Maggie Bright

by Tracy Groot

  Jamie went to the bed opposite and dragged a coverlet from it. By the time he draped it over the captain, he was asleep.

  “Good night, Captain Jacobs.”

  He stood over him for a moment, then went and settled in the chair, and lifted his face to the moonlight.

  As you are no doubt aware, the scene has darkened swiftly. . . . If necessary, we shall continue the war alone and we are not afraid of that. But I trust you realize, Mr. President, that the voice and force of the United States may count for nothing if they are withheld too long. You may have a completely subjugated, Nazified Europe established with astonishing swiftness, and the weight may be more than we can bear.

  —NOTE FROM CHURCHILL TO ROOSEVELT, May 15, 1940

  At the moment it looks like the greatest military disaster in all history.

  —DIARY ENTRY OF GENERAL SIR EDMUND IRONSIDE, May 17, 1940

  The unthinkable must sometimes be thought about.

  —JOHN LUKACS, Five Days in London: May 1940

  CLARE CAME OUT OF the police station and hurried down the steps. She stopped at the bottom and grabbed the iron handrail. The pebbled glisten of the pavement caught her in a momentary trance.

  It will change you, Murray had said of the packet. It will change everything.

  Oh, why had she come? Why hadn’t she listened to Murray?

  She came to herself, clutched her jacket together, and started walking.

  It’s supposed to prove something that cannot be true.

  “No,” she whispered fiercely, panic on the rise. “It cannot.”

  The people on the street, the buildings and the automobiles, the very color of the air—all took on a menacing cast. All was poison and darkness and lost and hopeless if—

  The walking broke to a run.

  Oh, Murray! No wonder you chose isolation!

  She had to get to him as fast as she could; she had to tell him she understood . . . Where was the bus stop? She stopped short—and someone from behind knocked her flat.

  “Oh, gosh—awfully sorry!” he said. “Are you all right, miss? Here, let me help you up. Goodness, what a tumble. Nothing broken? Here’s your purse, here’s your hat—quite a smart hat it is. Good job my sister isn’t about, she’d pinch it in a second. I should pinch it for her. Well, you’re quite a runner, Miss Childs. Didn’t expect that.”

  Clare paused in brushing off her pleated skirt, and looked at the man. He was dressed for the office, early thirties, rather boyish face, very light-colored hazel eyes. He touched his fedora.

  “William Percy. Scotland Yard, Westminster. We followed you from the police station. This is my associate, Frederick Butterfield.” His associate, a shorter and rather portly fellow in a checkered vest and a bowler hat, came chugging up.

  “There’s a new tack,” the older gentleman gasped. “Knock ’em off their feet. Splendid, Percy, we’ll put that in the manual.”

  “Awfully sorry about that,” Percy said with a wince. “Are you quite all right?”

  “Perfectly,” said Clare.

  “And you are Clare Childs?”

  She looked from one to the other. “What’s this about?”

  “Why did you run?” said Butterfield, breathing hard.

  “Why are you following me?”

  William Percy’s eyes narrowed slightly. “You seem upset, Miss Childs.”

  “I am upset!”

  “Yes, you might be,” he said, “if you learned anything from the priest.”

  She looked again from one to the other. “I won’t believe it. It’s impossible.” But the unchanging looks on their faces said something else. “It would mean others had gone along with it,” she found herself trying to explain. “That makes it impossible. I couldn’t hear another word, I had to leave. Anyone decent would.”

  “Have you seen this man?”

  Percy reached inside his suit coat and took out a cream-colored envelope. He took a photograph from it and handed it to her. She studied the image of a man in a busy place, a train station or someplace else with a lot of people. He was looking over his shoulder. High cheekbones, thin face, thin hair. The image was a bit streaky, she couldn’t tell his age. Somewhere above thirty, below sixty.

  “No.”

  “Are you sure? You haven’t seen him about Elliott’s Boatyard? Or your uncle’s bookshop?”

