Maggie Bright

by Tracy Groot

  Clare told about trying to visit the Burglar Vicar and meeting Murray at the police station, not at some old random place in London as Mrs. Shrew may have believed.

  “Goodness! What was he there for?”

  “Brace yourself: to see the Burglar Vicar.”

  “No!” She went positively saucer-eyed. “Whatever for?”

  “It seems Murray Vance has been something of a ward to the Burglar Vicar—whose name, by the way, is Father David Fitzpatrick. Murray calls him Father Fitz, or ‘the Fitz.’”

  “The Fitz,” Mrs. Shrew tried out. “Go on.”

  “Apparently, all the BV said about his wife and child was true. It seems that Father Fitz is here on a highly important and quite possibly diplomatic mission—a mission on the right side, our side, the side of good—that frankly . . . Murray will not talk about.”

  Mrs. Shrew made appropriate noises of consternation.

  “Oh, he’s quite close about it. Says it’s none of his business and none of mine; said point blank that if I wanted to know more, I must go and speak to the Fitz himself. Oh dear.” She paused, worried. “It does seem a bit irreverent to call him the Fitz. I will stick with Burglar Vicar.”

  “You must visit him immediately,” declared the Shrew.

  “Oh, I have plans to go straightaway this morning and get there before anyone else. I will not leave until I find out why he was aboard my boat.”

  “I should think not! Diplomatic mission!” She looked over the clothing Clare was wearing. “No wonder you’ve abandoned your shipboard trousers for that smart skirt and blouse. You look like a girl.” She peered suspiciously. “Is that lipstick? Well, I must say, it is pleasing to see femininity replace those horrible androgynous styles of the twenties and early thirties.”

  “Not quite sure when visiting hours are, but I intend to get there before street shops open—that should be early enough. Now. That is that: to sum up, Murray Vance’s mentor tried to burgle this boat for what appears to be a very good reason. Murray came to England to bring him home—of course, while retrieving his muse in the process,” she added quickly. Then she fastened onto Mrs. Shrew’s eyes. “But . . . there is more.”

  “Go on,” said Mrs. Shrew breathlessly. She spoke into her fist. “Oh, why do I feel this is the best part?”

  “It certainly is strange. Brace yourself. The former owner of this boat, the one who died in January—was Arthur Vance. I am quite convinced he was Murray’s father.”

  A gasp, a lunge forward, and a hushed and saucer-eyed, “No!”

  “It’s true. The collection of funnies, the last name . . . and yesterday in the taxi I had detected an unusual interest in the boat, a rather belligerent interest. Before that, I noticed a very strange reaction when I told him her name.” She reached for her locket. “It is quite curious that Mr. Hillary should not know about Arthur Vance’s son.”

  And at last, the unthinkable pressed through—the only thought capable of breaking her heart: Maggie Bright rightfully belonged to Murray.

  Why did he give you the Maggie Bright? Why you?

  His questions now made sickening, appalling sense.

  “Listen to me, my dear,” the Shrew rang strong. “Maggie is yours. Arthur Vance had his reasons, and they were his own. Not his son’s, not anyone else’s. Do not let it trouble your heart.”

  Tears sprang to Clare’s eyes.

  “I’m terribly afraid I’ll lose her,” she confessed in a whisper.

  “Don’t be. That boy has soul. Anyone who knows his work knows it. He’s the sort to do the right thing. I don’t think it would enter his mind to contest the will.”

  “Yesterday he asked me outright why it went to me.”

  “An honest question. But keep in mind he was dreadfully tired yesterday. His face was so white, such dark circles—all that charm was nothing but an exhausted put-on. Did you notice how he perked up when he drew that tiny Salamander? That’s where his joy is, my dear. I wish you knew him through his work like I do. Maggie is quite safe in your hands.” She handed a tissue to Clare, and said briskly, “There, there, my dear. Stiff upper lip.”

  Clare sniffed, and blotted, and said, “I’ve never read the funnies, you know.”

  Mrs. Shrew sat back, as if this last revelation was the one to undo her. She finally said gravely, “Well, I am surprised. Your love of reading. Your sensibilities. The funnies are merely another form of cultural literature, and Murray Vance is a genius. He is to Rocket Kid what Dickens was to Oliver Twist.”

