She extended an elegant little foot, clad in soft blue kid, for his inspection.
‘Five minutes, in fact.’ The glimpse of ankle had shocked him. ‘It’s not enough, Mrs. Purchis. I don’t want you ill on my hands, too.’
‘No,’ she smiled up at him very sweetly, ‘I’m sure you don’t, Doctor.’
‘Riding.’ Hyde spoke from the bed. ‘You should have been riding, Jo.’
She had thought the pet name private between herself and her cousin and his use of it took her more aback than she liked. ‘Riding?’
‘Of course. Ariel must be eating his heart out in the stables. Ring the bell at once, my dear. We must make sure some of the fidgets have been knocked out of him before you take him out.’
‘On the contrary.’ She pulled the bell-rope obediently. ‘I can think of nothing I should enjoy more than a battle of wills with Ariel. So long as you promise me, Hyde, that you will lie quiet while I am out, and not start your moping.’
‘Moping?’ Judge James was on to it like a flash. He was too good a doctor to let himself find it deplorable that Hyde Purchis of Winchelsea should let himself get in a mope because of a young female who enjoyed showing off her ankles to comparative strangers. Now, looking, suddenly, from Hyde to his wife, he had an uncomfortable feeling that she had read his thoughts.
‘Extraordinary, isn’t it, Doctor?’ she said. ‘He actually misses me.’
‘But you’re to ride an hour a day just the same,’ Hyde spoke in a stronger voice than he had managed since his illness. ‘Ah, there you are Aaron. Tell Satan to saddle up Ariel for the mistress, and make sure he is fit to be ridden.’
‘He’s fit all right, sir,’ Aaron beamed impartially at them all. ‘Those two young devils Pete and Sam have taken turns to ride him — being the right weight, give or take a pound or so — so’s he’d be ready for the mistress when she wanted him. I’ll give the orders right away. And tell Satan to be ready to go ‘long.’
‘Nothing of the kind.’ It was the sort of firm phrase Josephine would never have used, but a quick glance under lowered lashes showed her, Hyde and the judge merely surprised, not in the least suspicious. Only Aaron, she thought, was looking a warning. Absurd situation. She turned a languishing glance on Hyde, ‘My dear, you cannot possible expect me to keep my pace down to one of those slugs old Satan rides. You know there’s never been a horse yet I couldn’t manage.’ What a blessing that this was something she and Josephine had in common. ‘And I’ll promise, cross my heart, not to go off the island. What harm can come to me here, on our own land? No, Judge,’ she had seen him about to voice a protest, ‘this is between Mr. Purchis and me.’
Hyde was still looking doubtful. ‘Just for today, Jo, as a favour to me, would you take old Satan along? It’s stupid, I know, but I find I cannot keep myself from worrying, when you are not with me. What you call moping, I suppose.’
‘Oh, very well, just for today.’ Absurd, but when he called her ‘Jo’ she felt ready to do anything for him.
It was delicious to be in the saddle again, riding across the island with old Satan grumbling behind. The early southern spring had made great strides while she had been confined in Hyde’s sickroom and the whole island had come alive. Butterflies rose in vivid patches from the sweetscented jasmine vines; brilliantly coloured birds flashed past her; a thousand delicious scents made her pause from time to time to ask Satan, ‘What’s that?’ Of course, he never knew, any more than he knew the names of the birds, except the most obvious ones like the glossy blue jay and the disappointingly drab mocking-bird. He was just as hopeless about plants. The orchard of peach trees down below the house was in full fragrant bloom but all this meant to him was, ‘Plenty of peach brandy this year.’
Over on the sea side of the island, the wild plum was silver with blossom, and here, too, he had a practical comment. ‘Must come over this fall with the boys,’ he said. ‘Some day when our tasks are done early. Master Hyde never cares how much plum brandy we make ourselves, so long as we’re sober by morning.’
Juliet, who had been prepared to be appalled at the conditions of the servants, had long since decided that Winchelsea was something quite different from the southern plantations that were the subject of furious pamphlets among northern abolitionists. It was true that each servant had his task, but so far as she could see, he could do it quite easily in a morning. In the afternoons, they went fishing, or collected oysters along the beach, or, if their talent turned that way, made boxes and baskets and a thousand other neat little objects for sale in the Saturday market at Savannah. When she had needed a book-rest so that Hyde could read to himself in bed without disturbing the wounds on his shoulders she had merely stated her requirements in the morning and had it produced, perfect, the same evening.
