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Burning Bright
Tracy Chevalier
Flames and funerals, circus feats and seduction, neighbours and nakedness: a sparkling historical drama from the bestselling author of Girl with a Pearl Earring.Uprooting from their quiet Dorset village to the carnal streets of London, young Jem Kellaway and his family feel far from home. The Kellaways struggle to fi nd their place in a tumultuous city, alive with repercussions from the blood-splattered French Revolution. Luckily streetwise Maggie Butterfi eld is on hand to show Jem the ropes. Together theyencounter the neighbour they’ve been warned about: radical poet and artist William Blake. Jem and Maggie’s passage from innocence to experience becomes the very stuffof poetic inspiration.
Copyright (#ulink_739b9227-f34b-5069-9fb1-a56e32c098e0)
The Borough Press
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
77–85 Fulham Palace Road
Hammersmith, London W6 8JB
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2007
Copyright В© Tracy Chevalier 2007
Chapter head motifs В© Neil Gower
Cover layout design В© HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2014. Cover illustrations В© Neil Gower
Tracy Chevalier asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780007178360
Ebook Edition В© 2014 ISBN: 9780007324323
Version: 2014-07-18
Dedication (#ulink_9e241b97-9f9f-50ce-b8de-7444779e6348)
For my parents
Table of Contents
Cover (#u5efdb18e-0432-5bd9-985e-26725c013201)
Title Page (#u15a70ad4-db9c-5a7b-a991-f2c42c04a9ca)
Copyright (#ud67a230b-f040-5770-92b9-5b8e440836a7)
Dedication (#ufe86e84d-e685-5cea-ae42-d628e03cf16d)
Part I: March 1792 (#uc90e39ce-b88c-5c4e-a4c3-30fa57a80922)
Chapter One (#u08064462-9323-5822-be15-ed1672736eeb)
Chapter Two (#u9e55f7c5-ab90-5bf2-b892-999800049666)
Chapter Three (#ue951a318-0430-5f34-8398-4b844646448c)
Chapter Four (#uf5a957d6-efc0-545e-ab95-ab6387d89589)
Chapter Five (#u749fd301-6031-5dc7-9b65-33d42dcfc70a)
Chapter Six (#uec48e2f0-b5cd-53b0-8e5b-6818652f68ef)
Chapter Seven (#u0c4c150c-37cb-5e40-932e-5b1026206196)
Part II: April 1792 (#u2a77fed5-07e0-5564-b1a0-c5a2db12becf)
Chapter One (#u70055732-10be-5b1d-8a1d-8138146b9138)
Chapter Two (#uc40675a7-7e27-53fc-8a88-4cf16123f217)
Chapter Three (#u0d27b497-daae-55ed-9326-e5ca676d4cb0)
Chapter Four (#u4765c11f-c5fe-53f9-84ba-34ed17409016)
Chapter Five (#ud1f5f86e-7c79-5cd9-96b1-b79fa83e3398)
Part III: May 1792 (#u0b6d5692-f548-53f3-9821-b04b1aa4e935)
Chapter One (#ubc797a26-e01e-584f-b6e4-b9fb48f6f265)
Chapter Two (#u2b7f82c9-7ec5-5bc6-bec3-951ba7b182f1)
Chapter Three (#u5836b9be-be43-5bd3-bf01-48e7061745e1)
Chapter Four (#ubc36d3e5-3629-5204-8a97-32f53ee3f2d3)
Chapter Five (#u955ae17e-f82d-53ca-9075-116912acc896)
Chapter Six (#ue9fb50cf-291b-5138-bebc-ddbaa674a503)
Part IV: June 1792 (#ude424eae-1c8b-5a4f-b35c-3364b30c4e90)
Chapter One (#ud61bbb8e-98ff-5230-863a-1402ceb4b3f3)
Chapter Two (#u9284b933-a85b-5820-aaad-dd3cf3699a0d)
Chapter Three (#u8a1ba295-8720-5c47-8de0-9620bbfd1caf)
Chapter Four (#u67d311ff-fb87-5e77-83fb-b5ba4541ef42)
Chapter Five (#uf5abaa17-afd1-57d1-be75-d9997acff921)
Chapter Six (#uff59d935-796c-519b-b3f7-9126e07df116)
Chapter Seven (#uf7ed9c19-ea55-5249-b99b-40bdd37ea8f3)
Part V: September 1792 (#u77c8784a-eb0d-586e-b009-77d8e68175a3)
Chapter One (#ue2d4a6c8-77c6-5766-9a8b-795ab3b01505)
Chapter Two (#ue9c9ed17-1647-5cbd-b26e-b4753783f41c)
Chapter Three (#ufb7240f6-7822-5470-b850-a1ead6a161c0)
Chapter Four (#u23c2be02-5950-5508-ab9f-4550c1654eac)
Chapter Five (#u3ad50b79-8910-5926-a9f6-25046c101c18)
Chapter Six (#u86276692-d610-5ca9-8a48-c6872e1b4e19)
Chapter Seven (#u50d068b9-8a2a-5b99-9f44-e59bf69a6c99)
