Wide is the Water (3 page)

‘I know. I'll look after Ruth. You don't need to worry about her anymore.' Inwardly she prayed that she could make it good. ‘But, Mrs. Paston, “hungry years”? You said you'd written to us.'

‘Indeed I did. Back in ‘76, when I faced it that there
was no way I could make a living for us all. Prices rising all the time … Cousin Golding took the lot where our house had stood in Lexington against our keep. Said the taxes were so high it hardly paid him. My other cousins had gone west … I was at my wits' end …' She was tiring, her sentences running down into little silences, and Mercy held the mug to her lips once more. ‘Thanks. I don't want to die drunk, but you need to know where you stand. With Ruth. If you'll really look out for her.' The tired blue eyes begged for reassurance.

‘I promise, Mrs. Paston.'

‘Thank you. Where was I? Oh, about Cousin Abigail Purchis. I wrote her, back in ‘76. It was next year before I heard, and then it was a short note from her cousin Francis Mayfield, saying she had asked him to write. Things were terrible in Savannah, he said. Abigail a burden on her aunt Purchis already. Could not bring herself to write me … He was sorry for me, he said … That was all. I never wrote again. How could I?'

‘You should have written Hart.'

‘Francis said … he'd talked to him. Hart was sorry, too.'

‘The liar.' Long hatred of Francis Mayfield boiled in Mercy's throat. ‘The scoundrel. I swear to you, Abigail never saw that letter.' Francis Mayfield had deceived her, betrayed her, tried to kill her, but nothing he had done to her seemed, now, so bad as this. ‘He's dead. Francis Mayfield is dead.' A horrible death, richly deserved. ‘He told none of us,' she said, ‘about your letter. I swear Abigail never saw it.'

‘I see that now. I think I understood it the moment you walked into the room and said you were Mercy Purchis. Dear Hart, I'm so glad … He was like a son to me. I hated to think he'd let me down like that. When you see him, ask him to forgive me for believing it.'

‘I will.' But a cold hand clutched at Mercy's heart. When would she and Hart meet again? She pulled the bedclothes round Mrs. Paston's frail shoulders. ‘Try to sleep
now, Mrs. Paston. You look exhausted. I'll see how Ruth is getting on with that tea.'

‘Yes.' The blue eyes closed, then opened again. ‘When she gets excited … if she gets excited … I hush her, like a child. It mostly works. Dear Mercy' – the words were coming more slowly now – ‘I thank God for you.'

Bill Barnes was alone in the kitchen, tending a blazing fire over which a kettle was just beginning to sing. ‘The girl cut and run upstairs when I came in,' he explained. ‘I thought best let her be.'

‘Yes. It
was
Indians.' Hastening to tell him this, Mercy admitted to herself how afraid she had been that it might have been an English raiding party that had done the damage. ‘The family were on their way to the West. She saw her sister killed. She and her mother were the only ones of the family who escaped. Her mother's dying, I'm afraid.'

‘I thought she looked right poorly.' The kettle boiled. ‘I found the tea,' he said. ‘There's not much. Nor of anything else. Looks like they've been living on bread and tea mostly. I'd like to get my hands on that Mr. Golding who left them here alone.'

‘I wish the doctor would come.' Mercy warmed the big pot and made the tea, grateful that the nearly empty caddy was not locked. ‘I'll take a cup to the old lady,' she said.

‘No,' said Bill Barnes, surprising her. ‘Drink some yourself first. I reckon you've problems enough on your hands without passing out from cold and hunger. When did you last eat?'

She put a vague hand to her brow. ‘Last night, I think.' Chowder and stale biscuit, and the crew grumbling about the fresh supplies they had hoped for from Boston.

‘Right.' He pulled out a chair from the table, cut a thick slice of bread, buttered it, and handed it to her. ‘I'll join you in a cup of tea if I may.' He took the heavy pot from her and poured for them both.

‘Have some bread and butter.'

‘No, thanks. That's all there is. The girl must be hungry, too.'

‘Her name's Ruth. Ruth Paston.' Mercy took a bite of stale bread and rancid butter, realised that she was starving, and made herself chew and swallow it slowly, washed down with the reviving tea. He was right, this kind Bill Barnes. She seemed to be responsible for this unhappy household and must preserve her own strength.

