Wide is the Water (16 page)

But then everything was odd today. Her mind was playing the strangest tricks on her. For a moment she was sure that Ruth, sitting beside her on the cold seat of the sledge, was Abigail, that she was about to turn and reproach her for the deaths of Mrs. Purchis and Mrs. Mayfield. How long since she had heard of those horrible deaths? Two days? Two years? A lifetime?

‘You made them go,' said Abigail. ‘You sent them to their deaths.'

‘No!' she exclaimed. ‘No! It's not true!'

‘What's the matter, Mercy dear?' Ruth – it was Ruth after all – reached out a cold, anxious hand to touch her face.

‘Nothing. I was imagining things. Stupid.' They left the little town of Trenton, the sledge moving easily on the packed snow of a well-used road. And now, all about them, were the signs of the British attack on and final retreat from Philadelphia. Skeletons of burnt houses and barns loomed stark against the snow. Picket fences had great ragged gaps; trees flung broken branches at the sky, witnesses to savage gunfire.

And behind them lurked the ghosts. Mrs. Purchis and Mrs. Mayfield peered out here from over a blackened wall, there from a savaged tree, smiling horribly, beckoning. What were they saying? How could she bear it? How could she not? ‘Come and join us,' they called. ‘It's cold, in the snow, where we lie. You killed us, come and join us in our cold grave.'

‘No!' Fighting her way back to sanity, she found she was clutching Ruth's hand. ‘No, of course, we should go on.' By what miracle had she understood what Ruth had just said? ‘I'll be better when we get there.' Better? Or dead? Quiet in the cold, like the two women she had killed. Face it. She almost certainly had. And Abigail? Abigail, who had been beside her just now. Was she dead, too, also a victim of her
own activities as spy and Rebel Pamphleteer? How proud she had felt, back in Savannah, dressed out in satin and emeralds, smiling and smiling at bemused British officers, tricking them into telling her little, trivial-seeming, possibly vital bits of information. Had any of it really helped the American cause? Had any member of the harassed Georgian government in exile paused to read the reports she had penned so carefully, smuggled out so secretly? She doubted it now. There were two rival exiled governments, she knew in the west of Georgia, feuding bitterly between themselves. How should they have time for the information she sent them at such risk?

Not her own risk. She had escaped. She had married and lived happily ever after. Happily! A dry, bitter little laugh shook her and drew an anxious glance from Ruth. Happily ever after. What would Hart think when he learned that she had killed his mother and aunt? He had never really liked her activities as a spy, even when she had finally come to believe in them. Better, in his eyes, just better to be a spy than the loose woman he had thought her at first? Maybe he had thought so then, but now, with the consequences written in blood on his family? What would Hart think now? What would he feel? Would he be glad that their marriage was still one in name only? And if he was, could she blame him?

Where was Hart now? If only she could see him, tell him, ask his forgiveness. Eagerly scanning the dog-eared newspapers usually available in the taverns where they spent the night, she had found no reference to the
Georgia
and made herself believe that no news was good news. But was it in this case? A prize would have been news, and she was afraid that Hart badly needed a prize to settle the allegiance of his disaffected crew. But, she had told herself over and over again, the papers she had seen were invariably old ones. In Philadelphia there would be up-to-date news. And what kind of welcome for Hart's wife, his mother's murderer?

‘You're tired, ma'am.' Charles Brisson turned to tuck the fur more closely round her. ‘And no wonder after
yesterday's adventure. But keep your brave heart up; it's not long now. On a good day I believe we could see the steeple of Independence Hall by now.'

‘You've been to Philadelphia before?' Somehow she had thought this his first visit to America.

‘Oh, yes. In happier times. It makes a man mad to see the damage done by the British.' He pointed with his whip to the blackened shell of a farmhouse, bleak against the snow. ‘It's starting to snow again. I wish the Palmers had made an earlier start. At this rate it will be dark before we get to town, and cold with it, I am afraid. So much for that thaw that nearly cost you your life. I wish you were safe in your bed, with a hot brick at your feet.'

‘Not half so much as I do.' A mistake to speak. Cold air and a whisper of snow blew into her mouth and hurt her throat. Her teeth would not close again; she felt them rattling together. She had never believed that one's teeth could really chatter. ‘I'm cold,' she managed. ‘I don't think … I don't know …' The chattering was worse, uncontrollable now.

