A Lesson in Secrets (3 page)

“I’ve invited Sandra to stay at my flat again, which will help her get on her feet. And it will be a weight off my mind to know that someone is at home when I am away; at least the place will be inhabited.” She paused for a moment. “And I have some good news for us.”

Billy looked up from his desk. “Oh—a new job come in?”

Maisie shook her head. “No, some help for us—she’s looking for a job, so I offered her the position of secretary. It’ll be part-time, as she’ll also be working for Douglas Partridge. She can catch up with the filing, type up our invoices and reports properly, and generally keep us in some sort of order. When she’s here and clients come to the office, you won’t have to miss half the conversation because you’re bringing in the tea—Sandra will be able to take care of those . . . those . . . housekeeping details. Plus, when I’m away, it will be company for you, someone to talk to in the office and provide clerical support when you’re working on your cases.”

Billy shrugged. “I thought we were doing quite well here, just the two of us. And it’s only lately that the filing’s piled up. And where will she sit?”

Maisie thought a stronger yet equally compassionate tack was needed. “This is a very spacious room, Billy. You could hold the Cup Final in here. We’ll keep the table by the window for the case maps, and for our discussions when we’re comparing notes on our work. We’ll reposition those filing cabinets and the card file against the two walls either side of the bay window. Your desk could be placed at an angle to the wall—very nice with a view to the square—and if I move my desk slightly more towards the fireplace we can fit another desk here—thus the first person to greet visitors will be Sandra.”

“We’ll need a desk, Miss.”

“Could you find a suitable desk for Sandra? Have it brought to the office ‘cash on delivery’ and I will settle the bill when it arrives.”

“Right you are, Miss.”

“And I’ve another job for you.”

“Yes, Miss?”

Maisie picked up the index card that Billy had left on her desk. “This is where Eric worked—you remember, they always looked after my motor car. Sandra and Eric lived over the garage. I want you to take the MG over there and ask them to check a possible oil leak. There is no oil leak—well, no more than usual—but you can get chatting to the owner. Ask him about the business—you know how to slide it into the conversation. He has a relatively new customer who’s been giving him a lot of work. Find out who it is. All I want is a name at this stage.”

“Is this for Sandra?”

“In a way.” Maisie sighed and leaned against the back of her chair. “I have a sense that, when she’s settled and the problem of where to live and how to earn money is solved, her thoughts will turn inward, and she will begin to doubt that her husband’s death was an accident.”

“And you want to have proof that it was, so that she can forget it?”

“No.” She chewed the inside of her lip for a second before continuing. “No, not exactly. Accidents happen, Billy. The people most likely to make mistakes are the ones who think they know, who consider themselves to be experts. But when she told me about how Eric died—let’s just say I had a sense of doubt. I might be completely wrong, and I hope I am; but there are times when a piqued curiosity cannot be ignored, and this is one of them.”

Chapter Three

I
n her application for the position of lecturer at the College of St. Francis, Maisie made much of her academic achievements. She mentioned her work for Maurice, but massaged details of her life over the past several years so that it might seem as if she had been afforded the time to pursue intellectual interests. And while awaiting a reply, she spent more time at The Dower House, immersing herself in the many books on philosophy in Maurice’s library. Sitting late into the night, taking notes in a leather-bound book, Maisie at once felt as if she were thirteen years old again in the lowly position of maid in the Comptons’ Ebury Place mansion. She had tiptoed into the library in the early hours of the morning several times each week, to work her way through the books and make up for the education she had been forced to abandon when her mother died. Upon being discovered by Lady Rowan Compton, she thought she would lose her job, but instead a new world opened up for her when Maurice Blanche asked to meet the young maid who dared to teach herself Latin in the small hours.

Now, as she sat at the desk, she felt an excitement: the same feeling she experienced as a girl surrounded by books that should have been out of bounds for her. She was about to embark on something completely new, a task that represented a risk, a gamble of sorts. Would it test her skills to the limit? Or would she rue the day she’d stopped the motor car on River Hill? Would she succeed in the eyes of her overseers, or would she fail? And how would that success or failure be measured? Maisie sat back in her chair, pulling a book towards her. She considered it serendipitous when she opened it to lines written by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: “A man can stand anything, except a succession of ordinary days.”

When she left the library—she still thought of it as Maurice’s library—she stopped as she walked past a looking glass in the hallway. She had never been one to linger over her reflection, but since Maurice’s passing she found that she sometimes stopped to check her appearance, as if circumstances had made her something other than she knew herself to be. But there she was, the same. Her black hair, inherited from her mother and grandmother before her, was still worn in the bob she had adopted almost three years ago, and her deep midnight-blue eyes seemed recovered from the weariness of grief. Her clothes had never been ostentatious, and despite her newfound wealth, she still welcomed Priscilla’s castoffs, which were often all but new when dismissed as “old hat” by their owner. And as the months passed, Maisie had felt the dread of having no resources lift from her heart; it was a fear wrought by a childhood spent in poverty, and it had weighed upon her since she was a girl. She traced a few lines along the sides of her eyes and mouth, while repeating to herself, again, the words she had just read. She hoped the days ahead would be extraordinary.

