They worked, and waited, even those who didn’t know they were waiting for anything, and time pressed down like a stone. Once it began to get dark and Anne Kellaway had lit the lamps, Jem kept coming in from the workshop and going to the front window until his mother asked him what he was looking for. Then he stayed in the back, but listened keenly, stealing glances at Maggie through the open door, wishing they had a plan.
It began as a low hum that at first wasn’t noticeable because of more immediate sounds: horses clopping past, children shouting, street criers selling candles and pies and fish, the watchman calling the hour. Soon, though, the sound of a company of feet crunching along the road and voices murmuring to one another became more distinct. When he heard it Jem left the workshop and went to the window again. “Pa,” he called after a moment.
Thomas Kellaway paused, then laid down the adze he had been using to carve a saddleback shape into the chair seat, and joined his son at the window. Maggie jumped up, scattering the High Tops she had accumulated in her lap.
“What is’t, Tom?” Anne Kellaway said sharply.
Thomas Kellaway cleared his throat. “I’ve some business downstairs. I won’t be long.”
Frowning, Anne Kellaway joined them at the window. When she glimpsed the crowd gathering in the street in front of the Blakes’ door-and growing bigger all the time-she turned pale.
“What do you see, Ma?” Maisie called from her chair. A few months ago she would have been the first out of her seat and to the window.
Before anyone could respond, they heard a rap at Miss Pelham’s front door, and the crowd in the street broadened its attention to include no. 12 Hercules Buildings. “Tom!” Anne Kellaway cried. “What’s happening?”
“Don’t you be worrying, Anne. It’ll be all right in a minute.”
They heard the door open downstairs and Miss Pelham’s querulous voice ring out, though they could not make out what she said.
“I’d best go down,” Thomas Kellaway said.
“Not on your own!” Anne Kellaway followed him from the room, turning at the top of the stairs to call back, “Jem, Maisie, stay here!”
Jem ignored her; he and Maggie clattered down after them. After sitting alone in the room for a moment, Maisie got up and followed.
As they reached the front door, Miss Pelham was signing a book similar to John Roberts’s ledger. “Of course I’m happy to sign if it’s going to do any good,” she was saying to an older man with a crooked back who held out the book for her. “I can’t bear the thought of those revolutionaries coming here!” She shuddered. “However, I don’t at all appreciate a mob in front of my house-it paints me in a poor light among my neighbors. I would like you to take your…your associates elsewhere!” Miss Pelham’s frizzy curls quivered with indignation.
“Oh, the rabble an’t for you, ma’am,” the man replied reassuringly. “It’s for next door.”
“But my neighbors don’t know that!”
“Actually, we do want to see”-he referred to his book-“a Thomas Kellaway, who was a little reluctant earlier to sign. I believe he lives here.” He looked past Miss Pelham’s head into her hallway. “That will be you, will it, sir?”
Miss Pelham whipped her head around to glare at the Kellaways gathered behind her.
“You were reluctant earlier?” Anne Kellaway hissed at her husband. “When were that?”
Thomas Kellaway stepped away from his wife. “Pardon, Miss Pelham, if you do just let me pass I’ll go an’ straighten this out.”
Miss Pelham continued to glare at him as if he had brought great shame on her household. Then she caught sight of Maggie. “Get that girl out of my house!” she cried. Thomas Kellaway was forced to squeeze past his landlady so that he could stand on the doorstep next to the man with the humpback.
“Now, sir,” the man said, with more politeness than John Roberts had shown earlier. “You are Thomas Kellaway, is that right? I believe you were read earlier the declaration of loyalty we are asking each resident of Lambeth to sign. Are you prepared now to sign it?” He held out the book.
Before Thomas Kellaway could respond, a cry went up from the crowd, who had turned their attention back to no. 13 Hercules Buildings. The man with the hump stepped away from Miss Pelham’s door so that he might see what was, after all, the main attraction. Thomas Kellaway and Miss Pelham followed him onto the path.
5
William Blake had opened his door. He did not say a word-not a hallo, or a curse, or a “What do you want?” He simply stood filling his doorway in his long black coat. He was hatless, his brown hair ruffled, his mouth set, his eyes wide and alert.
“Mr. Blake!” John Roberts stepped up to the door, his jaw flexing as if he were chewing on a tough piece of meat. “You are requested by the Lambeth Association for the Preservation of Liberty and Property Against Republicans and Levellers to sign this declaration of loyalty to the British monarchy. Will you sign it, sir?”
There was a long silence, during which Jem, Maggie, Anne Kellaway, and Maisie pushed out of the house so that they might see and hear what was happening. Anne Kellaway joined her husband, while the others crept to the end of the path.
Maggie and Jem were stunned by how big the crowd had grown, filling the street completely. There were torches and lanterns dotted about, and the street lamps had been lit, but still most of the faces were in shadow and looked unfamiliar and frightening, even though they were probably neighbors Jem and Maggie knew, and there out of curiosity rather than meaning to cause trouble. Nonetheless, there was a tension among the people that threatened to erupt into violence.
“Oh, Jem, what we going to do?” Maggie whispered.
“I dunno.”
“Is Mr. Blake in trouble?” Maisie asked.
“Yes.”
“Then we must help him.” She said it so firmly that Jem felt ashamed.
Maggie frowned. “C’mon,” she said finally, and, taking Jem’s hand, she opened Miss Pelham’s gate and slipped into the crowd. Maisie took his other hand, and the three snaked through the onlookers, pushing their way closer to Mr. Blake’s front gate. There they discovered a gap in those gathered. The men, women, and children on the street were simply watching, while on the other side of the Blakes’ fence a smaller group had bunched together in the front garden, all of them men, most recognizable from the Cumberland Gardens meeting. To Maggie’s astonishment, Charlie Butterfield was among them, though standing on the edge of the group, as if he were a hanger-on not yet completely accepted by the others. “That bastard! What’s he doing there?” Maggie muttered. “We have to distract ’em,” she whispered to Jem. She looked around. “I’ve an idea. This way!” She plunged into the crowd, pulling Jem after her.
“Maisie, go back to Ma and Pa,” Jem called. “You shouldn’t be out here.”
Maisie did not answer him; she may not even have heard him. She was watching Mr. Blake, who stood silent in his doorway, not answering any of the questions John Roberts was putting to him: “You are a printer, Mr. Blake. What sort of things do you print? Do you write about the French revolution, Mr. Blake? You have worn the bonnet rouge, have you not, Mr. Blake? Have you read Thomas Paine, Mr. Blake? Do you own copies of his works? Have you met him? In your writing, do you question the sovereignty of our King, Mr. Blake? Are you or aren’t you going to sign this declaration, Mr. Blake?”
Throughout this interrogation, Mr. Blake maintained an impassive expression, his eyes set on the horizon. Though he appeared to be listening, he did not seem to feel that he must answer, or indeed even that the questions were directed at him.