Wide is the Water (33 page)

Dick laughed ruefully. ‘You've forgotten something. I am now the heir to the Purchas estate. It has made a great difference to my position. The Lords of Admiralty have
been glad to close a painful episode by letting me send in my papers. My father sent for me from Plymouth as soon as poor George's body was found. I got here yesterday and found things well in train already. I am going to get my wish and settle down to run the estate and put into effect all those good ideas we had. Hart, if only … I would so like to have you for a brother.'

‘I am a married man,' said Hart. ‘Nothing will alter that.'

‘Ah, poor Julia,' said Dick. ‘She loves you, Hart. I think she truly loves you. It would be the making of her. It was George led her astray. With you, it would be quite different. If you had seen her this morning. In tears, Hart. Julia who never cries. She looks ill. Ill with unhappiness. If you saw her, I think you must relent.'

‘Dick, I'm married.' There was so much he must not say. As Dick was pleading her case, he had had a sudden, horrible vision of Julia, the consummate actress, playing off her wiles on her gullible brother. Mercy was an actress, too, but how different. She had acted a part for her country. With him, she had always been the soul of honour. Too honest, perhaps? What a strange thought. And why did talk of Julia now bring Mercy so vividly, so tantalisingly into his mind?

‘You're hard,' said Dick. ‘I'd not thought it of you.'

‘I'm honest, or try to be.'

‘And I must tell her not to hope?'

‘Yes,' There was no way of wrapping it up in clean linen.

‘Then the first day you are safe out of here, which I trust will be soon, my friends will wait upon yours to arrange a meeting.'

‘Very well.' He would not tell Dick that he had no other real friend in England. He held out his hand. ‘Good-bye. Believe me when I tell you how sorry I am.'

Left alone, he could hardly cope with the flood of new ideas. Dick seriously seemed to believe that he was not in danger of death. If only he had asked him more questions, but how could he, with the shadow of Julia between them? He was beginning to hate both Julia and
her father and was glad of it. But Dick he could not hate. The idea of fighting him was horrible. Was he in honour bound to fire in the air and let Dick kill him? Time enough to think of that when he was out of the Tower. He found he was actually beginning to believe in the possibility of freedom. George Purchas's body must have been found in incriminating circumstances, so he would be believed if he explained that his own actions during the riots had been caused by suspicion of him. So … if Mr. Purchas wanted to save his family's name, he would be wise to do everything to avoid a trial.

The gaoler confirmed the remarkable change in his position by appearing with a pint of porter. ‘The young gentleman said you was to have anything you liked, sir,' he explained. ‘I'm glad of it. I do like to see my gentlemen comfortable. You won't take anything I've done amiss, will you now, not a gentleman like you?'

‘Not if you will fetch me a newspaper … all the papers you can.'

‘I ain't got none, sir, and that's God's truth. I read them at the coffehouse when I can. But I can tell you right out, sir things look a whole lot better for you and even for Lord George than they did. Things is quiet again, see, and folks have turned to the right-about. What's fretting them now is all the soldiers here in town. Amherst – the Commander in Chief – gave orders, see that no one was to carry arms. First thing the soldiers did was disarm the citizens who'd joined together for their own protection. Well, of course, they didn't like that above half. So now the cry is all to get the military out of town. And Parliament refusing to sit while they are here. It's all quite different sir; you'll find it so when you get out. Well, look at the executions last week. All quiet as bedamned; just a nice day out for the public, you could say.' He laughed. ‘No need to look so sick, sir, Government's had enough. The less said about it all now, the better. Bygones be bygones; all that.' He looked a little anxiously round the bleak cell. ‘Anything you need, sir, short of papers? My bet is you'll be out of
here before many days is passed, and I wouldn't want you complaining of your treatment.'

‘No?' Hart could hardly help laughing. ‘Then fetch me another pint of this excellent porter if my credit will stretch so far.'

‘No need to be fretting about that, sir. The young gentleman said he'd stand the nonsense. A right down open-handed good-hearted gentleman that one. Porter, sir, right away.'

