‘Five. Four now. And I may have wounded another.’
‘Then we have a chance. The light’s going. When they appear, you must speak to them. Tell them to stand, or we fire. Make it sound as if we were friends of yours, soldiers, a threat. That’s right, Jed.’ He had been manoeuvring the sledge so it lay at an angle across the road, the horses to one side in a passing place. ‘Fire when I give the word,’ she told him, swiftly examining the Frenchman’s pistol. ‘Does it fire true?’ she asked.
‘Yes, if you can handle it.’
‘Oh, never fear for that.’ She was trying to decide whether to leave Ruth in the sledge. It was a good deal darker now, and she thought that they would present a fairly formidable-looking group silhouetted against the snow. ‘Keep down, Ruth,’ she urged. ‘And keep quiet.’ Fatal if she should scream. ‘Jed, you take the one to your left, I’ll fire to the right. Here they come!’ A little group of dark figures had emerged from the wood and hesitated at the sight of their party. ‘Now, monsieur. Frighten them if you can,’ she urged.
‘Halt, there,’ he shouted as they began to come forward, rather hesitantly, Mercy thought. ‘I have met my friends. We are armed and ready for you. Come any further, and we fire.’
They paused, an indistinct huddle against the dark of the wood, and Mercy turned to Jed. ‘We’ll have to hold our fire until they are clear of the trees,’ she told him. ‘We’d never hit them now. When they are outlined against that bank of snow, that’s our time.’
‘If they don’t fire first,’ said Jed.
‘I doubt they can see us any better.’
‘I hope they don’t hit the horses.’
‘They don’t want to,’ she said. ‘That’s why they’re not firing already.’ The men had started moving forward now, spreading out to present a wider field of fire. Four of them, as the Frenchman had said. ‘We’ll have to reload fast.’ Despite the cold, her hands were damp with sweat on the pistol. The outlaws were coming forward steadily now, silently, drawn by the irresistible target of sledge and horses. If either she or Jed missed a first shot, they would be lucky to get a second. ‘Now!’ she said, and the two shots rang out, dull-sounding against the snow. For a horrible moment she thought they had both missed, then saw the man to the right of the group begin to crumple downwards while the one on the left was cursing and holding his right arm with his left one. No time to be looking at them. She was reloading with cold hands that would shake.
‘After them, my friends,’ shouted the Frenchman. ‘Don’t let the villains escape!’
That did it. The three who had remained standing turned and fled, leaving their comrade where he lay. The Frenchman turned shakily to look at Mercy for the first time. ‘Thank you, mademoiselle,’ he said. ‘You saved my life.’
‘Then I’d better make a job of it by bandaging that wound of yours,’ she told him. ‘Jed, help me get his coat off. Ruth, there’s a petticoat at the top of the valise. Get it out for me, would you?’
‘Yes, Sister.’ To Mercy’s immense relief, Ruth responded to the tone of command and began obediently tearing the petticoat into strips as Jed and Mercy eased the Frenchman out of his coat. The wound in his forearm, though bleeding freely and obviously incapacitating, was less serious than Mercy had feared. ‘But we must get you to some shelter,’ she said as she bound it up. ‘Do you know these parts, monsieur?’
‘Call me Charles,’ he said, pronouncing it in English.
‘Or Charles?’
‘Quick of you, mademoiselle, but English is better. You Americans do not seem to take kindly to strangers. I believe those ruffians back there might have let me alone if it had not been for my accent. No,’ he replied to her question. ‘I am quite a stranger here. I had intended to spend the night at the inn at Somerset Courthouse. The other side of the wood, I take it.’
‘So had we.’ Mercy looked unhappily at the dark bulk of the wood, which seemed increasingly sinister as the light faded. ‘And it’s a long stretch back to the last inn.’ She had been thinking about this. ‘It would be quite dark before we got there.’
‘It will be dark in the wood,’ said Jed.
‘And the longer we stay here talking, the darker it will get.’ She made her voice as positive as she could.
VI
‘Listen!’ said Jed. ‘Someone’s coming.’
