The Sparks Fly Upward (31 page)

She asked him to sit down so that he'd be less intimidating. She stayed standing and went hard into the attack. ‘Are you a danger to that boy?'

‘Your pardon, ma'am?'

‘Don't you pardon me.' Pugnacity was ever her weapon when she was scared. ‘You're up to some hocus-pocus and I've a right to know if it can harm that boy. He's my responsibility, his father put him in my care and I'm not having him put at any more risk than he is already.'

‘Ah.' Murrough flicked a piece of lint from his sleeve. ‘The armaments. '

‘Exactly. You didn't tell me you knew de Vaubon.'

‘You didn't ask.'

‘I'm asking now.'

To show him that they were there for the duration, she pulled up a stool and sat in front of him.

He was considering. ‘Dear lady, if I told you I'd not harm a hair on that boy's head, would that do for you?'

‘No,' she said. ‘It wouldn't. And I'm not your dear lady.'

‘Are you not? That's a shame then. Well, it's like this . . . Could we be having a dish of tay? I bare me soul better when I'm not parched.'

She felt powerless to get through the veneer of banter, the mock politeness, whatever it was, that kept her from the truth of him. She sent for a tray of tea so that he'd have no excuse and because her own mouth was dry. When it came she poured them both a cup. ‘Now,' she said. ‘Talk to me. To
me
. Stop being so . . . so Irish.'

‘I am Irish,' he said. ‘Aren't you? Isn't Aaron?'

‘No,' she said. ‘We're American.' No law of marriage was going to take that identity away from her. ‘And proud of it.'

‘Rightly so. A people who chose freedom rather than pay British taxes. But in Ireland, now . . . well, taxes are the least of it. Aaron says your father told you. The Burkes of Mayo were never a clan to be silent on their grievances. Did ye listen?'

She'd listened. And listened and listened during endless maudlin sessions when her father had wept tears of pure rum.
‘They made us cattle, Makepeace darlin'. Fokkers took our language, our education, advancement, our religion, our bloody souls. Cattle in our own land.'

It had been his justification for failure and drunkenness; eventually she'd stopped listening and become irritated, as with a beggar that wouldn't go away.

‘We Americans did something about it,' she said.

‘Indeed ye did, indeed ye did.' Murrough waved a congratulatory hand. ‘And, if I remember rightly, ye did it with the help of the French.'

She put her cup down. ‘Dear God,' she said. ‘Are you doing the same? You're planning an Irish rising. You're a traitor.'

She heard the word fly out of her mouth and buzz round the room like a blue-bottle fresh from the shit-house.

It didn't land on him. ‘So I am,' he said. ‘So was Jefferson, so was Benjamin Franklin. All traitors to the British in their day. So was Sam Adams—a gentleman of your acquaintance, I believe.'

‘Yes,' she said, slowly. ‘Sam used to come into my tavern in Boston.'

They were
different
, she thought. They were good, clean, intelligent men seeking liberty. But the Irish . . . Father, running footmen, double-dealers, Papists, potato-eaters, bog-trotters, the butt of jokes, always jokes . . . A drip, drip of prejudice that turned sympathy to stone.

He was watching her out of his little eyes, like an amused, intelligent pig's. ‘Not the same? Independence too good for the Irish?'

‘I don't know,' she said.

‘Abolition will only stretch as far as the negroes, eh?'

‘You're not slaves.' She was only nettling herself; she couldn't disturb him. She felt like a fighter unable to land a punch on a superior opponent.

‘Was your father a lazy man, Mrs Hedley?'

Dear God, how much had Aaron told him?
‘What's that got to do with it?'

‘Mine was,' he said. ‘Lord Altamont complained of him though, living mostly in London, he didn't know Dada, but he disapproved of not getting enough rent off him. And his overseer disapproved of him, too. “Will you not improve your land, O'Leary, so's we can kick ye off it and charge a higher rent to somebody else?” '

O'Leary
? Not Murrough? The man hadn't even kept the name he'd been born with.

