Wide is the Water

by Jane Aiken Hodge

  ‘Mrs. Purchis.’ He took her hand and kissed it. ‘I cannot tell you how happy it makes me to see you here.’ He sketched a bow for Mrs. Arnold and the Palmers, tucked her hand firmly under his arm, and had her half across the crowded room before she had time to return his greeting. ‘That bitch,’ he said, smiling down at her with eyes that seemed to understand everything she felt. ‘I am surprised the Palmers let you be exposed to her.’

  ‘They could hardly help it, but I do thank you for my rescue, monsieur.’

  ‘Charles.’ Pronounced English fashion, it was accompanied by a warning pressure on her arm. ‘I wish you would call me Charles,’ he went on, on a lighter note. ‘After all, we are old friends, old allies. I must be allowed to claim my position with regard to the belle of the evening.’

  ‘The belle!’ She flashed him a mocking glance. ‘Thank you for nothing, Mr. Brisson. I have eyes; I know what I look like. I know how I stand out in this bevy of graces, like a crow among—’

  ‘Pigeons.’ He finished it for her as she looked for the right word for the diaphanous beauties around them. ‘Pouter pigeons, Mrs. Purchis – if I must call you Mrs. Purchis. Dressed to kill – or be killed. But I think you do not quite understand your position here tonight. Let me make you known to your host, and then, perhaps, you will see.’ He led her through a wide archway into a brilliantly lighted saloon where music was playing quietly and a crowd had gathered around the evening’s host, the Chevalier de la Luzerne.

  ‘Monsieur Otto.’ Brisson addressed a handsome, willowy young man with a faintly melancholy, almost poetic cast of feature, who was talking with animation to a very young, very beautiful lady in white. ‘May I have the pleasure of making you known to Mrs. Purchis?’

  ‘Our heroine!’ Otto took Mercy’s hand and kissed it. ‘May I present my good friend Miss Nancy Shippen before I do my duty and take you to our Minister, who I know quite longs to meet you.’ His English was as fluent as Brisson’s but more heavily accented.

  ‘Mrs. Purchis!’ Miss Shippen surprised Mercy by impulsively reaching up to kiss her. ‘Let me be the first to welcome you to Philadelphia and say how truly my parents and I hope to be your friends while you are here. We live just across the way, you know, in Locust Street. We shall hope to see you there often.’ She looked unhappy for a moment. ‘I am afraid my mamma will not permit me to call in Front Street, but do, pray, come to us. We are always at home to our friends. But I am running on, and I know Monsieur Otto wishes to present you to the Minister.’

  Borne away on Otto’s arm, Mercy was surprised to find a way opening for them through the crowd around the Minister. He turned, saw her, and came forward, hands outstretched. ‘Mrs. Purchis! Welcome to this little piece of France. My country and I are eternally indebted both to you and to your brave husband for all the help he gave to the Comte d’Estaing in that unlucky business down at Savannah. You have news of him, I hope?’

  ‘Not yet, I am sorry to say.’ For a moment, she was afraid the unexpected, kind reference to Hart would reduce her to tears, but she mastered them as Otto presented Brisson in his turn to the Minister, who seemed not to know him. His mission must be a secret one indeed, she thought, almost mechanically receiving the Minister’s condolences on the deaths of Mrs. Purchis and Mrs. Mayfield.

  ‘You do not dance, of course,’ Luzerne went on, ‘but as our guest of honour, you must allow me to present you to our most honoured guest General Washington.’

  Guest of honour. She went through the introduction to the tall, gangling general, who held the fortunes of the rebellious colonies in his strong brown hands, almost in a daze. It was a far cry indeed from the desperate, ice-cold days of the journey south. And now Otto had taken her a little aside and was saying something, very quietly, very courteously, about her finances, about a pension from the French. ‘We would wish you to be independent here in Philadelphia,’ he said. ‘The Minister asked me to tell you that he would be happy to help you set up your own establishment. It is not fitting that you should be living with those Palmers.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘We thought you did not know. They are gravely suspect of traffic with the British. If it had not been for your presence in their house, they would not have been invited tonight.’

  ‘I see.’ Indeed, it explained a great deal. ‘Frankly,’ she went on, ‘I would be delighted to leave their house, but, Monsieur Otto, I am penniless and deeply in their debt.’

