Taking Liberties (41 page)

So were Makepeace's. Bosun Tilley didn't approve of women and the more spirit they had, the less he approved of them. He was open about it. ‘You can stay 'til I get my own people in here,' he said, ‘then you and the moll can go.'

‘Why? We work hard enough.'

‘Ain't saying you don't but I can tell interferers when I see 'em.' Tilley couldn't take a rope's end to women. The twins could stay, Makepeace and Dell must go.

‘What about Tobias?' She was desperate that they remained in touch with Millbay through somebody. ‘He's a good worker and he won't interfere.'

‘He's a blackie. Some of the men don't like it.'

There was nothing she could do; the new commandant of the prison, Captain Stewart, had given Tilley full autonomy over the hospital's day-to-day running.

Her only comfort was that while he kept to strict demarcation between black and white patients, he treated both with the same impersonal but excellent care. With the backing of Captain Stewart, a man as efficient as himself, he was able to counter the corruption of the prison staff more effectively than the Dowager; food improved, and so did the supply of medicines.

And he had one piece of good fortune not vouchsafed to the Dowager. Dr Maltby died, choked on his own vomit at a Plymouth Masons' dinner, to be replaced by a retired but capable and energetic ship's surgeon.

The women returned to attending to the slops and, as Tilley disapproved of them ‘chattering' with the men, Makepeace could only snatch the occasional word with Josh during his return to health.

‘They've started on the tunnel,' she muttered, sweeping round his bed. ‘I'll be waiting with the coach if I know where and when.'

It was beyond them both to think how that could be managed even if Tilley kept her on: comings-and-goings between prison and hospital were strictly limited. If she were forced to leave, it would be impossible.

‘I'll manage, Missus.'

‘Make for Babbs Cove. Keep to the cliffs going east for about ten miles. I'll bring in some cash tomorrow.'

‘Stop chattering here.' Bosun Tilley was at her side. ‘Get on with your work.'

Josh reached under his pillow. ‘Permission to give her this, Bosun?'

It was a ragged and none too clean scrap of paper—only God knew from where he'd stolen it or how he'd kept it for forty days in the Black Hole; he was like a magpie with paper.

Makepeace looked over Tilley's shoulder, then shut her eyes tight against tears. It was a full-length drawing in coal of Lieutenant Forrest Grayle lying as he must have lain next to Josh on the floor of the punishment block. The subject was in light, the detail of the walls around him mercifully obscured, so that he might have been a stone crusader lying on his tomb, except that this was a living, still-hopeful young man, his mouth set in endurance.

‘She nursed him,' Josh said.

Tilley held it up to Makepeace. ‘Like him, is it?'

She nodded.

He gave it to her. He was not an unkind man. He was also vain. ‘Can you draw me, boy?'

‘Get me oils, I'll do your portrait.'

‘Right then. And you, woman, get going on those beds up there. We've got some Frogs coming in soon.'

Two days later the guards brought in de Vaubon and what was left of the crew of
La Petite Margot
.

WILL we tell her?' Dell asked. 'Not 'til he's better, maybe,' Makepeace said, after thought.

‘If he ever is, Lord love him.'

The Prince George was full but Landlord Bignall had found an attic for the two of them to share for the night. Bosun Tilley had asked that they go in the next day to help cope with the influx of Frenchmen. In any case, Makepeace wanted to make sure that all was being done for de Vaubon that could be done.

Whether he would survive his injuries was in doubt. His left leg was infected and had been so mangled from a falling mast that it was unlikely he'd walk on it again. In the hand-to-hand fighting that followed the boarding of
La Petite Margot
, he'd killed one naval officer and received a slash from the cutlass of another that had laid open one cheek from eye to chin.

‘I'm right, aren't I?' Makepeace asked Tobias. ‘She needn't be told yet.'

‘You're right, Mithuth. Her ladyship would be motht upthet.'

‘Good.' If Tobias said it was right, it was right. There was a deep goodness to the man that she used as an infallible yardstick. ‘I want you to go back to Babbs Cove and tell Philippa and Ginny I can't get home until tomorrow night at least. Kiss the little girls for me.'

‘I will, Mithuth.'

