A Lesson in Secrets_ A Maisie Dobbs Novel - Jacqueline Winspear [13]
Chapter Three
In 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.
Good 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