Free Judas Flowering by Jane Aiken Hodge

this one, he still blushed a schoolboy’s blush.
    â€œYou mean! My father … and you never told me. Oh.” She jumped up and let the muslin fall where it would. “I
do
thank you!”
    William, the coachman, had brought the phaeton back from Savannah, and early next morning had it ready on the carriage sweep. One of the light waggons Hart used on the farm had been loaded up with Mrs Mayfield’s big box, Mercy’s tiny one, and Hart’s carpet-bag. Mercy and Hart were waiting in the morning room. Of Mrs Mayfield there was no sign. Hart sighed, took a turn about the room, and looked for the twentieth time at his watch. “We’ll be late for dinner,” he said. “Mother is counting on us. Mercy, would you very much mind—”
    She did mind, but there was no help for it. “Of course not. Very likely it’s some problem of her dress. I’ll go directly.”
    She found Mrs Mayfield apparently ready, but standing at her window, gazing out, a letter crumpled in her hand. “Oh, it’s you!” She greeted Mercy without ceremony. “Tell Hart I want to see him.”
    â€œHere?” Mercy cast a quick glance round the big, untidy room, so unlike any other at Winchelsea. Where Martha Purchis relied on home-made soap and toilet water for her complexion, her sister’s dressing table held a shabby battery of the tools of beauty’s trade. Even now, with, presumably, the most vital potions packed, the room reeked of orris root, powder, and other unidentifiable odours.
    â€œNo. Tell him I’ll be with him this instant.” She was treating Mercy like a servant, and they both knew it. “Oh, and first, hand me my fan, there’s a good girl. And my vinaigrette. I’ve had bad news.”
    Her skin, mottled under the rouge, confirmed this, and Mercy, sorry for her, did as she was bid and hurried down to warn Hart. “Something’s wrong, I’m afraid. She’s had a letter.”
    â€œI know. From Charleston.” He turned as Mrs Mayfieldentered the room. “I’m sorry, Aunt. Mercy tells me you have had bad news.”
    â€œMercy, is it?” Mercy had never seen anyone but an actress bridle before, and she made one of her quick notes on human behaviour while Mrs Mayfield sank into a chair, angrily fanning herself. “Would you believe it, Hart, my tenants have quit my Charleston house, without warning, and without paying what they owe me! It’s the most monstrous thing you ever heard of! I’ll have the law on them if it’s the last thing I do. Why, without what they pay I don’t know how I shall contrive. I shall have one of my spasms, I know I will!”
    â€œThey are English, are they not, Aunt?” Hart spoke into her furious silence.
    â€œYes. I thought the English were such models of good behaviour! To hear Frank speak, they are all perfect paragons. Well, let’s just wait to hear what he says about this. And to make bad worse, they have sailed already. They say they don’t feel safe in Charleston. Not safe! In Charleston! I ask you.” She uncrumpled the letter she was still holding, and looked at it again. “Yes, sailing the day they wrote. Of all the unprincipled …”
    â€œYes,” said Hart. “I do hope it doesn’t mean they know something we don’t. We must tell Governor Wright about this, and the sooner the better. Are you ready to go, Aunt? You will wish to discuss your course of action both with Sir James and with Francis, will you not? But, I’m afraid, if they have actually sailed for England, you have not much hope of redress.”
    â€œNo.” She was getting angrier by the minute. “They were friends of Frank’s, too. He put them in touch with me. I’ll have a word to say to that boy.”
    â€œPrivately, I do beg. We must not do anything to spoil the birthday celebrations.”

Chapter 5
    Like Winchelsea, the