Burning Bright

1

Maisie watched John Astley rehearse from her favorite seat. She had tried all of the different seats in the amphitheatre, and knew which she liked best. When they attended shows, the Kellaways normally sat in the pit, close to the ring where the horses ran, the armies marched, the tumblers tumbled, and Miss Laura Devine spun and swooped. However, for those who wanted a view from above, the boxes were the best seats. Located on either side of the stage over the pit, they raised their viewers above the action of both circus and audience.

Today Maisie was sitting in a box to the right of the stage. She liked it there because it was snug and private, and she had a clear view of everything John Astley did, whether with his horse in the ring or with Miss Hannah Smith on stage. Miss Smith was petite, with the turned-out feet of a trained dancer, fair hair, and a deli-cate face like an orchid. She had played a fetching Columbine opposite John Astley’s Harlequin, and was popular with audiences. Maisie hated her.

This afternoon John Astley was rehearsing on horseback with Miss Smith for a surprise finale that would mark the end of the season. At the moment they were sitting together on their horses-he on his chestnut mare and wearing a bright blue coat, she in a white gown that stood out against her black stallion-discussing some part of their act. Maisie sighed; though she hated Miss Smith, she could not take her eyes off of her or John Astley, for they seemed to fit perfectly together. After a few minutes of watching, Maisie found she was grinding her fists in her lap.

She did not leave, however, though her mother could have done with her help at home, where she was pickling cabbage. Soon Maisie would not see John Astley at all: The day after the last performance of the season, the company would travel directly by coach to Dublin, to spend the winter season there and at Liverpool. The rest of the show-the scenery, the props, the cranes and pulleys and hoists, the horses-would follow by ship. Her father and brother were even now rushing to pack up scenery from the earlier shows in the season, readying it for transport that had not even been secured yet. Maisie knew this because Philip Astley was sitting in the box next to hers, conducting business, and she had just heard him compose with John Fox an advertisement for a newspaper:

WANTED, A VESSEL TO CARRY MACHINERY TO DUBLIN

She must sail the 13th, 14th, or 15th instant.

Apply to Mr. Astley, Astley’s Amphitheatre,

Westminster Bridge Rd.

Maisie knew little about shipping, but even she was sure they needed more than three days to find passage to Ireland. It made her catch her breath and squeeze her hands together in her lap. Perhaps during the delay Mr. Astley would at last ask Thomas Kellaway and his family to travel to Dublin, as she had been praying he would during the last month.

Applause broke out from all around the amphitheatre, for Miss Hannah Smith was now standing on one foot on the saddle of her horse, the other leg held out behind her. They all had stopped what they were doing to watch. Even Jem and Thomas Kellaway had come out from backstage along with the other carpenters and were clapping. Not wanting her silence to stand out, Maisie clapped too. Miss Smith smiled tightly, trying not to let her extended leg wobble.

“Brava, my dear!” Mr. Astley shouted from his box next to Maisie’s. “She reminds me of Patty,” he said to John Fox. “I must get the wife along to the finale to see this. Shame so few women are willing to perform on horseback.”

“They got more sense’n men,” John Fox pointed out. “Looks like she’s lost hers.”

“That girl will do anything for John,” Philip Astley said. “That’s why she’s up there now.”

“Anything?”

“Well, not anything. Not yet.” Both men laughed.

“She knows what she’s doing,” Philip Astley continued. “She’s handling him as well as any horse. Brava, my dear!” he shouted out once more. “We’ve got our grand finale now!”

Miss Smith slowed her horse and lowered her leg. When she’d maneuvered herself back into the saddle, John Astley leaned over and kissed her hand, to more applause and laughter, and blushes from Miss Smith.

It was then that Maisie felt the silence rippling out from the box on the other side of the ring. She peered across and saw there the one person who wasn’t clapping: From the shadows emerged the round white face of Miss Laura Devine, gazing down at Miss Smith with even more hatred than Maisie herself felt for the ingenue. Miss Devine’s face was no longer so smooth and welcoming as it had once been. Instead it was haggard, underlined with a disgusted wince, as if she had just tasted something she didn’t care for. She looked wretched.

When Miss Devine looked up and met Maisie’s eyes, her expression did not change. They gazed at each other, until Miss Devine let herself sink back into the shadows, like the moon disappearing behind clouds.

2

Next door, Philip Astley was running through a list of names with John Fox. “Mr. and Mrs. De Castro. Mr. Johannot. Mr. Lawrence. Mrs. Henley. Mr. Davis. Mr. Crossman. Mr. Jeffries. Mr. Whit-more. Monsieur Richer. Mr. Sanderson.”

“He’s coming later.”

“Damme, Fox, I need him now! The Irish will want new songs and they’ll want ’em straightaway. I was expecting to ride with him in the coach and compose ’em then.”

“He’s writing for a show that’s to open on the Haymarket.”

“I don’t care if he’s writing for the King himself! I want him in that coach on the thirteenth!”

There was silence from John Fox.

“Any other surprises for me, Fox? Any others I should know about? Tell me now. Next you’ll be saying the carpenters have laid down their tools and become sailors.”

John Fox cleared his throat. “We han’t got a carpenter agreed to come, sir.”

“What? Why not?”

“Most o’ them’s got jobs elsewhere, and don’t fancy the trip. They know what it’s like.”

“There’s nothing wrong with Dublin! Have we asked everyone?”

“All but Kellaway.”

Maisie had been only half-listening to the conversation, but now she sat up.

“Send Kellaway up, then.”

“Yes, sir.” There was a pause. “You’ll want to speak to her too.”

“Who?”

“Her. Across the way. Can’t you see her?”

“Ah. Yes.”

“Does she know about Monsieur Richer?” John Fox asked.

“No.”

“She’ll need to know, sir. So’s they can rehearse.”

Philip Astley sighed. “All right, I’ll talk to her after Kellaway. Get him now.”

“Yes, sir.”

“It’s not easy being manager, Fox.”

“I expect not, sir.”

When her father appeared before Mr. Astley, Maisie remained as still as she could in her box, feeling guilty already for eavesdropping, before words had even been exchanged.

“Kellaway, my good man, how are you?” Philip Astley called out, as if Thomas Kellaway were on the other side of the ring rather than standing in front of him.

“Well enough, sir.”

“Good, good. You still packing up the scenery?”

“Yes, sir.”

“There’s so much to do to get the company on the road, Kellaway. It requires an enormous amount of planning and packing, packing and planning, don’t it?”

“Yes, sir. It be a bit like moving from Dorsetshire to London.”

“Well, now, I suppose you’re right, Kellaway. So it’ll be easy for you this time, now you’ve had the practice.”

“Practice for what, sir?”

“On my word, I’m jumping ahead of myself, an’t I, Fox? I mean packing up and going to Dublin.”

“To Dublin?”

“You do know we’re going to Dublin, don’t you, Kellaway? After all, that’s what you’re packing the scenery for.”

