Judas Flowering

by Jane Aiken Hodge

  “Officers only, I do trust,” said Mrs Mayfield. “I wonder what Frank would say.”

  Francis, visiting them that afternoon, looked at Mercy with surprised respect. “An excellent idea. Colonel Innes was speaking only this morning of the problem of entertainment. I’ll approach him about it, ma’am,” to Mrs Purchis. “But I think you can be sure of the necessary permissions.” This was to Mercy.

  “We’ll need to make a few small alterations to the house,” she told him. “Nothing, I’m sure, that our own people could not handle, just so long as they’re not taken away.”

  “You think of everything, don’t you? Very well, I will speak about that too. It’s a good plan, Mercy. I’m pleased you’re being so sensible. I was delighted to hear you had all taken the oath of allegiance.”

  “Well, of course,” she said. “What else could we do?”

  Two days later, Francis arrived with the necessary permissions, and an invitation. “Drive out with me to the McCartneys’, Mercy? The air will do you good.”

  They must talk alone sometime. The sooner the better? “Is Mrs McCartney back?” she asked.

  “No. She stays in New York. Wisely, I think. Easier for everyone.” Was that all he was going to say? Apparently. “Bridget is enthusiastic about your plan for an officers’ club, and most particularly asked me to bring you. They want to help.”

  “Then I will certainly come.”

  “You never answered my letter.” He had dismissed his man and was driving the whisky himself.

  “I did not know what to say, what to believe.” She had known this conversation must come, had tried to plan for it, was still doubtful what to do for the best. “Francis, I have to say this. I know about you and Mrs McCartney. All Savannah knows.”

  “Devil take Savannah! Mercy, I explained in my letter. I was penniless. With the mob after me, what could I do? I made her very happy for a while. But I never forgot you for a moment, Mercy. Never shall. There’s something about you that gets into a man’s blood. And you”—he turned to smile down at her with all the old confident charm—“you did not take Saul Gordon.”

  “Never!” He actually believed her still faithful to him, thought she had rejected Saul Gordon for his sake. It was almost too good to be true. “How could I, Francis?” She made her eyes wide and wistful as she looked up at him.

  “That’s my girl. We’d best keep it quiet awhile longer.” What pretext would he hit on this time? But he thought her his slave, and no explanations needed. He reached out a hand to pat her small brown one where it lay in her lap. “My admirable Mercy.”

  The Misses McCartney were expecting them, and Mercy, watching closely, saw that Bridget, too, had been well trained by Francis. One quick, flashing look, and she turned all her attention to Mercy, whom she had not met since the fall of Savannah. “So here we all are in our true colours at last.” She kissed Mercy warmly, for the first time. “Sister and I are quite delighted with this plan of yours for an officers’ club, and wish to help in every way we can. And one first thing—you will forgive me for speaking out, my dear creature—but”—an expressive glance swept from Mercy’s shabby homespun skirts to her own dark green silk—“if you are to play hostess, you surely must dress the part.”

  “I know.” Mercy smiled at her. “But I am ashamed to tell you how poor we are. Hart would sell for Georgia paper. I don’t know how I am to contrive—”

  “You must let us help you. Claire, dear, take Mercy upstairs; explain …”

  Accepting bolt after bolt of smuggled silk and satin from Claire, Mercy almost found it in her heart to be sorry for Bridget, who was paying in hoarded silks for ten minutes of Francis’ company. “By the way,” she told him when she and her loot had been settled in the carriage, “I think I have found someone to look after the building work for us.”

  “Oh?” He was not much interested.

  “Yes. A man called Miles. With William run, I need someone to keep the servants in order. Could you get me permission, Francis?”

  “For one of those smiles? Anything.”

  Still no word from Hart. It was a relief to be so busy. Miles had taken charge of the alterations and created such chaos in the house that Mrs Purchis and Mrs Mayfield had been glad to go and stay with the McCartneys. Mercy and Abigail sat upstairs and sewed the unfamiliar silk and satin in anxious silence. There had been no word from Giles either.

  “Mercy, you can’t!” Abigail spoke up at last when Mercy tried on the bronze satin dress she had been making.