‘They put the rent up anyway,' Murrough went on, companionably. ‘I'll tell ye one thing your dada didn't do, you being born in Boston. He didn't give you up to the overseer's bed in exchange for rent. Mine did that to me sister. A pimp, you'd maybe call him and starvation for the rest of us no excuse.' He settled himself more easily in his chair. ‘And, silly girl, didn't she go and hang herself ?'

Her father had asked for too much sympathy; Murrough was shrugging it off, merely making a point on his way to whatever explanation he was giving her, a brief glimpse into the night, lightning transfixing a scene in rain.

She got up and went to the sideboard to get them both a glass of malmsey—again more for her sake than his. She heard his voice as she poured the wine into the glasses. ‘It's grand training for an actor to be Irish. We learn it at the mammy's knee, d'ye see, how to mop and mow, how to please, tell the lords what they want to hear. Some call it blarney, others call it deceit. I call it acting.'

She went back to her stool and handed him his glass. ‘And de Vaubon?' she asked.

He brought his eyes down to look at her as if he'd forgotten she was there. He said, ‘Isn't that the coincidence? I don't know the man well, he was one of a succession of the bigger frogs in that revolutionary pond I was wading in . . . did ye know Robespierre has a greenish complexion? Green as a shamrock. Tiny fella, like a leprechaun. Came up to me knee. It was like asking the Little People for help.'

‘But you got it,' she said.

‘I got their promise,' he said. ‘We'll have to see what that's worth.'

She persisted. ‘So the French are going to help Ireland rebel.'

‘They'll maybe help Ireland to its freedom.'

‘Send arms, troops?' She was a woman who needed the words said.

‘Such is the plan.' He swigged back his malmsey and slammed the glass down on the little table by his chair. ‘If it's good enough for America, it's good enough for Ireland.'

He was saying there was no difference. But there is, she thought. Ireland's too close, too poor, too Catholic; the English have owned it for too long; it is a postern into their castle. They'd fight for it as they hadn't been able to fight for America—and to the death.

‘When?'

‘Not yet. When they're ready. And when we are.' He yawned. ‘And that, madam, was me one and only foray into the dirty world of secret negotiation. No connection any more between Michael O'Leary, agent and courier, and Sir Mick Murrough, actor. You need have no worry on that account.'

He was reassuring her; he thought she was worried about him being a threat to the safety of her house. Come to think about it, she was.

‘There is a worry, though, isn't there?' she said. ‘Why did you slip out of Ireland like you did? Why don't you want to be seen in the streets?'

‘A tiny precaution, madam.' His vast shoulders shrugged it off. ‘There's maybe one or two double agents who saw O'Leary in Paris that shouldn't have. But they'll not connect him with Sir Michael Murrough.'

‘And Mick Murrough capering about onstage in full view of some of 'em won't give them a clue?'

He was indignant. ‘I'll be blackened, ma'am. And I'm an actor. Me own mother won't recognize me.'

If you had a mother
, she thought, bitterly. She'd found out a lot about him, but merely as much as he'd chosen to tell her; at no point had he spoken to her as an individual, only as an audience. She knew as little of the essence of him now as she had when they came into the room.
Perhaps there is no essence,
she thought;
perhaps the actor's all there is. Even his spying for Ireland is just another role.

‘Well, madam?' he said. ‘Do I go or do I stay?'

She looked up. He was smiling—and not unattractively. That had 'em lining up at the stage door, no doubt—Aaron had said women threw themselves at the man's feet. Lord knew why.

But she was surprised by her reluctance to tell him to go. He'd insinuated himself into the household; he'd leave a gap. Jacques would miss him, Aaron would be cross with her—though how much he'd told Aaron about his activities was something she'd have to investigate.

And how much danger was there? If he were discovered, which, as he said, was unlikely, she could disclaim all knowledge of what he'd been up to. And she would, oh she would.

One thing, he'd safeguard the secret of Jacques's connection with de Vaubon for fear of revealing his own. She had a hold over him there.

Immediately, it occurred to her that his hold on her was as tight. If he was in danger of exposure, so was Jacques.