“Yes, sir, but-”

“But what?”

“I-I didn’t think that meant me, sir.”

“Of course it means you! Did you think we wouldn’t need a carpenter in Dublin?”

“I be a chairmaker, sir, not a carpenter.”

“Not for me you’re not. Do you see any chairs around here that you’ve made, Kellaway?”

“Besides,” Thomas Kellaway added, as if Philip Astley had not spoken, “there be carpenters in Dublin could do the job just as well.”

“Not ones who know the scenery as you do, Kellaway. Now, what’s bothering you? I thought you’d welcome a trip to Dublin. It’s a roaring city-you’ll love it, I’m sure. And it’s milder than London in winter. Liverpool too, after. Come now, Kellaway, you wanted to get away from Dorsetshire and see a bit of the world, didn’t you? Here’s your chance. We leave in three days-that’s enough time to pack your things, eh?”

“I-what about my family?”

The seat creaked as Philip Astley shifted his weight. “Well, now, Kellaway, that’s tricky. We’ve to tighten our belts on the road, you see-a smaller company, with no room for extras. A wife’s extra. Even Patty don’t go to Dublin, do she, Fox? So I’m afraid it’s just you, Kellaway.”

Maisie gasped. Luckily the men didn’t hear her.

“But you’ll be back soon, Kellaway-it’s only till March.”

“Tha’ be five months, sir.”

“And you know, Kellaway, your family will be that glad to see you when you get back. Works like a tonic for Patty and me. Absence makes the heart fonder, you know.”

“I don’t know, sir. I’ll have to talk to Anne about it an’ give you an answer tomorrow.”

Philip Astley started to say something, but for once Thomas Kellaway interrupted him. “I have to get back to work now. Excuse me, sir.” Maisie heard the door open and her father leave.

There was chuckling from next door. “Oh, don’t you start, Fox!”

The chuckling continued.

“Damme, Fox, he got the better of me, didn’t he? He actually thinks he has a choice in the matter, don’t he? But I’m the one making decisions here, not a carpenter.”

“Shouldn’t your son be making those decisions, sir? Seeing as he’s the manager.”

Philip Astley heaved another sigh. “You would think so, wouldn’t you, Fox? But look at him.” Maisie glanced down: John Astley was on his horse, dancing sideways across the ring while Miss Hannah Smith watched. “That’s what he does best, not sitting up here making hard decisions. Speaking of which-go and fetch Miss Devine.”

3

John Fox made his way around the gallery to the boxes on the other side. Though Miss Laura Devine must have seen him approaching, she did not move to meet him, or answer the door to his knock, but sat and stared across at Philip Astley. Finally John Fox answered his own knock, opening the door and entering the box, where he leaned over to whisper something in Miss Devine’s ear. He then stood in the doorway and waited.

For a long time she did not move; nor did John Fox. At last, however, she gathered her shawl around her shoulders and stood, shaking out her skirts and patting at her dark hair, which was pulled back into a bun at the nape of her neck, before she took the arm John Fox offered. He then escorted her around the gallery as if it were full of its usual rough customers he must protect her from. When he deposited her at Philip Astley’s box, she said, “Stay, John,” as if his gallantry might soften the blow that was to come. For she knew the blow would come. She had been expecting it for weeks.

Maisie also knew what was to come. She and her mother had watched Miss Devine perform more slowly and clumsily at a recent show and guessed what was wrong. She knew too that John Fox’s presence would make little difference to the outcome-only, perhaps, to the manner in which it was relayed by Mr. Astley.

“Miss Devine, welcome,” Mr. Astley said in a tone completely different from the jocularity he had used with Thomas Kellaway. “Sit down, my dear, sit here next to me. You’re looking a touch pale-don’t she, Fox? We’ll get Mrs. Connell to make you some broth. That’s what she gives me when I’m under the weather, and Patty swears by it, don’t she, Fox?”

Neither John Fox nor Miss Devine responded to his solicitations, which made him burble on even more. “You’ve been watching the rehearsals, have you, my dear? Very exciting, the last night upon us already. And then the move to Dublin once more. On my word, how many more times will we pack up and cross the Irish Sea, eh, Fox?” He cut himself off then, as he realized this was not the most tactful thing to be saying just now.

Indeed, Philip Astley seemed to be momentarily at a loss for words. It only lasted that moment, but it was enough for all the listeners to understand that it was a struggle for him to say what he was to say. Miss Laura Devine had been with Astley’s Circus for ten years, after all, and was-now he found the words-“like a daughter you are to me, my dear, yes, like a daughter. That’s why I know when things have changed, because I know you as well as a father knows his daughter. And things have changed, my dear, han’t they?”

Miss Devine said nothing.

“Did you think I wouldn’t notice, Laura?” Philip Astley asked, allowing some of his natural impatience to creep back into his voice. “Half the audience has guessed! Did you really think we wouldn’t notice you getting fatter and slower? Why, you’re making ‘Pig on a Spit’ into the real thing!”

Maisie caught her gasp before it could ring out into the appalled silence that followed his cruel remark. It was a silence that spurred Philip Astley to fill it. “Come, now, girl, what were you thinking? How could you let that happen to you? I thought you were smarter than that.” After a pause he added more gently, “He’s not the man for you, Laura. Surely you knew that.”

At last Miss Devine spoke, though she gave an answer to a different question. “It’s because my family’s not good enough for you, isn’t it?” she said in her soft Scottish lilt-so soft that Maisie had to lean forward almost out of her box to hear. “I expect her family’s more to your liking.”

Miss Smith was now jogging sedately around the ring on her stallion while John Astley rode in the opposite direction; each time they passed, one handed the other a glass of wine to drink from and pass back the next time around.

“Laura, I have never had any jurisdiction over my son’s women. That is his own affair. I don’t want to get into an argument over why he does what he does. That is for you to take up with him. My only concern is for the show and its performers. And when I see a member of the company who can no longer perform in her condi-tion, then I must take action. First of all, I have hired Monsieur Richer from Brussels to join the show.”

There was a short silence. “Monsieur Richer is a wobbler,” Miss Devine said with disdain. “A clown on the rope.” It was true that the two slack-rope artists had very different styles. Miss Laura Devine made it a matter of honor, as well as of taste, not to wobble when she walked along the rope. Her performance was as smooth as her dark hair and pale skin.

“When John and Miss Smith finish in the ring,” Philip Astley continued as if she had not spoken, “you are to rehearse a routine with Monsieur Richer for the final show, which will introduce his talents to the audience and prepare them for his solo return next year. For you won’t be coming with us to Dublin, Miss Devine, nor joining us when we return. I’m sorry, my dear, truly I am, but there it is. Of course, you may stay in your accommodation for another month.” Philip Astley got to his feet, clearly ready for this chat to be over, now that the meat of the matter had been laid out. “Now, I must see to a few matters. If there is anything else I can do for you,” he added as he opened the door, “you need only ask John Fox, eh, Fox?”

