Taking Liberties (29 page)

In the end, she said, Jan Gurney had persuaded her towards a service in the established faith. ‘Like Jan said, us'd be put to it to find a Method preacher and by the time us did, Dad'd be leaking out of his box. But whether his poor spirit'll be at rest, I don't know.'

Methodism was blamed for having run the inn down long before the advent of Captain Nicholls and his destruction.

‘Only ale?' Makepeace said, unbelievingly.

Mrs Hallewell nodded and her Uncle Zack said: ‘An' only that what he brewed hisself. Pisswater,'twas.'

An ale house, and one selling only pisswater if the old man was to be believed, at a time when ale houses even in towns were disappearing—hardly a good business proposition. According to Mrs Hallewell any spirit drinkers in Babbs Cove had been forced to imbibe them in their own homes or, if they sought conviviality, make the long walk to The Sloop in the next village along the coast.

‘Weren't always so,' Mrs Hallewell said, apologetically. ‘Dad ran a good inn once.'

‘All the fault o' that John Wesley,' Zack said.

Mrs Hallewell nodded. ‘So 'twas.'

‘Went to Totnes to hear 'un preach, Henry did,' continued Zack. ‘Sets off as good a landlord as you'd find in a month o' Sundays. Comes back a man ravin' agin the evils of drink. Abstain, he said. Wine is a mocker, strong drink is ragin', he said. Look not on the wine when it is red, he said. We bloody couldn't neither; old bugger wouldn't stock it.'

‘Nor brandy nor geneva,' Mrs Hallewell said, sadly.

‘That were the worst,' Zack said, shaking his head at an horrific memory. ‘Watchin' the ponies go by of a night carryin' ankers o' best French and Hollands . . .'

‘Zack,' warned Mrs Hallewell.

‘. . . and not a bloody drop for the inn they was passin',' Zack continued, undeterred. ‘She'm all right, Maggie. She'm a free trader. Told Jan Gurney so.'

So now Mrs Hallewell knelt in the front row with her children, weeping from grief, exhaustion and guilt.

At the back of the church, Sanders knelt next to Makepeace on one side and Mr Spettigue on the other, his handkerchief in use on his own eyes. Apparently he always cried at funerals.

Makepeace, too, cried quietly, though not for Mr Hobbs.

Here, in a simplicity reminiscent of her old Boston meeting house, to the call of seagulls outside and the pruk, pruk of a raven pecking insects in the open doorway, with the sun transmuted by the stone trefoil windows into bright pennies scattered harmlessly onto the shoulders of the congregation, here at last was a proper place and time to thank God for giving Philippa back to her. She asked that He do the same for Andra and keep Jenny and Sally safe for them both to come home to. She begged Him to deliver Josh from prison. She prayed for the soul of Susan Brewer to be received into Heaven with the honour it deserved.

Then she stood up to rest her knees and slake her curiosity. In Boston she had been in congregations that had held people coloured red, black and white but she had never expected in England to see such diversity as was present in Babbs Cove chapel this Sunday. There was Mr Spettigue to start with, a gleaming magpie among the duller black of the villagers, many of whom hadn't had time to do more than switch a black cloak around their harvest clothes.

And there was the Countess of Stacpoole, still and elegant at the front of the church in a chair the sexton had rushed to provide for her, having arrived only at the last minute with the unflurried nod that said
now
the service might begin.

How did they do that? Makepeace was punctual to a fault and her sojourn among aristocrats had left her amazed at their lack of concern for other people's time and their resultant magnificent, but late, entrances.

From the first, Makepeace had been suspicious that the woman was here at all. Having discovered this remote hidey-hole for Josh, it had been unnerving to find a member of the establishment just settled in it. It was like fleeing from a crime to far Cathay and encountering one's local magistrate. Had the female followed her from London after their meeting in the Sick and Hurt Office and, if so, why?

‘What's she doing here?' she'd asked Mrs Hallewell.

‘Come back to live in her family's old home, seemingly.'

‘Won't it cramp free trade, having her here? She might be spying for the Revenue.'

‘Oh no. Jan says she's a proper Pomeroy.'

