Wide is the Water (24 page)

‘Impossible. Except, of course, that he might be anxious for your safety, but truly I do not think you would have anything to fear. It was embarrassing enough for the British to have you – a woman – fool them so roundly in Savannah. I am sure they will not want to make the fact more public than they must. No, I think once you are there, you should be safe enough, but the journey will be both dangerous and uncomfortable. I am in honour bound to prepare you for that.'

‘Oh, that's nothing. I am more grateful to you than I can say for making it possible. Will it be soon, do you think?'

‘I very much hope so. Remember, madame, not a word to anyone, and wait for a message from Mr. Jones. But first, I must ask for your solemn vow of secrecy. I am putting my life in your hands with this offer. Will you promise me, by whatever you hold most dear – by the husband you go to – that whatever happens you will say nothing about what I have told you.'

‘You mean about your working for the French?'

‘About that, about our first meeting, about anything that seems strange in my life.'

‘So much seems strange. It is a great deal to ask.'

‘I must ask it.'

Their eyes met and held for a long moment. Then, ‘I promise,' she said. ‘By all that I hold most dear.'

‘Thank you.' He took her hand and bent to kiss it. ‘Here comes Miss Paston. Nothing to her.'

‘Miss Shippen has come to call,' said Ruth. ‘And Monsieur Otto with her. I have asked them to wait in the parlour.'

‘Did you say I was here?' asked Brisson.

‘No. Should I have?'

‘You are a most admirable girl. If I may' – he turned back to Mercy – ‘I will take French leave, over the hedge.'

‘If you wish.' Was she mad, she wondered, gathering
up her sewing to go indoors and join her new guests, to trust this mysterious young man about whom she knew so little? She had liked him instinctively from their first dramatic meeting, and since then he had saved her life, helped her to her present happy position in Philadelphia society, and been a constant support against the quiet barbs of people like Mrs. Arnold. No wonder if she was fond of him. He's like a brother to me, she thought and, thinking this, found her thoughts flash to Hart. Incredible, unbearable that she had still not heard from him.

Greeting Otto and Nancy Shippen, she was tempted for a moment to bring Brisson's name casually into the conversation, just to see what Otto would say about him. But she knew she must resist the temptation and was glad she had done so when they had left and Ruth said, on a very tentative note, ‘Mercy?'

‘Yes, dear.'

‘Mercy, forgive me. I am so ignorant … I am sure it is just my stupidity, but I think … I think mother would have said …'

‘Yes?' Mercy prompted as she came to a standstill.

‘Should you talk alone with young men?' Ruth got it all out in one hurried breath.

‘No, dear, you are quite right, and your mother would have said so. But you must take my word for it that in this case there is an overriding reason for my talking with Charles Brisson. You will know all about it soon enough, and in the meanwhile I am most grateful for what you have said. Mind you,' she smiled teasingly at Ruth, ‘what about Monsieur Otto and Miss Shippen? You left them alone in the parlour. And she is not even a married lady.'

‘No indeed,' said Ruth. And then, ‘Ah, the poor things.'

‘Poor?'

‘Did you not know? There is a Colonel Livingston her parents want her to marry. An older man; very rich. Only – she and young Monsieur Otto …'

‘A case? Ruth, you keep surprising me. How did you learn all this?'

Ruth laughed, and Mercy thought what a pleasure it was to hear. ‘They're all so scared of you, Mercy dear. They think a heroine of the Revolution is quite above their touch. And they're quite right too,' she added loyally. ‘You are all that, and so much more. But they talk to me, at the sewing parties. I'm just a silly girl. They're not afraid of me. And I do enjoy it. It almost makes me forget … Mercy?'

‘Yes.' A new note in Ruth's voice caught Mercy's full attention.

‘You've been so good to me. May I – please, may I tell you something, and will you try and go on loving me? You've been so good,' she explained, ‘so wonderfully good. Am I wicked to think you must love me?'

‘Not wicked at all.' Mercy took her hand. ‘Of course I love you, Ruth dear, and always shall. We need each other, you and I.'

