Judas Flowering (28 page)

“As bad as that?” asked Mercy. She wished she knew whether he had been referring, among others, to the McCartney girls, who were keeping open house now for the members of the Council of Safety, the stigma of their mother's flight to the British apparently quite forgotten in the lavishness of their entertainment.

Bridget called at the house in Oglethorpe Square a few days after Bulloch's funeral to chide Mercy and Abigail for being, as she put it, “Quite strangers. I missed you at my soirée the other night.”

“I'm sorry.” Abigail's little chin went up. “It was our night to sew for the militia.”

“You!” Bridget pantomimed amazement. “Sewing for a parcel of rebels!”

“They are men, just the same,” said Abigail. “And need shirts. I only hope some patriot lady would do as much for my Giles if he were to need it, which, please God, he does not.”

“What do you hear from him?” asked Bridget.

“Why, nothing. And you from your mother?”

Bridget coloured angrily. “Nothing, of course! Do you think Claire and I would communicate with a traitor? We have quite washed our hands of her and so I trust she knows.” She rose to her feet. “I have kept you two ladies from your good works long enough. Give my regards to poor Mr Purchis. His nose is badly out of joint these days, is it not? He and his rumbustious friend McIntosh are quite out of
favour with our new President. Mr Gwinnett blames McIntosh for all our disasters in the south.”

“And one cannot wonder Mr Gwinnett feels strongly about them,” said Mercy, “considering his plantation is down at Sunbury.”

Bridget closed her fan with an angry snap. “It's easy to be cool and level-headed when one's estate is here in the environs of Savannah. I think Mr Purchis would be wise to retire to his, and so you may tell him with my regards.”

Left alone, Abigail and Mercy looked at each other for a moment in silence, then, “Well!” said Mercy.

Abigail laughed. “Very well, if you ask me. She has decided to fly for higher game now Hart's star is no longer in the ascendant. Oh, Mercy, do you know what I sometimes dream, sometimes let myself hope? I love Hart so dearly; I'd give anything to see him happy.” She shook back her fair curls and looked up at Mercy. “Sometimes I wish the McCartney girls had gone with their mother.”

“I don't know what you're talking about,” said Mercy.

“No? Then I'm sorry I spoke.” She sat down at her spinet and played a few notes.

As Abigail's fingers wandered into a Bach prelude, Mercy subsided into wretched thought. First Saul Gordon, now Abigail. Had everyone seen that she loved Hart before she even recognized it herself? And Hart cared nothing for her—or, rather, cared as one would for the stray animal one had rescued. He would always be a brother to her, as he had promised. No more. No less. And not enough. At all costs, she must get away from this house, where, try how she would—and she had tried hard since that talk with Saul Gordon—there was no avoiding daily contact, the daily calm courtesy that fed and starved her.

And yet, how could she leave? Abigail was much stronger these days, it was true, but she had been brought up to be a young lady, to be marriageable, to be accomplished. She could no more go to market and fight for her share of whatever provisions were available than Mercy could have spent all those hours reading Richardson's novels or playing Bach on the spinet.

In the end, the problem was solved for her by Hart himself, who surprised her by changing his mind, leaving the family and Saul Gordon in Savannah, and spending most of his time at Winchelsea. If only he had taken Saul Gordon
with him. Did he, too, as his mother so obviously did, expect her to yield in the end to Gordon's advances? Intolerable thought. She wished now that she had spoken more firmly about Gordon, who had passed from words to soft, quick touches with those damp hands of his. And how could she avoid him? With Hart away, they must work together. If she left the office door open when she had to talk to him, he made a ceremonious point of closing it. Handing her the week's housekeeping money, he would detain her hand, raise it for a soft, wet kiss. She longed to strike him. But he was indispensable too.

She had escaped from one such encounter, feeling a little sick, to take a breath of air in the back yard under the protection of the servants' friendly eyes, when her spirits rose incorrigibly at sight of Hart riding in at the gate.

“Mercy! What a stroke of luck!” He jumped to the ground and handed Thunder's reins to Jem. “I was hoping for a word with you.” His fair face was flushed; he looked, for once, younger than his years. “Come round to the garden?” He pushed open the little gate for her, then paused under a flowering dogwood, his face dappled with shade from its leaves. “I seem never to see you alone.”

“You've been away. And we're both busy.” She felt he must hear the beat of her heart. What could be coming?

