Messenger of Truth (10 page)

“So, do you know who those men were, Andrew?”

“Look, what’s going on, Maisie? I know it’s none of my business, but—”

“Just their names, Andrew.”

Dene sighed, not for the first time today. “I don’t know the one in the middle with the red ponytail, but the other two are brothers. The Drapers: Rowland and Tom. They run
Misty Rose,
the boat they were all leaning against.”

Maisie walked faster now, unentwined her arm and faced Dene again. “Andrew, do you know anything about smuggling along the coast?”

Dene laughed, shaking his head as they reached the tea shop. “Oh, the things you ask, Maisie, the things you ask.” Placing coins on the counter for two cups of tea, Dene waited until they were served and had secured two seats at a table before replying. “Of course, smuggling has flourished along the coast from the Middle Ages, you know. Once upon a time it was cloth, fine wool or silk. Spice was valuable enough to be smuggled, then alcohol or even the fruits of piracy. It’s all a bit cloak-and-dagger and Dr. Syn-ish.”

“Dr. Syn?”

Dene took a sip of his tea before replying. “You should read a few more adventure stories, Maisie, then perhaps you wouldn’t look for trouble.” He paused to see if she would rise to the bait, but she continued to listen, without comment. “Dr. Syn, the Romney Marsh vicar and smuggler—a tale of devil riders and witches, me ’earties!” He mimicked the voice of a pantomime pirate and was delighted when Maisie laughed at his joke, but she soon became serious again.

“And what about now? What do they smuggle now?”

Dene leaned back. “Oh, I don’t know if there is smuggling nowadays, Maisie. Of course, there’s talk that those caves up on the cliffs all lead to tunnels that in turn wind their way into Old Town cottage cellars—so you know the smuggling went on, and they had a way out with the spoils, so to speak.”

Maisie was thoughtful. “But if you had to hazard a guess, what do you think people might smuggle, if they could?”

Dene shook his head, and shrugged. “I really don’t know. I mean, I suppose people smuggle things that are hard to get, and that you can get a good price for. I’m not sure that means alcohol anymore, or spices, or silks and wools.” He thought for a moment. “People probably smuggle things for different reasons….” He paused, shaking his head. “Now you’ve got me at it, Maisie. Speculating over something of little consequence.” It was Dene’s turn to consult his watch. “You’d better be getting on if you want to arrive at your appointment in Tenterden on time.”

They reached the MG in silence. Maisie turned to Dene before taking her seat and starting the engine. “I’m sorry, Andrew. I don’t seem to be able to give you what you want, do I?” She looked into his eyes, as if to gauge the effect of her admission, her assessment of their situation.

“We’re probably the kind of people who end up wanting the same thing at different times.” He smiled, though as his shoulders sagged and he looked down at the ground, it was the smile of a man resigned to a situation, rather than one who knew how he might change it.

Maisie touched his cheek with her hand but did not kiss him. It was just as she was about to drive away, her face framed in the side window of the motor car, that Dene leaned down and kissed her. He drew back, then spoke again. “Oh, and about those smugglers—I would imagine that the only reason for smuggling now is if someone is prepared to pay handsomely for something they desire, something that’s hard or impossible to get here. There are people who will do almost anything for something they really want, you know.” Dene patted the roof of the car as he stepped back to watch Maisie drive off.

THERE ARE PEOPLE
who will do almost anything for something they really want, you know
. Maisie repeated the words as she drove toward Tenterden. The third man on the beach, the one Dene didn’t know, was Amos White, the Dungeness fisherman. Maisie wondered whether it was usual for the fishermen to meet in this way.
Of course, it must be. Surely the fishermen all know one another, they fish the same territory, probably trade together.
But they had seen her, had found it necessary to comment to one another as she passed. Though they whispered, the tension in their bodies, the way they clustered as if to protect a secret, all served to speak directly to Maisie, as if they had uttered their very thoughts to her, or shouted their conversation above the wind. Yes, she had seen them all before, and so had Nick Bassington-Hope. She knew that now.

