Wide is the Water (23 page)

Morning brought Dick, grey-faced. ‘The carriage is below.' He had found them all at the breakfast table, a most unusual appearance for Julia, and had made his greetings so brief as to be uncivil. ‘Fetch your shawl, Julia. The streets are crowded with sightseers already. Hart, I am going to ask you to walk home. You must not be seen with Julia in your evening dress.'

‘But surely—' Hart began a protest, then abandoned it. In the very real danger of the night before, he had never given a thought to the nice rules of London society but still could see nothing wrong about their spending the night at the Bonds'. Now, with Dick lowering beside him, he made his farewells at once as warm and as brief as possible and found himself downstairs and in the street before Julia had returned with her shawl.

‘Here!' Dick handed him a greatcoat, unsuitably warm for the time of year. ‘Can you find your way back through side streets? I'd as lief you saw no one we know. God, Hart, of all the scatterbrained starts …'

‘I don't understand you,' said Hart, angry at last. ‘I'd
rather die than harm Julia, but, Dick, if you had seen the crowd last night … And to stay with an old friend, a married lady …'

‘Married?' said Dick. ‘Who said they were married?'

Striding home, Hart did not notice the signs of last night's rioting in the shabby slum streets or the sodden, gin-soaked beggars who caught at the skirts of his greatcoat. Susan and Bond were not married. Julia had taken him to their house … Julia had let him fatally compromise her, and there was nothing in the world he could do about it.

‘I'm sorry.' He confronted Mr. Purchas across his study table. ‘I cannot begin to tell you how sorry I am. I only hope you will believe that I had no idea. If Julia had only told me …'

‘Spilt milk,' said Mr. Purchas. ‘The question is, what's to do now? It would be Saturday, but I wager no one will have left town. I am sure I can find either the Bishop of Lincoln or of Lichfield. One of them should be able and willing to do our business if it's put to them in the proper light.'

‘Our business?'

‘Marry you and Julia, of course. What else are we discussing? It's not what I'd hoped for her, but—'

‘Mr. Purchas,' Hart interrupted him with the courage of desperation, ‘you are forgetting. I am a married man.'

‘
Tchah
,' said Purchas. ‘Too late in the day to be remembering that now. You've escorted Julia everywhere, set tongues wagging about her, and now this last folly … It was when she first came to London that you should have remembered you were a married man. But no need to look so down in the mouth, man. I've talked this over with Busby. Did so as soon as I saw how the land lay between you and Julia. What kind of father would you think me otherwise? Busby sees no problem, or none that cannot be surmounted. A nullity, of course. A rash attempt at a marriage, performed by a Catholic sea captain, an enemy of the country; no documents; no surviving witnesses, or none we
know of. It's a mere farce, cousin –' he corrected himself – 'son Hart.'

A nullity. Hart had felt his face flush scarlet in the course of this remarkable speech. It was what he had sometimes thought himself. What he had wanted? He could not do it. ‘I'm a witness,' he said. ‘I and my wife are both witnesses.'

‘Your wife! Your whore! Do you know where she is now, this so-called wife of yours? She's the belle of Philadelphia.'

‘Philadelphia?'

‘Thought that would surprise you. Left her near Boston, didn't you, to be looked after by relatives? She seems to have cut and run from there soon enough. Not luxurious enough maybe for a lady used to being the toast of Savannah? Piers Blanding brought me the report just last night.'

‘Report?'

‘From New York. They've ways and means there of knowing what goes on among the American rebels. Now, understand me, Hart Purchis, I'm as good a friend of you Americans as you could wish, but our old enemies the French are another matter.'

‘The French?'

‘The lady who passes for your wife has been set up in a house in Philadelphia by the French Minister there, by Luzerne himself. Now what have you to say to that? I don't know whether she repays him by spying, or by – other favours, but it hardly seems, does it, as if she looked on herself or was behaving as your lawful wedded wife?'

‘I must see the report.' Hart felt he was clutching at straws.

