The Sparks Fly Upward Page 3

  If the man made china teeth that fitted, he must be. Such English as were both rich and dentally unfortunate were ever complaining that teeth taken from the dead rotted too quickly. Makepeace smiled again, showing teeth that were her own and very nearly perfect.

  The Marquis stood on tiptoe so that his mouth could approach her ear. ‘Poor De Chemant, he is still in France,’ he whispered through a cloud of bad breath. ‘Some of us have asked Lord Ffoulkes to save him.’ He stood back.

  Makepeace stopped smiling.

  De Barigoule said: ‘A fine young man, Lord Ffoulkes. He talks of you as a mother.’

  ‘He was my first husband’s ward,’ Makepeace said, vaguely.

  On the way back to her table, Ffoulkes himself came up to claim her for the next dance. ‘Fun, ain’t it? Never thought to see you waltzing, missus.’

  ‘Me, neither,’ she said, shortly. ‘Andrew, what are you about letting everybody know what you lads get up to in France?’

  ‘Who said so?’

  ‘That Froggy just now.’

  He looked around, ‘Oh, de Barigoule? One of last year’s deliveries. Can’t help that, missus. Packages are bound to know the postman.’

  ‘They don’t have to yap about it; Robespierre’s got spies everywhere. ’ She herself only knew of Andrew’s and his friends’ secret activities—they called themselves The League—because a fishing boat they were using to bring some aristocrats back from Cherbourg had gotten blown off course and landed at Start Point. It was in Makepeace’s interest to be informed of the movement of all craft along that stretch of South Devon coast, and she was.

  It turned out, somewhat irritatingly, that Philippa had known all along of the existence of The League and what it was up to.

  ‘Andrew. I want you to stop now.’

  ‘Goin’ to, missus. League’s being wound up. No more adventurin’, I fear. Benedick the married man, me. What d’ye think of Félicie, eh? Approve?’

  ‘Very pretty.’ Indeed, the little figurine she’d had been introduced to a day or two before was unbelievably lovely. Makepeace, always prejudiced against the French aristocracy, had been overcritical. ‘The female made me feel I was baa-ing at her like a damn sheep,’ she’d told Philippa afterwards. In the company of her husband and her peers Félicie overdid the pathos; in the company of lesser mortals, like Makepeace herself, she kept an uninterested distance.

  ‘Give her time, Ma. England’s new to her and she’s just lost everything.’

  ‘She’s gained Andrew.’ Félicie couldn’t be luckier than that.

  Makepeace had loved him from the first, a motherless, miserable but brave six-year-old who’d just lost his father. And he’d come to love her—she was always better with boys than girls. Neither had disappointed the other over the years.

  Except now, she thought. Why didn’t you marry Philippa?

  She had never entertained the idea until tonight; there had been no indication in the past. Or, if there had been, she supposed she hadn’t seen it because, regarding Andrew like a son as she did, a match between the two would have seemed incestuous. In any case, Philippa’s admiration of Andrew had always resembled that of a younger sister. Makepeace now wondered if she’d done wrong in asking Andrew, when he was seven years old, to be Philippa’s godfather; perhaps it had distorted the relationship for him. Could godfathers marry their goddaughters? Too late to find out now.

  He whirled her into the dance with more speed than the Marquis had done, and considerably less expertise. ‘Married men have heavy expenses,’ he said. ‘Any room for me in the smugglin’ trade?’

  He found her connection with her Devonian smugglers endlessly diverting. Before his last trip to France he’d sent her a note saying: ‘Fly, all is discovered’ signed ‘Brandy Bill,’ followed up by a footman dressed in Revenue uniform with orders to search her premises—a stratagem that, oddly enough, had provoked Makepeace sufficiently to give her depression a temporary lift.

  ‘Oh, hush. You’ll have me in clink.’ Others would not be similarly amused. Nearly every English person in the room drank brandy and tea on which no duty had been paid, yet would call himself or herself a law-abiding citizen while at the same time condemning those who illegally imported the stuff as criminal.

  ‘Wish you could’ve been at the wedding, missus,’ he said. ‘But this time we were delivering our packages over the Swiss border; had to get her on my passport there and then.’ He grinned. ‘Her aunt insisted on drawing up the marriage contract as if the wedding was to be at Versailles under the old regime; all the diamonds, carriages she would have had included. And the poor little thing shivering in her one chemise.’