I shall have to let Dick kill me, thought Hart. It would be a solution, after all. His mother was dead. Mercy had obviously washed her hands of him. And free now from the immediate terror of execution, he remembered that if he did emerge unscathed from the Tower, it would only be to be recommitted to prison for debt. It was tragicomic to think that in order to be able to fight him, Dick would have to pay his debts. He looked back now on those first mad, extravagant weeks in London with a kind of horror. Fool … idiot. The.fact that Busby and Drummond had made it so easy for him to borrow was no excuse. He, better than anyone, had known how his affairs really stood, and yet he had let Julia lead him on from extravagance to extravagance.

Disgusting to be blaming her like this. It was all his own fault, his own foolishness, and if by some miracle he ever got home to America, he would pay for it, in the sweat of his brow, all his life. How happy he would be to do so. Suddenly, almost unbearably, he remembered the feel of working in the rice fields at Winchelsea, the soft, warm earth as one opened the sluices, the delight of seeing the first green shoots. Oh, God, just to get back there, to get home …

‘Mercy, try to rest.' Ruth had unpacked their portmanteau while Mercy eagerly read through the back issues of the London papers that the landlord of the Portsmouth inn had found for her.

‘How can I? With Hart in the Tower! For a whole month now, and no sign of a trial. And no clue in these papers to where I will find his family.'

‘The landlord says they'll most likely be at their country place, Denton Hall, since Parliament has been dissolved. He's been very kind.'

‘Everyone has.' Mercy sounded surprised. It had been almost disconcerting to find that first Captain Kemp and now the landlord of the inn treated her not as an enemy, an object of suspicion, but simply as an unlucky woman whose husband was in prison, in danger of his life. The Mercy who had been the Rebel Pamphleteer seemed no longer to exist; instead, she had to live with this new creature, Hart's wife.

‘It can't be long until we hear,' Ruth said once again. ‘Captain Kemp promised your letters would go off on the night mail. A pity there is no cross mail to Sussex so that the one to Denton Hall will take longer, but surely some member of the family will be in London since Hart is in prison there. And I am sure the captain was right to say we should stay here until we have heard from them.'

‘I wish I was.' Mercy had only yielded after much persuasion. ‘Suppose they have washed their hands of him! It's so hard to make out from the papers what really happened in those terrible riots. First, Hart's a hero who
saved his Cousin Julia Purchas from the mob, and then all of a sudden the story is that he led it, that the riots were an American attempt to dislodge Lord North's government.'

‘But nobody seems to believe that anymore,' said Ruth. ‘So we should be grateful, Mercy dear, that there is no sign of Hart's being brought to trial, when so many others have already been tried and condemned. Time has to be on his side. And just think how much we have to be thankful for. We are not prisoners as we expected; we are in funds, thanks to Charles Brisson; and, best of all, we are here, in England, and treated as friends, not enemies.'

‘It's extraordinary,' said Mercy. ‘But, Ruth dear, so far as I am concerned, the best thing of all is you. How would I ever have managed without you?'

‘Or I without you.' She smiled rather tremulously. ‘Sometimes I feel wicked because I do not think more about Mother and the others.'

‘They would not want you to. I feel the same about poor Mrs. Purchis and her sister. But it's the living one must think of.'

‘I do wish we knew what had happened to Charles Brisson.' Ruth had found his letter, saying good-bye and containing a draft on Coutts Bank, in their portmanteau when she unpacked it, and they were almost sure that it had not been there when they left the
Amsterdam
for the
Endymion.
‘Maybe he bribed a British sailor to put his letter in the portmanteau,' Ruth went on. ‘And stayed hidden on the
Amsterdam.
I hope he is safe in France by now.'

Mercy was not listening. She had returned to her anxious perusal of the shabby old papers, their tattered condition indicative of the frantic eagerness with which they had been read as they arrived with each day's batch of bad news from London. ‘It must have been appalling business,' she said. ‘Half London in flames; the mob in command … And none of the ringleaders caught, by the reports of the trials so far. I'm so afraid, Ruth … that they are saving
Hart and Lord George Gordon to make some terrible example of them.'

‘Don't think like that; try to be patient. Just think, by now Hart may have had your letter. Imagine how happy it will make him.'

‘I wish I understood about this cousin whose life he saved,' said Mercy.

