Judas Flowering (19 page)

“Dear Francis, who else?”

Hart was away a good deal during the next few days, and his mother and aunt began to complain and wish for Francis back. “Why should he protect the McCartneys when we need it just as much or more?” wailed Mrs Mayfield. “My nerves won't stand much more. For all the use Hart is …”

“I wish we knew what he was doing,” said Martha Purchis.

They learned a few days later when Sir James Wright paid them a stiff-necked, angry visit. He had asked for Hart, but showed no surprise at finding him absent. “I feared as much.” He kissed Mrs Purchis' hand. “I'm afraid you will live to regret sending that boy of yours north, ma'am.”

“Oh, Sir James, I do already! But why today in particular?”

“You've not heard? Those madmen have taken Captain
Maitland's ship. The powder's vanished without trace. God knows how Captain Stuart is going to pacify the Indians for whom it was meant. I'm only grateful you and I both have our estates on this side of town, ma'am. When the Indians start attacking, as I fear they will, it is bound to be from the west. Though, mind you, the mob will doubtless turn out to help protect Winchelsea from the redskins if they come, which is more than it will my plantation.”

“Sir James, you're not suggesting—You don't think Hart was involved?”

“Well.” He looked about him. “Where
is
Mr Purchis?”

When Hart returned, much later that night, it was to face a barrage of questions from his mother and aunt, so that Mercy had merely to stay quiet and listen. “So you've heard of our little foray.” Hart was looking tired, sunburnt, and exalted, like someone a little drunk, perhaps with success.

“‘Little foray?'” His mother was horrified. “Hart, you mean you admit it!”

“I boast of it, ma'am. And so may you. The first ship commissioned by the patriots, and the first British ship taken. I think we have made history today. Savannah may be only a tiny port compared to Charleston or New York, but we have shown that we have teeth as good as theirs. If the powder seized from the magazine here in Savannah last spring was really used to good effect at Bunker Hill, along with the cannon captured at Ticonderoga, I wonder where today's haul may not explode into action.”

“But what have you done with it?” asked Abigail.

“Ask no question, cousin, and I'll tell you no lies. What's the news of Francis, Aunt Anne?”

“He was here the other day,” said Mrs Mayfield. “Asking after you. I think he was afraid you might involve yourself in this mad venture.”

“So he knew about it?”

“I suspect everyone in town knew about it,” said Mercy. “The servants certainly did. Sam came back from Savannah talking of nothing else.”

“Yes,” said Mrs Purchis. “And that reminds me, I must speak to Sam. His manner to Sir James was quite the outside of enough. There was a kind of gloating smile about him that made me itch to strike him.”

“Mamma!” Hart's tone was unusually sharp. “Hush!” And
then, as she looked at him in angry amazement, “As to Sam, leave him to me. I'll deal with him. Sir James is an old friend and must be treated with respect in this house, but you must see, ma'am, that nothing is as it used to be.”

“Hart!” She was close to tears. “I see it, and I hate it.” She rose and tottered from the room, followed by Mrs Mayfield and Abigail.

“Mercy.” Hart held out a hand to detain her as she was folding up her work. “I never did get a chance to apologise, to thank you. Your face, I was so sorry—is it better?”

“It was nothing.” She tucked the shirt she had been sewing into her workbox and stood up.

“You're so tiny.” He reached out a tentative, apologetic hand to touch the cheek he had struck, saw her flush, and withdrew it. “You've lost weight, Mercy, while I've been away. Are you quite well? Do we treat you right at Winchelsea? My mother? Aunt Anne?” And then, “There's been no more talk, I hope, of your going to Saul Gordon's?”

“Not … not just lately. But I'm afraid Mrs Gordon's very ill, poor woman.”

“No affair of yours. This is your home, Mercy, and I want you to remember it, whatever happens. And if you should ever need a friend, someone to advise you, someone to talk to, I'd like to be a brother to you, Mercy.”

“Thank you. I'll not forget.” Her eyes were full of tears.