  ‘That is just what the Minister thought. There is a little house, madame, further down Chestnut Street, that belongs to the legation. He asked me to tell you that he would take it as a personal favour if you would move there. No question of rent, of course. With your living free and the small pension he wishes to give you, you should be able to manage until you hear from your husband and your friends in Georgia.’

  ‘It’s too kind!’

  ‘On the contrary, madame, the Minister asked me to tell you that it is mere policy. An acute observer like you will find Philadelphia full of dangerous crosscurrents. We cannot afford to have so good a friend living in the house of known enemies.’

  ‘Known?’

  ‘Nothing provable, but yes, known. For your ears only.’ He smiled at her, and she thought what an attractive young man he was, and was angry with herself for thinking it. ‘We, who know and admire your activities in Savannah feel quite safe in trusting you with a small secret like this one.’

  ‘Oh, thank you for saying that. I was beginning to feel that it had all been for nothing. That I had killed those two poor ladies, which, in effect, I did, for nothing.’

  ‘Never think that. It is people like you and your husband, with the courage of their convictions, who helped convince my government that yours was a cause worth aiding. I beg you, do not undervalue yourself, madame, or what you have done for the cause of liberty. And may I tell the Minister that you will accept the house? And the pension?’

  ‘Oh, yes. With my deepest thanks.’

  ‘He will be delighted. And so am I.’ He turned as Charles Brisson rejoined them with Miss Shippen on his arm.

  ‘It is time to be taking the ladies to supper,’ said Brisson. ‘And I am sure you will agree that fair exchange is no robbery, monsieur.’ He made the pronunciation curiously English, and Mercy thought once again that his disguise must go deep indeed.

  Extraordinary to be eating a delicious European-style meal, washed down with real champagne. ‘I feel as if I was in a dream,’ Mercy told Charles Brisson, who had found them a quiet corner away from the brilliance of the chandeliers.

  ‘A happy one, I hope.’

  ‘Well.’ She thought about it. ‘Less unhappy, at least.’ It was both odd and comforting to feel she could talk to him as to an old friend. ‘But what a strange occasion this is.’ She looked around the crowded room. ‘There must be three or four men to every woman.’

  ‘This is Philadelphia, ma’am. Do your Georgian representatives bring their wives on the dangerous journey to attend the Continental Congress?’

  ‘No, of course not. Stupid of me. So these are the men who hold our fate in their hands.’ She looked about her, a little doubtfully.

  ‘Well, yes. Some worthy of the trust. Some perhaps less so. As no doubt you know, there are no delegates at the moment from Georgia, owing to the desperate state of affairs down there, so I am afraid you will have no friends here. But there is someone who might interest you: Mr. Lovell from Massachusetts. A most faithful member. He has not been home to his wife since he took his seat here in ’77. Now he might be of assistance to you, granted your New England connection. He’s a powerful man, and close friend to John Adams, who is in Europe on congressional business. Would you wish me to introduce him to you?’

  ‘Not tonight, I think.’ For some reason she did not like the look of the black-clad New Englander. ‘Besides, I really believe some of my troubles are over. The French Minister is most kindly giving me a little house and a pension. He does not seem to like my living with the Palmers.’


  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Well, no more do I.’ She remembered Otto’s charge of secrecy and was ashamed of herself. ‘Do you know they have been letting poor Ruth work as a perfect drudge in their kitchen, and Jed, for nothing, in their yard. I shall be glad to leave them.’

  ‘I’m delighted to hear that you can. I was shocked to see them making you known to that Tory bitch Peggy Arnold. And I am afraid she put her claws into you too. You would never think she and Miss Nancy Shippen were cousins.’

  ‘Are they indeed?’

  ‘Yes, but of very different political complexions. Dr Shippen, Miss Nancy’s father, is chief physician to the Continental Army, a notable man, though like so many others, he is under fire in the Congress. I sometimes think you Americans do not have the gift of trusting each other in high office. There seem to be constant accusations flying to and fro, as with that nonsensical one against General Arnold, who is one of the Revolution’s heroes, even if he did fall in love with a Tory beauty and marry her out of hand. Now Nancy Shippen is something quite else again. I think it will be a case between her and young Otto of the legation here. Indeed, if I had not thought that, I should have been quite jealous of the time Otto spent with you tonight.’

