Burning Bright. Tracy Chevalier

Чтение книги онлайн.

       FIVE

      Maggie came to see the Kellaways a week later, waiting until she judged they were well settled into their rooms. She had passed along Hercules Buildings a number of times, and always looked up at their front window, which they had quickly learned to keep shut so that the dust from the road wouldn’t get inside. Twice she had seen Anne Kellaway standing at the window, hands pressed to her chest, looking down at the street. When she caught sight of Maggie, she stepped back, frowning.

      This time no one was looking out. Maggie was about to throw a pebble at the window to get their attention when the front door opened and Maisie came out carrying a brush and dustpan. She opened the front gate and with a twist of her wrist emptied the pan full of wood shavings onto the road, looking around as she did. On spotting Maggie, she froze, then giggled. ‘Ar’ernoon, Maggie! Is’t all right just to throw it in the road like that? I do see others throw worse.’

      Maggie snorted. ‘You can chuck what you like in the gutter. But what you doing throwin’ out wood shavings? Anyone else’d burn them in the fire.’

      ‘Oh, we’ve plenty for that – too much, really. I throw away most of what I sweep up. Some of this be green too an’ don’t burn so well.’

      ‘Don’t you sell the extra?’

      Maisie looked puzzled. ‘Don’t reckon we do.’

      ‘You should be sellin’ that, you should. Plenty could do with shavings to light their fires with. Make yourself a penny or two. Tell you what – I could sell it for you, and give you sixpence out of every shilling.’

      Maisie looked even more confused, as if Maggie were talking too fast. ‘Don’t you know how to sell things?’ Maggie said. ‘You know, like that.’ She indicated a potato seller bellowing, ‘Lovely tatties, don’t yer want some tatties!’ vying with a man who was crying out, ‘You that are able, will you buy a ladle!’

      ‘See? Everybody’s got summat to sell.’

      Maisie shook her head, the frills on her mob cap fluttering around her face. ‘We didn’t do that, back home.’

      ‘Ah, well. You got yourself sorted out up there?’

      ‘Mostly. It do take some getting used to. But Mr Astley took Pa and Jem to a timber yard down by the river, so they’re able to start work on the chairs he wants.’

      ‘Can I come up and see?’

      ‘Course you can!’

      Maisie led her up, Maggie keeping quiet in case Miss Pelham was hovering about. At the top of the stairs, Maisie opened one of two doors and called out, ‘We’ve a visitor!’

      As they entered the back room that served as his workshop, Thomas Kellaway was turning a chair leg in a lathe, with Jem at his side, watching him work. He wore a white shirt and mustard-coloured breeches, and over that a leather apron covered with scratches. Rather than frowning, as many do when they are concentrating, Thomas Kellaway was smiling a small, almost silly smile. When at last he did look up, his smile broadened, though to Maggie it seemed he was not sure what he was smiling at. His light blue eyes looked her way, but his gaze seemed to fall just beyond her, as if something in the hallway behind caught his attention. The lines around his eyes gave him a wistful air, even as he smiled.

      Jem, however, did look directly at Maggie, with an expression half pleased, half suspicious.

      Thomas Kellaway rolled the chair leg between his hands. ‘What’d you say, Maisie?’

      ‘D’you remember Maggie, Pa? She held Mr Smart’s horse while we was unloading our things here. She lives – oh, where do you live, Maggie?’

      Maggie shuffled her feet in the wood shavings that covered the floor, embarrassed by the attention. ‘Across the field,’ she mumbled, gesturing with her hand out of the back window, ‘at Bastille Row.’

      ‘Bastille Row? There be an odd name.’