  She eyed William Percy, and then studied the photograph again. “Quite sure. I’ve never seen him. Who is he? What’s this all about?”

  “He wants the same thing your vicar wants, for a very different reason,” said Butterfield. “Can we go someplace to talk, Miss Childs?”

  “We’re doing fine right here.”

  “There’s a café right across the street,” said Percy. “Right in shouting distance of the police station.”

  “You can always run,” said Butterfield. “You’re good at that.”

  “I kept up,” Percy said mildly.

  “I don’t want tea.” She wanted to beg Murray’s forgiveness, though at the moment she didn’t know why.

  “They do have nice biscuits,” said Butterfield. “Fresh made, every day. Lovely cottage pie. Of course, it’s not pie time . . . unless we can convince them.” One eyebrow rose conspiratorially. “Shall we give it a go? It’s an absolute restorative. I’m not in this part of town often enough.”

  “Might be a good thing,” Percy commented.

  She stared from one to the other. These men had no idea she was one second from a complete psychotic breakdown.

  “Look—just say what you have to say quickly. I need to catch a bus.”

  Percy nodded at the photograph in her hand. “That man wants a parcel of papers that Arthur Vance may have hidden on his boat. He must not get them.”

  “It’s not there. Same as I told the vicar. I’ve gone over every inch.”

  “So have we.” He added, “Before the boat was yours, of course.”

  She studied the photograph. “What does he want it for? Father Fitzpatrick wants to bring it back to the States and give it to a congressman.”

  “This man wants it for Hitler.”

  Clare stared at William Percy.

  “Arthur Vance died to keep it from him.”

  She looked at the picture.

  “Vance was working with us. Until he was murdered.”

  Clare handed back the photograph. “I’ll have that tea now.”

  Most people found it fascinating when she told of her plans to be the first woman to single-handedly circumnavigate the globe in a ketch-rigged yacht. Not William Percy.

  He gave no sign he was the least bit impressed, offered no polite comment or inquiry, and she found this deliberate disinterest off-putting and rude. Frederick Butterfield, on the other hand, was charmed.

  “Oh, well done!” he exclaimed. “How very thrilling. You’re sure to have some marvelous adventures. Always thought it would be quite exciting to round Cape Horn on some replica of a clipper ship, myself. Lashed to the foremast for fun.”

  The three sat at a table along the street side of the restaurant, where the police station was perfectly framed in the window.

  William Percy once again took the cream-colored envelope out of his inside jacket pocket and laid it on the table. He produced a small notepad and a pencil and laid these neatly beside the envelope. His movements were just so, she noted. Surely the uptight sort.

  “Such a lovely boat you have, the Maggie Bright.” Butterfield poured tea for Clare. “Didn’t I say so, Will? Belongs in the Royal Yacht Club. You can sail, then, Miss Childs?”

  “Well—not quite. I’m taking night classes in London. Navigation, twice a week.” She would not tell them she’d only recently managed to pin down a barter for the lessons, promising to take the instructor’s elderly parents for cruises on the Thames during the summer.

  “Why, you ought to talk to William, here,” said Butterfield.

  “Do you sail?” Clare said, surprised.

  “I should say,” said Butte
rfield. “Won a race in some posh little yachtie affair last year. Who was it that sponsored you?”

  “The Royal Yacht Club,” Percy said. He laid his hand flat on the envelope. A curious little action. After a moment, he said rather peevishly, “Look, I have a difficult time with pleasantries when I am in no mood for them.”

  “William,” said Butterfield.

  Percy glanced at him, surprised, then looked at Clare and said, “Oh. Sorry.” If he stopped there it would have been fine, but he had to add, “Didn’t mean to say it aloud.”

  “Oh, I’m not fond of pleasantries either.” Clare gave a frosty smile. “Especially if they’re unpleasant.” She looked at the envelope. “What else is in there, then?”

  Later, she would remember William Percy’s hand upon the envelope.

  Their story came in bits and pieces, or maybe that’s how Clare took it in. It’s hard not to think in patches when the world goes off a cliff.