  “My uncle strictly forbade the funnies. When I was older, it was simply habit.”

  Mrs. Shrew’s lips thinned. “Cruel, wretched upbringing. You must take that box from Murray’s room and lose yourself. Oh, I just about envy you. To read them for the first time. Of course, you must be warned: many comic strips are rubbish. But there is great good to be had. You must sort out excellence.”

  Clare put her chin on her fist.

  How did he feel, being aboard once more?

  Suddenly, she wanted to be gone before Murray woke.

  “I must be off. And if anyone gets there first, I will make someone pay for my bus fare.” She slid from the bench and began to quickly clear the breakfast things. “You’ll feed him when he wakes?”

  “Certainly!”

  “I’ll stop for more provisions on the way home. Young men eat a great deal of food. I discovered this yesterday. I may need to triple breakfast provisions. Dear me, the new ration coupons . . . And he’s American. We’ll have to get that sorted.”

  “Where is that man?” Mrs. Shrew said, with a glance at the companion hatch. Captain John was usually along for tea at this time.

  “I’ll peek in. See if he needs anything.”

  “Do be careful—all sorts of characters show up at a police station. I don’t care if it is Westminster. And be sure to ask the relevant questions first; your visit may be timed—best to cover the most important things immediately.”

  “I’m not a complete idiot, am I?” Clare wanted to say, but settled for, “Yes, Mrs. Shrew—sbury.”

  “Oh, go on then,” she said cheerfully. “Call me Mrs. Shrew. All my students did. I rather liked it.” She seized her notebook with delight. “Goodness! What events! I’m mad to know what you learn from our vicar. Quite obviously, he had some sort of relationship with Arthur Vance. And then of course perhaps Arthur had the diplomatic mission, and he had hidden something quite important that only the BV knew about.”

  Clare stared—no, a connection between the BV and Arthur Vance hadn’t occurred to her until Mrs. Shrew said it.

  “Do question him thoroughly about Murray—he may hold some clues to the Muse retrieval. Because isn’t it interesting? His father dies in January—and that’s the last we heard from Rocket Kid and Salamander.”

  “Oh dear,” Clare said, dazed, laying a hand on her cheek.

  “He may be here to collect his priest, but I don’t doubt for one moment that this is all about collecting his muse. Gone missing since his father’s death. And we—” her tone softened—“we shall help him get it back.”

  She fell upon her notes with hand-clasped rapture. “Isn’t life just full of glorious havoc at every turn? My dear Cecil would have something to say about these extraordinary times. He’s giving St. Peter an earful now, surely prodding him to join the great cloud of witnesses surrounding me; telling him to look on, just see what that woman is up to next. Always called me ‘that woman.’ Always quite proud of me. Thought of me as rather a maverick. . . .”

  When Clare reached for a plate of toast crumbs, Mrs. Shrew placed her hand over Clare’s and said earnestly, “We’re in it together, aren’t we—this glorious and dreadful time that has come upon us? Muses, and vicars, and war?” She squeezed her hand, and went back to her notes.

  Clare turned the three steps into the galley. She put the plate in the sink, and meant to take down her toothbrush from the shelf above, but gripped the counter’s edge and held very still. Mrs. Shrew wa
s nothing like them.

  Aunt Mary was nothing but a vacancy, ruled over by the one who had absorbed her so completely that nothing was left, her lord, her master, Uncle Sebastian—Clare made her escape just in time before she suffered the same fate, and when she did, met Mrs. Iris Shrewsbury.

  No vacancy was she; she made the air quiver for the simple fact that she was in the room. She was demanding and kind and interested and controlling, and sometimes treated Clare like a child; and in all these things she was utterly unapologetic, and in all these things there were no eggshells to tread upon, no worries that Clare was perceived as utterly incapable of correct thought or action. Such notions would never occur to the Shrew. It wasn’t in her.

  The Shrew, Captain John, something in the Burglar Vicar, and now Murray Vance. Clare dashed at her eyes, laughing suddenly at Mrs. Shrew’s imperious claim upon Seville marmalade, glad to have found real people once more. Life seemed to have come full circle to a place long forgotten. A place she last knew as a child.

  Captain John seemed pleased whenever Clare popped in to ask if he needed anything when she went out. His wife had died several years earlier, and he must miss the feminine fuss.