Sir James Wright's visit to Winchelsea proved his last. As summer wore into autumn he became more and more of a cipher, reduced to watching impotently and writing increasingly desperate letters to his unresponsive masters in England, while the rebellious Provincial Congress and Council of Safety took control of the colony. By Christmas, the militia had been purged of all Loyalist officers, and last of all, in December, the Loyalist Chief Justice, Anthony Stokes, was replaced by a Court of Appeals.

At Winchelsea, time passed quietly enough. Hart and Sam were busy trying to domesticate a flock of sheep that Hart had bought in accordance with the Articles of Association he had signed. The colony had prohibited the importation of anything but a short list of such essentials as gunpowder and arms, and, as a result, wool for homespun was at a premium. Country-bred Mercy was dubious about the sheep, menaced by everything from poisonous snakes to alligators, but she and Abigail were learning to spin, just the same, from an old lady who remembered Sir James Oglethorpe and the early days of the colony.

“Ridiculous not to know how.” Abigail was sucking a sore finger. “What an idle butterfly I have always been. You're worth ten of me, Mercy. I just wish I could help Hart the way you do over those sheep of his.”

Mercy laughed. “Fine lot of help I am. I let him make their pen too small and they are out of fodder already. He talks of taking the boat downriver towards Tybee the next fine day to look for some.”

“Making hay while the sun shines? Mercy, shall we go too! I never thought I could get so tired of being cooped up here at Winchelsea.”

“Dear Abigail.” Mercy reached out an impulsive hand to clasp hers over the wool it held. “Do let's go. We'll make a picnic outing of it. It will do us both good. I'll tell Hart he needs my advice about what the sheep will eat!”

But when she approached Hart, he looked grave. “It's hardly the time to be talking of picnics. Suppose we were to encounter one of the Tory privateers that are raiding the coast up from St Augustine?”

“But they've never been up this far, surely? I thought the mouth of the Altamaha was about their limit? And, Hart, I do think Abigail needs a change of some kind. Something to take her mind off her troubles. She's pining, you know.”

“For Giles Habersham? I was afraid so. No news since last summer. But then, with all our mail coming through Charleston, that's no great wonder. Just the same, I'm not surprised she looks wretched. I wish to God Frank had given her that dowry and she had married Giles before he left.”

“She could have married him anyway,” said Mercy.

“And been a burden to him? Not Abigail. She's a Purchis—too proud for that.”

“Pride's an expensive commodity.”

“Too high for these hard times? You may be right at that. You often seem to be.” His smile illuminated a tanned face now much graver than his years warranted. “Very well, wise councillor, let us have your picnic, if the weather will just oblige us.”

Two days later, Mercy woke early to the sunshine of one of the fine spring mornings she had learned to hope for even in January in the two years she had lived at Winchelsea. The birds were all singing as if it was April, and she lay in bed for a while, wishing she knew their different voices. Then, hearing the morning routine begin in the stable yard round the corner, she jumped out of bed and hurried to her window. Hart always got up when the men did, and she was just in time to see him come round the corner of the house, the fair hair that would curl gleaming in the sunshine, the shirt open at his bronzed neck. He was giving the day's orders to Sam, but, as if aware of her gaze, looked up quickly towards her window, so that she had to beat a hasty retreat and found herself blushing hotly as she changed her frilled nightgown for a plain, grey dress.

Had he seen her watching him? Greeting him, half an hour later, when he came in from his morning round, she was still not sure. There was always a healthy glow about Hart. “You're bright and early.” He smiled at her, then, his face clouding, “The sheep have been trying to break out again.”

“Hungry, poor things. Hart, let's go downriver today.”

“And leave care behind? Well, why not? And it's true, we do need that fodder. Wake Abigail, Mercy, while I order out the boat.”

It was all delightful. Even Abigail lost some of her drawn look as she took her place under the awning of the plantation's big rowing boat and breathed deep of the morning breeze. The rowers were already in their places, and when Jem, the helmsman, gave the command, they burst into song and plunged their oars into the water. But the tune they chose sent a cold little premonitory shiver down Mercy's spine. It was “The World Turned Upside Down.”

She soon forgot that moment of almost superstitious dread as the men's steady rowing took the boat downstream, against the tide, into country she had never seen before. Here, golden grass high on either bank told how Savannah had got its name, and promised a good harvest for Hart's sheep. “We could stop here, I suppose.” Hart must have
followed her thoughts. “But I know a place downriver a little where the landing will be easier for you girls, and there's a cleared hillock where you two can sit and enjoy the sun while we get in the hay.”