Most touching of all, when she had visited Pete, who had made it, in his whitewashed cottage, he had refused to take pay. ‘What we do for the master, ma’am, we does for love.’
It was all quite extraordinary, and not at all what she had expected. But, ‘Don’t think things are like this everywhere, ma’am,’ old Satan warned her when she drew up Ariel to tell him something of what she felt. ‘There’s places, not far from here, I could tell you about, would make those pretty eyes of yours start right out of your head. And the owners don’t much love Master Hyde, neither. We wondered, down in the cottages, whether that duel he fought was just what it seemed. There’s plenty shake Master Hyde by the hand when they meet him at the Exchange, wouldn’t shed many tears if they saw him in his winding sheet.’
His matter of fact tone was curiously frightening. She had meant to treat herself to a gallop along the hard sand of the seaward side of the island, but now turned impulsively for home. ‘No need to fret,’ old Satan turned his lumbering great horse behind hers. ‘They’d not dare do anything open against Purchis of Winchelsea. Not here, anyways. Besides, we’re on watch, all the time, down at the cottages. There won’t be any false friends sneak past old Aaron — or that French Anne neither? — to bring on a “relapse”. Judge James spoke of that to Aaron, right from the start. When they were talking of making a hanging matter of that duel.’
‘What?’
‘You didn’t know? Oh yes, there was some fine folks in Savanny thought their chance had come at last. There’s been some kind of a society years and years, supposed to put an end to duelling. And, course, by law, it’s death. But I reckon Judge James was too many for them all. He’s a good friend, the judge.’
‘Yes.’ The ride back seemed endless. A phoenix could have risen from the sweet-smelling orchards and she would not have noticed. She had left Satan well behind when she brought Ariel to a sharp halt in front of the house. Pete appeared at once to help her alight. ‘Any guests, Pete?’ She could not quite keep the anxiety out of her voice. It was all very well for Satan to talk, but how could the servants prevent a white man from seeing Hyde?
‘Not a soul, ma’am. I reckon Judge James has passed the word round we ain’t quite ready for visitors yet.’
Of course, she should have thought of that. With the exception of Sam Everett, only women had visited her. Just the same, she hurried Alice unmercifully, changed out of her riding habit and ran downstairs again to find Anne sitting placidly by Hyde’s bed, with several yards of fine tatting trailing over her black skirt. Ridiculous to have panicked so. But just the same, ‘Hyde,’ she said, as soon as Anne had left them. ‘If I go riding again, will you promise not to see anyone while I’m out? Except the Judge, of course or Sam Everett.’
‘Oh?’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘So that’s why you came back so soon. Old Satan of course. He’s been frightening you? Maybe you’d be best riding alone after all. Aaron tells me you stood no nonsense from Ariel.’
‘Well, of course not.’ She had rather thought Aaron had watched her departure from the side window, and wondered now whether this had been on Hyde’s orders. ‘After all,’ she went on, ‘I was riding troopers’ mounts when I was still in short petticoats.
I hope I can manage my own horse now.’
‘Yes.’ He sounded tired. ‘Stupid of me to be anxious, but you’ve been cooped up here with me for so long. I’m ashamed not to have thought of you sooner. But it’s such a pleasure to have you with me.’ He reached out a thin hand to take hers. ‘I can’t tell you how the time drags when you’re not here. What do you say, love?’ His hand was firm on hers. ‘When I’m better, shall we shock the good people of Savannah by changing our modish marriage for the real thing? Can you possibly imagine yourself as Joan to my Darby? Oh, I know —’ he felt her hand struggle in his, but would not let it go. ‘Our understanding, in the first place, was quite other, but that was then, and France; this is now, and here. Do you not think, if we worked at it, that we might get as much pleasure (or maybe even more) from doing things together as from doing them separately? From going to the same parties? Riding together, maybe? And sending poor Sam Everett back to Boston?’
If only he would let go of her hand. How could she think when all her blood was on fire at his touch? ‘Oh, Sam Everett,’ she managed at last. ‘What’s he to the purpose? I hope I could find myself a better gallant than him, should I feel the need of one. There’s always poor Mr. Jay.’
