Jacqueline Winspear - Maisie Dobbs

"Don't worry about me, Dad. I'm doing very well, you know. Now then, where shall we go for our walk? I've got some nice sandwiches and a couple of bottles of ginger beer for us."

Three days after her visit with Frankie, Maisie walked briskly toward the library for her early-evening lesson. She saw Maurice Blanche on alternate Wednesday evenings, meeting promptly at half past five in the library, for three hours, until Dr. Blanche left to join the Comptons for an informal supper in the dining room. She studied alone until he had finished supper, when both he and Lady Rowan joined Maisie in the library to review her work. Lady Rowan was well pleased with the education of Maisie Dobbs, asking questions and suggesting new areas of study. But this evening a new possibility was discussed.

"Maisie, I think it is time for us to embark on some fieldwork."

Maisie looked first at Blanche, then at Lady Rowan. Botany. It had to be botany.

"Lady Rowan has spoken with Mr. Carter, and next week, on Wednesday, we will be taking an excursion. In fact, I have several such outings planned, and on those afternoons we must meet a little earlier than usual."

"What sort of outings? Where are we going?"

"Various places," said Blanche, "Of historical, social, or economic interest."

Little more was said, but in the following weeks Maisie was taken by Blanche to meet people with whom she would spend time alone in conversation. At first Maurice would remain with her, but as time went on, he would quietly leave the room to allow for conversation between Maisie and his friend, for each person who met with Maisie was considered a "friend" by Maurice Blanche. As far as Maisie was concerned, some of them were a strange lot altogether, and she wasn't sure what Frankie Dobbs would have to say about it all.

"Today we will be meeting with my dear friend Dr. Basil Khan," Maurice Blanche informed Maisie as they journeyed to Hampstead by taxi-cab. "An extraordinary scholar, born in Ceylon, into a very-high-caste family. His first name was given as a mark of respect to one of his father's former colleagues, an Englishman. Khan, as he prefers to be known, is completely blind. He lost his sight in an unfortunate accident, but as these things do, it became the foundation for his life's work."

"What's his life's work?"

"Khan, as you will see, is a man of great wisdom, of insight. His work uses that insight. He grants audiences to politicians, people of commerce, men of the cloth. He came to England as a young man, sent by his parents to see ophthalmic specialists, to no avail. While in England he gained his doctorate in philosophy at Oxford. Then he returned to Ceylon, and later traveled throughout the Indian subcontinent, himself seeking the counsel of wise men. To do this he had to give up the life he had once enjoyed in London and Oxford, which he had ceased to enjoy. Now he resides in Hampstead."

"So why am I to see him?"

"Maisie, we are visiting for him to see you. And for you to learn that seeing is not necessarily something one does with the eyes."

The visit to Khan was illuminating for Maisie. His apartments in a grand house were furnished in a simple manner: plain wooden furniture, curtains without pattern or texture, candlelight, and a strange smell that made her cough at first.

"You will get used to it, Maisie. Khan uses incense to bring a fragrant atmosphere to the house."

At first Maisie was timid when led into a large room with only cushions on the floor and an old man sitting with legs crossed. He was positioned by the long French window as if contemplating the view, so that as Maisie and Maurice Blanche walked toward him, Khan was framed by shafts of light, and appeared to have been borne into the room by some mystical means of transportation. Without turning, Khan gestured toward Maisie with his hand.

"Come, child, come sit with me. We have much to speak of."

To her surprise Maurice Blanche motioned Maisie to step forward, and moved toward Khan himself. He leaned down toward Khan, took the old man's bony brown hands in his own, and kissed his lined and furrowed forehead. Khan smiled and nodded, then turned to Maisie.

"Tell me what it is you know, child."

"Um . . ."

Both Khan and Maurice laughed, and the old man with long gray hair and almost colorless eyes smiled kindly at Maisie.

"Yes, a good start. A very good start. Let us talk of knowing."

So Maisie Dobbs--daughter of a costermonger from Lambeth, just south of the water that divided London's rich and poor--began to learn in the way that Maurice had intended, from the centuries of wisdom accumulated by Khan.

With Khan she learned to sit in deliberate silence, and learned too that the stilled mind would give insight beyond the teaching of books and hours of instruction, and that such counsel would support all other learning. When she first sat with Khan, she asked what it was she was to do as she sat with legs crossed on the cushion in front of him. The old man lifted his face to the window, then turned his clear white eyes toward her and said simply,"Pay attention."

Maisie took the practice of sitting with Khan seriously and to heart, with an instinctive knowledge that this work would serve her well. In just a few short years, the lessons learned in the hours with Khan would bring her calm amid the shellfire, the terrible injuries, and the cries of wounded men. But for now, Maurice Blanche told Maisie, it was no small coincidence that she often knew what a person was going to say before he or she spoke, or that she seemed to intuit an event before it had occurred.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Maisie, you'll ruin your eyes if you read by that good-for-nothing light in the corner--and look at that time, you've to be up in three hours!" "So have you, Enid, and you aren't anywhere near asleep yet.""Don't you be worrying about me. I've told you that."

Maisie slipped a page of notes into the book to mark the place, closed the book, and placed it to one side on her small table. She looked directly at Enid.

"And don't you look at me with those eyes either, young Maisie Dobbs. Gives me the willies, it does."

"You are being careful, aren't you, Enid?"

"'Course I am. I told you not to worry."

Khan might be teaching her many things about the human mind, but as far as Maisie was concerned, it didn't take much in the way of foresight to see that Enid was going to get into some trouble before long. In truth it was a surprise that the older girl was not only still as slim as a whip but was still employed at the house in Belgravia at all. But Enid, who was now almost eighteen, was loved by everyone downstairs. Her efforts at correct enunciation still fell short, and sometimes Maisie thought she sounded more like a music hall act than a maid in service. But she, too, had come to love Enid, for her laughter, for the unsought advice she gave so freely, and most of all for her unselfish support of Maisie.

Enid slipped a thick cotton nightdress over her head, pulled on woolen socks, and proceeded carefully to fold her clothes into the chest of drawers by the wall. Shadows cast by the oil lamp flickered on the sloping ceiling of the top-floor bedroom as Enid brushed out her thick hair with a hardy bristle brush.

"One hundred strokes for a good thick head of hair--have I told you that, Mais?"

"Yes, many a time."

Maisie ensured that her books and papers were carefully put away, and clambered into bed.

"Brrrr. It's cold in here."

Enid took an old silk scarf that had been hanging over the cast-iron bedpost, wrapped it around the head of her brush, and began brushing the silk over her hair to bring it to a lustrous shine.