged glances, and were mouthing messages to each other. Sandra cleared her throat and came over to the table.

“Miss?”

“Yes, Sandra?”

“Well, we was thinking, you know, and wondered if, you know, you’d like to come to the pictures with us, next Saturday evening. We don’t usually go out together, the three of us girls—we like to make sure that one of us is always in the kitchen, even if there’s no one upstairs—but it’s not as if we’re leaving the house unattended, what with the other staff being here.”

“What’s the picture?”

“It’s a talkie, and a bit scary, I’ve heard. It’s got Donald Calthrop in it. Called
Blackmail
. It’s about this girl, and she’s courting a fella in the police, a detective, and he—”

“I don’t think so, Sandra.”

“Hmmm, I s’pose anything to do with the police would be like going on a busman’s holiday for you, wouldn’t it, Miss?”

“It’s lovely of you to ask, Sandra. Thank you very much for thinking of me. The funny thing is, I don’t really like the scary ones, they keep me awake.”

Sandra laughed. “Now that, Miss,
is
funny.”

Having barely touched her breakfast, Maisie left the Ebury Place mansion via the stone stairs that led from the back door into the street, then made her way to the mews to collect the motor car. George, the Compton’s chauffeur, was in Kent, but a young footman had been assigned to keep the garage spick and span, ready for the return of the Compton’s Rolls Royce. The old Lanchester was kept in London, and though now used only occasionally, was cleaned, polished and tended to regularly. Maisie’s MG gave the footman a more substantial daily job.

“I could’ve brought ’er round to the front for you, Miss. Anyway, there she is, all cleaned and polished ready for London. Got ’er in plenty of mud down there, didn’t you?”

“The weather has no respect for the motor car, Eric, any more than it has for the horse. Thank you for shining her up again. Did you check my oil?”

“All done, Miss. Everything given the once over. She’d take you from John O’Groats to Land’s End if you felt like the drive, and that’s a fact. Lovely little runner, lovely.”

“Thank you, Eric.”

Maisie parked once again in Fitzroy Street, in exactly the same spot as the evening before. Few people had motor vehicles, so Maisie was regarded as a subject of some interest as she climbed from the gleaming crimson vehicle.

She walked slowly toward the office, knowing that this morning would be a difficult one. Her feet were heavy on the stairs and she knew that to have the energy for the next part of her day, she must bring her body into alignment with her intentions, that her sagging shoulders would not support her spirit for the task ahead.

Unlocking the door to the first-floor office, Maisie was surprised to note that Billy had not arrived yet. She looked at her watch. Half-past eight. Despite his message, Billy was late. She walked to the window, rubbing the back of her neck where her scar had begun to throb.

Placing her hands on her chest, with her right hand over the left, Maisie breathed deeply. As her tension eased, she began to envisage the conversation with Billy, concentrating on the closing words of a dialogue that had yet to happen. Pressing her hands even more firmly against her body, Maisie deliberately slowed her breathing to settle her pounding heart, and felt the nagging ache of her scar abate. That’s a reminder, she thought, every single day, just as Billy’s wounded leg is a reminder. And as she stilled her heart and mind, it occurred to Maisie to question herself: If Lydia Fisher chose alcohol, and Billy narcotics to beat back the tide of daily reminder, then what did
she
do to dull the pain? And as she considered her question, the terrible thought came to her that perhaps she worked hard at her own isolation, along with the demands of her business. Perhaps she worked so hard that she was not only able to ignore physical discomfort, but had rendered herself an island adrift from deeper human connection. She shivered.