“So you’d just let any girl in trouble get what was comin’ to her, would you? Like you did with Maisie in the stables-you just walked away from her, you coward!”
“I an’t a coward!” Charlie bellowed, heedless now of his raging headache. “I helped her just now!”
The mention of his sister made Jem think of her reciting Mr. Blake’s song in the crowd. “I’d best get back to Maisie,” he announced, “and be sure she’s all right.” He thrust the torch at Maggie, who gazed at him in confusion.
“Don’t you want to hear the rest of the story?” she asked.
“I know it now-what the crime were.”
“No, you don’t! It wasn’t that! He didn’t get to do that to me, see! I stopped him! He had a knife, and when he was on top of me, fumblin’ with himself, he dropped the knife and I grabbed it and I…and…I…”
“She stuck him in the throat,” Charlie finished for her. “Right in the throat like a pig. Then she slashed him. You should have seen the blood.” He spoke in an admiring tone.
Jem stared at Maggie. “You-you killed him?”
Maggie set her jaw. “I was defendin’ myself, like you just did with Charlie here. I didn’t wait around to see if it killed him-I ran. Had to throw away my clothes and steal some more, they were that bloody.”
“I saw,” Charlie murmured. “I watched him die. Took a long time, ’cause he had to bleed to death.”
Maggie studied her brother, and something clicked in her mind. “You got the spoon off him, didn’t you?”
Charlie nodded. “Thought it was his. Didn’t know it was yours.”
“Have you still got it?”
“Sold it. Was a caddy spoon, for tea. Got a good price for it.”
“That money’s mine.”
The blow to his head seemed to have knocked the fight out of Charlie, for he didn’t protest. “Don’t have it now, but I’ll owe you.”
Jem couldn’t believe they were discussing caddy spoons and money after such a story. Maggie had stopped shaking and grown calmer. Instead it was Jem who was now trembling. “I’d best get back,” he repeated. “Maisie will need me.”
“Wait, Jem,” Maggie said. “Don’t you-” She gazed at him, her eyes pleading. She was biting her lips, and Jem shuddered to think that a few minutes before he had kissed them-kissed someone who had killed a man.
“I have to go,” he said, dropping the brick, and stumbled into the dark.
“Wait, Jem! We’ll come with you!” Maggie called. “Don’t you even want the torch?”
But Jem had found Cut-Throat Lane, and he ran along it, allowing his feet to feel their way home while his mind went blank.
8
The crowd was gone by the time he reached Hercules Buildings, though there was evidence all around of the recent brawl-bricks, dung, sticks, and other objects lying about, and windows all along Hercules Buildings broken. Residents had banded together and were walking up and down to deter thieves from taking advantage of the easy access afforded by the gaping windows. A carriage waited in front of Mr. Blake’s house.
Miss Pelham’s house was lit almost as bright as a pub, as if she were trying to chase every shadow of doubt from her rooms. When Jem went inside he heard his father’s voice in her front room, and then her interrupting quaver.
“I am sorry about your daughter’s health, but I cannot with any good faith allow revolutionary sympathizers to remain in this house even a day longer. Frankly, Mr. Kellaway, if it were not a cold winter’s night, you’d already be out on the street.”
“But where will we go?” came Thomas Kellaway’s plaintive voice.
“You should have thought of that when you refused to sign the declaration, and in front of everyone. What will the neighbors think?”
“But Mr. Blake-”
“Mr. Blake has nothing to do with it. He will have his own price to pay. You did not sign, and so you will not remain here. I would like you gone by noon tomorrow. I shall be calling round to the Association in the morning, and I’m sure they will be very keen to help me if you are still here when I get back. Indeed, if they had not been so rudely attacked tonight, I expect they would be here now, rather than out chasing down ruffians. Where is your son, may I ask?”
Before Thomas Kellaway could mumble a response, Jem opened the door and walked in. Miss Pelham jerked her head around like an angry hen and glared at him. “I be here,” he muttered. “Why d’you want to know?” There no longer seemed any reason to be polite to her.
Miss Pelham sensed his change, and turned both fearful and defensive. “Get out, boy-no one said you could come in!” She herself scurried to the door, as if obeying her own order. She was scared of him, Jem could see, and it made him feel briefly powerful. But there was no benefit to be gained from it other than the pleasure of seeing her cower-she was still throwing them out.
He turned to his father. Thomas Kellaway was standing with his head bowed. “Pa, Ma wants you upstairs,” Jem said, giving him the lie he needed to escape from the room.
Thomas Kellaway looked at his son, his blue eyes tired but focused for once on what was in front of him rather than in the distance. “I’m sorry, son,” he said. “I made a mess of things.”
Jem shuffled his feet. “No, Pa, not at all,” he insisted, aware of Miss Pelham listening greedily. “It’s just we need you upstairs.” He turned and pushed past Miss Pelham, knowing his father would follow. As they clumped up the stairs, Anne Kellaway popped her head out from the doorway at the top, where she had been listening. Their landlady, taking courage from their receding backs, came out into the hallway and called up, “Tomorrow by noon you’re to be out! By noon, d’you hear? And that means your daughter as well. She’s only got herself to blame, getting herself into trouble like that. I should have thrown you out two months ago when she-”
“Shut up!” Jem spun about and roared. Sensing in Miss Pelham the eagerness of months of pent-up curtain-twitching about to spill over, he had to use harsh words to stop her. “You shut your bone box, you poxy bitch!”
His words froze Miss Pelham, her mouth agape, her eyes wide. Then, as if a string were attached to her waist and had been given a great tug, she flew backward into her front room, slamming the door behind her.
Anne and Thomas Kellaway stared at their son. Anne Kellaway stepped aside and, ushering her men in, closed the door firmly to the outside world.
Inside, she cast her eyes around the room. “What do we do now? Where do we go?”
Thomas Kellaway cleared his throat. “Home. We’ll go home.” As the words left his mouth it felt to him to be the most important decision he had ever made.
“We can’t do that!” Anne Kellaway argued. “Maisie an’t strong enough to travel in this weather.”
They all looked at Maisie, who was sitting wrapped up by the fire, as she had been for much of the last two months. Her eyes were bright from the evening’s events, but not feverish. She glanced at them, then gazed back into the fire. Anne Kellaway stared at her daughter, searching for answers to the questions Miss Pelham’s words had raised. “Maisie-”
“Leave her be, Ma,” Jem interrupted. “Just leave her be. She’s all right, an’t you, Maisie?”
Maisie smiled at her brother. “Yes. Oh, Jem, Mr. Blake were ever so grateful. He said to thank you and Maggie-you’ll know why. And he thanked me too.” She flushed, and looked down at her hands resting in her lap. At that moment Anne Kellaway felt, as she often had in London, that her children lived in a different world from their parents.
“I’ve an idea,” Jem said suddenly. He clattered back downstairs and reached the carriage next door just as the Blakes were stepping into it.