Wide is the Water

by Jane Aiken Hodge

  ‘I expect you are right,’ said Dick. ‘But I think we should go home and make sure.’

  George gave his rather brutal laugh. ‘You may do so, good little brother, since his life is undoubtedly of some value to you. But I will spare you my company, though it’s true there is always the chance that the sight of me might bring on an apoplexy where the mob had failed to do so. Come, Mordaunt, let’s go and see what the rascals are up to now.’

  As the other three turned their horses’ heads toward Piccadilly and home, Julia put out a quick hand to touch Hart’s where it lay on his bridle. ‘You must not take my naughty George seriously,’ she said. ‘His tongue was always his worst enemy. You will grow to love him as you know him better. I wish you would help me make him and my father better friends. Father thinks the world of you, I know. You won’t trouble him with the foolish things George has been saying?’

  ‘I should think not,’ said Hart.

  Reaching the house in Charles Street they found that Mr. Purchas had indeed turned homeward on sight of the mob around Parliament. He had been badly frightened by what he had seen and poured it all out to them. Lord Ashburnham had been mobbed and dragged into the House half-conscious, Welbore Ellis had escaped over the roofs from Guildhall, Lord North himself had been insulted and his hat snatched from his head. ‘We Whigs would have managed things better. If there’s no one killed,’ Purchas concluded, ‘it will be a miracle. And that madman Gordon rushing in and out of the lobby to egg his followers on. I hope to see him hang for high treason before I am very much older.’

  ‘High treason!’ exclaimed Dick. ‘As serious as that?’

  ‘As serious as possible,’ said his father. ‘I cannot understand, since government knew what Lord George was planning, why they did not make arrangements with the magistrates and the Lord Mayor ahead of time.’

  Julia gave her silvery laugh. ‘Someone told me,’ she said, ‘that Lord North meant to send a message and forgot.’

  ‘It would be like him,’ said her father. ‘Just one more Tory blunder. Now if we Whigs were in power …’

  ‘Yes, Papa,’ said his two children at once.

  Julia took Hart to a small party at the house of an old friend of hers that night. ‘Quite a simple affair,’ she explained. ‘But it will take our minds off the trouble today. You will not mind it being quite quiet, I know. I have known Susan forever, and she longs to meet the American cousin of whom I have spoken so much. Mr. Bond is quite in a thriving way in the city, though I do not rightly understand what it is that he does. They have a good enough house in Lincoln’s Inn Fields and live in the simplest possible way, which you, with your ideas of equality, must approve.’

  ‘I am sure I shall be more than delighted to meet any friends of yours.’ And yet Hart was slightly puzzled. Julia had refused to introduce him to Mr. and Mrs. Thrale and their friend Fanny Burney, the famous author of Evelina, because she did not consider the brewer, Thrale, her social equal. And yet Thrale was the friend of the great Dr. Johnson himself. But it was all part of Julia’s charming, impulsive, baffling character. Naturally she would never desert an old school friend.

  When the carriage came round to take them to Lincoln’s Inn Fields, Hart asked at once if there was news from Parliament. ‘Oh, yes, bless you, sir,’ said the coachman. ‘All’s right and tight again. The Guards were called out in the end and gave the crowd a good fright, rode over some of them, by what I hear, no one hurt, or not much; then Justice Addington told them to go home, and they gave him three cheers and went. Mind you, it did look nasty early on, when I was down there with the master, but all’s over now; they’ve had their bit of fun and gig and gone home to bed.’

  ‘That’s good.’ Hart helped Julia into the carriage and felt the familiar, intolerable ecstasy of her hand on his. ‘I’m glad it is all so well over.’

  She laughed up at him. ‘Anyone would think you were a Catholic yourself, Cousin Hart, so anxious as you are about it all.’

  ‘I’ve seen mobs at work,’ he told her, and had a sudden vision of Mercy that first night they met, desperately trying to quench the flames of her burning home. Mercy sewing shirts for him before he went to Harvard. The strong brown hands always so busy. Busy? She had reached out her hand and saved him from the living death on the prison hulk in New York Harbour. She had saved him again, despite himself, when the British had taken Savannah and Francis Mayfield had come to kill him. Was it just because he owed her so much that he had been such a wretched failure as a husband? And was it because of that very failure that she had not written to him? Did she, too, feel that their marriage had ended … had never really begun?

