65 pages • 2 hours read
Jacqueline WinspearMaisie Dobbs
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2003A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 2, Chapters 17-20Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 2: “Spring 1910-Spring 1917”
Part 2, Chapter 17 Summary
Maisie pauses outside one of London’s major hospitals, asking where to sign up as a nurse. Maisie recalls lying about her age and forging a recommendation from Lord Julian using stationary she found at Chelstone. Frankie was dismayed and fearful for her safety. Maisie has officially deferred her studies, and “with the same resolve that had taken her to university, she vowed to bring comfort to the men coming home from France” (161).
Maisie’s life comes to resemble her servant days, as she spends many hours on grueling tasks, including cleaning and changing linens. She is soon summoned by the senior matron, who informs her she is being promoted and trained with the expectation she will be sent overseas to France in a year. Maisie wishes she could seek comfort in Maurice as she faces the real consequences of her deception. She asks herself, “Could she do what was required of her? Could she live up to Enid’s memory?” (162).
Part 2, Chapter 18 Summary
The chapter opens with Maisie sailing to France in July 1916 in the grip of horrific seasickness. She receives regular letters from Priscilla, who is now an ambulance driver. Priscilla describes the grim conditions, with men as young or younger than herself dying in her care. Maisie and her colleagues soon arrive in the port of Le Havre, going from there to Rouen to await their formal orders. Maisie and her colleagues from London have tea in a hotel, and Maisie is stunned to hear Simon Lynch’s voice next to her. She is struck by how much older and wearier he looks. Simon is on leave for a few days and invites Maisie to dinner. Her friends agree to chaperone, and Simon tells her that her “uniform is almost as stunning as the blue silk dress” (169). Maisie’s friends tease her about the prospect of romance. Their orders soon arrive: Maisie and her friend Iris are going to a hospital near the front.
As she and Iris journey to the front by train, Maisie is struck by the rain, the sight of retreating civilians, and the lines of marching soldiers singing patriotic songs as they march. Iris makes much of Simon’s dinner with Maisie, embarrassing her. In her thoughts, Maisie recalls how easily she and Simon confided in each other: Maisie about Enid’s death and Simon’s about the horrors of war. The two have promised to write regularly.
Iris and Maisie arrive at their post, summoned to tend to the wounded before they can even unpack. Maisie assists her first soldier, reminding herself to remain calm so as not to panic him about his injuries. The man dies on the table just as Maisie takes his hand. She is slightly stunned, but has no time to grieve as the next man arrives in front of her, and she promises him, “I’m going to make you all better, young man. Now then, hold still” (177).
Part 2, Chapter 19 Summary
Maisie awakens early in her cold tent, then washes and checks her body for lice. As Maisie seeks out breakfast, an orderly passes her a letter from Simon—since they rely on hand messengers and not the official post, their letters are uncensored. The two write constantly, growing more emotionally intimate. They plan to meet again in Rouen on their upcoming leave.
The scene moves to the same hotel the women first arrived in, only now they are weary and desperate for a bath. Iris asks Maisie if she will marry Simon. Maisie demurs, saying her future is Cambridge and that Simon comes from a “good family” (184). Iris reminds her that her own family, including the other Compton servants, has just as much worth. Maisie persists, insisting that she cannot imagine a future with Simon as she “has a ‘feeling’ […] that everything will change” (184).
Simon arrives, instantly taking Maisie’s hand. Iris is relieved that he has brought a friend, and Simon and Maisie are soon lost in their own world, retelling everything they have written to one another. At the station, Simon kisses Maisie goodbye, hoping they will get leave for some time in England together. Maisie boards the train, and Iris notes that Maisie has fallen in love. Maisie reflects that as much as she misses her life in England, she finds comfort in Simon.
Part 2, Chapter 20 Summary
In February 1917, Maisie discovers she and Simon will be in England for their leaves in April. When she arrives home, Maisie is overjoyed to find Frankie has met her at the port. The two journey to Chelstone together, making the final leg driven by Persephone. He teases her about Simon, who has already sent her a letter at the cottage. Maisie assures her father Simon knows all about his job and social position.
Maisie spends time with Frankie and then prepares to travel to London to see Simon and officially meet his parents. Frankie tells her to “mind herself,” and Maisie at first thinks he means her manners or behavior, but he corrects her, “Mind out for your ’eart” (194). Simon kisses her passionately when she arrives at the train station, and they enjoy their time in London. Simon will spend a day in Kent before Maisie has to return to France. Simon assures Maisie she doesn’t need to fear introducing him to her father, as “it’s me that has to worry about Chelstone, what with the formidable Mrs. Crawford waiting to render judgment” (196).
As Simon arrives, Maisie runs to meet the car. Frankie seeks silent comfort from his dead wife’s photograph, torn once more by the reminder his daughter has grown up. Simon and Maisie spend the days in the meadow on Kent’s notable Downs, and Simon teases her about her cold feet. Simon proposes to Maisie and confesses his love. She reciprocates his love but does not answer his proposal. Simon promises to propose again when the war ends, as she has asked, and they bid a passionate farewell.
Maisie journeys alone back to the port of Folkestone, struck by her love for Simon and his ease with her father. She knows but cannot admit the “source of such reticence” that prevents her from accepting his proposal (202), the same sense of foreboding she once had about Enid’s future.
Part 2, Chapters 17-20 Analysis
Maisie’s wartime years find her facing similar challenges to her early youth, especially physical discomfort and deprivation. She doubts her fortitude when confronting the reality of serving in France. She remains full of grief for Enid and, to a degree, for her own lost dreams. But she confronts starker brutalities than social hierarchy, as she is soon immersed in a world of injured men, mud, and physical suffering, foregrounding War and Its Consequences on a visceral level. Maisie’s younger self confronts the consequences of war so that the reader has a new understanding of her empathy and weariness when speaking with Billy and Celia. Her naïveté about death soon gives way to pragmatic endurance, indicating how formative her nursing experience is to her work as a detective.
Maisie’s relationship with Simon gives her a new vulnerability and a focus beyond the horrors of the war and her previous intellectual passions. In him, she finds someone who shares her empathy and habits of observation. Their relationship, too, is shaped by class, as Maisie doubts the depth of his regard. Iris takes on Enid’s former role, reminding her that war has made such boundaries less relevant, and Maisie has more than proven her value through the relationships she has and the work she performs. It is particularly apt that Frankie meets Maisie with his horse, Persephone. The daughter of the goddess of the Earth, Persephone ultimately spent her life between worlds, partly with her mother and partly with the God of the Underworld, Hades, her husband. This myth mirrors Maisie’s movement between classes. In this section, Frankie is almost like Charon, the ferryman of Greek myth, as he brings Maisie back from the land of wartime death to the living. Maisie, like Persephone, remains torn between two worlds, this time that of civilian life and wartime.
Simon’s easy acceptance of Frankie, and his family’s welcome, underline that the war is making the changes Enid had hoped for. As war and its consequences shift society’s focus and bring together people of different classes, The Personal and Political Importance of Class becomes less important, both in society and for Maisie. Despite their different backgrounds, Simon and Maisie share a common view of the value of education, and Simon does not dissuade Maisie from continuing her education after the war. His marriage proposal indicates that he views Maisie as a worthy partner despite her humble beginnings. However, Maisie’s constant fears for the future underline that her happiness may be fleeting. She strives to protect herself from future grief by rejecting Simon’s proposal—her intuition separates her from him just as her intellect once set her apart from the other servants. The closing section of the flashback, underlining her desperate hope to see him just once more, adds a further air of foreboding.
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