‘In June?’ Hart thought of the horrible, dragging days in the Tower.
‘Exactly. Piers Blanding managed to “lose” it under a pile of papers on the Secretary’s desk. I couldn’t discover just how it came to be found and signed at last just the other day. I ran into a wall of silence there. Well, government servants all hang together. I suppose when the three of them decided there was no breaking you, Blanding “found” it again and tried to get you out of the country as fast as possible.’
‘Three of them?’
‘Four really. My father, Busby, Blanding, and Julia. I’m so ashamed. Everything you went through in the Tower was our doing, my family’s. The gaoler they bribed has been sacked, of course, but that’s not much comfort to you. And, Hart, I am instructed to ask you, to beg you to say nothing about what you have gone through. Your story, given to the opposition papers, might enflame public feelings to the point of a fresh outbreak of rioting. It’s a great deal to ask. I said so.’
‘Nothing of the kind,’ said Hart. ‘It’s not at all something I wish to talk about. And I’d keep quiet anyway for your sake, Dick. It’s horrible for you.’
‘Yes. I left my mother in convulsions. Told my father I do not wish to see him again. Julia and Blanding have gone off together.’ He threw it in almost casually. ‘They went the night she opened your letter to me. That’s when it all came out. Of course, Blanding’s flight makes it easier for Government to hush the whole thing up.’
‘And more necessary,’ said Hart drily. ‘Julia and Blanding. I should have known.’ He thought of all the parties for which he had paid: Vauxhall, Ranelagh, Mrs. Cornelys’s Rooms … Julia hanging on his arm, egging him on to further extravagance, and Blanding always somewhere in the background. Blanding. ‘The child,’ he said. ‘The child Julia’s carrying. It’s Blanding’s?’
‘Hart, there is no child. I talked to my mother, made her tell me. Poor Mother, it’s made an old woman of her. Julia was lying about that too.’
‘Thank God,’ said Hart.
‘Yes. She was desperate, Hart. I had no idea. My mother told me the whole story in the end, hoping to make me sorry for her. But how can I be after what she tried to do to you? She lost her reputation, years ago, when I was a midshipman on the Mediterranean station. A cousin of yours came over from America. I suppose you must know him. Francis Mayfield. She thought he was rich. He thought she was. And they hoped to pass him off as the American claimant.’
‘Absurd.’ Hart had gone very white at the mention of Francis Mayfield. ‘He’s no Purchis! Was none, I should say.’
‘He’s dead?’
‘Yes. Last year.’ Hart was taking it in slowly. ‘Francis Mayfield and Julia?’ It made a kind of horrible sense.
‘I’m afraid so. A pity he’s dead. What in the world are we going to do with the child?’
‘Child?’
‘Julia’s by him. She’s real enough, poor little creature. Kept secret all this time, at least from me. Fostered somewhere. God knows what she’s turned out like. And my father says he’ll not pay another penny for her now Julia’s gone off with Blanding. I’d hoped to persuade you and Mercy to take her back to America, to her father, but if he is dead …’
‘And his mother too,’ said Hart. ‘I’m sorry, Dick. I’d as lief not even ask Mercy about this, for fear she should say yes. Francis Mayfield was nearly her death. Extraordinary … horrible to find his shadow still cast over us here. How old is the child, Dick?’
‘In her teens. I’ll have to have her, my sister’s child. God knows how I’ll manage, but I’ve sent for her. Hoped you’d take her, to tell truth, but I don’t blame you for refusing. How I’m to break it to Mrs. Soames!’
Hart smiled at him. ‘You’ll need to speak to Ruth, too,’ he said.
‘Miss Paston? You know? You’ve seen? You’re all the family she has, you and Mercy. Have I your permission to speak to her? I know it’s absurdly too soon, but what can I do?’
‘Speak, of course,’ said Hart. ‘May all your problems solve themselves so easily. From everything Mercy tells me about her, Ruth will make an admirable stepmother.’
‘It’s a wife I want,’ said Dick. ‘Do you think I have any hope?’
‘Oh, as to that, it’s women’s business. But I’d not despair, if I were you. Only – speak soon, Dick. Because Mercy and I are going home. We have made up our minds about Julia Purchis’s estate. We are going to share it equally, you and I, as we agreed, but if you will, you are to have the property at Harting. Mercy and I are going back to America. When this war is over, as, please God, it will be soon, we mean to rebuild at Winchelsea. I hope the terms of my release will make it possible for us to live in Savannah for the meantime.’
