Wide is the Water
Authors: Jane Aiken Hodge
Jane Aiken Hodge
Oh, wide is the water, I cannot get o'er,
The water lies wide twixt my true love and me
I stand alone on a stranger shore
And never more my true love shall see.
The water is wide, and I cannot get o'er
I long to fly, but I fear to fall,
I wait my love on a stranger shore,
I await my love, for love conquers all
Anon.
I
It was cold. Too cold to think; too cold to feel. Outside, a savage wind threw snow against the windowpanes, found cracks in the wood-built inn, blew the flames of a newly lit fire angrily back down the chimney.
âThe sledge should be ready any minute now.' Hart Purchis reached inside his greatcoat to pull out his watch. âYou're sure you won't stay and have some breakfast?'
âAfter you've gone? No.' Like her husband, Mercy was wearing a heavy coat and shivering inside it. She held out her hands to the fire and would not let them shake. âThe Pastons will give me something when I get there.' He was still holding his watch, and she sensed his impatience to be gone. So much to say. Impossible to say any of it. Not here; not now; not like this. âHart. Don't wait. There's no need. The landlord will take good care of me, I'm sure. I know you're desperate to get back to the
Georgia
, to get her out with the tide, before she gets frozen in like the other ships. That has to come first, hasn't it? You didn't get safe away from Savannah to be frozen in, helpless, here at Boston. You have a job to do; the British to beat. Please, Hart, let's say good-bye; get it over with.'
He took her cold hands in his and chafed them gently. âI'm sorry, Mercy. Sorry for everything. It's not the way we hoped, is it? Any of it. But you'll be happy with the Pastons. They're my good friends. They'll take care of you. And I'll write whenever I can. Come spring, when the harbour thaws, we'll be here to see you, the
Georgia
and I, bringing our prizes with us. The men will miss you.'
âWill they?' She raised exhausted eyes to his. âI wonder.'
Even for an acclaimed heroine of the Revolution, the stormy voyage north from Savannah, sole woman on a small privateer crammed with men, had not been easy.
âOf course they will.' His voice came out a little too strong. âTheir mascot. The Rebel Pamphleteer.'
âAnd a great nuisance.' She thought of the tiny, cramped cabin, every sound audible, it felt, throughout the ship. A mockery of a honeymoon. A disaster. Hart looked at his watch again. âHart, do
go.
I couldn't bear it if you missed the tide on my account. Where the
Georgia
is anchored, she'd be a sitting target for a British man-of-war. She's not even far enough in to be protected by the harbour batteries.'
'I know. But any further and we really would have been frozen in like the others. God, what a winter. I hope you'll be warm enough, Mercy. Comfortable. I wish I knew more about this Cousin Golding Mrs. Paston is staying with. But a Boston merchant rich enough to live out at Farnham should keep a good house. And you'll be able to pay your way, at least for a while. Until I come sailing in with that prize. I wish I could have given you more.'
âDon't
worry
, Hart. I'll manage. I always have. I'll find work. Teaching, perhaps. Something. Everyone says the New Englanders have been getting rich while we in the South bore the brunt of the war.'
âBetter not say that to the Goldings.' The sharp answer was characteristic of their new, strained relationship.
âI won't.' She had bitten back a protest against his repeated assumption that the
Georgia
would be successful in her next privateering cruise. Not normally superstitious, she had felt a shiver run through her at his first mention of prizes; the second one was almost too much. But she had learned self-control during those cramped months on the
Georgia
, and besides, they were going to part in a minute. Till spring? Till the end of the endless war? No way of telling. And no time to quarrel. She reached up to put both hands on his shoulders. âI love you, Hart. Remember that. Always. And forgive me for everything
that's been wrong. It's been a hard time.'
âMy fault,' he said. âAll my fault.' And then: âOh, my God!'
âHart, what is it?'
âYour marriage lines,' he said. âThe paper Captain Bougainville gave you. It's still in my Bible, on board.'
âOur marriage lines.' She could not help the sharp correction but winced as she saw it hurt him. âNever mind, my darling.' It was a while since she had used the endearment. âI doubt if the city fathers of Farnham would set much store by a wedding performed on a French ship by a French sea captain. But you say Mrs. Paston will believe me, and that's what matters.'
âI wish I'd heard from her. I wish so many things. If only we could have got ashore, found a minister, the way I meant, been married again. Properly.'
Was that what had been wrong? âIt was proper enough for me,' she said, âthat wedding. But if that's the way you feel, maybe it's just as well there's no chance that I'm carrying a little, dubious Purchis.'
Now she had really got him on the raw. âForgive me. I didn't mean ⦠I can't bear it. Mercyâ'
But she had turned away from him as the landlord of the inn opened the door to announce that the sledge was ready for her. âBest get going right away, ma'am, before the horses freeze in their traces. And the tide's almost on the turn, Cap'n Purchis.'