Part VI: October 1792 (#u212e48a8-8896-53bc-b333-4bcee41032aa)
Chapter One (#u8494ad39-477d-5287-8123-6ed282549696)
Chapter Two (#ue654a30c-3a03-5ba1-9444-89169cf31a29)
Chapter Three (#uccf06075-c719-5606-b002-452276720cc0)
Chapter Four (#ua13321e1-8870-5383-921b-ce231c68dc13)
Chapter Five (#u583d9900-a279-5a4c-ae42-c946f8b6c6b2)
Chapter Six (#udc1ea93a-2fc9-5ddf-986e-fe7436269613)
Chapter Seven (#u16c85b29-9812-53e4-b439-c667a964eb75)
Chapter Eight (#u4abbb409-4957-5e0c-b3ce-2f5ee32928d0)
Chapter Nine (#u14dc81ee-26a6-5f80-a882-dfe4ec538cf7)
Part VII: December 1792 (#u498f8de2-e544-5ec1-97c6-0ac97dfdf851)
Chapter One (#ufb04160f-2e10-5855-84fa-e9252a3e6897)
Chapter Two (#u9e194f30-cd38-597a-87c7-b056871acfb1)
Chapter Three (#u1f3980a1-a156-5e37-92ed-ce6850dae260)
Chapter Four (#uecbc3604-b558-521e-9aa1-066d5e42fb87)
Chapter Five (#uc1ce58a3-a510-5326-90ae-5e2dd6c10073)
Chapter Six (#u94150643-2226-5a07-a9cd-f6abc8ff27c2)
Chapter Seven (#u3776651d-11e9-5c4b-9b17-95546613304e)
Chapter Eight (#u698c8967-09a3-5b01-b3e2-48d273894244)
Part VIII: July 1793 (#u0dd647e5-59ec-5efb-a414-df7bcc917bdc)
Chapter One (#u7af7facd-250f-5d98-be69-6ba98f4a653e)
Chapter Two (#u05ab7aee-b923-5d25-987b-01cccfb0dd0c)
Chapter Three (#ud80f7ac6-372d-576e-870f-45cd098ca447)
Chapter Four (#ud6e4f7e0-2229-5cc9-b098-82d6de13964a)
Chapter Five (#uaa4ab186-f91e-5454-8793-203a8ac12768)
Chapter Six (#u634fa8c0-3eba-5621-a1fd-d6b83c61ca08)
Chapter Seven (#u9d5a99eb-f537-5fad-b6fa-d468b86a4ad9)
Chapter Eight (#u698c3bd0-e599-55da-8f19-24a74fa316b7)
Chapter Nine (#u9ba12984-2419-567b-b67a-bb11a4dc3fbc)
Chapter Ten (#u1f650683-45ba-5b5b-ba02-25ab69b1b359)
Chapter Eleven (#u949feb35-832a-5751-865e-bcfe113d39d4)
Acknowledgements (#u946436cc-fc13-532c-b82d-3a9fda0050c5)
About the Author (#u91466600-e68f-5710-8ef9-de2ae7538f26)
Also by Tracy Chevalier (#u38d7829b-ae96-5864-b009-b0d397544f35)
About the Publisher (#u9f46eab5-6d14-5f4f-82b5-942411f9fd8e)
(#ulink_c7402879-0d64-50c9-8848-cb869ab740bb)
ONE (#ulink_4b6f3b69-a3f0-5377-9aca-46f6e61cf175)
There was something humiliating about waiting in a cart on a busy London street with all your possessions stacked around you, on show to the curious public. Jem Kellaway sat by a tower of Windsor chairs his father had made for the family years ago, and watched aghast as passers-by openly inspected the cart’s contents. He was not used to seeing so many strangers at once – the appearance of one in their Dorsetshire village would be an event discussed for days after – and to being so exposed to their attention and scrutiny. He hunkered back among the family belongings, trying to make himself less conspicuous. A wiry boy with a narrow face, deep-set blue eyes and sandy fair hair that curled below his ears, Jem was not one to draw attention to himself, and people peered more often at his family’s belongings than at him. A couple even stopped and handled items as if they were at a barrow squeezing pears to see which was ripest – the woman fingering the hem of a nightdress that poked out of a split bag, the man picking up one of Thomas Kellaway’s saws and testing its teeth for sharpness. Even when Jem shouted �Hey!’, he took his time setting it down again.
Apart from the chairs, much of the cart was filled with the tools of Jem’s father’s trade: wooden hoops used to bend wood for the arms and backs of the Windsor chairs he specialised in, a dismantled lathe for turning chair legs, and a selection of saws, axes, chisels and augers. Indeed, Thomas Kellaway’s tools took up so much room that the Kellaways had had to take turns walking alongside the cart for the week it took to get from Piddletrenthide to London.
