Wide is the Water (36 page)

It was horrible. And he had to do it. Or rather, he had to try to do it. There had been no way of telling, from the brief exchange that had taken place outside the Tower, to what extent the driver of the post chaise was in Blanding's confidence. He might refuse to consider the proposed change of plan, and then, Hart felt, honour really would be satisfied.

But the driver did nothing of the kind. Approached
with a casual suggestion of a detour and a night at Denton Hall, he agreed readily enough ‘so long as the dibs are in tune.'

Bribing him with some of the money made available by Piers Blanding, Hart was glad he disliked that young man so much. Was it government money, he wondered, or had it been made available by the Purchas family? He wished now that he had asked more questions but knew well enough that he would have received no answers.

It was late afternoon when he saw the long line of the downs and the clump of trees Dick had told him was called Chanctonbury Ring. Dick … Was he really going to Denton Hall, where he had been so kindly welcomed, made a member of the family, to try to kill Dick? Had he not done them enough harm? The point of honour? The point of dishonour? Madness. He reached for the checkstring, then hesitated. He had come this far. He would go through with it, but fire into the air. Would Dick do the same? Well, he would find out.

Dick might even be at Denton Hall. It was some time since he had visited him in the Tower. Very likely he owed him his freedom, though Blanding had spoken rather of Government than the Purchases as concerned in it. The carriage swung through the little village of Denton and in at the lodge gates. He had walked along this drive with Julia, already her slave. It had been the first day, the day he learnt of his mother's death. They had gone to see old Granny Penfold, Dick's foster mother, and Julia had told one of her habitual minor lies. It was only now, remembering, that he even recognised it, but she had implied that Dick did not bother to visit his foster mother. When it became obvious that Dick had already been there, she had hurried rather crossly away. Captivated, he had not even noticed at the time but, looking back, thought it a characteristic, significant scene. Extraordinary, now that his eyes were opened and her glamour had lost its magic for him, how much he found he disliked her.

The carriage swung round the last bend of the drive, and he saw the hall as he had that first time, warm in afternoon sunshine. The front door stood hospitably open. Someone must be at home. Who? He was not ready for a confrontation yet. Once again his hand went automatically to the checkstring. Too late now. Absurdly, ridiculously too late, and thinking this, he saw the woman's figure on the sunlit terrace below the house.

Julia? Horrible. This he could not face. Julia in black? Of course, George's death. But – this was not fashionable black. The skirts were not wide enough; the dress was too plain, cut too high; the bonnet was almost Quakerish in its concealing simplicity. A young woman. As the carriage drew nearer, she bent gracefully to smell a rose. Something about the way she moved … A wild, fantastic idea was growing in his mind. Absurd, impossible; it was only because he had been thinking so constantly of Mercy that this stranger reminded him of her.

Stranger? Now, violently, he pulled the checkstring. He was out of the carriage before it stopped, over the ditch that divided the driveway from the terraced rose garden. ‘Mercy!'

She turned, saw him. ‘Hart!'

‘Well, I'll be jiggered,' said the driver to the postillion as they watched the long embrace that followed. ‘It almost looks like they was old friends, wouldn't you say?'

‘It almost does,' agreed the postillion, enjoying the spectacle. ‘Just the same,' he went on a few minutes later, ‘maybe we should leave them to it and find the horses something to eat. He's just out of the Tower, didn't you say? Lord knows what'll happen next.'

‘Let's wait and see,' said the driver, but the postillion was responsible for the horses, and prevailed.

‘Hart,' said Mercy at last. ‘Oh, my darling Hart, you have me backed against a rosebush. I believe I shall be marked for life.'

‘Our life,' he said. ‘Mercy, it's a miracle. But how did it happen?'

‘You may well ask. I can't believe it. Not yet. Hart!' He was kissing her again. ‘We're in full sight of the house. Your driver! The postillion!'

‘They have very sensibly gone away,' he told her. ‘There's a summer house.' He had flirted in it with Julia; it did not matter a tinker's curse. He put his arm round Mercy to lead her towards it. ‘I nearly turned tail and fled,' he told her, ‘when I saw you. I was afraid you were Julia.' Absurd. What could she know of Julia?

