‘Laburnum. You’ll be able to tell easier in May when it flowers.’
Jem’s attempt to distract her failed, however, with the second ‘Oh’ confirming that the sound came from the same place as the movement. This time Maggie heard it and immediately located the source. Jem tried but couldn’t stop his eyes from being drawn back to the summerhouse. Maggie began to titter. ‘Lord a mercy, what a view!’
Then Jem did step back, his face on fire. ‘I’ve to help Pa,’ he muttered, turning away from the window and going over to his father, who was still working on the chair leg and hadn’t heard them.
Maggie laughed at his discomfort. She stood at the window for a few moments more, then turned away. ‘Show’s over.’ She wandered over to watch Jem’s father at the lathe, a heavy wooden frame with a half-carved leg clamped to it at chest height. A leather cord was looped around the leg, the ends attached to a treadle at his feet and a pole bent over his head. When Thomas Kellaway pumped the treadle, the cord spun the leg around and he shaved off parts of the wood.
‘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 practise 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.’
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 offence. 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 towards 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 recognised 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 grey 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 leaped 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 paths, and grown of prickly hawthorn and holly, elder and hazel and whitebeam, woven through with brambles and ivy and traveller’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 passers-by in the street, and at Lambeth Palace rising up in the distance, and at the clouds behind it. He was taking in everything, without judgement.
‘A’rernoon, 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
