An Incomplete Revenge (16 page)

“But surely you do not want any ambiguity in the final transaction, which may occur if questions remain regarding the integrity of Sandermere’s dealings with his insurers.”

James reached for a pen. “Good point.”

“Also, James, I have another question that is outside the purview of my work with you but about which I would like to have some clarity in any case.”

“Yes?”

“I completely understand the need for, as you said,
a clean sale
. Yet is it not also true that the estate’s compromised reputation, along with that of the village, renders the selling price even more negotiable than before?” She inclined her head. “Don’t you have more bargaining power, in consideration of events at the Sandermere estate and in Heronsdene?”

James tilted his chair forward, almost but not quite to the floor. “Yes, that’s true, to a point. But it’s not something we would set out to do.”

Maisie deliberately relaxed her shoulders and allowed her hands to rest in her lap, crossing one leg over the other as she did so. “No, I wasn’t suggesting you would. I have undertaken work for the Compton Corporation before, and understand the integrity inherent in your procedures. However, you will negotiate a lower selling price, won’t you?”

James paused. “Of course. I’m a businessman, and even though we will not court controversy, there is an opportunity here for a revised deal to be brokered.”

Maisie nodded. “Yes, I thought so.”

“Does your question pertain directly to the brief?”

Maisie leaned forward. “In a way it does. If I am to reach any conclusions, or present a comprehensive report, I must understand the nature of the relationship between the Compton Corporation,
your representatives, and the Sandermere estate. Your answers have simply raised more questions in my mind about Sander-mere’s actions.”

“What do you mean?”

Maisie sighed. “In military terms, James, I have a sense that he is in the process of shooting himself in the foot.”

“Good for us!”

Maisie stood up. “Ah, not if you want that clean sale, it isn’t—and certainly not in the period of time you’d like.” She held out her hand to James. “I will be in touch. In the meantime, it’s a bit late to see Lady Rowan now, I expect she’s with Lord Julian in the drawing room, sipping sherry.” She stepped forward, placing her hand on the back of James Compton’s chair. “You know, you really must be careful, James, you’ll come a cropper if you keep teetering back and forth.” She smiled. “Don’t summon Carter. I’ll see myself out.”

DEEP IN THOUGHT
, Maisie meandered slowly back to the Groom’s Cottage, her father’s home. Carter’s knowledge of the dead Martin family in Heronsdene had piqued her interest, not least because of the tragic consequences the war had laid upon them. An entire family wiped out by conflict, three at home, one overseas. Yes, perhaps it was a blessing the son was lost. She imagined how it might have been had she returned from France, with her wounds as they were, only to find herself orphaned. Just the thought brought tears to her eyes, and she ran to the cottage, colliding with her father, who had just walked out into the night to collect wood for the fire.

“What’s all this, what’s all this, Maisie?” asked Frankie, as she enveloped herself in her father’s embrace. “What’s happened to upset you so, love?”

“Nothing, Dad. I was just thinking, that’s all.”

“Well, you’re home now, so you can stop that—I never did hold with too much thinking. Now then, help me with some wood. The nights are beginning to blow up a bit chilly, ’specially with this rain coming out of nowhere. A nice fire will set you right, you’ll see.”

TEN

Maisie remained at Chelstone until Sunday morning, when she left early to be in Richmond by eleven o’clock. Morning visiting hours ended at noon at the convalescent hospital where Simon had been cared for since the war. She would have one hour to be with a man who could not respond to her conversation, who did not see her, and who was not aware of her presence.

As was her habit when she visited, she parked the car close to an ancient oak tree at the far end of the graveled turning circle close to the former mansion that was now a place of retirement and care for those soldiers, sailors and airmen who had lost their minds to war. Most of the patients had been infantrymen, many of them officers, as the clinic was a private concern for those with families who could afford such attention.

