Judas Flowering

by Jane Aiken Hodge

  “No if?” asked Mercy.

  This time he condescended to answer her. “No ‘if’ at all. While Campbell has kept Howe occupied, Sir James Baird and the New York Volunteers have been taking a path from Brewton Hill through the swamp that General Howe didn’t trouble to defend. That firing to the south means they have turned the rebel line and are attacking from the right.”

  “Rebel?” said Abigail.

  “How do you know?” asked Mercy.

  “Those poor McCartney girls,” exclaimed Anne Mayfield. “They will be right on the line of attack.”

  “No need to trouble yourself about them, said Saul Gordon. “They have their protection too, all right and tight. I left it there myself.”

  “And where did you get these fine protections?” Mercy reached out and took the document from Mrs Purchis’ limp hand. “Dated yesterday. Campbell’s signature. So that’s where you went. You must have been mighty useful to General Campbell, Mr Gordon.” And then, before he had time to answer. “There’s no mention of Mr Purchis in this.”

  “Impossible, I’m afraid,” said Saul Gordon. “A known rebel. But I have General Campbell’s word for it that he will be well used. The guard who will come, very soon now, to take charge of this house will see to his arrest.” He was enjoying himself hugely, Mercy thought and then saw, with horrified amazement, what Abigail was doing. She had moved quietly, while the others were all gathered round Gordon, to pick up a small stone statue of a cherub from the terrace and was now, coolly, raising it to strike Saul Gordon from behind.

  “Abigail, don’t!” And then, before Gordon could turn to see what Abigail was doing. “I have news for you, Mr Gordon. Mr Purchis left last night. God knows where he is now. I certainly do not. But somewhere, I hope, where he has no need of anyone’s protection.”

  “Gone?” They all turned on her in amazement.

  “Yes.” If only she knew to what extent the family’s safety depended on Hart’s arrest. Best play safe, for all their sakes. “He went last night. I don’t know when.”

  “Gone,” said Martha Purchis. “And did not choose to say good-bye to me!”

  “Gone!” Gordon turned on Mercy. “And you lied to me when I asked for him!”

  “He is my employer. And, Mr Gordon, you have not yet told us what you did for General Campbell, or how he learned of the path across the swamp. I take it you have turned your coat with a vengeance.”

  “That’s not a phrase I would use today, Miss Mercy.” Before they could question him further he hurried up the porch steps and disappeared into the big living room, no doubt to make sure that Hart had really escaped.

  “It’s true?” Abigail had quietly put down the statue before anyone but Mercy had noticed what she was doing.

  “Yes. Only”—she turned to Mrs Purchis—“for God’s sake, don’t tell Gordon, but Hart did not go voluntarily. I drugged him with laudanum. He was fast asleep, knew nothing about it.”

  “And you make him out a coward,” said his mother angrily. “He’ll have a score to settle with you when he gets back, Miss Phillips.”

  “No, Sister.” Surprisingly, Anne Mayfield intervened. “Miss Phillips was quite right. Don’t you see? Hart’s not here to be blamed. We are. We might find our protection was worthless if we were thought to have been instrumental in spiriting him away. And come to that”—turning on Mercy—“what right had you to do so without so much as consulting his mother?”

  The right of a fiancée. She longed to say it, but must not, and was saved from temptation by the furious return of Saul Gordon. “He’s gone all right,” he said. “Someone will pay for this. Who helped him?”

  “I told you Jem and William had run,” said Mercy. “Looks like they went with him.”

  “We knew nothing about it.” Martha Purchis was clutching her protection as if she was afraid Gordon would snatch it back from her. “It’s not our fault.”

  “I wonder,” said Gordon. “But no time for that. Listen!” The cannon were silent and the sound of musket fire much nearer. “They’re advancing,” he went on. “It won’t be long now. I’d get out that Union flag if I were you, Miss Purchis. You’re going to need it. I must go and look to my own house. Good luck, ladies.” And with a swift, mocking bow, he was gone.

  Left alone, the four women stood for a moment in horrified silence. Then, “What shall we do?” wailed Anne Mayfield.

  “We’d best do as he told us, I think,” said Abigail. “I’ll get the flag; you get one of the men to nail the protection on the door, Mercy.”