THE SKY HAD
become lightly overcast by the time Maisie reached Tenterden, but instead of being a portent for rain, the cloud cover shimmered, backlit by a low sun that served to render the fields greener, the bare trees more stark against their surroundings. The conditions were ideal for ice on the roads, perhaps snow later. She had allowed more than enough time to drive from Hastings and had enjoyed a clear journey, so there would now be an opportunity to complete a couple of errands. At the florist she bought a small bouquet of flowers for Mrs. Bassington-Hope. Blooms were scarce at this time of year, but greenhouse flowers from the Channel Islands of Jersey and Guernsey were available, though expensive. As she left the florist, Maisie wondered how long the shop might remain in business, as expenditure on items such as flowers was becoming increasingly difficult for everyone—not that the poor ever had money for frivolous extras.

The local bookshop was another business run from premises with limited space. She was curious to see a copy of
Dr. Syn
, the book mentioned by Andrew Dene. There were two copies in stock, and Maisie settled into a chair to read the first few pages. If the novel had in some way inspired the artist, Maisie wanted to know more about the story. Before leaving the shop, she made a notation or two on an index card, then slipped it into her shoulder bag as she approached the bookseller to thank him for allowing her to look at the book.

“Maisie!” Georgina Bassington-Hope waved to Maisie when she saw her pull up at the station, then walked over to the passenger side of the MG, opened the door and sat down. “I cajoled Nolly into giving me a lift into town. She had to run a few errands, you know, visit the farm tenants, and so on, but if I ask a favor of her, she acts as if I’ve petitioned her to go in and feed herself to the lions.”

Maisie checked the road, then pulled out.

“No, don’t let’s go yet, I’d like to have a word first.”

“Of course.” Maisie drove on for a few yards, parked the motor car, turned off the engine, then reached for the scarf and gloves she’d pushed behind her seat. “Only you won’t mind if we walk rather than sit here. I see you’re wearing sturdy shoes, so come on, let’s go.”

Georgina agreed, but appeared rather taken aback. Maisie guessed that she was usually the one with the ideas, the one who made suggestions.

“What do you want to talk about?”

“Well, first of all, Nick’s carriage-cottage. Did you glean much from your visit?”

Maisie nodded, composing her reply, while at the same time assessing Georgina’s mood. The way she walked, held her hands at her sides, opened and closed her fingers into her palm, then just as quickly pushed her hands up into the sleeves of her coat, all revealed a depth of tension, but what else? As they walked, Maisie came into step with her client, holding her hands and shoulders in the same fashion. She felt that not only was Georgina afraid, but her fear came from an expectation of something untoward. In her work, Maisie saw fear revealed time and time again but had learned that it was experienced in degrees, demonstrated in quite different actions and responses from person to person, from one event to another. Anticipation of bad news resulted in a more depressed aura surrounding the one who was afraid—different from, say, that of one who was fearful of another person, or who feared failing to do something by a certain time, or perhaps the consequence of a given action. Maisie suspected that Georgina was rather afraid of what might be uncovered, and that she was also somewhat regretful of her decision to delve into the cause of her brother’s accident. She considered that such feelings on Georgina’s part could have come as a result of some new information received, or perhaps a sense she had bitten off more than even she could chew.

“I came away with more questions than answers, to tell you the truth. Mind you, that’s not unusual at this stage in an investigation.” Maisie paused. “I find that I have become rather curious about Nick’s work. He was a most interesting artist, wasn’t he?”

Georgina took a handkerchief from her pocket, which she dabbed against the small drops of perspiration on her brow and on either side of her nose. “Yes, he was certainly interesting, and innovative. But, in what way did
you
discern that he was ‘interesting’?”

Maisie reached inside her coat and glanced at the old nurses’ watch pinned to the lapel of her jacket. “I noticed on one or two pieces that Nick depicted people he knew—their faces—in scenes that they couldn’t have posed in. I thought it was interestin
g
that he would do such a thing. In fact—and bear in mind, I know nothing about art—I assumed that, much like a writer who casts a character inspired by a person known to him, yet who then protects that person with a fictional name, so the painter will employ all manner of disguises to avoid revealing the real person in a given scene. Nick seems to have gone out of his way to do the opposite.”

“Which piece are you referring to?”

“The mural on the walls of his cottage.”

“The smugglers?”

“Yes. It appears he used the fictional character, Dr. Syn, from the books by Russell Thorndike, to inspire an illustrated story. Yet when you look at the faces, they are men known to him.”