  “Scandalous, ain’t it?” Mercy lapsed into cockney. “I reckon it will distract them so, I’ll skin them alive, those British officers.”

  “You’ll not cheat!”

  “I don’t think I’ll need to.” It was her first satin dress. Intoxicating. She dropped herself a stately curtsey in the glass. “Your servant, ma’am.”

  That night, very late, William came back. Miles caught him sneaking into the yard and sent at once for Mercy.

  “William.” She was between tears and laughter. “You’re safe! And Mr Hart?”

  “At Charleston, Miss Mercy. Jem stayed. Mr Hart sent me back. No letters. He said, too dangerous. Messages for his mother and aunt and Miss Abigail.”

  “And for me?”

  “Nothing miss. He ain’t spoken of you—not since he woke and found where he was. Not one word.”

  They opened the Officers’ Friendly Club next day, and Mercy, bronze satin pushed low off white shoulders, was queen of the evening. “It’s not exactly that she’s beautiful,” a British officer confided to Francis, “but there’s something about her …? She … she glows.”

  Francis repeated it to her, catching her for a moment behind the heavy velvet curtains she had had hung in the card room, raising her hand for a quick kiss. “You’re a marvel,” he said. “A witch. They’re all mad for you. Mercy! Is there not somewhere we can be alone? I had no idea …” His hungry eyes were on the bare white shoulders.

  She laughed up at him. “No more had I, Francis! I am enjoying myself.” And then, looking past him, “Mr Gordon! This is an unexpected pleasure.” Her tone was cool.

  “I hope to join your club, if a mere civilian may, Miss Mercy. I was thinking—” He was unsure of himself in this elegant, uniformed crowd, scarlet, blue, and green. “I wondered … I have a few dozen of wine lying on my hands. I’d be most grateful if you would accept them as a … as a …”

  “Gift, Mr Gordon?” A bribe. Stolen? Looted? Smuggled? “Too kind. But, come gentlemen, it is time to sit down to cards.”

  Abigail, severe in high-necked velvet, caught her a little later. “The servants are being much too free with the drink.”

  “Never mind.” Mercy flashed her a sparkling smile. “Mr Gordon has just promised me several dozen he has lying on his hands. “We’re a success.”

  Talk flowed more and more freely. The first civilised evening in this sand-hell … tales of the attack … the path through the marsh … so ludicrously simple … sympathy for brother officers, off pursuing the fleeing wreck of the American army … and toasts, repeated toasts, to the belle of the evening, Miss Phillips, who had thought of the club.

  “You’re a success.” Francis caught her again towards the end of the evening. “Clever little Mercy. Ride with me tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Oh. Francis, I can’t. I promised Mr Gordon I’d go and look at his wine.”

  “Let me come too! You should not be alone with him!”

  “Dear Francis, if I took you too, I might not get the wine. But, look, there is Bridget McCartney all alone. Take pity on her, Frank?”

  She received Saul Gordon’s latest proposal across several dusty dozens of champagne and turned it off with a laugh. “I am enjoying myself far too much to consider matrimony. When the club begins to fail, when the British march away, when life becomes drab again, speak to me then, if you still wish to.”

  “Is that a promise?”

  “If you like to think so. It’s what I’m tel
ling all the gentlemen.”

  “All?”

  “I’m a seven days’ wonder, Mr Gordon. Did you not know? Who would have thought a few yards of satin would make such a difference to a girl.”

  “But I loved you long ago, in your homespun.”

  “Why, so you did! You wanted a housekeeper then. What do you want now?” She turned, with a sharp swish of taffeta, and left him.

  “Lord, how they talk.” Abigail had still not heard from Giles, and looked pale and drawn these days. “I don’t know how you can go on looking interested, Mercy. You’ll wear yourself out. You look exhausted already. As if you weren’t sleeping. And, dear, I do wish—”

  “I wouldn’t flirt with them? Do you remember when I first came to live with you, nobody ever danced with me but Francis—”

  “And Hart,” Abigail finished it for her. “I wish we would hear from Hart. His mother is fretting.”

