All for Love (12 page)

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.

‘You mean you won’t come and tuck me up for my sleep?’ He laughed. ‘You see what a spoiled darling of an invalid I am becoming. It’s high time you took the law into your own hands a little. I shall look forward to seeing you, and in better colour, I hope, when you return. Oh, botheration,’ the sound of the gong that Aaron loved to beat echoed through the house. ‘There is luncheon and I’ve not had a chance at my revenge. Don’t forget to take your winnings and put them safe away in that locked box of yours. You’ve not lost the key again, I hope?’

‘No, indeed.’ Her hand went up to the chain round her neck. What a blessing this money would be, and yet how could she bear to take it?

‘Where do you ride today?’ he asked casually as she rose to move the cards off his table, ready for his luncheon tray.

‘Oh,’ the truth came out before she had time to think of a lie. ‘I thought I might go down to the old wharf.’

‘So far?’ Something changed in his face. ‘Then I must not expect you before tea-time. Enjoy your ride, my love, but do not forget that I shall be counting the moments until you return.’

‘Oh, Hyde!’ She must not say it. There was nothing in the world she could say. ‘Take care of yourself,’ she swallowed a sob. ‘Be good, while I am gone.’

A knock on the door. Sam with Hyde’s tray. ‘Miss Abigail is served, ma’am.’ With that look of silent reproach she had had from all the servants today.

And Hyde, from the bed. ‘If you are gone too long, love, I promise nothing. But so far as the old wharf and back: about that, I believe, I can be reasonable. Only, kiss me for luck, before you go.’

Extraordinary request. They did not kiss, or at least only at formal greetings and leave-takings. ‘Are you sure you deserve it?’ she temporised. How could she bear to kiss him? How could he bear not to, just this once?

‘Positive.’ The blister was quite healed by now. His right hand pulled her down with a strength she had not expected. ‘Bless you, my love.’ Surely this once she might use the word.

Her lips brushed his cheek, then, with a quick twist she was free. ‘Eat your lunch. Rest well. Be good.’

‘Call that a kiss?’ But she had escaped and was sobbing her heart out in the ladies’ retiring room on the ground floor. When she joined Miss Abigail ten minutes later, it was almost a relief to have the whole meal devoted to the expected scold. She was late, she was frivolous, she was mannerless, she was leading Hyde into bad ways ... It went on endlessly, and she crumbled her bread, pushed scalloped oysters this way and that with her two-pronged fork, and listened, hardly hearing. Only, at the very end, rising to go and change into her riding-habit, she allowed herself one retort. ‘And yet, Miss Abigail, it seems you trust me, since Hyde asked you not to scold me, and you assume that I will not tell him you have.’

It was a silencer. She escaped. Past Hyde’s door. He would be sleeping now, since his light luncheon took much less time than the elaborate affair to which she and Miss Abigail had to sit down. Anne would be sitting beside him. She had managed to avoid Anne all morning. Even for one last glimpse of Hyde, she could not face her now.

Alice had been crying too. ‘I don’ know how we’ll get along without you, ma’am.’ She buttoned tiny dark green buttons unwillingly.

‘You’ll have to, Alice. But, please, for my sake, help her — help your mistress ... Help her be kind to him.’

‘Bless you, ma’am. We’d all give our lives. For
him
.’

The sun shone. Birds sang. A group of children playing in the dust outside the double row of whitewashed cottages came running up to beg for the candy she always carried for them. She handed it out mechanically. Must remember to tell Josephine about these new habits of hers. Old women smiled at her from their doorsteps. Men working in the cotton fields paused and straightened up to wave their hats to her cheerfully. She returned their greetings without knowing what she said. Never again ... Never again ... Never again.

Ariel was getting restless, aware of slack hands on the reins. She pulled herself together. This was no day to be run away with. Almost there. She could hear the voice of the river now, its quiet murmur along the sheltered shore of the island. Let Josephine only be there, ready. Let it be quick: and over. Tomorrow she would make her plans for going back to France. The money she had won from Hyde would pay her fare. No use hoping for anything from Josephine who would, inevitably, be furious. And to use Hyde’s own money to abandon him ... But how much worse, for all of them, if she stayed.

There. She came out of the tangle of wild plum and sweet-scented yellow jasmine on to the shore. The old wharf lay below her, deserted, but straining her ears she thought she could hear the sound of singing from upstream. It was a gay, lilting tune she had not heard before, and as it grew louder and the boat pulled into view round the bend of the river she felt a sudden surge of bitterness. Childish, of course, to expect the rowers to mind about her going as the house servants did. The boat swept nearer, racing down with the tide, black against the golden savannah grass of the swamps on either side of the river. The tune came over the water more clearly now, and she began to make out the words. Extraordinary. She had heard about this song. ‘Day of glory, day of freedom,’ it began, and though apparently religious, its message was obvious. It celebrated the day of liberation for the slaves. On some plantations, to be heard singing it meant a beating to which death would be preferable. Even on Winchelsea, she had never heard it sung.

‘Day of glo—’ The singing stopped suddenly, then began again, raggedly at first, an old familiar tune, ‘Jenny shake her toe at me.’ Stan, steering, must have seen her waiting there on the beach. But what of Josephine? She would never have allowed them to sing that song ... Juliet looked about her, suddenly cold with terror in the sunshine of the lonely beach. Could Josephine have said or done, in her anger, something so unspeakable, uttered some threat so dreadful, as to precipitate the revolt that every plantation owner dreaded? But here? On Winchelsea? Where every man was free? It seemed impossible. And yet, with Josephine, anything was possible. And, now, she could see. There was no elegant figure seated comfortably under the stern awning.

The singers had got into their swing now:

‘Hurray, Miss Susie oh,

Jenny gone away.’

One last, strong pull and they were coming into the wharf, while Juliet tied Ariel to the hitching post with trembling hands and ran down to meet them.

‘Satan.’ She had never thought his name inauspicious until now. ‘What have you done with her?’ Probably she should be afraid for her own life, but what did she care about that?

‘Done?’ Satan paused to give the last orders to the rowers, then jumped ashore to join her on the rotting wharf. She had forgotten how huge he was, and how black, silhouetted there against the golden beginnings of sunset. He looked down at her. ‘Ma’am, you’re never frit of me? Old Satan?’ Could there be, actually, a note of scorn in his voice? ‘You should go for to have more sense, missy.’ Something extraordinarily reassuring both about his tone and the use of the less dignified form of address. He scratched his coarse white curls, obviously thinking it over, then, disconcertingly, burst into a great bull’s roar of laughter. ‘Lawd-a-mussy-me, you never went to think we dunked her in the river back there?’ He was literally laughing till the tears came. ‘Law, miss — ma’am —’ he was pulling himself together. ‘How I wish we had. Hey, you boys,’ he shouted down to his crew, who were resting on their oars, probably within earshot. ‘Take her round to the main dock, and leave her all right and tight as if I was watching you, I’m going to walk the mistress back across the island.’ He turned back to Juliet, his voice extraordinarily gentle. ‘You didn’t ought to be out on your lone, if you can think such things, ma’am. Not that I blame you, the things gets said. Just the same,’ he was unhitching Ariel, ‘I reckon you’ve got plenty spunk to stay and wait for us, thinking what you did. There: up you go. Why didn’t you turn and run for it, when you thought that?’