“Oh, of course! You know, I think he only did that the once. I remember him saying that fishermen have such weatherbeaten faces, like rocks chiseled by sea over the years, so he wanted to paint them in an historical context. He said that the sheer look of the men brought to mind the whole mythology of smuggling in the area. Then, of course, he read that book and was inspired to depict the story as a decoration for his carriage—all very appropriate, I must say, being on the edge of the mysterious Marshes.”

Maisie nodded. “Yes, I thought it was rather clever. Mind you, I was curious about one thing, you know.” She turned to Georgina as they walked back to the MG and noticed beads of perspiration across her forehead.

“Oh, what’s that?”

Maisie took her seat and leaned across to open a door for Georgina. She started the engine, then continued. “I’ve placed the three fishermen who inspired the smugglers in the mural, but not the face behind the character of their fearless leader on his charger.” She let the comment hang in the air, looked both ways to check the road, then pulled away from the station and drove toward the High Street. “Left or right?”

The entrance to Bassington Place was flanked by two moss-covered pillars from which rusted iron gates hung open. Maisie thought the gates had probably not been closed for years, judging by the ivy tethering them in place. There was a one-story sandstone lodge, to the left, also covered in ivy.

“Gower, our gamekeeper, occasional footman and general estate factotum lives there with his wife, the housekeeper. Frankly, I wonder why we still have a gamekeeper, but Nolly is determined to raise funds by opening the estate to shooting parties. We’ve always had the locals, you know, and they all pay a bit to shoot, but Nolly has her eye on bigger things—in fact, she got the idea from one of Nick’s clients.” Georgina pointed to the right. “Carry on along here, then turn right, over there, by that oak tree.”

Making her way along a drive bordered by snow-dusted rhododendrons, Maisie drove slowly to avoid ruts in the road, following Georgina’s instructions. “One of Nick’s clients?”

“Yes, the American tycoon who is desperate to have the triptych. He said that there are still men with plenty of money over there, and they’re all looking for a bit of old Europe. I think that if Nolly were left to her own devices, she’d sell the whole place and my parents along with it—now there’s a bit of old Europe for you!”

“Is this it?”

“Yes, we’re here. And thank heavens, Nolly isn’t back yet.”

Maisie slowed the MG even more on the approach, so that she could study the property, which she thought was a magnificent example of a grand medieval country house, if now a little down-at-heel. It appeared almost as if three houses had been joined together, there were so many pitched roofs and even some ornate candy-twist Elizabethan chimneys, clearly added at a later date. The sturdy beams that framed the structure were completed by brownish-gray rendering that Maisie suspected had been laid on top of walls made of ancient wattle-and-daub. Diamond-paned windows had changed shape with the centuries, and here and there the beams were less than true where the ground had settled under the weight of walls and burden of years. Despite its size, the ivy-clad house seemed warm and welcoming, and in its way reminded her of Chelstone.

As she parked the MG, the heavy oak door opened with an eerie sound as cast-iron hinges groaned for want of some oil. A tall man of about seventy years of age approached them, but before he reached the motor car, Georgina leaned toward Maisie.

“Look, I realize I should have let you know before now, but I thought it best to tell my parents I had briefed you to look into Nick’s accident. Of course, even though I swore them to secrecy, they told Nolly, who has completely gone off the rails about it. Not that I’m scared of Nolly, but she can be such a bloody nuisance, even though one always feels sorry for her…but I’m fed up with dancing around her moods.” She clambered from the MG, walked toward her father and kissed him on the cheek. “Hello, Piers, darling, let me introduce my old friend from Girton, Maisie Dobbs.”

The Bassington-Hope patriarch held out his hand to Maisie, who immediately felt his warmth and strength. He was tall, over six feet in height, and still walked with the bearing of a younger man. His corduroy trousers were well kept, if slightly worn, and along with a Vyella shirt and a rather colorful lavender tie, he wore a brown cable-knit pullover. His ash-gray hair, which matched that of his eyebrows, was combed back, and his steel-gray eyes seemed kind, framed by liver-spotted furrowed skin at the temples and across his brow. Though Georgina had portrayed her parents as being somewhat eccentric, Maisie had been prepared for unusual behavior but was surprised when the woman used her father’s Christian name. As she observed the pair, she gained an immediate sense of Piers Bassington-Hope and suspected he might well use any appearance of eccentricity to his advantage, should such a thing be necessary.

