Taking Liberties (21 page)

‘I think she's gone, sir,' Godsafe told him. ‘She was in a coach. She called in earlier to ask for instructions how to get there.'

‘Ah,' said Mr Spettigue, weakly. ‘Should be an interestin' encounter. Ever seen Greek meet Greek, Godsafe?'

‘No, sir.'

‘Don't, my advice. Get caught in the crossfire.'

 
‘The barge will be at the water steps in an hour,' Lady Edgcumbe said. ‘I don't know why they call them barges when they have sail. The Admiral wishes you bon voyage and says there's a nice offshore breeze that should take you there and back at speed.' She made a face. ‘I know these offshore breezes, they mean
tilt
. I would come with you but I am invariably ill, I hope your stomach is stronger. Poor Joan, I imagine you will take her with you.'

‘Joan is a hardened sailor, like all Devonians. Whether the same can be said of Tobias, I don't know, but I shall take him too. He will have to act as my steward if we move in and I trust his judgement. This is most kind of the Admiral—I gather that to go by road takes considerably longer.'

‘An age. There's the coast path, of course, but . . . Oh, my dear, I forgot—Captain Nicholls has called on you. With his mother.' Lady Edgcumbe rolled her eyes. ‘Where did you put them, Hill?'

‘In the
second
drawing room, your ladyship.' Hill placed visitors by his assessment of their status.

It wasn't the Grand Salon or the Gallery or
the
Drawing Room, but nevertheless Hill's allotment to the Nicholls was beautiful, like all the Mount Edgcumbe rooms. Against its eggshell-blue and white simplicity, the stark uniform of Captain Nicholls showed up to advantage, his mother's flowered sack dress of mauve and red somewhat less so. Today Mrs Nicholls had opted for the pastoral effect and, to that end, had added an apron—ill-advisedly in the Dowager's opinion. Not so much a milkmaid as a washerwoman, she thought, and then chided herself for lack of charity.

‘Oh, Countess, your dearr ladyship, I wonder . . . may I? . . . What do ee think, Walter? Dare I address her ladyship as “cousin”?'

‘No.'

The Dowager was grateful to him; he'd precluded her from the same reply. Cousin, indeed.

Mrs Nicholls was not put out. ‘We'm here on two errands, in't we, Walter? Foremost to say how we do admire your ladyship on being so brave about the hospital and those poor men. There's not many as care about prisoners, but I be one of those that feels for all wounded creatures. Yere, my dearr, and God bless ee.'

Some coins in a piece of paper were pressed into the Dowager's hand.

‘Only a few shillin' 'tis,' Mrs Nicholls said, her blank eyes engaging Diana's, ‘but our Lord do account the widow's mite same as the rich man's gold. Now then, Walter, tell her ladyship what you be about.'

His brusqueness was a relief, though apparently he was making an effort towards sociability. ‘My mother tells me I was rude the other night, ma'am for which I apologize. My work places a strain on my temper.'

‘Wunnerful work 'tis, though. He'll be knighted for 'un, won't ee, Walter?'

‘There is no need for an apology, Captain Nicholls. I quite understand, and now if you will excuse me—'

‘A moment.' It was a command and stopped the Dowager in her edge towards the door. ‘I have not yet stated my business. I understand that T'Gallants is for sale, in which case I should like to buy it.'

Mrs Nicholls broke in with the ornamentation: ‘He can meet a fair price, can't ee, Walter? Earnin' good money now. And wouldn't us all rejoice if the Pomeroy strain was back where it do belong.'

‘Captain Nicholls, Mrs Nicholls,' the Dowager said, ‘I am at a loss to know how the rumour got about that T'Gallants is for sale. I can only assure you that it is false.'

‘You goin' to live there, then?' It was Mrs Nicholls who asked, but the disappointment of them both was alarming and Diana was aware that its intensity in the son was greater than the mother's.

‘You must excuse me,' she said and left the room, beckoning for Hill to show them out.

Lucy Edgcumbe accompanied her to the water steps. ‘Goodness gracious. I suppose he feels that to live in T'Gallants would be to regain the status of which bastardy robbed him. How peculiar these people are.'

