The Sparks Fly Upward Read Online Free PDF Page A

yours for a damn dentist. I’ve put plenty of plasters on it in my time, but I can’t stick it back on once it’s off.’
    â€˜Anybody could, you could.’
    He led her in to supper, fetched her champagne and went away to see to his other guests.
    The supper tables against the gold and white walls looked like someone’s bas-relief of a gastronomic mountain range in autumn color. Sugar-capped heights of fruit decorated with ivy leaves towered over silver chafing dishes giving off steam like volcanoes, crags of pastries, parsleyed meats, lemoned fish, appled pork, brown-hilled pies, black pools of caviar, and, here and there, a shining sculpture of ice in the shape of a fleur-de-lis.
    Gloved footmen hovered with plates and tongs, ready to help those who wouldn’t help themselves.
    The emigrés, Makpeace noted, tried to appear casual but couldn’t hold out. Her little Marquis was sucking asparagus with the energy of a baby at his mother’s breast, but most were going for bulk, attacking the beef and capons and ragouts—sallets could wait.
    She saw one old lady in an unfashionably towering headdress—why would one save that from a revolution?—look around craftily before tipping a plateful of vol-au-vents de quenelles into a large, battered reticule for later, followed by some meringues.
    It was like watching beggars scramble for pennies so she stopped doing it.
    A flushed and happy Jenny joined her. ‘Aren’t you eating, Mama?’
    â€˜Andrew’s told a footman to get me something.’
    â€˜I’ll wait for him, then.’ She sat down and eased her shoes, squinting at her mother and falling into dialect. ‘Wait for Maister Deedes and ah’d be half-deid for want o’ battenin’.’
    It was kindly meant, a whiff of fresh Northumbrian air in this London hothouse, but the expression of face and voice brought back Andra so sharply that it ran a dagger through Makepeace’s ribs. She fought the pain with anger. ‘That’s the last time he comes anywhere with us. He’s supposed to be looking after you. Where is the bugger?’
    Immediately, Jenny became emollient. ‘It’s natural he and Mr Heilbron would want to talk abolition with all the important people here. God’s work, Ma.’
    â€˜God’s more of a gentleman, I hope.’
    But here was Heilbron leading her eldest daughter towards her. There was something about the two of them . . . Not usually percipient, she knew in an instant what it was.
    Charmingly, Heilbron asked for her permission and blessing. She gave them—surprised by her own reluctance. As he turned to receive Jenny’s exuberant congratulations, she whispered: ‘Are you sure?’
    Philippa kissed her. ‘He is a fine, good man, Mama. I am both fortunate and content.’
    She looked well enough, but in Makepeace’s experience you didn’t marry a man because you were fortunate or content, you married him because you couldn’t wait to rip off your stays and jump into bed with him. She herself hadn’t even waited that long; she’d anticipated her wedding night with Philip Dapifer and, later, with Andra Hedley, those two very different, lovely men. And if she’d known that she was to lose them—in Dapifer’s case after only a year—she’d have done it even quicker.
    He is a good man, she assured herself. But is he too good? Heilbron was a valiant fighter against slavery, yes, but he subscribed to this new thing, the Society for the Suppression of Vice, with equal vehemence.
    They’d argued about it. ‘Surely you cannot uphold the state of licentiousness and drunkenness we see all about us, missus?’
    â€˜No, I’m agin it. But the trouble with your lot is you want to suppress the pleasures of the poor, which is all they’ve got, not the vices of the rich.’ She was thinking of Reverend Deedes who would reduce the