‘Paston?' said Bill Barnes. ‘Not kin of Mark Paston's, by any chance? Him that was killed at Lexington?'

‘His mother and sister.'

‘And left to starve in the cold! I wish I had Mr Golding's neck here to wring.' His hands twisted an invisible neck.

‘You knew Mark Paston?'

‘Not to say knew. But we all knew of him, miss – ma'am. A martyr of the Revolution. A hero. And his family left to starve. It serves us right we ain't winning this danged war. We don't deserve to. Not letting things like that happen.'

When the doctor came at last, he shook his head over Mrs. Paston. ‘Nothing I can do. Keep her warm. Keep her happy. It won't be long.' He and Mercy were alone in the cold front room.

‘How long?'

‘My dear young lady, how can I tell? Two days? A week? A month? Light diet; nourishing broth; a drop of wine if she feels like it.' Something about her had been puzzling him. ‘You're the daughter, I take it?'

‘No. She's upstairs. You don't know her? I'm surprised. I would have thought Mrs. Paston would have called you to her. She's – mentally disturbed since she saw her twin sister killed by Indians.'

‘Oh, yes, now you come to mention it, I do seem to have heard something. From my friend Mr. Golding. One reason why he very sensibly took his family away inland. But perhaps a matter more for the pastor than the doctor? And I am afraid I must mention, Miss … um?'

‘Mrs. Purchis.'

‘Mrs. Purchis. Must mention that my charges have to be quite high. You know how it is. This deplorable war. The cost of living rising every day. Why, what it costs me just to keep my wife dressed to suit our station in life … Appalling. Quite appalling. Madness, the whole business, and the sooner those lunatics down in Philadelphia recognise it, the better for us all. In the meantime, I am afraid that my charge for a house visit …' He hesitated, aware at last of some unexpected quality in her silence.

‘Will have to be paid in Georgia paper, if at all,' she
told him. ‘I take it your friend Mr. Golding did not think to tell you that he left his cousin and her daughter penniless to face the winter, with only a boy to look after them? Where is Jed, by the way?'

‘The boy? Why, making the best of his way back on his snowshoes, I suppose. You surely did not think I would take him up in my sledge, Miss – Mrs. Purchis?'

‘If I did, I can see I was far wide of the mark.' She took out her purse. ‘So, in Georgia paper, how much, Dr. Frobisher? For your great help and extraordinary kindness?'

‘Oh, it was nothing,' he began, and then, her savage irony slowly penetrating: ‘Mrs. Purchis, if that
is
your name, I do not at all appreciate your tone. I will wish you a very good day and send in my account in due course. It must be paid, I should warn you, in Massachusetts paper or in specie.'

‘Good day, Doctor.' She opened the front door and ushered him out to where a man in what looked like livery was waiting by a luxurious sledge.

Returning to the kitchen, shivering with anger, she found Bill Barnes awaiting her with a look of delighted respect. ‘I listened,' he told her. ‘I've not enjoyed myself so much for years. I hope you don't mind, ma'am. It's men like him and his friend Golding make you despair of our ever winning this war. Just imagine making that poor boy come back through the storm on his snow-shoes when he has room for six in that grand sledge of his. Don't you ever pay him, ma'am. You offered, fair and square, and he refused it. Let it go at that.'

Mercy made a wry face. ‘I think I shall have to. I must go and look at Mrs. Paston.'

‘Don't you fret about her. The girl's with her. Calmer, I'd say. Not much you can do, by the sound of it, but wish her an easy passing. And you and I need to talk business.'

‘Business?' She was glad to subside onto the chair he pulled out for her, near to the now glowing fire. In her
immediate anger with Dr. Frobisher she had forgotten how much she had counted on him for advice and help. Now it hit her that she should have temporised with him, flattered him, blandished help out of him. Where in the world had her wits been? ‘I'm a fool,' she said wearily. ‘I shouldn't have let him go like that.'

‘Not much else you coulda done, I reckon. If you think anything you said would have made him help you, you're crazy. I know his kind. We've plenty of them here in New England. The war's a terrible mistake, they keep saying, but they profit by it every way they can. It makes a man mad. Now, Mrs. Purchis, ma'am, can I ask you to sit it out here and look to things while I go into Boston and tell some friends of mine what's happened to Mark Paston's mother? I'll be back with help as quick as I can, but it's bound to take a bit of time. When the boy gets back, you could ask him if any of the neighbours might help, but I don't set much hope on them. Not in a fancy rich district like this. It's where people live close together, the way they do in Boston, that they look out for each other. I'll be back, I promise.' He must have sensed her sudden qualm.

