Judas Flowering (26 page)

“No. It's too late. The sides are drawn; the die is cast. Since James Johnston's nephews slipped away to the British ships, there's a close guard kept on the river. It wouldn't be safe for you—and it wouldn't be safe for us if you were caught,”

“No!” She flared out at him. “Not since you harbour Bridget and Claire McCartney, whose mother is known to be with the British. Of course you cannot let me follow my heart when you have so prejudiced our safety already. If the mob do come here, it's more likely to be on their account than on mine. Ask Miss Bridget and Miss Claire if they have not had letters from their mother! And what questions she asks! And then ask yourself what kind of guests you are entertaining. Giles would never—” She rose and ran from the room, choking on tears as she went.

“I'm sorry.” Hart turned with a sigh to Mercy. “If only she had been able to marry him in the first place. But, now, you'll do your best to comfort her, Mercy, will you not?”

“Naturally.” Her voice was dry. “But I think you should also bear in mind what she said about Mrs McCartney. No—” She saw him flush up angrily, but went firmly on. “1 know you think it none of my business, but I have met the mob twice, and that is enough, I don't propose to be tarred
and feathered if I can help it. And, Hart”—how could she put it?—“Bridget and Claire are dear girls, but Bridget is young, and Claire … well, not very wise. Abigail's right, you know. They might, in their innocence, write something to their mother that she would pass on to Francis.”

“To Francis?” She had astonished him. “Mercy! You mean you know …”

“That they went together? I'm not a child, I can see what's in front of my nose. I suppose she took her jewels with her. You could live a long time on those diamonds of hers.”

“Mercy!”

She had shocked him, she saw, as much as she had wilfully hurt herself. What did he think, what guess about her and Francis? She did not think she wanted to know.

A few days later, Savannah was celebrating the news that the British ships had vanished from the river's mouth. The immediate danger was past, and for Abigail and the McCartney girls there was an end to sickening hope deferred. There had been no last messages from either Giles Habersham or Mrs McCartney, but Mercy had been accosted in the street by a barefoot vagabond of a boy and handed, to her amazement, a long, loving letter from Francis.

It explained everything. His love for her. His desperation. The appalling financial embarrassment that had followed on Hart's return from the North, and the consequent ceasing of his salary. And, above all, glowing through every line, his passionate belief in the justice of the Loyalist cause. “If I have seemed to behave not quite as you felt I should, dearest Mercy, you must understand that my duty to my King outweighs every other consideration. ‘I could not love thee, dear, so much, loved I not honour more.'” And with this resounding conclusion, he was her devoted Francis, “until happier days.”

Of Mrs McCartney there was no word, unless the reference to his financial embarrassment was meant to dispose of her. Mercy read and reread the letter, arguing, as she did so, with her conscience. She had made bold to lecture Hart about possible communication between the McCartney girls and their mother. Was she now going to keep Francis' letter secret from him?

She rather thought she was. It gave little information that was not already freely available in town. Everyone knew that
Sir James Wright had sailed for Halifax on learning that the British had abandoned all thought of a further attack on Savannah. And Francis knew no more than anyone else where they would next attack. There was only one line in the long letter that pricked her conscience. Mentioning Halifax as their destination, he said, “I hope to God we do not find Howe there already.”

If this meant what she thought it might, it was news indeed. General Howe had replaced General Gage in command at Boston after the British setback at Bunker Hill. Was it possible that the ragged army with which Congress' new commander in chief, General Washington, was besieging Boston, might actually succeed in throwing out the British? It seemed so wildly unlikely she decided to say nothing about it. If there was to be good news from Boston, it would come in its own good time.

The first hint that she might have been right in what seemed a wild enough conjecture came in a letter received from one of Mark Paston's sisters, who were staying with cousins in Cambridge, now that General Washington had his siege headquarters there. “Ruth thinks something is afoot,” Hart said when he had finished the closely written letter. “I hope to God she's right. We need good news badly enough, after this winter's fiasco at Quebec.”