‘Oh, I'm glad you said that. But, just the same, I want to tell you … I must tell you, even if you never speak to me again. Mercy, that day—' The hand in Mercy's writhed like a suffering thing. ‘That terrible day. When I saw Naomi … when I saw … what I saw. Mercy! For a moment, just for a moment, I was glad. I thought, “Serve her right! Why should she have had George, not me?” Oh, Mercy, I'll never forgive myself. You'll never forgive me. Why should anyone?'

‘You mean?' Mercy thought about it, horror-struck. ‘You were twins. You and Naomi. You loved George too?'

‘Of course I loved him. Who could help it? And, Mercy, he loved me first. He
met
me first. Oh, Mercy, will God ever forgive me? I was
glad
!'

‘And now you are as sorry as you can be.' Mercy reached out to pull her down beside her and stroke her hair. ‘You've always been sorry, and you know it. You loved them both, that's all. What's wrong with love?'

‘Selfish love.' Ruth looked up at her, clear-eyed through her tears. ‘I've been punished, Mercy. God has punished
me. Is that enough, do you think? Will you forgive me? Can you forgive me?'

‘Forgive?' asked Mercy. ‘Dear Ruth, I'm not God. I see nothing to forgive. You saved my life, remember? We're friends, Ruth; we'll always be friends. It's better than love, I begin to think.' And thought to herself that Brisson was a friend.

‘I wish I knew what you meant.' Ruth looked at her, puzzled. But after that tear-drenched confession she never screamed in the night again.

The message from Mr. Jones came ten days later. It was not at all what Mercy had expected. She and Ruth had been invited by Nancy Shippen to join in a party of pleasure she and her cousin Mrs. Benedict Arnold were making up to drive out and dine at Mr. Benezet's inn at Bristol, and her first instinct had been to refuse. Nancy Shippen, extending the invitation, had explained that there could be no fear of molestation from the British since everyone knew that the garrison of New York had been cut to the bone in order to provide troops for the attack on Charleston, about which anxiety was mounting daily.

But Mercy persisted in her refusal. She could not quite like either General Arnold or his pretty, frivolous new wife, whose rudeness, the first time they met, had made a lasting impression on her. When Nancy Shippen called a second time to urge that she and Ruth join the party, she made their excuses, explaining that she did not feel like joining parties of pleasure when she still had no news of how her husband fared in England.

‘I do understand,' said Nancy Shippen. ‘And respect you for it. But, dear Mrs. Purchis, your husband would not wish you to deny yourself all pleasure, and there is Ruth to be considered too. She is vastly better, is she not?'

‘Yes, I am happy to say.'

‘And the reason not far to seek,' said Nancy with a twinkle. ‘I have prevailed upon Mr. Brisson to be of our party. He says he wants above all things to visit
Germantown, where General Washington almost beat the English in '77. He has asked if he may bring a friend of his, a Mr. Jones from Boston, who, he says, is particularly interested in the strategy of that day. So we will not lack for cavaliers, and Mr. Benezet's inn is famous for its dinners. It will do us all good to get out of town and take a look at the countryside. Do change your mind and come, Mrs. Purchis. I know Ruth longs to do so.'

‘Do you know, I believe I will,' said Mercy, alerted by the mention of Mr. Jones.

‘That's right. I know you will not regret it. And now that is so comfortably settled, we can get to the strategy of the occasion, as Monsieur Otto would say. Mr. Brisson begs the pleasure of conveying you two in his carriage. We are all to start very early in the morning, so that we can visit the battlefield at Germantown and then drive on to Bristol for our dinner. You will be delighted with the view of the river that one gets from Mr. Benezet's inn. Oh, but I quite forgot; you must have come that way on that adventurous journey of yours from Boston.'

‘Yes, but I was ill at the time.' Was this, perhaps, why she had felt so reluctant to join the pleasure party? She would never forget that nightmare drive from Trenton, haunted by memories of Mrs. Purchis and Anne Mayfield. ‘And besides,' she went on, ‘it was winter.'

‘And what a winter! You will be amazed how beautiful the road is with the orchards in bloom. That's settled, then, and I am delighted.' She rose to her feet. ‘And there, if I am not mistaken, is Colonel Livingston's carriage for me. No, I won't let him come in. I've taken quite enough of your time already.'