  ‘Jealous?’ she said. ‘What an absurd thing to say.’ But it was difficult not to find it a little heartwarming. How long was it since she had enjoyed this kind of masculine admiration? And on the thought: Oh, Hart, she said to herself. Dear Hart, where are you now?

  Brisson must have seen the shadow cross her face. ‘Come’ – he took her hand – ‘let me have the pleasure of introducing you to the cream of Philadelphia society.’

  ‘Enjoy it?’ she said later to Ruth, who had stayed up for her. ‘Yes, I suppose so. I don’t know which is more awkward, to be treated as a heroine, as I was by the men, or as a freak, as by the women. If it had not been for Mr. Brisson and Miss Shippen, I fear I would have had a sad enough time of it. Oh, Ruth, I wish I would hear from Hart.’

  ‘So do I.’ Ruth looked as if she would have liked to say more, but did not.

  It was a pleasure, next morning, to announce to the Palmer brothers that she would be moving in a day or so to the house on Chestnut Street. ‘And as soon as funds come through from Georgia, I will pay you what I owe you for our lodging,’ she concluded. ‘Perhaps you will let me have the figure?’

  The house on Chestnut Street was a delight. It must have been built by the Dickinsons, she thought, for a widowed mother or maiden aunt, and had just accommodation enough for her little party and the young maidservant the French Minister insisted on providing. Brick-built like most Philadelphia houses, it reminded her of the English cottage she had lived in as a child, and if the move there did not bring a child’s instant happiness, it brought at least the next best thing, content. The French pension would pay their quiet way. Presently she would hear from Hart, receive funds from Abigail to pay the debt to the Palmers that weighed heavily on her … And in the meanwhile, ‘It’s like playing house,’ she told Ruth, who had bloomed into almost a glow of girlhood since their move.

  ‘A very busy house,’ said Ruth.

  It was true. Whereas the only callers at the Palmer house had been serious businessmen, Mercy and Ruth now found themselves entertaining Philadelphia Society. Nancy Shippen was their first caller and was followed by all the other Philadelphia ladies of quality, by rich Mrs. Morris, handsome Mrs. Bingham, and a crowd of younger ladies all longing to be friends. Best of all, Mercy and Ruth had received cards notifying them that their names had been added to the list of the elite Philadelphia Assembly, and Nancy Shippen, already their good friend, had explained just what an honour this was. ‘You must certainly come to the next ball,’ she told them, ‘even if you do not choose to dance. It will settle the question of your place here in Philadelphia. There was a little talk, you know, about your staying with those Palmers.’

  ‘I think they saved my life.’ Now that she was safe away from their house, Mercy felt rather guilty about the Palmers. Besides, though she found Nancy Shippen charming, she could not get used to the frivolous tone of Philadelphia society – at least the female side of it. Listening as their morning callers discussed the latest Paris fashions, the cut of a sleeve or the set of a cap, as if their lives depended on getting them right, it was strange to remember the savage war still being fought in Georgia, the British siege lines creeping closer and closer to beleaguered Charleston.

  ‘They make me feel a million years old,’ she confided to Ruth after a particularly long morning of calls.

  ‘You don’t look it, Mercy dear.’ Ruth smoothed a fold of her white muslin dress. ‘I’m glad you agreed with Miss Shippen that we should wear white. It makes one feel alive again somehow.’

  ‘Dear Ruth!’ Mercy stretched out an impulsive hand to press hers. ‘I don’t know how I would have managed without you. Yes, I think Miss Shippen was right about our blacks. There’s not much she doesn’t know about the way to go on in Philadelphia. She looked thoughtfully down at her own white dress, remembering how she had longed, back in ’74, to wear black for her father and how Hart had insisted that she must bow to the government decree that mourning was unpatriotic. He had given her the ebony mourning locket with a piece of her father’s hair that she was wearing now, the one piece of jewellery she had not lost in that desperate flight from Savannah, since she never took it off. But now it held Hart’s hair.

  ‘If only we’d hear from him,’ she said.

  ‘Hart?’ Ruth understood her at once. ‘I know. It is strange. What can have happened to him, Mercy?’ It was spring now, with the wide Philadelphia streets all awash with melting snow, and still there had been no word from Hart or about the Georgia.

