Beside him rode the son he spoke of. John Astley had as commanding a presence as his father, but in a completely different style. If Astley Senior was an oak-large and blunt, with a thick, strong center-Astley Junior was a poplar-tall and slender, with handsome, even features and clear, calculating eyes. He was educated, as his father had not been, and held himself more formally and self-consciously. Philip Astley rode his white charger like the cavalry man he once was and still thought himself to be, using the horse to get where he wanted to go and do what he wanted to do. John Astley rode his slim chestnut mare, with her long legs and nimble hooves, as if he and the horse were permanently attached and always on show. He jogged smoothly over Westminster Bridge, his horse capering sideways and slantways in a series of intricate steps to a minuet, played by musicians on trumpet, French horn, accordion, and drum. Anyone else in his seat would have been jolted over and over and dropped gloves, hat, and whip, but John Astley remained elegant and unruffled.
The crowd gazed at him in silence, admiring his skill rather than loving him as they did his father. All but one: Maisie Kellaway stood with her mouth open, staring up at him. She had never seen such a handsome man and, at fourteen, was ready to take a fancy to one. John Astley did not notice her, of course; he did not seem to see anyone, keeping his eyes fixed on the amphitheatre ahead.
Anne Kellaway had recovered herself without the aid of Philip Astley’s brandy. That she had refused, to the disgust of Maggie, the meat pie man, the woman in front of him with the pastry flakes in her hair, the man whose shoulder she had touched, the boy who delivered the flask-in fact, just about everyone apart from the other Kellaways. Anne Kellaway didn’t notice: Her eyes were fixed fast on the performers in the parade behind John Astley. First came a group of tumblers who walked along normally and then simultaneously fell into a series of forward rolls that turned into cartwheels and backflips. Then came a group of dogs who, at a signal, all got up onto their hind legs and walked that way for a good ten feet, then ran about jumping over one another’s backs in a compli-cated configuration.
Surprising as these acts were, what finally captured Anne Kellaway’s attention was the slack-rope dancing. Two strong men carried poles between which a rope hung, rather like a thick clothesline. Sitting in the middle of the rope was a dark-haired, moon-faced woman wearing a red and white striped satin dress with a tight bodice and a flared skirt. She swung back and forth on the rope as if it were a swing, then wrapped one part of the rope casually around her leg.
Maggie poked Jem and Maisie. “That’s Miss Laura Devine,” she whispered. “She’s from Scotland, and is the finest slack-rope dancer in Europe.”
At a signal, the men stepped away from each other, pulling the rope taut and making Miss Devine turn a graceful somersault, which revealed several layers of red and white petticoats. The crowd roared, and she did it again, twice this time, then three times, and then she turned constant somersaults, twirling round and round the rope so that her petticoats were a flashing blur of red and white.
“That’s called Pig on a Spit,” Maggie announced.
Then the men stepped toward each other, and Miss Devine came out of the last somersault into a long swing up into the sky, smiling as she did.
Anne Kellaway stared at Miss Devine, expecting to see her crash to the ground as her son Tommy had from the pear tree, reaching for that pear that was always-and now always would be-just out of his reach. But Miss Devine did not fall; indeed, she seemed incapable of it. For the first time in the weeks since her son’s death, Anne Kellaway felt the shard of grief lodged in her heart stop biting. She craned her neck to watch her even as Miss Devine moved far down the bridge and could barely be seen, even when there were other spectacles right in front of her-a monkey on a pony, a man riding his horse backward and picking up dropped handkerchiefs without leaving his saddle, a troupe of dancers in oriental costume turning pirouettes.
“Jem, what’ve you done with those tickets?” Anne Kellaway demanded suddenly.
“Here, Ma.” Jem pulled them from his pocket.
“Keep ’em.”
Maisie clapped her hands and jumped up and down.
Maggie hissed, “Put ’em away!” Already those around them had turned to look.
“Them for the pit?” the meat pie man asked, leaning over Anne Kellaway to see.
Jem began to put the tickets back in his pocket.
“Not there!” Maggie cried. “They’ll have ’em off you in a trice if you keep ’em there.”
“Who?”
“Them rascals.” Maggie jerked her head at a pair of young boys who had miraculously squeezed through the crush to appear at his side. “They’re faster’n you, though not faster’n me. See?” She snatched the tickets from Jem, and with a grin began to tuck them down the front of her dress.
“I can keep them,” Maisie suggested. “You haven’t got the stays.”
Maggie stopped smiling.
“I’ll keep them,” Anne Kellaway announced, and held out her hand. Maggie grimaced but handed over the tickets. Anne Kellaway carefully tucked them into her stays, then wrapped her shawl tightly over her bosom. The stern, triumphant look on her face was armor enough to keep away any rogue fingers.
The musicians were passing them now, and behind them three men brought up the rear of the parade waving red, yellow, and white flags that read ASTLEY’S CIRCUS.
“What’ll we do now?” Jem asked when they had passed. “Go on to the Abbey?”
He could have been speaking to a family of mutes, oblivious to the surging crowd around them. Maisie was staring after John Astley, who by now had become just a flash of blue coat over winking horse flanks. Anne Kellaway had her eye on the amphitheatre in the distance, contemplating the unexpected evening ahead. Thomas Kellaway was peering over the bridge’s balustrade at a boat piled high with wood being rowed along the thin line of water toward the bridge.
“C’mon. They’ll follow.” Maggie took Jem’s arm and pulled him toward the apex of the bridge, sidestepping the traffic of carriages and carts that had begun to cross it again, and making their way toward the Abbey.
4
Westminster Abbey was the tallest, grandest building in that part of London. It was the sort of building the Kellaways had expected to see plenty of in the city-substantial, ornate, important. Indeed, they had been disappointed by the shabbiness of Lambeth, even if they had not yet seen the rest of London. The filth, the crowds, the noise, the indifferent, casual, neglected buildings-none of it matched the pictures they’d conjured of London back in Dorsetshire. At least the Abbey, with its pair of impressive square towers, its busy detail of narrow windows, filigreed arches, jutting buttresses, and tiny spires, satisfied their expectations. It was the second time in the weeks they had been in Lam beth that Anne Kellaway thought, There is a reason for us to be in London-the first time being only half an hour before, when she saw Miss Laura Devine performing the Pig on a Spit.
Just inside the arched entrance between the two towers, the Kellaways stopped, causing those behind them to grumble and push past. Maggie, who had continued on into the abbey, turned around and blew through her lips. “Look at those country fools,” she muttered, as the four Kellaways stood in a row, eyes up, heads tilted at the same angle. She couldn’t blame them, however. Although she had visited the Abbey many times, she too found it an astonishing sight on first entering and, indeed, throughout the building. At every turning, every chapel and tomb contained marble to be admired, carving to be fingered, elegance and opulence to be dazzled by.