Judas Flowering

by Jane Aiken Hodge

  “Tell her afterwards,” said Dr Flinn.

  “No.”

  Left alone, the two men looked at each other across the coffin. “Whew,” said the doctor.

  “He’s grown up,” said Zubly. “I hope the girl don’t fuss.”

  Upstairs, Mercy was looking at Hart with a kind of white calm. “What they are saying is that they don’t want to find out how he died?”

  “I’m afraid so. You must see, Miss Phillips, that it would only mean more trouble. Many of the people who came out today were true friends of your father’s. Francis and I were watching, we could tell. But some of them were notorious Liberty Boys, come to see how the land lay.”

  “And the body did not bleed.”

  “No, Miss Phillips. Nor did anyone blench at the sight of it. If we had not known, Francis and I, which the Liberty Boys were—”

  “Many of them?”

  “Enough.”

  “So.” She was working it out painfully. “If I refuse to let him be buried tonight, insist that the doctor examine him in the morning, it may mean trouble for you here?”

  “I’m afraid it’s simpler even than that.” He did not like having to tell her. “In effect, the minister and the doctor have settled the question already. The doctor won’t do it, no matter what you say … or I do.”

  “I thought you were Purchis of Winchelsea.”

  He blushed painfully. “So did I.”

  “I’m sorry.” She held out a hand to him. “You’ve done so much for me. I’m a brute. Well.” She lifted her chin in a gesture he was beginning to recognise. “So I’ll never know.” And then, “What’s that?”

  He had recognised the noise at once. “They have begun to nail down the coffin. I told them to wait until I had spoken to you. So much for Purchis of Winchelsea.”

  To his relief, she did not insist on attending the funeral. Indeed, she went further. “I would much rather not meet these two dictatorial gentlemen,” she said. “Will you tell them that I am in strong hysterics, or whatever else you like, and give them my thanks for their kindness.”

  “Not strong hysterics,” he suggested, liking her better than ever. “The doctor might feel it his duty to pay you a professional visit.”

  “And what he won’t do for Father, he shan’t do for me. Thank you, Mr Purchis. Tell them I am prostrated with grief. In fact.” She looked up at him through tears. “I am.”

  Only Hart and Francis attended the funeral, and when they returned to the house with the doctor and minister, it was to find Mrs Purchis and Mrs Mayfield alone in the big drawing room. Abigail, explained Mrs Purchis, greeting her guests warmly, was staying with poor Miss Phillips. She pulled the bell rope that hung close to her chair. “We will sup at once. You two gentlemen must be exhausted.”

  Winchelsea was famous for its informal suppers, and over turtle soup, deviled oysters, canvas-backed ducks, and a variety of other delicacies, washed down by the claret Hart’s father had imported from France, everyone relaxed a little. “A bad business,” said the Reverend Zubly to no one in particular.

  “Yes,” said the doctor. “What do you propose doing about the girl, Mrs Purchis?”

  “We shall keep her here,” said Martha Purchis. “Hart decided that.”

  “I drink your health, Mr Purchis.” The Reverend Zubly used the formal mode of address for the first time.

  “Thank you.” But soon after his mother and aunt left them to their port, Hart, too, made an excuse to retire. “I couldn’t face them,” he told Francis, who visited him, much later, in his room. “Couple of canting hypocrites.”

  “Don’t know about that,” said Francis. “Could call them practical men. Be grateful, even.” He pulled forward an upright chair, back to front, and sat down astride it, his arms on the back, facing his cousin. “Meant to warn you anyway. Joseph Habersham said a word to me at the club last night. Oh, friendly enough, but a warning just the same.”

  “Oh?” Hart’s face was uncompromising. “What did Mr Habersham have to say?”

  “Nothing much. Something about going back to my den of Tories. A joke, if you like, but a warning, too. Frankly, I am going to have another try at persuading my mamma that she would be happier in Charleston. Winchelsea is a delicious place, dear boy, and I’m more grateful than I can say for all your hospitality, but the way things are right now, I’d feel a deal happier in town—with neighbours. The Liberty Boys burned Mr Phillips’ house last night. What’s to stop them coming to Winchelsea tomorrow? Specially now you’ve got that plain little bit of a daughter here. Take my advice. Get rid of that girl just as fast as you can. If she don’t spell trouble, my name’s not Francis Mayfield.”