Apparently a good deal. She turned in his arm to look up at him. ‘Did you so?' she said, the mischievous smile he remembered so well lighting up her face. ‘Lord, we've a lot to talk about, you and I.'

‘And a lifetime to do it.' Was he taking too much for granted? ‘Mercy.' He paused in the doorway of the summer house, his hand under her chin, gazing down at the beloved, well-remembered face. ‘You are going to forgive me?'

‘Is there so much to forgive?' She met his eyes directly, as she always used to do.

‘Julia.' It came out as a groan. ‘I have to tell you …'

‘Dear Hart. She has told me already. And' – she smiled up at him and touched his lips with her finger – ‘I think you told me all I need to know, back there on the terrace, when you said you nearly ran for it when you thought I was her. Dear Hart, I have things I must tell you too. Let us not spoil this blessed moment with apologies, with explanations. We are here, together, you and I.' She drew him gently into the summer house, which some Purchas Lady had furnished as an ornamental cottage. ‘It's our miracle,' she said.

‘I lost our marriage lines.' His fingers were busy with the buttons of her dress.

‘I don't see what difference that makes.' She pulled off his cravat. ‘You never believed they meant much anyway.'

‘We'll be married again.' The threadbare fabric of her dress gave way under his impatient fingers, and he pulled
it away from her shoulders and buried his head on her breast. ‘Mercy, I'm filthy. I'm just out of prison. I'm disgusting.'

‘I love you.' Her small breasts were firm under his mouth. She reached up to pull off his shirt and press herself against him, breast to breast. ‘I love you so much.'

When she cried out, he tried to go slow, to be gentle with her. How could he? ‘Oh, my little love, forgive me.'

‘No need,' she whispered. ‘Oh, my dear heart, no need.'

Later she stirred gently, luxuriously in his arms. ‘I've lain on some damp beds in my time' – she breathed it comfortably into his ear – ‘between Boston and Philadelphia, and crossing the Atlantic, too, but I'm not sure this isn't the worst. Darling Hart, you'll catch a gaol fever or worse, if you haven't already. What miracle got you out of the Tower?'

‘I don't quite know.' Reluctantly he followed her example and began to pull on his clothes. ‘Something … someone made the government decide I was an embarrassment to it. Do you know, the more I think about it, the more I wonder if the Purchases, for all their talk, really have the power … Oh, my God!'

‘What is it?'

‘I'd clean forgot. Finding you like that. Mercy, I have to fight Dick Purchas.'

‘Fight Purchas! But, Hart, why?' And then; ‘Stupid of me. Julia.'

‘Yes. He challenged me, in the Tower, when I refused to marry her. That's why I am here.' He explained quickly about Piers Blanding and the terms of his release. ‘Dick's not here?' he asked.

‘No, but I sent for him when we got here yesterday. I hoped he might help me to see you. We thought, from the things Julia did not say, that he must be your friend.'

‘He was,' said Hart. ‘Mercy, I have to tell you this. I shall delope.'

‘Fire in the air! Hart, you can't. He's a naval man; it would be death.'

‘Unless he does so too. And I cannot hope for that. Julia's his sister. Oh, Mercy …'

‘Just the same,' she said, ‘I'm glad you refused to marry her. Hart, we must go in, Ruth will be worried to death.'

‘Ruth?' He had been wondering who her ‘we' implied.

‘Did you have none of my letters?' She pulled away from him in amazement.

‘Not one,' he said.

‘Oh, my dear, what you must have thought of me! Your poor mother and Aunt Mayfield. All because of my playing God down there in Savannah. The great Rebel Pamphleteer! Making a display of myself at the expense of the family who had been so good to me. And all to send information to a state government so divided in itself that I doubt it used any of it. Oh, Hart, I wish this war was over. Do you find that nothing seems the same now you are here in England?'

‘Yes, but we have to win just the same,' he told her. ‘Mercy, you must look on my poor mother and aunt as casualties of war. I only thank God Abigail was not with them. Have you heard from her?'

‘Oh, yes, everything that is kind. She is holding the Savannah house for you, Hart.'

‘For us.' He remembered Dick. ‘If I survive.'

‘I don't think I can bear it.'

‘We have to, my darling. When did you send for Dick?'

‘Yesterday.'

