The Sparks Fly Upward by Diana Norman

homesickness and liquor, had got up on a chair to declaim a poem to his dead King:
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    â€˜Son trône est usurpé mais sa vertu lui reste
La mort, O ma patrie, à toi seule est funest ...’
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    There’d been several verses.
    A weeping abbé clutched Makepeace’s arm for mental and physical support. ‘What did these generous masters do that the French people so cruelly massacre them every day on altars dressed by regicides?’
    â€˜They didn’t feed ’em,’ Makepeace snapped.
    Quickly, Heilbron signaled to a footman to fetch their cloaks. ‘Philippa, if you’ll take your mother into the hall, I’ll go and have a word with Blanchard. Where’s Deedes?’
    Philippa ushered Makepeace and a reluctant Jenny towards the door. ‘Are we going home? I’m booked for another waltz,’ Jenny said.
    â€˜Ma’s getting ugly,’ Philippa told her.
    They stood behind one of the marble pillars to shelter themselves from the cold admitted by the open front doors. Outside in the square a gathering of local vagrants stood around flaming tar barrels and toasted in ale ‘Good old Ffoulksy who don’t never forget us.’
    The three women acknowledged the bow of a departing young Frenchman who was taking his pregnant wife home. At the steps he shouted for his carriage: ‘James, James,’ and tutted, ‘Where is the man?’ He helped his wife down to the street and disappeared into the night with her, still shouting.
    â€˜That’s a naughty coachman,’ Jenny said.
    â€˜There isn’t a coach,’ Philippa explained.
    â€˜Oh? Oh . Poor things. Can’t we ask Sanders to take them home? The lady shouldn’t have to walk in her condition.’
    â€˜Tried that once,’ Makepeace said. ‘Humiliated ’em. Stiff-necked buggers, all of them.’
    Reverend Deedes joined them, still put out by the waltzing. ‘And I fear we have lost Lord Malthrop. Lord Admiral Rodney intervened in our discussion and told him that he’d never heard of any negro being ill-treated in the West Indies.’
    Philippa found Andrew Ffoulkes beside her. ‘You didn’t tell me,’ he said; he was looking at her oddly.
    â€˜Tell you what?’
    â€˜Heilbron. I came on him talking to Blanchard—he says you and he are engaged.’
    â€˜Yes,’ she said.
    â€˜You didn’t tell me.’
    She smiled. ‘You’ve had other matters to concern you.’
    â€˜Well, but . . .’ He recovered himself. ‘As your godfather . . . What about it, missus, isn’t she supposed to get her godfather’s permission? Anyway, he’s a fine fellow.’
    Heilbron had come up and Lord Ffoulkes pumped his hand. ‘My congratulations, sir. You have plucked the finest rose in England’s garden.’
    â€˜That’s my opinion as well, sir.’
    It was awful. The footman was taking an age with their cloaks, the good-byes took another. At the bottom of the steps Heilbron bade her good night and kissed her hand. For a moment, she thought he was going to kiss her on the lips but he leaned close so that he could whisper: ‘Blanchard has convinced me he is telling the truth about the forger. I fear there is nothing to do but wait.’ She was aware of Andrew standing above them in the doorway. Both men remained where they were while the closed carriage that was to take her, Jenny, Makepeace and Reverend Deedes back to Chelsea circled the square and headed for Piccadilly.
    Damn you. Did you imagine I was always going to be an old maid? An elderly spinster aunt to your children?
    She just hadn’t thought he would be so . . . so disturbed.
    On the journey back, the silence of his companions was filled by the Reverend Deedes’s opinion of the ball and the intransigence of the great men who had resisted his and Heilbron’s arguments against slavery. His hearers were as devoted to