Judas Flowering (10 page)

His mother was pressing her to accept Saul Gordon's invitation to go and help nurse his sick wife. Did Mrs Purchis, too, perhaps suspect that something serious was afoot between Mercy and Francis? Hart could not, himself, much like the idea of Mercy in Saul Gordon's lonely little house on the edge of the Common. And yet it would get her away from Francis. In the end, urged both by his mother and by Saul Gordon, he spoke to Mercy about it the day before they went back to Winchelsea.

“You want to get rid of me!” She flared up at him.

“No, no …” Furiously, he felt himself blush. “Nothing of the kind. I sometimes think my mother is more ailing than she will admit and would be only too happy to think of you out at Winchelsea to help Abigail care for her, but there is your future to be considered.”

“Playing God, Mr Purchis? I'll consider my own future, thank you. As for Saul Gordon, I don't much like being in
this
house with him, let alone in
his
. Unless you actually turn me out of Winchelsea, which you have every right to do, I would like to stay there.”

“But, Mercy …” He wanted to say something, give some warning about Francis, but she left him with a firm little click of the door between his study and the house. No use …

Back at Winchelsea, he found himself even more anxious to be gone. It was curious how life there had changed. On his own instructions, Sam was taking his orders from Francis now, and seeing how smoothly things continued to go on the estate under this new management, he could not help wondering if he had been flattering himself with a mere illusion of indispensability. And, as bad or worse, now that he had time to spend in the big, cool house, he found himself out
of things there too. Giles Habersham rode out most days to sit with Abigail on the porch or walk with her under the shade of the ilex avenue, and Mercy seemed to spend most of her time either working on the extensive new wardrobe Mrs Mayfield thought necessary for her Charleston visit, or eagerly listening to Frank's talk of his day's work in the fields.

Not, of course, that Frank actually worked, but he rode about and played the part of the master, better, Hart found himself thinking, than he had ever done. Perhaps the servants actually preferred a man who merely sat his horse and gave orders, rather than getting down into the dirt and working with them. It was all uncomfortable together, and he was delighted when the last stitch was set in what Frank laughingly called Mrs Mayfield's trousseau, and his own small boxes were packed and ready.

“Yes?” He had been packing his books and looked up at the light knock on his door.

“Hart.” It was Mercy, looking unusually shy, with a pile of something in her arms. “I do hope you won't mind it; I have been making you some shirts on the English style. I am sure you will find the other students all mighty fine in Cambridge.”

“Why, Mercy!” Once again that maddening blush. “How very good of you. It's true, I'm afraid I haven't given much thought to what I am to wear.”

“No!” She laughed at him over the shirts in her arms, looking at the piles of books. “And you are not to pack these underneath your Johnson's
Dictionary
either, or I will come up to Cambridge and haunt you.”

“I wish you could.” He took the shirts from her. “But, Mercy, there are a dozen—”

“Of course there are a dozen,” she said tartly. “What would Purchis of Winchelsea be doing with less?” And then, suddenly flushing to the roots of her hair at an impatient shout from somewhere down the hall, “Yes, Mrs Mayfield, I will be with you directly.” She paused for a moment, her hand on the door, half in, half out of the room. “Hart?”

“Yes?”

“If I should ever think of somewhere that press might be, what should I do?”

“Nothing.” He dropped the shirts unceremoniously onto a chair and moved over to take her hand in his hard one.
“Mercy, it seems to have been forgotten. For God's sake, let it remain so. Speak of it to no one. No one, I tell you. Not even”—now his colour was as high as hers—“not even to Francis.”

“No?”

“No.” Here at last was his chance for a word of warning. But how to put it? “Frank's—oh, everything I want to be, but, Mercy, he does keep odd company. And you're a girl of sense—you know how it is, with men. Sometimes, I think, at Tondee's—”

“The talk flows free. Father used to say men were worse gossips than women. But Francis would never speak of me, Hart. Never.” And with this firm, revealing phrase, she left him.

Hart and his aunt left for Charleston a few days later, and he was relieved to find the Mayfield house there undamaged, and his aunt's man of business ready with a list of possible tenants. In South Carolina, even more than in Georgia, the mobs had been roused by the news of the Boston Port Bill, and people who had lived contentedly all their lives on remote plantations were now eager to move into the comparative safety and undoubted luxury of Charleston. Anne Mayfield was able to choose the most eligible of three possible tenants, and Hart found himself free to take the next week's packet for Boston, or rather for Salem.