‘Yes. One thinks it's the mother but he's the moving force. It matters to him.'

‘Hmm, I should not like to matter to our Captain Nicholls—look how he hounds the poor smugglers. Do you know that he
shot
a Cawsand man the other night? Killed him dead, poor fellow, and for a few bolts of lace. One supposes it's his duty but there's something horrid in the zeal with which he pursues it. My dear, don't look alarmed, he can't pursue
you
.'

‘No.'

But looking back at Mount Edgcumbe as the Admiral's barge took her away from it, she saw two figures standing on the edge of the deer park, watching her go—and wished that she had not.

WHERE is this village?' ‘Only a few miles along the coast, Spettigue said.'

‘We've gone more than a few miles.' Makepeace put her head out of the coach window. ‘Hold up, Peter.'

The coach bumped to a halt and Makepeace got out into a blessed, bird-filled, sun-warmed quiet. She scrambled up beside the coachman to get a view over the lane's high hedges. ‘Where are we?'

‘Somewhere in the South Hams of Devon, Missus, danged if I know where.'

They were high up on one hill among many that had been left to sheep. In the distance to their left was the even higher sweep of moorland. The air was scented with yarrow and fern. Bees crawled into toadflax flowers along the roadside with a lazy repleteness. There was not a human being in sight, not a cottage, not a church spire. No sea, either.

‘We're supposed to be on the coast.'

‘You tell that to this danged sheep-track, Missus.'

It must be that tiny lanes left the seashore and then wound for miles to reach the road they were on, like tributaries flowing upwards into a river. Spettigue had said the coastal villages were connected more directly to each other by a path along the cliffs, but for the uninitiated the only route to them was by this meandering detour.

Sanders said: ‘We'll see a signpost to this Babbs Cove sooner or later, maybe, but danged if I know when.'

‘Should've gone by boat,' Makepeace grumbled.

‘Quicker,' Sanders agreed.

But as she got back into the coach Makepeace thought that as a place to hide an escaped prisoner, Babbs Cove, if they ever found it, would be ideal. True, the journey to it would be risky, but they might be able to smuggle Josh along the coast path. There was such a general shortage of men, so many having gone to the war, and others being employed in the harvest, that few could be spared for catching runaway prisoners. Even going by road, as they were now, they had encountered no checks—despite the fact that during the previous night Millbay's great alarm bell had woken her up, tolling for another escape.

There hadn't even been a turnpike. Not that the way couldn't have done with being improved by profit from a turnpike, for its surface was dreadful. But travelling along it had proved one thing: they were in deep and largely uninhabited countryside with a thousand hiding places.

She was still not entirely convinced that she needed to buy a house here; surely Josh could be spirited away more quickly than Spettigue had suggested? She would try to talk to him at the next Sunday market and plan something. However, if she did need to, a property in this countryside, empty as it was, even more deserted as it must be by night, would be the one to buy.

Oliver's letter in return for hers telling him that Philippa was safe had been reassuring but made her homesick at the same time. The business was doing well—she read between the lines that he was enjoying his autonomy over it. He had arranged for her Newcastle bank to send an order to one in Plymouth so that she could draw money on it, so she wasn't going to be short of cash. But his account of her daughters, while it assured her they were flourishing and not missing her too badly, had made her anguished to see them. Jenny, the serious one, was learning her letters and showing every sign of becoming a scholar; Sally was enchanting her Aunt Ginny and running her skeletal at the same time . . .

I'm missing their growing-up, like I missed Philippa's. I can't.

Yet what could she do?

The thought that these fishermen, whoever they were, might retrieve Andra from his exile made her feel weak with hope. Andra would manage things, he would know what to do. Andra made everything safe.

And Josh. She could leave him, of course, trust him to Mr Spettigue and hope that he got away. But Spettigue had made it clear that he was only able to provide hiding places for prisoners once they
had
got away, the actual escape was up to them, as it had to be.

Makepeace, busybody that she was, could only think that such an escape would be bungled unless she had a hand in it; in her mind Josh was still the child she'd taught to read; he'd need her to be outside the prison, waiting for him. Besides, none of the wanted posters on the walls of Millbay Prison had been for a negro; being black gave Josh an extra disadvantage as a runaway.