‘It's a wicked night for the cliffs, my man, ye'd be better going by road.' Dell was at her grandest.

‘I'll be safe enough, Mith Dell.'

When he'd gone, Makepeace looked out of the window. ‘Leave him alone, you don't usually worry about him.' The weather had changed with a vengeance; even from here she could hear the noise of sea hurling itself against the base of the Hoe.

‘Ah well,' Dell said, vaguely.

‘I want to see my babies,' Makepeace said, suddenly weeping. ‘I'm spending my life doing something else.'

‘Think of those poor men now. They need us.'

‘They're somebody else's responsibility. What have I to do with their bloody wars? He's not my Frenchman, he's hers.'

‘Isn't that the pig of it? They're nobody's responsibility if they're not ours.'

‘Oh, shut up.' She was tired and sad and in no mood for a Sermon from the Mount in a lofty Irish accent. She went and threw herself on the bed. ‘You haven't got any children, you don't know.'

‘No,' Dell said. ‘Mine's dead.'

After a long silence, Makepeace said: ‘I shouldn't have said that.'

‘Ach, I couldn't have kept her anyways.' Dell's eyes were dry and fixed on the bedroom's door. ‘Happens all the time if ye did but know it. Poor and pretty Irish girl seduced by English landlord's son. Poor, pretty girl gets pregnant. Landlord finds out. Girl's family evicted, twelve of 'em, to tramp the roads of Connaught. Girl gets the smallpox, has baby under a hedge. Girl lives, baby dies.' She shrugged. ‘That's Ireland for ye.'

Philippa said it would be something like that. I never see beneath the surface.

Makepeace wriggled down the bed until she could sit next to her. ‘I tramped the streets once,' she said, ‘but I had people to go with me.'

‘Ah well, ye see, I didn't,' Dell told the doorknob. ‘I came to England where the streets were paved in gold so's I could send some of it home to the mammy. But there wasn't any gold.'

They sat side by side for a long time. At last Makepeace said: ‘I never thanked you properly for Philippa.'

‘Ah well,' Dell said.

When they'd got into their truckle beds and Makepeace had blown out the candle, she said: ‘Why now?'

‘I don't know.' Dell's voice in the darkness was reflective. ‘Perhaps it's now I can bear to remember it. And you look at those men torn to pieces and you think: Will you stop skelping each other in the name of God? There's enough pain without that.'

‘But they won't.'

‘No,' said Dell. ‘They won't.'

 
The weather worsened and the smuggling season began.

Along the southern coast, fast, seagoing vessels emerged from dark inlets and began battling the Channel's storms, making for France and back again in their self-imposed task of supplying the English with contraband goods.

From the oriel window, the Dowager watched the entire female population of Babbs Cove and its children line the slipway to wave off the
Lark
and the
Three Cousins
with the cheers—and a few tears—usually reserved for armies going out to do battle with the enemy.

Which I suppose they are, she thought. The sea is enemy enough.

She had not thought it proper to sanction the departure of smugglers by her presence but she offered a prayer for their safe return and, once they had disappeared into the blowing darkness, she put on her cloak.

‘I'm going down to the Pomeroy, Mrs Green.'

There was no reply; there never was. The woman was getting odder and odder and looking increasingly ill. Makepeace had offered the use of Sanders and the coach so that Diana could take her into Plymouth to the doctor, but she had become so agitated, almost snarling, that they had been forced to let her be.

A few of the village women had stayed to drink to their husbands' venture but on seeing the Dowager they wished her good-night and went back to their homes. She regretted that her presence intimidated them. She had tried to be friendly: she asked after their children and enquired whether they were getting a good price for lobsters at the Newton Ferrers market, but she was not Makepeace and could not get beyond the impenetrable doin' nicely, thank you, your ladyship, fair to middlin', your ladyship.

Can't they see I am becoming as poor as they are? She met them nowadays as she collected wrack from the beach to swell the pile of firewood to proportions adequate to see her through the winter. As they passed by the rear of T'Gallants on their way to Newton Ferrers with lobster baskets on their hips, they must see her working with Tobias in the kitchen garden to get it ready for winter cabbage. She didn't mind doing these things—indeed, she rather enjoyed them—but to be allowed some sense of fellowship with other labourers would be nice.