It was a strange, disturbing journey. He had promised his mother—and, indeed, himself—that he would be cautious in what he said and did. He would watch, and listen, and say as little as possible until he was established in his new life. This was made easier for him by his youthful appearance. In Savannah he had been Purchis of Winchelsea, and treated with deference. On board ship he found himself merely a boy on his way to college. Easy enough for a fair-haired young man who still needed to shave only once a week, and whose voice would occasionally betray him, to keep quiet and listen to his elders talk.

But what he heard appalled him. If there were any Loyalists on the packet, they were keeping as quiet as he was. In Savannah the upper classes at least had always insisted that whatever they might think of Parliament and its vagaries, they were loyal subjects of King George III. There were no Loyalist toasts on the packet. If toasts were drunk,
they were to the Continental Congress that had been summoned for the fifth of September at Philadelphia, and to the ill-treated citizens of Boston.

Worst of all, the more Hart heard of what happened in Boston, the more it shook him. What right had Parliament, weeks away over the sea, to take a decision that must mean ruin for a whole city? And it seemed more and more likely that a British garrison was to be imposed on the city, almost as if it was a hostile one, captured in time of war. He was glad to stay quiet and listen, but it was a very sober young man indeed who disembarked at Salem for the land journey to Harvard College.

Once there, he threw himself into his studies with an enthusiasm that won him golden opinions from his tutors. There was little enough to distract him. As Aunt Mayfield had warned him, the other students tended to be both younger and less experienced than himself. After running his own plantation, he inevitably felt himself a man among boys and could not bring himself to join in the frolics, the drinking and swimming parties, or the riding excursions with which they enlivened their studies. They, for their part, laughed at his Southern drawl and suspected his Southern loyalties. Georgia was the only one of the thirteen colonies that had not sent representatives to the Continental Congress at Philadelphia. Busy planning a non-importation agreement that would hit Great Britain where it hurt, in her trade, the Congress still had time to resent Georgia's indifference. As a Georgian, Hart found himself inevitably suspect among the radical youth of Harvard.

He did his best to write cheerfully to his mother, describing everything that was comic and different about his college life, without hinting at its loneliness, but she must have guessed at it, for she was soon writing to urge that he visit Abigail's cousins at Lexington. Abigail had written to them about him and had had a warmly hospitable reply. “Only,” went on his mother's fine scrawl, “Abigail is not quite sure about their politics. You will be careful, my dear boy.…”

Careful! As if he was ever anything else. He tucked the letter rather irritably under a pile of books he had just fetched from the library, and reopened his Locke.

He was reading Locke three days later when he heard a light tapping on his door. It was a rare enough occurrence
to be surprising. At his “Come in,” the door was pushed open to reveal a strange young man older than himself and dressed with the rigorous plainness affected by so many New Englanders.

“Purchis?” The young man advanced with hand outstretched. “I'm your cousin from Lexington. Well!” He had a delightful full-throated laugh. “Courtesy cousin, if you like. Cousin Abigail wrote us about you, and I am here to welcome you to New England on behalf of all the family. Mark Paston, and most entirely at your service.”

Hart took the outstretched hand. There was something irresistible both about the stranger's friendly greeting and about his unmistakable, fair-haired, blue-eyed likeness to Abigail. “I'm delighted to see you,” he said. “You're very like your cousin.”

“Am I? Poor girl. But what's this?” He reached out a friendly hand to take the book from Hart. “You're never reading Locke's
Second Treatise on Government!
What kind of Loyalist does that make you? My mother told me I was on no account to talk politics with you, and I always do what my mother tells me, but what am I to do when I find you reading such dangerous stuff?” He laughed again and handed back the book. “There will be time at home for politics, whatever Mother says. Right now, where's your hat, your greatcoat, your valise? I'm kidnapping you, carrying you off to the wilds of Lexington for a visit. My mother told me to bring you, and I warn you, what Mrs Paston says, goes.” And then, seeing Hart hesitate, “Do come, cousin. I'm just back from a trip to Boston and I need some good company to take the taste of things there out of my mouth. The chaise is outside; it is but to pack a shirt or two, and we're on our way. I'll return you, all right and tight when you feel you must get back to your studies.” And, as a clincher, “Bring your Locke, if you like, and we'll discuss him over the Madeira tonight. Come on, don't make me face my mother empty-handed; she's a Tartar when she's crossed and will slap all my sisters in turn out of very disappointment.”

