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screaming in the night, Dad?’ I had to laugh.” He looked at Maisie. “And I know I don’t say it much, Miss, but it makes all the difference being in that house. The boys don’t have them chesty coughs all the time now, and I swear Doreen is looking more like her old self. We go back to Shoreditch every few weeks, regular, to see our Lizzie’s grave. We smarten it up a bit, leave some flowers. We tell her we haven’t forgotten her, that we still love her. And we tell her all about Meg, and how much she looks like her big sister.”
    “As long as Doreen doesn’t overdo it, she’ll be fine. I take it she’s still seeing Dr. Masters.”
    Billy nodded. “Once every three months now, as from the beginning of the year. My mum helps a lot, so we make sure there’s not too much on her shoulders. But she’s doing very well with her dressmaking, you know—got it all set up in that big front room. We don’t go in there as a rule—not used to having that much space, to tell you the truth, so we mainly stay in the dining room or the kitchen, and the front room is kept for best and for Doreen. Funny that, saying the words ‘dining room’ and knowing we’ve got one.”
    Maisie smiled. “I’m glad it’s all falling into place.”
    “I tell you, all this news makes us think twice about going to Canada when we’ve got the money put by. I mean, they’ve had a big railway strike over there, and all the same goings on we’ve got here. But you never know.”
    Maisie nodded. “Just see what happens in time, Billy.”
    “That’s all you can do, ain’t it, Miss?”
    J ames Compton was now living at the Compton family’s London home, a grand Ebury Place mansion house that had recently undergone considerable refurbishment. The house had been mothballed for some time, and it was Lady Rowan who decided that James had been living at his club for long enough; a man in his position should have a London residence. It was also the house to which Maisie had come to work in service when she was just thirteen years old.
    That Maisie and James had love for each other was without question. Whether that love would lead to marriage was the subject of much conjecture in both the Compton household and among Maisie’s friends, Priscilla and Douglas Partridge. Maisie’s father was happy to stand well back and remain noncommittal on the subject. Frankie Dobbs had always wanted to see her “settled,” but kept his counsel. For the moment, Maisie was happy to continue with the relationship as it was, though it was becoming more apparent to those who knew the couple that James was less than content with the status quo.
    Now Maisie sat in her motor car, an MG two-seater tourer, which she had parked in the mews behind the mansion. She did not get out of the vehicle because it still took every ounce of her courage to enter the house. In the months of their courtship leading up to completion of the mansion’s refurbishment, James had been a frequent visitor to Maisie’s flat in Pimlico. She had taken out a mortgage to purchase the property a couple of years earlier, but was able to settle the loan following the death of her longtime mentor, Dr. Maurice Blanche. Apart from a few smaller bequests, Maurice had left Maisie his entire estate, honoring his esteem and, indeed, his love for her; he had come to regard her as a daughter. Paying off the mortgage had been one of the very few expenditures she made on her own behalf.
    She liked the arrangement as it stood with James; it suited her. But since he had taken up residence at 15 Ebury Place, Maisie was not quite so comfortable. It wasn’t that she didn’t know the house—indeed, at the request of Lady Rowan Compton, she had once returned to the mansion to live in rooms there for over a year before purchasing her flat. No, this was different, and while she sat in the MG as the damp evening air replaced the day’s warmth, seeping into the motor car to cling to her clothing, she realized she