Judas Flowering

by Jane Aiken Hodge

  “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!”

  “Miss Mercy.” William had emerged from his hut at the far corner of the yard. “You want some fresh fish? Give Jem and me the afternoon off, and you’ll have your party.”

  “Delicious.” Hart had not brought Bridget McCartney. He finished his second helping of devilled crab and smiled round the table. “It’s good to be home.”

  “And good to have you, Hart.” His mother raised her glass. “To stay this time, I hope. No more running off to Winchelsea.”

  “Oh, Mother.” His tone was at once apology and warning. “I’m sorry … I should have told you at once.” And then a quick aside to Mercy, “Have you her drops?” And as she nodded, speechless, he went on. “Lachlan McIntosh goes north,” he told them. “His friends advise it. He can do no good here, after what’s happened. And, Mother, the same is true of me, I am afraid. I have said I’ll go too.”

  “And leave us defenceless!” Anne Mayfield turned on him, while his mother sat rigid, fighting for composure. “Of all the obstinate, inconsiderate, cross-grained boys …” She was working rapidly towards one of her bouts of hysteria.

  “Hush!” said Martha Purchis. “No, dear”—to Mercy—“I don’t need my drops. I’m not quite a fool.” She turned with a travesty of a smile to Hart. “I saw this coming. Purchis of Winchelsea must do his duty, and you’re right, there’s no place for you here. Not now. And as for us, a household of women, we have nothing to fear, and Saul Gordon to protect us. But, Hart, have you no other news? No good news for me?”

  He looked at her squarely. “No, ma’am. I don’t think these are times for good news.”

  And what did that mean, Mercy asked herself for the hundredth time, sleepless in her bed. That he had proposed and been refused, or decided not to propose? She would never know. Did she want to know? He was going away. That was a good thing. That was what she had wanted. She put her head under the pillow for fear that Abigail, in the room next door, might hear her sobs.

  Chapter 16

  It was strange to be sewing shirts again, as she had three years ago before Hart went to Harvard. It seemed much longer than that. It seemed a lifetime. A disastrous one. When there was no chance of hearing that firm tread or listening for the voice that seemed to grow deeper and graver every day, might she manage to achieve some kind of pretence at quietness? Not peace, never happiness, but surely she might hope to be quiet?

  They were all going to Winchelsea at the end of June, and Mercy was glad of it. Hart and his mother would both be better away from the gossiping tongues and sly glances of Savannah. “It may be the last visit for a long time,” Hart warned. “I’m afraid, with things as they are since that last disastrous expedition of poor Gwinnett’s, it’s altogether too far from town and too near the sea for your safety, Mother. You’ll not go when I’m not here?” It was as much order as request.

  “Of course not. But, Hart, do you know when—”

  “Not for some time. I must wait for my posting. I’d much rather wait at Winchelsea.”

  “So would I,” agreed his mother. “Hardly anyone came to our sewing circle last night, I can’t get up a hand of whist, and even the McCartney girls seem to be avoiding us now.”

  “They’ve other interests,” said Hart shortly. “I called this afternoon and found Joseph Wood there, and two of those cousins of his who all have such profitable appointments since he’s crept into power. I wish we may not be carrying democracy too far.”

  “Can one?” asked Mercy.

  “I begin to think so. As to Miss Bridget”—the heavy brows drew together—“she sent a message to you, Mother. As I was leaving. To say how sorry she is not to be able to visit you.”

  “Not able? And what is stopping her, pray?”

  “She came out on to the porch with me, on purpose to explain … to apologise … She feels it very much, she says.… It’s because of their mother … and … and Francis and Giles. She thinks two households, so tainted with loyalism, had better not be seen to associate.”

  “Well!” Martha Purchis drew herself up. “Of all the ungrateful hussies. When I think what we’ve done for those girls. I should like to give them a good piece of my mind, but I suppose they would be ‘not at home’ if I were to call.”

  “I don’t know.” He looked and sounded wretched.

  “Hart.” Abigail had turned very white. “I said this before, when the Loyalists were proscribed in October, and I say it again. You have only to say the word, and I go.”

  “Dear Abigail.” He crossed the room quickly to take her hand. “So long as I have a house, its protection is yours. Thank God, as you are a woman and without property, there is no need for you to take the patriotic oath.”