Hart could not help laughing. “How many sisters have you?”

“Seven, God help me. But no need to look so scared. I'll not let them plague you. In fact, the two eldest are married and the others are still in the nursery. But with Father dead,
you can see how much I need male society. So come, pack up and let's go.”

Half an hour later, Hart did indeed find himself riding in the chaise of this compelling new cousin of his, and very happy to be doing so. It was high autumn now, with the leaves bright on the trees, and the weeks of lonely study lay heavy behind him. Brimful of new ideas, he had been starved for someone to discuss them with, and when Mark Paston trailed a provocative remark about Locke and the social contract, he leapt at it and they were soon arguing away like old friends. Once, Mark Paston pulled him up short. He had said something that indicated his assumption that a constitutional monarchy was the only rational form of government, and Mark held up a warning hand. “All very well with me, cousin,” he said, “but don't, I beg of you, say things like that in Lexington. We're pretty fierce there, you know. There's not a Loyalist dog of a Tory left in the place.” And then, laughing that irresistible laugh of his, “If you could just see your own face! Don't worry, I won't let them eat you, and to tell the truth, I rather think you will find yourself more nearly agreeing with us desperate radicals than you expect.”

“But won't I be an embarrassment to you?”

“Not a bit of it. A brand from the burning, more like. And besides, my position is such that I can carry it off. Jonas Clarke is my godfather and my best friend.”

“Jonas Clarke?”

“You've not heard of him? He's our pastor in Lexington and the leader of the radicals there. And for good measure his wife is cousin to John Hancock, your treasurer at Harvard and another leading radical, as you must know. And Hancock and Sam Adams are firm friends. They've both approved everything we've done in Lexington so far.”

“And what's that?”

“Organised a Committee of Safety, of which I'm proud to be a member, and begun to enrol our own militia. You see before you one of Lexington's Minutemen.”

“Oh?”

“Cousin, have you talked to no one at Harvard?”

“Well”—it was painful to admit it—“very little.”

“But you must know that the military governor, General Gage, has cancelled the legislative session of the Court of Massachusetts?”

“I did hear something.” It had not, at the time, seemed to concern him very much.

“Well, when he did that, on top of all the repression that the citizens of Boston had suffered, we decided it was time to look to our defences. Minutemen, cousin, are volunteer soldiers ready to come out at a moment's notice. We are to have a citizens' army at last, and then let General Gage look about him! Look!” He pointed with his whip at a snug, white-painted farmhouse, set under a hill among flaming autumn leaves and neat stone-walled fields. “Don't you think we've made something here in New England that is worth fighting for?”

“But surely it's all a misunderstanding.” He began to wish he was sure of it himself.

“That's as may be, but if so, it's one that is likely to cost Great Britain dear. But forgive me, cousin, I'll quit preaching at you. Tell, instead, something about Cousin Abigail.”

Hart laughed. “I was just thinking about her and wondering what in the world she would say if she could hear our talk. If you think me a diehard Tory, what would you make of her, I wonder?”

“Well,” said Mark tolerantly, “I reckon things are different for you, down in Georgia. I'm not one of those who want to quarrel with you for failing to send representatives to the Congress. Everyone knows you've been the spoiled darlings of government so long, it's hard for you to see the light. But see it you will, mark my words.” And then, with one of his deep, warm bursts of laughter, “Lord, if I'm not back to politics. I cry you a thousand pardons, cousin! But, see, we're almost home.” He slowed his horse for a moment at the top of the hill and pointed with his whip. “There, on the left is Munroe's Tavern—he's our sergeant of Minutemen, and a good one—and then the Mulliken house—she's a widow, poor thing—and just across the road, see, where the sumac is? That shabby old shingled house is the Paston mansion.” He called an encouragement to his horse and they started down the hill. “Needs a coat of paint, don't it, but the living's friendly and the welcome warm for you, Cousin Hart. And, my gracious, hold your hat; the girls have spotted us.” An attic window had been thrown open and two laughing, curly-headed girls were leaning out and waving their handkerchiefs.