A Lesson in Secrets_ A Maisie Dobbs Novel - Jacqueline Winspear [34]
It was past midnight when she made ready for bed, sitting first in quiet meditation for some moments, her legs crossed, her eyelids not quite touching, her breath slowing to still her mind. She had wondered about her relationship with James Compton, and, as it deepened and as time went on—if it went on for them—how he might respond to her claiming a quiet time in the late evening. Though he did not share her need for this period of silence, he knew Khan—Maurice’s friend who had taught Maisie that “seeing is not necessarily something that we do with our eyes alone”—and thus far he had taken care to allow her the moments in solitude each evening when they were together.
With her thoughts on James, she picked up the framed photograph she’d placed on her bedside table. The photograph had been taken during a summer visit to Priscilla’s country home. James—tall, fair, and of athletic build—was standing with his arms around Maisie, pulling her close to him. She smiled as she touched the image of him laughing; his wounding in the war had led to a deep depression, and he had eventually been sent to Canada by his parents, ostensibly to oversee the family’s business interests, but in truth to find the peace of mind he craved. Maisie had known James for many years, but it was only in the recent spring that they had grown closer, a development that proved something of a surprise for them both.
James had taken over as head of the Compton Corporation in London upon his father’s retirement at the beginning of the year, but it became clear that a visit to the Canadian office at some point in the summer would be necessary, so he had left at the end of July, with a return not expected before October. Maisie realized how much she missed James: missed the comfort of his arms around her, her hand in his. She missed the twin aspects of his character she enjoyed—an ability to accept whatever the day had to offer, along with a need for his own quiet interludes, when he rode out on one of his hunters across the lands of the Chelstone estate. She understood only too well that he had struggled to find such lightness in life. But as much as they both enjoyed being at Chelstone Manor, their visits were not without a certain awkwardness. Though an independent woman, Maisie did not want her father to know that when James Compton breakfasted at The Dower House it was because he had remained in her company since dinner. This had led to poor acting; James had commented to her on one occasion, “Maisie, I’m beginning to feel like a third-tier actor in an Oscar Wilde stage farce, pretending I’ve just walked in the door—as if I’d crossed the lawns in my dressing gown to say, ‘Good morning, Miss Dobbs, might I scrounge a bit of toast and egg?’ ” Imagining such a scene, Maisie found she could not stop laughing. And that was something else she liked about James Compton—they laughed together, with an awareness that there was between them a joy that neither had experienced since the war. Theirs was a laughter fueled not by pressure from others, nor by alcohol or the whims of a partying crowd, but by a certain optimism that, even in the midst of the difficult times in which they lived, they had grasped a sense of possibility before it slipped through their fingers.
Maisie replaced the photograph and, once in bed, opened the book Tinsley had brought to her office. He’d slipped a note inside the front cover, more information on the novel. She ran her fingers across the embossed cover once again and considered the picture of the young children surrounding a soldier, with the crosses in the background. It reminded Maisie of a woodcut, framed as it was by a trellis with ivy growing in and out of the diagonal lines, a Celtic