They looked at each other. âMercy!'
âHart. I love you.'
âYou know I do.' He had his arm round her, guiding her out to where the sledge stood dark on the snow, her tiny portmanteau already stowed, steam rising from the horses' nostrils in the grey light of a reluctant dawn.
Their cold lips met. He helped the landlord pile furs around her, repeated the Farnham address to the driver, bent to kiss her one last time. âGod bless you, my dear wife, and keep you.'
âAnd you.' She was interrupted by the swift forward
movement of the sledge as the driver gave the office to his horses. âGood-bye.'
âGood-bye!' already his answer came from behind, against the drive of the wind. God be with you. She found herself crying and praying at the same time.
The driver was saying something in the clipped accent she found difficult to understand. âI beg your pardon?' she said, and then, belatedly understanding: 'Two hours to Farnham, you say? Can the horses stand it?'
âThe cold? Yes, ma'am. Don't you fret about them, but see you keep your hood tight round that pretty little head of yours. I don't want to get to Farnham and find your ears friz off. Ain't been to these parts before, I reckon?'
âNever. I didn't believe it could be so cold.'
âColdest winter for years.' He was proud of it. âShips fruz tight in the harbour. Sensible fellow, your friend Cap'n Purchis. He's doing the right thing with his
Georgia
, that's for sure.'
âMy husband,' she said.
âWind's rising.' Perhaps he had not heard her. âBit of luck we shouldn't get too much snow.'
She shook her head, hardly able to hear him against the creak of the sledge and the howling of the wind, and settled back among her rugs, grateful for the unaccustomed solitude. On the little
Georgia
, during the storm-tossed voyage north, she had often been lonely, but never really alone. Meeting the fringes of a hurricane as they sailed away from the fiasco of the French and American attack on British-held Savannah, they had been blown far off course, and the voyage to Boston that Hart had hoped to make in a few weeks had taken two exhausting months. They had spent a glum Christmas at sea, and now, counting on her cold fingers, Mercy realised that it was New Year's Day, 1780. A whole new decade. I should have wished Hart a Happy New Year, she thought, and then: What's happy about it?
If only they had taken a prize, the crew might not have been so resentful about what they considered the unnecessary trip to Boston. Hailed as a mascot at first, when Hart brought her on board, the heroine who had fooled the British for so long in occupied Savannah, Mercy had begun, in the last few weeks, as they battled up the storm-swept coast, to feel herself regarded more and more as an incubus. She had begged Hart to send her ashore to Philadelphia, but he could be obstinate, too. The French squadron had sailed away south after the fiasco at Savannah, and the British ships based on captured New York kept sharp watch on the mouth of the Delaware. To put in there was to risk capture, prison for him and his crew and, for her, very likely the spy's death from which he had saved her in Savannah.
Right, wrong? Wrong, right? No way of telling, but the argument had still further strained a relationship exacerbated by the appalling lack of privacy on the
Georgia.
And of course, Hart had meant to spend some time in Boston, for the refit his ship badly needed, to see her settled with his friends the Pastons, and, as she had learned only today, to marry her again. She put up a mittened hand to brush away a tear before it froze. It had been a happy ceremony, that swift wedding on board Captain Bougainville's ship the
Guerrier,
with everyone making the most of an occasion for rejoicing after the bitter disappointment of defeat at Savannah. The
Guerrier's
chaplain had been killed evacuating the wounded from Hart's burned plantation house at Winchelsea. And anyway, he had been a Roman Catholic. Well, so, she supposed, had Bougainville, but that was different. He had officiated, not as minister, but as ship's captain, supreme at sea.
Had Hart had doubts all the time? Was that why he had made such a point of sailing in company with the
Guerrier
so that the ceremony took place, not in the Savannah River, presumably American territory, but at sea, well off Tybee Light in international waters? But for that fatal delay, they might have been clear of southern waters before the hurricane struck Jamaica and its fringes lashed the coast right up to North Carolina. Fighting for
all their lives, Hart had had no time or strength for his new wife, and she had understood, or thought she had. There would be time for happiness, for their honeymoon, when they got to Boston.
But in that freak winter Boston Harbour was frozen solid. Warned in time, Hart had anchored briefly and dangerously off Cohuit, south of the town, to put her ashore. She pulled the furs more closely around her. Maybe it was as well that there was no chance she could be carrying his child. She had put a good face on it when he had broken it to her that he could give her only Georgia paper money, and not much of that. But everything she had read and heard about the rich merchants of Boston, who had thriven on wartime trade, made her wonder what they would think of Georgia paper. Well, she would find out soon enough.
âNot long now.' The driver turned to encourage her. âYou look kind of peaked.'
âI'm tired,' she admitted, amused at the understatement.
