Read Online The Sparks Fly Upward by Diana Norman - Free Book Online Page B

Glossop,’ Beasley said. ‘He’s a bookseller.’
    Glossop raised his head and nodded, ‘Ma’am,’ before sprawling once more on the table.
    â€˜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.’
    â€˜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.
    â€˜Sedition,’ Makepeace said flatly.
    â€˜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.’
    â€˜You got Tom Paine away.’
    â€˜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.’
    â€˜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.’
    â€˜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.’
    â€˜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.’
    â€˜I’ll come, too; it will look more convincing if there are two women in the coach.’
    â€˜No. You stay here