The cart they had travelled in, driven by Mr Smart, a local Piddle Valley man with an unexpected sense of adventure, was halted in front of Astley’s Amphitheatre. Thomas Kellaway had had only a vague notion of where to find Philip Astley, and no idea of how big London really was, thinking he could stand in the middle of it and see the amphitheatre where Astley’s circus performed, the way he might back in Dorchester. Luckily for them, Astley’s Circus was well known in London, and they were quickly directed to the large building at the end of Westminster Bridge, with its round, peaked wooden roof and front entrance adorned with four columns. An enormous, white flag flying from the top of the roof read ASTLEY’S in red on one side and AMPHITHEATRE in black on the other.
Ignoring the curious people on the street as best he could, Jem fixed his eyes instead on the nearby river, which Mr Smart had decided to wander along, �to see a bit o’ London,’ and on Westminster Bridge, which arched over the water and pitched into the distant mass of square towers and spires of Westminster Abbey. None of the rivers Jem knew in Dorset – the Frome the size of a country lane, the Piddle a mere rivulet he could easily jump across – bore any resemblance to the Thames, a broad channel of rocking, choppy green-brown water pulled back and forth by the distant tide of the sea. Both river and bridge were clogged with traffic – boats on the Thames, carriages, carts and pedestrians on the bridge. Jem had never seen so many people at once, even on market day in Dorchester, and was so distracted by the sight of so much movement that he could take in little detail.
Though tempted to get down from the cart and join Mr Smart at the water’s edge, he didn’t dare leave Maisie and his mother. Maisie Kellaway was gazing about in bewilderment and flapping a handkerchief at her face. �Lord, it’s hot for March,’ she said. �It weren’t this hot back home, were it, Jem?’
�It’ll be cooler tomorrow,’ Jem promised. Although Maisie was two years older than he, it often seemed to Jem that she was his younger sister, needing protection from the unpredictability of the world – though there was little of that in the Piddle Valley. His job would be harder here.
Anne Kellaway was watching the river as Jem had, her eyes fixed on a boy pulling hard on the oars of a rowboat. A dog sat opposite him, panting in the heat; he was the boy’s only cargo. Jem knew what his mother was thinking of as she followed the boy’s progress: his brother Tommy, who had loved dogs and always had at least one from the village following him about.
Tommy Kellaway had been a handsome boy, with a tendency to daydream that baffled his parents. It was clear early on that he would never be a chairmaker, for he had no affinity for wood and what it could do, or any interest in the tools his father tried to teach him to use. He would let an auger come to a halt mid-turn, or a lathe spin slower and slower and stop as he gazed at the fire or into the middle distance – a trait he inherited from his father, but without the accompanying ability to get back to his work.
Despite this essential uselessness – a trait Anne Kellaway would normally despise – his mother loved him more than her other children, though she could not have said why. Perhaps she felt he was more helpless and so needed her more. Certainly he was good company, and made her laugh as no one else could. But her laughter had died the morning six weeks before when she found him under the pear tree at the back of the Kellaways’ garden. He must have climbed it in order to pick the one pear left, which had managed to cling onto its branch and hung just out of reach all winter, teasing them, even though they knew the cold would have ruined its taste. A branch had snapped, and he fell and broke his neck. A sharp pain pierced her chest whenever Anne Kellaway thought of him; she felt it now, watching the boy and the dog in the boat. Her first taste of London could not erase it.
TWO (#ulink_9fc0b409-f2af-5015-85d5-2e9bce4cb9e1)
Thomas Kellaway felt very small and timid as he passed between the tall columns outside the amphitheatre. He was a small, lean man, with tightly curled hair, like the pelt of a terrier, cut close to his scalp. His presence made little impression on such a grand entrance. Stepping inside and leaving his family out in the street, he found the foyer dark and empty, though he could hear the pounding of hooves and the cracking of a whip through a doorway. Following the sounds, he entered the theatre itself, standing among rows of benches to gape at the performing ring, where several horses were trotting, their riders standing rather than sitting on the saddles. In the centre a young man stood cracking a whip as he called out directions. Though he had seen them do the same at a show in Dorchester a month earlier, Thomas Kellaway still stared. If anything it seemed even more astonishing that the riders could perform such a trick again. One time might be a lucky accident; twice indicated real skill.
Surrounding the stage, a wooden structure of boxes and a gallery had been built, with seats and places to stand. A huge three-tiered wagon-wheel chandelier hung above it all, and the round roof with open shutters high up also let in light.
Thomas Kellaway didn’t watch the riders for long, for as he stood among the benches a man approached and asked what he wanted.
�I be wantin’ to see Mr Astley, sir, if he’ll have me,’ Thomas Kellaway replied.
The man he was speaking to was Philip Astley’s assistant manager. John Fox had a long moustache and heavy-lidded eyes, which he usually kept half-closed, only ever opening them wide at disasters – of which there had been and would be several in the course of Philip Astley’s long run as a circus impresario. Thomas Kellaway’s sudden appearance at the amphitheatre was not what John Fox would consider a disaster, and so he regarded the Dorset man without surprise and through drooping eyelids. He was used to people asking to see his boss. He also had a prodigious memory, which is always useful in an assistant, and remembered Thomas Kellaway from Dorchester the previous month. �Go outside,’ he said, �an’ I expect in the end he’ll be along to see you.’