G
ood morning, Miss. Lovely morning, isn’t it?” Sandra greeted her new employer with a smile; Maisie was glad to see the young woman beginning to look more like herself again, though she often heard Sandra crying herself to sleep at night.

“It certainly is a good morning. There was hardly any traffic on the road from Kent, and the sun was shining all the way.”

“I’ll put the kettle on, then. You have a postcard from Mr. and Mrs. Beale, and he also telephoned this morning to say that he would be back on Monday.” Sandra had set the morning’s post on Maisie’s desk. “A postal order and two checks have come in, and you have two letters that look as if they’re from possible new clients.” She paused. “And one from the College of St. Francis—the one you’ve been waiting for.”

“Thank you, Sandra. My, this office is looking neater than it’s looked in a long chalk!”

Maisie went to her desk without taking off her jacket or hat and opened the letter from the college. Greville Liddicote informed her that he had been in receipt of her application for the position advertised in
The
Times Educational Supplement
, and he was pleased to inform her that she had been selected for an interview, to take place at ten o’clock in the morning on September 1, 1932. He added that the appointment was a late one, in terms of the academic year, and was due to unforeseen circumstances. He hoped that, should she be the candidate selected for the position, she would subsequently be available to take up her post within one week. He added that if there was any doubt on her part regarding the proposed arrangements, perhaps she would be so kind as to let him know, as her candidacy for the job would be affected.

“Interesting,” said Maisie, as she reread the letter. She suspected he intended to make a decision on the day of the interview, which was not unusual in a school or college.

“Did Billy say anything else? He seems to be returning early from hop-picking.” Maisie looked up at Sandra as she brought in the tray with a mug of tea for Maisie and a cup for herself.

“He mentioned that he was a bit worried about Mrs. Beale down there, and that he thought they’d all be better at home.”

“Hmmm, I hope everything’s all right,” said Maisie.

“They’re probably just being on the safe side,” Sandra paused. “When will you be leaving?”

“I’ll go up to Cambridge next week, on the first, and if it all goes according to plan, I will be living in digs close to the college soon after—I will need to do a lot of preparation.”

“Funny that, wasn’t it? That Dr. Blanche wanted to see you in a college for a while, teaching.”

“Not so funny if you knew Maurice.” The lie had come easily when she had first explained her reasons for applying for a teaching job, though Maisie felt guilt at having to deflect the truth from an employee she trusted implicitly. “Maurice always set stock by the ability to teach, and I am glad the opportunity presented itself. In any case, Billy will be here, and I will be back on occasion to catch up with work—when I get into the swing of things, I expect to be able to drive down at the end of each week. We’re doing quite well at the moment, so you’ll both have your work cut out for you. In fact, as time goes on, I expect we’ll need you here full-time, Sandra, though I expect Mr. Partridge might have said the same thing—is everything going well there?”

“Very well, Miss Dobbs. In fact, you’re right, Mrs. Partridge says that they might like me to come full-time at some point—I’ve been doing some office work for her, too, you know.”

“Oh, I bet you have—social secretary?”

“Yes, sort of.”

Maisie laughed. “We’ll just have to fight over you, then.”

Sandra smiled and nodded, and went back to sorting through a series of files. She had already developed a new system of cross-referencing the card file and the larger client files, the manila folders filled with notes on each case, to which the case map was added when an assignment had been brought to a satisfactory conclusion. The new system delighted Maisie, though she thought that Billy might not care for the change—she suspected he had become used to “business as usual.”

H
aving arrived in the city with time to spare, Maisie used the opportunity to drive around and indulge her memory of her first days in Cambridge. Though the university students would not begin their Michaelmas term for another few weeks, it seemed that already young people were swarming around on bicycles, much to the consternation of those driving motor cars and omnibuses. She parked the MG and walked to the Clare Bridge; it had once been a favorite place to stroll on a Saturday morning in late autumn, when, with a low sun throwing light upon frost-bedecked willow trees, she would linger on the bridge and marvel at her fortune in coming to this place, how fate had stepped in and set her on a path she could never have imagined even a year before. Clare was the oldest bridge in Cambridge, and there was something about standing on the bridge, with her feet on a thoroughfare walked by scholars for almost three centuries, that had filled her with anticipation of what the future might hold. Then the cold would nip at her fingertips and toes, and she would make her way to the market, perhaps to buy fresh bread, still bearing the fragrance of warm yeast, which she would later spread with an indulgent layer of butter and Mrs. Crawford’s strawberry jam. And she would consider herself lucky indeed to have such a sweet for tea. She smiled, remembering the hamper of comestibles the cook at Chelstone had sent to her shortly after she arrived at Girton College to begin her studies—homemade apple pie, strawberry jam, a quarter pound of Brooke Bond tea, and a jar of honey from the hives at Chelstone. Priscilla had joined the afternoon feast. “She probably thinks they starve you here,” she’d said, before tucking into a slice of toast and jam, then wiping crumbs from her lips. “Do write and tell her how hungry you are, and she’ll send us some more—that jar won’t last long at this rate, I can tell you!”

