bond between women of the kind shared by Maisie and Priscilla. Maisie wondered whether she should mention seeing Sandra and Billy—after all, she might be wrong, there might be nothing more to their meeting than friendship, a companionship that had grown from working together. On the other hand, there was something in the way they moved towards each other that suggested to Maisie a closer connection. She sighed. Should she let such a thing run its course? She had to concede that there was a thread that drew them together—Sandra had lost her husband, and though Doreen was still very much alive and at home with the children, her psychological well-being caused her to detach from her husband, to go into a shell, leaving Billy isolated.
No, she would leave well enough alone. For now.
To the south of Imperial College, a terrace of grand mansions had been divided into apartments for teaching staff and made available at a fixed rent. Maisie had knowledge of this already, as she had attended an art class not far away, and the teacher—a vibrant Polish woman who always wore clothes of clashing colors in every hue—had her studio on the top floor of a similar mansion, and paid only a peppercorn rent given the fact that she was also a teacher at another London college. Dr. Jones and his wife lived on the second floor of a mansion, not far from Princes Square. It was a fine day with a slight nip in the breeze, and Maisie enjoyed the walk from the motor car to her destination. She remembered delighting in the Saturday classes with Magda, and the sense of freedom she felt when working with color. Her life had seemed so very gray at the time—perhaps it was the lack of light in her heart—and the hours spent in Magda’s studio with a motley assortment of people she might never have otherwise met elevated her, gave a spring to her step as she was leaving. Stopping to look around her, Maisie remembered the day she’d bumped into James Compton, her hands still bearing the stains of dyes used to color raw yarns. He’d taken her for a meal, and then calmly told her that her face was speckled with colored spots. They’d laughed together, and she remembered that feeling of lightness, of a sense that there was a connection between them. She touched her stomach, where butterflies seemed to have gathered. Sometimes it seemed as if the past bound them—that deep understanding of what it was to go to war, to see life taken on such a scale and so violently—yet it was also the past that threatened to tear them apart. Those interludes of joy, of lightheartedness, of forgetting everything but the good fun they were having, were the best of times, and she acknowledged that she would grieve for his company if he were gone from her life forever. She pushed the thought aside as she arrived at the address for Dr.—Mrs.—Chaudhary Jones.
A young woman in a well-tailored pale blue wool barathea costume answered the door. The jacket was cut to enhance her slenderness, with a narrow belt around the waist. The skirt came to mid-calf, with kick pleats to allow freedom of movement, and her shoes were plain black with a strap fastened with a patent button.
“Miss Dobbs. Dr. Chaudhary Jones is expecting you. I am her assistant, Layla.”
The young woman held out her hand to Maisie, who smiled, shook the proffered hand, and stepped into the entrance hall. Maisie had been somewhat taken aback when the woman first answered the door, for her features suggested she was of Indian origin, yet she wore the garb of an Englishwoman. They reached the door to the apartment, which had been left ajar, and Layla led Maisie along a wide corridor, past several closed doors until she reached an open door to the right. She knocked lightly and stepped in, indicating that Maisie should follow her.
“Amma, Miss Dobbs to see you.”
The woman before Maisie was seated behind a desk piled high with books, and framed by light from the open window behind her. Another desk across the room was neater, with only a pile of papers on each side of a typewriter.
“Thank you, my dear,” said Dr. Chaudhary Jones, as she stood up and stepped from behind her desk to greet Maisie. She nodded to the young woman, who left the room. It had not taken the young woman addressing Dr. Chaudhary Jones