  “I can’t, Frank. I gave her my word.”

  “Then take it back again, for God’s sake. Or”—he leaned forward, pointing a graceful finger at his cousin—“better still, persuade her to hand over that press of her father’s to the Liberty Boys.”

  “Never! Anyway, she says she doesn’t know where it is.”

  “Believe that, Hart Purchis, you’ll believe anything. Oh, maybe her father didn’t actually tell her; I can understand that, but I bet she knows just the same. I know her kind. They can’t keep their noses out of anything. So, for her sake, if you like, get her to tell you.”

  “And hand it over to the Liberty Boys? I think not, Francis. Things are bad enough as it is without them being able to print inflammatory handbills. You know how much Johnston has done by keeping things cool and level in The Georgia Gazette, and at what risk to himself. Sir James Wright was saying just the other day how lucky we are here in Savannah. I’ll do nothing to spoil it, and if I were you, Frank, I wouldn’t think of going back to Charleston. By all reports the mob’s pretty rough there too, and you know your mother.”

  “No worse than yours, little cousin. The truth of it is, they egg each other on. That’s why I think they would be better separated.” He sighed. “Oh, for a shower of gold, a win in the lottery, or a rich heiress.”

  Hart rose to his feet and moved about the room, fidgeting first with silver-backed hair brushes and then with the set of his cravat. “You haven’t considered, perhaps”—his tone was diffident—“going to work?”

  “Work, dear boy? What, pray, do you mean by that?”

  “Well, I’d been thinking, there are fortunes to be made. If I spoke to Saul Gordon …” He ground to a halt at Francis’ explosion of laughter.

  “You’d apprentice me to your man of business! My dear little cousin, that passes everything. And I’m to sit on a stool with a quill behind my ear and say, ‘Yes, sir’ and ‘No, sir’ and ‘That will be ten pounds the bushel, sir.’ Are you out of your mind, Hart?”

  “No. Just anxious about you.” He took off his cravat and laid it tidily on the back of a chair. “And now, if you’ll excuse me, cousin, I’m for bed. It’s been a long day.”

  Francis shrugged and rose gracefully to his feet. What had happened to the young cousin for whom his word had been law? He yawned. “A long two days for me. Sleep well, and let’s hope the mob stay home.”

  “Amen to that.”

  Hart was up early next morning to say good-bye to the doctor and minister and thank them, rather stiffly, for coming. They were both mounted and ready to leave when the Reverend Zubly leaned down for a last word. “And, Hart, if the girl says anything about that press, send for me at once.

  “For you?”

  “Yes. I have, if I do not flatter myself, some influence With the wilder elements in Savannah. I think I could undertake that the press would be collected without trouble and put to the best possible use.”

  “I see.” Hart smiled up at him. “The trouble, is Miss Phillips doesn’t know where it is. Very likely the mob has it already. And, if so, you’d be doing me a great kindness, sir, if you would send me word.”

  “You’ll know soon enough if they have,” said the doctor. “It won’t lie idle—that’s one thing certain.”

  But to Hart’s surprise and relief, th
ough there was no sudden spate of revolutionary handbills, neither did the mob visit Winchelsea. Francis, returning from one of his frequent visits to town, explained this. “Fact is, they believe the girl,” he told Hart. “Well—a woman—a chit—makes sense. Kind of.”

  “It’s not what you thought yourself.”

  “No ordinary girl. That’s what they don’t understand. But—lucky for us. And lucky too that Winchelsea has such a good name. Besides”—he laughed, throwing down whip and riding gloves on a settle in the corner of the room—“had you thought how your Harvard plans look to the Liberty Boys?”

  “Frankly, no. How should they look?”

  “Like paying a visit to the rebel camp. Betting’s two to one at Tondee’s Tavern that you’ll come back a confirmed revolutionist. In the meantime, they’ll wait and see. Surprising how well you’re liked.”

  “Tondee’s Tavern? You’re keeping pretty radical company yourself, aren’t you?”