All the more reason for keeping the bastard under her eye.

‘I'll see,' she said.

 

‘GOOD for him,' said Aaron.

‘It's not good for him, it's not good for any of us. Every revolutionary in Europe thinks he can hide out in this damn house. Government spies must be counting 'em in. Beasley, de Vaubon's boy, your Irishman. Even Philippa and her rights for women.' Makepeace flung out her hands. ‘And I don't agree with any of them.'

Aaron grinned at her. ‘But you'd fight for their right to do it.'

‘Looks like I'll bloody have to. Now, about these damn musicians ...'

 

 

MAKEPEACE and Murrough started quarrelling on the morning of the first day that
Oroonoko
went into rehearsal and restoration of The Duke's Theatre began. If Makepeace had wondered what was the essence that lay beneath the shifting character of Mick Murrough, it was made apparent to her then and in the days to come. At base, the man was a fanatic.

The war started with shouting but, then, it had to. The hammering and sawing, cries and orders, competed with the thump of Jacques's traps opening and closing that in turn competed with repetition of a phrase from de Barigoule's violins and trumpets, all of it rendering normal converse impossible.

‘What?'

‘I said stop this damn noise. We can't hear each other rehearse.'

‘Go somewhere else then.'

‘We need to be on stage, woman. I need to show them their positions. '

She won that one; the work couldn't be stopped. Watching him lead the rest of the players to rehearse elsewhere, she felt that she had established who was in charge.

An hour later, she erupted into the Green Room. ‘Who said they could dismantle the boxes on the sides of the stage?'

Murrough flung his script onto the floor. ‘In the name of God . . .' He turned on her. ‘I did.'

‘What for? They could hold twenty people. More.'

‘They're old-fashioned, they're a damn nuisance and they're going. I need the space.'

Ninon who, for some reason, had been standing on a chair, got down. ‘It is true,
cherie
. Stage box customers, they are
affreuses
. They drink, they comment. Also they come on stage ...'

‘They make advances, too,' Mrs Jordan said. ‘I won't tell you where one of them grabbed me in
The Beaux Stratagem
but it was certainly strategic.'

‘Remember when one of 'em climbed out and tried to throttle Garrick in
Macbeth
? Didn't like him killing Duncan?'

‘They pay top price,' Makepeace said.

Murrough advanced on her, a finger wagging at her nose. ‘I don't care if they pay their hearts' blood, I need the space. You can do what hell you like out front, but on stage I'm governor. Now, madam, will you kindly leave us in
peace
?'

She'd lost and she knew it. She made one last feint. ‘Well, who are all these people?' The Green Room was crowded.

Murrough expired. ‘They're the rest of the cast.' He picked up his script and waved it at her. ‘See here. Thirteen characters. Didn't ye read the
Dramatis Personae
?'

Actually, she hadn't. She looked around at the newcomers, one or two bowed, a woman curtseyed, the rest waved and smiled. ‘I wasn't consulted about hiring them.'

‘No, you weren't. It's not your business. Did ye think we were putting the thing on with six? What do you want us to do, double up?'

Her chagrin directed itself at Luchet, who'd been standing behind Ninon's chair, trying to make himself thinner. ‘What's he doing here?'

Murrough looked round. ‘What
are
you doing here?'

Luchet regarded Ninon adoringly. ‘I prompt?'

‘Get out,' Murrough told him, and turned back to Makepeace. ‘You, too.'

The rules were established; she was the practicality, he the artistry—which would have sufficed perhaps anywhere else, but in a playhouse the two mysteries overlapped and frequently conflicted.

That first day set the tone for the rest. Each saw the other as a hurdle deliberately set in his/her path to be tumbled over. Common decency went to the wall. Shouting rose to screams. Murrough's plastic face hardened, as if wind had blown away desert sand to reveal the rock beneath. The piggy eyes lost indolence and gleamed with the ferocity of an attacking boar. Makepeace's curled fists held an invisible, prodding spear.

‘I want lamps on stage.'

‘You'll have to do with rushlight; I'm keeping candles for when we open.'