  But when Mercy went out to the servants’ quarters, she found only Amy. “The men has run, Miss Mercy,” said the old woman. “I reckoned I’d as soon die here, if die I must. They say the British are through our lines and coming fast. You’d best hide, you ladies. My Delilah, she come back all blubbered with tears. She’d seen the British soldiers bayonetting our men while they tried to surrender. She had blood on her skirts.”

  “She shouldn’t have been out!”

  “It happened so fast, miss. They came rushing across the Common, she said, like one of the plagues in the Bible. And Howe’s soldiers running like rabbits and dropping their muskets, and off to the west fast as they could. Colonel Roberts, he’s holding the enemy on the west road, they say, so’s our men can escape. Lucky for us, this house ain’t on the main road, but you’d best be ready, just the same.”

  “Yes. Where does William keep his tools?”

  It was horribly quiet in Oglethorpe Square. The other houses already had doors locked and shutters closed. All but one. At the far corner of the square, panic-stricken slaves were loading baggage into a chaise, their mistress, the wife of a militia officer, at once urging them to hurry and looking anxiously up and down the street in hopes of seeing her husband. Mercy ran across the square to her. “Mrs Reynolds, don’t wait for your husband. The army’s in full retreat. We’ve just heard. Go, quick, you and the children!”

  “But he told me he’d come!” This was the only sure thing in a world of chaos.

  “Perhaps he can’t. Please, Mrs Reynolds, it’s your last chance, and the children’s.” And, as she spoke, she knew it was already too late. Feet thudded in the sand: a detachment of soldiers marched into the square. She had got so used to the American “uniform” of slouched hat, hunter’s shirt, and tattered breeches, that these men, point device in their dark green uniform, seemed almost ridiculous—toy soldiers. They certainly showed no sign of having been in battle, Had it really been so easy? Betrayed, Hart had said.

  The officer gave an order, and a group of men surrounded Mrs Reynolds and began unharnessing the horse from her chaise. She screamed, once, but Mercy’s eyes were for the officer. “Welcome home, Francis,” she said.

  “Mercy! It’s good to find you.” He looked up to where Abigail was hanging her British flag from a first-floor window. “And my wise Cousin Abigail. I am come to put a man on guard here, for all your safety.”

  Once, long ago, the look he flashed for Mercy alone would have sent shivers of excitement down her spine. Incredible. She looked up at him. “Thank you, Francis. I knew we could count on you. Your mother and aunt will be grateful, too. They are indoors.”

  “That’s good. But I must not stay now. There are many more of our friends to be looked after. You have your protection, I’m glad to see. I am afraid things will be bad here in town for a few days. General Howe was mad not to surrender when he had the chance and save the town the horrors of a sack.” Another scream from across the square gave horrible point to his words.

  “Mercy, tell them, get him to tell them to stop!” Mrs Reynolds came running across the square, a child in each hand, and at the last moment recognised Francis. “Thank God, it’s you, Frank. Tell them, explain to them, I have to have the chaise. Jim’s not come home. I have to go to my mother’s at Purrysburg.”

  “I’m sorry, ma’am.” If he recognized her as the wife of an old friend, he concealed it very well. “We have our orders. All carts and
horses to be commandeered. Besides”—more kindly—“you don’t want to be out on the road today amongst those ruffians Howe calls an army. You’d not be safe.”

  “And I’m safe here, Francis Mayfield? If you think that—”

  “Get into your house, ma’am, shut the doors, and I’ll tell the man on guard here to have an eye to you.”

  She looked at him for a long moment, then turned and went slowly back, the children crying beside her, to where her baggage lay scattered in the sand.

  “Francis!” Mercy began a protest, but he interrupted her.

  “She’s lucky I’m here,” he said. “Otherwise they’d be looting the house. This is no day for rebels. Jim Reynolds is dead, by the way. I saw him cut down on the Common. You’d better tell her later. He should have kept with the retreating army, not tried to come home. Now”—briskly—“where’s Hart? I must take him with me, for his safety and yours.”

  “Hart? He’s not here. We woke this morning and found him gone. And two of the men with him. God knows how he contrived it; he’s hardly strong enough to walk.”