  Fretting! That night, Mercy volunteered to sing for the company and brought the house down with a dramatised rendering of:

  How happy could I be with either

  Were t’other dear charmer away.

  After that, there was no holding them, and she sang one of Mr Gay’s songs after another, until midnight came and it was time to close the doors.

  The club resounded with good news. The rebels had been roundly defeated at a place called Briar Creek, and General Prevost had launched an attack on South Carolina and even threatened Charleston itself. As, once before, there had been no Loyalists, now there were no rebels in Savannah. Or not many, and they suffered for their convictions. Those whose houses had not actually been confiscated, had officers or men billeted on them and must endure their whims. Since the alterations to the house in Oglethorpe Square had left the family’s quarters sadly restricted, Francis and a couple of other officers had got themselves billeted on Mrs Reynolds. “Very handy for the club,” said Francis.

  Mercy, who now shared a room with Abigail, suspected that he and his two friends used to adjourn there when the club closed, taking guests with them. Female guests? It was not her affair.

  The British were investing Charleston now, and still there was no word from Hart. Listening avidly to talk in the club, Mercy learned, at last, with a silent, heartfelt sigh of relief, that the attack had been abandoned and the British forces were retreating with an immense amount of loot and squads of “liberated” slaves.

  Giles Habersham returned to Savannah with General Prevost “Absurd creature,” Francis told Abigail. “He does not choose to come to the club, but asked me to tell you he will call on you tomorrow morning.”

  It was an unlucky visit. Arriving early, Giles found tired servants still removing gouts of candle-wax from green-baize card tables. Even Mercy had overslept and greeted him heavy-eyed as she replaced packs of cards neatly in their containers. He looked about him with distaste. “It smells like a tavern. I’d not have believed it.”

  “You should have come last night,” Mercy told him. “Then you would have seen for yourself. It’s pleasant then. But, Giles, one thing she won’t tell you—she’s too loyal to me, to her aunts—but Abigail hates it just as much as you do. Only we have to live.”

  “It’s all sickening together,” he said. “If you had seen what I have these last few weeks, the wanton destruction—oh, by both sides. Horrible. Do you know, I think I was glad we failed to take Charleston, that I was spared another sack.”

  “Giles?”

  “Yes?”

  “Was there any news of Hart?”

  “You’ve not heard?”

  “Nothing.”

  “He’s serving with Moultrie; was in the lines defending Charleston. That I do know. No more. But.” Impatiently, “Am I not to see Abigail? And, Mercy, alone?”

  “I’ll fetch her. We were late to bed last night. Giles—” No use; his face was closed, impatient.

  She never learnt just what they quarrelled about, but it was disastrous, final. Giles applied for a transfer to the West Indies next day, and Abigail crept about the house like a ghost and refused to appear at the club in the evening. She was missed, but not badly, not so long as Mercy was there.

  Sir James Wright, returning in July to take over his interrupted duties as Royal Governor, paid an early call at the house in Oglethorpe Square. It was very elegant now, the garden trimly cared for and the ruined summerhouse in the corner repaired and repainted.

  “Sir James!” Mrs Purchis had seen his carriage draw up outside the house and hurried out onto the porch to greet him. “It is so good to see you again.”

  “And to find you in such good heart, ma’am.” He bent to kiss her hand. “You have done wonders for the morale of our officers, I hear, with this club of yours. I congratulate you.”

  “Thank you.” She led the way into the house. “The amazing thing is”—she looked about at new paint and shining furniture—“we seem to be making money by it.”

  “And giving great pleasure. I would like to thank Miss Phillips,”

  “She is rehearsing, I think, but will join us, I am sure, directly.”

  “Rehearsing?”

  “Did you not know? The officers are opening a theatre on Broughton Street and have asked Mercy and Abigail to take part in Mr Gay’s Beggar’s Opera. I am not quite sure about it myself, and Abigail persists in refusing, but Mercy seems quite to be enjoying herself. These are strange times, Sir James.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” It gave him his opening. “Have you news of Hart?”

  “None. One message to let us know he was safe away. Sir James, it was not right, what they did to him in New York.”