‘So he will very likely get here tonight. Mercy!' A new thought struck him. ‘What have I done? I cannot go out with Dick until you and I have been truly married. Suppose – just suppose … If I were to be killed and you should find you were carrying a child …'

‘It would be my only comfort,' she told him. ‘But, Hart, even by special licence, it takes a little time to get married, here in England.' She let no hint of hope into her tone.

‘How strange. I had quite forgotten that you were English. That you know more about life here than I do.
Well, Dick will just have to wait, that's all …'

‘And Mr. Smith at Portsmouth?' Ever since Hart had told her about Blanding's agreement, Mercy had been wondering if his Mr. Smith could be the same man as Julia's smuggler. Fantastic to think that if she and Hart had both taken the coward's path, there was still a chance that they might have met. And Brisson? She must tell Hart about him, but not yet. There would be a time for that, or so she must hope.

His thoughts had been following another line. ‘Mercy, who is Ruth?' he asked for the second time.

‘I keep forgetting that you have had none of my letters. She is Ruth Paston – oh, Hart, that's a terrible story.' She took his hand. ‘I'll tell you as we walk back to the house.' She looked round the little summer house. ‘I'll never forget this place.'

‘Nor I.' He pulled her to him again. ‘Oh, Mercy, oh my dear life.'

Ruth came out of the house as they approached it through the rose garden ‘Hart! Oh, Hart!' She was in his arms, laughing, crying. ‘After all these years! But I'd have known you anywhere. Hart, your hair's gone white!' She looked from him to Mercy. ‘I'm so happy for you both.'

‘Ruth, it's so good to see you.' He held her away from him to study her. ‘I never thought you'd turn out a beauty.' And then, remembering; ‘Ruth, I am so sorry. Mercy told me about your family.'

‘Thank you. Both for being sorry and for sending me Mercy. If she hadn't come when she did, I would be dead, too.'

‘Oh?' He turned to Mercy. ‘You didn't tell me?'

‘He's had none of my letters,' Mercy explained to Ruth. ‘Not even the one to the Tower?'

‘You wrote me there?'

‘Of course. Before we landed. The frigate captain promised it would catch the night mail. But Julia said you weren't allowed letters.'

Ruth broke in with an odd question. ‘Hart, forgive
me for asking you this, but did you talk to Julia Purchas much about your marriage to Mercy?'

‘Much!' He did not try to hide his angry surprise. ‘Never! What do you take me for?'

‘I thought so.' She turned to Mercy. ‘That's when I began to distrust her. When you told me she said Hart had told her those things, those private things, about your marriage. Don't you see?' She must have stopped your letters. Maybe his to you too. Read them. Used them.'

‘Oh, my God!' said Mercy. ‘Hart, forgive me. I should not have believed her.'

‘Ah, my dear love,' he said. ‘When it comes to forgiving, I think we must just wipe the slate clean and begin to forget.'

‘But not until we have understood,' said Ruth. ‘That's what baffles me. Why did the Purchases go to such lengths to keep you two separate? Dear Hart, you've always been one of my favourite men. Lord, how Naomi and I used to quarrel over you when we were young! But – you're not a British aristocrat; you're not rich. Forgive me, but I don't for a moment think Julia is in love with you. So what is it about you?'

Hart could not help laughing. ‘I always wanted a sister to keep me in my place,' he said. ‘And it seems that at last I have got one. And of course, you are entirely right, Ruth. Should I be calling you Miss Paston?'

‘You most certainly should not. But there is the dressing bell.' She smiled mischievously at Mercy. ‘When the coachmen told me who our mysterious guest was, I gave orders for a special dinner. And' – to Hart – ‘the house-keeper said she would have your old room made ready directly. You seem to be quite one of the family here.'

‘Yes.' For a moment, in his new happiness, he had let himself imagine shooting in self-defence when he and Dick fought, but he knew he could not do it. ‘They've been wonderfully good to me. But I am not sleeping in my old room. Am I, Mercy?'

‘Oh!' Ruth blushed crimson. ‘I never thought—'

‘That we're an old married couple! Well, no wonder, after the things that have been said. But just because of them, I do feel it is the least we can do to behave like one.' He turned to Mercy. ‘If you will bear with a husband who smells of the gaol?'