Puzzled by John Fox’s sleepy-looking eyes and lackadaisical answer, Thomas Kellaway retreated back to his family in the cart. It was enough that he’d got his family to London; he had run out of the wherewithal to achieve more.
No one would have guessed – least of all himself – that Thomas Kellaway, Dorset chairmaker, from a family settled in the Piddle Valley for centuries, would end up in London. Everything about his life up until he met Philip Astley had been ordinary. He had learned chair-making from his father, and inherited the workshop on his father’s death. He married the daughter of his father’s closet friend, a woodcutter, and except for the fumbling they did in bed together, it was like being with a sister. They lived in Piddletrenthide, the village they had both grown up in, and had three sons – Sam, Tommy and Jem – and a daughter, Maisie. Thomas went to the Five Bells to drink two evenings a week, to church every Sunday, to Dorchester every month. He had never been to the seaside twelve miles away, or expressed any interest, as others in the pub sometimes did, in seeing any of the cathedrals within a few days’ reach – Wells or Salisbury or Winchester – or of going to Poole or Bristol or London. When he was in Dorchester, he did his business – took commissions for chairs, bought wood – and went home again. He preferred to get back late rather than to stay over at one of the tradesmen’s inns in Dorchester and drink his money away. That seemed to him far more dangerous than dark roads. He was a genial man, never the loudest in the pub, happiest when he was turning chair legs on his lathe, concentrating on one small groove or curve, or even forgetting that he was making a chair, and simply admiring the grain or colour or texture of the wood.
This was how he lived, and how he was expected to live, until in February 1792 Philip Astley’s Travelling Equestrian Spectacular came to spend a few days in Dorchester just two weeks after Tommy Kellaway fell from the pear tree. Part of Astley’s Circus was touring the West Country, diverting there on its way back to London from a winter spent in Dublin and Liverpool. Though it was advertised widely with posters and handbills and puffs about the show in the Western Flying Post, Thomas Kellaway had not known the show was in town when he went on one of his trips there. He had come to deliver a set of eight high-back Windsor chairs, bringing them in his cart along with his son Jem, who was learning the trade, as Thomas Kellaway had done from his father.
Jem helped unload the chairs and watched his father handle the customer with that tricky combination of deference and confidence needed for business. �Pa,’ he began, when the transaction was complete and Thomas Kellaway had pocketed an extra crown from the pleased customer, �can we go and look at the sea?’ On a hill south of Dorchester, it was possible to see the sea five miles away. Jem had been to the view a few times, and hoped one day to get to the sea itself. In the fields above the Piddle Valley, he often peered south, hoping that somehow the landscape of layered hills would have shifted to allow him a glimpse of the blue line of water that led to the rest of the world.
�No, son, we’d best get home,’ Thomas Kellaway replied automatically, then regretted it as he saw Jem’s face shut down like curtains drawn over a window. It reminded him of a brief period in his life when he too wanted to see and do new things, to break away from established routines, until age and responsibility yanked him back into the acceptance he needed to live a quiet Piddle life. Jem no doubt would also come to this acceptance naturally. That was what growing up was. Yet he felt for him.
He said nothing more. but when they passed the meadows by the River Frome on the outskirts of town where a round wooden structure with a canvas roof had been erected, he and Jem watched the men juggling torches by the roadside to lure customers in; Thomas Kellaway then felt for the extra crown in his pocket and turned the cart off into the field. It was the first unpredictable thing he had ever done, and it seemed, briefly, to loosen something in him, like the ice on a pond cracking in early spring.
It made it easier when he and Jem returned home later that night with tales of the spectacles they’d seen, as well as an encounter they’d had with Philip Astley himself, for Thomas Kellaway to face his wife’s bitter eyes that judged him for having dared to have fun when his son’s grave was still fresh. �He offered me work, Anne,’ he told her. �In London. A new life, away from—’ He didn’t finish. He didn’t need to – they were both thinking of the mound of earth in the Piddletrenthide graveyard.
To his astonishment – for he himself had not thought to take the offer seriously – Anne Kellaway looked straight at him and nodded. �All right. London it be.’
THREE (#ulink_b8865091-7e69-5cd4-9f8c-fa0a946abf4f)
The Kellaways waited at the cart for half an hour before they were visited by Philip Astley himself – circus owner, creator of spectacles, origin of outlandish gossip, magnet to the skilled and the eccentric, landlord, patron of local businesses and oversized colourful character. He sported a red coat he had worn years before during his service as a cavalry officer; it had gold buttons and trim, and was fastened only at the collar, revealing a substantial belly held in by a buttoned white waistcoat. His trousers were white, his boots had chaps that came to the knee, and, in his one concession to civilian life, he wore a black top hat, which he was constantly raising to ladies he recognised or would like to recognise. Accompanied by the ever-present John Fox, he trotted down the steps of the amphitheatre, strode up to the cart, raised his hat to Anne Kellaway, shook Thomas Kellaway’s hand, and nodded at Jem and Maisie. �Welcome, welcome!’ he cried, brusque and cheerful at the same time. �It is very good to see you again, sir! I trust you are enjoying the sights of London after your journey from Devon?’