  “Peter Tondee has the best house, the best Madeira, and the best talk in town. I hope we haven’t reached such a pass, yet, that one must be careful even in one’s choice of a tavern.”

  “So do I,” said Hart. There had been no more talk on the Mayfields’ part of a return to Charleston, and he assumed that the financial argument had proved overwhelming. Or was there something else? It seemed extraordinary to him, but his dashing cousin was actually paying marked attentions to Mercy Phillips. Remembering Francis’ description of her as a “plain little bit,” he found it at once a puzzle and worry. Mercy was his protégée and he meant to protect her, but he had not expected to have to protect her from Francis and did not rightly know how to set about it. He had always been in awe of his splendid older cousin and had enjoyed listening to his tales of European conquests. They had been far away, unreal. Now, watching Abigail turn silent and Mercy’s eyes begin to sparkle when Francis appeared, he did not find he enjoyed himself. Mercy was such a gallant little figure, with her cropped hair just beginning to curl, her swift, neat movements, and those huge eyes that always had a special, grateful welcome for him. She must not be hurt.

  As for Mercy, she was still too numb from the shock of her father’s death to be anything but grateful for every small bit of kindness. She was ashamed of it, but the huge house frightened her, and so did the hordes of black servants, whose faces she only slowly began to be able to tell apart. And then there were Mrs Purchis and Mrs Mayfield. She was almost sure there had been a bitter quarrel between the two sisters as to how she should be treated. Inevitably, Mrs Purchis, or rather Hart, had won, and Mercy ate her meals with the family, aware all the time of Mrs Mayfield’s dislike and Mrs Purchis’ doubt, and equally afraid of disgracing herself before these formidable critics and before the servants. It was all very well to be able to put on the manner of a duchess at will, but what use was that when faced with a battery of forks and spoons and no clue as to where to begin?

  But, quietly, Hart and Francis and Abigail helped her all the time, and so, she began to think, did the servants. One fork would be pushed a little out from the others. Glasses would whisk themselves into position. Or Jem, standing as always behind Hart’s chair, would flash her a quick glance of warning. And if she retired to her favourite refuge, the sewing room, Abigail would join her with a volume of Richardson’s Clarissa Harlowe and read aloud to her. Abigail hated to sew and loved to read, and it was soon an understood thing between them that she would entertain Mercy while Mercy set her torn flounces to rights. And when the two girls went out, there was Francis, always ready to escort them on walks down by the tidewater or, having discovered that Mercy had never sat a horse, to begin teaching her to ride on a sober old pony outgrown by Hart.

  Hart himself, very busy overseeing the spring planting, had little time to spare, but often met the three of them as Mercy grew bolder and their rides took them farther and farther afield. He was down by the river one morning, inspecting the sluices that would flood the fields when the women had finished sowing the rice, and was covered, as a result, in black river mud, when the sound of galloping hoofs brought him up to the level of the path in a hurry. Horses ridden at speed might mean anything, and he and his overseer, Sam, exchanged a quick, anxious glance before relaxing at the sound of a characteristic halloo from Francis. He was in the lead, with Abigail just behind him and Mercy bringing up the rear, flushed, laughing and triumphant. She looked a different creature, Hart thought. Still small and plain, she glowed, now, with what he supposed must be happiness.

  Abigail, on the other hand, though, like Mercy, she had acquired an unladylike tan for which the older ladies chided them both, looked tired and strained beneath it, as if she had not been sleeping. As always, she sat her horse gracefully, but there was just the hint of a droop about her shoulders, and the dark shadows under her blue eyes told their own tale.

  “Oh, Mr Purchis.” Mercy leaned forward in her sidesaddle to pat her sweating pony. “You are to congratulate me on my first gallop. And I am to thank you for the loan of your Caesar. I had no idea it would be so exciting.”

  “More exciting than wise.” Aware of dirt and dishevelment, Hart knew it sounded grudging as he spoke. “Surely, Francis, you have not forgotten how pitted this river bank is with alligator holes?”

  “Count on you and your myrmidons to have taken care of them, cousin.” Francis shrugged elegant shoulders in the London-cut riding coat and smiled benignly down on his flushed and sweating kinsman. “What a sort of toil you are, Hart, and what lilies of the field you make us seem. Should we all get down and play mud pies too?”