‘Ruth.' Brisson's voice came from far off. ‘Mrs. Purchis is ill. Pile more rugs on her, everything there is; it doesn't matter about us; we must keep her warm.'

‘Oh, poor Mercy. Should we not stop? There are lights in that house over there.' As she spoke, Ruth folded her own rug over Mercy, who merely felt colder under its weight and was now shivering in great, involuntary spasms.

‘No, no. Much best get her to town: the chance of a doctor, the Palmers' house. Hardly half an hour, I think, and then you will be warm, Mrs. Purchis.' He had called Ruth by her first name. How very odd. How very cold. How many miles to Babylon? I am freezing to death, and this cold hell is the one I have earned by all my cleverness. ‘Did Mrs. Purchis and Mrs. Mayfield die cold, too?' She had not known she had spoken aloud until Brisson answered her.

‘Don't think of that. Don't think of dying. Think of fire, and food, and light. Keep up that brave heart of yours.'

‘Hart,' she heard herself say. ‘He'll never forgive me.
How could he? His mother, his aunt, all my fault. All … all my fault. Playing at heroines … It's dark,' she said. ‘It's so dark.'

‘Give her this; make her drink it.'

‘I'll try.' Ruth's anxious voice. Ruth's cold hands, fumbling with something; then the sting of fiery liquid in her cold mouth.

‘Rum,' she said. ‘Like Mrs. Paston. I shall die like her, in the dark. Lay me beside her, Ruth, till the spring comes, and the worms. It's all I'm good for. Murderer … Are they lying in the cold still? Mrs. Purchis, Mrs. Mayfield … Waiting … waiting for me? I had no idea hell would be so cold. Oh!' Her mouth was filled with another dram of fiery rum, and this time she felt its warmth all through her.

‘I think she's asleep.' Ruth's voice.

‘Thank God for that. Hold her tight; keep her warm if you can. We're almost there.'

Blur of lights; a new movement of the sledge; voices. Asleep? Awake? Did it matter? ‘Poor Mercy.' Ruth's voice again. ‘Let me.' Ruth's cold hands helping lift her. Ruth's voice so different. What was it?

‘Love,' Mercy said, and slept at last.

How long? Dream and nightmare; light and darkness; warmth. And always Ruth's loving hands. Ruth lifting her, helping her drink, feeding her mouthfuls of hot gruel, talking to her. ‘Don't die, Mercy, please don't die. You're all I've got. You and Jed. You're my family. Please, Mercy.'

Too tired to speak. Family: Hart. Something warm was running down her cheeks. Tears? What a waste of time. With an immense effort she managed to turn away from the light, towards the wall, towards darkness, towards death.

Screams. Ruth? Daylight now, and Ruth screaming, somewhere quite close by. Screaming … screaming … screaming. ‘I can't bear it.' Very slowly, with immense effort, she sat up in bed, pushed away the heavy feather quilt, and stood up, groggily, leaning against the bedhead, her heavy nightgown warm about her. A tiny room, a
cupboard really, opening from another one. And from there, the screams, still horribly resounding. ‘Ruth!' But her voice did not obey her, came out merely as a croak. The screaming grew wilder, more desperate, intolerable. She swayed away from the bed and grabbed at the doorway.

A larger room. Sunlight in it. A bed. Ruth sitting on it, hunched together, drawing breath for yet another scream.

‘Ruth!' This time it came out, the thread of a whisper. ‘Ruth, don't!'

‘Mercy!' She was on her feet, taller, thinner, very white, holding out loving arms to catch Mercy as she swayed and fell.

‘Found them in bed together, snug as you please.' A strange voice, a woman's, self-excusing? ‘I ran out round the corner for a moment, for a cup of flour. Left that dratted boy to take care of things. Where is he anyway? But they're none the worse, surely, Doctor?'

‘Two patients instead of one?' A cool hand picked up Mercy's and felt her pulse. ‘This one's much better. I should have seen the girl was wearing herself out nursing her. So should you, come to that, Mrs. Peabody.'

‘Maybe I did. But no business of mine. Me with my gentlemen to look after,
and
that guest of theirs. No part of my job to be looking after a sick young lady. Or two of them!'

‘A heroine of the Revolution, Mrs. Peabody.'

