Taking Liberties

Babbs Cove? Probably did its share but no more than any other village nearby – that privilege was reserved for Cawsand along the coast in Cornwall, what a smugglin’ nest, its fishermen more familiar with brandy and lace than fish, bold, cunnin’ ruffians that they were. Courageous, though; bitter work to sail to and fro from Roscoff and Cherbourg in winter, got to hand it to ’em. And its women just as audacious …

‘Remember old Granny Gymmer? Crossed the sands regularly carrying bottles of Hollands wrapped in a child’s shawl and when the Revenue complimented her on such a nice quiet baby, had the nerve to say: “Ah, but I reckon her do have plenty of spirit in her.”’

Amused, Diana asked: ‘Why then does Captain Nicholls not devote all his searches to Cawsand if it is so notorious, rather than Babbs Cove?’

‘Well, you know these fellows who come from the wrong side of some noble blanket …’

Mrs Nicholls, it appeared, had made public property of her son’s connection to the Pomeroy name.

‘… probably thinks the house would have been his had his great-granny been given her rights. Jealous, like all bastards.’

Obviously, Captain Nicholls was not liked. Her informants’ antipathy was compounded by his profession. Diana was surprised by their animosity towards an upholder of the law that they had not displayed to the breakers of it. His Majesty’s Royal Navy, it seemed, loathed His Majesty’s Board of Customs. Excisemen could get prize money and bonuses for a successful capture without leaving the comparative safety of home waters. They were the night-soil collectors of maritime society – necessary but not to be fraternized with. There were other sins …

‘Limpin’ home in Lancaster after Quiberon Bay, we were,’ the Admiral said, spraying vol-au-vent and resentment, ‘just about to enter harbour when up sails a blasted Revenue cutter, flyin’ the pennant if you please, and you know and I know that’s not allowed ’less they’re in pursuit. “Comin’ aboard to search for contraband,” the ’ciseman says. “You’re damn well not,” I said. I admit we had a few ankers of brandy in the mess, some trinkets for the ladies and God knows what the crew had stowed away, but fightin’ for our country we damn well deserved it. Wasn’t going to let some ribbon-flutterin’ shore-hugger take it for nothin’. “You sheer off,” I told him, “or I’ll turn my guns on ye. An’ haul that damn pennant down.”’

The anecdote and the applause that greeted it provoked a certain sympathy in the Dowager for that particular exciseman and, had he been more likeable, even for Captain Nicholls himself. Both were pursuing their rightful office, after all. Nevertheless, when she looked around to see if the man had overheard, she was unaccountably relieved to find that he and his mother had gone.

It took some doing on her part, but at long last she was able to steer the conversation so that someone, not her, mentioned the prisoners of war. As she’d hoped, the Admiral’s memory was pricked.

‘By the by, Luscombe, I hear that Howard fella’s inspectin’ prisons in the area. You lettin’ him have a look at Millbay?’

‘Thought I might, thought I might,’ Captain Luscombe said. ‘Fearfully overcrowded at the moment, of course, but their lordships seem keen on it; show the fella how the navy runs things, eh?’

The Dowager was relieved. The name of John Howard had previously been unknown to her, the fame attached to it having sprung up during her incarceration in her husband’s sickroom. Only since being with the Edgcumbes had she learned of the man’s marvels in uncovering the filth, disease and corruption of common prisons and exposing them to the light of publicity. ‘Summoned to the bar of the House, my dear,’ Lady Edgcumbe had told her. ‘Thanked for his contribution to humanity, written a book and I don’t know what-all.’

She’d been amused to see that the Edgcumbes and their set were no less susceptible to Howard’s celebrity and the general excitement that he was in the area than anyone else. Let the incarcerators of thieves, murderers and debtors tremble at his name; the Admiralty was assured he’d find nothing wrong with its treatment of prisoners of war.

‘Rather be in Millbay than Newgate any day,’ said Lord Edgcumbe, voicing the general opinion. ‘Practically wake ’em up with breakfast in bed, don’t ee, Luscombe?’

Captain Luscombe was not prepared to go as far as that. ‘Haven’t the funds I’d like, my lord, and the overcrowding’s –’

Lord Edgcumbe overrode him: ‘By the by, Lady Edgcumbe was wonderin’ if she should bring in some goodies for the prisoners when Howard comes, like she did last year. Show the fella we ain’t heartless. Only this mornin’ Lady Stacpoole expressed a wish to accompany her, didn’t you, your ladyship? Thinks the son of one of her old servants is among the Yankees.’

It had taken considerable and subtle manoeuvring to allow both Lord and Lady Edgcumbe to adopt the idea of a prison visit as their own. At no stage had Diana actually said Martha Grayle was once a servant, she’d merely allowed the Admiral to infer it; her set understood noblesse oblige better than some more intimate interest. She rebuked herself; she was acting from noblesse oblige.

‘Servant emigrated to America,’ the Admiral went on. ‘Wrote to her ladyship – was her boy bein’ treated properly by the naughty British? I said you’d produce the lad for her ladyship’s inspection. That’s all right, ain’t it?’