Mercy had been helping the Frenchman into the sledge but straightened up at the sound of voices, a horse’s neigh, the creak of a sledge, clear in the twilight hush. ‘Thank God,’ she said. ‘Someone else on their way to the inn. We’ll wait for them, go through the wood together.’
‘Excellent,’ said the Frenchman. ‘Have you a lantern, mademoiselle? I think we will need it.’
‘Madame,’ she said. ‘Mrs. Purchis. Yes. Would you light the lantern, Jed? My brother and sister,’ she told the stranger. ‘Ruth and Jed Paston.’ What had made her give him her real name?
‘And I am Charles Brisson, your most indebted servant.’ He pronounced his name English style to rhyme with prison. ‘I am here on business for my government,’ he explained. ‘But the less said about that, madame, the better. I shall hope that these people have less acute ears than yours, and pass myself off as an American merchant on his way to Philadelphia.’ She noticed that since the moment of crisis had passed, he was speaking with much less of an accent.
‘I am sure you will succeed,’ she told him. ‘Of course, we will say nothing. I doubt my brother and sister have noticed.’
‘You are all goodness.’ A sparkling glance from large dark eyes made her feel like a woman again. ‘Ah, here they come.’
The new group of travellers approached cautiously through the gathering dusk, and Mercy raised her voice to call to them. ‘We’ve been attacked,’ she said, ‘by bandits. We beat them off but are hoping for your company through the wood.’
‘You were lucky,’ came a friendly voice from the shadows. ‘We had wondered if you were bandits yourselves, but I don’t believe there are women brigands yet. We’ll be glad to join you. Safety in numbers. Ah!’ Jed had got the lantern lighted, and the stranger could see them in its light. ‘So few of you, and you fought them off?’
‘As you say, we were lucky. I’m Mrs. Purchis. My brother and sister, Pastons. Mr. Brisson, who is wounded.’
‘Then we must lose no time. My name’s Palmer. George Palmer. My brother, Henry; our servant. We are bound for Philadelphia. And you?’
‘Are going there too.’ While they talked, Jed had turned their sledge round to face once more towards the wood. ‘Let us go,’ she said. ‘Time to talk when we are safe at the inn.’
‘Let me lead,’ said George Palmer. ‘I know the road.’
‘That’s good. Jed, let them by, we’ll follow.’
‘How many outlaws?’ asked Palmer as the servant edged his sledge past.
‘Only two now, I think. We wounded two, but I saw them struggle away. I doubt they’ll attack again.’ She had been relieved to see that she had not actually killed her man.
‘Then let’s go. Keep close behind. Sam—’ he spoke to the servant – ‘light our lantern so our friends can follow it.’
Even with company, it was unpleasantly dark in the wood, and Mercy doubted if they would have found their way without the providential appearance of the Palmers. When they reached the inn at last, Charles Brisson was half-conscious from loss of blood, and Mercy was glad to find a capable landlady very ready to help change his makeshift bandage and get him into bed, while her husband looked after the other travellers.
‘The wound’s nothing much,’ said the landlady when she and Mercy left him at last. ‘He should do well enough.’
‘I hope so.’ Mercy shared her slight surprise that a mere flesh wound had weakened the Frenchman so much, but then she had no idea how far he had travelled. He was younger, too, than his voice made him seem, slightly built, with large dark eyes set deep in a pale face that just missed handsomeness. If he was a civilian envoy of the French govenment, this m
ight, she supposed, have been his first encounter with violence and therefore much more shocking than it would have been to an American, after five bloody years of war.
She found the rest of the party gathered in the kitchen, the men drinking rough cyder while the landlord’s daughter cooked their supper. The cyder was on the house, the landlord’s tribute to their encounter with the brigands, and he insisted that she drink some too, since she and Jed were the heroes of the hour. ‘I reckon it was the Bartram brothers attacked you.’ The landlord handed her a brimming pewter tankard. ‘Been plaguing these parts two years or more. If you’ve rid us of two of them varmints, you’ve done us a favour, ma’am, and no mistake. I drink to you.’
‘A formidable young lady,’ said George Palmer. ‘I certainly hope to have the pleasure of your company for the rest of the way to Philadelphia, Mrs. Purchis, if it’s agreeable to you.’
