Otherwise the room contained only a narrow bed, a washstand, one chair and a three-legged stool. The girls' clothes hung from nails banged into the wall. The dirt on the window served instead of curtains. They tried to keep the place clean but it was impossible. Soot fell down the chimney, mice came up through the cracks in the floorboards, and dirt and insects crept in through the gaps between the window frame and the surrounding brickwork. Today it was raining, and water dripped from the windowsill and from a crack in the ceiling.
Maisie was getting dressed. It was Rosh Hashanah, when the Book of Life was open, and at this time of year she always wondered what was being written for her. She never actually prayed, but she did sort of hope, in a solemn kind of way, that something good was going on her page of the Book.
April had gone to make tea in the communal kitchen, but now she came back, bursting into the room with a newspaper in her hand. "It's you, Maisie, it's you!" she said.
"What?"
"In the Lloyd's Weekly News. Listen to this. 'Miss Maisie Robinson, formerly Miriam Rabinowicz. If Miss Robinson will contact Messrs. Goldman and Jay, Solicitors, at Gray's Inn, she will learn something to her advantage.' It must be you!"
Maisie's heart beat faster, but she made her expression stern and her voice cold. "It's Hugh," she said. "I'll not go."
April looked disappointed. "You might have inherited money from a long-lost relation."
"I might be the Queen of Mongolia, but I'll not walk all the way to Gray's Inn on the off-chance." She was managing to sound flippant, but her heart ached. She thought about Hugh every day and every night, and she was miserable. She hardly knew him, but it was impossible to forget him.
Nevertheless she was determined to try. She knew he had been searching for her. He had been at the Argyll Rooms every night, he had badgered Sammles the stable owner, and he had inquired for her at half the cheap lodging houses in London. Then the inquiries had ceased, and Maisie assumed he had given up. Now it seemed he had merely changed his tactics, and was trying to reach her with newspaper advertisements. It was very hard to continue to avoid him when he was searching so persistently for her and she wanted so badly to see him again. But she had made her decision. She loved him too much to ruin him.
She put her arms into her corset. "Help me with my stays," she said to April.