“Yes. That's it. That's just it. I'm glad of this chance.” He bent to remove a trail of Spanish moss from a battered little cupid on the terrace. “I've just been to see the McCartneys.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. Found them alone for once. Miss Bridget read me a lecture. About you.”

“About me?”

“I'm grateful to her.” He was twisting the Spanish moss round his wrist. “I should have thought … I'm ashamed … she's quite shocked to think that we do not pay you a salary for all you do for us.”

“A salary? Me!” Which did she hate most? Herself, for that absurd moment of delusive hope, or Bridget? But Hart was looking down at her, kind, friendly, puzzled. She made an immense effort. “Are you trying to make a stranger of me, Hart? You must know that whatever I do about the house, I do out of my great gratitude and affection for you all.”

“Indeed I do, and most grateful we are, but the fact is
that you have become the linch-pin round which the whole household revolves.”

“You mean the housekeeper.” She had herself in hand now. “That, no doubt, is how Miss Bridget describes me.”

“Well, yes … housekeeper, dear friend, and valued confidante is how I would prefer to put it.”

“Thank you.” Miraculously, her voice was steady. “But, Hart, what should I need? I've always felt anxious that I was not properly earning the pin money you insisted on giving me when first you took me in.”

“Earning it! That trifling sum! Mercy, you must let me do what I feel is right about this.”

“Must I?” She thought it over for a minute, coldly, hating herself, very nearly hating him. Then, “Very well, if you insist, but it shall be on my own terms.”

“And they are?” She had surprised him.

“Cash or kind, Hart. I don't care which, but I have no mind to set my curls with Georgia paper. Settle it with Mr Gordon. I am sure he will think of a proper way.” She had shocked him into silence and seized the chance to leave him, merely throwing over her shoulder, “I must remember to thank Miss Bridget for her kind thought.”

Next afternoon, Saul Gordon invited her ceremoniously into the office. “So you're the salaried housekeeper now.” She thought he eyed her with a new respect, and for once he kept his hands to himself. “And in cash or kind, Mr Purchis tells me. No Georgia money for you, Miss Mercy?”

Mrs Purchis grumbled about what she called Hart's absurd extravagance, but Mercy could see she was relieved at this new state of affairs. Young plantation owners did not marry their paid housekeepers.

Private misery lost itself in public crisis when Button Gwinnett's divided army came staggering back from the south, with hardly even an honourable defeat to boast of and the usual toll of sickness and unnecessary death. “If he thinks he'll be re-elected president and commander in chief after that debacle, he's crazy.” Hart had come in from Winchelsea for the election of the President of the Assembly on the first Tuesday in May. “Yes, Mother,” he answered Mrs Purchis' question. “All's well at Winchelsea. The lambing's over, and the rice looks better than ever.” He looked at the big clock and rose to his feet. “I must go. Every vote is going to count today.”

“A lot of fuss about politics,” said Mrs Purchis comfortably. “Mercy, wind my wool for me.”

William, the coachman, brought the first rumour, tapping anxiously at the back door to ask for Mercy. “Miss?” She had stepped out into the yard to join him, imagining that one of the servants was ill and needed her. “There's a story running round town. I thought you ought to know. But not Madam Purchis. Not yet. It may be all just talk.”

“What is it, William?”

“Talk of a duel, miss. Mr Gwinnett and General McIntosh. And seconds, miss. You know how they often fight, seconds and all. Twelve paces … sure death … right here in town, the Jewish Graveyard? I don't know. But, miss, the master … where is he?”

“Oh, dear God!” If McIntosh had fought, Hart was bound to be involved. “But, William, why?”

“I don't know, miss. May be all talk. Don't fret too much.”

Absurd advice. She lifted her head, listening. “There's a carriage stopping outside. Perhaps it is Mr Hart.” But a carriage would mean he was wounded. Dead? Twelve paces … murder.

Back in the house, she found Bridget McCartney. “Do so hope it's not true, dear Mrs Purchis,” she was saying. “But so impulsive, poor Mr Hart.”

“Mercy!” Martha Purchis turned to her. “Have you heard anything? About a duel?”

“Rumour!” said Bridget. “More than that, I'm afraid. When Treutlen was elected president, McIntosh had the gall to turn on Gwinnett and call him a scoundrel. In front of everyone. Of course there's been a duel. Both of them gravely wounded. Like to die. It will mean a murder charge. For the survivor. And the seconds.”

