Judas Flowering

by Jane Aiken Hodge

  Agreeing gratefully, she was amazed as always at the speed with which family news travelled among the servants. Equally, and of course, it would be all over Savannah. When William returned and put on the bolt, she sent him off to hunt the house for screens to mask the door from the outside. “We must keep him quiet at all costs,” she explained. “And we are bound to have visitors. Miss Abigail will have to see them, since I have exposed myself to the fever. I shall go to and fro by the back way.”

  “Yes, miss. I surely hope the rain don’t start. But if it do, I’ll think of something.”

  “I’m sure you will.”

  It was peaceful, nursing Hart. Since she would not allow either the front door of the office or the one into the house next door to be opened, she could only see people in the back yard, and it was not many who would come round through the servants’ quarters. Captain Smythe came, to be thanked once again, and wish her luck, and Dr Flinn came daily, and, daily, allowed a little more hope. “But it will be a long business,” he warned her. “And I think I should tell you that, even if he does recover, I fear some permanent damage to the muscle of his right arm. He must have thrown up his arm to protect his head, and the sabre caught him in an awkward place. Well.” He was making ready to go. “It’s the end of fighting for him, which may be no bad thing.”

  “Doctor, you speak as if you thought he would recover.”

  “That’s true,” he said. “I think I do. Thanks to you, Miss Phillips. And if you can go on keeping him quiet. I shall be glad when his mind stops wandering.”

  “So shall I. Though, mind you, it makes him easier to nurse.”

  “Yes.” Dr Flinn had grown very fond of her. “I think you must expect trouble when he does come round. He won’t a bit like your nursing him, you know.”

  “Of course he won’t.” And that was an understatement if ever there was one. What in the world would Hart say when he found who was nursing him? But that, like all the others, was a bridge she would cross when she came to it. She smiled at Dr Flinn. “I am rather hoping that by then he will be well enough so I can let Amy and her daughter take over and pretend they have been nursing him all the time.”

  “You think of everything, Miss Phillips. I shan’t worry myself about you. Except, I wish you will not over-tire yourself. Do you get out at all?”

  “Oh, yes, in the evenings, when I am less likely to frighten people with thoughts of the fever.” In fact, she now habitually put on her peasant’s shawl and went down to take the air on the bluff and gather what news she could.

  When she returned that evening, it was to crisis. Saul Gordon had arrived from Winchelsea, Amy told her, and was furious at finding himself turned out of the office. “You can hear him,” said the old woman, and it was true. The angry voice in the next room penetrated through screens and door alike.

  “I’ll go and speak to him,” said Mercy. “Let me out the front way, Amy, it’s quicker. But lock up tight behind me.” Luckily, she and Dr Flinn had agreed that very morning that the pretext of the fever could now be abandoned, since the nine days’ wonder of Hart’s return had been superseded by new rumours of a possible invasion from St Augustine.

  Her appearance, for the first time, in the family living room caused an apprehensive stir in the agitated little group there. Saul Gordon had been haranguing the two older ladies while Abigail listened and looked anxious. Now they all turned to stare at Mercy. “Is this wise?” Mrs Purchis took a step backward and picked up her fan from the table.

  “Yes. And necessary. You are disturbing my patient, Mr Gordon, with your shouting.”

  “Your patient is in my office,” he said angrily.

  “I think you forget, Mr Gordon, that my patient is your employer.”

  “That’s as may be,” said Gordon.

  Before she could take him up on it, Mrs Purchis interrupted, “Keep away,” she exclaimed, as Mercy took a step forward. “Do you want us all dying and the whole house quarantined! Things are quite bad enough as it is, with hardly a soul coming near us since the news of Hart’s fever got about.”

  “My apologies.” Mercy’s voice was dry. “I quite forgot to mention that Dr Flinn pronounced Hart clear of the fever when he called today. But he still needs quiet. No visitors, the doctor says, until his mind is clear.” Which, please God, would be soon.

  “Oh!” Saul Gordon pounced on it. “So he’s still out of his mind, is he? And it’s you, I take it, that I have to thank for this high-handed decision to turn me out of my office?”