Mercy was glad to let her go. She liked Colonel Livingston very much less even than she did General Arnold. He had a way of looking at women that sent shivers down her spine. And what kind of soldier was it who gave up his command in order to dangle after a young woman who was as evidently in love with someone else as Nancy Shippen was with Monsieur Otto?

But that was no affair of hers. She turned her mind to the problem of how she was to get the portmanteau she had packed for herself and Ruth into Brisson's carriage. It would be so much easier if she could tell Ruth, but she knew that Brisson was right in forbidding it. Ruth was wonderfully better since that disturbing confession of hers, but her face was too open for secrets.

In the end, as she might have expected, Brisson himself solved the problem for her. He called two days before the projected party to say that his friend Mr. Jones would not after all be accompanying them. ‘Will you ladies resign yourself to just one escort between you,' he asked, ‘if I promise to make up in assiduity for what I lack in numbers?'

Mercy laughed. ‘Of course we will,' she said. ‘It will be quite a change, here in Philadelphia, to see the men outnumbered for once. If I were a congressman's wife, I think I would insist on spending at least some of the year at my husband's side. It is not good for men to be too much alone.'

‘You should meet the redoubtable Mrs. John Adams, who shares your views,' said Brisson. ‘I had that pleasure when I landed in Boston, and I believe you and she would deal wonderfully together. She is quite in the Roman line. Calls herself Portia, I believe, in her letters.'

‘A bluestocking?' asked Mercy. ‘Her husband's in France, is he not? Have you met him?'

‘No, I have not been so fortunate.' He changed the subject. ‘To return to our outing. May I be so bold as to suggest that you two ladies bring whatever you might need for a night at Mr. Benezet's inn? I know you for a couple of experienced campaigners, and I am sure I do not need to explain that though Mrs. Arnold and Miss Shippen intend that their party should start off betimes, they may not contrive to do so.'

‘No, indeed,' said Mercy. ‘It is well thought of Mr. Brisson. We will most certainly do as you suggest.'

The day of the outing dawned brilliantly fine, and Mercy
and Ruth, at least, were ready when Brisson called for them. If Ruth had been slightly surprised by the extent of Mercy's packing, she said nothing about it. Mercy's whim was law to her.

‘That's good. You remembered.' Brisson handed the portmanteau to his groom. ‘If you will take my advice, ladies, we will not set off for a while. I took a turn by the Arnold house on my way here, and Mrs. Arnold will not be ready this hour or more. Her husband has business to see to before they set forward.'

‘He is coming too?' Mercy was surprised to find how much she had hoped that General Arnold would find himself too busy to join the party.

‘Oh, yes, a most devoted spouse.'

In the end they had no time for more than the most cursory inspection of the scene of the bloody Battle of Germantown, and Mercy was glad of it. It seemed to her extraordinary that a party of pleasure should even be considered to such a place when everyone was waiting in increasing suspense for news of the British attack on Charleston. ‘I shall never understand the Philadelphians,' she said to Brisson and Ruth as they left the straggling two-mile-long village of Germantown. ‘How can they live such a frivolous life when they know what is going on in the rest of the country?'

‘Ah,' said Brisson, ‘but do you think it is really a country, madame? Is it not rather a collection of states only held together by their hostility to Great Britain? How much did you really care down in Georgia for what was going on in New England?'

‘Well.' She thought about it. ‘A good deal, in fact. But then' – she reached out to take Ruth's hand – ‘we had family there.'

By pushing the horses, they managed to reach Mr. Benezet's inn in time for a late dinner, which they took on a verandah looking over the wide waters of the Delaware. Since the meal had been ordered in advance, it was long and elaborate. ‘A very different matter from our
commons the last time we were on this road,' said Brisson, toasting Mercy and Ruth.

‘Yes, indeed. How well I remember those tough, raw beefsteaks. And how glad I was of them at the time.' Mercy was finding it difficult to keep up her part in the light-hearted conversation. Was this party really the prelude to a dangerous voyage to France? It seemed impossible. The way things were going, there would be no time, when they had finished dinner, for anything but a return by the way they had come.

But General Arnold had suddenly pushed back his chair and walked over to the edge of the screened verandah. ‘The day's wasting,' he said. ‘Who's for a turn down the Trenton road before we start for home? We've not shown the ladies nearly enough of the garden of America.'