Maisie Dobbs

An aristocrat with somewhat radical politics, Lady Rowan has a lifelong interest in pursuing traditional masculine hobbies and works for women’s rights. Her friend Dr. Maurice Blanche encourages her to look outside herself, introducing her to the poverty and suffering created by the British class system. Seeing Maisie reading in her library, Lady Rowan “felt the requirements of her position pressing upon her” (91) and offers Maisie Dobbs private tutoring with the hope that she might access higher education. She never wavers in her support of Maisie, providing her a less demanding work schedule at Chelstone Manor so she can prepare for Cambridge and offering her patronage and contacts to Maisie’s emerging business as a detective. Winspear uses her to point to the inequities of the class system, as her naïveté is in sharp contrast to the struggle for survival Maisie and her father experience.

Lady Rowan is optimistic and fervent in her enthusiasm and devoted to her son, James. While she opposes James’s relationship with Enid, she is friendly and warm with Frankie Dobbs and grateful for his support with her horses. Early in the Retreat case, Maisie reflects that she “had never seen the usually stoic Lady Rowan so vulnerable” (211). Her increasing dependence on Maisie underlines how the war transformed the British aristocracy.

An old family friend of Lady Rowan’s, Maurice has turned his innate gift for connecting with others into a distinguished investigative career. A polymath with degrees in many disciplines, from philosophy to medicine, his larger passion is the nature of human motivation as it relates to crime. He is eager to see those he cares for develop their potential, pushing Lady Rowan to consider the best use of her privilege, not only for herself but also for those without her advantages. Maurice informs her, “One only has to ask ‘how might I serve?’” (71), which leads Lady Rowan to enlist him as Maisie’s tutor. He has a wide-ranging view of education, ensuring she meets many people, reads philosophy, and establishes a mindfulness practice with his mentor, Khan.

Maurice is open to the power of emotions, especially grief and guilt, and encourages Maisie to face her feelings. In her youth, this takes the form of empathy for the challenge of her new social role and reaching out to Frankie Dobbs to encourage him to support Maisie’s ambitions. When Maisie is older, Maurice pushes her to face her past, gently prodding her to consider the role of her war experiences in her responses to the case at the Retreat. He reminds her that investigations can also be a personal journey, asking her, “What is there in your heart that needs to be given light and understanding?” (222). Maurice, like Maisie, moves comfortably between classes, though he has an aristocratic background. Maurice steps back to let Maisie grow, respecting her maturation and skills. He serves as a touchstone for her, and she finds his perceptiveness and intuition useful in her personal and professional life.

Maisie’s father, Frankie, begins the text as a grieving widower beset by financial concerns and anxieties for his daughter’s future. His devotion and kindness earn him friends in the Comptons’ staff, which secures Maisie her job in the house. Frankie’s love is Maisie’s security throughout the text, though her studies with Maurice introduce some distance between them as her knowledge and speech begin to outstrip his own. With Maurice's support, Frankie selflessly encourages Maisie to relocate to Kent and study for Cambridge. His doubts and fears reveal that the rigidity of Britain’s class structure is both a material and emotional burden, especially for those who might transcend it. When Maisie leaves for Chelstone, the narrator reflects, “Frankie often felt as if fine sand were slipping through his fingers whenever he thought of his girl, Maisie” (122).

Later in life, he relocates to Kent and works as a stablemaster for the Comptons, saving Lady Rowan’s horses and his own mare from wartime conscription. This act earns him her eternal gratitude and emerges as an early sign that the privileges of the aristocracy are shifting in a wartime context. Frankie gives Maisie the pocketknife she uses to save Billy’s life, a symbol of their bond, which is part of what makes her an effective investigator.

A housemaid in the Comptons’ employ, Enid is several years older than Maisie and takes a knowing mentor role toward her at first. Enid is ambitious and hopes to improve her speech, sounding less like a member of the working class. She is a sharp observer of social dynamics, telling Maisie that Lady Rowan’s choice to educate her privately is likely because “I reckon they knew you would have a rotten time there, what with all them toffs” (98). Maisie soon realizes Enid is secretly in a romantic relationship with the Comptons’ son, James. This draws some resentment and bitterness into her relationship with Maisie, as Enid resents that “all I’ve got is ’oo I am, and ’oo I am in’t good enough” (111). Maisie has uncomfortable premonitions and dreams about Enid, the first sign she may have some insights into the future.

When the war begins, Maisie sees Enid bidding James Compton farewell before he sets off for the front. Enid is proud of her new work in a munitions factory, which earns her a significant salary. Enid apologizes for her sharp words to Maisie, confessing her hopes that the war will make it possible for her to marry James.

