Wide is the Water Read online

  ‘Sure I’ll fetch you some wood.’ He reached into a pocket. ‘And here’s something might do the old lady good. British navy rum. If that don’t warm her, there’s no hope for her. So the Goldings did cut and run?’ he asked.

  ‘I think so. There’s just the two women and a boy. Wicked to leave them alone like that.’

  ‘Yes.’ He spit reflectively into the snow. ‘Reckon I’d best stable the horse for the moment.’

  ‘Oh, thank you, Mr.—’ So far he had just been the driver; now he was suddenly a friend.

  ‘Barnes. Bill Barnes. I’ll fetch that wood in right away and get a fire going in the kitchen. You’d best warn the girl I’ll be in and out.’

  ‘Yes. Thank you, Bill.’ She turned back into the house, her eyes filling with grateful tears at his instant, practical helpfulness.

  The door facing the invalid’s room led into a big cold kitchen. Resisting the sudden temptation to forage for food, Mercy dropped her coat on a bench, took down a mug from the big dresser, and poured a generous tot of rum. Back in the bedroom, she handed it to the girl. ‘Get her to drink this; it will do her good. Mr. Barnes will be in with wood for the fire directly.’

  ‘In here?’ The girl seemed to shrink into herself.

  ‘Of course.’ Mercy was still holding out the mug. ‘You don’t want your mother to freeze to death, do you? It is Mrs. Paston?’ The girl nodded. ‘And you’re …?’

  ‘Ruth.’ Once again she broke into those disconcerting, childish tears.

  ‘I’m Mrs. Purchis, Hart’s wife.’ How strange to be saying it for the first time here in this desolate New England sickroom.

  ‘Cousin Hart!’ Instead of taking the mug, the girl, Ruth, began to cry harder than ever, and Mercy moved impatiently round to the other side of the bed.

  She put a firm arm round the frail shoulders and lifted gently. ‘Mrs. Paston, try to drink this.’ Holding the mug to the grey lips, she was relieved when the old lady opened clear blue eyes and looked her over thoughtfully.

  Her lips moved. ‘Rum?’

  ‘It’s all I’ve got.’

  ‘Spirits!’ exclaimed Ruth, but her mother had taken a good pull at the mug. A little of the strong-smelling spirit dribbled down her chin, and Mercy put down the mug to wipe it away with a corner of the cold sheet.

  ‘More.’ Mrs. Paston’s voice was a little stronger. ‘I’ve got to talk to you. You said – you’re Hart’s wife?’

  ‘Yes.’ Mercy was surprised and delighted that she had taken this in.

  As Mrs. Paston drank a little more, Bill Barnes came quietly into the room with an armful of cut wood and began to make up the fire.

  ‘Hush.’ Mrs Paston stretched out a shaking hand and put it on Ruth’s. ‘Hush, child. He’s helping us. Hush your crying, child. He’ll do you no harm.’ She drank some more and this time managed without spilling any. ‘That’s better.’ The blue eyes studied Mercy throughtfully. ‘Mercy?’ she asked. ‘Mercy Phillips?’

  ‘Yes.’ Mercy was beyond surprise.

  ‘I thought he’d marry you. He talked about you. Told me more than he knew, I think.’ Something almost like a smile flickered across the white face. ‘I’m glad. You’re strong, aren’t you, Mercy? I could tell, from the way Hart talked.’ And then, her eyes clouding: ‘But where is Hart?’

  ‘Back at sea by now, I hope. He’s captain of a privateer: the Georgia.’

  ‘Oh.’ Disappointment showed in every line of her face. ‘But you’re strong,’ she said again, and when Mercy nodded, ‘Good. Ruth, dear, go see if the man has got the kitchen fire alight.’

  ‘But …’ Ruth stopped crying and looked at her mother with a kind of wild horror.

  ‘He won’t hurt you, no more than Jed does. We’ve a guest, Ruth. Put the kettle on, make a pot of tea. There’s bread in the crock, still, and a little butter. We all need our breakfast. Give the man his in the kitchen.’

  ‘Mr. Barnes,’ said Mercy. ‘He’s kind. He won’t hurt you, Cousin Ruth.’

  ‘Cousin,’ said Ruth. ‘That’s nice.’ And left them with one long, anxious backward glance.

  ‘Good,’ said Mrs. Paston. ‘You’ll be able to manage her. Give me some more of that rum. We’ve got to talk, you and I, and there’s not much time. You’re an answer to prayer, Mercy Purchis.’ Once again she drank eagerly, and a faint flush began to show on her thin cheeks. ‘That’s good,’ she said, ‘but that’s enough. I’m badly hurt, Mercy. I fell stupidly. I was so tired and cold, and Ruth screaming like that. She does sometimes. But you’ll look after her, I know. An answer to prayer. Hart’s wife.’