The Dowager shrugged deprecatingly; such a lot of trouble, but if Captain Luscombe would not mind …

‘Dear lady, of course.’ Luscombe was delighted; she should see the prison along with the fella Howard and they’d produce the young man for her. What was the name? Grayle, as in Holy, yes, he’d remember that.

There was a little teasing: nice for Luscombe to have someone wanting to get into his prison rather than get out. The ladies joined in with mild anxiety on her behalf – was she strong enough? Very well, then soak her handkerchief in vinegar against infection like Lady Edgcumbe had only last Christmas when she’d delivered warm clothing to Millbay’s inmates.

It was done, accepted without amazement. So easy. There had hardly been need for guile. Diana felt warmly for the normality of these people, their openness, and at the same time regret that the years of her marriage had warped her own character away from the straightforward.

I have lived too long with duplicity, she thought.

Then, once more, she thought: Caretaker?

CHAPTER SIX (#ulink_ffeffcc6-6e28-5676-af50-003df987561d)

John Beasley appeared at the head of the Prince George’s stairs. He’d found a wooden leg and a crutch from somewhere; the first was strapped to his bent left knee inside his breeches, the second tucked under his left armpit. He was defiant. ‘Either of you going to help me down these bloody stairs?’

It was Makepeace who guided him down – Sanders was helpless, holding on to the newel post, almost sobbing.

‘What you do?’ she asked, grimly. ‘Trip up a Chelsea Pensioner?’

‘I ain’t being pressed for you or anybody. The landlord got ’em for me.’

‘Fat lot of help you’ll be,’ she said. But she was touched; she hadn’t realized how frightened of impressment he’d been, probably rightly. He was a good friend. Ridiculous, but a good friend. And his grunts as he hopped across the Halfpenny Bridge to Dock – the man on the tollgate was most concerned – made her laugh for the first time in two weeks.

Dock, however, was not amusing. It was vast. Since the first spades dug the first foundations of William Ill’s Royal Dockyard, it had sprouted wet docks, dry docks and slipways around which had sprung up warehouses for rigging, sails and stores, rope-walks and mast-yards, all in turn giving rise to houses for men to run them. It was now bigger than Plymouth, as if a monstrous oedema had outgrown the body on which it was an accretion.

Their landlord had warned them. ‘Over two hundred inns, they do say, if so be you can name ’em such.’

From the vantage of the bridge they could see spacious, treelined streets but tucked in alleys behind them, like stuffing coming through the back of an otherwise elegant chaise-longue, were lath and plaster tenements spreading in a mazed conglomeration as far as the eye could see.

‘Bugger,’ Beasley said, looking at it.

It was a landscape Makepeace knew. Her dockside tavern in Boston had been a clean, hospitable model of respectability but it had stood, a Canute-like island, against an encroaching sea of gambling hells, gin parlours, brothels, the tideline of filth that marked every port in the world.

She was well acquainted with Dock without setting foot in it. And she knew something else; her daughter was dead.

Whatever the circumstances, Philippa would have escaped from the wasteland of flesh and spirit that was here. However naive, the girl was intelligent; even penniless she’d have found some official, some charity, to send word to her mother on her behalf.

It was something Makepeace had known from the first but it had taken recognition of this view, this seagulled, mast-prickled, rowdy, ragged-roofed agglomeration of chaos and order, vitality and disease, this other Boston, to drive it into her solar plexus with the force of a mallet.

She kept walking forward, but as an automaton in which the clockwork had yet to run down.

There was a quayside with bollards. Beasley sank onto one, complaining of his knee rubbing raw. Makepeace walked stiffly on, past a pleasant, open-windowed inn and into the mouth of an alley behind it.

Yes, here it was. Her old enemy. Unraked muck, runnels of sewage. A door swung open to spill out an unsteady woman smelling of gin. Further along, some girls in an upper window were shrilly encouraging a man who headed for the door below them, already unbuttoning his fly.

Suppose, argued Makepeace’s Puritan upbringing desperately, suppose she’s too ashamed, too ruined, to come home?

Howay to that, answered the older Makepeace, she knows I love her regardless …

Does she know that? What does she know of me these last years except from the letters I’ve sent her? What do I know of her, except from the dutiful replies?

She felt a tug on her skirt. A waif, sitting in the gutter, its sex indistinguishable by its rags, reached out a filthy, fine-boned small hand. ‘Penny for bub and grub, lady, penny for bub and grub.’

It gave a funny little cough, much like Philippa had always done when she was nervous, so that Makepeace cupped its face in her hands and turned it towards her. Perhaps, perhaps …

But, of course, it wasn’t Philippa; she’d known it wasn’t – the child was far too young. She began to say: ‘Have you seen …?’ but the sentence she’d repeated and repeated these last days died in her mouth, as this child would die, as Philippa had already died. Her knees folded suddenly and for a moment she crouched in the alley, the fingers of one hand on its cobbles to steady herself.

Andra, I need you now. Take me home, let me hold my little girls and keep them safe for ever and ever. I’ve lost her, Andra. I’ve lost Philip’s child that I never understood because I never understood her. I can’t bear the pain on my own. Where are you?

The small beggar watched incuriously as Makepeace dragged herself upright and, fumbling for her handkerchief to wipe off the dirt, found some coins, dropped them into the waiting claw and went back the way she had come.