  “Then he can’t have gone far.” Nothing loving about his look now. “You wouldn’t lie to me, Mercy? You wouldn’t be hiding Hart by any chance?”

  “No, she would not,” came Abigail’s clear voice from above. “Don’t forget, Cousin Francis, that you are not the only Loyalist in the family.”

  “I forget nothing,” said Francis. “And I take nothing for granted. So, I fear, we must search the house.”

  They found old Amy and her grand-daughter Delilah huddled together behind the hay in the coach-house, They found Mrs Purchis and Mrs Mayfield sitting white, silent, and surprisingly dignified in the big drawing-room. They found Hart’s clothes in the room next door, but they found neither Hart nor, to Mercy’s great relief, the secret corner of the cellar. At last Francis turned to Mercy to ask a significant question. “And where is Saul Gordon?”

  “At his house on Bay Street,” said Mercy. “He said he must look to his own.

  “Wise,” said Francis. “I’m afraid there will be no holding our men today. Those crazy Americans turned and fired on the Seventy-first Highlanders when they thought they’d surrendered. The blood and tears shed today will be on their head, and Howe’s. They are looting all down Broughton Street, feathers and papers all over the place. It’s lucky you’re off the main track here. But I’ll leave men on guard front and back. You should be safe enough if you stay indoors. I’ll visit you when I can, Mother.” She had thrown herself, sobbing, into his arms, and he detached himself with ungentle firmness, saluted, and was gone.

  “What are we gong to do?” wailed Martha Purchis.

  “What he tells us, I’m afraid.” Mercy was standing from the window as Francis and his men marched off towards Whitaker Street. “Oh, my God!”

  “What is it?” Abigail hurried across the room to join her. And then, “The brutes.” The soldiers who were unloading Mrs Reynolds’ chaise had come on a case of spirits and knocked the head off a bottle. One of them had found a silver vase and filled it. They were all around Mrs Reynolds, pressing it on her, obviously urging her to drink the loyal toast.

  “No!” Mercy threw open the front window and spoke savagely to the man on duty in the street.

  “Sorry, ma’am.” He refused to budge. “I got no orders about those rebs. Just you I’m looking after. And you stay put!”

  How like Francis to have forgotten. If he had forgotten. “Abigail, keep our guard talking. Offer him a drink … anything.… I’m going to fetch Mrs Reynolds.”

  Abigail was still looking across the square. “I thought them my friends,” she said. “Yes, quick, Mercy. Fetch her quick. Once they’re drunk—”

  “I know.” At the moment, the soldiers crowding round Mrs Reynolds were merely amusing themselves. It would not last. As Abigail poured a glass of rum and handed it out to the soldier, Mercy picked up the protection and let herself quietly out of the little house next door. Running across the square, skirts held high from the sand, she snatched the silver vase from the soldier who was still drunkenly pressing it on Mary Reynolds. “Ill drink your toast,” she said. “We’re Loyalists here in the square, and here’s our protection. You leave my friends alone! George the Third!” She took a pull of neat rum, coughed, spluttered, and, mercifully, amused them.

  “Spunky little thing,” said one.

  “It’s a protection all right,” said another. “Can you read, Jeb?”

  “Not I, but it looks like Campbell’s signature. I’ve seen that often enough.”

  “Come along, dear.” Mercy picked up the smallest Reynolds child, took Mary Reynolds’ hand, and led the way back across the square. Strangely, absurdly, the men cheered her as she went, and then went systematically back to work looting the Reynolds house.

  “I hope to God they don’t set it on fire,” said Mercy when they had got Mrs Reynolds and the children safely to bed at the back of the house.

  Abigail was looking out of the front window. “They’re going away, I think. There’s a British officer speaking to them.” And then, as the splendid figure in scarlet and gold regimentals turned their way, “Dear God, it’s Giles! Mercy, I can’t … I won’t see him … conquering heroes!” She lifted shabby skirts to run swiftly towards the stairs, turning as she went to answer Mercy’s protest with “Tell him there’s blood on his hands.”

  Since the two older ladies had both retired to their rooms with all the comfort that sal volatile could offer, Mercy found herself compelled to receive Giles alone. “I’m sorry,” she answered his anxious question. “They are all prostrate. It’s been a bad day.”