  It was a chilly May morning on the Thames, with a brisk breeze coming down from the northwest, and she buttoned her light jacket the rest of the way as she stepped from Maggie’s boarding plank to the dock. She faced east at her first footfall on the wooden dock, as was her habit; one day she would sail Maggie Bright east on the Thames down to the sea. She’d round at Sheerness, sail south, and follow the Channel west, then pass by the continent southward until she came to Spain and the Straits of Gibraltar; then she would enter the Mediterranean, and that would be Maggie’s first full sail with Clare at the helm.

  Of course—once she learned to sail.

  She’d never even taken her out by motor. Maggie hadn’t left this dock since she was hers. No matter! Vision, courage, and singularity of purpose would make all the way it should be.

  Clare walked the dock, looking about. She didn’t see the captain in the boatyard. Didn’t see him aboard his fishing trawler, the Lizzie Rose. He must be in the boathouse at the dock’s end, a little bait and supply shop for boaters. His living quarters were at the back of the shop.

  She tapped on the shop’s door as she entered.

  “Hello? Captain John?”

  No one about, and she didn’t smell tea. Rather chilly in here, too—he didn’t have the little space heater on. Odd. If he wasn’t in the boatyard or pottering about on his fishing trawler, he was here, stocking shelves or chatting with someone or making tea behind the counter.

  She turned to go, but heard a rustle. It came not from his rooms past the counter, but through the doorway to the Anderson shelter.

  It wasn’t any surprise for Clare to learn that before she came to Bexley-on-the-Thames from Liverpool, Mrs. Shrew was a devoted ARPer—Air Raid Precaution worker. In addition to the stack of government pamphlets on how one should conduct oneself during a war, she’d brought her own gas mask and pronounced it as the only thing up to code at Elliott’s Boatyard. Upon taking a room aboard the Maggie Bright, she insisted that a bomb shelter go in at the boathouse. She had her own Anderson hut, a regulation-issue movable room made of corrugated iron, transferred by train from her home in Liverpool to Elliott’s Boatyard, where mason workers fused it to the small supply annex built into the side of the boathouse. Clare never dreamed her name would one day label a peg upon which hung her own gas mask. A bomb shelter! Who could imagine?

  The first thing Mrs. Shrew installed in a corner of the shelter was a modesty screen, behind which sat a chamber pot. (“One must think of these things. You will thank me later.”) She also made sure that the shelter remained stocked with necessities, and periodically cycled out the supply of drinking water to keep it fresh. There were sleeping cots, the personalized pegs with hanging gas masks, and a typed list of all persons in the area assigned to this particular Anderson hut.

  “Captain John?”

  A rustle, and a moment later, Captain John appeared in the doorway of the Anderson shelter. He was holding a framed photograph, gazing at it. “Lizzie had it done when he was sixteen. Thought it proper. Always looking after her little brother.”

  His lovely thick white hair was uncombed. Looked as if he’d slept in his clothing. She’d never seen him this way.

  “Captain John . . . is everything all right?”

  He looked up. “Hmm? Oh, yes. All is well.” He looked at the picture. “Only, I thought it was nonsense, having his photograph done. Seemed vain. A waste of money. Likely said as much. Wish I hadn’t—he’s a good boy. He has a stout heart. He’s very kind, you see. Some mistake that for . . . Well, I’m just finding a spot for it in the shelter.” He gave a smile, swift to disappear. “You never know—Mrs. Shrewsbury may be right. Perhaps they all are. Old Calhoun at Evelyn’s. Churchill. Eden. Only, you don’t want to believe it, you can’t believe it, that Herr Hitler is upon us at last. But he is.”

  “What’s happened? Your son—is he all right?” She went to him, and discovered that he smelled as though he’d spent the night in a pub.

  He polished the glass of the photograph with the cuff of his sleeve, and angled it so she could see. “That’s my Jamie,” he said proudly. “Handsome lad, don’t you think? Took after his mum.”

  Jamie Elliott was handsome. Well—perhaps not physically. But his features were arresting. Expectant, challenging eyes, looking just off the eye of the photographer; it made you feel as though his eyes wanted to go straight to yours. A lifted chin, a confident smile. His carriage made him handsome. It was very interesting to finally have a look at this boy of whom she’d heard so much.