  ‘Hart Purchis!’ said Julia’s teasing voice. ‘I vow you’ve not listened to a word I said.’

  ‘Forgive me. I was thinking about mobs.’ He was ashamed of the lie as he spoke it.

  He took an instant liking to the Bonds, though he was surprised at how much older Mrs. Bond seemed than her friend. But Julia had warned him of this. ‘She has quite gone off, poor love, with all the childbearing. Four in three years. Twins, you see; quite barbarous!’

  But Hart, taken up to the nursery at his own request, did not find it barbarous at all and liked Mrs. Bond better still for her obvious devotion to her thriving little family. He was surprised to find that the twin boys were old enough to ask a flood of questions that reminded him suddenly and painfully of his first meeting with the Paston girls. Yes, indeed, he told George and Harry Bond, he had seen a Red Indian, had, in fact, seen a great many, and, on being pressed, gave a very creditable imitation of a war whoop, which put the seal of success on the nursery visit.

  ‘How old are they?’ he asked as Mrs. Bond shut the nursery door behind them.

  ‘The boys?’ She smiled at him. ‘Old enough to be great little tyrants. Mr. Purchis’ – she put out a hand to detain him for a moment on the upper landing – ‘I am so glad to have this chance to speak to you. I love Julia so dearly … she was quite my little pet at school. I’m – older than she is, of course. Being so happy myself, I … I find myself anxious about her sometimes. I am so glad you are come, and her brother Dick home, too. I do not … I cannot think George Purchas a good influence. Not yet his friends.’

  ‘She has a good friend in you, I can see,’ said Hart, but felt faintly relieved when she turned to lead the way back downstairs. What exactly did Mrs. Bond expect him to do for Julia?

  It was a lively romp of a party, with games of brag and speculation for the younger members and whist for the chaperones, and it was only when Mrs. Bond called for silence so that Julia could sing for the company that Hart heard another sound, beyond and behind the suddenly suspended flow of cheerful chatter.

  He rose to his feet and moved across to pull aside the velvet curtain from one of the high windows.

  ‘You heard it, too?’ Mr. Bond had crossed the room to join him and now pulled the curtain together behind them, so that they stood isolated in the window embrasure. ‘Dear God!’ He looked, as Hart was, in silent horror out at the square below, which was filling rapidly with people. Here and there a torch, carried high, illuminated a group of faces, blue cockades, a ‘No Popery’ banner. ‘They’re carrying tools.’ He turned to Hart. ‘Look! Spades … pickaxes … crowbars.’

  ‘They are all men now,’ said Hart, ‘by the look of it. I suppose one should thank God for that. But what’s their aim, do you think?’

  ‘I’m afraid’ – Bond was peering out of the window as the crowd went on pouring into the square from the direction of Great Queen Street – ‘I am very much afraid it must be the chapel of the Sardinian Ambassador. It’s over there’ – he pointed – ‘in Duke Street.’

  ‘We must get help,’ said Hart. ‘But how?’ The square was now entirely filled by the mob.

  ‘Madame Cordon, the Ambassador’s wife, is expecting a child,’ said Bond. ‘They live next door to the chapel. I’ll send a man out the back way, to Sir John Fielding’s, and to Alderman Kennet, the Lord Mayor. We need
the military here, and the Riot Act read. Listen!’

  The crowd had clotted now on the far side of the square, and Hart could hear the shatter of glass and the heavy sound of battering against the chapel doors. The shouts of ‘No Popery’ had increased, and the mob sounded more like an enormous, raging beehive than ever. ‘You calm the ladies,’ said Bond, ‘while I send for help.’

  ‘What is it?’ Julia drew aside the curtain to join them. ‘What are you two being so private about?’ And then: ‘Oh, jimini!’ She leaned against Hart to look out. ‘The mob! What a stroke of luck!’

  ‘Luck?’

  She pulled a face at him. ‘Oh, yes, of course, it is terrible, and dear knows how we are going to get home, but just look! See what a fine view we have of everything that goes on. Hark!’

  ‘The chapel door is down,’ said Hart grimly as the mob suddenly surged into the dark building and torchlight began to flicker at its windows. ‘I hope to God Mr. Bond can get help in time.’ Now by the uncertain light of the torches he could see pieces of furniture, books, hassocks, plates tossed out from hand to hand over the heads of the crowd that still seethed in the square.