‘Impossible. It was most secret. Young Blanding merely let me glance at it. But you have my word for it. Julia's father's word. Hush!' He held up a hand. ‘There's the carriage now. You won't want to see Julia yet. Hart' – he held out a friendly hand – ‘I'm sorry it had to happen this way, but glad, truly glad, to have you for a son. Your very staunchness in defence of that worthless wife of yours does
you credit. But go to your room; think it over. We've a little time yet, specially with this mob in the streets, drawing all eyes. Sleep on it, if you must, but let me have the word I need just as soon as you can. For Julia's sake. For all our sakes.'

‘Thank you, sir.' He found his way to his room like a blind man, tore off his evening dress, and threw himself flat on his bed. Mercy. He had thought he had forgotten her. Mercy and a Frenchman. Luzerne. The French Minister in Philadelphia. What in the name of God was Mercy doing in Philadelphia? Forgotten her? Why should it come back to him now, that exacerbating vision of Mercy in her low-cut bronze dress, laughing and flirting with British officers, with Francis, wooing them, blinding them with her charms, smiling and smiling and letting them tell her the secrets she would use against them as the Rebel Pamphleteer? He had suspected her then, fiercely, jealously, horribly suspected her, and very nearly been her destruction as a result.

He got slowly up from the bed and moved over to look at his grey face in the glass. He had thought the worst of Mercy, back in Savannah, and been wrong. However great the temptation, he would not do it again. And curiously enough, now that he was really remembering Mercy, the temptation did not seem so great as all that. How strange. Only this morning the sight of Julia across the breakfast table had been enough to set his pulses stirring. And now? Now he could think only of Mercy.

‘I'm sorry, sir.' He sought out Mr. Purchas late that afternoon. ‘I cannot do it. I'm a married man.' He repeated it as one might a spell.

‘You're a young idiot. Take twenty-four hours. Keep yourself to yourself. Think it over. Sunday tomorrow. I'll have your meals sent to your room.'

Anxiously reading and rereading the reports of Hart's capture by the British, Mercy consoled herself as best she might with the fact that there was no reference to her. ‘Dare I hope, do you think, that word of what I did in Savannah has not reached England?' she asked Charles Brisson one fine May morning when he had found her and Ruth hemming sheets in their blossom-filled garden.

‘One should always hope,' said Charles Brisson. ‘It is better for the soul than despairing. But one should also be a little realistic, madame.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘That I am afraid word of your reception here in Philadelphia is bound to reach the British in New York. You know how it is. There is constant traffic across the debatable ground between the two armies. Sooner or later they will hear in New York that you are living here, that you have been welcomed, feted … And how rightly so! But from the point of view of your husband, it can only be unfortunate. News that reaches New York reaches England in the end. I would not be your friend if I did not admit to you that it can only prejudice his position when he stands trial.'

‘Trial? You think it will come to that?'

‘It will be a miracle if it does not. A known privateer … and with, forgive me, a known spy for his wife … What he did at Savannah is one thing; then he might be considered a part of the American navy … though, mind you, even that is not necessarily a protection. You know as well as I do that General Washington, General Arnold, all of
them lead their lives with the feel of the noose about their throats. What do you think Charles Lee expected when he was captured in '76.'

‘Death?' The needle dropped from her cold fingers. ‘Mr. Brisson, you can't think … they wouldn't, the British? They are civilised people.' It was so exactly what she had secretly feared that she could hardly forgive him for putting it into words.

‘Civilised? Who is really so when it comes to the point? Face it, madame. From all one hears, the antiwar party is growing daily in strength, over there in London, and the government may be pushed to desperate measures to whip up support for the war. What more effective than a show trial? You know what feelings were roused by John Paul Jones's ravages round the British coasts last year. I would not wish to see your husband made scapegoat for his exploits, madame.'

‘Oh, God!' She dropped the sheet on the grass. ‘What shall I do? You're the only person I really trust, here in Philadelphia. You and Ruth, of course.' She reached out a quick hand to press Ruth's, which had also fallen listless on to her sewing as she listened to them.

