“Course. I said I would, didn’t I?” Maggie didn’t add that she was still waiting for Charlie to give her the money.
Mrs. Blake was going around the walls, straightening the prints and paintings. “You will be careful, girls, won’t you? If you start to feel ill or have pains, Maisie, you’ll get the coachman to stop.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Have you been in many coaches, Mrs. Blake?” Maggie asked.
Mrs. Blake chuckled. “We’ve never been out of London, my dear.”
“Oh!” It had not occurred to Maggie that she might be doing something the more experienced Blakes had not.
“We’ve walked out in the countryside, of course,” Mrs. Blake continued, brushing the back of Mr. Blake’s armchair. “Sometimes a long way. But always within a half day’s walk of London. I can’t imagine what it must be like to be so far away from what you know. Mr. Blake knows, of course, for he journeys far and wide in his mind. Indeed, he’s always someplace else. Sometimes I see very little of him.” She let her fingers rest on the ridge of the armchair’s back.
“’Tis hard,” Maisie murmured, “being in one place, and thinking about t’other so.” Tears began to roll down her face. “I’ll be so glad to see the Piddle Valley again, no matter what they think of me when they see me.” She quickly dried her eyes with a corner of her apron when she heard Mr. Blake’s step on the stairs.
He came in with two small, flat, identical packages wrapped in brown paper and tied with string. “This is for you, and that for Jem when you see him,” he said. “For helping me when I most needed it.” As he handed the packages to Maggie, she heard the sharp catching of Mrs. Blake’s breath in her throat.
“Oh, thank you, Mr. Blake!” Maggie whispered in confusion as she held one in each hand. She didn’t receive many gifts, and certainly not from someone like Mr. Blake; she wasn’t sure if she was meant to open them now or not.
“Take good care of those, my dear,” Mrs. Blake said in a tight voice. “They’re precious.”
That decided Maggie-she wouldn’t open them just yet. Stacking them together, she slipped them into her apron pocket. “Thank you,” she repeated, wanting to cry but not knowing why.
4
Another surprise awaited Maggie out in the street. Now that the Kellaways no longer lived at no. 12 Hercules Buildings, she never bothered to give the house more than a glance as she passed. This time, though, she heard Miss Pelham’s raised voice and looked to see who was on the receiving end. It was a girl Maisie’s age, rough in a torn satin skirt that strained against the protruding bump only a little smaller than Maisie’s.
“Go away!” Miss Pelham was shouting. “Get out of my garden! That family was nothing but trouble when they lived here, and look-even now they drag down my good name. Who told you to come here, anyway?”
Maggie couldn’t hear the girl’s reply, but Miss Pelham soon supplied the information. “I’m going to have a word with Mr. Astley. How dare he send a tart like you round to me! His father wouldn’t dare do such a thing. Now, away! Go away, girl!”
“But where do I go now?” the girl wailed. “No one’ll have me like this!” As she turned from Miss Pelham’s door Maggie got a better look at her and, though she’d only seen her once before, recognized the straw hair and pale face and unmistakable pathos of Rosie Wightman, Maisie and Jem’s friend from Dorsetshire.
“Rosie!” Maggie hissed as the girl reached the gate. Rosie looked at her blankly, unable to distinguish Maggie’s face from the long parade of characters she’d been involved with over the months since she’d briefly met her.
“Rosie, are you looking for Maisie Kellaway?” Maggie persisted.
Rosie’s face cleared. “Oh, yes!” she cried. “She told me to come to the circus, an’ I did just now, but there be no Kellaways there no more. An’ I don’t know what to do.”
Miss Pelham had caught sight of Maggie. “You!” she crowed. “Of course I’m not surprised to find you hanging about with tawdry trash like her. She’s a fine example of what you’ll become!”
“Shhh!” Maggie hissed. Passersby were beginning to take note of them, and Maggie didn’t want to draw attention to yet another pregnant girl.
No one, however, could shush Miss Pelham. “Are you telling me to be quiet, you little guttersnipe?” she cried, her voice rising almost to a song. “I’ll have you taken away and beaten till you’re sorry you’re alive! I’ll have you-”
“I was only saying shush, ma’am,” Maggie interrupted loudly, and thinking fast, “because you won’t want to draw more attention to yourself than you already have. I just heard someone telling another that you’d a visitor-your niece.” She nodded at Rosie Wightman. A man in the road carrying a basket of shrimps on his head broke his stride at Maggie’s words and leered at Miss Pelham and Rosie. “She looks just like you, ma’am!” he said, to Maggie’s delight and Miss Pelham’s horror. The latter gazed fearfully about to see if anyone else had heard, then jumped inside and slammed the door.
Turning away in satisfaction, Maggie contemplated her latest surprise and sighed. “Lord a mercy, Rosie Wightman, what we goin’ to do with you?”
Rosie stood complacent. It was enough for her to have got herself this far, even if ten months later than Jem and Maisie had expected her. As with the men she went with, once a course of action was set in motion, she was content to surrender. “Have you anything to eat?” she yawned. “I be so hungry.”
“Oh Lord,” Maggie sighed again, before taking Rosie by the arm and leading her to no. 13 Hercules Buildings.
5
It was rare for the Butterfields to sit down of an evening and eat together at home. To Maggie it was a miracle that this happened the night before she was to leave on the Weymouth coach. It was what she might have planned if she had thought she could manage it. As it was, she had expected simply to go to bed early and sneak out before dawn to pick up the girls. She had prepared several lies, if she needed them, for why she couldn’t accompany her mother to a night wash (a vinegar girl had asked her to fill in the next day) or her father to the pub (she had a bellyache). In the end she didn’t need either: Bet Butterfield did not have a wash to go to, and Dick Butterfield announced that he was staying in and expected a steak and kidney pie for supper.
Pie brought Charlie sniffing, and pulled them to the table to sit around the plate Bet Butterfield set down in the center. For a few minutes there was no sound as they tucked in. “Ah,” Dick Butterfield sighed after several bites. “Perfection, chuck. You could be cooking for the King.”
“I’d settle for washin’ his sheets,” Bet Butterfield replied. “Think what a lot o’ money them palace laundresses must earn, eh, Dick?”
“What’s the matter, Mags-you’re not eatin’ the pie your mam’s taken such trouble over. Is that gratitude?”
“Sorry, Mam, I’ve a bit of a bellyache.” Maggie used up one of her lies anyway. She was finding it hard to swallow, her stomach jittery with nerves about the next day. Her mother’s talk of money made her feel even worse: She kept shooting glances at Charlie, who still hadn’t given her the spoon money. She was hoping to pull him aside later. Now he was enjoying ignoring her as he reached for another helping of pie.
“Well, now, that’s a shame,” Dick Butterfield said. “Maybe you’ll feel better later.”
“Maybe.” Maggie looked at Charlie again. He was sucking at a piece of beef fat, the grease glistening on his lips. She wanted to slap him.
Charlie smiled at her. “What’s the matter, Mags? Not making you sick, am I? You’re not feeling poor, are you?”
“Shut up,” Maggie muttered, wondering now at Charlie’s mood, which was not the sort in which he was likely to keep promises.