He almost got away, but Miss Devine’s soft voice carried farther and with more force than might have been expected. “You seem to forget that the bairn will be your grandchild.”

Philip Astley stopped short and made a choking noise. “Don’t you dare try that with me, girl!” he roared. “That baby will have nothing to do with the Astleys! Nothing! He’ll be no grandson of mine!”

His unchecked voice, so accustomed to needing to carry over the noise of the show and audience, was heard in every corner of the amphitheatre. The costume girls, wrapping up bundles of clothes in a room offstage, heard it. Thomas and Jem Kellaway, building big wooden supports to sandwich pieces of scenery in between and protect them for the journey to Dublin, heard it. Mrs. Connell, counting the takings from ticket sales in the front of house, heard it. Even the circus boys, waiting outside for John Astley and Miss Hannah Smith to finish with their horses, heard it.

Maisie heard it, and it completed a puzzle she’d been worrying at in her head-the last piece being what she’d expected but hoped wasn’t so, as it meant she really ought to hate Miss Devine too.

Miss Hannah Smith certainly heard it. Though she continued to ride around the ring, she turned her face toward the box and stared, noticing for the first time the drama that was playing out at a level just above her head.

John Astley alone seemed not to have noticed his father’s outburst. He was used to Philip Astley’s bellows and rarely listened to their content. As Miss Smith was still holding out her hand for the glass, he passed it to her. She was now looking elsewhere, however, and thinking elsewhere as well, so she did not grasp it, and the glass fell to the ground between them. Despite the cushioning sawdust, it smashed.

John Astley immediately pulled up his horse. “Glass!” he shouted. A boy who had been waiting alongside to sweep up horse dung ran into the ring with his broom.

Miss Hannah Smith did not stop her horse, however. She kept riding around the ring, whipping her head around to keep her eyes on Philip Astley and Miss Laura Devine. Indeed, she would have run down the sweeping boy if John Astley hadn’t grabbed the reins of her horse and stopped it himself. “Hannah, what’s the matter with you?” he cried. “Careful where you let your horse step-that glass could do injury!”

Miss Smith sat on her horse and pulled her eyes from Miss Laura Devine to fix them on John Astley. She had gone very pale, and no longer displayed the pretty smile she had maintained throughout the rehearsal. Instead she looked as if she might be sick.

John Astley stared at her, then glanced up at the box where Miss Laura Devine sat with fiery eyes and his father still huffed like a winded horse.

Next Maisie heard something she could never have imagined issuing from Miss Hannah Smith’s mouth. “John Astley, you shit sack!” She was not as loud as Philip Astley, but loud enough for Maisie and everyone in the adjacent box to hear. The boy sweeping up the glass snorted. John Astley opened his mouth, but was unable to think of an appropriate reply. Miss Smith then jumped down from her horse and ran off, her turned-out feet making her retreat even more pathetic.

When she was gone, John Astley glared up at the box, where Miss Laura Devine still sat, triumphant for just one moment in this bleak farce. He looked as if he wanted to say something, but the giggling boy at his feet made him think the better of dragging out the scene in public. Instead he quickly dismounted, flung the reins of both horses at the boy, straightened the sleeves of his blue coat, and hurried after Miss Smith.

“Well, I hope you’re happy, my dear,” Philip Astley hissed. “Is that what you wanted?”

“It is you who makes a public drama of everything,” Laura Devine replied. “You have never known how to be calm or quiet.”

“Get out! I can’t stand the sight of you!” Though Philip Astley shouted this at her, he himself barged out of the box, calling for John Fox to follow.

After they were gone, Miss Laura Devine continued to sit in the box, with Maisie quiet in hers next door. Her hands were trembling in her lap.

“Come and see me a moment,” Maisie heard Miss Devine murmur, and started when she realized the command was directed at her, and that Miss Devine had seen her sitting in her box before, and would know that she had heard it all. Maisie got up and slipped into the adjacent box, trying not to bring attention to herself-though apart from the boy, who had led off the horses and now come back to sweep up the rest of the glass and horse dung, there was no one about.

Miss Devine did not look up at Maisie’s arrival. “Sit with me, pet” was all she said. Maisie sank into the chair that Philip Astley had not long vacated next to the slack-rope dancer; indeed, the seat was still warm. Together they looked out over the ring, which for once was quiet, but for the boy’s broom. Maisie found its even, scraping sound a comfort. She knew she did not hate Miss Devine, whatever had happened. Instead she pitied her.

Miss Laura Devine seemed to be in a dreamy state. Perhaps she was thinking about all of the ropes she had walked along or spun around or dangled from or swung on in this ring. Or she was thinking about the extraordinary finale she would perform in three nights’ time. Or she may have been listening to her body in that silent private dialogue pregnant women sometimes have with them selves.

“I’m sorry, Miss Devine,” Maisie said at last.

“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.

He put his other hand over hers again and squeezed it, pulling her arm through his so that they were closer together. “There, now, Maisie, there’s no need to worry. You’re with me, after all. He wouldn’t lay a finger on you.” Indeed, the man hadn’t noticed them, but began weaving one way up Lambeth Marsh while John Astley and Maisie turned down the other. “I expect he’s gone up the Marsh to buy vegetables for his wife. What do you think he’ll buy-swedes or turnips?”

Maisie chuckled, despite her nerves. “Oh, swedes, I do think, sir. They be much nicer.”

“And leeks or cabbages?”

“Leeks!” Maisie laughed as if she had made a joke, and John Astley joined in.

“That is an unsavory pub, that one,” he said. “I should not have brought you past it, Maisie. I do apologize.”

“Oh, don’t worry, sir. I be perfectly safe with you.”

“Good. I am glad, my dear. Of course, not all pubs are like that one. Some are very nice. The Pineapple, for instance. Even ladies can go there and feel quite at home.”

“I suppose so, sir, though I never been in.” At the mention of that pub, Maisie’s face lost its clear brightness as she was reminded of waiting outside it to see John Astley come out with one of the costume girls. Without quite meaning to, she pulled her hand a little way out of the tight grip of his elbow. He felt the shift and inwardly cursed. Not the Pineapple, then, he thought-she clearly didn’t like it. Perhaps it was not the best place, anyway-though it was handy for Astley’s stables where he intended to end up, it was also likely to be full of circus folk who might know her.

Before John Astley’s mention of the Pineapple, Maisie had been able to float along happily on their mild, flirtatious chat and her imagination. Naming the pub, however, forced her to acknowledge to herself his intentions. After all, a visit to a pub with John Astley was a concrete event. She hesitated. “I watched you riding with Miss Smith just now,” she said. “You looked so fine together.”

This was not where John Astley intended their conversation to go. He wanted to get it back to laughing over vegetables. “Miss Smith rides very well,” he answered simply, wondering how much Maisie had seen during the rehearsal. Had she heard what his father shouted at Miss Laura Devine?