‘I believe you. And I do thank you, Mr. Barnes.'

‘Oh, call me Bill, the way you did before. I liked that. Friendly, it was. Are you really from Georgia? You was talking kind of British when you gave the doctor that setdown.'

‘Was I? What a strange thing. Yes, Bill, I was British once. But I'm American now. Since I married Captain Purchis.' She used the title intentionally, and it had its effect.

‘Who's fighting for us all,' said Bill Barnes, ‘while men like Frobisher and Golding look out for themselves. Don't you worry, ma'am; what with Mark Paston's name and Cap'n Purchis's, you'll have help before night, or my name's not Bill Barnes. So – I'd best be going. Get some rest if you can, and keep your heart up.' He pulled on his shaggy greatcoat and went out the back way into the
yard, where she heard him talking encouragements to his horse as he harnessed it up. How long to Boston and back? She should have asked him. But it made no difference. She ought to go and see how old Mrs. Paston was. She did not think, for the moment, that she could get up from her chair. She leant her elbows on the kitchen table and let her head droop onto her arms.

‘Miss! Miss! Excuse me, Miss?' The anxious voice roused her from deep sleep, and she looked blearily across the table at the tall, gangling boy, who was gazing at her in amazement. The fire had burned low, she saw, and the room was cold again.

‘You must be Jed.' She got stiffly to her feet. Terrible to have neglected old Mrs. Paston for so long. ‘I'm kin to Mrs Paston,' she explained.

‘Well, praise be!' He put a basket carefully down on the table. ‘She could do with some kin right now. I was plumb worried taking so long to come back, but it was hard work, carrying this. Mrs. Frobisher fetched me into the kitchen, the minute the doctor was gone, and packed it up for me. Gave me a good dinner, too. Wouldn't let me come till I'd had it.' He was unpacking the basket of provisions, and Mercy moved over to help him.

‘Bless the woman. Arrowroot and broth. Would you make up the fire for me, Jed, and I'll heat some for Mrs. Paston? I must go see how she is.'

She had slept a long time. The light was beginning to fade, and she could just make out the two still figures in the improvised bedroom. Ruth had fallen asleep on the floor, her head awkwardly propped against her mother's cot.

‘Shh …' said Mrs. Paston softly. ‘Don't wake her. There's time enough for her to be unhappy. You are going to look after her, aren't you, Mercy?' Her face had changed, sunk in, the jaw dropped a little, and Mercy thought talking hurt her.

‘Yes. But now I'm going to bring you some broth.'

‘No. I'd rather you stayed. I don't seem to want food, and I do need to talk to you. I've been lying here, thinking what's best for you to do. I think you should go back south, Mercy. To Hart's family. They're Ruth's family too, after all. I don't rightly understand why Hart brought you north in the first place.'

‘He had to. It's not safe for me in Savannah, not now the British hold it. I was working against them. They found out.' Behind the brief statement lay memory of Francis Mayfield's implacable search for her on Hutchinson Island, Hart's last-minute rescue, and Francis's horrible death. ‘Hart saved my life,' she said.

‘Dear Hart. I loved him like a son. Like my Mark.' Two slow tears rolled down her cheeks. ‘Hart was lonely here at the North,' she said. ‘Would have been if it hadn't been for us. We New Englanders are a close, closed lot. I'd go back south if I were you, Mercy. If not to Savannah, then why not Charleston? Doesn't Mrs. Mayfield have a house there?'

‘There's a rumour the British are going to attack Charleston.' She had learned this as a spy in Savannah. ‘Hart will look for me here. He promised to come in the spring.' Once again a superstitious shiver went through her as she remembered that bold promise about prizes.

‘Of course. Stupid me. But I'm afraid you'll find it hard here. They don't like Ruth much. She scares them. I've sometimes been afraid … Absurd, of course. Nobody would. We're civilised these days. Or think so. But these are strange times. They bring out the brute in men. My cousin Golding said he was taking the children away because … because he was afraid. Possessed, he called her. My little Ruth. I wish you'd take her south, Mercy.'