Maisie Dobbs (10 page)

Each day she lingered just a little longer before kneeling down to the fireplace, before her hands were blackened by the lighting of fires. Each day she learned a little more about the depth and breadth of knowledge housed in the Comptons’ library, and each day her hunger grew. Gradually she became braver, first tentatively touching the leather binding as she read the title on the spine of a book, then taking the text from its place on the shelf and opening the fine onionskin pages at the front of the book.

The library seized Maisie’s imagination, rendering the small public library with which she was familiar a very poor runner-up in her estimation. Of all the rooms in the house, she loved this the most. One morning, as she replaced a book to attend to the fireplace, a thought occurred to Maisie.

After her mother’s death, she had been used to rising at three in the morning to make her father his tea. It had never hurt her then. In fact, she considered getting up at half past four to be “lying in.” So, what if she got up at three in the morning and came down to the library? No one would know. Enid could sleep through the roof falling in over her head, and she had started coming up to bed late over the past week anyway. Lord knows where she had been, but it certainly wasn’t out, because Carter locked up the house as if it were the Bank of England every night. She dreaded that Enid might be with Master James. Just two weeks ago, as she was leaving Lady Rowan’s sitting room, where she had been sent to collect a tray one evening, Maisie saw Enid and James together on the first-floor landing. Without being observed by them, she watched as James ran his fingers through his fair hair and continued speaking with Enid, his gray eyes intent upon her response to his question. Was it a question? Surely it was, because she saw Enid shake her head and look at the carpet, while brushing her right shoe back and forth across the fibers.

And now Enid was never in bed before midnight—which meant that, thankfully, she would be deep in slumber by three o’clock. Maisie resolved to come to the library when the house was asleep. That night, before pulling up the covers and extinguishing the small lamp beside her bed, Maisie pinched the skin on her right arm sharply three times to ensure that she would awake in time to put her plan into action.

The next morning Maisie awakened easily by three o’clock. A chill in the attic room tempted her to forget her plan, but she sat up, determined to go through with it. She washed and dressed with hardly a sound, crept out of the room carrying her shoes and a cardigan, and felt her way downstairs in the dark. In the silent distance, the kitchen clock struck the single chime of a quarter past the hour. She had almost two hours before the coal scuttles had to be filled.

The library was silent and pitch black as Maisie entered. Quickly closing the door behind her, she lit the lamps and made her way to the section that held philosophy books. This was where she would start. She wasn’t quite sure which text to start with, but felt that if she just started somewhere, a plan would develop as she went along. The feeling inside that she experienced when she saw the books was akin to the hunger she felt as food was put on the table at the end of the working day. And she knew that she needed this sustenance as surely as her body needed its fuel.

Maisie’s fingers tapped along the spines of books until she could bear the electric tingle of excitement no longer. Within minutes, she was seated at the table, opening
The Philosophical Works of David Hume,
and drawing the desk lamp closer to illuminate the pages. Maisie took a small notebook and pencil from her apron pocket, set it down on the desk and wrote the title of the book and the author’s name. And she read. For an hour and a half, Maisie read. She read with understanding on a subject she had barely even heard of.

As the library clock chimed a quarter to five, Maisie turned to her notebook and wrote a precis of what she had read, what she understood, and her questions. The clock struck five, Maisie put the notebook and pencil away in her apron pocket, closed the book, replaced it ever so carefully on the shelf, extinguished the desk light, and left the room. She closed the door quietly behind her and went quickly downstairs to fill the coal scuttles. Just a short while later she opened the library door again. Without looking at the shelves, as if eye contact with the spines of the beloved books would give her game away, she set the coal scuttle down and knelt by the grate to build and light the fire.

Each weekday morning Maisie rose at three to visit the library. Sometimes a party at the house would keep the Comptons up until the small hours, and the change in routine made the library expeditions a risk she could not afford. She was liked in the house, though she had been spoken to by Lord and Lady Compton only once, when she had first arrived.

The house was silent; only the ticking of clocks accompanied her to the library. Now when she entered the room it was as if she were falling into the arms of an old friend. Even the tentacles of cold receded as she turned on the light, placed her notebook and pencil on the desk, and went to the bookshelves. She took down the book she had been reading for the past three days, sat at the desk, found her place, and commenced.

Frankie Dobbs always said that when she was reading Maisie had “cloth ears.” She always seemed instinctively to know the time and when she would need to stop reading to run an errand or complete a chore, but as far as Frankie was concerned, “Those ears don’t even work when you’ve yer nose in a book!”And he loved her all the more for it.

L
ord and Lady Compton were caught up in the midst of the London season, which Lady Rowan loved for its energy, even if she did have to tolerate some people she considered to be “light.” Fortunately late nights usually fell on weekends, but this invitation, in the middle of the week, was not to be missed: an intimate yet sumptuous dinner with one of London’s most outspoken hostesses.