  “I’m afraid so. Did no one explain that I had all your papers moved, with the greatest care, to a room at the back?”

  “Entered from the slaves’ quarters! I thank you, yes, they did explain. And as for tampering with my papers in my absence! Mrs Purchis”—he turned angrily back to her—“since your son is out of his mind and likely to remain so, and since you let this young person rule the roost here, I have no option but to offer you my resignation.”

  “Mr Gordon! You’d never do that after all your years with us!”

  “On the contrary.” He drew himself up to his full five feet four inches. “I have quite made up my mind. Frankly, I have had good offers of employment and refused them out of loyalty to you. This high-handed behaviour on your housekeeper’s part has made up my mind for me. I will but collect my papers from the slave’s hovel where she has had them put and take my leave of you.”

  “No, you will not,” said Mercy. Something in his tone as he spoke of the papers had alerted her. “They are not your papers, Mr Gordon, but Mr Purchis’. For your own sake, I know you will wish an independent observer to be by as you remove what is yours and leave what is his. I suggest we send for Mr Purchis’ lawyer.”

  “He’s out of town.” But the fight had gone out of Saul Gordon.

  “Then we will wait until he comes back. In the meantime, the papers will remain locked up and I shall keep the key. Naturally, Mr Gordon, you must do what you think best about your own affairs. If you really wish to leave, I do not imagine that Mrs Purchis will try to prevent you. Indeed, ma’am”—she turned to Martha Purchis—“with business so quiet and the harvest safe in at Winchelsea, I am sure Sam and I could see to things between us until Hart recovers.”

  “If he recovers.” But Saul Gordon’s tone had changed. “Of course, I will not abandon you at this anxious time, ma’am. If you will give me the keys to my new quarters, Miss Phillips, I will start setting things to rights there.”

  For a moment, she was tempted to refuse. She was more certain than ever, now, that there was something very wrong among those papers, but looking at the relieved faces of the three other women she knew that this was a battle she was bound to lose, and gave way with good grace. Only, afterwards, sitting in the quiet of Hart’s room was there time to wonder whether it was evidence of public or of private treachery that Saul Gordon was, doubtless, this very moment destroying.

  She was sitting by the bed, gently rubbing Hart’s limp right hand, when his left one touched hers. Looking quickly to his face, she saw his deep-sunk blue eyes, fixed on her, rational at last. “Mercy!” It was between a sigh and a whisper. “I’m home?”

  “Yes, thank God. And getting stronger every day.”

  “Day!” He tried to sit up, but she put a gentle hand on his chest to hold him down. “How long have I been ill?”

  “A long time. Captain Smythe brought you home a month ago.”

  “A month! Dear God. Then it’s—”

  “November. No, Hart!” He had tried again to sit up. “You’re not strong enough.”

  “Then you must go.” He let himself fall back among the pillows. “To the Assembly … warn them … the British are going to attack down here in the South. It’s the last thing I remember. While I was waiting for the exchange to go through. Hearing them laughing and talking about it. Plenty of Loyalists, they said, ready to help when they landed. Up by land from St Augustine, down by water from New York. Mercy, how are the fortifications?”
<
br />   “Don’t worry, Hart.” She dared not tell him that nothing had been done about repairing them. “Lie and rest. I will go to the Assembly directly.” This time they must believe her. Better, of course, if she could get a man to go, but nothing would make her trust Saul Gordon with the message, and Dr Flinn had left town. She sent Amy to sit with Hart and hurried out, to find the streets unusually crowded.

  “What’s the matter?” she asked the first neighbour she met.

  “Matter enough. The British are out from St Augustine. They’ve burned Midway Meeting House and are raping and looting all the way up to Sunbury. My father lives down there.”

  “I’m sorry.” She said it mechanically. So half of Hart’s warning had come true. Would this make it harder or easier to persuade the Assembly of the truth of the other half?

  It made it impossible. The Assemble was in emergency session; messengers were rushing to and fro, each one with a new bulletin of bad new. The best she could do was write Hart’s warning, have it sent in to Governor Houston, go home, and hope for the best. She found Hart heavily asleep, with Amy sitting beside him. “He’s rambling in his mind again,” said Amy. “He keeps talking about Mr Francis. Saying the strangest things.” And then, “Don’t you worry, Miss Mercy, I won’t say a thing. Not even to William.”