For her part, Maisie was also thinking about what she had seen and heard, the piece of the puzzle that linked John Astley with Miss Devine. She thought about it, and found that his actual presence at her side-his broad shoulders and tapered waist under his well-cut blue coat, his gay eyes and ready smile, his light, sure step and firm grip, even the meaty smell of horse sweat on him-was far more potent to her than anything he had done to anyone else. With only a twinge of guilt for the kindness Miss Devine had shown and the warning she had given her, Maisie shut her mind to John Astley’s history and thought only of this moment. He might pay attention to many women, but why shouldn’t she have a share of that attention? She wanted it.

She even made it easy for him. When they emerged from the lane into Hercules Buildings, with the Kellaways’ rooms just to the right of them, Maisie said, “Here so soon!” in as sad a tone as she could manage.

John Astley immediately took her up. “My dear, I thought you would be pleased to arrive home safely! Are you expected?”

“No,” Maisie answered. “Not yet. I’ll help Ma with the cabbage, but really she’s not so busy.”

“What, no leeks or swedes for you?”

Maisie smiled, but he was leading her across the street now, and her stomach churned with the thought that he would soon deposit her at her door and she might never again talk to him or touch him.

“It has been such a pleasure escorting you home, Maisie, that I am loath to give up the sensation,” John Astley announced, stopping short of Miss Pelham’s house. “Perhaps we might take a drink together before I leave you at home.”

“That-that would be-very nice.”

“Perhaps the tavern at the top of the road would suit. It is close-we wouldn’t want to go far in this fog-and it has a snug little corner that I think you will like.”

“All-all right, sir.” Maisie could barely utter the words. For a moment she felt dizzy with a heady mix of guilt and fear. But she gripped John Astley’s arm tightly again, turned her back on her barely visible home, and walked in the direction he-and she-wanted to go.

5

Hercules Tavern completed the line of houses along Hercules Buildings just where it met Westminster Bridge Road, with the Pineapple shoring up the other end. It was bigger and more crowded than the Pineapple, with booths and bright lights. John Astley had drunk there a few times but preferred to conduct his seductions in quieter, darker places. However, at least there were no circus people here; nor did anyone look up as they came in.

John Astley paid a couple to move, and sat Maisie in a corner booth screened with shoulder-high wood panels that gave them a little privacy from their neighbors in the booths on either side, but with a clear view of the room. Then he went to the bar and got her a rum punch, with a glass of wine for himself. “Make it sweet and strong,” he said of the punch. The barman glanced at Maisie in her seat, but made no comment.

Once they were sitting together with their drinks, John Astley did not take the lead in conversation as he had out on the street. In fact, he felt little desire to talk at all. He had achieved his first aim-to get Maisie sitting in a pub with a drink in front of her. He felt he had done enough, and the rum and his physical presence would do the rest to bring him his second aim. He did not really enjoy talking with women, and felt he had little now to say to Maisie. She was a pretty girl, and he simply wanted solace from the more trying women in his life.

Maisie said nothing at first because of the novelty of sitting with a handsome man in a London pub. She had been to pubs in the Piddle Valley, of course, but they were dark, smoky, and poor compared to this. Though Hercules Tavern was itself only a shabby local pub, its wooden tables and chairs were better made than the rough, half-broken ones at the Five Bells in Piddletrenthide, where the landlord bought secondhand chairs from traveling bodgers rather than pay for Thomas Kellaway’s superior work. Hercules Tavern was warmer too, for despite the larger room, its coal fire drew better, and there were more customers to heat it as well. Even the pewter mugs for beer were not so dented as in Piddletrenthide, and the glasses for wine and punch were of a better quality than she’d seen in Dorsetshire.

Maisie had never been in a room with so many lamps, and was fascinated by the detail she could now make out-the patterns on women’s dresses, the wrinkles on a man’s brow, the names and initials carved into the wood panels. She watched people passing to and fro much as a cat might spy on a tree full of birds-hungrily following one, then being distracted by another, her head whipping back and forth. The other customers seemed to be in high spirits. When a group across the room guffawed, Maisie smiled. When two men began to shout at each other, she raised her eyebrows, then sighed in relief as they suddenly laughed and thumped each other’s back.

She had no idea what the punch cup John Astley set in front of her contained-she’d only ever drunk weak beer-but took it up gamely and sipped. “Oh, it do have something in it-makes it spicy.” She licked her lips. “I didn’t think drinks would be different in London. But so many things are. This pub, for instance-it be so much livelier than the Five Bells!” She sipped once more-though she didn’t actually think much of the drink, she knew it was expected of her.

John Astley wasn’t really listening, but calculating how much rum he would need to buy her before she was pliable enough to agree to anything. He glanced at her red cheeks and silly smile. Two should do it, he thought.

While Maisie didn’t look closely enough to recognize any of the customers, one of them recognized her. In the crowd of men gathered at the bar, she did not see Charlie Butterfield waiting for drinks, even when he began to stare at her. Once John Astley was sitting with her and she was well into her rum punch, Charlie turned away in disgust. However, he couldn’t resist saying as he set down beer in front of his parents, “Guess who’s sitting in the next booth. No, don’t, Mam!” He pulled Bet Butterfield down as she started to get up so that she could peer over the screen. “Don’t let ’em see you!”

“Who’s there, boy?” Dick Butterfield asked as he brought the beer to his lips and took a dainty sip. “Ah, lovely.”

“That nan-boy Astley with little Miss Dorset.”

“Dorset? Not Maisie?” Bet Butterfield said. “What’s she doing here, then? This an’t the place for her.” She turned an ear toward the neighboring booth to listen. Maisie was growing louder with each sip of rum punch, so the Butterfields could hear at least one side of the conversation-John Astley’s voice was low, and he said little.

“Ma and me goes to the circus twice a week,” she was saying. “So I’ve seen everything you’ve done, several times. I do love your horse, sir. You sit her so beautifully.”

John Astley merely grunted. He never talked about work at the pub, nor did he need to hear compliments from her; but Maisie was not experienced enough to sense this. In truth, he was beginning to tire of her. He had spotted a couple of women in the room who he expected would have given him a better time than Maisie. She was clearly a virgin, and in his experience he’d found that virgins were better in theory than in practice. Deflowering them required a certain patience and responsibility that he was not always keen to take on; often they cried, and he would prefer a woman to take some pleasure in being with him. Only Miss Laura Devine had shown any virginal sophistication, laughing rather than crying during the act, and aware of the ways a woman might please a man without his having to teach her. He had been surprised that she was still a virgin; surprised too that she then displayed a virgin’s other characteristic besides tears-the belief that she now had some claim on him. After a few pleasurable meetings he had shaken her off, and refused to believe she was carrying his child until Miss Hannah Smith slapped the knowledge into him earlier today.

Still, whatever John Astley thought of Maisie, he had already made his claim to her by seating her in the booth and plying her with punch in full view of the other drinkers. The women in the room could see full well what he was up to and had no interest in being second choice of the day.

