The Sparks Fly Upward Read online

  And there they were; two shapes caught in Sanders’s lamps, crouched and blinking in the center of the lawn like a couple of hideous ornaments. She began gesticulating for them to run towards her but they were confused and she had to go to them. ‘Get in the carriage and lie down. Quickly.’

  She could hear her mother bantering with the men in the roadway, offering them liquid refreshment, which, presumably, was what they’d delayed for in the first place. She teased them. ‘But I suppose you ain’t allowed to drink on duty.’

  By the time the denials occasioned by that remark had died down, Beasley and his companion had wormed their way into the bottom of the carriage. Philippa shut the door on them.

  ‘How’s that wheel now, Sanders?’ Makepeace called.

  ‘Stay on a bit longer, I reckon.’

  ‘Get on then.’

  Philippa took her half sister’s arm and together they walked up the drive as if enjoying the night’s freezing air, slowing down the cavalcade coming politely behind them.

  Hildy had heard their approach and opened the front door on to the steps where Makepeace was already alighting and giving orders. ‘Off to the coach house with you, Sanders, and see to that wheel. Ale for four, Hildy. You lads can come into the hall for your drink, but take your damn boots off.’

  Nobody paid attention to Philippa and Jenny as they followed the carriage around to the side of the house where an arch in the wall led to the coach and stable yard.

  Jenny was patting her heart. ‘I nearly swooned. How did you know what to do?’

  ‘Practice. Living with Ma you get used to it.’

  ‘That you do,’ Sanders said.

  Both exaggerated for old-times’ sake—apart from aiding the group of Beasley’s friends who’d wanted to escape to France, Makepeace had spent the last five years in law-abiding grief.

  Beasley and his companion were too tired and too cold to talk. Stumbling, they followed Jenny and Philippa around to the kitchen yard and in through the back door. The large kitchen was empty and lit only by the glow of the fire banked down for the night. Beside it, a kettle stood on a trivet. A cloth covered half a goose and some ham. The women immediately started preparing food.

  The man with Beasley sat down at the table and put his head on it.

  Beasley slouched in a corner. ‘You’ve grown a fine pair of bubbies since I saw you last,’ he said to Jenny. Jenny blushed.

  ‘Don’t you start that,’ Philippa told him. He was especially graceless when frightened, but if he’d been scared so had she and Jenny.

  Makepeace came in from the hall passage, her fingers entwined through tankard handles. ‘They’ve gone. Hildy’s upstairs preparing the beds in the attic.’ She looked without warmth at Beasley. ‘Well?’

  ‘Didn’t know where else to go.’

  ‘To hell would have been a good idea,’ she told him. ‘What is it this time?’

  ‘Meet Tom Glossop,’ Beasley said. ‘He’s a bookseller.’

  Glossop raised his head and nodded, ‘Ma’am,’ before sprawling once more on the table.

  ‘Bastards caught us in my print shop,’ Beasley said. ‘The place was stacked with Rights of Man. Glossop here was going to distribute them in the morning. Fanny next door heard ’em coming down the street and warned us. We got out through the back window. Been running all night. They raised the hue and cry and I swear they had forty after us down Piccadilly. I thought we’d given ’em the slip in Saint James’s Park, but no. Couldn’t even stop to piss.’

  Reminded, he went outside and they heard the hiss of fluid spattering onto the stones of the yard.

  Makepeace put down the tankards, went into the pantry and came out again with a bottle of rum. She found two beakers, half filled each with rum, poured in a dash of hot water, added a spoonful of butter from a crock, stirred in some treacle and put Glossop’s unresisting hand round one of them. ‘Here.’

  ‘Thank you, ma’am.’ He was a mild-looking little man, unshaven and with exhausted eyes, whose long run had left his attire surprisingly neat, apart from his boots and the loss of his hat. ‘I don’t know what the wife’ll say.’

  Beasley, when he came back in, looked considerably less healthy than his companion, but he always looked unhealthier than anybody. His face was white and shiny, like fishmeat, his coat wore the droppings of recent meals, his cravat was grubby and carelessly tied. It was Philippa’s belief that any new clothes he purchased were immediately and deliberately soiled in some sort of protest against a society he despised; it seemed to give him satisfaction to be dirty, like a child smearing itself with porridge. It sent her mother mad. Yet he had gained and kept the friendship of men like Dr Johnson, Garrick and Joshua Reynolds.