  Chapter 19

  “Francis!” Mercy had dozed off in her chair by the bed, but Hart’s voice woke her. “You must know me! I can’t have changed so much! Oh … filthy … stinking … these vile hulks, but, Frank, I’m your cousin, your Cousin Hart. What do you mean? Complete stranger? It’s not possible, Frank!” The final shout tailed off horribly into a groan.

  “Hush.” Mercy reached out and took his good hand. “It’s all over, Hart. You’re home—you’re safe in Savannah.”

  “Judas!” he said. “My cousin Judas. But why? I saw it in your eye. I knew you recognized me. How could you not? And left me there to rot. Why, Francis? It made me wonder.…” He sat bolt upright in bed. “When did you start to lie to me, Francis? Cousin Francis … Lies … all lies? If only it were … Mercy?”

  “Yes?” But did he recognise her?

  “Tell me it was lies … I thought … all winter, freezing there at Valley Forge … I thought about you … not a traitor, Mercy? Anything else … not a traitor? Not you?”

  “No. A fool, maybe, but not a traitor. Hart, you must rest.” She reached for the laudanum Dr Flinn had left for him. “Drink this. Trust me. Rest.”

  “Poison? Cousin Judas?” But he drank it obediently and was soon deeply asleep.

  Amy watched by him for the second half of the night and reported in the morning that he seemed calmer. “He’s asking for you, Miss Mercy.”

  “Good.” Mercy had brought a bowl of gruel and sat down by the bed. “Good morning, Hart. I have brought your breakfast.”

  His eyes were clearer today; she thought there was real recognition in them. “Food.” He took a mouthful obediently. “We were hungry all the time. Fought each other for … for horrors. I remember—”

  “Don’t remember, Hart.” Another spoonful. “Try to forget. You’re home now, in Savannah—safe.”

  “No! Not safe. Nothing’s safe. Nothing’s sure anymore. Savannah’s betrayed. The British are coming. Mercy, have you been to the Assembly?”

  “Yes.” It was only half the truth, but Hart needed rest, for both body and mind, and she meant him to get it. She longed to know whether he remembered anything of their strange conversation the night before, but knew she must not speak of it. At least he was treating her as friend and nurse, and with that, for the moment, she must be satisfied.

  Dr Flinn called next afternoon and was encouraging about Hart’s improvement. “His mind is clearing steadily now, but you must not let him worry himself over these imaginings of him. Do you know he told me that he had seen his cousin Francis some time during his illness? If Frank Mayfield had known poor Hart had got among the common soldiers on the hulks, he’d have had him out of there in no time and treated like the officer he was. It’s all delusion, but I advise you to let him think the Assembly is acting on his advice. We mustn’t have him worrying himself worse again.”

  “No, indeed. Doctor, how long before you think he will be well enough to be moved?”

  “Moved? What need? Oh, you were thinking of a change of air out at Winchelsea? I’m not sure I would recommend it, but I suppose in two months or so, if you took him easily, by water.”

  “I see.” If only she was still in charge of the nursing, but now Hart was conscious, she had had to yield most of it to Amy and her daughter, and was afraid that his progress had slowed down as a result of their loving but erratic ministrations. Nor did the inevitable daily visits from his mother and aunt help much. They always left him white and exhausted, but when Mercy suggested that the visits be kept short, Mrs Purchis lost her temper, as she did too often these days.

  “I’ll thank you to let me know what’s best for my own son! As if setting Mr Gordon against us was not bad enough! I warn you, Miss Phillips, that when Hart is a little stronger I mean to get a new housekeeper who understands her position in the family rather better than you do.”

  “Aunt Martha!” Abigail had been a horrified spectator and now began a protest, only to be rounded on by her aunt.

  “No, child! Do you not see how she has insinuated herself into the management of things that should properly be yours, granted the uncertain state of my health. And has made a pretty penny of it, I have no doubt, with her salary paid in cash or kind, and who knows what saved here and there out of the housekeeping. I warn you”—back to Mercy—“I have promised Mr Gordon that as soon as Hart is well there is to be a thorough investigation into what has been going on in this house, and I hope we will find that the records are straight.”