�Dorsetshire, sir,’ Thomas Kellaway corrected. �We lived near Dorchester.’
�Ah, yes, Dorchester – a fine town. You make barrels there, do you?’
�Chairs,’ John Fox corrected in a low voice. This was why he went everywhere with his employer – to provide the necessary nudges and adjustments when needed.
�Chairs, yes, of course. And what can I do for you, sir, ma’am?’ He nodded at Anne Kellaway a touch uneasily, for she was sitting ramrod straight, her eyes fixed on Mr Smart, now up on Westminster Bridge, her mouth pulled tight like a drawstring bag. Every inch of her gave out the message that she did not want to be here or have anything to do with him; and that was a message Philip Astley was unused to. His fame made him much in demand, with too many people seeking his attention. For someone to display the opposite threw him, and immediately made him go out of his way to regain that attention. �Tell me what you need and I will give it you!’ he added, with a sweep of his arm, a gesture lost on Anne Kellaway, who kept her eyes on Mr Smart.
Anne Kellaway had begun to regret their decision to move from Dorsetshire almost the moment the cart pulled away from their cottage, the feeling deepening over the week they spent on the road picking their way through the early spring mud to get to London. By the time she sat in front of the amphitheatre, not looking at Philip Astley, she knew that being in London was not going to take her mind from her dead son as she’d hoped it might; if anything, it made her think of him even more, for being here reminded her of what she was fleeing. But she would rather blame her husband, and Philip Astley too, for her misfortune, than Tommy himself for being such a fool.
�Well, sir,’ Thomas Kellaway began, �you did invite me to London, and I’m very kindly accepting your offer.’
�Did I?’ Philip Astley turned to John Fox. �Did I invite him, Fox?’
John Fox nodded. �You did, sir.’
�Oh, don’t you remember, Mr Astley?’ Maisie cried, leaning forward. �Pa told us all about it. He and Jem were at your show, an’ during it someone were doing a trick atop a chair on a horse, an’ the chair broke and Pa fixed it for you right there. An’ you got to talking about wood and furniture, because you trained as a cabinet maker, didn’t you, sir?’
�Hush, Maisie,’ Anne Kellaway interjected, turning her head for a moment from the bridge. �I’m sure he doesn’t want to hear about all that.’
Philip Astley gazed at the slim country girl talking with such animation from her perch and chuckled. �Well, now, miss, I do begin to recall such an encounter. But how does that bring you here?’
�You told Pa if he ever wanted to, he should come to London and you would help him set himself up. So that’s what we done, an’ here we be.’
�Here you be indeed, Maisie, all of you.’ He turned to Jem, judging him to be about twelve and of the useful age to a circus for running errands and helping out. �And what’s your name, lad?’
�Jem, sir.’
�What sort of chairs are those you’re sitting next to, young Jem?’
�Windsors, sir. Pa made ’em.’
�A handsome chair, Jem, very handsome. Could you make me some?’
�Of course, sir,’ Thomas Kellaway said.
Philip Astley’s eyes slid to Anne Kellaway. �I’ll take a dozen of ’em.’
Anne Kellaway stiffened, but still did not look at the circus man, despite his generous commission.
�Now, Fox, what rooms have we got free at the moment?’ he demanded. Philip Astley owned a fair number of houses in Lambeth, the area around the amphitheatre and just across Westminster Bridge from London proper.
John Fox moved his lips so that his moustache twitched. �Only some with Miss Pelham at Hercules Buildings – but she chooses her own lodgers.’
�Well, she’ll choose the Kellaways – they’ll do nicely. Take ’em over there now, Fox, with some boys to help unload.’ Philip Astley lifted his hat once more at Anne Kellaway, shook Thomas Kellaway’s hand again, and said, �If you need anything, Fox’ll see you right. Welcome to Lambeth!’
FOUR (#ulink_49315b52-dba1-590f-9bdf-1c1e6a429f00)
Maggie Butterfield noticed the new arrivals right away. Little escaped her attention in the area – if someone moved in or out, Maggie was nosing among their belongings, asking questions and storing away the information to relay to her father later. It was natural for her to be attracted to Mr Smart’s cart, now stopped in front of no. 12 Hercules Buildings, and study the family unloading it.
Hercules Buildings was made up of a row of twenty-two brick houses, book-ended by two pubs, the Pineapple and the Hercules Tavern. Each had three storeys as well as a lower-ground floor, a small front garden, and a much longer garden at the back. The street itself was a busy cut-through taken by residents of Lambeth who wanted to cross Westminster Bridge but did not fancy their chances on the poor, ramshackle lanes along the river between Lambeth Palace and the bridge.