The College of St. Francis was housed in a grand mansion just off the Trumpington Road, within walking distance of the Cambridge Botanic Garden. Standing in front of the considerable property, Maisie thought it must have been built in the early years of Queen Victoria’s reign, testament to the fashion for Gothic Revival architecture, with heavy leaded churchlike windows, the chimneys close together in three clusters, and an oversize spire on the roof above the substantial front door. She suspected that students would doubtless remember it as a place of echoes, of ghosts, of the creaks and wheezes inherent in an old house as nighttime cooled the rafters. Camellia bushes and rhododendrons showing off a second blooming obscured part of the view, though leafy cherry trees that would be filled with blossom in spring gave visitors cause for cheer, as if the trees and shrubs were assuring them, “It’s not as bad as it looks in here.”

She looked up at the spire once more and walked towards the door, where she pulled the cast-iron bell handle to the right of the entrance. A young woman opened the door and gave an economical smile.

“Are you Miss Dobbs?”

“Yes, to see Dr. Liddicote.”

“Follow me.”

The young woman was of average height. Her light-brown hair was cropped into a short bob with not a strand out of place, and Maisie noticed the merest blush of rouge on her cheeks. Her brown shoes clicked against the polished floorboards as she led Maisie along the corridor towards a door with a frame that Maisie thought would have been well-suited to the inner sanctum of a church.

“Please wait in here, Miss Dobbs. I will come for you when Dr. Liddicote is ready to see you.”

Maisie chose an armchair close to the window, which looked out on the grounds. Flanked by an assortment of both deciduous and evergreen trees, the lawns were also bordered by rhododendrons and flower beds with dahlias and asters in bloom. She closed her eyes and cleared her mind, in part because this was her practice before an important meeting, but also to marshal the butterflies of anticipation. Reflecting upon her story to Sandra—that Maurice had wanted her to spend time in a teaching capacity—she reminded herself that there was an element of truth in the tale. Maurice had often spoken to her of the importance of passing on knowledge, and of the skill involved in presenting ideas and facts in a manner that was engaging and made a lasting impression—whether the recipient of that knowledge was an employee, a student, or a child. She rubbed her hands and waited, half-wishing she had brought one of Maurice’s notebooks to read so that his words could sustain and inspire her in the moments before her meeting with Liddicote.

D
r. Liddicote will see you now.” The young woman held the door open for Maisie and led the way along the corridor to a room with a carved oak door. She tapped on the door twice, and moved closer, resting the side of her head against the wood to listen for a response. She pulled away and knocked again, this time with more force. “He’s a little hard of hearing,” she whispered.

The second knock had the desired effect, for this time even Maisie could hear Liddicote call, “Come!” without having her ear to the door.

“Miss Dobbs.” Upon entering the room, the woman announced Maisie’s name in a loud voice, and waited for acknowledgment.

Liddicote swiveled his wooden captain’s-style chair around to face Maisie, and beckoned her towards the visitor’s chair; then he cast his eyes down to refer to the sheaf of papers that she assumed contained both her letters of reference and her curriculum vitae. She could see that he had scribbled notes in a small, precise hand underneath several paragraphs, and along the margins.

“Thank you, Miss Linden.”

Maisie noticed that his eyes did not meet those of his secretary, and that as she closed the door behind her, her face was like stone.

Liddicote set the papers on the desk in front of him and clasped his hands under his chin as he leaned back in the chair. The swivel chair had clearly seen better days and seemed as if it might give way at any moment. As he looked up at her once again, Maisie thought Liddicote might apply some sort of dye to his hair, for it seemed unnaturally dark brown, like the polished boot of a solider. The color was particularly incongruous against his face, which was lined, though no more than one might expect of a man past sixty; she would have thought it more natural if a few wisps of gray were evident. His clothes appeared more expensive than one might expect of a professor, and she suspected he might always be prepared for a meeting with a person of importance, one who had the funds to make a bequest to the college.

“I’ve read your application in some detail, Miss Dobbs. Your references are impressive.”

“Thank you, Dr. Liddicote.”

“But why do
you
now want to teach?”

Without preamble, the question felt as if it had been shot from a gun.

“I have long wanted to teach, Dr. Liddicote. It was always an ambition, inspired and encouraged by my own beloved teacher, Dr. Maurice Blanche.” She paused. “Dr. Blanche began directing my education when I was a girl—at the time I was struggling to teach myself Latin.” She took a deep breath, wondering how much of herself she should reveal. “My years of formal learning—which could best be described as ‘limited’—ended when I was twelve, due to my mother’s death and my father’s circumstances. So I set out to teach myself, and was fortunate when my employer consulted with Dr. Blanche regarding my future. It was Maurice Blanche who taught me that the word ‘education’ is rooted in the word
educare
—or
ex ducare
—and the most important aspect of the definition is that it has two meanings; one being to acquire knowledge—from books and study—and the second to explore and understand that which is within us. Dr. Blanche underlined that the second is a search, a journey leading to the places where wisdom lies and is crucial to who we might become. In taking up the teaching profession I am not only imparting knowledge but playing a part in each student’s personal pilgrimage of learning. It represents a great responsibility, but one that is rewarding, without doubt.”