Whatever a proper Pomeroy was, Makepeace felt they were taking it on trust. But then Mrs Hallewell had added cautiously: ‘ 'Sides, we can land free-trade goods in Other Bay, where her won't see 'un.'

Then there was the Frenchman, his lovely boat—a smuggler if ever Makepeace had seen one—now floating like a black swan on the turquoise water of the cove, making no attempt to hide in the less public Other Bay next door.

He had burst into the inn with Jan Gurney just before the funeral and taken Mrs Hallewell in his arms. If anything had done the poor woman good, it had been his arrival. ‘ 'Tis a blessed, blessed day that you're yere, Gil. He'd be that pleased, he were powerful fond of you, for all he changed.'

‘Maggie, Maggie, I do not know he was ill. I cross oceans for him if I know, but
le bon Dieu
bring me here today of all days, I think.'

‘Who's that?' Makepeace had whispered to Jan Gurney.

‘That's Gil.' As if everybody knew. ‘French. Brings in goods in summer. We fetch 'em from his place in Normandy come winter. Doin' it for years.' Jan shook his head, lovingly. ‘I know he'm an ugly bugger, but he's a good friend to Babbs Cove.'

Which showed, thought Makepeace, how unreliable was one man's judgement of another man's attraction. The Frenchman's nose was too large, his mouth too wide, his voice too loud, his clothing too careless for beauty; there was altogether too much of him. But, oh my . . .

She felt herself become prettier when he turned to her. ‘The American! Jan tells me of you.' She was picked up so that her feet dangled and kissed on both cheeks. ‘We are allies, you and I.'

And she knew they were.

There he was, holding Mrs Hallewell's hand. Lucky Mrs Hallewell. His crew had come with him, their red stocking caps scattered among the congregation's astonishing variety of headgear, two black men among them, which pleased her. They were, used to negroes here then. La Stacpoole's poor slave had caused no comment when he'd come in behind her and her maid, carrying her tiny ivory prayer book for her in case its weight dragged her down. Josh would not be regarded as singular.

The wide-shouldered trio obstructing her view of the table altar would be the Gurney cousins, Ralph, Jan and Eddie, the first two with hair like corn, the last's as black as a Spaniard's.

She looked back to the Frenchman. The amazing virility radiating from him had emphasized the chastity she'd endured since Andra went away. Suddenly she was lusting for her husband with a physical intensity that was indecent in these surroundings.

It was
hot
in here. The press of bodies, some still sweating from the harvest fields, the smell of wormwood in which Sunday best was laid away, Spettigue's scent . . . if that priest didn't stop quoting from Job and let them all out into the fresh air, there'd be no need to bury poor old Mr Hobbs, they could just pour him away.

She began worrying about her patties, even now burning to a crisp in the inn's oven if the child they'd left in charge hadn't remembered to take them out.

A long time since she'd made patties. Then it had been in a tavern on one side of the Atlantic and now, here, in a tavern on the other. There was a symmetry to it.

The chapel fell silent for the dismissal, the pall-bearers took up the coffin and marched it out to the waiting cart where Henry Hobbs's eldest grandson and nephew would escort it on its journey to Newton Ferrers. Makepeace waited until Mrs Hallewell and her children had gone by, then dodged through the crowd like a ferret to get to the inn and its kitchen.

Even so, she was stopped for a moment by the view's assault of colour; she would never get used to it.

From behind her came the aristocratic drawl of the lady of the manor bestowing attention on her people.

‘Please accept my condolences, my dear,' she was saying to Mrs Hallewell.

‘Thank you, your ladyship. I do hope as your ladyship'll come back to the Pomeroy Arms for a glass.'

‘Of course.' And to another villager: ‘I suppose you have lived here all your life . . . ?'

Raising her eyes to heaven, Makepeace fled.

Despite all doors and windows being open, the inn was hot. The entire village crowded into it, munching and chattering with a gusto arising from the sense of a job well done. Children played on the stairs; babies crawled over people's boots.

Makepeace, helping to hand things round, was greeted by name. Though nobody referred to it, her purpose in coming to Babbs Cove was obviously known and accepted. If Mr Spettigue and Jan Gurney vouched for her, her credentials were good and that she was helping Mrs Hallewell approved of.