A few days later, Christ Church bells were ringing to celebrate the amazing news of the British evacuation of Boston. The Virginian general that Congress had made its commander in chief had successfully stolen the same kind of march on the British that had been attempted the year before at Bunker Hill. Waking to find captured British guns staring down at him from Dorchester Heights, General Howe had characteristically taken his time over evacuating Boston, but had finally sailed away northward on March 17. The whole of Massachusetts was free at last.

“But it won't bring Mark Paston back to life,” said Hart. “Nor all the other brave men who have died for our liberty. George Walton writes from Philadelphia that Mr Jefferson is working night and day drafting a document that will set out the principles of our cause. I wish with all my heart it could be finished and signed before we let this victory at Boston lull us back into a dream of easy freedom. Walton says there are still too many people at Philadelphia who think we can wipe out the bloodshed of this last year and resume negotiations
with England as if nothing had happened. I almost wish the British would strike again, to clear their minds for them.”

His wish was granted all too soon. A messenger came sweating into town one hot June afternoon with the news that a British fleet was attacking Charleston.

“Dear God, my house!” wailed Mrs Mayfield. “Down by the harbour as it is, there's not a chance of its surviving.”

“Not much chance for Charleston,” said Hart grimly. “The messenger says their defences are far from complete. Colonel Moultrie is fortifying Sullivan's Island, to defend the harbour, but it sounds like a forlorn hope to me. And, make no mistake, if Charleston falls, we are bound to be next. I am afraid the British must think they have enough Loyalist sympathisers down here in the south so that it's worth giving them a rallying point. They've showed their teeth once, the damned Loyalists, and got their comeuppance at Moore's Creek. Please God Charleston holds out.”

Miraculously, Charleston did. Gallantry on the American side combined with muddle, incompetence, and sheer bad luck on the British, and soon Savannahians were drinking the health of two new heroes, Colonel Moultrie, who had insisted on holding Fort Sullivan and had done so against what seemed overwhelming odds, and Lieutenant Jasper, who had gallantly saved the endangered garrison flag. Designed by Colonel Moultrie himself, it consisted of a blue field with a white crescent on which was embroidered the one word,
Liberty
. By a curious coincidence, Governor Rutledge visited the fort to congratulate Moultrie, Jasper, and its other defenders on the Fourth of July, unaware of another dramatic declaration of liberty taking place farther north.

News of the signing of the Declaration of Independence did not reach Savannah until the tenth of August, when it was solemnly read aloud four times by President Bulloch, first to the Provincial Council, then outside the Provincial Assembly, then at the Liberty Pole, and finally in the Trustees' Garden.

“I wish they had invited ladies to their celebrations,” said Bridget McCartney petulantly, taking Mercy's arm and leaning on it heavily as they turned homewards along Bay Street from the final reading in the Trustees' Garden. “It would be mighty pleasant to dine out there in the cool of the cedar trees, on a day like this.”

“Pleasant for us, perhaps,” Mercy managed to disengage herself. “But the gentlemen may enjoy themselves more freely without us.”

“You mean they will drink too much,” said Bridget. “Not Mr Purchis. I have never seen him disguised yet Anyway. I have his promise—” She stopped, colouring.

“And besides,” agreed Mercy, “he is responsible for the arrangements for the mock funeral of George the Third this evening. I am afraid his position as right-hand man to Colonel McIntosh is likely to be an arduous one.”

“No more so than he is amply able to handle. I expect marvellous things tonight, and so I told him. And he promises, too, that he will be here to escort us. It's a pity there are so many of us females, poor man.”

“I do not propose to go.” Abigail had been very quiet,

“Oh, fie! Now more than ever, child, we must seem a united household. You do not wish to bring down one of the mob's visitations on your poor cousin, I trust.”

“I don't see why we should seem a household at all.” Abigail turned on her. “I heard Hart telling you only the other day that he thought it quite safe for you to return to your own home now. In fact, if I were you, I would be inclined to go there today and make sure you show proper illuminations tonight, or you might be visited by the mob yourselves.”

“Oh.” Bridget had not thought of this. “I wonder if the slaves would be so foolish—”

“I never knew servants who would take the liberty of burning their mistresses' candles without permission.”