  ‘You made it up to her tonight.’ The new Lady Ffoulkes sparkled like one of her husband’s chandeliers.

  ‘Hope so.’

  She’d better be good to you, Makepeace thought with ferocity. Out loud she said: ‘Well, stick to your guns. Don’t go risking that head of yours for a damn dentist. I’ve put plenty of plasters on it in my time, but I can’t stick it back on once it’s off.’

  ‘Anybody could, you could.’

  He led her in to supper, fetched her champagne and went away to see to his other guests.

  The supper tables against the gold and white walls looked like someone’s bas-relief of a gastronomic mountain range in autumn color. Sugar-capped heights of fruit decorated with ivy leaves towered over silver chafing dishes giving off steam like volcanoes, crags of pastries, parsleyed meats, lemoned fish, appled pork, brown-hilled pies, black pools of caviar, and, here and there, a shining sculpture of ice in the shape of a fleur-de-lis.

  Gloved footmen hovered with plates and tongs, ready to help those who wouldn’t help themselves.

  The emigrés, Makpeace noted, tried to appear casual but couldn’t hold out. Her little Marquis was sucking asparagus with the energy of a baby at his mother’s breast, but most were going for bulk, attacking the beef and capons and ragouts—sallets could wait.

  She saw one old lady in an unfashionably towering headdress—why would one save that from a revolution?—look around craftily before tipping a plateful of vol-au-vents de quenelles into a large, battered reticule for later, followed by some meringues.

  It was like watching beggars scramble for pennies so she stopped doing it.

  A flushed and happy Jenny joined her. ‘Aren’t you eating, Mama?’

  ‘Andrew’s told a footman to get me something.’

  ‘I’ll wait for him, then.’ She sat down and eased her shoes, squinting at her mother and falling into dialect. ‘Wait for Maister Deedes and ah’d be half-deid for want o’ battenin’.’

  It was kindly meant, a whiff of fresh Northumbrian air in this London hothouse, but the expression of face and voice brought back Andra so sharply that it ran a dagger through Makepeace’s ribs. She fought the pain with anger. ‘That’s the last time he comes anywhere with us. He’s supposed to be looking after you. Where is the bugger?’

  Immediately, Jenny became emollient. ‘It’s natural he and Mr Heilbron would want to talk abolition with all the important people here. God’s work, Ma.’

  ‘God’s more of a gentleman, I hope.’

  But here was Heilbron leading her eldest daughter towards her. There was something about the two of them . . . Not usually percipient, she knew in an instant what it was.

  Charmingly, Heilbron asked for her permission and blessing. She gave them—surprised by her own reluctance. As he turned to receive Jenny’s exuberant congratulations, she whispered: ‘Are you sure?’

  Philippa kissed her. ‘He is a fine, good man, Mama. I am both fortunate and content.’

  She looked well enough, but in Makepeace’s experience you didn’t marry a man because you were fortunate or content, you married him because you couldn’t wait to rip off your stays and jump into bed with him. She herself hadn’t even waited that long; she’d anticipated her wedding night with Philip Dapifer and, later, with Andra Hedley, those two very different, lovely men. And i
f she’d known that she was to lose them—in Dapifer’s case after only a year—she’d have done it even quicker.

  He is a good man, she assured herself. But is he too good? Heilbron was a valiant fighter against slavery, yes, but he subscribed to this new thing, the Society for the Suppression of Vice, with equal vehemence.

  They’d argued about it. ‘Surely you cannot uphold the state of licentiousness and drunkenness we see all about us, missus?’

  ‘No, I’m agin it. But the trouble with your lot is you want to suppress the pleasures of the poor, which is all they’ve got, not the vices of the rich.’ She was thinking of Reverend Deedes who would reduce the streets to decorous gloom while disregarding the sins of the drawing room.

  ‘I don’t.’

  She had to admit that Heilbron practiced what he preached; he’d resigned from all the drinking and gambling clubs he’d joined in his youth, while still managing to retain the friends he’d made in them and without becoming a prude.

  Nevertheless, as a son-in-law he worried her; she was prepared to stake her fortune that Philippa’s stays were as yet unripped.

