Judas Flowering (8 page)

“Not really.” Hart was always mildly embarrassed by the house. “It looks bigger than it is.”

“It's that absurd little shack beside it makes it look so strange,” said Mrs Mayfield. “It's a perfectly good Charleston house otherwise.”

“Yes.” Hart held up a courteous hand to help her alight from the carriage. “Only this is Savannah.” He held up his hand in turn to Mercy, who jumped lightly down onto the loose sand of the street. “The ‘little shack' next door is the one I promised to show you,” he told her. “It's the original house my grandfather lived in. It must have been a great day for those first settlers when Oglethorpe finally consented to move out of the tent he had lived in since they landed. Imagine what it must have been like for men used to a life of luxury back home in England to rough it here in tents on the sand. That shack must have seemed the height of comfort.”

“Yes.” Mercy's soft slippers were full of sand already. “It's lucky the forest around the town keeps the worst of the wind off, or there would be no enduring it.”

“There's no enduring it now,” said Mrs Mayfield. “To be standing here chattering in the street like a parcel of peasants.”

“I am a peasant,” said Mercy, but luckily neither Hart nor Mrs Mayfield heard her, since he was opening the wrought-iron gate to usher his aunt into the garden, from which the house was entered by way of its long screened porch. In the first enthusiasm of building, Martha Purchis had planned a formal garden in the Italian style for her town house, and there were still evergreen trees and hedges and a tumbledown summerhouse as evidence of her ambition, but years of neglect had let the garden sink back to a jungle of sweet-smelling jasmine through which a path had been recently cut to the porch door.

Mrs Purchis herself was there to welcome them and ask, with a quick, anxious glance for her sister's raddled face, “What's the matter?”

“Matter enough.” Mrs Mayfield subsided on a rocking chair in the cool of the porch. “My tenants have quit without a word of apology or a penny paid.”

“Come.” Hart took Mercy's arm to lead her across the porch and into the big, cool room behind it. “Aunt Anne will feel better for telling my mother.” He explained his retreat. “And you will be glad to go to your room. Ah, here's Abigail. How are you, cousin?”

“Well, thank you.” Abigail's looks belied the words. “It's good to see you both. My aunt's been fretting.”

“Oh?” Hart had been moving towards an inconspicuous door in the corner of the room. “What's the matter?”

“Frank. We've hardly seen him since he brought us here.”
Abigail had been fretting too
, Mercy thought. “Oh, he sleeps here, I collect, but that's the end of it. Aunt's been in terror of the mob.”

“Poor mother. How are things in town? It seemed quiet enough as we drove in.”

“Almost too quiet,” said Abigail. “As if everyone was waiting … but what for?”

“The birthday celebrations, let's hope. I'm sorry, Abigail.” The genuine sympathy in his voice was for more than her temporary trouble. He saw her eyes suddenly aswim with unshed tears and hurried on, “Mercy's tired. Be an angel and take her to her room. I have no doubt the servants are all at sixes and sevens still.”

“Twelves and fourteens.” Abigail managed a watery smile. “And you're off to your office, I take it?”

“Just so. I asked Saul Gordon to meet me here. I've a
world of business to get through with him. If all goes well, I hope this will be my last visit to Savannah before I leave for the North.”

“I wish you weren't going, Hart.”

“Oh, Abigail, not you too! Ah, Gordon!” He turned with relief as the door in the comer of the room opened to reveal a black-clad, sallow, smiling man.

“Mr Purchis!” He advanced, seized Hart's hand and pumped it up and down. “This is a sight for sad eyes. And—can it be?—Miss Phillips, of whose praises I have heard so much from Madam Purchis. Do, I beg of you, present me.”

“Yes, of course.” Hart did not sound best pleased. “Mercy, let me present my right-hand man, Mr. Gordon.”

“Miss Phillips!” His hand was damp. “Mrs Purchis has led me to hope that you would do me the great kindness of calling on my dear, afflicted wife. She pines for company, my poor Rachel, she quite pines for company.”

“I shall be delighted.” Mercy was afraid she did not sound it, but she did not much like this hint of an arrangement behind her back.

“And I'll come too,” said Abigail. “Why did you not tell me Mrs Gordon was lonely, Mr Gordon?”