‘You’re going back to Savannah? Selfishly I’m sorry as can be, but, do you know, Hart, I think that would have pleased Great-aunt Julia very much. I have been thinking that she must have hoped your grandfather would send for her, to Savannah. Poor lady … Hart, it’s more than generous of you, I do thank you. The property at Harting will make me independent of my father. I’ve told him I won’t take another penny from him and have wondered how I was to live. I had even thought of trying to get back into the navy, but my enquiries were met in anything but a friendly spirit. I shall never be able to thank you enough. But at least I can tell you that you will indeed be able to live in Savannah. The terms of your release have been amended to allow you to take possession of all your properties in and around Savannah and Charleston. On one condition.’ He paused.
‘Yes?’
‘That you undertake not to bear arms against His Majesty King George the Third. It’s what all the property owners in Savannah have sworn to. And in Charleston. Tell me honestly, do you want to go on fighting us?’
‘I want America to be free.’
‘It will be. I was talking to Fox at Brooks’s the other night. He says the taking of Charleston is just the last flash in the pan. A year, he says, two years at the outside, and we shall have peace with honour, and a whole new relationship to build. Could we not begin now, you and I? I’ll give up all thought of the navy and cultivate my farm here, and you do likewise in Savannah. Paired, one might say. Two men of peace. What do you say, Cousin?’
‘Well,’ said Hart, after a moment’s thought, ‘considering that we have neither of us exactly covered ourselves with glory in our naval careers, I really find myself thinking it an admirable notion. The trouble is, ever since you were all so kind to me on board the Sparrow, I’ve not had much stomach for fighting you. If you really think your Whig party will contrive to bring about a peace?’
‘I’m sure of it,’ said Dick. ‘It’s just that you and I are declaring peace a little early.’
‘Good.’ Hart held out his hand.
To his relief, Mercy endorsed their decision whole-heartedly. ‘We’ve done enough, you and I,’ she said. ‘Too much perhaps. It’s time to cultivate our garden. Oh, Hart, it seems too good to be true. Shall we really be able to rebuild Winchelsea? Do you think the Judas will still be flowering there?’
‘We’ll see next spring,’ he told her. ‘For now you had better finish hemming that wedding dress of yours. Dick’s talking to Mr. Pym now. He looked beyond her to the double bed they had now shared for a whole week. ‘Perhaps I should sleep somewhere else tonight?’
‘I never heard such nonsense,’ said his wife.
XXI
To Mr. Pym’s amazement, and Hart’s fury, because it delayed the ceremony, the Bishop himself came back from Harrogate to marry them in the tiny flower-filled church. The entire village was there, wearing its best and watching with hearty curiosity as Ruth and Dick played their parts as bridesmaid and groomsman.
‘Won’t be long till we have another wedding, I reckon,’ said Mrs. Soames, surprising Mercy with a hearty kiss in the vestry. ‘And a good thing, too. Miss Ruth’s the only one can make that hellbrat mind her.’
‘I know.’ Mercy glanced anxiously across the crowded vestry to whe
re Dick’s newly adopted daughter stood talking to Ruth and surveying the scene with a speculative, challenging eye. ‘Poor child,’ she said.
‘Poor us! She’s been here only three days, and we’re all to pieces already. Practical jokes, Mr. Dick calls them. Should have been burned for a witch, if you ask me.’
‘Don’t say that!’ Mercy had a sudden chill memory of a cold night outside Boston and the mob approaching stealthily across the snow. ‘She’s just unhappy and unsure of herself,’ she said. ‘She’ll settle down with kindness.’
‘Kindness!’ Mrs. Soames sniffed. ‘A birch for her backside would be my prescription for that young madam, but Mr. Dick won’t hear of it.’
