“Can you do that?” Maggie asked Jem, trying now to smooth over his embarrassment, tempted though she was to tease him more.
“Not so well as Pa,” he replied, his face still red. “I practice making ’em, an’ if they be good enough he’ll use ’em.”
“You be doing well, son,” Thomas Kellaway murmured without looking up.
“What do your pa make?” Jem asked. The men back in Piddletrenthide were makers, by and large-of bread, of beer, of barley, of shoes or candles or flour.
Maggie snorted. “Money, if he can. This an’ that. I should find him now. That smell’s making my head ache, anyway. What’s it from?”
“Varnish and paint for the chairs. You get used to it.”
“I don’t plan to. Don’t worry, I’ll see myself out. Bye for now, then.”
“Z’long.”
“Come again!” Maisie called out from the other room as Maggie clattered down the stairs.
Anne Kellaway tutted. “What will Miss Pelham think of that noise? Jem, go and see she be quiet on the way out.”
6
As Miss Pelham came up to her front gate, having spent a happy day visiting friends in Chelsea, she caught sight of some of the wood shavings Maisie had scattered in front of the house and frowned. At first Maisie had been dumping the shavings into Miss Pelham’s carefully pruned, O-shaped hedge in the front garden. Miss Pelham had had to set her straight on that offense. And of course it was better the shavings were in the street than on the stairs. But it would be best of all if there were no shavings at all, because no Kellaways were there to produce them. Miss Pelham had often regretted over the past week that she’d been so hard on the family who’d rented the rooms from her before the Kellaways. They’d been noisy of a night and the baby had cried constantly toward the end, but at least they didn’t track shavings everywhere. She knew too that there was a great deal of wood upstairs, as she’d watched it being carried through her hallway. There were smells as well, and thumping sometimes that Miss Pelham did not appreciate at all.
And now: Who was this dark-haired rascal running out of the house with shavings shedding from the soles of her shoes? She had just the sort of sly look that made Miss Pelham clutch her bag more tightly to her chest. Then she recognized Maggie. “Here, girl!” she cried. “What are you doing, coming out of my house? What have you been stealing?”
Before Maggie could reply, two people appeared: Jem popped out behind her, and the door to no. 13 Hercules Buildings opened and Mr. Blake stepped out. Miss Pelham shrank back. Mr. Blake had never been anything but civil to her-indeed, he nodded at her now-yet he made her nervous. His glassy gray eyes always made her think of a bird staring at her, waiting to peck.
“Far as I know, this is Mr. Astley’s house, not yours,” Maggie said cheekily.
Miss Pelham turned to Jem. “Jem, what is this girl doing here? She’s not a friend of yours, I trust?”
“She-she’s made a delivery.” Even in the Piddle Valley, Jem had not been a good liar.
“What did she deliver? Four-day-old fish? Laundry that’s not seen a lick of lye?”
“Nails,” Maggie cut in. “I’ll be bringing ’em by reg’lar, won’t I, Jem? You’ll be seein’ lots more o’ me.” She stepped sideways off Miss Pelham’s front path and into her front garden, where she followed the tiny hedge around in its pointless circle, running a hand along the top of it.
“Get out of my garden, girl!” Miss Pelham cried. “Jem, get her out of there!”
Maggie laughed, and began to run around the hedge, faster and faster, then leapt over it into the middle, where she danced around the pruned bush, sparring at it with her fists while Miss Pelham cried, “Oh! Oh!” as if each blow were striking her.
Jem watched Maggie box the leafy ball, tiny leaves showering to the ground, and found himself smiling. He too had been tempted to kick at the absurd hedge so different from the hedgerows he was used to. Hedges in Dorsetshire were made for a reason, to keep animals in fields or off of paths, and grown of prickly hawthorn and holly, elder and hazel and whitebeam, woven through with brambles and ivy and traveler’s joy.
A tap on the window upstairs brought Jem back from Dorsetshire. His mother was glaring down at him and making shooing motions at Maggie. “Er, Maggie-weren’t you going to show me something?” Jem said. “Your-your father, eh? My pa wanted me to-to agree on the price.”
“That’s it. C’mon, then.” Maggie ignored Miss Pelham, who was still shouting and swatting ineffectively at her, and pushed through the ring of hedge without bothering to jump it this time, leaving behind a gap of broken branches.
“Oh!” cried Miss Pelham for the tenth time.
As Jem moved to follow Maggie into the street, he glanced at Mr. Blake, who had remained still and quiet, his arms crossed over his chest, while Maggie had her fun with the hedge. He did not seem bothered by the noise and drama. Indeed, they had all forgotten he was there, or Miss Pelham would not have cried “Oh!” ten times and Maggie would not have beaten the bush. He was looking at them with his clear gaze. It was not a look like that of Jem’s father, who tended to focus on the middle distance. Rather Mr. Blake was looking at them, and at the passersby in the street, and at Lambeth Palace rising up in the distance, and at the clouds behind it. He was taking in everything, without judgment.
“Ar’ernoon, sir,” Jem said.
“Hallo, my boy,” Mr. Blake replied.
“Hallo, Mr. Blake!” Maggie called from the street, not to be outdone by Jem. “How’s your missus, then?”
Her cry revived Miss Pelham, who had sunk into herself in Mr. Blake’s presence. “Get out of my sight, girl!” she cried. “I’ll have you whipped! Jem, don’t you let her back in here. And see her to the end of the street-I don’t trust her for a second. She’ll steal the gate if we don’t watch her!”
“Yes, ma’am.” Jem raised his eyebrows apologetically at Mr. Blake, but his neighbor had already opened his gate and stepped into the street. When Jem joined Maggie, they watched as Mr. Blake walked down Hercules Buildings toward the river.
“Look at his cocky step,” Maggie said. “And did you see the color in his cheeks? And his hair all mussed? We know what he’s been up to!”
Jem would not have described Mr. Blake’s pace as cocky. Rather he was flat-footed, though not plodding. He walked steadily and deliberately, as if he had a destination in mind rather than merely setting out for a stroll.
“Let’s follow him,” Maggie suggested.
“No. Let him be.” Jem was surprised at his own decisiveness. He would have liked to follow Mr. Blake to his destination-not the way Maggie would do it, though, as a game and a tease, but respectfully, from a distance.
Miss Pelham and Anne Kellaway were still glaring at the children from their positions. “Let’s be going,” Jem said, and began to walk along Hercules Buildings in the opposite direction from Mr. Blake.
Maggie trotted after him. “You’re really comin’ with me?”
“Miss Pelham told me to see you to the end of the street.”
“And you’re goin’ to do what that old stick in a dress wants?”
Jem shrugged. “She’s the householder. We’ve to keep her happy.”
“Well, I’m goin’ to find Pa. You want to come with me?”
Jem thought of his anxious mother, of his hopeful sister, of his absorbed father, and of Miss Pelham waiting by the stairs to pounce on him. Then he thought of the streets he did not yet know in Lambeth, and in London, and of having a guide to take him. “I’ll come with you,” he said, letting Maggie catch up and match his stride so that they were walking side by side.
7