“Delighted to meet you, Miss Dobbs.”

“Thank you for inviting me to your home, Mr. Bassington-Hope.”

“Not at all. We’re so glad you’ve come and that you’ve agreed to help Georgina here. Anything you can do to put her mind at rest, eh?”

Bassington-Hope’s smile of welcome was genuine but could not camouflage a gray pallor that pointed to the man’s sorrow at losing his eldest son. It didn’t escape Maisie’s notice that he used his smile, punctuating his words to great effect, as if to suggest that any investigation was purely for Georgina’s emotional well-being, an indulgence of her unsettled state. She suspected that, as far as Nick’s father was concerned, the matter was closed, with no further questions on his part. She wondered how Nick’s mother was bearing up under the weight of the family’s loss.

“Come along, Mrs. Gower has put up a tea, the like of which we have not seen in years! Your favorite this weekend, Georgie—Eccles Cakes!” He turned to Maisie. “Our children may well have grown, but Mrs. Gower feels a certain need to fill them up with their favorite foods when they make a weekend visit. Nolly’s here all the time, poor girl, but of course, if Nick were here…” The man’s words trailed away as he stood back to allow the women to enter the drawing room before him.

Even before she reached the drawing room, Maisie thought she would need a week to absorb her surroundings. Had this been Chelstone, or perhaps one of the other grand houses she had visited in the course of her work, the decor would have been more reserved, more in keeping with what was considered good taste. There were those adherents of Victorian mores who covered every table leg in sight and who filled every room with heavy furniture, plants and velvet curtains. Others adopted a softer approach, perhaps using those older pieces of furniture but blending them with brighter curtains and light, cream-painted walls instead of a forbidding anaglypta. Then there were those who had plunged headfirst into what the French had termed
Art Deco
. But for most, the decorating of a house was often a question of balancing personal taste with available funds, so even in the grandest homes, a blend of furniture and fittings illustrated the family’s history as well as investment in a few new pieces—a gramophone, a wireless, a cocktail bar. But this, the decor in the Bassington-Hope house, represented a departure she found at once stimulating and a little alarming.

In the entrance hall, each wall was painted a different color, and not only that, someone—perhaps a group of people—had left their mark by adding a mural of a garden of flowers and foliage growing up from a green skirting board. It appeared as if ivy had snaked in from the exterior of the house. On another wall, a rainbow arched over a doorway, and even the curtains had been dyed in a variety of patterns to match the artistic frivolity around her. An old chaise longue had been recovered in plain duck, then the fabric painted in a series of triangles, circles, hexagons and squares. Avant-garde tapestry wall hangings and needlepoint pillows of red with yellow orbs or orange with green parallel lines added to the confusion of color.

The drawing room seemed to be named more for the activity that went on there than as a place to which guests would withdraw for tea or drinks. The walls were painted pale yellow, the picture rail in deep maroon, while the skirting boards and doors were hunter green. When she had the opportunity to look more closely, Maisie saw that the beveled edges of the paneled doors were finished in the same burgundy, along with the window frames.

Georgina’s mother turned from her place in front of one of two easels set alongside French windows, wiped her hands on a cloth and came to welcome Maisie, who thought she was as colorful as the house itself. Her gray hair was coiled and pinned on the top of her head in a loose braid, with wisps coming free at the back and sides. A paint-splashed blue artist’s smock covered her clothing, but Maisie could see the lower half of a deep-red embroiderd skirt. She wore hooped earrings, and bangles of silver and gold on her wrists. She looked like a gypsy, reminding Maisie of the Kalderasa immigrants who’d flooded into London’s East End some twenty years earlier, bringing with them a mode of dress that had been adopted by many of those tired of dour, lingering Victoriana.

“Thank heavens Georgina found you. With Nolly driving, we thought she might insist on completing her errands first before running Georgie to the station to meet you. We were worried you’d be left in the lurch.” Emma Bassington-Hope clasped Maisie’s hand between both of her charcoal-stained hands. “As you can see, Mrs. Gower has laid out a magnificent tea—did you tell them, Piers? Come along, let’s sit down to our feast and you can tell us all about yourself.” She turned to her daughter and husband. “Throw those books on the floor, darlings.”