  “Horrible. But, Mercy, you mean Abigail won’t see me? After all this time?”

  “Not yet, Giles. Not today. You should have written to her. Now, you must give her time.”

  “How could I write? What could I say? As to time, I may not have it to give. General Howe is in full retreat and my guess is we’ll be starting after him in the morning. Tell Abigail it’s now or—”

  “Don’t say it, Giles,” she interrupted him. “You don’t understand what she’s gone through. First Hart, coming home so ill, and then today, the things we’ve seen, the sounds we’ve heard. It’s been—”

  “I know, but you’re speaking to me, Mercy.”

  “I’m not a Loyalist,” she said. “I begin to think I’m not anything. Just a survivor, I hope. I’m sorry you’re not staying in town, Giles.”

  “So am I. Tell Abigail I’ll come when I can. Once more.” The subject was closed. “Mercy, how is Hart? Am I not even to see him?

  “He’s not here. He went last night. Lucky for him he did. Our protection does not include him. Giles, wait a moment while I tell Abigail what you’ve said.”

  “No.” He could be obstinate too. “I’ve stayed too long already. Give her the message exactly as I gave it to you. It’s strange about Hart—I was sure—But no time for that now. I’m glad he’s safe away.”

  “We’ve never thanked you for what you did for him in New York. I know his mother—”

  “Or his cousin Abigail?” Bitterly, “Good-bye, Mercy. I must thank you, I suppose, for seeing me.”

  Next day, the town was quiet at last, with martial law rigorously enforced under Colonel Innes, Sir Henry Clinton’s aide-de-camp. Detachments of blue-coated Hessians, red and white British infantry, and smart, green-jacketed New York Volunteers patroled the streets, preventing looting and arresting all able-bodied men. If caught with arms, they were given a simple choice. They could swear allegiance to George III and enlist with the British army, or be sent to the stinking prison hulks downriver, and probable death. Shaken by the swift and total defeat, many chose service with the British, and soon General Campbell, who had nearly caught the battered American army on his march to take Ebenezer, had his own corps of Savannahian riflemen.

  Every day brought its new rash of proclamations. Arms and supplies must be surrendered to the military storekeepers; prices we
re fixed and only those who had sworn the oath of allegiance might trade.

  “As if there was anything to trade,” wailed Martha Purchis. “With Winchelsea gone, and neither Francis nor Giles here to protect us, what shall we do?” She had received, the day before, a formal notification that Winchelsea was to continue in use as a military hospital, being confiscated as the property of a known rebel.

  “It’s thanks to my Francis that we have kept this house,” said Anne Mayfield.

  “True enough, Sister, but how can we manage with nothing coming in? Saul Gordon has given in his notice and says we have no money, no credit, nothing. Without Winchelsea, we must all starve.”

  “Or go to Charleston, to my house,” said Anne Mayfield.

  “And lose this one? And yet, if we stay here, how can we live?”

  “I have a suggestion to make,” said Mercy. “You know Hart insisted on paying me a salary, Mrs Purchis. I’ve saved it all—or almost all. If you will be guided by me, I believe we might manage to make a living in this house.”

  “Oh,” said Mrs Purchis eagerly. “How, child?”

  Chapter 21

  When Mercy outlined her plan, Abigail exclaimed in horror. “A gambling house! Mercy, you cannot be serious.”

  “Never more so. But I did not say gambling house. I said a genteel establishment where ladies and gentlemen might meet for a hand of cards. What could be more decorous? There will have to be a subscription, of course; it will be a kind of club, but not for men only like the others.”

  “Cards?” Mrs Purchis had brightened at the idea. “Do you think we could, Mercy? Without harming our position in society?”

  “Oh, society.” Mercy shrugged. “There’s not much of that now, with so many people fled to the West Indies. It’s survival I’m thinking of. We must do something, ma’am, or starve. My money won’t last long, with this whole household to feed.” Several of the servants had come creeping back by now, each with a new story of danger and escape. “Besides”—she thought of a powerful argument—“they are confiscating rebels’ slaves, you know. I think, if we were to put it to Colonel Innes that we were offering hospitality to his officers, it might make a difference.”