Margaret’s excitement mounted as they progressed, and the crush increased. Relying on her escort to forge a path and long past caring for the state of either her boots or the hems of her gown and petticoats, she lost herself in the spectacle. Costers with barrows piled high pushed their way through the crowds, calling out their wares as they went. Though she couldn’t make out more than one word in ten, she knew from Lochiel’s face that the air ought to be turning blue.

“Waterloo Road,” Lochiel said, “and as I suspected, we are at the station.”

“But everyone is going that way.” Margaret tugged on his arm. “Look, past this theatre, the Victoria?”

“I believe they put on melodramas.”

“I have been known to perform one myself occasionally,” Margaret quipped. “Oh, do look, Lochiel, the whole street here is lined with food stalls. We’re here now—we might as well explore it, don’t you think?”

“I think I lack the resolve to deny you. You are not carrying a purse, are you?”

“Oh no, I didn’t think—and now I won’t be able to buy anything.”

“I wasn’t concerned about your ability to purchase a few cabbages, but about urchins—what did you call them, gonophs?—picking your pockets.”

“Then it’s fortunate I have nothing to tempt them,” Margaret said, privately thinking that Lochiel was being overly cautious, for the children she could see were all respectably dressed, and most of them were in the company of their mothers.

The stench of the river and of the crowd was overlaid by more appetising aromas as they progressed along the street packed with stalls thronged with customers. Though they attracted the odd curious stare, most people were too intent on their own business to notice them, bartering, bantering, or hurrying home with their packages clutched close. Most of the shoppers were women; the market stalls, however, were run by men; but in between there were any number of boys and girls calling out their wares from barrows and baskets. Despite the fact that it was still daylight, gas lighting and grease lamps were lit to draw attention to the shops behind the stalls—a butcher, a draper, a tea merchant.

“Ripe pears, eight a penny!”

“Hot chestnuts, a penny a score!”

“Yarmouth bloaters, three for tuppence!”

“Pickling cabbages, name your price!”

A man with an open umbrella turned upside down was selling prints. A tailor, posing in the midst of a group of headless dummies, was demanding that passers-by feel the quality of the fustian jackets. A boy was bellowing out the bill for a circus, and a woman was standing on a street corner singing, while a little terrier dressed in a skirt pranced about on hind legs.