Becoming comfortable on a settee covered in floral fabric, she beckoned Maisie and patted the place next to her. Georgina and her father seated themselves in armchairs that reminded Maisie of old gentlemen in the midst of an afternoon nap. The settee springs had softened in the middle, so that, despite the large feather cushions, Maisie couldn’t help but lean toward her hostess. It was as if the settee was conspiring to bring her into the woman’s confidence, which wasn’t a bad thing, as far as Maisie was concerned.

“Emsy, Maisie is here on business, remember. She will have to ask you some questions.”

Maisie smiled and raised a hand. “Oh, that’s all right, Georgina. Later. There’s plenty of time.” She turned to Emma Bassington-Hope, and then to Georgina’s father. “You have a lovely house, so interesting.”

Georgina poured tea and passed cups to her guest, then her mother and father before offering cucumber sandwiches. Emma continued the conversation with Maisie.

“Well, it is a wonderful house for people who love to paint. We’re surrounded by the most exquisite countryside—we grow all our own vegetables, you know—and we have all this space to experiment with. And Piers and I have always been proponents of the notion that our canvases do not have to be squares constructed of wood and cloth.” She pointed at her daughter. “Why, when Georgie was a child, she would compose whole stories on the bedroom walls, then Nick would come in and illustrate them—we still have them, you know. Couldn’t bear to paint over them, and now, of course, it’s even more…” She held her hand over her mouth, then reached for the edge of the painter’s smock and pressed it against her eyes.

Piers Bassington-Hope looked down at his feet, stood up and walked to the window, stopping alongside his wife’s artwork, where he picked up a charcoal and added to her piece, then crushed it between his thumb and fingers. For her part, Georgina studied her hands, and glanced at Maisie, who had made no move to comfort the woman, whose shoulders moved as she sobbed into the smock. After some moments, moments during which Georgina’s father had opened the French doors and walked outside, Maisie reached across, taking the older woman’s hands in both of her own, as Emma had held Maisie’s hands when they were introduced.

“Tell me about your son, Emma.”

The woman was quiet for a while, then sniffed and shook her head, though she was looking directly at Maisie. “This is quite unusual for me, you know. I have barely met you, yet already I feel as if I am here with someone I have known for a long time.”

Maisie said nothing, waiting, still with her fingers cocooning the woman’s hands.

“I’ve been lost, quite lost, since the accident. Nick was so much more like me, you see. Georgina’s like her father—he writes, you know, and he’s also accomplished in other ways: designing furniture, drawing and composing music. That’s where Harry gets it from, I would think. But Nick was an artist through and through. I saw that even in boyhood. His work was so sophisticated for a child, his sense of perspective, the level of observation, acute. I remember thinking that not only could the boy draw a man working in a field, but he seemed to draw the very thoughts the man held within him. It was as if he could tell the complete story of the field, of each bird, of the horse, the plow. I could show you his boyhood drawings and paintings, and you would see—his heart and soul were poured into every line of charcoal on the paper, every sweep with sable and color. Nick
was
his work.” She choked on a sob, then leaned forward toward her knees, her forehead now touching Maisie’s hands as they continued to clasp her own. So earnest was her grasp that Maisie herself felt drawn to lean forward, to acknowledge the mother’s trust in allowing her tears to fall, and to gentle her by resting her cheek against the back of the grieving woman’s head. They remained so for some moments, until Maisie felt the dreadful keening subside, whereupon she sat up, but did not move her hands. Some moments later, when Emma Bassington-Hope raised her head, Maisie drew back her hands and looked into the woman’s eyes.

“Goodness me, I…I…do excuse me, I…”

Maisie spoke, her voice soft. “Say nothing, there’s no need.” She paused. “Would you like to show me some of Nick’s work, tell me more about him?”

IT WAS PERHAPS
an hour later that Georgina’s mother and Maisie returned to the drawing room. During that time, Maisie had received a tour of the house, seen that every room was decorated in a different color and style and had concluded that this family seemed to typify everything she had associated with the word
bohemian
. The Bassington-Hope parents had clearly adopted a way of life that would have shocked the elders of their time, but they were not alone in their day in seeking an authenticity through which to explore their creative sensibilities. They had been fortunate to inherit land and property, resources that enabled them to pass on the indulgence to their children, who had no reason to believe that any door was closed to them, though Maisie was now intrigued to see if such an assumption was shared by the eldest child.