“Always so kind, so condescending, Miss Purchis, but I could hardly presume … a member of the family … my poor Rachel would be overwhelmed.”

“Business first.” Hart cut him short with a firmness that surprised Mercy. “Visits later. Excuse us, ladies? I'll be in the study, Abigail, if my mother should want me.”

“His study?” asked Mercy, as Gordon bowed low to them both and followed Hart through the little door.

“He uses the old house next door. He had the doorway cut through. Aunt Martha doesn't much like it, but it suits Hart very well. And nobody seems to mind the mixing of work and ordinary living here in Savannah.”

“Why should they?” Mercy lapsed into cockney. “Work's 'ow they live, ain't it?”

“Heavens!” Abigail glanced quickly out to the porch, where the two sisters were deep in agitated talk. “Don't let my aunts hear you speak like that or they will think you as bad as the revolutionaries.”

Mercy laughed. “My accent, love, or what I say?” And then, modulating from cockney to the pure English she normally spoke, “Forgive me! I'm afraid all this luxury
brings out the worst in me. I can't seem to get over how different things are here from the other side of town where Father and I lived. And the shameful thing is, I still can't help enjoying the comfort.”

“Why shouldn't you?” Abigail led her upstairs to the bedroom floor, where the rooms also looked out onto the screened porch, and left her to rest.

Francis did not appear until late in the evening, when his mother was just crossly preparing to go to bed. “A million apologies, Mamma.” His face was becomingly flushed as he bent to kiss her hand. “I meant to be here to greet you, but have had business I didn't much like to detain me.”

“Business?” asked Hart.

“Yes.” Francis turned to him with an odd, sideways smile. “Even I am capable of some kinds of business, little cousin. I have been doing my utmost to persuade the hotheads at Tondee's Tavern that the King's birthday is no time for a revolutionary demonstration.”

“I hope you have been successful,” said Hart.

“I rather think I have.”

“Tondee's Tavern,” said his mother. “Pah, Frank! No wonder you stink of spirits.”

“My dear mother, you must look on it as a sacrifice made in the cause of peace.” He turned to Mercy. “Miss Phillips! It grieved me particularly not to be here to greet you on your return to Savannah.”

“I am glad to think you were so much more profitably occupied, sir,”

“Now.” He turned his flashing smile on Abigail. “Am I to look on that as a compliment or a setdown, I wonder?”

“Choose for yourself,” said Mercy, and was relieved when Mrs Mayfield plunged into a catalogue of grievances over her absconding tenants. Francis looked grave over this, very much as Hart had done, and when she finished her tirade with a triumphant “So what else can I do but go there and see that they have at least left things in order,” he looked graver still. “You'll come, of course, my dear boy?” She was sure of him.

“Ma'am, I wish I could, but, do you know, my conscience tells me that I ought to stay in Savannah just now. I begin to think I can serve a useful purpose here, as friend to both Whigs and Tories.”

“A dangerous position,” said Hart drily.

“Indeed, yes. But these are dangerous times.” He turned to Hart with one of his flamboyant gestures. “These last two days here in Savannah have taught me a great deal. Little cousin, I am about to approach you, cap in hand, and ask if you would still consider letting me have the management of Winchelsea when you go north.”

“Manage Winchelsea. You? You really mean it, Frank?”

“I really mean it. Unless, of course, I can persuade you not to go. You must realise, cousin, that there are many people here in town who think your going to Harvard merely a disguise for secret revolutionary sentiments.”

“Then they think a lot of nonsense,” said Hart.

“That's not the point. Of course, you and I know that Purchis and loyalty are the same word, but you can't expect the mob to understand that. So all the more reason, if Purchis is absent, for a confirmed Loyalist, and however humble a member of the family, to continue in charge at Winchelsea.”

“And you'll really do it?” asked Hart.

“If you'll trust me. I'm afraid I am the most absolute tyro, but with Saul Gordon here, and Sam at Winchelsea, I will do my best to learn.”

“And what about me,” wailed his mother. “How am I to get to Charleston? You know I am not well enough to travel alone!”