  ‘Of course there will be help,’ she said impatiently. ‘Why, Madame Cordon, the Ambassador’s wife, is a dear friend of the Walpoles. No need to be anxious for her! No doubt she is sitting snug by the fire this moment in Thomas Walpole’s house over there. The ton take care of their own. Oh, look, they are starting a fire!’ In the middle of the square a small flicker of flame was rapidly growing into a raging bonfire as it was fed with the chapel’s furnishings. ‘Hart.’ An anxious hand on his sleeve. ‘How in the world are we going to get home?’

  ‘God knows. I wish Dick were here.’ Dick had been summoned to the Admiralty that afternoon, and he hoped it might mean news of a ship at last. But he had been puzzled that Julia had not suggested that Dick join them at the Bonds’ and tell them his news. They were a strange family, the Purchases. Mrs. Purchas was always ailing, yet never exactly ill; Mr. Purchas was always talking about ‘we Whigs,’ yet seemed to play no active part in politics. And George … George was the greatest enigma of all. On the surface, he seemed the complete young man-about-town, but under the veneer, Hart sometimes caught a glimpse of savage strength that reminded him of the first day they had met. But why should he think to understand the Purchases when he understood so little of English society?

  ‘Poor Dick.’ Julia shrugged elegant, bare shoulders. ‘He was mad for Susan, you know, when we were all children together, but of course, it was quite hopeless. A younger son, with his way to make, and in the navy! And Dick never has had much gift for getting prize money. Oh –’ she clutched his arm, sending yet another uncontrollable, shameful thrill through him – ‘they’ve fired the chapel!’

  ‘The foot guards are coming.’ Mr. Bond rejoined them. ‘And the fire engines, but there’s no sign of a magistrate.’ He watched with them as the foot guards marched into the square, fixed bayonets, gleaming in the firelight, and formed a ring of steel around the mob at the chapel doors. ‘But they’ll be able to do nothing without the Riot Act read,’ he said gloomily. ‘Look! The mob aren’t letting the fire engines at the chapel. It will be burnt to the ground, and its neighbours with it. And built by Inigo Jones!’

  ‘I don’t think the soldiers are really trying,’ said Hart.

  ‘No,’ Bond agreed. ‘I’ve heard that many of them are anti-Catholic. It’s a bad business, Mr. Purchis, a frightening, bad business. Ah, they’re letting the fire engines at the other houses.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Hart. ‘The mob are, not the soliders.’ He turned as Julia, who had left them for a moment, came back and put a confiding hand on his arm.

  ‘Hart,’ she said, ‘Susan urges that we stay here for the night. She will send a message, the back way, to Charles Street, so my parents are not anxious.’

  Bond looked doubtful. ‘Delighted to have you, naturally, but, Miss Purchas, do you really think—’

  ‘Susan and I have it all settled,’ said Julia. ‘There is talk of other fires between here and Charles Street. They say the Bavarian Ambassador’s chapel is in flames too. And serve him right,’ she added, ‘for an arrant old smuggler that he is. But, Hart, would you think me a coward if I urged that we do stay here? It is all very well for the Bonds’ other friends; they have not so far to go. But I’m told the whole sky is red with fire; God knows what other mobs we might not encounter between here and home.’

  Susan Bond, joining them at this point, added her entreaties to Julia’s, and Hart was relieved to agree. ‘Things will seem better in the morning.’

  ‘They could hardly seem worse,’ said Bond. ‘Do you know the Lord Mayor flatly refused to do anything at all? I always knew him for a cipher, but this is the outside of enough. It almost makes one wonder if he does not sympathise with the mob.’

  ‘You cannot mean he hopes for a revolution!’ exclaimed Hart.

  Bond passed a weary hand across his face. ‘To tell truth, I do not rightly know what I mean,’ he said.

  By the time they were ready for bed the square was quiet at last, and Hart almost wished he had insisted that they wait and return to Charles Street, but there was nothing for it now but to make the best of things.

  Morning brought Dick, grey-faced. ‘The carriage is below.’ He had found them all at the breakfast table, a most unusual appearance for Julia, and had made his greetings so brief as to be uncivil. ‘Fetch your shawl, Julia. The streets are crowded with sightseers already. Hart, I am going to ask you to walk home. You must not be seen with Julia in your evening dress.’

