A Dangerous Place by Jacqueline Winspear

A Dangerous Place by Jacqueline Winspear - A couple of years ago I finished Leaving Everything Most Loved with Maisie Dobbs headed to India to reflect on her future and whether it would be with James Compton who loves her so deeply. I was hoping she would say “yes” after 6 months, but unsure. I thought often of Maisie who is so real to me. At Christmas I finally bought A Dangerous Place.

In a mere 9 pages of the opening chapter I went through a rush of emotions I have seldom experienced in any series. For those who have not read A Dangerous Place or are earlier in the series it is best not to read further in this post.

In those few pages tumultuous pages I was delighted by Maisie’s one word telegram of “yes”. It was a joy to read of their wedding in England and move to Canada. I was excited Maisie became pregnant. And then I was crushed when James was killed in an airplane accident and Maisie lost the baby. I groaned aloud. 

Maisie lost her first love, Simon, some years after WW I ended from the injuries he suffered in the war. Now her second love is gone. In her grief she returns to India where she felt at peace.

I have not experienced comparable losses. I did think of my paternal grandfather. He lost his first love in northern Norway in the late 19th Century when she broke through ice while skiing to town to sell milk. He married after coming to North America. When my father was 2 he lost my grandmother, Anna Marie, when she and their second child died of complications after the birth of the baby. Grandfather Carl never remarried. I did not know him. I expect the combined losses were too great for him to face another relationship.

After grieving for over a year in India Brenda, her father’s second wife, in a beautiful letter to Maisie calls on her to come home:

Maisie, I’m not one for writing long letters, but there are things that need to be said, and if you know this already, then consider it a reminder. Your father and I both understand what you’ve gone through - your dad watched your mother die of that terrible disease, and I lost my first husband and child. Between us women, we all know that the death of a child, even one not born, is a terrible thing to bear - and you were so late on, really. Then on top of seeing your dear James lose his life, well, that’s just beyond imagination. My heart aches for you, Maisie, really it does. But that doesn’t stop me saying what needs to be said now. Your father wouldn’t want me to write this letter, so this is between you and me. Frankie isn’t getting any younger. He’ll be eighty years old next year, and though his only complaint is that limp from the accident a few years ago, time is written across his face, and he misses you. We all miss you.

It’s time to come home, Maisie. I know you must be scared, imagining how difficult it will be seeing the places where you and James courted, and having to face the grief all over again. Not that I think grief is something you put behind you in the snap of a finger. But come home, Maisie. If for nothing else, come for your dad. You’ll be safe at home, dear love - we’re family. We’ll look after each other. I promise you that.

Yours most truly,

Brenda

As a front line nurse in the Great War, wounded in the same attack as Simon, Maisie had experienced death on a scale that may be rivaled but never exceeded by other wars.

Her best friend, Priscella, lost all her brothers.

I have written of the eloquence and literary skill of the generation that fought in the Great War. A collection of their haunting poetry is in Anthem for Doomed Youth.

I expect Maisie was familiar with Wilfrid Gibson’s poem, Lament,  which is included in that anthology:

We who are left, how shall we look again

Happily on the sun or feel the rain,

Without remembering how they who went

Ungrudgingly, and spent

Their all for us, loved too the sun and rain? 

A bird among the rain-wet lilac sings –

But we, how shall we turn to little things,

And listen to the birds and winds and streams

Made holy by their dreams,

Nor feel the heart-break in the heart of things?

An author has captured the heart and soul of a character when you grieve for their losses.