  Mercy sat down in the chair beside the bed and took a pull at the rum herself. ‘You’ll have to explain,’ she said. ‘I don’t understand anything, Mrs. Paston. Hart said … Hart told me …’

  ‘That I was a thriving woman with a parcel of children.’ The ghost of a sardonic smile flickered across the exhausted face. ‘Well, so I was … So I was. But that was five years ago. Five long years. First Mark, killed that black day at Lexington. And the house burned. Dead … gone … And then, no money. He kept us all, did Mark. It does teach you who are your friends.’

  ‘You should have written. Told us …’

  ‘But I did. I’ll come to that.’ A slow tear rolled down her cheek. ‘It’s all over now, done with, decided. No use looking back, and don’t you waste my time and strength, Mercy Purchis, with questions I may not have time to answer. I did what I did. For the best.’

  ‘I’m sure you did.’ Mercy proferred the mug.

  ‘No. I need a clear head for what I have to tell, to ask … You have to understand about Ruth.’ A monitory hand stopped Mercy from speaking. ‘Her sister married. Naomi. Her twin. The strong one. He was a good man.’ She paused, looking beyond Mercy at something horrible.

  ‘Was?’

  ‘He said we’d all go to the West. For a new life. He loved Naomi, loved us all. We were his family, he said. He had none of his own. And Cousin Golding was glad to see us go. He even helped with the expense of the trip. We joined a party … a small party. If it had been bigger … But he was always impatient, Naomi’s George. He wanted the world, and Naomi for its queen. Lord’ – suddenly her voice changed, warmed – ‘that was a happy journey. The two of them so in love. Glowing. The other children happier than they’d been since Mark died. Ruth getting over the shock of Naomi marrying. They were close, those twins.’

  ‘Yes.’ She had noticed, once again, that significant past tense. ‘And then?’

  ‘Indians. Just when we’d camped for the night. Ruth and I had gone down to the stream to wash. She was always shy, my Ruth. We heard it happen: the war cries; the sudden attack; the screams. Then Naomi came, running, screaming, with three braves behind her. We saw it all, Ruth and I. She bit my finger clean through as I kept her quiet. She’d have gone to Naomi’s help if I’d let her. And died the same. We lay there, hidden, huddled together, all that night. In the morning a few other survivors came out of the woods. We buried them. All my family. All my children. All but Ruth. The other survivors decided to come back east. They’d had enough. There seemed nothing for it but to come too. Ruth was all right with them. It was when she saw her first strange man that she took on: screaming; hysterics; panic. And nightmares after, and waking screaming again. That’s why I was hurrying to her in the dark last night. I’d been trying to teach her to sleep alone,’ she explained. ‘I knew I hadn’t long. Those hungry years had done for me, even before we went west. I thought I’d see the children settled before I died. Well, I saw them settled. All but Ruth. I’ve been worried sick what to do for her.’ She reached out to take Mercy’s hand. ‘I’ve been a wicked woman. Blaming God for abandoning me in my trouble. I should have known better. He sent you. Hart’s wife. He and my Mark were like brothers.’

  ‘I know. I’ll look after Ruth. You don’t need to worry about her anymore.’ Inwardly she prayed that she could make it good. ‘But, Mrs. Paston, “hungry years”? You said you’d written to us.�
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  ‘Indeed I did. Back in ‘76, when I faced it that there was no way I could make a living for us all. Prices rising all the time … Cousin Golding took the lot where our house had stood in Lexington against our keep. Said the taxes were so high it hardly paid him. My other cousins had gone west … I was at my wits’ end …’ She was tiring, her sentences running down into little silences, and Mercy held the mug to her lips once more. ‘Thanks. I don’t want to die drunk, but you need to know where you stand. With Ruth. If you’ll really look out for her.’ The tired blue eyes begged for reassurance.

  ‘I promise, Mrs. Paston.’

  ‘Thank you. Where was I? Oh, about Cousin Abigail Purchis. I wrote her, back in ‘76. It was next year before I heard, and then it was a short note from her cousin Francis Mayfield, saying she had asked him to write. Things were terrible in Savannah, he said. Abigail a burden on her aunt Purchis already. Could not bring herself to write me … He was sorry for me, he said … That was all. I never wrote again. How could I?’

  ‘You should have written Hart.’