‘A fiddlestick, Dr. Marston. What kind of heroine gets her ma-in-law killed, that's what I want to know? Ask me, all that's happened serves her richly right, and so I shall tell her, soon as I get the chance.'

Mercy opened heavy eyes. ‘What has happened to me?' she asked.

‘You've been very ill, Mrs. Purchis,' said the doctor. ‘For a while I was afraid we were going to lose you. I think you owe your life to this child here' – he was feeling Ruth's pulse – ‘who has worn herself out, I am afraid,
looking after you.' He sounded anxious now. ‘She's very fast asleep.'

‘She does that after one of her screaming fits.'

‘Screaming?'

‘That's what roused me. She saw her twin sister killed by Indians. Sometimes she remembers … Oh, my God!' It brought it all back. ‘Mrs. Purchis. Mrs. Mayfield. Is there any news of my husband, Doctor? Letters from him?'

‘I'm afraid not ma'am. Now you are not to distress yourself; the worst possible thing for you. Naturally no news is good news, but the fact is there has been none of your husband and the
Georgia
since he landed you near Boston.'

‘He had stores for three months,' she said. ‘If he had taken a prize, though, he would have brought her in — or sent her.'

‘She might have been retaken.'

‘Anything could have happened. His crew were disaffected.'

‘You knew?' He sounded surprised. ‘Yes, there have been rumours, down from Boston. Shameful the way they treated you there, you and Miss Paston.'

‘You've heard about that?'

‘Everyone has. You must resign yourself to being the toast of the town, Mrs. Purchis. What with the boy Jed's stories of your courage up at Farnham and the way the Palmers and Mr. Brisson sing your praises for what you did to the Bartram brothers you are quite the lioness of the hour. Now you are better, I can see I must forbid visitors for a while, or you will be worn out all over again.'

‘But, Doctor …' She had to ask it. ‘Mrs. Purchis. Mrs. Mayfield. People must know about their deaths, too.'

‘A terrible thing,' he said gravely. ‘But, my dear Mrs. Purchis, you must not be blaming yourself. I know how you feel; you have talked, a great deal, while you have been ill. No, no.' He held up a friendly hand, seeing hot colour flood her pale face. ‘No need to fret. Secrets of the sick chamber. No one knows but that good child there and me. I don't
think she understood half of what you were saying. And I have forgotten it. But so far as those two poor ladies are concerned, you must not let yourself feel that their terrible death was your fault. Oh, yes, things may have been said in the first shock of their deaths … best ignored, forgotten. There is a letter for you, from Miss Purchis. I hope it will do you more good than anything I can say to you. She had been most generous and most particular in what she has said in public.'

‘Oh, thank God! Abigail's alive!'

‘Indeed she is, and blames that disastrous journey of her aunts' squarely on Mrs. Mayfield, who was afraid that her house in Charleston would be destroyed while the town was being fortified against the expected British attack.'

‘They knew about that? And still went?'

‘Dear me, yes. Everyone knows. For a while, with the weather so stormy, we all hoped Clinton's fleet had been dispersed. They certainly took long enough on their way south. But then, just when everyone's hopes were up, they turned up at Savannah itself to refit after their rough voyage. That was what sent those poor ladies hurrying north.'

‘Madness,' said Mercy, ‘to go to a town that was expecting a siege.'

‘But nobody expects the British to succeed,' said the doctor comfortably. ‘General Clinton has more enemies than friends; there are even rumours that he has resigned his command. And you know what happened last time the British attacked Charleston. Moultrie and his friends soon sent them to the right-about. And of course, poor Mrs. Mayfield had another reason to be anxious about her house.'

‘Oh?'

‘I have no doubt that Miss Abigail Purchis will have mentioned it in her letter. It is common knowledge now that Mrs. Mayfield's son Francis was playing a double game, pretending to be an ardent Patriot, but in fact siding with the British. You must have known that.'

‘I certainly did.' Mercy shivered, remembering how nearly Francis had been her death.

‘Well, naturally, when the Patriots in Charleston heard about that, there was talk of confiscating the Mayfield house. Which, I understand, is most admirably situated, for either military or trade purposes. A most valuable property. Mrs. Mayfield hoped to save it by showing her Patriot sympathies in that dangerous journey north. She made various statements, before she left, about how she had supported you in your activities as the Rebel Pamphleteer.'