“Oh, she won’t,” Dick Butterfield declared, renewing his grip on Maggie. “She’ll be too busy working, won’t you, Mags? Rope not to your liking, eh? Not to worry-I found another place for you, see. Mate o’ mine runs the mustard manufactory down by the river. You’ll be working there come Monday. Keep you out of mischief. It’s time you started bringin’ in a wage-you’re old enough now. Till then, Charlie’ll keep an eye on you. Charlie!” he shouted, casting his eye about.
Charlie sauntered over from the wall he’d been squatting against. He tried to glare at Jem and smile at Maisie at the same time, but it came out as a confused smirk. Jem glared back at him; Maisie studied her toes.
“Where you been, boy?” Dick Butterfield cried. “Get hold of your sister and don’t let her out of your sight till you take her to the mustard works Monday morning.”
Charlie grinned and grabbed Maggie’s other arm with both hands. “Sure, Pa.” When no one was looking, he twisted her skin so that it burnt.
With her parents there, Maggie couldn’t kick him. “Damn you, Charlie!” she cried. “Mam!”
“Don’t talk to me, girl,” Bet Butterfield huffed. “I want nothing to do with you. You been one hell of a worry to us.”
“But-” Maggie stopped when Charlie made the sign of slitting his throat with his finger. She closed her eyes and thought of the attention she’d had from the Blakes, and of the peace she’d known briefly in their garden, where she could put from her mind thoughts of Charlie and what had gone on in the past. She’d known it was too good to last, that eventually she would have to leave the garden and return to her parents. She just wished she’d had the chance to decide for herself when that would happen.
Tears seeped from the corners of her eyes, and though she rubbed them away quickly with finger and thumb, the Kellaway children spotted them. Maisie gazed at Maggie sympathetically, while Jem dug his fingernails into his palms. He had never felt so much like hitting someone as he did Charlie Butterfield.
Bet Butterfield glanced about, suddenly aware of her family’s public display of disunity. “Hallo again,” she said, spying Anne Kellaway and trying to get back to safe neighborly chitchat. “I’ll be coming round to finish that Blandfield Wagon Wheel one o’ these days.”
“Cartwheel,” Anne Kellaway corrected. “Blandford Cartwheel.”
“That’s right. We’ll be seeing you. Shall we, Dick?” She took her husband’s arm.
“Dog and Duck, I think, gal.”
“That’ll do me.”
The Butterfields went one way, the Kellaways the other. Jem caught Maggie’s eye as Charlie pulled her along, and they held each other’s gaze until she was yanked out of sight by her brother.
None of them noticed Mr. Blake sitting on the steps of one of the houses across from the fire; Mrs. Blake stood behind him, leaning against the house. He had his little notebook resting on his knee and was scribbling rapidly.
7
At five on Sunday morning, John Honor, head carpenter for Astley’s Circus, died of injuries sustained from the fireworks laboratory explosion. After paying his condolences to the widow, Philip Astley caught the Kellaways as they were leaving for the early church service at St. Mary’s, and offered Thomas Kellaway a position as carpenter for his circus.
“He will,” Anne Kellaway answered for the family.
PART V – September 1792
1
“Friends, gather round now-I want to have a word with you. That’s all of you, in the ring, please.” Philip Astley’s thundering voice could be heard throughout the amphitheatre. Jem and Thomas Kellaway glanced at each other and laid down the tools they had been gathering up-it was Saturday noon and they were just finishing their work for the day. They made their way with the other carpenters from backstage to the ring, where they were joined by grumbling acrobats, riders, costume girls, grooms, circus boys, musicians, dancers, and all the rest of the circus workers. It was not unheard of for Philip Astley to call a meeting of the company, but he did not normally choose to do so when they were about to have an afternoon off before the evening performance. His timing suggested that the news would not be good.
Thomas Kellaway did not join in the grumbling. Though he had now been working for the circus for three months, and was glad of the regular wages, he still felt too new to say anything unless asked directly. Instead he simply stood next to the stage with Jem and the other carpenters and kept quiet.
John Fox leaned against the barrier that separated the pit seats from the circus ring, and continued to chew on something so that his long mustache wriggled. His eyelids were so low that he seemed to be asleep where he stood; he could also conveniently avoid eye contact with anyone. John Astley was sitting in the pit with some of the other horsemen, his riding boots-cleaned and polished daily by one of his cousins-propped up on a railing, as he picked at a thumbnail.
“Fox, is everyone here? Good. Now, friends, listen to me.” Philip Astley batted his hands up and down to quiet the noises of discontentment. “Boys and girls, first I would like to say that you have been doing an impressive job-a most impressive job. Indeed, I believe this season will go down as one of our very best. For sheer professionalism as well as dazzling entertainment, no one can touch us.
“Now, my friends, I must share some news with you that will affect us all. As you are aware, these are trying times. Dangerous times, we might say. Revolutionary times. Over the summer there has been growing turbulence in France, has there not? Well, good people of the circus, it may well be reaching a bloody climax. Perhaps some of you have heard the news today from Paris, where there are reports of twelve thousand citizens killed. Twelve thousand royalists, friends-people loyal to king and family! People like you and me! Not twelve, not twelve hundred, but twelve thousand! Do you have any idea how many people that is? That is twelve nights’ audience, sir.” He gazed at the singer Mr. Johannot, who stared back at him with wide eyes. “Imagine twelve audiences piled up in the streets around us, ladies.” Philip Astley turned toward a group of seamstresses who had been giggling in their seats, and who froze when he glared at them. “Slaughtered mercilessly, men, women, and children alike-throats cut, bellies slashed open, their blood and entrails pouring down the gutters of Westminster Bridge Road and Lambeth Marsh.” One of the girls burst into tears, and two others followed.
“Well may you cry,” Philip Astley continued over their sobs. “Such actions so close to our own shores pose a grievous threat to us all. Grievous, dear colleagues. The imprisonment of the French king and his family is a challenge to our own royal family. Watch and weep, friends. It is an end to innocence. England cannot let this challenge to our way of life pass. Within six months we will be at war with France-my instincts as a cavalryman tell me so. Kiss your fathers and brothers and sons good-bye now, for they may soon be off to war.”
During the pause that followed as Philip Astley let his words sink in, irritated looks and grumbles were replaced with solemn faces and silence, apart from the weeping from the costume bench. Thomas Kellaway looked around in wonder. The revolution in France was certainly discussed more in London pubs than at the Five Bells in Piddletrenthide, but he had never thought it would ever affect him personally. He glanced at Jem, who had just turned thirteen. Though too young for cannon fodder, his son was old enough to feel the threat of being press-ganged into the army. Thomas Kellaway had seen for himself a press-gang in action at a Lambeth pub, drawing in a gullible youth with promises of free pints, and then frogmarching him to a nearby barracks. Tommy would have been a prime target, Thomas Kellaway thought. It should be Tommy he’d be concerned about rather than Jem. But then, if Tommy were alive to worry about, they’d still be a close, loving family safely tucked away in the Piddle Valley, far from the danger of press-gangs. Thomas Kellaway had not considered such threats when he and his wife decided to come to London.