‘And poor Mr. Purchis?’
‘It’s high time poor Mr. Purchis took his medicine.’ She freed her hand to reach for the bottle. At all costs she must put an end to this dangerous conversation. And not only to it. But she would not, dared not face that thought now, under Hyde’s curiously intent gaze. There would be time for all that later; for the moment, she must get things back to normal as best she might. She reached out her free hand and picked up Pride and Prejudice from the bookstand across his bed. ‘You are talking so much nonsense I think I had best read you into a calmer frame of mind. We don’t want Judge James saying I have over-excited you. If you could but hear how he lectures me about keeping you quiet, you would not dare talk of going to parties, whether together or separately. Why!’ she looked down at the open book. ‘You’ve not read a page while I’ve been gone.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘I was thinking about you.’
***
Her hand shook. Tears kept trickling down and blotting the page. She tore it up and started again. It had to be written, and tonight, while Hyde was safely asleep with the extra strong laudanum draft she had mixed for him.
‘Dear Josephine,’ she started for the fifth time. ‘You must come back at once. I cannot explain.’ The four previous sheets of paper, torn to tatters in the trash basket, were proof. ‘But Hyde is a great deal better, and you must come.’ She underlined the word ‘must’ three times, brushed a tear quickly aside before it fell on the paper, and wrote on, the goose quill scratching furiously. ‘Satan will bring this. Come back with him. I will meet you at the wharf. No need for secrecy. All the servants know. And, this is the end, Josephine. I cannot go on. Forgive me.’ Her signature was a scrawl. The tears were coming too fast now to be controlled. But it was done. The letter was folded, folded again, and sealed with Josephine’s own seal, the eagle she had had designed in imitation of Napoleon’s emblem. Josephine would be furious. It could not be helped. Bad enough that she, Juliet, had fallen in love with her substitute ‘husband’, but this, this of today ... She gave up trying to think, threw herself on the bed, and cried herself to sleep.
Waking early, to the first sounds of stirring life about the place, she longed just for a moment, to destroy the letter, to give way to the sweet, terrible temptation, and let what would happen. ‘Joan to his Darby.’ Oh, how easy it would be. But the hot tide of happiness that flooded through her had its own bitter backwash. ‘And then?’ she asked herself. If she let Hyde love her, as she loved him, what was there ahead for any of them but misery and shame? And Savannah, full of his enemies, waiting for just such an opportunity to destroy him.
She sat up in bed and pulled the bell-rope. ‘Alice, there’s a letter on the dressing-table. Tell Satan to take it to Ruffton at once.’ She took a deep breath. ‘The mistress will be coming back with him.’
‘Oh, no!’ But Juliet had struggled with enough objections of her own to make short shrift of Alice’s. ‘I’m sorry.’ Her tone was final. ‘I have made up my mind.’
‘But you’ll come back? Some day?’ Alice was unashamedly in tears.
‘I’m afraid not.’ Their eyes met and suddenly no more needed saying.
Chapter Ten
Satan could not possibly fetch Josephine back until after luncheon. The morning must be got through somehow. Juliet kept close by Hyde’s bed, partly because she could not bear to lose one of these last, precious minutes with him, partly because she was aware that word of her leaving had run like wildfire through the house. So long as she stayed with Hyde, she would only get reproachful looks; anything more would be too much to endure.
Blessedly, Hyde was looking much better today. The long, deep night’s sleep had done him good. ‘I shall be thinking of getting up soon,’ he said.
‘Not until you have the Doctor’s permission, you won’t. And he’s not coming today.’ This, too, was a blessing.
‘Oh that Doctor!’ He pulled himself up among his pillows and she was quick to adjust them behind him. Touching him was a new reminder of anguish. ‘You’re tired today,’ he said, ‘I can feel it.’ Luckily she was still leaning down behind him, so he could not see her face. ‘It must be my turn to entertain you. I know! Let us be devils and play two-handed whist for dollars.’
‘Hyde! I’m surprised at you. Whatever would Miss Abigail say?’