Maisie made her way along the gravel and, as always, walked across the lawns to a stone wall overlooking the Thames, from which the mansion, built on a hill, commanded a panoramic view. She rested her hands on the wall, closed her eyes, and breathed deeply. Maisie had been well tutored in the stilling of the mind, in
the practice of drawing strength of spirit in quiet contemplation. Now she sought to dampen the stirring of doubt, the sense that she could no longer face the young man she had loved at a time when life was slipping from him. She leaned forward and rested her head on her hands.
But we are neither of us young anymore
. Though she knew very well that the years were drawn on Simon’s face, when she thought of him, it was that boyish man she saw, the newly minted military doctor with whom she had fallen in love, and he with her. And when she slipped into the chair alongside his bed, closed her hand around his, and whispered the words,
It’s me, Maisie, I’ve come to see you
, she would lean over and kiss his forehead at the very place where fragments of shell had burrowed into his skull and he had been lost to her forever.

A breeze blew up from the river, and Maisie moved away from the wall, took one more deep breath, then turned and made her way back to the main door of the clinic.

“Good morning, Miss Dobbs. Not very nice out, is it? Sign here, please, and I’ll call staff nurse. The captain’s been moved; he’s in another ward now.” The receptionist enunciated every word in her singsong voice, framed by lips coated liberally with cherry-red lipstick, which, as always, matched the long nails that clicked on the telephone dial as Maisie completed the visitors’ book.

Maisie signed her name and pushed the book back to the receptionist. “Thank you. I see I’m the only visitor today so far.”

“Yes, though his mother does try to get in every other day.”

Maisie nodded, then turned, as she was greeted by the staff nurse. “Good morning, Miss Dobbs. Follow me, and I’ll take you to Captain Lynch.”

They walked along corridors with polished wood floors, bouquets of flowers set in white jardinieres, and a fragrance free of the usual hospital hallmarks—the odor of human wastes masked by disinfectant and bleach. Passing the entrance to the hospital conservatory, formerly the winter garden where the ladies of the house
would take a turn when frozen weather forced them to remain indoors, Maisie thought back to other times and past visits, when she would sit with Simon close to the fountain, or perhaps alongside an open window. With his pale blue pajamas and navy dressing gown, and a rich tartan blanket across his knees, he was a silent partner to her conversation. She would speak of her cases, knowing the confidence would be kept, and tell him about her father, and perhaps even speak in lowered tones of a man she had dined with, or accompanied to the theater. And always she spoke of those years when she did not come, when her fears and reticence following her own convalescence caused her to stay away. At the heart of her angst had been the shell shock she suffered. Like a dragon, leashed and sleeping, it threatened to rear up at any time, to take her by the throat in its enflamed jaws and crush every part of her with memories of what had gone before.

It was just one year ago, in the midst of a case, when the dragon began to emerge from the hibernation of her control, that she had sunk into the very depths of an abyss from which her emergence had been fragile for months afterward. But she now understood that to control the dragon, she had to look into his eyes and back at her past. Only then would she begin to be free.

Simon lay in a bed in a private ward in which he was the only patient. His breathing was labored, sustenance delivered to his body via a single tube inserted into his arm. Such equipment was unknown in the hospital where Maisie had trained as a nurse, but wartime had brought new tools to medicine.

The staff nurse took Simon’s limp right hand and counted his pulse, then felt his forehead. His breathing would be regular for some seconds, followed by several labored gasps before becoming even again. “I’ll be honest with you, Miss Dobbs, I don’t know what’s kept him going all these years. Amazing what the body can do, isn’t it?”

Maisie nodded and, as the staff nurse moved aside, sat in the chair for visitors set by the bed. She reached for Simon’s hand.

“Only fifteen minutes today, not your usual hour, Miss Dobbs.”

“Yes. Of course.” As the nurse turned to leave, Maisie called after her. “Staff nurse, I wonder—can you tell me, how long do you . . .” Her words faltered.

The nurse shrugged and blew out her cheeks. “To tell you the truth, if you had asked me last week, I would have said a day, perhaps two. Now he’s still here, I wouldn’t like to say, but—” She paused, pursing her lips for a second and shaking her head. “It won’t be long now. I would say he’ll be gone before the week’s out.”

Maisie had become used to the honesty with which the nurses spoke to her, as if, by having been a nurse herself, she was admitted into a confidence of plain speaking, a forthright response where, with family, such opinions and observations were administered only by doctors.

“Thank you, staff nurse, I appreciate your candor.”

The nurse stepped back into the room for a moment and pressed Maisie’s shoulder with her fingers, a gesture Maisie returned by squeezing the woman’s hand before she left the ward.