‘It is indeed.’ She had been hoping for such a suggestion. ‘But we are travelling with our own horses. Will we not go too slow for you?’
‘We are doing so too,’ he told her. ‘Slower stages, but I prefer it.’ He rose to move over to the big scrubbed table where the landlord’s daughter was laying out steaming platefuls of salt beef and beans.
As always, conversation over supper was general, and careful, but the Palmers, too, had heard the rumour of an attack on Charleston. Eating with appetite herself, Mercy noticed anxiously that Ruth was picking at her food, pale and even more withdrawn than usual. After a while she excused herself and took Ruth up to the little garret room they were to share with the landlord’s daughter. It was not late, and after she had settled Ruth for the night, still without a word spoken, she went back to join the rest of the company for the rare treat of the landlady’s own preserved blackberries. ‘We picked a bushel last fall,’ she explained in answer to Mercy’s compliment. ‘And I laid hands on some sugar. We have to make the most of what’s going these days.’
‘We certainly do.’ Mercy had noticed the landlord give his wife a quick, angry glance in the course of her last speech and wondered just where the sugar had come from. Like salt, it was scarce enough these days to make a very handy bribe. Could it perhaps have come out from New York in return for services rendered? And just what, she wondered, had the so friendly landlord’s relationship been with the Bartram brothers, who, he said, had plagued the district. And were they Cowboys or Skinners? He had not said. She would be glad to get away from here, she thought, rising to say good night.
‘An early start in the morning, ma’am?’ George Palmer rose too.
‘As early as you please.’
‘But will your friend be well enough?’ asked his brother.
It was a natural mistake, and she was about to explain about Brisson when she heard Ruth scream, and turned with a quick apology to run up the steep attic stairs.
This bout of hysteria was worse even than the one on the day they had left Farnham, and Mercy noticed that now it was the name of Ruth’s sister, Naomi, not her mother’s that came over and over again between the horrible half-human screams. Today’s adventure must have brought back memories of the Indian attack. In the end she administered a short, hard slap and a dose of laudanum supplied by the landlady in the interests, she said, of a little quiet in the house for the other guests. ‘You’ll be moving on tomorrow,’ were her last firm words as she bade Mercy good night, and Mercy could hardly blame her. Ruth was certainly a formidable responsibility, and it was difficult not to wish she had never met her or made that rash promise to her mother. But after all, Ruth was Abigail’s cousin, the family’s affair. She only hoped they would see it that way.
To her relief, Ruth waked quiet and docile as ever, and when they went down to the kitchen, they found Charles Brisson also up and dressed, his arm in a sling contrived by the landlady out of an old sheet. His colour was back, and his dark eyes sparkled as he rose to greet her. ‘My guardian angel.’ For a moment she actually thought he was going to kiss her hand, but he contented himself with a look of warm gratitude. ‘Did you get some sleep?’ he asked as he pulled out a chair for her. ‘I’m afraid your sister is not well.’
‘No.’ She was grateful for the understatement.
‘I hope you will let me travel with you and help you to look after her.’ He was speaking quietly, under cover of a babble of general talk from the rest of the company. ‘Indeed, I would be most grateful if you would allow me a place in your sledge today. My shoulder is much better, but I am not sure whether I could manage the reins. Perhaps your brother would be so good as to ride my horse?’
It would mean that she had to drive all day, but she did not see how she could refuse him, and besides, she would be glad of his company. Last night’s scene with Ruth had been exhausting, and the burden of today’s journey, still through the debatable ground, had been weighing rather heavily on her. She was very fond of Jed by now, but the fact remained that he was only a boy and she had to take all their decisions. She smiled at the Frenchman. ‘I’ll be happy to have you,’ she said. ‘And I’m sure Jed will be glad to ride your horse.’
Jed was delighted. ‘If you can manage the sledge?’ He had not yet contrived to use Mercy’s first name as she had urged he do.
‘I shall help Mrs. Purchis,’ said Charles Brisson. ‘I may not be able to ride, but I can certainly manage those horses of yours with one hand.’