He would at least make this quick. The moment she finished her rum punch, he got up to renew it and his wine. On his way back to their seats, a drink in each hand, he stepped aside to let a boy with a scarred eyebrow pass. The boy stepped to the same side as him, then stepped back as John Astley did, sneering all the while. After blocking John Astley’s passage for a moment more, he bumped his shoulder, jolting the horseman’s glass of wine so that half of it slopped onto the floor. “Nan-boy,” he hissed as he passed.

John Astley had no idea who he was, but was familiar with the type: The boy had probably been to the show and was jealous of Astley’s fame and skill. Men sometimes stopped him in the street or at the pub and taunted him; occasionally a fight would break out as jealousy flared into action. John Astley tried to avoid this when possible, as it was undignified for someone in his superior position to be brawling with common folk. But he did defend himself very ably, and fought off attacks in particular to his handsome face. Despite several falls and kicks from horses, he had managed to keep his face clear of damage and scarring, and he had no intention of losing his looks to a mere punch-up with a drunk working lad.

Maisie had not noticed the exchange, for she was now listening to a buxom woman with chapped cheeks and beefy arms leaning over the partition from the adjacent booth.

“I been meanin’ to drop in on you and your mam both,” the woman was saying. “I’ve a lady wants a different kind of button, for waistcoats she’s making. Do you know how to make a High Top?”

“Course I do!” Maisie cried. “I be from Dorsetshire, don’t I? Dorset buttons from a Dorset maid!” The punch made her voice loud and a bit shrill.

Bet Butterfield frowned-she had caught a whiff of rum. “Your mam knows you’re here, does she?”

“Of course she does,” John Astley interrupted. “But it’s not your business, is it, Madam Nosy?”

Bet Butterfield bristled. “It is too my business. Maisie’s my neighbor, she is, and we look out for our neighbors round here-some of ’em, anyway.” She cut her eyes sideways at him.

John Astley considered how to handle her: He could flatter her, or he could treat her with disdain and indifference. It was not always easy to judge which method would work with which type of woman, but he had to decide before he lost Maisie to her neighbors. Now that there was a chance that he could not have her, he wanted her more. Setting down the drinks and turning his back on the laundress, he slid onto the bench next to Maisie and boldly put his arm around her. Maisie smiled, snuggled back against his arm, and took a gulp of rum punch.

Bet Butterfield watched this cozy display with suspicion. “Maisie, are you-”

“I be fine, Mrs. Butterfield, really. Ma knows I be here.”

“Do she, now?” Though Maisie was becoming more adept at lying, it took some doing to convince Bet Butterfield.

“Leave it, Bet,” Dick Butterfield grumbled, with a tug at her skirt. It was the week’s end and he was tired, wanting nothing more than to sink into a few drinks with family and friends. He often felt his wife interfered too much in others’ dramas.

Bet Butterfield satisfied herself by saying, “I’ll come and see you later about those High Tops, shall I?” as if to warn John Astley that Maisie should be at home soon to receive her.

“Yes, or tomorrow. Best make it soon, as we may be leaving shortly.”

“Leaving? To go where-back to Dorsetshire?”

“Not Dorsetshire.” Maisie waved her hand about. “To Dublin with the circus!”

Even John Astley looked surprised-if not horrified-at this news. “You are?”

“I heard your father ask mine to come. And of course you can convince him to let Pa bring all of us.” She sipped her punch and banged the glass down. “We’ll all be together!”

“Will you, now.” Bet Butterfield frowned at John Astley. “Perhaps I’d best go with you now to your mam, then.”

“Bet, sit down and finish your drink.” Dick Butterfield used a commanding tone Bet Butterfield did not often hear, and she obeyed, sinking slowly into her seat, the frown still glued to her face.

“Somethin’ an’t right there,” she muttered. “I know it.”

“Yes, and it an’t your business, is it. You leave those Kellaways be. You’re as bad as Maggie, lookin’ out that Kellaway boy every chance she gets. Maybe you should be more worried about her than that girl in the next booth. Miss Dorset is old enough to know what she’s about. She’ll get what she wants from Astley. Now, when you do go round to see Mrs. Kellaway, be sure and ask what her husband’s goin’ to do with all his wood if they’re off to Ireland. Tell him I’ll take it off him for very little-chairs too, if he’s got any. Now I think on it, perhaps I’ll come with you when you pay your visit.”

“Now who’s buttin’ into Kellaway business?”

Dick Butterfield stretched, then took up his mug. “This an’t Kellaway business, my chuck-this is Butterfield business! This is how I keep that roof over your head.”

Bet Butterfield snorted. “These are what keep it.” She held out her chafed, wrinkled hands, which had been handling wet clothes for twenty years and looked much older than Bet was herself. Dick Butterfield seized one and kissed it in a combination of pity and affection. Bet Butterfield laughed. “You old sausage, you. What am I going to do with you?” She sat back and yawned, for she had just finished an overnight wash and not slept in more than a day. She settled into her seat like a rock set into a stone wall and allowed Maisie to slip from her mind. She would not be moving for several hours.

John Astley, in the meantime, was pondering Dublin. One of Maisie’s attractions was that he would be leaving her here in a few days and not have to wrestle with any virginal claim she made on him. “What’s this about Dublin, then?” he said. “Your father is going to do what?”

“Carpentry. He be a chairmaker, but Mr. Astley asked him to join the circus to build all sorts of things.” Maisie slurred the last words, the rum taking effect. She wanted to lay her spinning head on the table.

John Astley relaxed-his father would certainly never allow a carpenter’s family to join them in Dublin. He drained his glass and stood up. “Come, let’s go.”

Not a moment too soon, either. The surly lad who had made him spill his wine was now with a group across the room and had begun to sing:

A loving couple met one day

Bonny Kate and Danny

A loving couple met one day

Together both to sport and play

And for to pass the time away

He showed her little Danny!

Maisie’s cheeks were fiery red now, and she looked a little dazed. “Come, Maisie,” John Astley repeated, glaring at the singers. “I’ll see you home.”

Around the room others had taken up the song:

He took her to his father’s barn

Bonny Kate and Danny

He took her to his father’s barn

There he pulled out his long firearm

It was as long as this my arm

And he called it little Danny!

Maisie was taking her time arranging her shawl around her shoulders. “Quick, now!” John Astley muttered. Pulling her to her feet, he put an arm around her and led her to the door. Over the singing, Bet Butterfield called out, “Don’t forget, now, duck-I’ll be comin’ to your mam’s shortly!”

He took her to the river’s side

Bonny Kate and Danny

He took her to the river’s side

And there he laid her legs so wide

And on her belly he did ride

And he whipped in little Danny!

John Astley shut the door behind them to bellows of laughter. Maisie did not seem to notice, however, though the fresh air made her stand straight and shake her head as if to clear it. “Where we going, sir?” she managed to say.