“Delicious,” said Mercy. “You're good to us, Hart.”

“Nonsense. It was your idea.” A quick, boy's blush coloured his brown cheek-bones. “There's our hill!” He pointed ahead, and Mercy, who had felt her own face flush and turned away to hide it, saw the little knoll rising out of a patch of scrub.

At an order from Jem, the rowers slowed their pace and pulled into a cove pitted with alligator holes, from which a faint track led uphill. “No one here today. It's often used as a lookout point,” Hart explained as he helped the two girls to land, “but I doubt if anyone's come here hay-making.” While the men tied up the boat, he led the way uphill. “You get a fine view of Tybee,” he promised. “Watch out for the poison ivy.” And then, “Dear God!” He had emerged onto the bare top of the little hill and turned to look seawards.

“What is it?” Hurrying after him, Mercy turned, like him, to look out to sea, and saw, as he did, the sails on the horizon. “What are they?”

“Ships of the line. One, two.… You've sharp eyes. How many do you make it, Mercy?”

She screwed up her eyes, gazing into morning sun. Were the ships getting larger? “Three of them, I think. Hart, what are they?”

“They must be British. We've nothing that size, God help us. And coming closer, I think. Do you?”

“Yes.” She was sure of it now.

“Into Tybee inlet. Maybe upriver to Savannah. And nothing in the world to stop them. Jem!” He hurried back to the top of the path. “Back on board, and out oars, quick! We've got to warn them in town.” He turned to explain to the two girls. “Our outing's over.”

“Hart!” Abigail had been standing, hands clasped, gazing at the ships. “Are you sure it's the British? Just think, Giles may be on board.”

“And death and destruction for us all.” There was a note in his voice Mercy had never heard before. “Hurry, girls, there's not a moment to be lost.” And then, as they emerged on to the little beach, “Well done, men. There's a guinea for each of you if you get us home in an hour. The enemy's out there.”

“Enemy?” asked Abigail and Jem in unison.

“The British.”

They made it to Winchelsea in just under the hour, and the men collapsed exhausted on their oars as Hart jumped ashore and promised them their guineas as soon as he got back from town. Jem was already running ahead to order out his horse, and he turned, with a brief apology to the girls, to follow. “Start packing up,” he called back over his shoulder. “We'll likely have to move into town.”

When the girls reached the house, they found Anne Mayfield in hysterics and Martha Purchis dolefully trying to comfort her. There would be no help from them in the packing, but then Mercy had hardly expected it. She and Abigail worked with a will, but Mercy knew that all the time Abigail's thoughts were elsewhere. By evening, everything was ready for a move, if it should prove necessary, and the two of them went out for a badly needed breath of air. “Let's go down to the river,” said Abigail.

“If you like. But we won't be able to see anything on our backwater. If they come, it will be up the Savannah River. Thank God, Winchelsea's not even visible from the Wilmington.”

Abigail looked at her out of eyes ringed with exhaustion. “You may thank God, Mercy, but what do I do? Those are my friends, out there. Giles may be on board. And Hart calls them the enemy.”

“Dear, you must face it. To Hart—and to me—they are the enemy.”

“And to Francis?” asked Abigail.

“Oh, Francis!” Could Abigail suspect their secret engagement? “His loyalty's a matter of course. But, Abigail, whatever happens, let us promise that we will never quarrel, you and I. Things are bad enough without that.”

“Yes.” She held out both hands, then pulled Mercy towards her for a solemn kiss. “Whatever happens.”

“It's a bargain. But, Abigail, I think we should turn back. Your aunts will be worrying, and there's so much to do.”

“Just a little farther.” Abigail set a swift pace as they walked along the wooded path above the creek. Presently she stopped. “Can you keep a secret?”

“I think so.” She seemed to do nothing else.

“Well, then, come this way. It gets you down to the water much quicker.” She turned off the path to push her way
past the big magnolia that stood above the bend of the creek and, following her, Mercy saw an abandoned track, just visible, leading down through thick bushes toward the water.