‘Poor things,’ said Mercy. ‘I do hope they get us safe to Philadelphia.’ She was beginning to be afraid that that was about as far as the horses would ever get and wondered how she was going to pay Mr. Golding for them. But that was a problem for another day. At the moment they were facing another dangerous day’s journey. The Palmers were armed too, she was glad to know, and had undertaken to take the lead, since they had come this way before. They showed no surprise when Brisson got into her sledge and probably still thought they were all travelling together. It hardly mattered …
Brisson proved admirable company, and Mercy realised for the first time just how lonely she had been since she parted from Hart. Ruth hardly ever spoke. Jed was a dear boy, but he had no conversation and was so obviously shy of her that she was afraid Brisson was bound to see through the pretence that they were brother and sisters.
She drove for the first part of the journey, and Brisson sat beside her and told her about the little town south of Paris where he had been born and grown up in a small château. ‘We are of the nobility, we Brissons,’ he told her, ‘though of course, you Americans make nothing of that.’
It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him that she was, in fact, English by birth, but she restrained herself. He had been very careful, she had noticed, to tell her nothing of importance about himself. He had described his voyage from Nantes to Providence in vigorous and entertaining detail, but had given no hint of why he had made it or what his errand was to Philadelphia. Nor, indeed, had he explained why he had sailed to Providence at all, but then she knew that with both the British navy and British privateers at work, one had to take any passage one could and pray for a safe arrival.
He had just volunteered to drive for a while, and she was slowing the sledge to let him take over, when they heard shouting from ahead and saw that the Palmers had been stopped by a small band of militia. ‘Americans, thank God,’ said Mercy, recognising the shabby attempt at uniforms. She pulled the horses to a halt and watched the sergeant in command of the troop talk briefly to the Palmer brothers, then wave them forward and stop Jed, who was riding between the two sledges. To her surprise, he seemed to spend longer with Jed than with the Palmers but finally let him go and came back to where they waited.
‘Morning, ma’am.’ The sergeant’s tone was friendly. ‘I hear you’ve done us a favour, wounded a couple of the Bartram brothers, they tell me, you and that young brother of yours. Good shooting, ma’am. What was the name? You’re all travelling together, Mr. Palmer tells me.’
‘Mrs. Purchis.’ Should she explain that Brisson was only a chance-met companion?
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‘Purchis?’ The sergeant looked startled. ‘No kin to Captain Purchis of the Georgia, I hope?’
‘His wife?’ Her voice shook. ‘Why?’
‘Bad news, I’m afraid, ma’am. In Rivington’s Gazette. We took a man with a copy just yesterday. I’m sorry to have to tell you.’ He paused, searching for words.
‘He’s dead?’ She swayed where she sat. ‘My husband’s dead?’
‘No, no. I’m sorry, ma’am. Stupid of me. No, but it’s bad just the same. His mother is. And his aunt. They tried to get up from Savannah to Charleston. Too small a party. The Scopholites got them. The British are making a big story of it, a warning to others that they’re safer in British hands.’
‘Oh, dear God.’ She put a cold hand to her brow. Poor, kind Mrs. Purchis; poor Mrs. Mayfield. But what about their niece? What of Abigail? ‘Just the two of them?’ It was an effort to keep her voice steady.
‘So far as I know, ma’am. A nasty business, I’m afraid. Those Scopholites are little better than animals.’
‘Stop it,’ said Charles Brisson. ‘Don’t tell her!’
But she had heard too much already. ‘Mrs. Purchis,’ she said. ‘Anne Mayfield.’ The world was spinning round her. ‘I am so sorry.’ She clung with cold hands to the seat of the sledge. ‘But I think I am going to faint.’
‘I’m sorry.’ She heard herself saying it again as she came reluctantly back to consciousness.
‘No need.’ Brisson had found the smelling salts she used for Ruth and was holding them under her nose. ‘You have been so very brave, always, madame, but that bad news was too much for anyone.’
‘My poor husband. His mother and his aunt. Oh, the poor things.’ She would not think about it. ‘Have the soldiers gone?’
‘Yes. With a thousand apologies from that dolt of a sergeant for breaking it to you so crudely.’
‘There was no other way,’ she said. If she only knew what had happened to Abigail. No time for that now. ‘We must get on. The Palmers will be wondering what has become of us. If you would be so good as to drive, monsieur?’
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