  All dead now, Philippa thought. There’s only Ma.

  ‘Sedition,’ Makepeace said flatly.

  ‘Reform,’ snarled Beasley. ‘Paine ain’t out for violence, he just happens to think a system by which a mere eleven thousand people elect a majority in the Commons is so unrepresentative it needs changing. Silly old him. That ain’t sedition. Rights ain’t even anarchy, missus, it’s just common sense.’

  Makepeace wasn’t arguing against it, she agreed with it, as did every person in the room; she merely resented having to cope with its consequences at three o’clock in the morning. ‘So it’s my poor smugglers again, is it? They ain’t a ferry service.’

  ‘You got Tom Paine away.’

  ‘Paine, Paine . . .’ The group she and Philippa had seen onto Jan Gurney’s schooner at Babbs Cove had seemed amorphous in their mutual concern for their necks and their politics. ‘. . . was he the one with the carbuncles?’

  Beasley sulked. ‘He’s a great man.’

  ‘He’s a great drinker,’ Makepeace said. ‘The bugger toped most of our profits that trip. Oh, get on and eat, and let me think.’

  She left Jenny to serve the men and took Philippa into the hall. ‘I’ll have to go with them to Devon. They won’t make it on their own, not even with Sanders driving. Every guard post and turnpike will be on the lookout for ’em.’

  ‘Oh, Ma.’

  Makepeace patted her daughter’s extended hand. ‘It’s not that much. I was going to go down to Bristol to meet your Uncle Aaron next week in any case. It’s just a matter of leaving earlier.’

  ‘I wasn’t thinking of the inconvenience, it’s the danger.’

  Makepeace shrugged. ‘I’ll talk my way through the stops, I’ve done it before.’

  ‘I’ll come, too; it will look more convincing if there are two women in the coach.’

  ‘No. You stay here with Jenny. I need you to go bail if I end up in clink.’

  Philippa realized that her mother looked better than she had for a long time; the despair had gone. It wasn’t that Makepeace was enjoying the risk but there was a purpose to her that hadn’t been evident since Andra died. We have to be useful, she and I, Philippa thought. Aloud, she said, ‘Give my love to the Gurneys.’

  Back in the kitchen, Mr Glossop was still wondering what his wife would think of all this. ‘We were planning to go to America together, ’ he said.

  ‘The ferry don’t go that far,’ Makepeace said. ‘It’s France or nothing.’

  ‘You can go on from there,’ Beasley told him. ‘I’ll see your Lizzie gets a passsage, Tom. She’ll join you in Boston.’

  Makepeace stared at him. ‘Why? Where will you be?’

  ‘Me? I’m staying.’ She might have insulted him. ‘Soon as I’ve seen Glossop’s missus and told her what’s to do, I’m giving myself up.’ He looked around at their faces. ‘Somebody’s got to stand against the bastards.’

  ‘They’ll put you on trial,’ Philippa protested.

  ‘Certainly, they will.’ In his glum way, he was looking forward to it. ‘They’ll say it’s sedition. I’ll say how can publishing a democratic tract be seditious? We’ll see what an English jury makes of it.’

  ‘They’ll hang you, you silly bugger,’ Makepeace said.

  Beasley t
ook an untidy bite of his bread and goosemeat. ‘Let ’em.’

  Makepeace pleaded, wasting her breath.

  Philippa wondered if those who had been prepared to die for their beliefs, whose names sang down the ages, were as lumpish and grubby and stubborn and not a little pleased with themselves as this man. Were the great martyrs made of such stuff? Yes, she thought, they probably were.

  And as brave, God protect him.

  Tenderly, she filled up his tankard.

  STEPHEN arrived late the next morning. He had tramped the woods on his way down from London to pick holly and ivy and arranged them into a surprisingly attractive bouquet for her. ‘Evergreen, ’ he said, kissing her, ‘as our marriage will be.’

  He said he’d called in on his mother in Mayfair to tell her the news.

  ‘Was she pleased?’

  ‘Yes.’ He was always guarded when talking about his mother and had not yet suggested that Philippa meet her. ‘She offered an emerald pendant of hers to be made into an engagement ring for you.’