‘I am glad you say so.' He glanced quickly round the sunny garden. ‘Ruth, would you be so good as to make sure we cannot be disturbed? There is something I very much want to say to Mrs. Purchis.'

‘Yes, of course.' Ruth jumped to her feet. ‘I won't let anyone past the back door. You can count on me, Mercy.'

‘I know I can.' Mercy watched her with great affection as she hurried away through the neat garden. Wonderful how much better she was, and strange that Charles Brisson used her first name so freely while he always called her madame or Mrs. Purchis. He had visited them constantly, too, since he had been back in Philadelphia. Could there be something in it … between him and Ruth? What a strange thought. She smiled up at Brisson. ‘You wished to speak to me?'

‘Madame, you ask my advice. I have longed to give it to you. I think you should go to England.'

‘To England? Have you taken leave of your senses?'

He had stood up when Ruth left them, now sat down again on the close cropped grass at her feet. ‘I often think so.' He smiled up at her. Then, very grave all of a sudden: ‘Madame, I am about to put my life in your hands. Can I trust them, those little hands of yours?'

‘Of course you can.' She looked down at them, puzzled.

‘Well, then. Give me your solemn promise of secrecy, and I think I can help you get to England. Or, to be precise, to France, whence, as I have no doubt you know, one can always find a friendly smuggler to take one across to England. This is a strange war and makes for strange friendships.'

‘But what would I do in England?'

‘Speak up for your husband. Plead for him in court. They are great sentimentalists, the English. It will be very bad for your husband if the prosecutor can describe you at his trial – his wife – as a spy against England, living in luxury here in Philadelphia, the protégée of the French. Ah, you had not thought of that? It will be said; it is bound to be said. And you know as well as I do that though the British are impatient with you Americans, they hate the French. With you, it is a family quarrel, to be laughed off in the end, forgiven … With the French – with us – it is quite other. We are old enemies.'

‘You mean' – she looked at him with horror – ‘everything I have done is harmful to Hart. I have killed his mother and aunt, and now, just by being here, by living in this house, I am endangering his life.'

‘I very much fear so.' He met her eyes squarely. ‘And that is why I make you this offer. I feel responsible, you see. It was I who made you known to the French here, to the Chevalier de la Luzerne. Everything else has followed from that. I could not bear the hatred you would feel for me, madame, if your husband's death should be the result of the help I have tried to give you.'

‘But what shall I do? Could you really help me get to France?'

‘Yes, that I can do. I am going myself, you see. But secretly, most secretly. If you wish to come, you must be ready to leave on the instant and without a word to anyone. Will you trust me so far?'

‘Oh, yes, of course, I trust you!' And yet how strange it was that she did so. ‘But Ruth?' she asked. ‘I cannot leave Ruth.'

‘Naturally not. I would very much prefer that you bring her. You should not be alone, the only woman, on such a journey. But, madame, if you value your life – and mine – you must tell her nothing. Not until the moment comes. Can you do that?'

‘Dear Ruth. She would go anywhere with me. But the French minister … this house … I should say something to him?'

‘Leave all that to me. Just live as you always do, in full sight of the world, and be ready, with the smallest possible baggage, for when I give the word. It may be very sudden, very strange, not the kind of message you expect at all. But if it is from me, you will know what it means.' He thought for a moment. ‘And just to be sure that it is from me,' he went on, ‘if I cannot come for you myself, my messenger will announce himself as Mr. Jones.'

‘Mr. Jones.' It took her back to what he had said earlier. ‘Would they really hang Hart for what John Paul Jones did?'

‘In war anything can happen. You will risk imprisonment yourself with every step of this dangerous journey. I would not be your friend if I did not remind you of that, but they are chivalrous, the British. I am sure as I am of anything that if you deliver yourself into their hands, young and beautiful as you are, they will make a heroine of you, just the way the French have here.'

‘But not the Americans.' She smiled at him, her heart warmed by the compliment. ‘Do you know, I'd be glad to get away from here? Only – I wish I had heard from
Hart – from my husband. It is so strange that he has not written. Suppose he did not want me to come?'