  “Ma’am.” His embarrassed rejoinder was interrupted.

  An exquisite young woman in powdered wig, crinoline, and high, red-heeled shoes had swept into the room. “Sir James.” She swept into a curtsey. “We are honoured indeed.”

  “Can it?” He looked at her once and again. “Yes, it is … Miss Phillips, I am come to thank you for all you have done for us.”

  “Why, thank you, sir.” Once again the extravagant curtsey. She laughed up at him, bewitching. “Forgive my costume! We are planning a small entertainment at which I hope you will honour us with your presence. We have been rehearsing. I have not enjoyed myself so much this age.”

  She had changed, he thought. She had grown frivolous. He had liked her better in homespun. Well, they were strange times. But it made the errand that had brought him seem even more ridiculous. “Miss Phillips.” His tone was serious now.

  “La, sir, how grave you sound. I hope you do not think I am leading your young men astray. We run a most genteel house, do we not, Mrs Purchis?”

  “No, no, nothing like that. I’m only grateful to you for keeping them so harmlessly amused through the tedium of an occupation. But, Miss Phillips, have you heard of someone they call the Rebel Pamphleteer?

  “Well, of course. Everyone talks of him. Scandalous, ain’t they, his broadsheets? I vow the last one I saw quite put me to the blush with what it said about you, Sir James.” And then, apologetically, “The boys will bring them.”

  “Boys?”

  “Your charming officers, I should say. The trouble is”—she used her fan expressively—“one can’t help laughing, can one?”

  “I can. They are doing a great deal of harm, both here in Savannah and in the backwoods. And what I want to know is, how are they getting printed?”

  She looked up at him with big eyes. “But surely everyone knows that? On Mr Johnston’s press. That poor schoolmaster, Mr Hammerer, that you’ve got printing the Gazette has no kind of order to the business. I have no doubt someone gets in at night. You’d best fetch Mr Johnston back from the Indies, Sir James.”

  “I’ve sent for him. But, Miss Phillips, I am come to ask you, to remind you—I’m sorry—of that press of your father’s that was never found.”

  “And not for lack of looking.” She smiled up at him over her fan. “I surely thought it was buried out near the house where … where he was kil
led. I told Francis. Someone looked there. Didn’t find it. Or”—she snapped the fan shut—“maybe they did? You’d best ask Francis, Sir James.”

  “And what did you mean by putting him on to me?” Francis was dangerous with rage, and she wished he had not found her alone in the summerhouse, and at dusk.

  “Dear Francis, I didn’t know what to do for the best.” She looked up at him meekly. “And you always manage so cleverly. I thought best just to tell the truth and leave all to you.” She made to rise from the bench where she had been sitting, but he pushed her back and stood over her, looking down.

  “I wish I understood you as well as I adore you.” His hands were on her shoulders now, pushing the soft muslin away from them, then moving down to cup each breast. “It’s time you proved you love me,” he said.

  “Francis! Not now! Not here!”

  “Why not? They’re all upstairs, dressing. We’re here, my lovely Mercy, here alone at last, thank God.” The bench was rough and hard under her back as he pushed her down. “I must be sure of you.” His lips were where his hands had been, his hands busy with her skirts.

  “Miss Mercy?” She could never have imagined hearing Saul Gordon’s voice with such pleasure.

  “Damnation!” Francis’ last kiss hurt the soft flesh. “What is it?” He left her on the bench and moved away to meet Gordon.

  “I was looking for Miss Mercy, sir.” Gordon’s voice was apologetic. “I found a couple more cases of wine I thought she might like to have.”

  “You’ll find her in the summerhouse.” Francis strode off through the gate to the street, and Saul Gordon came forward, hesitantly, his pale face shining in the darkness.

  “Miss Mercy. I do hope I did right.” He was very carefully not looking at her.

  “Quite right, thank you. And the less said about it, the better.” She moved forward to meet him before he, in his turn, could corner her in the summerhouse. “It was foolish of me to be sitting out so late. It shall not happen again. I’m … grateful. I’ll not forget.”