“The seconds?” asked Mercy. “Who were they?”

“I don't know. But if Mr Hart was not involved, where is he?”

“Mercy.” Mrs Purchis was ash-white. “My drops. Quick!”

“Here.” Mercy always carried them in her pocket now. By the time she had administered them, Abigail was showing Bridget out with a cold courtesy Mercy admired. Together they put Martha Purchis to bed, explained the situation to Mrs Mayfield, and waited.

The clock struck ten, eleven. Outside, the night was silent as death. “Mercy,” said Abigail. “Dear Mercy, you don't
need to pretend with me.”

“Oh!” She was on the floor, her head in Abigail's lap, crying, and crying, and crying. It was Abigail, in the end, who insisted they both go to bed, leaving a servant on the watch for news. “We'll need all our strength in the morning.”

“Yes.” Shakily, “Thank you, Abigail. Only, you know, and so do I, that whatever happens, there's no hope for me.”

“If only he's alive,” said Abigail, and Mercy knew herself rebuked.

She thought she would not sleep, but did, dreamlessly, and woke to find Abigail shaking her. “He's not hurt! Mercy, he's not hurt!”

“Not hurt! Thank God. But—”

“He stayed to help nurse McIntosh. Bridget was right about that. They're both badly wounded. He and Gwinnett. No hope for Gwinnett. McIntosh may live. It's trouble, Mercy, for Hart, terrible trouble.”

“How could he?” asked Mercy.

“How could he not? McIntosh was his friend—is his friend. You know what our Southern gentlemen are like. He had no choice.”

“Monstrous. Father said duelling—” She stopped, swallowing tears. What use was that?

A few days later, Button Gwinnett died. “It will go hard with McIntosh.” Bridget McCartney was paying one of her daily calls of “sympathy” that always made Mrs Purchis worse. “He must stand trial, of course! If I'd been he, I'd have been well across river by now, and Hart too.”

“Nothing of the kind!” Martha Purchis pulled herself more upright on the sofa. “Hart will stay, of course, and face what must be faced. I just wish he would come home!”

“He feels he has a duty to Colonel McIntosh,” said Mercy, but she wished it too.

“Acquitted!” Dr Flinn brought the news. “Gloriously acquitted by Judge Glen. I have no doubt we will see young Hart home soon, and then we'll be better, won't we, ma'am?”

“I'm sure I hope so.” But Mrs Purchis sounded as doubtful as Mercy felt. Though McIntosh had been acquitted, there was still a strong party against him in town. Mercy had heard that the mob had visited Lachlan McIntosh's house and been turned away by a furious speech from Hart. No need to wonder who had stirred them up. McIntosh had plenty
of enemies in high places.

“We mustn't hope too much, ma'am,” she told Mrs Purchis after the doctor had left.

“No, dear.” Illness had made Martha Purchis gentle. “I think hope is the most dangerous indulgence of all.” And then, suddenly brightening, “What's that? It sounds like …”

It was Hart. Much thinner, he was very grave, unusually pale from his sojourn by his friend's sickbed. “Dear mother.” He bent to kiss her. “I was sorry to hear you were ill. And so glad”—a sober smile for Mercy—“that I knew you were here to nurse her. I dared not come sooner. You understood?”

“No,” said Martha Purchis.

“Yes,” said Mercy.

“Dr Flinn says you're better, Mother. I met him … I asked him.…” His look, for Mercy, was an appeal.

“I'm much better, dear boy, now you are here. Now we shall all be happy again. You'll dine tonight, Hart? We'll celebrate?”

He gave her a strange look. “Yes, Mother, we'll celebrate.” He bent to kiss her, then stood up. “Now I must call on Miss Bridget, who, I hear, has been a most faithful caller while you've been unwell.”

“Faithful, yes,” said his mother. “Cheering, no,” But Hart had drawn Mercy aside and did not hear her.

“Make a party of it, Mercy. Champagne? Have we any left? I've news, or shall have.”

The best damask napkins. The cut glass they never used. A few sun-drenched roses for the silver centrepiece Oglethorpe had given the first Purchis of Winchelsea. “Make a party of it.… I've news, or shall have.” The words rang in her head all day. He was going to call on Bridget McCartney. He would have news. Perhaps he would bring her with him. She smiled savagely to herself and went out to confer with the cook. Market was over for the day. The winter's supply of smoked and salt food from Winchelsea was long since exhausted. “Make a party of it!”