Wide is the Water (41 page)

‘Nor will many other things,' said Hart. ‘But let us not quarrel, not this first day at home.'

‘No, indeed.' Abigail's smile was forced, and she made
an obvious effort to change the subject. ‘Hart, there is something I think I should tell you.' ‘Yes?'

‘Perhaps alone?' With an apolgetic glance at Mercy.

‘No.' Hart made it gentle. ‘Mercy and I are man and wife. What concerns me concerns her too.'

‘Oh, very well. It's about Francis. After …' She hesitated for a moment. After your mother and Aunt Anne died, I had to tidy their papers. I found a batch of letters to Francis from someone in England. Someone called Julia. She wrote as if … as if they were old friends.' And then, bravely. ‘More than that. There was a child, a girl. She wanted help. I don't think he gave it.'

‘I know he did not,' said Hart. ‘Thank you, Abigail. I'm grateful to you for telling me. It explains a great deal. Do you realise,' he turned to Mercy. ‘Why did we never think of it? No wonder Julia knew so much about me, about us … It was not just our letters that she stopped and opened. She had been in touch with Francis all the time.'

‘All the time?' Mercy thought about it. ‘Oh, poor Julia. Still hoping, do you think?'

‘I'm afraid so. It's an old, sad story.' He turned to Abigail, trying to remember how much she knew about Francis's death. ‘Best forgotten.'

‘Oh, yes,' she said bitterly. ‘By all means let us forget.'

Hart and Mercy were glad to be alone at last in Hart's old bedroom. ‘Poor Abigail,' said Mercy. ‘If only she had gone with Giles Habersham when he asked her to that time.'

‘Yes,' said Hart. ‘But how was she to know? Read your letter, darling. Best face it at once.'

It was a brief scrawl, written the night before Brisson was hanged:

Beloved Mercy.

Let me call you that, this once, before I die. And forgive me for the times I deceived you … used you. I think I am glad to die. I know I am glad to have
known you; loved you. Give my kind regards to your lucky husband. I am glad to think that I saved your lives. Your murders were planned on that smuggler. You were to meet on her – and be killed. I pray that you will live happy and sometimes remember me. Mercy, spying's a shabby business. Don't go back to it; don't let this war tarnish you, as it has me.

Yours, till death and beyond – Charles

When she had cried over it, she showed it to Hart. ‘Nobody asked me to swear not to fight the British,' she said. ‘But, Hart, I do. It's all too complicated for me now.'

‘I know,' he said. ‘I feel the same.'

They rode out to Winchelsea the next day, glad to be free of the currents and crosscurrents of Savannah society. ‘We'll rebuild and come out here just as soon as we can,' said Hart as they took the familiar turning down the long walk with its occasional ilex tree, survivor of the avenue his grandfather had planted.

‘I wish we could move out at once,' said Mercy. ‘Poor Abigail, it's no wonder she's bitter. To have waited all those years for Giles Habersham and then receive a turn down like that! It's enough to turn anyone sour. But I'd as lief not live with her. Oh, Hart, I do bless Julia Purchis for her money.'

‘And Charles Brisson for our lives,' he reminded her soberly as they reined in their horses at sight of what had been the house. Burnt almost to the ground during the abortive French attack on Savannah the year before, it was coming to life again now as a tangle of wild jasmine and scarlet-and bronze-leaved creepers. Growing out of and up the remaining bits of wall and chimney, these even gave it something of the shape of the old house.

‘We'll rebuild on the old site,' said Hart. ‘Just as soon as the war is over and it's safe.'

‘I wish we could now.'

‘Oh, my dear, so do I. But this house was in the thick of the fighting last time Savannah was attacked. It may
well be again. However we may hope for a negotiated end to the war, it would be madness to count on it. And in the meantime, there is always the danger of an Indian attack. I would never have a quiet moment if we came to live here now. I'd be afraid, always, of the same horrible fate for you as befell my mother and Aunt Anne. And – we must face it – I may not be able to stay with you all the time. I have promised not to fight the British, but I gave no undertaking not to work for peace.'

She smiled at him. ‘And I have promised nothing since nobody asked me. How strange it all is.' By tacit consent, they turned their horses in the direction of the old graveyard. Reaching it, they stopped, surprised. The house had gone back to jungle, but the graveyard had been lovingly cared for. They tied their horses to the makeshift gate and walked across to where Mercy's father was buried. The stump of the Judas tree beside it had sprouted. The grave was covered with creeping evergreens, and the gravestone recently cleaned: ‘James Phillips. The truth shall make you free.'

They stood for a moment, silent, hand in hand. ‘Do you remember last time?' she said at last. ‘I said we'd be back.'

‘And here we are. I thought we would bring my mother and Aunt Anne out here. And a stone for Charles Brisson?'

‘By my father's?' She smiled up at him, letting the tears flow. ‘What shall we put on it.'

‘“Love conquers all things,”' he told her.

‘Even war?'

‘Even war.'

Jane Aiken
Hodge was born in Massachusetts to Pulitzer prize-winning poet, Conrad Aiken, and his first wife, writer Jessie McDonald. Hodge was 3 years old when her family moved to Great Britain, settling in Rye, East Sussex, where her younger sister, Joan, who would become a novelist and a children's writer, was born.
From 1935, Jane Hodge read English at Somerville College, Oxford University, and in 1938 she took a second degree in English at Radcliffe College. She was a civil servant, and also worked for
Time
magazine, before returning to the UK in 1947. Her works of fiction include historical novels and contemporary detective novels. In 1972 she renounced her United States citizenship and became a British subject.

Discover books by Jane Aiken Hodge published by Bloomsbury Reader at
www.bloomsbury.com/JaneAikenHodge
A Death in Two Parts
Leading Lady
Polonaise
Rebel Heiress
Strangers in Company
Wide Is the Water

For copyright reasons, any images not belonging to the original author have been
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This electronic edition published in 2013 by Bloomsbury Reader
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First published in Great Britain 1981 Hodder and Stroughton Ltd
Copyright © 1981 Jane Aiken Hodge
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eISBN: 9781448210848
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