The Sparks Fly Upward (56 page)

What's more, they wanted to talk about him. Left alone, Jacques might have endured by shrinking into himself. Instead, every evening, his father came alive again in the Pomeroy Arms as his loving fellow-smugglers resurrected the man with tales of his daring, his seamanship, trickery, how he'd foiled this bloody 'ciseman or that, the fortune he'd earned—and spent among them. Her eyes blurred with tears, occasionally laughing, Makepeace saw her old friend before her again, one foot on a chair, making one of his vainglorious speeches. Jacques cried and laughed with her.

The following days they spent together in her boat, fishing, so that the boy could have some quiet. ‘He died for liberty, didn't he?' he'd ask.

‘He did,' she'd say. The truth comforted the boy; it didn't comfort her.

At the end of the week, he decided that he ought to get back to his machines. Which was a good sign, she felt, though it left her lonelier than ever.

She quarrelled with Jan when he decided to make another voyage to Gruchy. ‘You shan't go,' she shouted at him. France had taken nearly everyone she loved without giving them back, and crossing the Channel in good weather through a Royal Navy's blockade carried a high risk of being caught by one side or the other.

She might as well have argued with the tide; he went anyway and she knew it was as much an attempt to get news of Philippa and Andrew as for the silk and brandy he'd bring back. ‘Young Pippy' was a favorite in the village and Jan was still shocked at the perfidy of ‘they Thurlestone buggers' in taking her over to France when he had refused for her safety's sake.

For once, her fear was groundless. He and his men were back in three days, their boat laden with contraband. The only news he had of Philippa was stale—she'd arrived at Gruchy, been supplied with an identity and taken the diligence to Paris—all of which they knew already.

The people at Gruchy said that, on arrival, Andrew had also taken the diligence to Paris and had also not returned.

‘Don't ee worry, missus,' Jan had said, ‘they'll turn up. The Froggies is getting fair sick of that Terror over there. Old Fallon do say as he has to feel his head of a morning for fear they've chopped it off in the night. 'Twill stop soon, I've no doubt, the war'll be over and young Pippy'll come sailin' home large as life and twice as natural.'

‘Bless you for going, Jan,' she'd said. ‘But Pippy isn't coming back.' She'd absorbed that fact now. She didn't feel anything. Sponges didn't.

It was two days later that Tobias came back from Plymouth with a newspaper folded to an item on its inside page. He handed it to her and she shrank from it. ‘No, I can't bear it.'

‘You can bear thith,' he said. ‘Good or bad, I ain't sure.'

It was a scandal sheet called
About Town
and the article was headed: ‘
Guilty Flight
!'

Underneath, it ran:

 

There was a lot more, but Makepeace's eyes were already stretched in their sockets. ‘Blow me,' she said.

‘What about that now,' Dell said in disgust. ‘Ah, well, the poor lad's well rid of the faithless devils, even for three thousand shiners.'

‘Yes,' said Makepeace slowly. ‘Yes, he is.' But would Andrew see it like that? He'd loved Blanchard, he'd loved Félicie; the betrayal was profound.

‘And Canada now,' Dell said. ‘Isn't it all snow and grizzly bears?'

‘I hope so,' Makepeace said. ‘I certainly do hope so.'

She needed to think about it, so she took to her boat and, because it was a hot day, rowed round to the cave below T'Gallants, the sea portal to the house, hidden from revenue-greedy eyes by a massive tapestry of gorse and brambles hung over its entrance.

The bales of silk and lace her smugglers had just brought back had been hauled up the shaft that led from the cave and stored in one of T'Gallants's many secret cupboards to keep them dry. A comforting number of brandy casks were still piled on the shelf out of the way of the tide.

She tied up the rowing boat and sat on the shelf, absentmindedly nudging hermit crabs into a scuttle and annoying sea urchins by gently poking a finger into the waving fronds of their antennae. It was cool in the cave and its quiet was emphasized by the slight slap of water against the rock edge.

She had no difficulty in imagining Blanchard a betrayer—who knew it better than she did?—but that he'd abandoned everything in order to indulge an adulterous passion confounded her. He was, had been, the man about town
par excellence
. Grand society was, had been, the milieu he swam in. In his case, to throw that away was like a dancer amputating his legs.

And all for the sake of Félicie? Makepeace had no opinion of that young woman's intelligence; she was persuadable. Granted, she was also lovely but it had always seemed to Makepeace that Blanchard's appearances with her on his arm had displayed something like calculation, a-look-at-the-prize-I-could-capture-if-I-pleased rather than the swoon of a man besotted.

Perhaps, by running away with her, Blanchard was depriving Andrew of yet another thing of value—yet at
such
cost to himself. Makepeace didn't know what prices were like in Canada but even jewels worth three thousand pounds wouldn't last that couple forever—not in the style they were used to.

Was he overspent, she wondered. Was Canada preferable to a debtor's prison?

Or . . . a tiny worm of hope broke through the dead, protective wall with which Makepeace had surrounded herself . . . had Blanchard reason to believe that Andrew was on his way home? Andrew coming back, indeed, to be told by every servant in his house that Blanchard had been swiving his wife?

Makepeace sat up straight.
It might be that, oh God, it might be that.
Blanchard was part of The League. The League, because of its contacts, received news from France days before it appeared in the press.

It could be, it could be.
And if Andrew returned, he might have Philippa with him.