  “These mud pies of mine are our bread and butter,” said Hart shortly. “Forgive me, ladies, if I am not exactly dressed to receive you. And forgive me, too, if I leave you now. I have six more sluices to check before dinnertime.” He turned away, regretting the ungracious speech as he spoke it, then back again, “And no more galloping on the river bank. Please.”

  “Oh, cousin.” Francis pantomimed dismay. “Might we spoil your dikes?”

  “You might break one of the ladies’ necks, which, oddly enough, I should mind more.”

  “Good God, a gallant speech! Well, for that, we will proceed back as demurely as a funeral procession.” And then, quickly, a hand held out to Mercy. “Forgive me, Miss Phillips, I quite forgot.”

  Hart watched them go with an anxious frown and surprised Sam by leaving him to inspect the last two sluices. “After all, Sam”—they were the oldest of friends—“you will have to take over when I go north.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t go, Mr Hart.” It was an old argument and Hart did not let it delay him. He wanted a word with his mother in the privacy of her room before the party assembled for dinner.

  She was reassuring. “Yes, of course I’ve noticed. Most marked attentions to Miss Phillips and poor Abigail a very unhappy girl. But, truly, Hart, it’s for Miss Phillips that I am anxious. I’m glad that Abigail should have her eyes opened about Frank. In fact, if I’m not wide of the mark, this is all the result of a word I spoke to him and to his mother.”

  “You?”

  “You think, since I was ill, I am content to sit here, see nothing and do less, don’t you, dear boy? Well, you may have taken over the estate, but I still run the family, and I don’t intend to have my niece’s heart broken if I can help it. If you remember, I warned Francis once about his dallying with Abigail. When that had no effect, naturally I spoke to my sister. Granted the choice between behaving himself and going to starve in Charleston, Francis seems to have seen the error of his ways. But I’m sorry he should have chosen such a brutal way of making the position clear. And anxious for little Miss Phillips, too, who seems in a fair way to have her head turned. What a strange creature she is, though. There’s no understanding her. Do you remember how broad she spoke that first night she came, and now there’s not a pin to choose between her accent and Abigail’s. I expect, all in all, she’s quite capable of taking care of herself.”

  “I certainly hope so,” said
Hart.

  “I’m sure she is.” Mrs Purchis had convinced herself. “She’s certainly made a place for herself here at Winchelsea. But whether that’s a good thing—We have to think of the future, Hart, hers as well as ours. I wish you would let me look out for a situation for her.”

  “A situation? What do you mean?” His tone surprised her.

  “Well, as a governess.” She gave him a quick, almost apologetic glance. “Or a housekeeper? She’d be worth her weight in gold to a widower with a houseful of children. Or there’s Saul Gordon. You know how his poor wife ails. He said a word to me just the other day.”

  “No,” said Hart Purchis. “I invited her here, and here she stays.”

  “Oh, very well.” His mother shrugged it off and picked up her embroidery. “I won’t say she doesn’t make herself useful. I just hope Francis doesn’t break her heart for her. Sometimes I almost wish he’d go back to Charleston.”

  “So do I,” said Hart, and surprised himself.

  Chapter 4

  The spring planting was finished, the fields had been flooded for the second time to kill the weeds, and the young rice stood four inches high, when an unexpected guest drove up the long ilex avenue to Winchelsea. One look at the emblazoned panels of the light carriage and Mrs Purchis sent a servant hurrying across the fields for her son, while she cast a quick, approving glance over the dark silk dress Mercy Phillips had made for her, and hurried down to greet her visitor.

  “Sir James, how good of you!” She held out a warm hand in greeting. Regardless of politics, everyone in Savannah liked Sir James Wright, who had been royal Governor of Georgia for ten years and had done much to keep the peace there.

  “I have sent for my son,” Mrs Purchis said when the first greetings were over. “He will be here directly. I hope.”

  “He works hard, I hear.” Sir James seated her courteously and then took an upright chair himself.

  “Too hard, I think. With the plantation in the daytime, and his studies at night.” She coloured. “You have heard, perhaps, about his plans?”