  She reminded herself that the young didn’t wear stays anymore—the Revolution having freed the female figure at least—but her principle held true.

  Well, there was nothing to be done about it; she’d never fully understood Philippa but she knew better than to try and persuade her against something she’d set her mind to. Just as long as it wasn’t because she’d been disappointed by Andrew . . .

  ‘Forgive me, Stephen,’ Philippa was saying, ‘but I must go and tell Lord Ffoulkes the news—he is my godfather, after all.’

  ‘By all means. There are some here tonight I can’t resist informing myself. I shall be the most envied man at the ball.’

  Perhaps it’ll be all right, Makepeace thought, watching her daughter go. Perhaps Jenny’s wrong. She seems happy. He’s a kind soul and, undoubtedly, with her money and common sense she’s exactly what is needed by a man careering towards greatness.

  She just wished the word ‘sacrifice’ didn’t keep occurring to her.

  PHILIPPA thought that if it had done nothing else, the Revolution had caused men to show themselves off to greater advantage than at any time in their history. Gone were the wigs, the over-pocketed coats and ribboned stockings, all the brocaded fuss. Line was in.

  Andrew was the shortest man in the group but, like the others around him, had his head held high by his enormous collar and cravat. As with the rest, it was as if silk had been merely painted on his body; not a wrinkle disturbed the run of limbs—except for the lump which made an unabashed ruck in the frontal sweep of the britches from which ladies were supposed to avert their eyes.

  Her eyes suitably averted, Philippa said: ‘My lord, may I have a word with you in private.’

  Lord Ffoulkes put his arm around her shoulders to bring her into the center of the circle. ‘William, I don’t believe you’ve met my goddaughter, Philippa Dapifer. Pippy, this is Mr Pitt.’ She curtseyed to the prime minister.

  He’d always delighted in being her godfather and so close in age. When he was ten years old and she’d accompanied Makepeace on a visit to him at Eton, he’d not been embarrassed to take her by the hand and toddle her around the school, trumpeting their relationship to his friends.

  ‘You’ve met these other gentlemen, of course.’ She acknowledged Henry Hastings, Boy Blanchard, Snuffy Throgmorton, Peter Saint James, Kit Pellew.

  These last were The League, to be found at most high entertainments when they were in England as well as in the society papers and scandal sheets, all of them Old Etonians, gamblers, fast livers, redeeming their souls by secret rescue work in France.

  Viscount Throgmorton was in financial straits from playing too heavily at White’s; she knew because he’d asked her to marry him. He’d been charmingly honest about saving her from being an old maid. ‘We get on well, old thing, don’t we? I can offer the title and a castle here or there . . . and, d’y’see, it would get me out of a frightful hole.’

  ‘Bless you, Snuffy,’ she’d said. ‘I’m afraid not, but I can lend you a thousand if you’d like.’

  It was a thousand she hadn’t seen again but it had kept them on good terms.

  The others had married and fathered early, though their wives, poor things, were rarely in their company. Lady Blanchard was never seen; Mesdames Hastings and Saint James were here tonight but abandoned, as usual, to talk to each other.

  Eton, Philippa had long decided, was an octopus that never let go; if she and Stephen had a son, he would be kept from its toils.

  Andrew took her into his library, her favorite room in the house.

  ‘Waltzing,’ she said, once they were inside. ‘Ma nearly went home.’

  ‘Didn’t, though, did she? Bein’ whisked ’round like a spoon by some elderly Frog when I found her. And one’s got to keep up with the times.’ He collapsed into a chair and put his legs on the massive table that served as his desk in order to massage one superb boot. ‘Feel I’ve kept up with a couple of centuries.’

  He was up again in a second to light a cigar, to check on a new saddle that lay across a wooden horse at one end of the long room. He was rarely still; among the other members of The League, who adopted fashionable indolence when on show, he resembled an energetic sheepdog keeping a long-legged flock together. But The League had been his idea and his was the busy brain that had enabled it to snatch nearly fifty people from the guillotine.

  Philippa crossed to the room’s other end and automatically adjusted a Stubbs painting of Andrew’s Derby winner. ‘I wish you’d get this chain fixed. Poor Corsair’s always running either uphill or down.’

