“I’m not-not for myself. For you, perhaps. And for her.” Miss Devine nodded at the memory of Miss Hannah Smith riding in the ring. “She’ll be stuck with the worry over him and his women all her life now. I’m done with that.” She glanced at Maisie. “How old are you, Miss-”
“Maisie. I be fifteen.”
“No longer so innocent, then. But not yet experienced, are you?”
Maisie wanted to protest-who on the verge of adulthood likes to be reminded of their lingering innocence?-but Miss Devine’s weary face demanded honesty. “I’ve little experience of the world,” she admitted.
“Then let me teach you something. What you want is not worth half the value of what you’ve still got. Remember that.”
Maisie nodded, though she did not yet understand the words. She tucked them away for later, when she would take them out and study them. “What will you do now, Miss Devine?” she asked.
Miss Laura Devine smiled. “I am going to fly out of here, pet. That’s what I’m going to do.”
4
Normally Maisie would have stayed longer at the amphitheatre, watching rehearsals all afternoon if she could, but after Miss Laura Devine spoke to her she was eager to leave. She did not want to stay and see the slack-rope dancer rehearse with her own replacement. Moreover, John Astley had disappeared, and Maisie doubted he would be able to convince Miss Hannah Smith to get back on her horse. Besides, she should be helping her mother with the cabbage, or getting on with the sewing the Kellaway women were taking in to replace the buttons they used to make. For Bet Butterfield had bought all of their buttons and materials off them, and got them to show her how to make several sorts. Maisie had expressed surprise when her mother agreed to give up the buttons, but Anne Kellaway had been adamant. “We live in London now, not Dorsetshire,” she’d said. “We have to leave Dorset things behind.” At first Maisie had been glad of the change, but lately she had begun to miss her Dorset buttons. Mending others’ clothes was not as satisfying as the thrill of making something entirely new out of nothing-a delicate, cobwebbed button out of a ring and a piece of thread, for instance.
Now she stood on the front steps of the amphitheatre and peered out into the fog engulfing London. The Kellaways had heard much about this thick, choking blanket, but had been lucky enough not to experience it fully until now, for the spring and summer had been breezy, which kept the fog from settling. In the autumn, however, coal fires in houses were lit all day, billowing smoke into the streets, where it hung in the stillness, muffling light and sound. It was only midafternoon, but street lamps were already lit-Maisie could see them disappearing up into the gloom on Westminster Bridge. From habit she studied the people appearing out of the fog as they walked over the bridge toward her, looking in each figure for Rosie Wightman. Maisie had been watching for her this past month, but her old friend had not come.
She hesitated on the steps. Since getting lost in London the month before, Maisie had stopped taking the back-street route between the amphitheatre and home, even though she knew the way and several of the people and shops along it as well. Instead she usually walked along Westminster Bridge Road, where there were more people and the route was clear. It had grown so foggy since she’d come to the amphitheatre earlier, however, that she wondered if she should walk even there. She was just turning to go back in and ask Jem if he would accompany her when John Astley pushed through the door and ran straight into her.
“Oh!” Maisie cried.
John Astley bowed. “My apologies, miss.” He was going to pass her but happened to glance at her face, and stopped. For John Astley saw there a look that balanced out the fire of Miss Laura Devine and the tears of Miss Hannah Smith. Maisie was gazing at him with the complete earthy adoration of a Dorset girl. She would never glare at him, or call him a shit sack, or slap him-as Miss Hannah Smith had just done when he followed her backstage. Maisie would not criticize him, but support him; not make demands on him, but accept him; not spurn him, but open herself to him. Though not as refined as Miss Hannah Smith-this was after all a raw country girl with a red nose and a frilly mop cap-yet she had bright eyes and a fine slight figure that a part of his body was already responding to. She was just the tonic a man needed after being the target of rage and jealousy.
John Astley put on his kindest, most helpful face; most importantly, he appeared interested, which was the most seductive quality of all to a girl like Maisie. He studied her as she hesitated on the edge of the dense, sulfuric, all-enveloping fog. “May I be of assistance?” he asked.
“Oh thank’ee, sir!” Maisie cried. “It’s just-I need to get home, but the fog do scare me.”
“Do you live nearby?”
“That I do, sir. I be just two doors away from you at Hercules Buildings.”
“Ah, so we are neighbors. I thought you looked familiar.”
“Yes, sir. We met at the fire in the summer-do you remember? And-well, my father and brother work here for the circus. I be here often, bringing them their meals and such.”
“I am going towards Hercules Buildings myself. Allow me to escort you.” John Astley held out an arm to her. Maisie stared at it as if he were offering her a jewel-encrusted crown. It was rare in the life of a modest girl such as Maisie to be given exactly what she had been dreaming of. She reached over and touched his arm tentatively, as though expecting it to melt. But the cloth of his blue coat, with its flesh underneath, was real, and a thrill visibly shook her.
John Astley laid his other hand over hers and squeezed it, encouraging Maisie to tuck her hand in the crook of his elbow. “There we are, miss-”
“Maisie.”
“I am at your service, Maisie.” John Astley led her down the steps and left into the murk of Stangate Street rather than right into the marginally brighter fog of Westminster Bridge Road. Maisie was in such a warm fog of her own that without a murmur she allowed him to take her along the shortcut she had avoided for a month. Indeed, Maisie didn’t even notice where they were going. To be able to walk with-and even to touch-the handsomest, ablest, and most elegant man she knew was beyond a dream. It was the most important moment in her life. She stepped lightly alongside him as if the fog had got under her feet and cushioned her from the ground.
John Astley was fully aware of the effect he was having on Maisie, and he knew enough to say little as they first went along. To start with he only spoke to direct her through the fog-“Careful of that cart”; “Let’s get you out of the gutter, shall we?”; “Just step to your right a moment to avoid that dung.” John Astley had grown up with London fog and was used to navigating through it, allowing his other senses to take over-his nose sniffing out horses or pubs or rubbish, his feet sensing the slope of the gutter on the sides of the road or the cobbles in mews. Though the fog muffled sound, he could still tell whether one, two, or four horses were coming along, and distinguish a gig from a chaise. And so he walked confidently through the fog-slowly too, for Hercules Buildings wasn’t far, and he needed time.
Once he had gained Maisie’s physical confidence, he began gently to lead her along in conversation. “Did you bring dinner to your father and brother today?” he suggested.
“Yes, sir.”
“And what did you bring them? Wait, let me guess. A meat pie?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did you buy it or make it yourself?”
“I helped Ma. I made the crust.”
“I’m sure you make a very fine crust, Maisie, with your delicate fingers-the finest in Lambeth.”
Maisie giggled. “Thank’ee, sir.”
They walked a little farther, passing the Queen’s Head at the corner where Stangate Street ran into Lambeth Marsh, the yellow light from the pub staining the fog the color of phlegm. No one was outside drinking in such weather, but as they passed, the door burst open and a man reeled out, laughing and cursing at the same time. “Oh!” Maisie clutched John Astley’s arm.