Leaving Everything Most Loved: A Maisie Dobbs Novel by Jacqueline Winspear

Author:Jacqueline Winspear
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fiction, Women Sleuths, Historical, Mystery & Detective
ISBN: 9780062049629
Publisher: Harper
Published: 2013-03-26T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

It was at breakfast that Maisie asked James if it wouldn’t be too much trouble for her to come along to supper at the Otterburns’ that evening after all.

“Oh, that’s wonderful, darling—thank you for changing your mind. I’ll have my secretary call the Otterburns; I am sure they will be thrilled you’re able to come.” James leaned forward and kissed Maisie on the cheek. He sat back. “But how are you feeling about John Otterburn?”

“The same, James, but I also appreciate that he is part of your plans for the future—in fact, that he is directing your plans for the future, so I should perhaps not be so, well, dismissive of his importance in your life. I can’t bring myself to hold him in any regard, though.”

“Fair enough, Maisie. But there are many men—and women—who do things in a time of war that they wouldn’t dream of doing in peacetime, and all for the common good.”

Maisie looked at James, and for a second she knew she would remember his words forever, along with her reply.

“But, James, we’re not at war, and this is supposed to be a time of peace.”

And with that, she wondered how she would ever get through the evening, and was already half-regretting her decision.

Once again Maisie drove in the direction of Camberwell, in good time to be at the School of Arts and Crafts to see Harry Ashley during his tutorial hours—she hoped he would be in his office, and with some luck there would be only a short queue of students waiting to see him, paint-splashed or with dried clay under their fingernails.

The morning was fine, with sunshine pressing through a dense morning mist, and just a nip in the air to remind London that winter would draw in on that mistress of disguise, the Indian summer, soon enough. She parked the MG close to the college and neighboring gallery, its design typical of so many public buildings constructed during the reign of Queen Victoria, when a certain bold grandeur proclaimed the wealth of Britain at the center of a burgeoning Empire. Above the ground streets had been torn up to provide an architectural legacy intended to stand for hundreds of years, testament to a golden age, while in the subterranean depths of London, fetid rivers had been pushed underground and now formed part of a labyrinthine sewer system designed by a civil engineer, Joseph Bazalgette, to last several lifetimes.

Maisie made her inquiry at the main porters’ desk, and was directed to a corridor of rooms on an upper floor. Stepping along the hallways and up the stairs brought back memories of a past case in which she took on the guise of a college lecturer. Being deprived of the schooling she so loved at twelve—and all of her classmates then had left the dour black school buildings at the age of twelve—had doubled her hunger for learning. Now she’d had that education, and had even taught in a college—but she always felt something of an excitement to be among students.

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