No. 12 Hercules Buildings boasted a shoulder-high iron fence, painted black, with spikes on top. The ground of the front garden was covered with raked pebbles, broken by a knee-high box hedge grown in a circle, with a bush severely pruned into a ball in the middle. The front window was framed by orange curtains pulled half to. As Maggie approached, a man, a woman, a boy her age and a girl a little older were each carrying a chair into the house while a small woman in a faded yellow gown buzzed around them.
�This is highly irregular!’ she was shouting. �Highly irregular! Mr Astley knows very well that I choose my own lodgers, and always have done. He has no right to foist people on me. Do you hear me, Mr Fox? No right at all!’ She stood directly in the path of John Fox, who had come out of the house with his sleeves rolled up, followed by a few circus boys.
�Pardon me, Miss Pelham,’ he said as he sidestepped her. �I’m just doing what the man told me to do. I expect he’ll be along to explain it himself.’
�This is my house!’ Miss Pelham cried. �I’m the householder. He’s only the owner, and has nothing to do with what goes on inside.’
John Fox picked up a crate of saws, looking as if he wished he hadn’t said anything. Miss Pelham’s tone seemed also to bother the unattended cart horse, whose owner was also helping to carry the Kellaways’ possessions upstairs. It had been standing docilely, stunned into hoof-sore submission by the week-long journey to London, but as Miss Pelham’s voice grew higher and shriller, it began to shift and stamp.
�You, girl,’ John Fox called to Maggie, �there’s a penny for you to hold the horse steady.’ He hurried through the gate and into the house, Miss Pelham at his heels, still complaining.
Maggie stepped up willingly and seized the horse’s reins, delighted to be paid for a front-row view of the proceedings. She stroked the horse’s nose. �There now, boy, you old country horse,’ she murmured. �Where you from, then? Yorkshire, is it? Lincolnshire?’ She named the two areas of England she knew anything about, and that was very little – only that her parents had come from those parts, though they’d lived in London twenty years. Maggie had never been outside of London; indeed, she rarely enough went across the river to its centre, and had never been a night away from home.
�Dorsetshire,’ came a voice.
Maggie turned, smiling at the singing, burring vowels of the girl who had carried her chair inside and come out again, and was now standing next to the cart. She wasn’t bad-looking, with a rosy face and wide blue eyes, though she did wear a ridiculous frilly mob cap that she must have fancied would go down well in a city. Maggie smirked. One glance told her this family’s story: they were from the countryside, come to London for the usual reason – to make a better living here than they did back home. Indeed, sometimes country people did do better. Other times – �Where’s home, then?’ she said.
�Piddletrenthide,’ the girl answered, drawing out the last syllable.
�Lord a mercy – what did you say?’
�Piddletrenthide.’
Maggie snorted. �Piddle-dee-dee, what a name! Never heard of it.’
�It mean thirty houses by the River Piddle. ’Tis in the Piddle Valley, near Dorchester. It were a lovely place.’ The girl smiled at something across the road, as if she could see Dorsetshire there.
�What’s your name, then, Miss Piddle?’
�Maisie. Maisie Kellaway.’
The door to the house opened, and Maisie’s mother reappeared. Anne Kellaway was tall and angular, and had her scrubby brown hair pulled back in a bun that hung low on her long neck. She gave Maggie a suspicious look, the way a chandler would at someone he thought had stolen wares from his shop. Maggie knew such looks well.
�Don’t be talking to strangers, Maisie,’ Anne Kellaway scolded. �Han’t I warned you about London?’
Maggie shook the horse’s reins. �Now, ma’am, Maisie’s perfectly safe with me. Safer’n with some.’
Anne Kellaway fastened her eyes on Maggie and nodded. �You see, Maisie? Even the locals say there be bad sorts about.’
�That’s right, London’s a wicked place, it is,’ Maggie couldn’t resist saying.
�What? What kind of wicked?’ Anne Kellaway demanded.
Maggie shrugged, caught out for a moment. She did not know what to tell her. There was one thing, of course, that would clearly shock her, but Maggie would never tell that to Anne Kellaway. �D’you know the little lane across Lambeth Green, what runs from the river through the fields to the Royal Row?’
Maisie and Anne Kellaway looked blank. �It’s not far from here,’ Maggie continued. �Just over there.’ She pointed across the road, where fields stretched almost unbroken to the river. The red-brick towers of Lambeth Palace could be seen in the distance.
�We only just arrived,’ Anne Kellaway said. �We han’t seen much.’
Maggie sighed, the punch taken out of her tale. �It’s a little lane, very useful as a short cut. It was called Lovers’ Lane for a time ’cause—’ she stopped as Anne Kellaway shook her head vehemently, her eyes darting at Maisie.
�Well, it was called that,’ Maggie continued, �but do you know what it’s called now?’ She paused. �Cut-Throat Lane!’
Mother and daughter shuddered, which made Maggie smile grimly.
�Tha’ be no great thing,’ a voice chimed in. �We’ve a Dead Cat Lane back in the Piddle Valley.’ The boy who had been carrying the chair inside was standing in the doorway.