“Just for a little stroll, then I’ll get you home.” John Astley kept his arm around her and led her, not left along Hercules Buildings, but right into Bastille Row. There was a gap that way between two of the houses that led to Hercules Hall and its stables.

The cold air made Maisie progress instantly from happy drunk to sick drunk. A little way along Bastille Row she began to moan and hold her stomach. John Astley let go of her. “Idiot girl,” he muttered as Maisie sank to her knees and vomited into the gutter. He was tempted to leave her now to find her own way. It was not far back to the pub, though the fog was so dense that there was no sign of it.

At that moment a figure came pattering out of the fog toward them. They were only a few steps from the Butterfields’ rooms, where Maggie had stopped briefly after work to change her clothes. She was now working at a vinegar manufactory near the river, by the timber yards north of Westminster Bridge, and though she smelled acidic, at least her nose no longer hurt and her eyes were clear. The owner even let them off early on a Saturday afternoon.

Maggie started when she saw John Astley. For a year now she had not liked going through the fog on her own, though she did it when she had to. She had walked back from the factory with another girl who lived nearby, and the pub was so close to the Butterfields’ that she had not thought to worry. Seeing the horseman so suddenly almost made her scream, until she spied the huddled form at his feet, still retching into the gutter. Then she chuckled, for she recognized John Astley with one of his conquests. “Having fun, are you, sir?” she jeered, and ran on before he could reply. Her relief that this was a familiar scene and John Astley no threat to her, coupled with her haste to get to the pub out of the fog and the cold, made her give Maisie no more than a glance before she hurried on to Hercules Tavern.

6

“There you are, Mags,” Dick Butterfield called. “Come and sit.” He stood up. “You’ll be wantin’ a beer, will you?” These days he was more solicitous of his daughter; handing over her wages to him every week had bought her better treatment.

“And a pie, if there’s any left,” Maggie called after him as she took his vacated place next to her mother. “Hallo, Mam.”

“Hallo, duck.” Bet Butterfield yawned. “You all done, then?”

“I am-and you?”

“For the moment.” Mother and daughter sat side by side in weary companionship.

“Is Charlie here?” Maggie asked, trying not to sound hopeful. “Oh, never mind, there he is.” Though her brother bothered her less than before-another bonus from her wages was that Dick Butterfield reined in Charlie-she was always more at ease when she was alone with her parents.

“Anything happenin’ here?” she asked her mother.

“Nah. Oh-did you know that the Kellaways are going to Dublin?” Bet Butterfield had a habit of changing the possible into the definite.

Maggie snapped upright. “What?”

“’Tis true. They’re leaving this week.”

Maggie narrowed her eyes. “Can’t be. Who told you?”

Bet Butterfield shifted in her seat, Maggie’s disbelief making her nervous. “Maisie Kellaway.”

“Why didn’t Jem tell me? I saw him the other night!”

Bet Butterfield shrugged.

“But they’re mad to go! They’re not travelers. It was hard enough for them to come here from Dorsetshire-and they’re just startin’ to settle. Why would Jem hide it from me?” Maggie tried to keep the note of hysteria from rising in her words, but Bet Butterfield heard it.

“Calm yourself, duck. Didn’t know you cared so much. Pity you weren’t here five minutes ago-you could’ve asked Maisie herself.”

“She was here?”

“She was.” Bet Butterfield fiddled with an end of her shawl, picked up her glass of beer, then set it down.

“Maisie don’t go to pubs. What was she doing here, Mam?” Maggie persisted.

Bet Butterfield frowned into her beer. “She was with that circus man. You know.” She waved her hand in the air. “The one what rides the horses. John Astley.”

“John Astley?” Even as she shouted his name, Maggie shot to her feet. Neighboring drinkers looked up.

“Careful, Mags,” Dick Butterfield said, halting in front of her with two full glasses and a pie balanced on their rims. “You don’t want to lose your beer ’fore you’ve even tasted it.”

“I just saw John Astley outside! But he was with a-” Maggie stopped, horrified that she hadn’t looked closely enough at the figure in the gutter to recognize her as Maisie. “Where were they going?”

“Said he was takin’ her home,” Bet Butterfield muttered, her eyes lowered.

“And you believed him?” Maggie’s voice rose.

“Stay out of it, gal,” Dick Butterfield said sharply. “It an’t your business.”

Maggie looked from her mother’s bent head to her father’s set face, and knew then that they had already had this argument.

“You can have my beer,” she said to Dick Butterfield, and pushed through the crowd.

“Maggie! You get back here, gal!” Dick Butterfield barked, but Maggie had pulled open the door and plunged into the fog.

It was dark now, with only the street lamps cutting through the dense mist, casting weak, yellowy green pools of light at their bases. Maggie ran past the spot-now deserted-where she had last seen John Astley and Maisie, and headed down Bastille Row. She passed her own house, then stopped a neighbor just going inside two doors down. He had not seen the couple. When he shut the door behind him, Maggie was alone on the street in the fog.

She hesitated, then ran on. In a minute she reached the gap between the houses, where an alley led to the field around Hercules Hall and its stables. She stood looking down the dark passageway, for there were no lights on at Philip Astley’s house to guide her through it. She could not go around and enter by the Hercules Buildings alley on the opposite side of the field, however-it was a long way around and just as dark. As she stood, undecided, the fog swirled around her, leaving a shiny, sulfurous film of sweat on her face. Maggie gulped. She could hear the sound of her heavy breath thrown back at her.

Then a figure stepped out of the fog behind her, and Maggie gasped-it was so like the man looming out at her from another fog on another night. The scream got caught in her throat, though, and she was grateful for that-for the figure was her brother, who would have teased her ever after for screaming in his face.

Maggie grabbed his arm before he could speak. “Charlie, c’mon, we have to go down here!” She tried to pull him along the passage.

Despite his lean frame, when Charlie planted his feet, it was impossible to move him, and Maggie’s arm-pulling had no effect. “Hang on a minute, Miss Cut-Throat. Where do you think you’re takin’ me?”

“Maisie,” Maggie hissed. “He’s taken Maisie down here, I’m sure of it. We have to get to them before he…he…”

“He what?” Charlie seemed to enjoy drawing this out.

“You know what he’s goin’ to do. D’you really want him to ruin her?”

“Didn’t you hear Pa say it was none of our business? The rest of the pub did.”

“Course it’s our business. It’s your business. You like her. You know you do.”

Charlie’s face hardened. He did not want others-particularly his sister-thinking he had such feelings.

“Charlie, please.”

Charlie shook his head.

Maggie dropped his arm. “Then why’d you follow me here? Don’t tell me you didn’t follow me-no one’d be out here just for a wander.”

“Thought I’d see what you’re so bothered about.”

“Well, now you know. And if you’re not goin’ to help me, then go away.” To make clear that she would do this on her own if she had to, Maggie stepped into the darkness, though beads of sweat broke out once again on her upper lip and brow.

“Hang on a minute,” Charlie said. “I’ll come with you, if you tell me something first.”