  ‘Francis said … he’d talked to him. Hart was sorry, too.’

  ‘The liar.’ Long hatred of Francis Mayfield boiled in Mercy’s throat. ‘The scoundrel. I swear to you, Abigail never saw that letter.’ Francis Mayfield had deceived her, betrayed her, tried to kill her, but nothing he had done to her seemed, now, so bad as this. ‘He’s dead. Francis Mayfield is dead.’ A horrible death, richly deserved. ‘He told none of us,’ she said, ‘about your letter. I swear Abigail never saw it.’

  ‘I see that now. I think I understood it the moment you walked into the room and said you were Mercy Purchis. Dear Hart, I’m so glad … He was like a son to me. I hated to think he’d let me down like that. When you see him, ask him to forgive me for believing it.’

  ‘I will.’ But a cold hand clutched at Mercy’s heart. When would she and Hart meet again? She pulled the bedclothes round Mrs. Paston’s frail shoulders. ‘Try to sleep now, Mrs. Paston. You look exhausted. I’ll see how Ruth is getting on with that tea.’

  ‘Yes.’ The blue eyes closed, then opened again. ‘When she gets excited … if she gets excited … I hush her, like a child. It mostly works. Dear Mercy’ – the words were coming more slowly now – ‘I thank God for you.’

  Bill Barnes was alone in the kitchen, tending a blazing fire over which a kettle was just beginning to sing. ‘The girl cut and run upstairs when I came in,’ he explained. ‘I thought best let her be.’

  ‘Yes. It was Indians.’ Hastening to tell him this, Mercy admitted to herself how afraid she had been that it might have been an English raiding party that had done the damage. ‘The family were on their way to the West. She saw her sister killed. She and her mother were the only ones of the family who escaped. Her mother’s dying, I’m afraid.’

  ‘I thought she looked right poorly.’ The kettle boiled. ‘I found the tea,’ he said. ‘There’s not much. Nor of anything else. Looks like they’ve been living on bread and tea mostly. I’d like to get my hands on that Mr. Golding who left them here alone.’

  ‘I wish the doctor would come.’ Mercy warmed the big pot and made the tea, grateful that the nearly empty caddy was not locked. ‘I’ll take a cup to the old lady,’ she said.

  ‘No,’ said Bill Barnes, surprising her. ‘Drink some yourself first. I reckon you’ve problems enough on your hands without passing out from cold and hunger. When did you last eat?’

  She put a vague hand to her brow. ‘Last night, I think.’ Chowder and stale biscuit, and the crew grumbling about the fresh supplies they had hoped for from Boston.

  ‘Right.’ He pulled out a chair from the table, cut a thick slice of bread, buttered it, and handed it to her. ‘I’ll join you in a cup of tea if I may.’ He took the heavy pot from her and poured for them both.

  ‘Have some bread and butter.’

  ‘No, thanks. That’s all there is. The girl must be hungry, too.’

  ‘Her name’s Ruth. Ruth Paston.’ Mercy took a bite of stale bread and rancid butter, realised that she was starving, and made herself chew and swallow it slowly, washed down with the reviving tea. He was right, this kind Bill Barnes. She seemed to be responsible for this unhappy household and must preserve her own strength.

  ‘Paston?’ said Bill Barnes. ‘Not kin of Mark Paston’s, by any chance? Him that was killed at Lexington?’

  ‘His mother and sister.’

  ‘And left to starve in the cold! I wish I had Mr Golding’s neck here to wring.’ His hands twisted an invisible neck.

  ‘You knew Mark Paston?’

  ‘Not to say knew. But we all knew of him, miss – ma’am. A martyr of the Revolution. A hero. And his family left to starve. It serves us right we ain’t winning this danged war. We don’t deserve to. Not letting things like that happen.’

  II

  When the doctor came at last, he shook his head over Mrs. Paston. ‘Nothing I can do. Keep her warm. Keep her happy. It won’t be long.’ He and Mercy were alone in the cold front room.

  ‘How long?’

  ‘My dear young lady, how can I tell? Two days? A week? A month? Light diet; nourishing broth; a drop of wine if she feels like it.’ Something about her had been puzzling him. ‘You’re the daughter, I take it?’

  ‘No. She’s upstairs. You don’t know her? I’m surprised. I would have thought Mrs. Paston would have called you to her. She’s – mentally disturbed since she saw her twin sister killed by Indians.’

  ‘Oh, yes, now you come to mention it, I do seem to have heard something. From my friend Mr. Golding. One reason why he very sensibly took his family away inland. But perhaps a matter more for the pastor than the doctor? And I am afraid I must mention, Miss … um?’