  “No.” She sat down again, her hands limp in her lap. “But I know what harm my abstaining does you with Joseph Wood and his creatures.”

  “Hush!” He surprised them all. “I know it seems odd that someone like Joe Wood, who has actually been taken to court as a dishonest man, should be sent to represent us at the Continental Congress. We cannot help thinking these things, but, Abigail, I think we should not speak of them.”

  She looked up at him sadly. “You’ll be glad to get away, won’t you, to the North, and your hero, Washington.”

  The day before they were due to leave for Winchelsea, they were amazed by a visit from Bridget McCartney.

  “Dear Mrs Purchis!” Bridget was at her most winning. “I am come as a suppliant to you.”

  “A suppliant?” Martha Purchis had received her with a cool dignity Mercy admired.

  “Yes. Claire and I have minded so much, these last weeks, that we have not seen you.”

  “There was nothing to stop you,” said Mrs Purchis.

  “Only our wish not to make matters worse than they were already for Hart,” explained Bridget. “If you but knew, Mrs Purchis, how we have been pleading his case with our friends, but now my poor Claire is not well. Above all things she needs a breath of country air, and what better excuse could there be for us to visit you at Winchelsea?”

  “At Winchelsea?” Martha Purchis did not try to conceal her amazement.

  “Dear Mrs Purchis, I could not bear to let Hart go north, to such a danger, without saying a real good-bye, and how can I, here in Savannah, where even the walls have ears?”

  Martha Purchis looked round her handsome sitting-room as if wondering whether thi
s was true. “You and Claire actually want to come and stay?”

  “Do you not know that the time we spent here in Savannah with you was one of the happiest of our lives?” Bridget looked down thoughtfully at her diamond bracelets. She was wearing two today, Mercy noticed. “We owe so much to you all, and most especially to Hart. Dear Purchis, just for a few days, just to say good-bye.”

  “I said yes,” Martha Purchis told her son that night. “It seemed only civil.”

  “Just so long as the Woods don’t come to call,” said Hart. Impossible to tell how he felt about the proposed visit. The days when one could read his thoughts in his face were long gone.

  For Mercy, the visit was the last straw. Bad enough that Saul Gordon was coming, but now this. “I shall be glad when it’s over,” she told Abigail.

  “If only it is well over,” said Abigail. “And no harm done. Do you know, Mercy, I cannot quite like this visit of the McCartneys.”

  Mercy laughed. “Oh, Abigail, I do so agree with you.”

  She remembered Abigail’s words when the McCartneys arrived. Claire did indeed look far from well and had been glad to be urged to spend her mornings in bed, but Bridget showed herself remarkably friendly and actually insisted on accompanying Mercy on her morning visit to her father’s grave. She talked all the way volubly, about fresh country air and the blessed quiet after Savannah, but when they reached the low wall that surrounded the family lot, she paused. “You will wish to be alone with your memories. I will explore a little farther along the path towards the river.” She took a deep breath and started again. “It is so good to be away from the heat and bustle of town, but a breath of river air will be best of all. I will see you back at the house.”

  “Be sure and keep to the path,” advised Mercy.

  “I shall indeed. I have no wish to lose myself in Hart’s jungle. Besides”—she lifted muslin skirts to reveal the softest of white kid slippers—“I am hardly shod for it.”

  Mercy was glad to be left alone to put her morning-gathered flowers on her father’s grave, but ashamed to find herself thinking more of Bridget than of him. And yet … she put her flowers in the porous clay container the estate potter had given her and stood for a moment looking down at them. What would her father have thought of this curious visit of the McCartney sisters, and odder still, of Bridget’s behaviour this morning? He would have questioned it, as he questioned everything. “Cui bono?” he would have asked. “Who gains what by it?” Well, she smiled down at his grave as if she were actually answering him. Bridget obviously intended to gain Hart if she could. Or did she? She had certainly managed to suggest this to Mrs Purchis so as to get invited, but Mercy was not so sure, suspecting her of flying at higher, more political game. So, why this visit? Perhaps the game had eluded her and Hart was to be second best? Odious thought. And, somehow, she did not think her father would be satisfied with it. Following his mind with her own, she decided that he would question the purpose of this morning’s walk. Bridget McCartney never walked if she could ride, never rode if she could drive. So what was she doing in her soft little kid shoes, looking for a breeze by the river?