When Philip Astley finished, and people were coming up to give their condolences or put forward theories as to how the fire might have started, Maisie took a gulp of air and pushed through the crowd toward John Astley.
“Maisie, what’re you doing?” Jem called.
“Leave her,” a voice said. “If she will make a fool of herself, there’s nought you can do about it.”
Jem turned to find Maggie standing beside him. “Mornin’,” he said, forgetting for an instant about his foolish sister. He was still surprised at how glad he always was to see Maggie, though he tried to hide both pleasure and surprise. “We saw you leave the garden. You all right?”
Maggie rubbed her arms. “I’ll be feeling them buckets in my sleep tonight. Exciting, though, wan’t it?”
“I feel bad for Mr. Astley.”
“Oh, he’ll be all right. By Monday night he’ll have added to his show a spectacle based on the explosion, with a backdrop of this”-Maggie gestured around her-“and fireworks going off to make it feel real. And John Astley will ride up and dance on his horse.”
Jem had his eye on his sister standing near John Astley, her back set very straight, as it did when she was nervous. Maisie was blocking his view of John Astley’s face, so he had no idea what the horseman’s response to his sister was. He could only guess by the glow on Maisie’s face as she turned and skipped back to him and Maggie.
“He’s such a brave man!” she declared. “And so gentlemanly with me. D’you know, he’s burnt his arm from getting too near the flames when he were throwing water, but he didn’t even stop to look at it and has only just discovered it? I”-Maisie flushed scarlet with the thought of her daring-“I offered to bandage it for him, but he told me not to worry, that I should find my family as they’d be concerned for me. Weren’t that nice of him?”
Jem could now see John Astley’s face. He was studying Maisie’s slim form, his blue eyes glowing almost supernaturally from his sooty face in a way that made Jem uneasy. Jem glanced at Maggie, who shrugged and took Maisie’s arm. “That’s very well, Miss Piddle, but we should be gettin’ you home. Look, there are your parents. You don’t want ’em to see you settin’ your eyes at Mr. Astley, do you?” She pulled Maisie toward Thomas and Anne Kellaway, who had emerged from the smoke, which was now as thick as a winter fog. Anne Kellaway’s hair was flying in every direction, and her eyes were streaming so that she had to hold a handkerchief to them.
“Jem, Maisie, you been here as well?” Thomas Kellaway asked.
“Yes, Pa,” Jem answered. “We was helping with the buckets.”
Thomas Kellaway nodded. “Tha’ be the neighborly thing to do. Reminds me of when the Wightmans’ barn burnt down last year and we did the same. Remember?”
Jem did remember that fire on the edge of Piddletrenthide, but it was different from this one. He recalled how little effect their buckets had on the flames, which grew as high as the nearby oak trees once they reached the hay; after that there was little anyone could do to stop them. He remembered the screams of the horses trapped behind the flames and the smell of their burning flesh, and of Mr. Wightman screaming in response and having to be held back to keep him from running like a fool into the fire after his ani-mals. He remembered Mrs. Wightman weeping during all the crackles and cries. And Rosie Wightman, a girl he and Maisie had played with sometimes in the River Piddle, catching eels and picking watercress: She watched the fire with wide, shocked eyes, and ran away from the Piddle Valley soon after when it was discovered she’d been playing with candles out in the barn. She had not been heard of since, and Jem sometimes thought of her, wondering what became of a girl like Rosie. Mr. Wightman lost his barn, his hay and his horses, and he and his wife ended up in the workhouse at Dorchester.
Mr. Astley’s fire destroyed only fireworks, whereas the Wightman fire had been an inferno that destroyed a family. The King would still be a year older whether his London subjects saw fireworks on his birthday or not. Indeed, Jem sometimes wondered how Philip Astley could spend so much time and energy on something that contributed little to the world. If Thomas Kellaway and his fellow chairmakers did not make chairs and benches and stools, people could not sit down properly, and would have to perch on the ground. If Philip Astley did not run his circus, would it make any difference? Jem could not say such a thing to his mother, however. He would never have guessed that she would come to love the circus so much. Even now she was staring through glistening eyes at the Astleys.
In a pause in conversation, Philip Astley felt her gaze on him and turned. He couldn’t help smiling at the concern etched on her face-this from the woman who would not even look at him a few months ago. “Ah, madam, there is no need to cry,” he said, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket and offering it to her, though it was so filthy with soot that it would not have been much use. “We Astleys have been through worse in our time.”
Anne Kellaway did not accept his handkerchief, but wiped her eyes with her sleeve. “No, no, it’s the smoke affects my eyes. London smoke do that.” She took a step back from him, for his presence had that effect of crowding people out of their own space.
“Fear not, Mrs. Kellaway,” Philip Astley said, as if she had not spoken. “This is merely a temporary setback. And I thank God that only my carpenter was hurt. He’s sure to be back on his feet very soon.”
Thomas Kellaway had been standing beside his wife, his eyes on the smoking wreck of the house. Now he spoke up. “If you need any help in the meantime, sir, with the wood and that, I and my boy would be happy to give a hand, wouldn’t we, Jem?”
His innocent offer to a neighbor in need, made in his soft voice without any underlying calculation, had more impact than he could ever have imagined. Philip Astley looked at Thomas Kellaway as if someone had just turned up the lamps very bright. The pause before he answered was not from rudeness, but because he was thinking in this new light. He glanced at John Fox, who as ever stood at his elbow, his eyes once more half-lidded now that the fire was out. “Well, now,” he began. “That is a very kind offer, sir, a very kind offer indeed. I may well take you up on that. We shall see. For the moment, sir, madam”-he bowed to Anne Kellaway-“I must take my leave of you, as there is so much to be getting on with. But I will see you again very soon, I expect. Very soon, indeed, sir.” He turned away with John Fox to rejoin his son and begin giving orders to those who awaited them.
Jem had listened to his father and Philip Astley in stunned silence. He couldn’t imagine himself and his father working for someone else rather than for themselves. Maisie’s face lit up, however, for she was already picturing herself finding reasons to visit her father and brother at the amphitheatre and staying to see John Astley. Anne Kellaway too wondered if this meant she might be able to escape to the circus even more often.
During this discussion, Dick Butterfield had spotted Maggie standing with the Kellaways and began stealing toward her. He had been gathering himself to pounce-if he didn’t get a firm grip on the girl, she was likely to run off-when Thomas Kellaway’s offer to Philip Astley pulled him up short. Dick Butterfield thought of himself as the master of the honeyed phrase and timely suggestion, pitched to draw the right response and drop the coin into his pocket. He was good at it, he thought, but Thomas Kellaway had just outmaneuvered him. “Damn him,” he muttered, then lunged for Maggie.
Caught unawares, she yelled and tried to pull away from her father. “You got her, then?” Bet Butterfield called, pushing through the crowd to her husband’s side. “Where in hell have you been, you little minx?” she roared at her struggling daughter, and slapped her. “Don’t ever run away from us again!”