“Thank God there’s someone with a bigger mouth than mine,” Lady Rowan confided to her husband.

Guests were to include some of the leading literary lights of Europe. It was an opportunity for sparkling conversation, definitely not to be missed. Maurice Blanche would accompany them, a rare event, as he was known to shun society gatherings.

After-dinner conversation drifted past midnight. It was only as Maisie Dobbs crept downstairs to the library that Lord and Lady Compton, along with Maurice Blanche, bade their hostess adieu, thanking her profusely for a wonderful evening. They arrived home at three in the morning. Carter had been instructed not to wait up, but an evening supper tray had been left for them in the drawing room. Lady Rowan was still in fine argumentative fettle as Lord Julian led the way.

“I tell you, Maurice, this time you are mistaken. Only last week I was reading—where was I reading—oh yes, that new book. You know, Julian, what was it called? Anyway, I was reading about a new hypothesis that utterly controverts your position.”

“Rowan, could we please—” interrupted Lord Julian.

“Julian, no, we couldn’t. Pour Maurice a drink. I’ll find the book, then you’ll see!”

“As you will, Rowan. I am very much looking forward to seeing what you have read. One always welcomes the opportunity to learn,” said Maurice Blanche.

While the men settled by the embers of the drawing-room fire, Lady Rowan stormed upstairs to the library. Maisie Dobbs was deep in her book. She heard neither footsteps on the stairs nor the approach of Lady Rowan. She heard nothing until Lady Rowan spoke. And she did not speak until she had watched Maisie for some minutes, watched as the girl sucked on the end of her single braid of thick, black hair, deep in concentration. Occasionally she would turn a page back, reread a sentence, nod her head, then read on.

“Excuse me. Miss Dobbs.”

Maisie sat up and closed her eyes tightly, not quite believing that a voice had addressed her.

“Miss Dobbs!”

Maisie shot up from the chair, turned to face Lady Rowan, and quickly bobbed a curtsy.“Sorry, Your Ladyship. Begging your pardon, Ma’am. I’ve not harmed anything.”

“What are you doing, girl?” asked Lady Rowan.

“Reading, Ma’am.”

“Well, I can see that. Let me see that book.”

Maisie turned, took the book she had been reading, and handed it to Lady Rowan. She stepped back, feet together, hands at her sides. Bloody hell, she was in trouble now.

“Latin? Latin! What on earth are you reading Latin for?”

Lady Rowan’s surprise stemmed questions that another employer might have put to the young maid.

“Um . . . well. Um . . . I needed to learn it,” replied Maisie.

“You needed to learn it? Why do you need to learn Latin?”

“The other books had Latin in them, so I needed to understand it. To understand the other books, that is.”

Maisie shifted her weight from one foot to the other. Now she needed to pee. For her part Lady Rowan was regarding Maisie sternly, yet she felt a strange curiosity to know more about the girl she had already thought unusual.

“Which other books? Show me,” demanded Lady Rowan.

One by one Maisie took down the books, her hands shaking, her legs turning to jelly as she moved the library steps from one shelf to another. Whatever happened next, it was sure to be bad. Very bad. And she had let down her dad. How would she tell him she had been sacked? What would she say?

Maisie was so scared that she did not notice that, in her curiosity, Lady Rowan had forgotten the formality with which she would ordinarily address a servant. She asked Maisie about her choice of books, and Maisie, taking up her notebook, recounted what she had learned in her reading, and what questions had led her to each text in turn.

“My, my, young lady. You
have
been busy. All I can remember of Latin is the end of that verse:‘First it killed the Romans, and now it’s killing me!’ ”

Maisie looked at Lady Rowan and smiled. She wasn’t sure if it was a joke, but she couldn’t stop the grin from forming. It was the first time she had truly smiled since coming to the house. The expression was not lost on Lady Rowan, who felt herself torn between regard for the girl and the appropriate response in such a situation.

“Maisie—Miss Dobbs. There is still time for you to enjoy a short rest before your duties commence. Go back to your room now. I shall need to discuss this incident. In the meantime, do not use the library until you hear from Carter, who will instruct you as to how we will deal with this . . . situation.” Lady Rowan felt the requirements of her position pressing upon her, just as it had when she had been taken by Maurice to the East End of London. How could she do what was right, without compromising—how had Maurice described it? Yes, without compromising “the safety of her own pond”?

“Yes, Your Ladyship.” Maisie put her notebook into in her pocket, and with tears of fear visibly pricking the inner corners of her eyes, bobbed another curtsy.

Lady Rowan waited until Maisie had left the room before extinguishing the lights. It was only as she walked slowly down the staircase that she remembered that she had gone to the library for a book.

“Bloody fool,” she said to herself, and walked toward the drawing room to speak with her husband and Maurice Blanche on a new topic of conversation.