faces, to marvel at the detail, even that of the dog cowering to one side as the horse reared up. Nick Bassington-Hope was indeed talented, that much was evident even in a whimsical scene depicting life gone by in the place where he had established his retreat.
She checked her watch and sighed. She would remain awhile longer, searching. It was already past four and dark outside, but she decided that she could not leave until she had conducted a thorough search of the cottage, even if it meant driving later in less-than-safe conditions, picking her way with care along the rough roads. As the air around her seemed to become accustomed to her presence, it occurred to Maisie that those who came before her might have visited in search of something of great import.
She moved the MG to a place behind the second carriage, where a surprisingly strong lean-to had been constructed and sheltered not only a carefully stacked pile of driftwood, but a privvy, and a barrel where water was collected from a clever gutter system. Maisie was able to park under the lean-to, and smiled as she walked around to the front of the cottage. It would seem that, contrary to Stratton’s assessment, this was one artist with a very practical streak, if one took into account the work involved in adapting the two carriages—work that she suspected Nick had completed himself.
Locking the door behind her again, Maisie pulled the blinds, made up a fire in the cast-iron stove and put the kettle of water on to boil. As the room warmed, she opened the door to the studio to allow heat to circulate so that she could move around in comfort. She looked around the home that Nick Bassington-Hope had created. No, none of this was the work of a man who would have had a slap-dash attitude toward the construction of a scaffolding platform.
RETURNING TO THE sketchbooks she had just opened when Amos White banged on the door, she saw they contained work from Nick Bassington-Hope’s early days—charcoal drawings and watercolors that lacked the mature interpretation of later years—and also more recent work that seemed to demonstrate a more confident hand. Maisie looked through the sketchbooks and felt certain that there should be more. Calculating that Nick would have used perhaps more than a hundred, or two hundred books, she began to search again, though there were precious few places for storage in the carriages. It was under the bed that she found a series of apple crates containing more sketchbooks, along with the many works of fiction and nonfiction he had acquired over the years. On hands and knees Maisie pulled out the crates, set them alongside the fire, and, sitting on the floor with the lamp on a side table, she began to leaf through their contents.
Unlike the rest of the cottage, in which everything seemed to have its place, the sketchbooks had not been catalogued or kept in any order, and if Maisie had to guess, she would have concluded that they had been worked through quite recently. Recalling her conversations with Georgina, she wondered whether the Bassington-Hopes had expected to find something that might indicate the location of the lock-up—something she rather wanted to find herself.
Nick’s early sketches were of pastoral scenes, of horses in Kentish fields, of farms and oasthouses, of cattle ambling toward the milking shed in late afternoon and of women gathered outside farm buildings, their jackets secured by string, laced boots muddied under heavy cloth skirts with pinafores. Strong as men, they were running newly washed hop-pokes through a mangle, two turning a giant handle, two feeding the sacking through twin rollers. There were detail sketches, a face here, a nose there, the arm of a farmworker or a child’s dimpled hand held by the worn, working hand of her father. And then came the war.
Maisie could barely bring herself to look at the sketches, and as she did so her head began to throb, the scar on her neck aching in unison. She
She checked her watch and sighed. She would remain awhile longer, searching. It was already past four and dark outside, but she decided that she could not leave until she had conducted a thorough search of the cottage, even if it meant driving later in less-than-safe conditions, picking her way with care along the rough roads. As the air around her seemed to become accustomed to her presence, it occurred to Maisie that those who came before her might have visited in search of something of great import.
She moved the MG to a place behind the second carriage, where a surprisingly strong lean-to had been constructed and sheltered not only a carefully stacked pile of driftwood, but a privvy, and a barrel where water was collected from a clever gutter system. Maisie was able to park under the lean-to, and smiled as she walked around to the front of the cottage. It would seem that, contrary to Stratton’s assessment, this was one artist with a very practical streak, if one took into account the work involved in adapting the two carriages—work that she suspected Nick had completed himself.
Locking the door behind her again, Maisie pulled the blinds, made up a fire in the cast-iron stove and put the kettle of water on to boil. As the room warmed, she opened the door to the studio to allow heat to circulate so that she could move around in comfort. She looked around the home that Nick Bassington-Hope had created. No, none of this was the work of a man who would have had a slap-dash attitude toward the construction of a scaffolding platform.
RETURNING TO THE sketchbooks she had just opened when Amos White banged on the door, she saw they contained work from Nick Bassington-Hope’s early days—charcoal drawings and watercolors that lacked the mature interpretation of later years—and also more recent work that seemed to demonstrate a more confident hand. Maisie looked through the sketchbooks and felt certain that there should be more. Calculating that Nick would have used perhaps more than a hundred, or two hundred books, she began to search again, though there were precious few places for storage in the carriages. It was under the bed that she found a series of apple crates containing more sketchbooks, along with the many works of fiction and nonfiction he had acquired over the years. On hands and knees Maisie pulled out the crates, set them alongside the fire, and, sitting on the floor with the lamp on a side table, she began to leaf through their contents.
Unlike the rest of the cottage, in which everything seemed to have its place, the sketchbooks had not been catalogued or kept in any order, and if Maisie had to guess, she would have concluded that they had been worked through quite recently. Recalling her conversations with Georgina, she wondered whether the Bassington-Hopes had expected to find something that might indicate the location of the lock-up—something she rather wanted to find herself.
Nick’s early sketches were of pastoral scenes, of horses in Kentish fields, of farms and oasthouses, of cattle ambling toward the milking shed in late afternoon and of women gathered outside farm buildings, their jackets secured by string, laced boots muddied under heavy cloth skirts with pinafores. Strong as men, they were running newly washed hop-pokes through a mangle, two turning a giant handle, two feeding the sacking through twin rollers. There were detail sketches, a face here, a nose there, the arm of a farmworker or a child’s dimpled hand held by the worn, working hand of her father. And then came the war.
Maisie could barely bring herself to look at the sketches, and as she did so her head began to throb, the scar on her neck aching in unison. She
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