  ‘Fussbudget.’

  ‘Slobberguts.’

  ‘What d’you think of her, Pippy?’

  ‘Very lovely.’

  ‘Told her all about you. She’s dyin’ to be friends.’

  She turned round, smiling. ‘Then we shall be.’

  ‘Takin’ her on a tour of the estates tomorrow, beginnin’ with the north. She’d like you to join us at some point.’

  He’s no idea, Philippa thought. He’s not only dragging his bride to a Cumbrian castle in midwinter, he’s suggesting that another woman join them on their honeymoon. She’d prefer a stretch on the rack. So would I.

  ‘We’ll see.’

  He went back to the table to light a cigar. ‘What’s up?’

  She sighed and went to stand in front of him, her hands folded. ‘First of all, you’ve got to promise you won’t be going back to France.’

  He shook his head. ‘Feel a bit liver-faced about it, but no. Me wife’—he paused to relish the term—‘she won’t have it. Made me swear it on our wedding day—got a horror for her own country, which ain’t surprising. I need a son or two before I risk the old neck again.’ He glanced at her sideways. ‘Tell you the truth, Pip, it was gettin’ a bit warm over there. Had a narrow shave or two with the National Guard. Seemed to be on the lookout for me. Popped up in Paris once too often, I suppose.’

  ‘A carroty, freckled Saxon among all those Gauls? Surely not.’

  Every time he went on one of The League’s missions, she’d imagined him, standing out among the Parisians like a Union Jack, every beat of her pulse asking: What if I lost him?

  ‘I’ll have you know I am a master of disguise.’ He squinted at her again. ‘You never approved, did you?’

  ‘I approve of saving people.’ It had been a treasured moment when he’d discussed The League’s formation with her before anybody else. ‘I just think if the French peasants had been saved from starvation, there needn’t have been a revolution in the first place.’

  ‘I didn’t know any bloody peasants.’

  Typical, she thought. Politics meant nothing to him, only people. He’s like Ma in that. If he’d met a family of French destitutes, they’d have been made rich within the minute; he just hadn’t met any. There had been no destitutes at Versailles, whence he’d been sent
in ’88 as an unofficial British ambassador to make trade agreements with Louis XVI’s officials. It was to save his acquaintances there that The League had been formed.

  ‘There’s talk of rescuing some French dentist,’ she said, doubtfully.

  He smiled, showing good teeth of which one in front was missing a small diagonal chip, benefit of the Eton Wall Game. ‘Ah, that’s Boy Blanchard’s private enterprise, nothin’ to do with me. Boy shouldn’t have much trouble gettin’ him out, the fella’s not in any danger I gather. Even Robespierre don’t object to a good tooth-puller. But our Frogs want him rescued and Boy’s keen—has a lot of trouble with his toothy-pegs, has Boy.’

  She thought that risking one’s head was possibly a drastic way of seeking a cure for toothache, but it wasn’t her business.

  There was a footman at the door. ‘Her ladyship’s compliments, my lord, and she wants you to begin the toasts.’

  ‘I’ll be there in a minute.’ He took a puff of his cigar and settled himself on the horse. ‘What is it, Pip?’

  ‘Andrew, I want forged papers for a friend of mine. He’s hiding somewhere in Paris. If I can send a certificat de civisme to his wife she can give it to him and he can travel to the coast.’

  ‘Who is it?’

  She said, reluctantly: ‘It’s Condorcet.’

  Cigar smoke streamed from his lips under pressure. ‘Phew. Our revolutionary ex-Marquis, eh?’

  She prepared to fight. ‘He’s a great man and a great friend.’

  ‘Don’t say he ain’t, don’t say he ain’t.’ Lord Ffoulkes’s hands went up in mock surrender. ‘But you certainly pick ’em, Pip, old thing. He may be in hiding from Robespierre but he’ll have to take cover from our noble Froggies if he gets over here. They tend to spit when his name’s mentioned.’

  ‘Do I get the certificat or don’t I?’

  ‘’Course you do. Always rather liked him when I met him. Didn’t understand a word he said, him bein’ an intellectual. But he’s a decent enough fella, I thought, despite his damn politics. How’ll you get the papers to him? Won’t be easy.’