Maisie Dobbs (24 page)

Maisie was sitting at a cramped table in the station tea shop when Enid found her.

"You've missed the train to Chelstone, Mais"

"Hello, Enid.Yes, I know, I'll just wait until the next one"

Enid sat down in front of Maisie.

"So you know"

"Yes. But it doesn't make any difference"

"I should bloody 'ope not! I'm away from them all now, and what James does is 'is business"

"Yes. Yes, it is"

"And I'm earning real money now" Enid brushed her hair back from her shoulders. "So, how are you my very clever little friend? Cambridge University treating you well?"

"Enid, please. Let me be" Maisie lifted the cup to her lips. The strong tea was bitter, but its heat was soothing. The sweet joy of meeting Simon Lynch seemed half a world away as she looked once again at Enid.

Suddenly Enid's eyes smarted as if stung, and she began to weep. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Mais. I've been so rotten to you. To everyone. I'm just so worried. I lost him once. When 'e went to Canada. When they sent him away because of me. And now 'e's going to France. Up in one of them things-I've 'eard they only last three weeks over there before they cop it, them flyin' boys-and if God 'ad wanted us to leave the ground, I reckon we'd 'ave wings growin' out of our backs by now, don't you?"

"Now then, now then" Maisie moved around to sit next to Enid and put her arms around her. Enid pulled out a handkerchief, wiped her eyes, and blew her nose.

"Least I feel as if I'm doing something. Making shells, like. Least I'm not just sitting on my bum while them boys get shot to bits over there. Oh, James ...

"Come on, Enid. He'll be all right. Remember what Mrs. Crawford says about James-he's got nine lives."

Enid sniffed again. "I'm sorry, Maisie. Really I am. But it just gets me 'ere sometimes" Enid punched at her middle. "They look down their noses at me, think I'm not good enough. And 'ere I am working like a trooper."

Maisie sat with Enid until she became calm, as the ache of farewell gave way to anger, tears, and eventually calm and fatigue.

"Maisie, I never meant anything. Really, I didn't. James will come back, I know he will. And this war is changing everything. 'ave you noticed that? When the likes of me can earn a good living even in wartime, the likes of the better-offs will have to change, won't they?"

"You could be right there, Enid"

"Gaw, lummy ... look at that time. I've got to get back to the arsenal. Fin not even s'posed to leave the 'ostel without permission. I'm working in a special section now, handling the more volatile-that's what they call it-the more volatile explosives, and we earn more money, specially as we're 'avin' to do double shifts. All the girls get tired, so it gets a bit tricky, tapping the ends of the shells to check 'em, and all that. But I'm careful, like, so they promoted me. Must'a bin workin' for that Carter for all them years. I learned to be careful."

"Good for you, Enid"

The two women left the tea shop and walked together toward the bus stop just outside the station, where Enid would catch a bus to work. As they were bidding farewell, a man shouted behind them. "Make way, move along, make way, please."

A train carrying wounded soldiers had arrived, and the orderlies were hurriedly trying to bring stretchers through to the waiting ambulances. Maisie and Enid stood aside and looked on as the wounded passed by, still in mud-caked and bloody uniforms, often crying out as scurrying stretcher-bearers accidentally jarred shellblasted arms and legs. Maisie gasped and leaned against Enid when she looked into the eyes of a man who had lost most of the dressings from his face.

After the wounded had passed Enid turned to Maisie to say goodbye. The young women embraced, and as they did so, Maisie felt a shiver of fear that made her tighten her hold on Enid.

"Come on, come on, let's not get maudlin, Mais" Enid loosened her grasp.

"You mind how you go, Enid," said Maisie.

"Like I always said, Maisie Dobbs, don't you worry about me"

"But I do"

"You want to worry about something, Maisie? Let me give you a bit of advice.You worry about what you can do for these boys" She pointed toward the ambulances waiting outside the station entrance. "You worry about whatever it is you can do. Must be off now. Give my love to Lady Bountiful for inc!"

It seemed to Maisie that one second she was with Enid, and then she was alone. She walked toward the platform for the penultimate part of her journey home to her father's cottage next to the stables at Chelstone. With trains delayed and canceled due to troop movements, it would once again be many hours before she reached her destination.

The journey to Kent was long and arduous. Blackout blinds were pulled down, in compliance with government orders issued in anticipation of Zeppelin raids, and the train moved slowly in the darkness. Several times the train pulled into a siding to allow a troop train go by, and each time Maisie closed her eyes and remembered the injured men rushed into waiting ambulances at Charing Cross.

Time and again she fell into a deep yet brief slumber, and in her half waking saw Enid at work in the munitions factory, at the toil that caused her skin to turn yellow and her hair to spark when she brushed it back. Maisie remembered Enid's face in the distance, reflecting the love she felt as she looked at James Compton.