He smiled at her and her heart seemed to lurch up into her throat. ‘Do you know, my dear, I sometimes think I have let myself take Aunt Abigail’s views a trifle too seriously. If we want to gamble away our own money against each other in our own house, do you see any serious reason why we shouldn’t? It’s not as if we were impoverishing our heirs, is it? And if I’ve heard you say once that playing cards without stakes is like eating bread without butter, I’ve heard it a thousand times. So, quick, fetch my table, and the cards, and have at you!’
‘That’s all very well,’ she recovered her light note with an effort, ‘but Hyde, I haven’t a feather to fly with. The doctor’s summons came just after I’d lost my shift at Mrs. Bolton’s. I hadn’t even the time to go to the bank for more funds.’
‘And you’ve been penniless ever since? My poor Jo, what a disastrous plight.’
‘Well,’ she said lightly, ‘it hardly signifies here.’ Though she remembered the pang of relief she had felt when Pete refused payment for Hyde’s bookrest. The money Hyde had given her was spent long since, and it had been no moment to ask Josephine for some when they made their last, angry exchange.
‘No,’ he looked at her with wry sympathy, ‘not so much as a new ribbon to be purchased, my poor darling. And yet what a picture — and what a different one — you manage to present every day. I cannot begin to tell you how you brighten my sickroom.’
‘La, sir! Compliments from a husband! You will put me quite to the blush.’ It was all too true; he had. But she made a quick recovery. ‘So next time we are in Paris you will remember not to complain of the vast number of new gowns I order.’ Safe enough to assume this had been one of the causes of friction between him and Josephine.
‘Next time we are in Paris! Delicious thought. Shall we sail on Mr. Scarbrough’s Savannah in the spring? For a second honeymoon?’ And then, aware of something in her expression. ‘Nonsense, of course. Poor Mr. Updyke would shoot himself if I didn’t go right back to work when I am well enough. Europe will have to wait. But in the meanwhile, we must do something about your finances, my poor bankrupt. Ring the bell, would you?’
It had been only one of the many surprises Winchelsea had held for Juliet to find that Aaron was in complete charge of his master’s finances. Now he accepted the order to fetch the mistress a hundred dollars without so much as blinking.
‘A hundred!’ Juliet protested when he had gone. ‘But, Hyde, that’s absurd!’
>
‘Not if we are playing for five dollar stakes,’ he answered reasonably.
‘I believe you have run quite mad.’
Miss Abigail, paying her regular morning call, quite obviously thought so too. ‘Whist!’ she exclaimed. And then, observing the pile of coins on Juliet’s side of the table, ‘And for money!’
‘Yes, and grievously I’m being drubbed, too,’ said Hyde cheerfully. ‘I suspect you’ve been taking lessons, Jo. Come, confess? From one of those French admirers of yours in town? They’re all devils at cards.’ And then, ‘Excuse me, aunt. I’m afraid I have got into careless habits with this forbearing wife of mine.’
‘You certainly have.’ Miss Abigail looked as if she could have supplied a different adjective.
‘Why not join us?’ Hyde ignored her forbidding expression. ‘Three-handed whist is infinitely more entertaining than two, and I remember you as a past mistress of the game when we used to play with my father.’
‘That was your father.’ Abigail folded her lips into a tight knot, then opened them just enough to say. ‘And not for money either.’ She turned her quelling glance on Juliet. ‘I will see you at luncheon, my dear.’
‘But not for a scold,’ said Hyde, as she made for the door. ‘It was I, aunt, who suggested the game, and I may say I am enjoying myself hugely, even if I do look like ending up penniless. I wish you could eat your luncheon with me.’ He looked up at Juliet as Abigail closed the door with a quietness that reverberated like a slam. ‘I am afraid she is not always very kind to you.’
‘Poor old thing,’ said Juliet lightly. ‘She can’t help envying me my youth; or my looks,’ she paused for an instant, ‘or you.’
‘Yes, poor thing indeed. Bad enough losing her lover in the War of the Revolution, but to lose him as she did —’
‘Yes.’ Clearly this was something she ought to know about. ‘Poor creature. I promise I will be sweet as sugar over luncheon, scold she ever so hard. Oh — and Hyde, I thought I would take my ride directly after, while you are resting.’ That way, she would only need to say goodbye to him, once and for all, when she left him for lunch.
All for Love Page 13