That picture he'd drawn for her which she'd seen only for a second before it was dragged away—her Roaring Meg, her beloved Boston tavern, where she'd taken Philip Dapifer after dragging him from the harbour—the longing for the childhood Josh had spent in it was in every line, right down to the last splinter. They'd shared so much, she and Josh, how could she leave him to face Hell and slow starvation alone?

‘Ain't this damn war ever going to end?' she shouted, making her travelling companions jump.

‘The French don't seem to be making much difference,' Beasley said, gloomy as ever. ‘And according to the Tory press, Washington's having trouble finding money enough to pay his troops. But somehow he's holding on.'

‘And will hold on.' Makepeace knew her countrymen.

‘Don't you worry now, Missus,' Dell said, ‘Ireland's sure to rise, like America, and then we'll see an end to it.'

Makepeace glared at her. Ireland could stay out of it.

And there, opposite, was another cause of her discontents: Dell the prostitute. She'd wanted to leave the damn woman behind but no, Philippa had insisted on her accompanying them. ‘She must come, Mama. She's family now.'

‘Not mine she ain't.' Immediately, she'd regretted it; Philippa's face had resumed the obstinacy it wore so often nowadays. But, oh, the female was a trial. Everything she said and did irritated Makepeace almost beyond bearing, not least because her own response to it was driving a wedge between herself and her daughter. There the trollop sat, with her spongy face, serene as a duchess. Have a bit of humility, woman.

Like a duchess, she had actually waved graciously at such staring harvesters as they'd passed until Makepeace had told her abruptly to stop drawing attention to herself and the coach. ‘We're
trying
to remain inconspicuous.'

What's more she had declared that her true name was Dervorgilla. ‘I'd be glad to be known by it in future,' she'd said. ‘I only changed it because the English have trouble gettin' their tongue round it.' So did Makepeace but Philippa was insisting that the former harlot should be so addressed. ‘New life, new name.'

They heard Sanders call out: ‘Signpost.' Immediately the coach began going down a steep incline, though the ubiquitously high Devon hedges prevented them from seeing whether or not the sea was yet in sight.

As they rounded a bend, there was a scrape on the brake and the coach stopped. In the silence they heard Sanders swearing.

‘What is it, Sanders?'

‘Harvest wain, Missus. Coming up the hill. Oxen.'

‘Tell it to go back.'

‘I have.' The coach fitted the lane so exactly that it was impossible to descend without tearing one's clothes on hazel branches, some of which were coming through the windows. It was equally impossible to reverse without unharnessing the team and pushing the coach up a gradient of one in five.

Makepeace began scrabbling for the pistol she always carried under the coach seat; it was unloaded but highwaymen didn't know that.

There was a heavy rustling, the crack of twigs and a vast red male face appeared at the window, bringing with it a strong whiff of sweat and grain. ‘A'ternoon,' it said.

Fear, always present on the open road, was dispelled. The man was unarmed. He wore a round hat, a smock and an expression of such amiability that, in any place but this back of beyond, Makepeace felt, would qualify him for Bedlam.

She spoke slowly and clearly. ‘Would you be so good as to move your wagon? We wish to proceed.'

‘Ar,' said the man. He thought about it. ‘So do I.'

He removed his hat, displaying yellow curls and a white band across his forehead where the sun hadn't reached, wiped the inside of his hat with his choker and put it on again. ‘Where do ee be going?'

‘Babbs Cove,' said Beasley.

‘Oh-ar.' The information was allowed to sink in while the man's blue eyes studied each of them in turn. They blinked a little as they took in Dell but returned to Beasley. ‘And what do ee want wi' Babbs Cove, my 'andsome?'

Makepeace took in a breath but Beasley said quickly: ‘We're looking at property. Mr Spettigue sent us.'

‘And we'd like to do it before the moon turns blue,' Makepeace added.

‘Spettigue, oh-ar,' the man said. ‘Nice day for it.' He looked them over again, suddenly winked at Makepeace and disappeared. They heard him call: ‘All right, my boodies, back 'em up.'