  ‘Mrs. Purchis.’

  ‘Mrs. Purchis. Must mention that my charges have to be quite high. You know how it is. This deplorable war. The cost of living rising every day. Why, what it costs me just to keep my wife dressed to suit our station in life … Appalling. Quite appalling. Madness, the whole business, and the sooner those lunatics down in Philadelphia recognise it, the better for us all. In the meantime, I am afraid that my charge for a house visit …’ He hesitated, aware at last of some unexpected quality in her silence.

  ‘Will have to be paid in Georgia paper, if at all,’ she told him. ‘I take it your friend Mr. Golding did not think to tell you that he left his cousin and her daughter penniless to face the winter, with only a boy to look after them? Where is Jed, by the way?’

  ‘The boy? Why, making the best of his way back on his snowshoes, I suppose. You surely did not think I would take him up in my sledge, Miss – Mrs. Purchis?’

  ‘If I did, I can see I was far wide of the mark.’ She took out her purse. ‘So, in Georgia paper, how much, Dr. Frobisher? For your great help and extraordinary kindness?’

  ‘Oh, it was nothing,’ he began, and then, her savage irony slowly penetrating: ‘Mrs. Purchis, if that is your name, I do not at all appreciate your tone. I will wish you a very good day and send in my account in due course. It must be paid, I should warn you, in Massachusetts paper or in specie.’

  ‘Good day, Doctor.’ She opened the front door and ushered him out to where a man in what looked like livery was waiting by a luxurious sledge.

  Returning to the kitchen, shivering with anger, she found Bill Barnes awaiting her with a look of delighted respect. ‘I listened,’ he told her. ‘I’ve not enjoyed myself so much for years. I hope you don’t mind, ma’am. It’s men like him and his friend Golding make you despair of our ever winning this war. Just imagine making that poor boy come back through the storm on his snow-shoes when he has room for six in that grand sledge of his. Don’t you ever pay him, ma’am. You offered, fair and square, and he refused it. Let it go at that.’

  Mercy made a wry face. ‘I think I shall have to. I must go and look at Mrs. Paston.’

  ‘Don’t you fret about her. The girl’s with her. Calmer, I’d say. Not much you can do, by the sound o
f it, but wish her an easy passing. And you and I need to talk business.’

  ‘Business?’ She was glad to subside onto the chair he pulled out for her, near to the now glowing fire. In her immediate anger with Dr. Frobisher she had forgotten how much she had counted on him for advice and help. Now it hit her that she should have temporised with him, flattered him, blandished help out of him. Where in the world had her wits been? ‘I’m a fool,’ she said wearily. ‘I shouldn’t have let him go like that.’

  ‘Not much else you coulda done, I reckon. If you think anything you said would have made him help you, you’re crazy. I know his kind. We’ve plenty of them here in New England. The war’s a terrible mistake, they keep saying, but they profit by it every way they can. It makes a man mad. Now, Mrs. Purchis, ma’am, can I ask you to sit it out here and look to things while I go into Boston and tell some friends of mine what’s happened to Mark Paston’s mother? I’ll be back with help as quick as I can, but it’s bound to take a bit of time. When the boy gets back, you could ask him if any of the neighbours might help, but I don’t set much hope on them. Not in a fancy rich district like this. It’s where people live close together, the way they do in Boston, that they look out for each other. I’ll be back, I promise.’ He must have sensed her sudden qualm.

  ‘I believe you. And I do thank you, Mr. Barnes.’

  ‘Oh, call me Bill, the way you did before. I liked that. Friendly, it was. Are you really from Georgia? You was talking kind of British when you gave the doctor that setdown.’

  ‘Was I? What a strange thing. Yes, Bill, I was British once. But I’m American now. Since I married Captain Purchis.’ She used the title intentionally, and it had its effect.

  ‘Who’s fighting for us all,’ said Bill Barnes, ‘while men like Frobisher and Golding look out for themselves. Don’t you worry, ma’am; what with Mark Paston’s name and Cap’n Purchis’s, you’ll have help before night, or my name’s not Bill Barnes. So – I’d best be going. Get some rest if you can, and keep your heart up.’ He pulled on his shaggy greatcoat and went out the back way into the yard, where she heard him talking encouragements to his horse as he harnessed it up. How long to Boston and back? She should have asked him. But it made no difference. She ought to go and see how old Mrs. Paston was. She did not think, for the moment, that she could get up from her chair. She leant her elbows on the kitchen table and let her head droop onto her arms.