  So did Mercy, but did not expect it. She had made, she realised, a dangerous enemy in Saul Gordon. But she had more urgent things to think about. The news from the south grew worse every day. The British had surrounded Sunbury now and ordered it to yield, and though Colonel John McIntosh’s reply, “Come and take it!” had already become a catchword in Savannah, the fact remained that if Sunbury should fall, little or nothing stood between the enemy and Savannah itself, with its inadequate fortifications and handful of guns bearing only on the river. And still, every day came the unspeakable stories of pillage, rapine, and revenge. Rebel against Loyalist. Brother against brother. Father against son. If Savannah should be taken, Hart must not be there to be recaptured. Neither his mind nor his body would stand another spell of imprisonment.

  “William!” She had contrived to find the coachman alone in the stables at the far end of the lot, where he was busy polishing the family carriage and singing a doleful tune as he did so:

  Where’er they march the buildings burn

  Large stacks of rice to ashes turn….

  “Yes, ma’am?” He turned at the sound of her voice.

  “I need your help. For Mr Hart. Just in case—”

  “Yes, ma’am. You think, the cellar?”

  “No, I don’t. It would be bad for him, and besides, we don’t know how long—”

  “We sure don’t. But is he well enough to ride, ma’am?”

  “No. It will have to be by boat. Can you have one ready, below the bluff, out of sight? All the time, William. With men you can trust to man her?”

  “Ours?” Doubtfully, “I reckon I’d not be sure which might choose to tell Mr Gordon. And I don’t trust him nohow. But there’s Jem, of course, and he and I’ve got friends among other families might be glad of a chance to get clear. That’s what it will be, won’t it?”

  “Yes, that’s what it will be. I can pay, thank God. In cash.” She had not spent a penny of her wages.

  “That’s good. Will you be coming?”

  “No.” They both knew it would add immeasurably to the danger of the escape.

  William told her three days later that it was all arranged. “You don’t need to fret ‘bout
nothing, ma’am. You give the signal; Jem and I take him down to the wharf; they’ll be ready.”

  “God bless you, William.”

  Hart could walk very feebly across the little room now, but he was still obviously not well enough to be worried about business. Nothing more had been said about a new housekeeper, but Mrs Purchis’ manner warned Mercy that she was merely biding her time, and Saul Gordon was his plump, confident self again. He was spending a great deal of time at the McCartney house, where he met many of the leading members of the Assembly, of whom he now spoke familiarly by their first names. He came back from there one Friday early in December with a budget of good news. The British attack on Sunbury had failed. “Now I hope we’ll hear no more panic talk of bringing the slaves in from Winchelsea.” The statement was general, but aimed, she knew, at Mercy. She hated his habit of calling the servants slaves, often in front of them, but until Hart was well enough to take charge of his own affairs, there was nothing she could do about it. And at least Gordon volunteered to ride out to Winchelsea to make sure that all went well there and to bring back some badly needed supplies. “We’ll get a fancy price for our seed-corn next year, ma’am,” Mercy heard him tell Mrs Purchis. “With all the destruction down south, it will be at a premium. Oh, I know there’s talk of fixing prices, but you can rely on me to see you right.”

  “I don’t know what I’d do without you,” she told him with a side glance for Mercy, who beat a retreat, as she often did, into Hart’s room, where she could be sure of a welcome.

  But when she told him of the British retreat from Sunbury, he merely frowned anxiously. “I don’t believe it. Oh, they may have retired for the moment, but those were mere skirmishing parties. It is something very much more serious that I fear. Mercy, I must get my strength back so that I can go and speak to the Assembly myself. Take me out of doors. That will do me more good than anything.”

  “Not in the street.”

  “No, in the yard. Walking up and down there will be better than crawling to and fro in this wretched little room.” And then warmly, “Not that I’m not immensely grateful for all you’ve done, but I begin to think if I have to spend much longer staring at these four walls, I’ll go mad.”