In that moment, the reflection of light on water wobbling over the perimeter of the cave's rocky shelf was more beautiful than she'd ever seen it. She shut her eyes to it; don't think, don't hope. Remain a sponge—it doesn't hurt so much.

And yet
, she thought,
I'll have to do something sooner or later. We can't stay here forever, the boy needs more scientific education, university, a life.

Also, she had to do something for her shamefully neglected third daughter. Sally's letters showed she was happy and settled in Northumberland but arrangements would have to be made. . . .

If Andrew Ffoulkes
were
to come home, she thought, he could persuade his friend Prime Minster Pitt to absolve Jacques of the crime of being his father's son. But—and here numbness enfolded her again—Andrew wasn't coming back any more than Philippa was. It had been foolish to think so.

Desultorily, Makepeace's mind explored the globe. Europe was no good, France having invaded most of it. Or was Germany still free? Yes, she rather thought it was. She seemed to remember Andra telling her Germany was bulging with fine scientists. She could take Jacques there.

On the other hand, since she had to go with the boy, she didn't fancy spending what remained of her life in a country where she couldn't speak the language. And would Sally like it?

America then. Home.
Well, it used to be home until the patriots chased her out.
Bloody revolutionaries get everywhere
, she thought mildly. Perhaps it had improved now it was the United States. Ben Franklin country. Andra had liked Ben Franklin, one of the great enquiring minds, he'd said. Dead now, like Andra, but perhaps his scientific torch had been passed on. . . .

America.
She supposed there was a neat inevitability that she should end her days in the country in which they'd begun, the completion of a long and eventful circumambulation which had left her no wiser as to why men chose to kill each other than when she'd set out.

Not yet, though.
For a while they'd stay here, in Babbs Cove, where her mind could vacillate, like the light of this cavern, in a limbo of tranquillity.

From which she heard a shot sounding across the bay. The lookout always on guard had fired warning of a visitor.

In one second she was on her feet, the next she was in the boat and rowing like a mad thing. It would be a vessel from France. She'd conjured it up. Andrew . . . Philippa . . .

The great matted curtain over the entrance of the cave hampered her exit and she had to scrabble at it before the prow was free and she could get the boat through.

The bay was empty. The visitor, whoever it was, had not come by sea.

Wearily, she thought of bailiffs arrived to arrest Jacques. Well, the lane was always blocked, there would be time for Tobias to drag the boy from his steam engine and hide him until the stranger went away or was certified as friend, not foe—a circumstance of which the village would be notified by yet another round from the sentry's firelock.

She heard it. All's well.

There was a conveyance outside the Pomeroy Arms, though at this distance and from this angle she could not see exactly what it was, except that it gave the impression of being small and shabby. Neither could she see what or whom it had brought to the inn's door. Obviously, whoever it was had satisfactorily proved their credentials.

By the time she'd rowed ashore, the conveyance was gone.

Dell was standing in the forecourt, looking for her, a letter in one hand and an empty beer mug in the other.

‘It was an Irishman come in a gig but ye've missed him.'

Her heart raced. ‘A big man?'

‘No, no, little runt of a fella, and I was to give you this.'

Having resurrected Makepeace's life and then buried it again, she handed over a letter: ‘He wouldn't stay but I was to say that the delivery came from a certain Mick Murrough as promised. That's what he called 'em, “delivery as per promised.” Funny little fellow he was, a Kerry tinker from his pots and pans and accent but thanked me for the ale polite enough. Anyway, I took them in for didn't they ...'

But Makepeace had split the seal and was reading. The writing was copperplate and the message not long enough.

 

‘... and both of them thin as death on wires, poor things ...' Dell was still rattling on.

Makepeace pushed past her into the inn.

The slave and her child stood in the middle of the taproom floor, his arms wrapped round her legs, her arms circling his head and her huge, terrified eyes glancing left and right for enemies.

Makepeace sank to her knees, sobbing in gratitude.

 

 

THEY had to get Dick Tucker, the blacksmith, down from the farm to take the collars off. The woman's was fairly easy, a thick iron thing with a hasp that only needed one hammer blow, though she kept shying when they tried to make her keep still for it. When at last she bent across the sawing horse they used for an anvil, her thin bodice gaped and showed burns on the top of her breasts.

The boy's was more difficult because it was fine silver and fitted his little neck more closely. While it was being filed, he clung to his mother and when Dell wanted to take her away to dress her burns his breathing became panicky and Dell had to let her go.

Jacques tried talking to them in French but their faces remained dull from incomprehension. The only person they didn't shrink from was Tobias. ‘Reckon they know my neck had a collar one time, too,' he said.

‘Have they said anything? Can you understand them?' Makepeace asked.

He shook his head. ‘They ain't from my part of Africa. From the collarth, I'd reckon they were thold apart—look at hith jacket, velvet. I don't like to think where they put her.' He took Makepeace's hand. ‘They the oneth from Brithtol, do you think?'

She smiled back at him. ‘Perhaps.' She hadn't seen the running woman's face and a terrified child had the ubiquity of all terrified children. Whoever they were, they belonged together and had been reunited, one tiny atonement for the great wrongdoing.

‘Thomebody'll be looking for them,' Tobias said.

‘They won't bloody get them,' Makepeace said. Sir Mick and his tinkers had plucked these particular brands from the burning and, by Christ, she'd kill to stop them being thrown back into it.

She was alive now, energy practically sparking from her finger ends. There were days when God permitted miracles and this was one of them. She had plans to make; she couldn't think why she'd been so lazy.