In fact, she felt (with pleasure) that she was being treated with a bonhomie not accorded the Dowager Countess of Stacpoole who, by right of ancestry, more properly belonged to the village. But then, she fitted a tavern; her hoity-toity ladyship did not.

She noticed that among all the crowding, the Dowager was given space, as if her class imposed an encirclement of isolation. People talked to her across it in their broad Devon accents, listened respectfully as the answers came back and kept a steady three feet away.

Both women ignored each other.

Guillaume de Vaubon shouldered his way to the top of the room, kicked a crate into place and placed one large sea-booted foot on it. In a long wig and leather jacket, he looked like a pirate. ‘
Mes amis
. Will you permit that a mere Frog pay tribute to 'Enry 'Obbs?'

There was a roar of permission. ‘Go on, Gil.' ‘You tell it, my son.'

It was a masterly valediction. The huge, authoritative voice drew a picture of the Pomeroy Arms's warmth and conviviality under Mr Hobbs in his pre-Methodist days that drew sighs of nostalgia from its audience.

‘When he changed, for me, I was sad. A good inn is of God's own grace. Our Saviour's first miracle was to provide wine at the Cana wedding.' He paused. ‘But it is wrong to blame. 'Enry, he thought of his own path to salvation as all must and which of us sinners will say he mistook the way?'

The taproom shook with cheers. Makepeace, admiring, watched the tension ease from Mrs Hallewell's worn face. She glanced towards the Dowager, curious to see how a lady of standing reacted to this volcanic intrusion from enemy shores.

The woman was regarding the Frenchman with impassivity but for a moment Makepeace experienced a reluctant and horrified pity. There was
something
. Another one, she thought, who's been without a man for a long, long time. Well, he'd liven her up. She'd be lucky to get him.

The Frenchman had not finished. He raised his hand and there was immediate silence.

‘And now, dear friends, we say good-bye. I go home to prepare
La Petite Margot
for war. Louis is a bad king but this war I must fight. It will not be long perhaps but now, until peace comes, I leave to you the last run of goods.'

Mrs Hallewell began crying again and more than one of the mourners joined her. ‘Bloody war,' one of the men said, wiping his eyes.

The Dowager bestowed a last condolence on her hostess and left with her elderly maid and her manservant, who still carried her prayer book, walking behind her.

Makepeace sought out Jan Gurney. ‘If she's only just arrived in the village, how do you know she condones all this free trade?'

‘She'm a Pomeroy, she won't give us away. Stood up to Nicholls like a soldier.'

‘Nicholls?'

‘Revenue man.'

‘Oh, one of
them
.' The Revenue had been the bane of Makepeace's life in her tavern days, as it had of all right-thinking Bostonians. Well, that was one thing she and the high-nosed madam had in common.

The mourners went back to the harvest fields, leaving the inn to the crew of
La Petite Margot
and their hosts.

‘Better get the goods ashore, Gil,' Jan Gurney said. ‘And I should take
Margot
round to Other Bay after. Revenue's no respecter of Sundays nowadays.'

‘You keep a lookout?'

‘Course.'

‘Then I outrun the bastard.' He looked round the devastated taproom. ‘Do they find all the
cachettes
, Maggie?'

‘Most of 'un. Second cellar. An' they kept pokin' the walls with their bagginets 'til they found the cupboard in the wall. Nothin' in 'un, o' course. Terrible it was, Gil. Didn' look in the well, though.'

‘Then we put it there. It is sad you lose T'Gallants.'

‘A blow, that,' Gurney agreed. ‘But I got hopes her'll come round.'

‘You goin' to work on her hiding places, Gil?' Zack said gleefully.

De Vaubon tut-tutted. ‘I merely take the lady to dinner before I sail.'

Lucky lady, Makepeace thought. She said: ‘Monsieur, I want to get a letter to my husband. He's been trapped in Paris by the war. Will you send it for me when you get back to France?'

‘Of course, madame.'

‘Makepeace.'

‘Gil.'

They shook hands on it. ‘It is important, this letter?' he asked.

‘
He's
important. I want him home.'

‘If you like,' he said, ‘I send one of my men to Paris. We make sure the letter arrives, uh?'