Enid is killed in an explosion soon after, which fills Maisie with guilt for her life of study while others are sacrificing, especially as Enid’s final words to her were a reminder that there are things she can “do for these boys” (156). Thus, Enid is why Maisie volunteers for war service, which changes her life and later influences her curiosity about the Retreat. Maisie is empathetic toward James Compton’s continued preoccupation with his losses. Enid’s life and ultimate fate illustrate several major themes around class, war, and grief.

The caretaker at Maisie’s first office building, Billy recognizes her immediately as the nurse who treated his serious injury. He thus comes to respect and admire her, believing she helped save his life and his leg. He provides Maisie with background information on the Retreat and Vincent Weathershaw, becoming her indirect assistant by agreeing to live at the Retreat temporarily to gather intelligence. Billy’s practical intelligence and observation skills reflect the theme that class status is not synonymous with intellect or moral character. Maisie imparts lessons to him just as Maurice did to her.

Billy is honest with Maisie about his own traumas, reflecting that the war has impacted his ability to sleep. Billy’s admiration for Jenkins underlines the force of his authority and the enduring power of war experience. He sees Jenkins as a savior for men who need him, telling Maisie he feels guilty for “sniffing around for something nasty” (250). This alerts her to the power of Jenkins’s charisma, given that his early loyalty to her was unwavering. Maisie saves Billy again, rewarding his loyalty by making him her assistant.

Maisie’s Cambridge roommate Priscilla comes from a wealthy family and is a sociable extrovert, in contrast to Maisie’s bookishness. The two soon become friends, and Maisie finds that Priscilla, like Enid, draws her out of herself.

Priscilla prefers parties to studying and war work. She pushes Maisie to be more social, telling her that “you wear your sackcloth and ashes a little too proudly at times” (145). This underscores that Maisie remains focused on books more than relationships, much as Enid once accused her of. Priscilla explains that her gaiety is partly to celebrate when her brothers, serving in the war, cannot. She leaves Cambridge to become an ambulance driver, finding the idea of study untenable during the war. She introduces Maisie to Simon Lynch and is thus the turning point in Maisie’s romantic life the way Enid is in her social one. Maisie reconnects with Priscilla by letter at the novel’s end, underlining that she has come to recognize the importance of their friendship in her life.

Simon Lynch is Maisie’s first love and a family friend of her Cambridge classmate Priscilla. Maisie is charmed by Simon when they meet at a party celebrating his departure for France as a surgeon—he symbolizes her first brush with leisure, romance, and luxury. He calls her “my Maisie of the blue silk dress” (281), hearkening back to the occasion.

After Maisie volunteers as a battlefield nurse, the two encounter one another again in France. She agrees to exchange letters with him. Their bond deepens, and they intentionally meet again when on leave, soon realizing they have fallen deeply in love. Simon is talented and sensitive, anguished by the suffering he sees compared to his original hope that he would “save every one of them” (173). When they are both in England, Maisie introduces him to Frankie, nervous about her origins but refusing to be ashamed of them. Simon’s easy acceptance of her and her father underlines his generosity and devotion and the changing social landscape.

Simon proposes to Maisie, but she refuses to give a definite answer, haunted by her intuition that some doom awaits him. When he is sent to her frontline casualty station, they come under heavy fire. Simon is gravely injured and, years later, lives as a person with multiple disabilities. He cannot move or speak, interacting only minimally with the world around him. Maisie visits him for the first time after the case at the Retreat, apologizing for her refusal to accept his proposal and her failure to visit. Simon is Maisie’s most potent symbol of war’s tragedy and waste—her ability to visit him underlines that the case at the Retreat has brought about a full reconciliation with her past.

Celia is the wife of Maisie’s wealthy client, Christopher Davenham, who suspects she is having an extramarital affair. Maisie is struck by Davenham’s obvious love for and anxiety over his wife, reflecting, as she mirrors his body language, that “he talks about pride when it’s his heart that’s aching” (14). Concerned for Celia’s safety, she makes Davenham understand she feels an ethical responsibility to both of them. She uncovers that Celia’s absences from home are to visit the grave of her first love, Vincent Weathershaw, who suffered severe facial injuries during his military service. He died under mysterious circumstances upon returning home. Maisie allows Celia to vent the full extent of her grief, telling Christopher Davenham that his wife “does not need a doctor, she needs you” (53).

Both Davenhams reveal Maisie’s unique methodology and some of her personal history. Maisie deliberately echoes Celia’s posture and “instinctively knew that Celia was dying inside” (27). She is careful to give Celia pleasant experiences after she speaks of her trauma. Maisie is able to draw on her war experiences to invite Celia’s confidence, though she adopts an alias and tells some small lies, revealing that she is comfortable with moral complexity. The visits with Celia and to Vincent’s grave reveal to Maisie that others have died at the same farm, piquing her curiosity and spurring the remainder of her investigation into the Retreat’s true nature.