  ‘That’s nice of her.’

  ‘I suppose it was, but I refused. The token between us must be new—anyway, you are not an emerald person.’

  She wondered what jewel he thought her to be but didn’t ask; he was in a hurry. ‘I have to take a meeting at noon.’

  ‘So have I,’ she said.

  ‘Really? What meeting is that?’

  She nearly said, ‘A women’s committee’ but changed it at the last minute. ‘Just a ladies’ meeting.’

  He nodded. ‘Where’s the missus?’ He was looking towards the top of the staircase and she realized that John Beasley had chosen this moment to emerge from his bed.

  Philippa said, ‘She’s gone to the West Country. She will be meeting my Uncle Aaron at Bristol.’ It was more supressio veri than suggestio falsi; she didn’t think her fiancé was yet ready to be apprised of Makepeace’s smugglers—even less of what they would be smuggling.

  She tried to lead the way into the morning room but Heilbron was fixed by the apparition on the stairs. She couldn’t blame him; Beasley was wearing a blanket over one of Hildy’s nightgowns, his hair straggled from under a tea cosy and unlaced boots flapped on his unstockinged feet.

  ‘Stephen, may I present Mr Beasley. Uncle John, this is Mr Heilbron. ’

  Stephen bowed. ‘Mr Beasley.’

  Beasley mumbled, ‘Ayoop,’ or something like it and slouched off towards the kitchens.

  ‘He’s an old friend of Ma’s,’ Philippa said apologetically.

  ‘Yes.’

  They went into the morning room, which was full of the crystalline light of a sunny frosty morning.

  ‘I love this room,’ Stephen said. ‘Simple grace, like you.’

  It smelled of the apple logs burning palely in the grate and of lavender-scented beeswax. It possessed little in the way of style; Makepeace had none when it came to furnishings and had anyway been too desolate to bother. Philippa had gathered pieces more for her mother’s comfort than their cohesion but their quality provided a certain unity. She had avoided clutter and the deep, reflective, dark shine of side tables, bookcases and a little walnut writing desk looked well against the matt white walls.

  Only about the ceiling design had Makepeace expressed a view and Philippa had hired a skilled but somewhat horrified plasterer to execute it. If one looked carefully at the plasterwork it was to see that between the ribs spreading out from the cornices were the shapes of little coal wagons and that, instead of roses or mythical creatures, the bosses were decorated with pit ponies.

  Andra’s son by his first marriage now ran the mine for his step-mother but Makepeace was not ashamed to display to the world where her money came from.

  Stephen had noticed it on his first visit and approved—it was what Philippa had immediately liked about him, that he wasn’t one of those who looked down on trade.

  He went to the long windows overlooking a garden that had been outlined in frost as if by sparkling chalk. ‘I wish we could go for a walk,’ he said. ‘I wish we had time.’ He turned round. ‘We need to know each other better, we need to plan our wedding.’

  ‘We can go tomorrow,’ she said.

  ‘Ah, but we can’t. I’m bound for Liverpool so that I can get the report prepared for the House of Commons. I shan’t be back for at least eight days. Do you mind?’

  ‘Only that you may be hurt.’ His activities were getting too well-known. When he’d been on the Bristol docks asking question and taking notes, the slave traders had given him a drubbing that broke one of his ribs.

  ‘The real hurt is discovering the viciousness of man to man. God help us, Philippa, the chains, the manacles ...’

  She squeezed her eyes shut against the images. ‘When you come back then.’

  ‘Yes.’ As if he was reluctant to go, or didn’t know how to say good-bye, he began picking through a little pile of books left on the window seat. His face changed and he held one up. ‘Do you read this?’

  She peered at it. ‘Mary Wollstonecraft? Yes, I’ve read it.’

  ‘The woman leads an irregular life, Philippa. And anyway, she advocates revolution, a female Thomas Paine.’

  ‘Not revolution, Stephen,’ she said, gently, ‘just equality.’

  ‘And we see what that has led to in France.’

  Keep calm, she told herself. Aloud, she said, ‘France has at least abolished slavery, Stephen. You are fighting against the ownership of one human being by another. Miss Wollstonecraft merely points out that women are property, too.’