In the taproom, Sally and Jenny clamoured for her to play cards with them. Philippa called a hello from the kitchen where she was helping Mrs Hallewell. Here at least was firelight and welcoming company.

Ralph Gurney was holding forth to a florid and fat little man breathing whisky fumes. ‘You just missed our lads, your ladyship. First sailin' of the season and a brave sight tew. You'll have a bumper with me to wish 'un Godspeed and fair landings, surely. This yere's Mr Chauncey.'

‘I have told you before, Mr Gurney, while I do not condemn, I cannot condone. But I thank you. A glass of tea and one of your excellent pasties, if I may, Mrs Hallewell.' Chauncey? Chauncey? The magistrate. ‘Good evening, Mr Chauncey. You are our local justice of the peace, I understand.'

‘That he be,' bellowed Gurney. ‘Not for want of Nicholls a-trying to throw 'un off the bench, eh, Martin?'

‘Wrote to the Lord Chancellor, the villain,' Mr Chauncey told her. ‘Said I'd lost the confidence of the Revenue. Who wants the confidence of the Revenue? I do have the confidence of everybody else, don't I, Ralph?'

Sometimes she still felt that she had wandered, like Gulliver, into a topsy-turvy land that saw its illegality as a public service constantly hampered by bureaucracy.

‘That you do, Martin. You see to ut that sinners be punished and free trade let to flourish. 'Twill be a sad day when the Lord Chancellor takes the word of a Revenue man against honest free traders. Shall ee come up the hill and have a bite with us, your ladyship?'

‘Thank you, no.' Ralph Gurney grated on her occasionally; he made more money from delivering and selling contraband than the cousins who went to sea to fetch it. ‘Mrs Hedley is away for the night and in her absence I regard myself as . . .' She had been going to say
in loco parentis
but was stopped by remembered pain. ‘. . . as chaperone to her sister-in-law and children.'

It was true; in Makepeace's absence the Dowager felt herself responsible for Philippa and the two little girls. Their aunt, a pleasant Northumbrian, looked after them well but she was nevertheless a stranger in a hostelry which, however companionable, was still the centre of an illegal trade. And there was no parlour at the Pomeroy to which ladies could withdraw; it was the taproom or nothing.

‘Your ladyship's still making a fine old fuss about they American prisoners, I do see from the papers.'

‘I write letters merely in an attempt to effect their exchange, Mr Gurney. I would wish to see all wounded men, both British and American, returned to their own land under a flag of truce.'

‘I dare say.' It didn't interest him. ‘That be politics, us don't concern ourselves with politics, do us, Martin?' He guided the magistrate to the door and they went out.

From his corner, Zack spoke up: ‘A fine man be that Mr Chauncey. Knows his duty, he do.'

‘Yes, but he doesn't
pay
any, Zack.' It had become a regular argument between them and one which Diana knew she could not win. ‘How can England fight its wars if people don't pay their taxes?'

‘I don't mind 'em taxing things,' Zack said, ‘but why the buggers got to tax good liquor?' He looked triumphantly at the cup Mrs Hallewell was serving her. ‘What you suppin' there, then?'

She sighed. ‘Smuggled tea, I expect.'

She played with the children until they went to bed, then talked with Aunt Ginny and Philippa until they went to theirs.

‘Don't ee forget the lantern, now,' Zack told his niece.

Mrs Hallewell looked apologetically at the Dowager. ‘I do hope Mrs Hedley won't mind but she do have the front bedroom and us allus puts a lantern in that window to guide the boats back in.'

‘But they have only just set out. How long does it take them to get to France and back?'

‘Least a week, God an' a good wind willin',' Zack said, ‘but us allus sets a light for 'un. So's they know we'm a-waiting for 'un.'

‘I'm sure Mrs Hedley will not mind, Mrs Hallewell.'

They all left the inn together: Mrs Hallewell went back to her cottage and children at nights. Looking around, Diana saw that every window in the village facing the sea was lit, as if the women of Babbs Cove could ensure their men's safe return with a rushlight.