Maggie rolled her eyes. �A dead cat, eh? I suppose you found it, did you?’
He nodded.
�Well, I found the dead man!’ Maggie announced triumphantly, but even as she said it she felt her stomach tighten and contract. She wished now that she’d kept quiet, especially as the boy was watching her closely, as if he knew what she was thinking. But he couldn’t know.
She was saved from having to say more by Anne Kellaway, who clutched the gate and cried, �I knew we should never have come to London!’
�There, now, Ma,’ Maisie murmured, as if soothing a child. �Let’s get some things inside now. What about these pots?’
Jem let Maisie calm their mother. He had heard often enough during their journey of her worries about London. She had never betrayed such nerves in Dorsetshire, and her rapid transformation from capable countrywoman to anxious traveller had surprised him. If he paid too much attention to her, he began to feel anxious himself. He preferred instead to study the girl holding the horse. She was lively looking, with tangled black hair, brown eyes fringed with long lashes, and a V-shaped smile that made her chin as pointy as a cat’s. What interested him most, however, was seeing the terror and regret that flashed across her face as she mentioned the dead man; when she swallowed, he felt sure she was tasting bile. Despite her cockiness, Jem pitied her. After all, it was certainly worse to discover a dead man than a dead cat – though the cat had been his, and he’d been fond of it. He had not, for instance, found his brother, Tommy; that grim task had been left to his mother, who had run into the workshop from the garden, a look of horror on her face. Perhaps that explained her anxiety about everything since then.
�What you doin’ at Hercules Buildings, then?’ Maggie said.
�Mr Astley sent us,’ Jem answered.
�He invited us to London!’ Maisie interjected. �Pa fixed a chair for him, and now he’s come to make chairs in London.’
�Don’t say that man’s name!’ Anne Kellaway almost spat the words.
Maggie stared at her. Few people had a bad word to say about Philip Astley. He was a big, booming, opinionated man, of course, but he was also generous and good-natured to everyone. If he fought you, he forgot it a moment later. Maggie had taken countless pennies off him, usually for simple tasks like holding a horse still for a moment, and had been allowed in free to see shows with a wave of his liberal hand. �What’s wrong with Mr Astley, then?’ she demanded, ready to defend him.
Anne Kellaway shook her head, grabbed the pots from the cart, and strode up to the house, as if the man’s name were physically propelling her inside. �He’s one of the best men you’ll meet in Lambeth!’ Maggie called after her. �If you can’t stomach him you won’t find no one else to drink with!’ But Anne Kellaway had disappeared upstairs.
�Is this all of your things?’ Maggie nodded at the cart.
�Most of it,’ Maisie replied. �We left some with Sam – he’s our older brother. He stayed behind. And – well – we’d another brother too, but he died not long ago. So I’ve only had brothers, you see, though I did always want a sister. D’you have sisters?’
�No, just a brother.’
�Ours be marrying soon, we think, don’t we, Jem? To Lizzie Miller – he been with her for years now.’
�Come on, Maisie,’ Jem interrupted, reluctant to have his family’s business made public. �We need to get these inside.’ He picked up a wooden hoop.
�What’s that for, then?’ Maggie asked.
�A chair mould. You bend wood round it to make it into the shape of a chair back.’
�You help your pa make chairs?’
�I do,’ Jem answered with pride.
�You’re a bottom catcher, you are!’
Jem frowned. �What d’you mean?’
�They call footmen fart catchers, don’t they? But you catch bottoms with your chairs!’ Maggie barked with laughter as Jem turned bright red. It didn’t help that Maisie joined in with her own tinkling laugh.
Indeed, his sister encouraged Maggie to linger, turning back as she and Jem reached the door with the hoops looped around their arms. �What’s your name?’ she called.
�Maggie Butterfield.’
�Oh, you be a Margaret too! In’t it funny, Jem? The first girl I meet in London and she do have my name!’
Jem wondered how one name could be attached to two such different girls. Though not yet wearing stays the way Maisie did, Maggie was fuller and curvier, padded by a layer of flesh that reminded Jem of plums, while Maisie was slim, with bony ankles and wrists. Though intrigued by this Lambeth girl, he didn’t trust her. She may even steal something, he thought. I’ll have to watch her.
Immediately he felt ashamed of the thought, though it didn’t stop him from glancing out of the open front window of their new rooms a few minutes later to make sure Maggie wasn’t rummaging in their cart.
She wasn’t. She was holding Mr Smart’s horse steady, patting its neck as a carriage passed. Then she was sniggering at Miss Pelham, who had come back outside and was discussing her new lodgers in a loud voice. Maggie seemed unable to keep still, hopping from one foot to the other, her eyes caught by passers-by: an old woman walking along who cried out, �Old iron and broken glass bottles! Bring ’em to me!’, a young girl going the opposite way with a basket full of primroses, a man pulling the blades of two knives across each other, calling out above the clatter, �Knives sharpened, get your knives sharpened! You’ll cut through anything when I’m done with you!’ He pulled his knives close to Maggie’s face and she flinched, jumping back as he laughed. She stood watching the man go, trembling so that the Dorsetshire horse bowed his head towards her and nickered.
