Chapter Twelve

At M&W, Mary began work seated at a clever desk with an easel she could raise or lower. There was another stand for her preliminary sketches on the water.

“I’m right next door,” Luke said. “I’ll be in and out all afternoon, but here are those art supplies you needed.” He looked around. “Is the light good enough?”

“Another lamp or two would be good,” she said.

“You’re going to stay here all night?” he teased, then must have noticed her serious expression. “I believe you are.”

“I like to work when it is quiet. You said you need this composition soon.”

“Sooner the better,” he admitted. “I’ll get a cot for you. And sandwiches. Beef? Chicken?”

“Both,” she told him, not shy this time. Maybe she wouldn’t eat two sandwiches, but just the idea of two? That was luxury.

She drew the new drydock in pencil, and set it aside. By the time the office building began to empty out, she had roughed in the South Yard, using pencil and eraser liberally. Luke was as good as his word. A cot appeared, and three sandwiches, which made her smile. You have me in hand , she thought.

He dropped by after seven o’clock. “I’d stay and keep you company,” he said. “You don’t need company, do you?”

“You’d be a distraction,” she told him, which made him blush.

He recovered quickly. “Just as well,” he said cheerfully. “I have promised Sally that I will join her caroling party from St. Michaels. God knows I cannot carry a tune, but I’m not sure that matters.”

She thought he would leave, but he stood there a moment more. She watched several expressions cross his open face, from sadness to something that looked hopeful. “I have never taken the time to celebrate Christmas in a long while,” he admitted. “I figure there is room for improvement.”

She drew rapidly and handed him two attached musical notes, one with “eyes” looking heavenward and mouth in a perfect O. The other note looked horrified.

“Sally will love this. The vicar, not so much!” Luke gave her a chaste kiss on the cheek and left. She turned back to her work, pleased.

Mary knew she had a sure touch, and this was fine paper from the stationer’s, the best she had ever used. She picked up the smaller sheet containing the roughed-in setting and studied her sketch of the drydock to come. She took a big breath and dipped the pen in the inkwell.

The third drydock quickly materialized next to the two permanent ones. After long thought, she outlined it in blue, to differentiate between the current drydocks and the imagined one. The effect was simple and obvious: This was the place for a third drydock. To celebrate, she ate the roast beef sandwich and drank water. The other two sandwiches could wait, but she lifted up the bread on the chicken sandwich, just to look at the white meat. My goodness, but a body could get used to this , she thought.

She sat a long moment with her eyes closed, imagining it, then continued. She began tentatively enough, filling in with color the small brick buildings and larger ones she had roughed in, plus a long building that Luke said was a ropewalk.

The result was precisely what she hoped for – the absolute sense of that third drydock completing the already busy South Yard. The buildings suggested workers, and the houses where they lived with their families, as they all did their part to defeat Napoleon. Maybe she was reading more into the picture than anyone needed, or just trying to stay awake. In the upper right corner, she drew a portion of England’s flag of St. George and St. Andrew, flapping in a stiff wind.

Her vision started to blur as midnight approached, but there was time to add another row of houses above the Yards and fill them with crayon color. Oh, why not? On the nearer street of houses, she inked in a little gathering of carolers.

She would have slept then, but the chicken sandwich revived her. Another roast beef sandwich remained. To her surprise, consternation, tears, and then a smile of triumph, she realized she didn’t need any more food. She was full. The notion pleased her heart and soul.

Mary’s back ached abominably. She got off the stool, stretched, and felt every vertebra complain. She rubbed the small of her back, and wondered how nice it would feel to have someone with strong fingers do that for her.

She gave her rendition of the third dry dock another critical scrutiny and added a little more white chop to the reasonably well-mannered waves. It was beyond her skill level to add some ships on the water. And glory be, but crayons blended well together to suggest a brilliant blue sky. She stood back, satisfied. That was Devonport – bustling docks, ships under construction, commerce she could almost hear as she gazed. The houses and shops added the right amount of softness, and a certain vulnerability, as if the ships that firms like Magleby & Wainwright built were there to keep homes and shops safe all over England.

Mary glanced at the clock. There was another project, a Christmas present. She took out another sheet of that beautiful paper and with a sure hand, drew the house at 152 Palmer Lane again, adding more details. Sally now sat beside Gargantua on the front steps.

How to make the house more inviting, more a home? She drew the front door slightly open. She spent a long time staring at the windows on the main floor, then her heart told her what to add, something she could do with crayons and a lighter touch than a drydocks. She had learned from her earlier attempt that maybe she could hope.

Mary took a long look at her creation, happy with it. She tucked it under the unused paper, hoping Luke wouldn’t mind if she kept it, along with the pencils. She could tidy up in here tomorrow. No, that Palmer House rendering was for her alone, considering what she had drawn into the sitting room. She doubted Luke expected a Christmas present from her.

She carried the artwork that M&W Shipbuilders had commissioned to Luke’s office. Luckily, the door wasn’t locked. She smiled at the clutter and wondered if he even knew where the key was. After moving around some paper, she squared away the drawing in the middle of his desk.

At the last moment, she put her initials in the lower righthand corner, just a small MC riding on one of the waves. She stifled any doubt that this wasn’t what they really wanted, because something in her artist’s heart told her that no one could have done better. Luke had promised her that she would be paid, no matter what.

Besides, there was that third roast beef sandwich. She returned to what she wanted to always call “her” office and lay down on the cot. The sandwich was close at hand, so she took a bite out of it. That was all. She was full.