  “Oh, I think he takes after you,” Clare said warmly. “Looks to be a very clever, confident lad.”

  “He does, doesn’t he?” Captain John said, rousing from his reverie with a spark of enthusiasm. “That’s my Jamie. Very engaging boy. Very good with people. Liked to work with customers. Never took to the water, not like Nigel, but not everyone does. I hope he knows I don’t care about that. I wish I’d told him. Wish I’d said it out loud.”

  What wasn’t he telling her?

  “Mrs. Shrew wondered where you were for tea.”

  Any mention of the Shrew usually made him stand at attention. He couldn’t take his eyes off the photograph. It was as if Clare weren’t in the room.

  “I should tell you we have another guest,” she said brightly. “Don’t know how long he’ll be staying. Mrs. Shrew will have to add another name to the Anderson list. I’m sure she’ll fill you in. His name is Murray Vance. An American. It appears his father owned the Maggie Bright. Isn’t that interesting?”

  But Captain John didn’t answer, and Clare was suddenly quite alarmed. What had happened? Was it a letter? Did he hear some news? Was the war going badly? She’d never seen him like this. All felt as wrong and askew as the appearance of his hair.

  “Well, then—I’m off to see the BV on a matter of diplomatic importance. Need anything from the grocer?”

  “Quite right. All is well,” he said, eyes on the photograph. “Only, I didn’t want him to go. Didn’t want a war to change him. But it will.”

  He turned into the shelter and Clare fled not for the Teddington bus stop but for Mrs. Shrew.

  Mrs. Shrew pledged to get to the bottom of it. When she added a very brisk and determined, “Leave it to me,” Clare felt enormous relief, and raced with a lighter heart to catch the next bus.

  “Yes, this is Blake. Westminster Station. William Percy, please. Thank you very much.” He hummed a few bars of Mozart. Or was it Beethoven? That popular bit sometimes played at weddings. Why he should think of a wedding march, he didn’t know—should be a military march. Something was up. Something dire. All manner of grave military folk scurried about the street this morning.

  “Yes, Blake here. It may interest you to know that the American priest has a visitor. Yes, currently. She just went
in. You’ll have thirty minutes to get here before she leaves. You said to call immediately—there you are. Have a good—Ah, let’s see . . . a Clare Childs. Lovely girl. Very expressive. Rather captivating, actually. Yes, I’m sure it says Clare Childs. Same one who was here yesterday. Yes, she was here yesterday, didn’t I just—? Well, she was the one who left with the American. No, no—not the ratlike bloke—the other one. Well, the same American I told you about yesterday. Murray Vance. Yes, they left together, didn’t I—? Well, I didn’t know it was Clare Childs yesterday, did I, as she didn’t sign the—? Hang on! Is that any way to—? Oh, you will, will you? Why don’t you just come down here and we’ll settle it—?”

  He stared at the receiver, then replaced it, grumbling, “Scotland . . . bloody old . . . Yard.”

  WELL, WASN’T THIS WAR just a bushel of discovery—Jamie realized how like his father he was when it suddenly occurred to him that he liked people, he liked to be in a group. No loner was he—not like Nigel, who took after the old man in other ways but wanted only a fishing trawler and a locker full of bait. Jamie wanted a crowded homey pub. He very much looked forward to falling in with Balantine’s crew. Sure to be pure relief after two days of . . .

  “A flock of ravenous fowl come flying, lured with scent of living carcasses designed for death.”

  “Not a very cheerful sort, is he?” said Balantine, who walked backward along the town street, rifle ready, eyes moving.

  “No, he wouldn’t be. But it’s not always like that. Some of it’s all right. What will happen when we get to Dunkirk?”

  “No idea. I’m sure there’s a plan.”

  “Like this one?” Jamie said darkly, taking in the deserted streets. “This wasn’t the plan. We were supposed to stop them.”

  “Well, we didn’t, did we? It’s all we talk about.” To the captain, he said, “Come along, sir. This way.”

  “His head is pretty bad. Look, I have to warn you, he sort of has these fits. It’s getting a bit better, but he’ll make a horrible groaning sound, sort of turn into himself, and sometimes it gets loud. Lasts only a few minutes, puts the hair straight up your neck, but it does go away.”