  She pressed her fingertips on her forehead, averting her eyes from the three photographs that Percy had taken from the envelope and laid out in a neat line.

  “Biscuits are a bit stale today,” Butterfield said unhappily. “And no pie.”

  Percy poured tea for Clare. “Might be a good thing.”

  “I don’t care.” He lifted his chin. “I shall never have a torso like yours.”

  “Torso.” Percy passed the sugar to Clare. “Such an odd word.”

  How could they speak so conversationally; how could they pour tea?

  “Tell me, please,” she said, trying desperately to get her bearings and starting with something more manageable, “why exactly is the Burglar Vicar locked up if you know he is innocent?”

  “Burglar Vicar, is that what you call him?” said Butterfield, appreciatively. “I like it much better than the Thieving Priest. Oh, he’s a lamb. Adore the man. Of course, we must adore him from a distance.”

  “We’re using him as bait, you see,” said Percy, rather too cheerfully. He tapped the first photograph in the line of three, the one he’d shown to her on the street. “We hope our man will show up to visit the priest.”

  Something finally made sense, and she looked accusingly from Butterfield to Percy. “Thieving Priest. I suppose you had planted in the papers that the BV had made off with ‘a mysterious package.’ We wondered where they’d got that.”

  “I have a friend at the Daily Mirror,” Percy said, and gave a tight little unflattering smile.

  “Well, I certainly wasn’t tearful,” she retorted. “Positively humiliating.” She looked at the photograph of the man. “What’s his name again?”

  “Waldemar Klein,” said Butterfield. His tone became less congenial. “He wants that packet quite desperately. We’d been watching your boat, hoping Klein would surface, and then along came the American priest. Didn’t know what to make of him at first. Thought he might be working with Klein.”

  Clare steadfastly ignored the other two photographs. She wished they would put them away.

  “But an English bishop, whom we’d rather not name,” Butterfield continued, “another lamb whom we adore—”

  “Oh, honestly, Fred,” Percy snapped.

  “—had learned of his arrest because of the very useful Thieving Priest publicity, and came forward to tell us otherwise; unknown to us, Arthur Vance took matters into his own hands. Got hold of your Burglar Vicar to come to his aid. Didn’t think the authorities were doing enough.”

  “We weren’t doing enough,” Percy said.

  “We were,” Butterfield said carefully, “but in a different way. In a broader sense.”

  “Why else would he have acted alone?”

  Butterfield patted his mouth with his napkin. “Let’s not argue in front of company, William.”

  A flush rose in Percy’s face. “Arthur Vance did something real. What have we done?”

  “He acted independently.”

  “You say that like it’s a bad thing. He saved lives.”

  “Yes. Admirable. And it got him killed. Can we remember that part? No more saving lives for him. Might have saved many more, had we worked together.”

  Clare watched the exchange, fascinated and completely confused.

  “He saw what’s coming, Fred,” said Percy in a curiously private tone. He ran his middle fingertip along the rim of the teacup, round and round. She took the chance to observe him. He reminded her of Murray Vance in the cab, when he’d stared out the window and went to a place where no one else was invited. Like Murray, he seemed to be decent enough, and like Murray, he had little peculiarities—that fiddling with the teacup, the way he’d laid out the things on the table. The way he’d laid out the photographs.

  She’d certainly rather look at him than the photographs. There they sat, three motionless tarantulas.

  “All Arthur Vance wanted to do was send up a warning,” Percy said, cold and inward, circling the teacup rim. There was something quite arresting about that bitter tone. “And we didn’t listen, and all comes to an end.” He raised his eyes to Clare, and her heart picked up pace. She couldn’t look away if she wanted to. Such bitterness in that flat stare. Was it that? She couldn’t put a word on it. Despair? Defeat? Why did he not look away? She wanted him to look away; it wasn’t professional—

  “William,” Butterfield said, firm and quiet. “You’re frightening her.”