“I'd been thinking about that,” said her son. “Why not let Hart escort you? If I promise to see that all goes smoothly at Winchelsea, Hart, will you see my poor mother through the worst of her arrival at Charleston?”

“I shall be only too happy. This is
good
news, Francis. I shall rest much more easy at the North for knowing that you are looking after things down here. And protecting my mother and the girls at Winchelsea.”

“Yes,” said Mrs Mayfield. “And who, pray, is going to protect me at Charleston when you have left, Hart?”

“Why, if you'll be ruled by me, Aunt, you'll let me help you find a new tenant, and come back to Winchelsea as soon as you can. I don't much like the idea of you on your own in Charleston. That house of yours is too near the water for safety if the mob were to come out. I don't want you exposed to any Charleston tea parties.”

“Surely you don't expect such a thing?”

“Ma'am, as long as that tea is stored at Charleston harbour,
anything can happen at any time. I wouldn't wish you to be a witness to a tarring and feathering.”

“Ugh!” said Mrs Mayfield. “Barbarous.”

Whether through Governor Wright's peace-making tactics or, as he himself suggested, through Francis Mayfield's active intervention, both at Tondee's Tavern and elsewhere, the fourth of June celebrations went off peacefully enough. As they did every year, Sir James and his council marched ceremoniously to Fort Halifax through the dust to drink the King's health, while cannon boomed along the bluff and the Savannah Rangers joined in the salute with a rattle of small-arms fire. Back at the Council House, the ladies joined the party for the ceremonial dinner in honour of George III's thirty-sixth birthday, which was to be followed by a ball and illuminations.

Mercy had not wanted to come, pleading her recent bereavement, but Hart had overruled her, on Governor Wright's direct orders, backed by some pressing from Francis. “Besides,” said Frank, “I want the promise of the first dance, and the pleasure of escorting you to the illuminations. Spectacular, I can tell you, when you see them from the bluff, reflected in the river below.”

“A terrible waste of powder,” said Hart. “And I wish Fort Halifax was in better trim. I was surprised to see how it had been let go to rack and ruin. And the other fortifications too.”

Mercy, accepting Frank's invitation for the first dance, found herself wondering, a little anxiously, what would be Abigail's fate, but when Francis joined them after dinner, he brought a stranger with him, a tall, dark man with the unmistakable air of elegance that meant, to Mercy, a visit to Europe.

Abigail, standing beside her, gave a little gasp as the two men approached. “Giles!” she said. “It's never you after all these years!”

Giles Habersham laughed and bent to kiss her hand. “Shall I dare remind you that the last time we met I was sick all over your best party taffeta and you boxed my ears for me?”

“I couldn't reach to do it now!” Mercy had seldom seen Abigail so animated.

“Nor, I hope, will you try and teach me the figure when
I take you out to dance. Do you remember how angry I used to get?”

“Yes, but you never did know it. I take it they have taught you to dance in Europe?”

“That, among other things, but nothing so happy as this return.” He turned reluctantly away as Francis made to present him to Mercy. “Your servant, ma'am.” Then, back to Abigail, “But, come, the fiddlers are striking up.”

“You have not yet asked me to dance.” Her tone was teasing.

“I am presuming,” he said gravely, taking her hand, “on our old acquaintance.”

Following them, “You will have to console me as best you may,” said Francis to Mercy. And then, with a laugh, “So much for my mother's fretting. I knew all along it was but for Giles to return and my luck would be quite out.”

“And your heart, of course, is breaking, you squire of dames.”

“Your squire, I hope. You must know—” But the dance was beginning.

Later, when the signal was given for the illuminations, he found her shawl for her and led her out into the warm darkness to watch. The crowd was spread out loosely along the bluff, with faces suddenly illuminated as a firework soared up, then lost again in the deeper darkness that followed. “Come this way.” His arm was warm under hers. “You are so tiny, you will never see unless we get a little out of the crowd. Your hand is like a child's.” His fingers were tracing its outline in the darkness.

“Stronger.” Mercy tried in vain to withdraw it.

“Mercy, I want to talk to you.”

“Miss Phillips to you, sir.”

“Oh,” impatiently, “I'll call you whatever you wish, child, so long as you will listen to me. I'm anxious about you—for you, Miss Phillips.”