  ‘How can you think that?’ His face had regained the disappointment in her it had worn when she’d upheld Condorcet. If he were not the man he was, he would be showing anger.

  This is for when we have time, she thought, when I’m not angry. She touched his hand. ‘We can discuss these things when we take our walk.’

  ‘Yes.’ She’d reminded him of something. ‘I was going to say . . . when we take that walk, perhaps it would be better if Marie Joséphine accompany us.’

  Marie Joséphine was her French maid. ‘A chaperone, do you mean?’

  ‘Yes. I know your mother is unmindful of such matters but I think it would be better.’

  She smiled. ‘Stephen, are you afraid you might jump on me in the woods if we’re alone?’

  He laughed. ‘I might. No, I just think it’s up to people like us to be above reproach. There is too much laxity before marriage everywhere and if we don’t restore some rectitude by our example, who will?’

  ‘Very well.’

  When she’d seen him out, she went back to the window seat to pile up the books he had scattered. Stubbornly, she put A Vindication of the Rights of Women at the top.

  How could he not see the parallel? Once we’re married, I shall have no right to my own money or my own children. He could turn me into the street to beg my living and I should have no recourse.

  He wasn’t that sort of man, thank God, but he could—and there were men who did.

  Beasley came up behind her, chewing on a sausage. ‘What you say his name was?’

  ‘Heilbron, Stephen Heilbron.’

  He grunted. ‘One of those bloody hypocrites out to stop vice, ain’t he?’

  ‘And abolish the slave trade,’ she said tartly. ‘He’s no hypocrite and I’m going to marry him.’

  ‘More fool you.’ He looked down to where her hand still rested on The Rights of Women. ‘I bet he’s overjoyed to see that in your library.’

  She tucked the book at the bottom of the pile. Before she went, Makepeace had suggested Beasley stay at Reach House for a week in order to build up his strength for prison. It was going to be a long seven days.

  ‘Met her once at one of Joe Johnson’s dinners,’ Beasley said. ‘He publishes her. Tom Paine was there as well, that’s who she got the idea from—Rights of Man, Rights of Women. He seemed to like her, so did Blake. Personally, I thought she was a bit fuckish.’

  Philippa turned on him. ‘Why do you say that?
Is she living in sin? Did she dance on the table? Did she do anything at that dinner other than express an opinion?’

  ‘No.’

  He was taken aback but Philippa pursued him. ‘Because my reading of history has led me to believe that any woman who is not content to sit by the fire and knit is immediately labeled a whore and a Jezebel. Not once, not once, when Miss Wollstonecraft’s name is mentioned by a man have I heard anything but sexual denigration of her.’

  He blinked at her. ‘What’s put the wind in your bellows?’

  She had, she realized, displayed anger towards him when she had withheld it from all the other men who had thwarted her lately, which was unfair because he was the only one with whom she was sufficiently at ease to show it. ‘Oh, never mind. And why are you wearing our tea cosy?’

  ‘Keep me head warm. Hildy didn’t give me a nightcap.’ He finished his sausage, staring at her with calculation. ‘If the bastards remand me in prison, I need somebody to write editorials for The Passenger. You’d better do it.’

  ‘Write edi—I can’t.’

  The Passenger was Beasley’s own weekly paper, a defiant little terrier of a publication that kept nipping at the government’s backside. It had been suppressed more than once and its press destroyed, merely causing its proprietor to bring it out again at a different print shop.

  ‘Why not? You’re opinionated enough. One thousand words, scribble it down and take it to Inky Jones in Grub Street; he’ll set it in type and Bob’s your uncle. Don’t need to sign it.’

  ‘I couldn’t possibly.’ She’d never written for publication, and besides, Grub Street was an unsavory area, so Stephen wouldn’t approve . . . What a strange man this was; slandering Mary Wollstonecraft with one breath, and in the next, offering his beloved editorial space to a woman’s thinking as if it were an everyday thing to do. ‘Could I?’

  He shrugged.

  ‘Grub Street,’ she said, musing. ‘Uncle John, by chance do you know any forgers?’

  Chapter Four

  MINDFUL of Stephen’s regard for her respectability, Philippa took Marie Joséphine with her to the meeting, though on most occasions she was used to going about Chelsea on her own, the village itself being small and friendly and she now a well-known denizen of it.