�Jem, open that window wider,’ his mother said behind him. �I don’t like the smell of the last people.’
Jem pushed up the sash window, and Maggie looked up and saw him. They stared at each other, as if daring the other to look away first. At last Jem forced himself to step back from the window.
Once the Kellaways’ possessions were safely upstairs, they all went back out to the street to say goodbye to Mr Smart, who would not stay the night with them, being anxious to make a start back to Dorsetshire. He’d already seen enough of London to provide weeks of anecdotes at the pub, and had no desire to be there still come nightfall, when he was sure the devil would descend on the inhabitants – though he didn’t say so to the Kellaways. Each found it hard to let go of their last link to the Piddle Valley, and delayed Mr Smart with questions and suggestions. Jem held on to the side of the cart while his father discussed which travelling inn to aim for; Anne Kellaway sent Maisie up to dig out a few apples for the horse.
At last Mr Smart set off, calling �Good luck an’ God bless’ee!’ as he pulled away from no. 12 Hercules Buildings, muttering under his breath, �An’ God help’ee too.’ Maisie waved a handkerchief at him even though he didn’t look around. As the cart turned right at the end of the road, slipping in among other traffic, Jem felt his stomach twist. He kicked at some dung the horse had left behind, and though he could feel Maggie’s eyes on him, he didn’t look up.
A few moments later, he sensed a subtle shift in the sounds of the street. Although it continued to be noisy with horses, carriages and carts, as well as the frequent cries of sellers of fish and brooms and matches, of shoe blackeners and pot menders, there seemed to be a quiet pause and a turning of attention that wound its way along Hercules Buildings. It reached even to Miss Pelham, who fell silent, and Maggie, who stopped staring at Jem. He looked up then, following her gaze to the man now passing. He was of medium height, and stocky, with a round, wide face, a heavy brow, prominent grey eyes, and the pale complexion of a man who spends much of his time indoors. Dressed simply in a white shirt, black breeches and stockings, and a slightly old-fashioned black coat, he was most noticeable for the red cap he wore, of a sort Jem and never seen, with a peak flopped over, a turned-up rim, and a red, white and blue rosette fixed to one side. It was made of wool, which in the unusual March heat caused sweat to roll down the man’s brow. He held his head slightly self-consciously, as if the hat were new, or precious, and he must be careful of it; and as if he knew that all eyes would be on it – as indeed, Jem realised, they were.
The man turned in at the gate next to theirs, stepped up the path, and hurried inside, closing the door behind him without looking around. When he had disappeared the street seemed to shake itself like a dog caught napping, and activity was renewed all the more vigorously.
�Do you see – that is why I must speak with Mr Astley immediately,’ Miss Pelham declared to John Fox. �It’s bad enough living next door to a revolutionary, but then to be forced to take in strangers from Dorsetshire – it’s too much, really!’
Maggie spoke up. �Dorsetshire an’t exactly Paris, ma’am. I bet them Dorseters don’t even know what a bonnet rouge is – do you, Jem, Maisie?’
They shook their heads. Though Jem was grateful to Maggie for speaking up for them, he wished she wouldn’t rub his nose in his ignorance.
�You, you little scamp!’ Miss Pelham cried, noticing Maggie for the first time. �I don’t want to see you round here. You’re as bad as your father. You leave my lodgers alone!’
Maggie’s father had once sold Miss Pelham lace he claimed was Flemish, but it unravelled within days and turned out to have been made by an old woman just down the road in Kennington. Though she hadn’t had him arrested – she was too embarrassed that her neighbours would find out she’d been duped by Dick Butterfield – Miss Pelham spoke ill of him whenever she could.
Maggie laughed; she was used to people berating her father. �I’ll tell Pa you said hello,’ she simpered, then turned to Jem and Maisie. �Bye for now!’
�Z’long,’ Jem replied, watching her run along the street and disappear into an alley between two houses. Now she was gone he wanted her back again.
�Please, sir,’ Maisie said to John Fox, who was just setting out with the circus boys to return to the amphitheatre. �What’s a bonnet rouge?’
John Fox paused. �That’ll be a red cap like what you just saw your neighbour wearing, miss. They wears it what supports the revolution over in France.’
�Oh! We did hear of that, didn’t we, Jem? Tha’ be where they let all those people out of the Bastille, weren’t it?’
�That’s the one, miss. It don’t have much to do with us here, but some folks like to show what they think of it.’
�Who be our neighbour, then? Is he French?’
�No, miss. That’ll be William Blake, born and bred in London.’
�You leave him be, you children,’ Miss Pelham cut in. �You don’t want to get in with him.’
�Why not?’ Maisie asked.
�He prints pamphlets with all sorts of radical nonsense in them, that’s why. He’s a stirrer, that man is. Now, I don’t want to see any bonnets rouges in my house. D’you hear me?’
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