The next morning's paper carried a description of the executions of a group of rioters convicted of taking part in the outbreak. An insignificant enough crew, by the report, they had been hanged as near as possible to the scenes of their particular crimes, and there had been no sign of sympathy from the crowd, nor was there any suggestion of a guiding hand behind them. Lord George Gordon was briefly mentioned as being still closely confined to the Tower, with all his letters read and his family allowed to visit him only for an hour at a time.

‘So you see,' said Ruth when Mercy read this out to her, ‘Hart will have been allowed your letter.'

‘They say nothing about him,' said Mercy.

‘Perhaps he has been released. He most certainly has not been tried. That would have been reported.'

‘Yes. Yes, of course. Thank you, Ruth!'

‘I wish you would come out and walk by the sea. You've not been out of doors since we landed; it cannot be good for you.'

‘How can I,' said Mercy, ‘when any moment there may be news of Hart?' She moved over to the window. ‘There's a private carriage driving into the yard now. It's a woman. I wonder …'

‘My stars, how elegant.' Ruth joined her at the window. ‘I never saw such deep mourning.'

A few minutes later a chambermaid scratched at the door and announced, ‘Miss Purchas.'

‘I felt it!' Mercy advanced, trembling, to greet the black-garbed young woman, who had thrown back her mourning veil to show two huge dark eyes in an ivory-pale face.

‘Mercy.' She held out her arms. ‘I shall call you Mercy.
And this must be Hart's cousin Ruth, of whom he has told me so much.' She kissed them both warmly. ‘I came the moment I had read your letter,' she told Mercy, seating herself in the room's one comfortable chair. ‘I knew it was what Hart would have wished.'

‘Would have?' Mercy had been afraid she knew what the deep mourning meant. ‘You mean, Hart—' She swayed where she stood, and caught hold of the window ledge.

‘Oh, no, forgive me! I never thought … Dear Hart's as safe as a man can be when confined in the Tower for high treason. There's no move to try him yet, and Lord George Gordon himself is not to be tried until next month. No, alas, my blacks are for my beloved brother.' She paused for a moment, using a delicate, scrap of a handkerchief.

‘The one who saved Hart? Oh, I am so sorry!'

‘No, no. Not Dick. He survives to plague us. No, my beloved elder brother, George. Killed in the riots! The only man of rank to be so. And we did not even know until a few days ago! We thought he was in the country, on a repairing lease. And then' – now she really needed the handkerchief – ‘his body was found. In the cellar of a burnt building. Horrible! They only knew him by … by his clothes, a ring … What he was doing there … we will never know. Please? Have you smelling salts?'

‘I'm sorry. Ruth—'

‘I'll find some.'

‘Thank you.' Julia put out a shaking hand to clutch Mercy's. ‘Mercy, I have to talk to you. Alone. When she brings the salts, send her away!'

‘I have no secrets from Ruth.'

‘But I have. And Hart … Please, for his sake, for ours …'

‘Ours? What do you mean?' Still trembling, she let Julia pull her down into a chair beside her and received a warm, sweet waft of the perfume she was wearing. She was very beautiful, Hart's cousin Julia. ‘Ruth, dear.' Ruth had reappeared with the landlady's sal volatile. ‘Would you mind
leaving us for a little while? Miss Purchas has something she wants to say to me alone.'

‘Alone?' Ruth gave them both a straight, considering look. ‘Very well. I will be in one of the public rooms. But if I were you, I would decide nothing, promise nothing, on the spot.'

‘A very positive young lady.' Julia sniffed at the sal volatile. ‘Surprising. Now.' She put the bottle down and leant forward with another waft of heavy scent. ‘Dear Mercy.' She sensed her instinctive withdrawal. ‘You won't mind my calling you that? Hart has told me so much about you … I feel we are friends already. Feel that I can trust you, thank God.'

‘Trust me?' Extraordinary how much she disliked the idea of Hart's talking about her to this exquisite young woman. And yet what more natural? She was his cousin … Was that all she was? There was a cold feeling about her heart.

‘Yes, trust you.' Julia raised great tear-laden eyes to hers. ‘Mercy, I know you for the gallant, the splendid woman you are … The things you have done … The dangers you have braved … Compared with you, I am nothing, negligible. In myself, that is. But there is more to it than self. Mercy, dear Mercy, you are brave; I have to tell you this. Hart and I – it was too strong for us – we love each other.'