“I’d noticed.”
“I was a boy and loved you. Didn’t even know it until I saw Francis kissing you that night of the birthday illuminations.”
“You saw?”
“I saw. Do you wonder I believed Francis’ letter when it came? Believed Saul Gordon’s lying story. Tried to make myself love Bridget McCartney. Went away. And, coming back, believed the worst.” He was getting it clear as much with himself as with her. “And all the time, try how I would, I couldn’t help loving you. You broke my heart when I was a boy. I’m a man now: I love you still. I’ve nothing to offer you, but danger and the fear of death—the chance to pig it, as you say, on my Georgia. But, mind you, Mercy Phillips. I’ve noticed some changes on her since you came aboard, and all for the better. The men love you, and they know I do. You’d be dearly welcome.”
“And a terrible handicap to you.”
“True. This is the time for speaking truth. I’m the Georgia’s captain, and I have a duty to her and to my men. I’d not keep you on board a moment longer than was necessary to get you safe to the Pastons’. It would be a sad strange marriage for us, but what is not sad these days?” He put a gentle hand on her shoulders to make her look down on the gravestone. “‘The truth shall make you free.’ Mercy, for your father’s sake, for mine, forget all the foolish things I’ve said and done, and tell me the truth. If you have ever loved me, if you could, if you can, for the love of God say so. Life is too short, life is too precious, and happiness too rare to let it go on a question of pride. I misjudged you; I’m ashamed. What will you think, Mercy, if you wake one morning on that fine French ship of yours and hear that the Georgia has sunk with all hands?”
She stood there, silent for a moment, looking down at the gravestone with its message from her father. Then she looked up at Hart. “I think my heart would break,” she said.
“Mercy!” She turned so easily and naturally into his arms that it seemed as if she had always nested there. Her head just fitted into the hollow of his shoulder, and he found himself gazing with amazement at his weak right hand as it gently stroked her hair.
“But, Hart.” As he bent to kiss her, she pulled away just a little, to meet his eyes. “Before … I must tell you … I have lied to you. Often. Well, I had to.” She looked down again at the stone. “I never will again.”
“Never?”
“Never. Oh, Hart, the luxury of it. Just think of having one person in the world to whom one always tells the truth.”
“Perhaps that’s what marriage is.” His right hand was busy among the ringlets he had resented only that morning. “That—and other things. Mercy, my once and always darling, you are going to marry me? I asked you all wrong before, but you must know in your heart how much I love you. Remember, back in the dark, on the island, how we each knew what the other was thinking. Surely, you knew then?”
She smiled a smile he had never seen before, quite without the sparkle that had charmed her admiring circle of French officers. “Yes, I knew. But then, I had loved you for so long and so hopelessly.”
“Hopelessly?” He took her up on it.
“Of course. Purchis of Winchelsea.” She turned away from the grave and back towards the scorched trees that showed where the house had been. “Hart, you must think more of this. It’s still not too late. You’ve made me very happy. I’ll always love you, but there’s more to this than happiness. Think of your mother, think of Winchelsea. I’ve no reputation left, Hart. I felt it today, on the Guerrier, as you did. Do you think they are betting on which of them will have me first, those gallant Frenchmen? I do. So whatever happens, I’m not for the West Indies. If you’ll just take me north to the Pastons, I’ll thank you kindly, and we’ll start learning to forget.”
“Oh, no, we won’t,” said Hart Purchis. “I may have put it badly, but when I said you’d have to marry me, I spoke the truth. Do you think, now you’ve admitted you love me, I’ll ever let you go?” He turned beside her, his arm round her waist, to gaze towards where the house had been. “Purchis of Winchelsea is dead. But Hart Purchis, privateer captain, is very much alive, and his heart is yours. Dear Mercy, let’s have no more of this foolishness. Because a parcel of Frenchmen jump to idiotic conclusions, you choose to forget that you are an American heroine. I shall have a hard time of it, I reckon, living up to my part as husband of the Reb Pamphleteer.”
Still she pulled away from him. “You jumped to those conclusions too!”
“Because you drove me insane in that dress of yours. If I find you beautiful beyond resisting, must not other men? Mercy, if you do not wish to be raped, here on your father’s grave, better say now, ‘Hart Purchis, I forgive you, and will marry you.’”
“Oh, Hart.” Now she turned to him, hands held out. “Of course I’ll marry you.” And then, gleaming up at him, “You can rape me too, if you like.”
“I do not like.” But the embrace into which they plunged left them both shaken. “We must find a minister,” he said at last.
“Or my name’s quite gone,” she agreed with him. “And Mistress Purchis of Winchelsea must be mistress only in the best sense of the word.”
“Oh, Winchelsea.” He turned for a last look. “I think we must say good-bye to that, my love. It’s a poor man you’re marrying, and a hard life.”
“And all I want. But, Hart, look.” She took his warm right hand from her breast and held it to show him where, low down, the broken Judas tree had thrown out a new shoot with just a few small green leaves. “Don’t say good-bye to Winchelsea,” she told him. “We’ll be back, Hart, you and I.”
A Note on the Author
Jane Aiken Hodge was born in Massachusetts to Pulitzer prize-winning poet, Conrad Aiken, and his first wife, writer Jessie McDonald. Hodge was 3 years old when her family moved to Great Britain, settling in Rye, East Sussex, where her younger sister, Joan, who would become a novelist and a children’s writer, was born.
From 1935, Jane Hodge read English at Somerville College, Oxford University, and in 1938 she took a second degree in English at Radcliffe College. She was a civil servant, and also worked for Time magazine, before returning to the UK in 1947. Her works of fiction include historical novels and contemporary detective novels. In 1972 she renounced her United States citizenship and became a British subject.
Discover books by Jane Aiken Hodge published by Bloomsbury Reader at
www.bloomsbury.com/JaneAikenHodge
A Death in Two Parts
Leading Lady
Polonaise
Rebel Heiress
Strangers in Company
Wide Is the Water
For copyright reasons, any images not belonging to the original author have been
removed from this book. The text has not been changed, and may still contain
references to missing images.
This electronic edition published in 2013 by Bloomsbury Reader
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First published in Great Britain 1976 by Fawcett Crest Book
Center1 © 1976 Jane Aiken Hodge
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Judas Flowering Page 37