‘I’m sure he knows best.’ Mercy turned away to receive Mr. Glubb’s congratulations. This was an entirely village occasion, and the warmth of it was heartening. ‘You won’t mind if they take the horses out of the carriage and pull you home?’ said Glubb now. ‘One of my clerks has talked, I’m afraid. Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later. The whole village knows what you and your husband have done for Mr. Dick, and love you for it. When the news came that Mr. Purchas had agreed to take the Harting estate and leave Mr. Dick here … Well, Mrs. Purchis, I can tell you, I thought for a moment there was something wrong with my eyes. Tears come strange to a man my age, ma’am, but tears it was. And all your doing, yours and your good man’s.’
‘I’m so glad we could. This is a happy day.’ She smiled at him, misty-eyed herself, as she remembered that other wedding on the Guerrier, the French officers laughing and toasting them in champagne, and all the time eyeing her speculatively … wondering. She looked down at her demure white silk and remembered bronze satin, low-cut, and the officer’s eyes making the most of it. Even Captain Bougainville, marrying them, had had a roving eye for her. ‘I am so very happy,’ she said again to Glubb.
Mrs. Soames and the other house servants had left by now, and when the carriage made its slow way across the park, pulled by a laughing, shouting team of estate workers, Mercy saw that they had been busy. Trestle tables had been set out on the lawn in front of the house, and the whole village was to dine there.
Hurrying indoors with Ruth to straighten her veil after the windy ride, she found Mrs. Soames in the hall, fulminating. ‘That Frances,’ she said. ‘The young devil! Pepper in all my syllabub, and a whole crock of cream spilled! If I just catch the young varmint!’
‘Oh, the poor child!’ said Ruth. ‘Be patient with her, dear Mrs. Soames, it’s all so strange and new to her. I’ll speak to her, just as soon as the party is over, I promise I will. In the meantime, I am sure there will be plenty for everyone, if I know anything about your management.’
‘Oh, as to that,’ said Mrs. Soames, mollified, ‘I’ve sent to Joan Glubb already. She’ll help out. She’s got children of her own. She understands these things. It’s a wonder to me how you do, Miss Ruth.’
‘I had brothers and sisters,’ said Ruth, her eyes suddenly shining with tears.
‘Ruth, you’re tired.’ Mercy noticed for the first time that Ruth’s face was thinner, her figure almost too elegant in the plain white silk.
‘Just a little.’ Ruth was looking past Mercy, out of the wide open window, to where Dick and Hart stood together among a crowd of tenants. ‘Oh, Mercy, do you think, perhaps, today—’ She stopped, colouring.
‘He’ll speak? I’m sure he has delayed only because he feels it is so soon. He’s afraid to be too quick for you.’
‘How could he be?’ asked Ruth. And then. ‘Mercy, do you sometimes think of Charles Brisson? It must have been like this with him, I think. That first day we met him. Poor Charles … Just think, but for him none of this would have happened. I hope you think about him, Mercy, in your happiness?’
‘Indeed I do. Often. I hope, when we get back to America, there will be news of him. Perhaps he is there by now. But, Ruth dear, what are you going to do? Hart and I would dearly love to have you come with us. Only …’
‘Only …’ Ruth looked at her, somewhere between tears and a pale smile. ‘Mercy, why doesn’t he speak? Have I imagined it all?’ She flushed suddenly. ‘I might have. I did before. With George. Thought he loved me. And then it was Naomi. Mercy! Let me come with you and Hart? Please? I won’t be a trouble to you, I promise. Maybe I could live with Cousin Abigail.’
‘Dear Ruth, of course, you shall come if you want to. And live with us always. There’s nothing I’d like better. But …’ What could she say? She and Hart had been as puzzled as Ruth was distressed by Dick’s failure to propose and had even begun to fear that he had changed his mind for some unimaginable reason.
‘No buts.’ Ruth was frankly crying now. ‘Thank you, Mercy. I’ll come. If you’re sure.’
‘Of course I’m sure. I love you, dear; you’re all the sister I’ve got.’
Dick and Hart, coming in to look for them, found them in each other’s arms, both crying a little.
‘Mercy.’ Hart held out his hand. ‘The Bishop is asking for you. Come, dear.”
Mercy smiled up at him, brushing away a tear. ‘Dear Hart, what a husband you sound.’
Left alone with her, Dick took Ruth’s hand as she stood there, looking down, fighting back tears. ‘We’ll miss them very much,’ he said.
‘Yes.’ It was all she could manage. What did he mean by that ‘we’?