Maggie turned back. “What?” Even as she said it, her stomach clenched, for she knew there was only one thing about her that interested her brother.

“What was it like?”

“What was what like?” she said, playing his game of drawing it out, giving him the time and space he craved for the line he was now to deliver.

“What was it like to kill a man?”

Maggie had not heard these words spoken aloud, and they had the effect of taking her clenched stomach and twisting it, knocking the wind out of her as effectively as if Charlie had punched her.

There was a pause while she recovered her voice. It gave her the time to think of something that would satisfy him quickly and move them on. “Powerful,” she answered, saying what she thought he wanted to hear, though it was the opposite of what she had actually felt. “Like I could do anything.”

What she had really felt that night a year ago was that she had actually killed a part of herself rather than someone else, for she felt sometimes that she was dead now rather than alive. She knew, though, that Charlie would never understand that; she herself didn’t. Mr. Blake might understand it, though, she thought, for it fell into his realm of opposites. One day maybe she would get him to explain it to her so that she would know where she was. “Nothing was the same after that,” she added truthfully. “I don’t know as it ever will be.”

Charlie nodded. His smile made Maggie shudder. “All right,” he said. “Where we going?”

7

Maisie felt much better after being sick, for it cleared the rum from her. She was sober enough to say to John Astley as the stables appeared out of the fog, “You taking me to see your horse?”

“Yes.”

He did, in fact, lead her to the stall where his chestnut mare was stabled, lighting a candle first so that they could see. After the rehearsal at the amphitheatre the mare had been brought here and groomed, watered, and fed, and was standing stolidly, chewing, waiting for a circus boy to come and get her for the evening performance. She snorted when she saw John Astley, who reached over and patted her neck. “Hallo there, my darling,” he murmured, with considerably more feeling than he used with people.

Maisie also reached out a timid hand to stroke the horse’s nose. “Oh, she be lovely!”

“Yes, she is.” John Astley was relieved that Maisie was no longer quite so drunk. “Here,” he said, stooping to fill a ladle from a bucket of water. “You’ll want a drink.”

“Thank’ee, sir.” Maisie took the ladle, drank, and wiped her lips.

“Come here a moment.” John Astley led the way past other horses-Miss Hannah Smith’s stallion among them-to a stall on the end.

“Which horse-oh!” Maisie peeked in to see nothing but a pile of straw. John Astley set the candle down on an upturned bucket and pulled a blanket from the corner, which he spread out over the straw. “Come and sit with me for a moment.” The stench of horses all around had aroused him, and the bulge of his groin was prominent.

Maisie hesitated, her eyes drawn to the bulge. She had known this moment would arrive, though she had not allowed herself to think about it. What girl nearing womanhood does not know, after all? The whole world seems to wait and watch for it, a girl’s move from one side of the river to the other. It seemed strange to Maisie that it should come down to a blanket that stank of horse on a bed of straw, in a dim puddle of light, surrounded by fog and dark and London. She had not pictured it that way. But there was John Astley holding out his hand, and she reaching across and taking it.

By the time Maggie and Charlie reached the stall John Astley had her chemise off, and her stays loosened and pulled down so that her pale breasts had popped out. He had a nipple in his mouth, a hand up her skirt, and the other holding her hand over his groin and teaching her to stroke him. Maggie and Charlie stared. It was agonizing to Maggie how long it took for the couple to realize the Butterfields were there and stop what they were doing-plenty of time for her to ponder just how embarrassing and inappropriate it was to watch lovers unawares. She had not felt that seven months before when she and Jem had seen the Blakes in their summerhouse, but that somehow had been different. For one thing, they had been farther away, not right under her nose. And since Maggie hadn’t known them well, she could look on them more objectively. Now hearing Maisie groan flooded her with shame. “Leave off her!” she shouted.

John Astley leapt back and to his feet in one movement, and Maisie sat up in a daze of pleasure and confusion, so befuddled that she did not immediately cover her breasts, though Maggie made frantic gestures at her. Charlie Butterfield kept looking from John Astley to Maisie’s exposed flesh, until at last Maisie pulled up her stays.

To Maggie’s surprise, no one responded as she’d expected them to. John Astley did not show remorse or shame; nor did he run away. Maisie did not cry and hide her face, or scramble away from her seducer and go to Maggie. Charlie did not challenge John Astley, but stood gaping, his hands at his sides. Maggie herself was frozen in place.

John Astley didn’t know who Maggie was-he was not in the habit of noticing neighborhood children-but he recognized Charlie as the boy who had bumped into him in Hercules Tavern, and wondered if he was sufficiently drunk or angry to act.

The horseman would have to do something to take charge. He had not thought lying with this girl could possibly be so difficult, but now that he had been with her on the straw, he was determined to return to it. He didn’t have much time, either-the circus boys would come soon for the horses for the evening’s performance. However, obstacles always strengthened John Astley’s resolve. “What in hell’s name are you doing here? Get out of my stables!”

At last Maggie found her voice, though it came out feebly. “What you doin’ to her?”

John Astley snorted. “Get out of my stables,” he repeated, “or I’ll have you sent to Newgate so fast you won’t have time to wipe your arse!”

At the mention of Newgate, Charlie shifted from one foot to the other. Dick Butterfield had spent time in that prison and advised his son to avoid it if at all possible. He was also uneasy being in a stables at all, with horses all about waiting to kick him.

Now Maisie began to cry-the sensation of swinging from one extreme emotion to its opposite was too much for her. “Why don’t you go!” she moaned.

It took Maggie a moment to realize that the words were di-rected at her. It was gradually dawning on her that perhaps no one else thought that what had been happening was wrong. John Astley of course thought nothing of lying with a girl in the stables; he’d done it dozens of times. To Charlie a man was simply having what he wanted and a girl was giving it to him; indeed, he was beginning to look sheepish for interrupting them. Maisie herself was not protesting and-Maggie admitted-had seemed to be enjoying herself. Only Maggie linked the act to the man in the fog on Lovers’ Lane. Now she, rather than the man, was being made out to be the criminal. All of her indignation suddenly fled, leaving her without the energy she needed to fight.

There was no Charlie to back her, either. Much as he hated John Astley, he was also cowed by his authority, and quickly lost what little confidence he possessed to stand up to such a man, alone, in a stable in the fog, surrounded by hateful horses, and with no friends about to encourage him. If only Jem were here, Maggie thought. He would know what to do.

“C’mon, Maggie,” Charlie said, and began to shuffle out of the stall.

“Wait.” Maggie fixed her eyes on the other girl. “Come with us, Miss Piddle. Get up and we’ll go and find Jem, all right?”

“Leave her alone,” John Astley commanded. “She’s free to do as she likes, aren’t you, my dear?”

“That means she’s free to go with us if she wants to. C’mon, Maisie-are you comin’ with us or stayin’ here?”

Maisie looked from Maggie to John Astley and back again. She closed her eyes so that she could say it more easily, though taking her sight away gave her the sensation of falling. “I want to stay.”

