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 closest 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 color or texture of the wood.
This was how he lived, and how he was expected to live, until in February 1792, Philip Astley’s Traveling Equestrian Spectacular came to spend a few days in Dorchester, just two weeks after Tommy Kellaway fell from the pear tree. 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 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.
3
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 colorful 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 recognized or would like to recognize. 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!” 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. 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 Tommy 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 cabi-netmaker, didn’t you, sir?”