‘Do you know’ – he reached out to where Mercy had left her bouquet of late white roses lying on a table – ‘you and I have known each other for just four weeks and two days?’
‘And a few hours,’ she said. ‘You arrived early in the morning, remember?’
‘Of course I remember.’ His fingers had been working among the roses, and now he pulled out one perfect bud. ‘Ruth, I have to put it to the touch. I’ve waited as long as I could. As long as I dared. Well, I had to wait until my affairs were settled, until I knew I could support you. And what kind of stepdaughter I was to cumber you with. She likes you, I think. Minds you better than anyone else. Miss Paston – Ruth – can I dare to hope that you will take us on, my poor Frances and me?’
‘Take you on?’ This was not how she had imagined it.
‘Marry me. Stay. Help me make a home for Frances. Ruth?’ Something about her continuing silence had disturbed him. ‘Have I assumed too much? I thought – I let myself hope that you loved me. Fool that I am. Vain idiot. Why should you? A disgraced sea captain, a pauper almost, were it not for Hart’s generosity. Of course you could do better. I imagined it all? There’s been someone else, perhaps, all the time? That man you and Mercy talk of – Charles Brisson? I always thought there was something about him, about the way you spoke of him. I heard his name the other day, at the Secretary’s office. Wondered what he was doing in England still. Now I think I begin to understand.’ The rosebud crushed in his hand. ‘Forgive me for my presumption, Miss Paston. Try to forget the fool I have made of myself. I thought because it happened to me, like that, first day, that it had to you too. Idiot.’ He looked down wryly at the crushed flower. ‘I must return to my guests.’
‘Not yet. Not for a moment.’ She had been pale when he first spoke; now her colour was high, her eyes shining with tears. ‘Mr. Purchas, please, what happened to you that first day?’
‘What happened? I fell in love, of course. The moment I saw you, coming down the stairs, in your white dress, smiling. Dear Ruth, I am glad to have had the chance to tell you. I think I shall love you till I die.’
‘So it’s not just a housekeeper you want? A mother for Frances?’
‘Good God, no. What made you think that?’
She was smiling at him now. ‘Well, it was what you said after all. You asked me to make a home for Frances. To be your housekeeper, said you could support me, as if I cared about that! I was afraid’ – she got it out with an effort – ‘I was afraid I had been imagining things.’
‘Ruth! You mean, it did happen to you too?’
‘Of course it did. When I saw you there, looking up at me
. It was like … like drowning. The whole of my life before my eyes. All the sorrow; all the joy. Just waiting for this. Waiting for you.’
‘And I for you, dear Ruth.’ Slowly, almost deliberately, they moved into each other’s arms. Drawing away at last from the long, deep embrace, she looked up at him.
‘Just imagine your thinking it was Charles Brisson,’ she said. ‘Poor Charles, I think it must have been like this with him. But Mercy, not me,’ she added, her eyes sparkling mischievously. ‘Poor Charles,’ she said again. ‘But, Dick’ – it gave her great pleasure to use his name – ‘I don’t understand one thing. How could you have heard his name at the Secretary’s office? Are you sure you did?’
‘Yes. And the strange thing is that I thought at the time it was somehow in connection with Hart’s release. Ridiculous, of course, now I know more about him. Well, just one of those things we will never understand.’
‘I suppose not. Do you know, I believe I would rather you did not mention it to Hart and Mercy?’
‘Oh?’ He looked down at her, smiling. ‘You think Hart might be as great a fool as I was?’
‘Impossible!’ He pulled her into his arms again, but the embrace was interrupted by a peal of laughter. Frances had come in from the garden and was watching them with delight. Her arms were full of flowers purloined from the dinner tables outside, and she began systematically pulling them off and throwing them at Dick and Ruth.
‘The Bishop’s mad as fire,’ she told them. ‘He says I’m a limb of Satan, but you’ll speak up for me, won’t you, Aunt Ruth? Or I’ll tell him he’d better marry you too, and the quicker the better!’
‘What did you do to the Bishop?’ asked Dick severely.
‘That would be telling! And I never tell! Come on, Aunt Ruth, the dancing’s beginning on the lawn, and they won’t start without you two. I’ve never been at a party like this before. Will you keep me with you always? You’ll need me as chaperone, you know, when Mercy goes away. I’d be a good chaperone! Please let me stay.’
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