She wondered about love, and how it must feel, and thought back to last night, which seemed so many nights ago, and touched the place on her right hand where Simon Lynch had placed his lips in a farewell kiss.

As the train drew in to Chelstone station late at night, Maisie saw Frankie standing by his horse and cart. Persephone stood proudly, her coat's gloss equaled only by the shine of the leather traces that Maisie could see even in the half-light. Maisie ran to Frankie and was swept up into his arms.

"My Maisie, home from the university. My word, you're a sight for your dad."

"It's grand to be back with you, Dad"

"Come on, let me have that case and let's get going"

As they drove back to the house in darkness, dim lanterns set at the front of the cart swinging to and fro with each of Persephone's heavy footfalls, Maisie told Frankie her news and answered his many questions. Of course she mentioned the meeting with Enid, although Maisie left out all mention of James Compton.

"The arsenal, eh? Blimey, let's 'ope she wasn't there this afternoon."

"What do you mean, Dad?"

"Well, you know `is Lordship is with the War Office and all that. Well, 'e gets news before even the papers, you know, special messenger, like. He's very well-"

"Dad, what's happened?"

"'is Lordship received a telegram late this afternoon. The special part of the factory went up this afternoon, the place where they 'andle the 'eavy explosives. Just as the new shift came on. Twenty-two of them munitions girls killed outright."

Maisie knew that Enid was dead. She did not need the confirmation that came the next morning, as Lord Compton told Carter that Enid had been among the young women killed and that he should take care of informing the staff in a manner that he saw fit. Not for the first time, Maisie considered how so much in life could change in such a short time. Priscilla enlisting for service, the wonderful evening, meeting Simon Lynch-and Enid. But of the events that had passed in just three days, the picture that remained with Maisie Dobbs was of Enid, swishing back her long red hair and looking straight at Maisie with a challenge. A haunting challenge.

"You worry what you can do for these boys, Maisie. You worry about whatever it is you can do "

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

aisie caught sight of the London Hospital in the distance and did not take her eyes off its austere eighteenth-century buildings until the bus had shuddered to a halt, allowing her to clamber down the steps from the upper deck to the street below. She looked up at the buildings, then at the visitors filing in, people leaving, many in tears, and the ambulances drawing alongside to allow their wounded and bloody cargo to be taken to the safety of the wards.

Maisie closed her eyes and took a deep breath, as if about to jump from a precipice into the unknown.

`.. scuse me, Miss, comin' through.You'll get run over if you stand there, young lady."

Maisie opened her eyes and moved quickly to allow a hospital porter through carrying two large boxes.

"Can I 'elp you, Miss? Look a bit lost to me."

"Yes. Where do I enlist for nursing service?"

"You bloomin' angel, you. You'll be just the medicine some of these poor lads need, and that's a fact!"

Positioning his left foot awkwardly against the inside of his opposite shin, the porter held the boxes steady on his knee with one hand, pushed back his flat cap, and used his free hand to direct Maisie.

"You go through that door there, turn left down the long greentiled corridor, turn right at the end to the stairs. Up the stairs, to the right, and you'll see the enlisting office. And don't mind them in there, love-they pay them extra to wear a face as long as a week, as if a smile would crack 'em open!"

Maisie thanked the man, who doffed his cap quickly before grabbing the boxes, which were about to fall to the ground, and then went on his way.

The long corridor was busy with people lost in the huge building, and others pointing fingers and waving arms to show them the way to reach a certain ward. Taking her identification papers and letters of recommendation out of her bag, Maisie walked quickly up the disinfectant-cleaned tile staircase and across the landing to the enlisting office for nurses. The woman who took Maisie's papers glanced at her over her wire-rimmed spectacles.

"Age?"

"Twenty-two."

She looked up at Maisie again, and peered over the top of her spectacles.

"Young-looking twenty-two, aren't you?"

"Yes, that's what they said when I went to university."

"Well, if you're old enough for university, you're old enough for this. And doing more good while you're about it "

The woman leafed through the papers again, looking quickly at the letter with the Compton crest that attested to Maisie's competence and age. There would be no questions regarding the authenticity of documents that bore not only an impressive livery but the name of a well-known figure at the War Office, a man quoted in newspapers from the Daily Sketch to The Times, commenting on dispatches from France.

Maisie had taken the sheets of fine linen paper from the bureau in the library at Chelstone, and written what was needed. Emboldened by Enid's challenge, she had felt only the shallowest wave of guilt. She was going to do her part for the boys, for those who had given of themselves on the fields of France.

11(5)11~ ou've done what? Are you mad, Maisie? What about your university learning? After all that work, all that ...

Frankie turned his back on Maisie and shook his head. He was silent, staring out of the scullery window of the groom's cottage, out toward the paddocks where three very healthy horses were grazing. Maisie knew better than to interrupt until he had finished.

"After all that fuss and bother ...

"It's only a postponement, Dad. I can go back. I will go back. As soon as the war is over"