  ‘But surely—’ Hart began a protest, then abandoned it. In the very real danger of the night before, he had never given a thought to the nice rules of London society but still could see nothing wrong about their spending the night at the Bonds’. Now, with Dick lowering beside him, he made his farewells at once as warm and as brief as possible and found himself downstairs and in the street before Julia had returned with her shawl.

  ‘Here!’ Dick handed him a greatcoat, unsuitably warm for the time of year. ‘Can you find your way back through side streets? I’d as lief you saw no one we know. God, Hart, of all the scatterbrained starts …’

  ‘I don’t understand you,’ said Hart, angry at last. ‘I’d rather die than harm Julia, but, Dick, if you had seen the crowd last night … And to stay with an old friend, a married lady …’

  ‘Married?’ said Dick. ‘Who said they were married?’

  Striding home, Hart did not notice the signs of last night’s rioting in the shabby slum streets or the sodden, gin-soaked beggars who caught at the skirts of his greatcoat. Susan and Bond were not married. Julia had taken him to their house … Julia had let him fatally compromise her, and there was nothing in the world he could do about it.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ He confronted Mr. Purchas across his study table. ‘I cannot begin to tell you how sorry I am. I only hope you will believe that I had no idea. If Julia had only told me …’

  ‘Spilt milk,’ said Mr. Purchas. ‘The question is, what’s to do now? It would be Saturday, but I wager no one will have left town. I am sure I can find either the Bishop of Lincoln or of Lichfield. One of them should be able and willing to do our business if it’s put to them in the proper light.’

  ‘Our business?’

  ‘Marry you and Julia, of course. What else are we discussing? It’s not what I’d hoped for her, but—’

  ‘Mr. Purchas,’ Hart interrupted him with the courage of desperation, ‘you are forgetting. I am a married man.’

  ‘Tchah,’ said Purchas. ‘Too late in the day to be remembering that now. You’ve escorted Julia everywhere, set tongues wagging about her, and now this last folly … It was when she first came to London that you should have remembered you were a married man. But no need to look so down in the mouth, man. I’ve talked this over with Busby. Did so as soon as I saw how the land lay between you and Julia. What kind of father would you think me otherwise? Busby
sees no problem, or none that cannot be surmounted. A nullity, of course. A rash attempt at a marriage, performed by a Catholic sea captain, an enemy of the country; no documents; no surviving witnesses, or none we know of. It’s a mere farce, cousin –’ he corrected himself – ’son Hart.’

  A nullity. Hart had felt his face flush scarlet in the course of this remarkable speech. It was what he had sometimes thought himself. What he had wanted? He could not do it. ‘I’m a witness,’ he said. ‘I and my wife are both witnesses.’

  ‘Your wife! Your whore! Do you know where she is now, this so-called wife of yours? She’s the belle of Philadelphia.’

  ‘Philadelphia?’

  ‘Thought that would surprise you. Left her near Boston, didn’t you, to be looked after by relatives? She seems to have cut and run from there soon enough. Not luxurious enough maybe for a lady used to being the toast of Savannah? Piers Blanding brought me the report just last night.’

  ‘Report?’

  ‘From New York. They’ve ways and means there of knowing what goes on among the American rebels. Now, understand me, Hart Purchis, I’m as good a friend of you Americans as you could wish, but our old enemies the French are another matter.’

  ‘The French?’

  ‘The lady who passes for your wife has been set up in a house in Philadelphia by the French Minister there, by Luzerne himself. Now what have you to say to that? I don’t know whether she repays him by spying, or by – other favours, but it hardly seems, does it, as if she looked on herself or was behaving as your lawful wedded wife?’

  ‘I must see the report.’ Hart felt he was clutching at straws.

  ‘Impossible. It was most secret. Young Blanding merely let me glance at it. But you have my word for it. Julia’s father’s word. Hush!’ He held up a hand. ‘There’s the carriage now. You won’t want to see Julia yet. Hart’ – he held out a friendly hand – ‘I’m sorry it had to happen this way, but glad, truly glad, to have you for a son. Your very staunchness in defence of that worthless wife of yours does you credit. But go to your room; think it over. We’ve a little time yet, specially with this mob in the streets, drawing all eyes. Sleep on it, if you must, but let me have the word I need just as soon as you can. For Julia’s sake. For all our sakes.’