Mercy had been amazed and delighted at Abigail's sudden attack on Bridget, whose visit had struck her, too, as having scandalously outlasted itself. If Hart was not careful, he would find a state of engagement existing between himself and Bridget, and, try as she would, she could not decide whether he was aware of this hazard. She rather thought not. He was so busy these days with his duties with the militia and the new responsibility to his friend Colonel McIntosh that he had little time or thought to spare for what went on in the house on Oglethorpe Square.

“I have it.” Bridget had made up her mind. “You will go home, Claire, and see to the illuminations. It is my duty to support dear Mr Purchis tonight, but I'm sure either Miss Purchis or Miss Phillips will accompany you.”

“I will go gladly.” Abigail seized on it, and Mercy was
relieved for her. It had been indescribably painful for her, she knew, to listen to the Declaration of Independence read, and would be still more so to have to attend the mock funeral of the King for whom she still felt such love and loyalty.

What she had not expected was that Bridget would assume that this division of their forces was to be a permanent one. “It will be much easier for Miss Abigail to be a little more out of the way of things,” she explained to Hart as they returned from the mock funeral that night. “I hope you will think I have contrived well for her. She will be the greatest comfort to my poor silly Claire, who has never been able to manage for herself, and of whom I am afraid the slaves take quite shameless advantage. Such a set of worthless wretches … I don't know how you contrive to have yours so well behaved, Mr Purchis.”

“Perhaps because they are not slaves, but servants,” he said.

“Oh, la!” She flirted her fan at him. “Do you take me for a simpleton, Mr Purchis! You know as well as I do that they all ran from Winchelsea when the British ships appeared off Tybee.”

“All but two. And all but a few came back when the British left. And, what's more,” Hart warmed to the theme, “they'd taken my flock of sheep with them for safety and brought them back unharmed.”

“Well, almost,” put in Mercy. “You remember, Hart, they did admit to having eaten one when they got hungry hiding out in the swamp.”

“As if they couldn't have caught themselves fish and to spare,” said Bridget. “And, anyway, the British never did visit Winchelsea, did they?” There was something in her tone that Mercy did not quite like.

“No. We were lucky.” Hart seemed to have noticed nothing. “I wouldn't be surprised if my cousin Francis and my cousin's friend Giles Habersham had put in a word for us.” He sighed. “And I cannot help being both grateful and ashamed.”

“I am sure your feelings do you the greatest credit, Mr Purchis.” Bridget, who had made sure of his arm, leaving Mercy to walk a little behind them, and in their dust, gave his hand an approving pat as they turned in at the garden gate of the Purchis house. She paused and looked up at the stars, visible again now the town's illuminations had dwindled
and died. “The air is so sweet tonight, and I am so happy with the day's good news, I think I will stay out a little longer. You will keep me company, will you not, Mr Purchis, and let me tell you how well you handled your heavy duties today? I am sure there's no need to keep Miss Phillips from her well-earned rest.”

Dismissed, Mercy moved towards the porch door, but found Hart following her. “The air is sweet indeed,” he said, “but I am afraid my day's duties are not yet done. As you know, Colonel McIntosh is but just returned from Charleston, where he has been concerting measures for our mutual defence. We expect General Lee momentarily with a detachment of Virginia and North Carolina troops, with whom we are to mount an operation against St Augustine. It's true that if we could capture that British base it would make the greatest difference to the safety of the southern part of Georgia, but I could wish the expedition had been undertaken with longer notice and at a more propitious time of year. As it is, there is everything to procure for it, and I must get to work at once. Today's celebrations were necessary, of course, but they've not exactly helped us forward with our plans.”

They hardly saw Hart for the next few days, which culminated with the arrival of General Lee and a ceremonial review of his troops on the green at Yamacraw Bluff. It all looked impressive enough, but Hart caught Mercy for an anxious aside. “Don't let my mother and the other ladies be too hopeful,” he told her. “You'll not repeat this, I know, and I would say it to no one else, but I wish we had a less impulsive commander. The troops are sickening already as a result of marching at this unsuitable time of year, and we have no medical supplies. Mercy, if the worst should happen, I rely on you and Gordon to look after things here.”