Maisie sighed and reached toward Simon once more. “I think I ought to say my farewell today, Simon, just in case. I might not be here when—” And she looked down at their joined hands.

SHE LEFT THE
clinic fifteen minutes later and walked directly to her motor car. She took her place in the driver’s seat and grasped the steering wheel, resting her head on her hands and closing her eyes. Several moments passed. Then there was a sharp rap at the window.

“Priscilla! What
are you
doing here?” Maisie opened the door and stepped out of the MG to embrace her friend.

Priscilla held Maisie to her, then pulled away to look into her eyes. “This must be wretched for you, darling. I mean, it’s bad for all of us who knew Simon—I’ve known him since I was a child—but you loved him.”

Maisie shook her head, reaching for a handkerchief in the pocket of her mackintosh. “I’m alright, Pris. But what
are
you doing here?”

“I’m here to see you, actually. I knew you’d be here, you usually come on a Sunday, so I caught a taxi-cab knowing I’d find you. And there you were, in your minuscule MG. Let’s go down into Richmond for a bite to eat.”

“Aren’t you going to see Simon?”

Priscilla shook her head. “No. I can’t. The Simon I knew died in 1917.” She walked around to the passenger door, opened it, sat down, and turned to Maisie. “Now, then, let’s get going, squashed as I’ll be in your little motor car.”

PRISCILLA DIRECTED MAISIE
to a hotel lower down the hill and closer to the river, where the grill room offered diners a calm vista across the water. A waiter showed them to a table for two set in a corner offering two outlooks.

“I’ll have a gin and tonic—and please, don’t drown the gin.” Priscilla pulled off her gloves, fingertip by fingertip, as she ordered.

“And a ginger ale for me, please,” added Maisie.

The women consulted the menu and, having made their selections, sat back.

“You should have had a drink.”

Maisie shook her head. “No, not me. The last thing I want to do is drown my sorrow.”

“It’ll take the edge off.”

“I need that edge, Pris.” Maisie thanked the waiter, who had just set their drinks on the table. Priscilla waited for him to leave after taking their luncheon order, then reached into her handbag for her silver cigarette case and lighter.

“Here we go. Let’s upset the matrons, shall we?”

“I don’t know if anyone gets upset about a woman smoking anymore.”

“More’s the pity.”

“So, how are the boys?” Maisie inquired.

Priscilla rolled her eyes. “I’m off to the school again tomorrow, on the verge of pulling them out.”

“More bullying?”

“Yes. And it’s made even worse by the fact that all three of them don’t want to be seen as cowards with Mummy and Daddy running to the rescue.”

“How serious is it?”

“Frankly, it sounds dreadful, according to the letters I’ve received. I know a lot of parents would probably say that it will pass, it builds character, and if we take them out now they will never learn how to weather life’s storms. But as I see it—and so does Douglas, only he’s still in France—there’s plenty of time to learn men’s lessons when they’re men.” She shook her head and sighed. “I don’t know, perhaps it’s me. In the war, I helped collect the bodies of boys only a few years older than Timothy Peter is now, so to see my sons fighting and hurt touches a rather raw nerve.” Priscilla blew a smoke ring and flicked ash from her cigarette into a crystal ashtray. “I mean, make no mistake, those three could quite cheerfully kill each other in their rooms at home; however, there’s something rather wicked about being set upon for being different, don’t you think?”

Maisie nodded, then put a question to Priscilla. “May I come with you, to the school?”

“Whatever do you want to do that for? Believe me, if you want to experience motherhood by proxy, this is not a route I would recommend.”

“No, it’s to do with a case—and you know I can’t say too much about it, so please don’t press me. But I need to ask some questions about a former pupil of St. Anselm’s—and I’m going back a few years; you won’t know him—so an introduction to the headmaster by a parent might help oil the wheels of discovery.”

Priscilla pressed her cigarette into the ashtray as a trolley with two plates topped with silver covers was wheeled to their table. “The trouble with that plan is that the parent in question might be persona non grata after five minutes with the headmaster.” She leaned back to allow the waiter to serve lunch. “However,” she added, “I could say that I want to see my sons before our meeting, to allow you time to have a chat. The headmaster’s name is Dr. Cottingham and he’s been at the school for at least twenty-five years. He came as a young teacher before the war, and he’s definitely the sort to remember every single old boy, especially the bad ones.”