Even then, Maggie might have remained, for surely they wouldn’t continue as long as she was there. But John Astley pulled a whip out from the straw and said, “Get out,” and that decided matters. Maggie and Charlie backed away-Maggie reluctant, Charlie in his relief pulling her after him. The horses whinnied when they passed, as if commenting on the Butterfields’ lack of courage.

8

When they got out to the yard, Charlie turned toward the passage they had first come down. “Where you going?” Maggie demanded.

“Back to the pub, of course. I’ve wasted too much time out here already, Miss Cut-Throat. Why, an’t you?”

“I’m going to find someone with more guts’n you!”

Before he could grab her, Maggie ran down the other alley to Hercules Buildings. The fog no longer frightened her; she was too angry to be scared. When she reached the street, she looked both ways. Figures huddled in wraps hurried past her-the fog and dark discouraged lingering. She ran after one, calling out, “Please, help me! There’s a girl in trouble!”

It was an old man, who shook her off and grumbled, “Serves her right-shouldn’t be out in this weather.”

Passing close enough to hear this exchange was a small woman in a yellow bonnet and shawl. When Maggie saw her little face peeking out, she shouted, “What you lookin’ at, you old stick!” and Miss Pelham scuttled toward her door.

“Oh, please!” Maggie cried to another man passing in the other direction. “I need your help!”

“Get off, you little cat!” the man sneered.

Maggie stood helplessly in the street, on the verge of tears. All she wanted was someone with the moral authority to stand up to John Astley. Where was he?

He came from the direction of the river, striding out of the fog with his hands tucked behind him, his broad-brimmed hat jammed low over his heavy brow, and a brooding expression on his face. He had stood up to Philip Astley when he’d felt injustice was being done to a child; he would stand up to Astley’s son.

“Mr. Blake!” Maggie cried. “Please help me!”

Mr. Blake’s expression immediately cleared, focusing intently on Maggie. “What is it, my girl? What can I do?”

“It’s Maisie-she’s in trouble!”

“Show me,” he said without hesitation.

Maggie ran back down the alley, Mr. Blake following close behind. “I don’t think she knows what she’s doin’,” she panted as she ran. “It’s like he’s cast a spell over her.”

Then they were in the stables, and in the stall, and John Astley looked up from where he was crouched next to a weeping Maisie. When Maisie saw Mr. Blake she buried her face in her hands.

“Mr. Astley, stand up, sir!”

John Astley stood swiftly, with something like fear on his face. He and Mr. Blake were the same height, but Mr. Blake was stockier, his expression stern. His direct gaze pinned John Astley, and there was an adjustment in the stall, with one man taking in and acknowledging the other. It was what Maggie had thought would happen with the combined forces of her and Charlie; they did not have the weight of experience behind them, however. Now, in Mr. Blake’s presence, John Astley lowered his eyes and fixed them on a mound of straw in the corner.

“Maggie, take Maisie to my wife-she will look after her.” Mr. Blake’s tone was gentle but commanding too.

Maisie rubbed her face to get rid of her tears and stood, brushing the straw from her skirt and carefully avoiding John Astley’s eyes. She needn’t have worried-he was staring fixedly at the ground.

Maggie wrapped Maisie’s shawl tightly around her shoulders, then put her arm around the girl and led her from the stall. As they left, Mr. Blake was saying, “For shame, sir! Revolted spirit!”

Out in the fog Maisie collapsed and began to weep.

“C’mon, Miss Piddle, don’t cry,” Maggie cajoled, holding her up. “Let’s get you back, shall we-then you can cry all you like. Come now, pull yourself together.” She gave Maisie a little shake.

Maisie took a deep breath and straightened her shoulders.

“That’s it. Now, this way. It’s not far.”

As they stumbled up Hercules Buildings, the fog discharged a welcome surprise-Jem was hastening toward them. “Maisie, where you been? I just heard that-” He stopped at Maggie’s frown and shake of her head, and did not go on to say that he had been suspicious when he heard that John Astley had accompanied Maisie, and came out to search for his sister. “Let’s go home. Ma’ll be expecting you.”

“Not yet, please, Jem,” Maisie said in a small voice, without looking at him. She was shivering, her teeth chattering. “I don’t want them to know.”

“I’m takin’ her to Mrs. Blake,” Maggie declared.

Jem followed them up to the Blakes’ door. As they waited after knocking, there was a flicker in Miss Pelham’s curtains before she saw Maggie and Jem glaring at her and let them fall back into place.

Mrs. Blake did not seem surprised to see them. When Maggie said, “Mr. Blake sent us, ma’am. Can you get Maisie warmed up?” she opened the door wide and stood aside to let them pass as if she did this every day for them. “Go downstairs to the kitchen, my dears-there’s a fire’s lit there,” she said. “I’ll just get a blanket and then come and make you a cup of tea.”

9

The Kellaways did not attend the final performance of the season of Astley’s Circus. Despite Mrs. Blake’s ministrations, Maisie came down with a fever, and was still in her sickbed that night, with Anne Kellaway tending her. Thomas and Jem Kellaway spent the evening clearing out the workroom, which had been neglected over the months while they were working for Philip Astley. It would need to be in order now, for Thomas Kellaway had told Philip Astley that he would not be accompanying him to Dublin. Maisie was too ill to travel, and though he did not know what had caused it, he had a vague suspicion-a feeling he could not pin down or articulate-that the circus, if not Astley himself, had something to do with it. In truth, though Thomas Kellaway was of course horrified by his daughter’s illness, he was relieved to have a concrete excuse not to go to Dublin.

Maggie did see the final show, and later described it to Jem, for it was quite eventful in its own way. Miss Laura Devine decided to make a private drama very public indeed. She performed the new routine with Monsieur Richer, as promised, the two of them turning in opposite Pigs on Spits, Monsieur Richer spinning rapidly in his black tailcoat, Miss Devine more slowly with her rainbow petticoats not quite the blur of color they normally were. As she came out of her spin into the swoop up that had so captivated Anne Kellaway when she first saw it on Westminster Bridge, this time Miss Devine simply let go and flew through the air. She landed in the pit, breaking her ankle but not bringing on the miscarriage she so desired. As they carried her out through the audience she kept her eyes squeezed shut.

Miss Laura Devine’s fall caused such an uproar that the debut of Miss Hannah Smith on horseback was something of an anticli-max, the applause lukewarm. This may also have been due to the rare sight of John Astley making a mistake. As he and Miss Smith were passing the wineglass back and forth while riding in opposite circles around the ring-for they had made up after their fight-John Astley happened to glance down and see Mr. and Mrs. Blake sitting in the pit. They had never been to the circus, and Anne Kellaway had insisted on giving them her tickets, as thanks for finding Maisie in the fog. Mr. Blake was watching John Astley with his fierce eyes. When Miss Smith then held out the glass to him as she passed, John Astley fumbled with it, and it fell to the ground and shattered.