  The news came at last in a letter from Abigail that had taken an inordinate time on its smuggled way from British-held Savannah north through the chaos of Georgia and South Carolina. The dirty, dog-eared missive enclosed one from Hart to his mother, which, in its turn, had been enclosed to Sir James Wright.

  ‘I am so sorry,’ wrote Abigail. ‘I expect you have heard from Hart himself but thought you should have this at once. Dear Mercy, what can I say?’

  Hart’s letter to his mother, brief, scrawled, almost illegible by now, told of his capture by the British ship Sparrow, of the good fortune that her captain was his cousin, and then the black news: He was on his way to England.

  ‘He wrote his mother.’ Mercy handed the letter to Ruth. ‘And did not trouble to write to me.’

  ‘But, Mercy,’ Ruth protested, ‘he would have written to Farnham.’

  ‘And the letter would be here by now,’ said Mercy bleakly. ‘Since I paid that man Golding for his horses, he would have no reason for not sending it on to me, and you know that in the main the posts between here and Boston are reliable.’

  ‘It might have been seized by the British.’ Ruth was grasping at straws.

  ‘Or it might not have been written,’ said Mercy. ‘He doubtless began with his mother and then had no time for me.’ She looked again at the date on Hart’s letter. ‘So long ago,’ she said. ‘I am surprised we have not had news from New York, by way of Rivington’s Gazette.’ She paused at the sound of a knock on the door. ‘It’s not the hour for callers.’ She listened as their young maid went running to the front door. ‘Who can it be?’

  ‘It’s Mr. Brisson, ma’am.’ The girl, Betsy, dropped a quick curtsy. ‘He makes his apologies and says it’s urgent.’

  ‘Show him in, Betsy.’ Brisson had been away for a few weeks, and Mercy had been surprised to find how much she missed his friendly, reliable support among the pitfalls of Philadelphia society.

  ‘Mrs. Purchis, Miss Paston.’ Charles Brisson was splashed with mud as if he had just arrived in town. ‘Forgive me for coming to you like this, but I thought I must tell you at once, break it to you –’ He stopped, looked at Mercy. ‘But I see you know. You have heard already?’

  ‘About my husband? That he is a prisoner. Yes, I have just
heard this moment.’

  ‘From him? Oh, I am glad.’ And then, on a different note: ‘That you have heard from him, I mean. The news itself is terrible; I had hoped to break it to you more gently. That he should be carried to England! Please God they are not too hard on him there. But what does he say, ma’am, if I may ask?’

  ‘Not much,’ said Mercy. ‘He wrote his mother. My cousin Miss Purchis has sent it on to me. But how did you hear of it, Mr. Brisson?’

  ‘I’ve been at the North,’ he explained. ‘I picked up a copy of Rivington’s Gazette in a tavern on the way back. Of course, you can trust the New York Tories to make the most of such a piece of news. They know all about your husband’s activities during the attack on Savannah, I’m sorry to have to tell you, ma’am. But nothing, thank God, of yours.’ He reached into the pocket of his greatcoat and handed her a dog-eared newspaper. ‘I paid the landlord of the inn a small fortune for this. I thought you would wish to see it yourself.’

  ‘Oh, thank you!’ She shook the paper and moved over to the window to read the smeared print of the broadsheet, half-hearing Charles Brisson engage in his usual friendly, almost brotherly chat with Ruth. The report was short and to the point. The British frigate Sparrow, Captain Richard Purchas, had outfought and sunk the privateer Georgia and had made a prisoner of her notorious captain, Hart Purchis, known for his activities during the attack on Savannah. Since the Sparrow was on her way to England with despatches, the pirate Purchis would no doubt meet the fate he deserved when he got there.

  ‘You must not take it too hard,’ Brisson joined her at the window. ‘They are not barbarians, the British. He doubtless had his letters of marque. He will be treated as a prisoner merely. I am sure of it.’

  ‘Thank you.’ She looked up at him, tears in her eyes. ‘If only I had heard from him.’

  ‘It is strange. But as Miss Paston says, he would most certainly have written to you at Farnham.’

  ‘And I have not had the letter after all this time? How long did it take you to come down from Boston, Mr. Brisson?’