  “I’m not frightened.” She blinked. “Not much. What comes to an end?”

  Percy noticed his teacup. He took hold of it, and after a moment, seemed somewhat collected.

  “It seems things have gone quite wrong with the BEF,” said Butterfield.

  “The BEF,” Clare said, mystified.

  “The British Expeditionary Force.”

  “Yes, of course—but what on earth have they got to do with . . . ?” She helplessly gestured to the pictures.

  “It may all be moot,” murmured Percy, “with what is happening in France.”

  She looked from one to the other. “What is happening in France?”

  The two men exchanged a glance.

  “Look, it’s all supposed to be quite hush-hush,” said Butterfield, “but you’ll know soon enough. Seems our boys are in trouble.”

  “Whatever do you mean? Which boys?”

  “All of them.”

  “The entire British Army is in full retreat,” said Percy, tightly folding his hands on the table.

  Clare felt a tingling rush on her skin, sweeping to her scalp, smarting her eyes and nose.

  “What do you mean?”

  “They are cut off and surrounded,” Percy said. “The whole bloody army. Belgium is about to fall. France will fall in a matter of days.”

  “What?”

  France? Belgium? Fall?

  The army in retreat? “Impossible,” Clare breathed. She gripped the edge of the table to keep from springing up and running in circles.

  “Yes, a lot of that going on these days,” said Butterfield. “Lots of impossible things. But!” He thumped his fingers on the table, and said briskly, “Best we forget about the impending doom of England and all that is safe and good, and turn our attention to happier things like murdered humanitarians. Right. We’ve only told you about the photographs and the packet. We haven’t told you about Arthur Vance. You see, we got a bit uncomfortable when we learned you’d popped in to visit the priest, fearing some sort of well-meant intrusion, and so, upon a phone call from our trusty sergeant, why, we gathered up our skirts and dashed on down.”

  Mr. Butterfield had transitioned to an amiable, competent professional. How could he? She took in the tightly folded hands of William Percy, and in a flash she understood—the photographs, the retreat . . .

  “Oh,” she said, very small. She sat back. “England is alone.”

  Percy looked into her, and looked away.

  She stared at the photographs. “Against that. Against them.”

  She waited for one of them to contradict her. They did not. She felt for the locket through he
r blouse.

  “Miss Childs, what was the nature of your visit to our vicar?” Butterfield said, as if the BEF were not cut off and surrounded, as if France were not about to fall.

  “I . . .” She shook her head, blinking. “Well, I—I wanted to know why he was on my boat, of course.” It came out a bit shrill. “Especially now that Murray Vance is here. He is staying in one of my guest rooms, aboard the Maggie Bright. The BV is something of a guardian to him. He came to fetch him home.” She softened. “Does Murray know about his father? That he worked with you? That he was . . . killed?”

  “We have no idea,” said Percy. “Officially, Arthur Vance died of a heart attack. And he worked very loosely with us. He mostly worked with the English bishop on his own little scheme.”

  “Doing what?”

  He touched one of the photographs, the photograph, the one that sent the world off the cliff, and she gripped the locket. How could her life change forever with the simple placement of three photographs on a table? Each one confirmed the words of Father Fitzpatrick. Each one explained Murray Vance.

  One was of the man Klein. One was a building called the Grafeneck Castle in Germany. And one was a child. This is the one he touched. Her stomach surged.

  “I wish you’d put those away,” she said quickly.

  “Put them away?” He gave her a sharp look. “Yes, why don’t we just put them away.” His voice rose. “Why don’t we put everything away, like we do.” He snatched the picture of the child and held it two inches from her face. “I wish he were front-page news all over England. All over the world.” She pulled away, but he kept it fast in front of her. “I hope you never forget him. I hope you can’t sleep at night. I hope he haunts your dreams.”

  “Stop it!” she cried.

  “Percy,” Butterfield barked.

  He threw down the photograph, and looked away, face flushed. People in the restaurant glanced over, and presently went back to their conversations.