“But apart from Trinity vestry, I’ve never taken any public position,” John objected.
“So much the better. You can step forward as an honest man, impelled only by a sense of duty. Tell me this, how many of the larger city merchants would you say are loyal, at present?”
“Perhaps half, I’d guess.”
“And the smaller traders and better sort of craftsman?”
“Harder to say. Less than half—but many of those may be persuadable.”
“Precisely. Somebody has to give them backbone. You could do it—if you have the courage.” And seeing Master look uncertain, he went on eagerly: “There are farmers upriver and out on Long Island who would rally to the cause. Most of the Queens County men, to my knowledge, are Loyalists. Even the poorer sort in the city can be led back to reason. All is not lost. I urge you, Master, search your conscience and do your duty.”
John returned home, somewhat flattered, but uncertain. He discussed it with Mercy.
“Thee must follow what thy conscience tells thee,” she said. “And I shall be at thy side.”
He thought about it for a week. Then he went to work. He started inviting not only merchants to his house, but spread the net wider, to any honest traders and craftsmen whom he thought might like a return to order. He took the Brooklyn ferry, and rode out to solid Dutch farmers who had no patience with the radicals. He even, with no small courage, went into the city taverns and discussed the issues with laboring men and sailors. On one of these occasions he saw Charlie White standing near. Charlie eyed him with disgust, but didn’t interfere.
And perhaps it was because he was so busy with all these activities that he did not take sufficient notice, at first, when his wife started to look tired.
He supposed it was a small malady. Abigail thought so too. Mercy was not feverish. She went about her daily life as usual. In recent years she had liked to rest a little in the afternoons. But several times she remarked to Abigail, “I think I’ll rest a little longer this afternoon.” As the November days grew shorter, the declining light seemed to sap her energy further. But whenever her husband came in, she would rouse herself from her lethargy, and made him tell her all that he had been doing. And when he inquired tenderly if she was unwell, she would answer: “Why no, John. I think it is the weather that is making me feel a little quiet today.” And if he suggested, as he several times did, that he should stay at home with her for the day, she would not hear of it.
Her paleness they ascribed to the weather. Whenever the sun was out in the morning, Abigail would persuade her to walk with her to the Bowling Green, or even to the waterfront, and her mother said these walks were a pleasure to her. In the middle of the day, Ruth and Hannah would serve her hot broth, or cutlets, in the hope that these would give her more strength—a regime the doctor commented on with favor when once or twice he called. “A glass of red wine at midday, and brandy in the evening,” he also recommended.
At the end of November, since there was a ship crossing to London despite the winter weather, John sent his son a letter telling him that, though there was no cause for alarm, his mother was down in spirit and that it was more than time that he should come.
But it was not until mid-December, when he was just about to make his first public speech, in the upper room of a tavern, that Solomon appeared at the door and came quickly to his side.
“You’d better come quickly, Boss,” he whispered. “The mistress is sick. She’s real bad.”
There had been some blood. Then she had fainted. She was lying in bed and looking very drained. It seemed she had bled before, but concealed the fact. The doctor was summoned. He was noncommittal.
For nearly a month, John thought that Mercy was going to get better. Perhaps because she said she was, perhaps because he wished to believe it. She was going to get better. But when another vessel left for England at the end of December, he sent a letter to James. “Your mother is dying. I cannot tell you how long she will last, but I urge you, if you can, to come now.”
He curtailed his political activities after that. Abigail was her nurse, but he could not let her bear all the burden. Each day he would make Abigail go out for an hour or two, and sit by Mercy’s side. Sometimes she liked him to read to her, from the Gospels, more often than not. And as he read their magnificent language, their power and peace brought some comfort to him also. But not enough. Sometimes, when Mercy was in pain, he suffered almost as much as she did herself.
As the weeks passed, and she grew paler and thinner, he followed the events of the world, of course. In February, the moderates carried the day, and the New York Assembly refused to select any delegates to attend a second congress in Philadelphia. He applauded their good sense, and hoped that his own efforts in the early winter had contributed to their strength of purpose. But it was to no avail. The Patriots responded with rallies in the streets, and set up a new committee of their own. The Assembly, unable to control events, was slowly becoming irrelevant.
By March, it seemed to John Master that it could not be long before Mercy sank away from him. But a little flame of determination kept her there.
“Do you think James will come?” she would sometimes ask.
“I wrote in December,” he told her truthfully. “But the journey takes time.”
“I shall wait for him as long as I can.”
When Abigail sat with her mother, she would sometimes sing to her. She did not have a large voice, but it was tuneful, and pleasant. She would sing very quietly, and it seemed to soothe her mother.
Every evening, John Master would eat with Abigail. Hudson would serve them. Master would try to talk to her of other things. He would describe to her the great network of trade that linked New York to the south, the West Indies and to Europe. Sometimes they would discuss the political situation. She liked him to tell her about England, and all that he had seen there, about the Albions and, of course, James. Sometimes she’d ask him questions about his childhood and youth. But if he did his best to distract her, he soon came to realize that she too, in her quiet way, was deliberately asking him questions in order to take his mind off their troubles, and he was grateful for her thoughtfulness.
If Abigail was a support to him, he had to say that Hudson’s son Solomon had also come into his own. Hudson was always finding ways to keep the boy busy in the house. When a leak appeared in the roof after a storm, the young fellow was up there fixing it in no time, and did the job thoroughly. Twice, in the early months of the new year, Hudson had asked if Solomon mightn’t be sent to work for Susan for a while up in Dutchess County. But the young man was making himself so useful here in New York that Master had refused to think of it.
By mid-March, Mercy was getting very thin and her face was gaunt. But nature in her kindness seemed to be taking her away into a realm of increasing sleepiness. If John worried about Abigail, who was looking tired and wan, he scarcely realized how strained he looked himself. Just before the end of March, when he was sitting with Mercy one night, she put her thin hand in his and murmured: “I can’t hold out any longer, John.”
“Don’t go,” he said.
“It’s time,” she answered. “Thee has suffered enough.”
She faded away at dawn.
It was three weeks later that one of the warehouse men came running to the door with the news from Boston.
“There’s been a fight. The British redcoats have been licked by the Patriots at Lexington.”
John Master rushed out of his house at once. For an hour he gathered all the news he could. As he came by the waterfront, he noticed that a ship had just come in from England. But his attention was drawn to a crowd of men by another ship that was about to leave. The men, with whoops and cries, were busy unloading its cargo onto the dock.
“What on earth are they doing?” he asked a waterman.
“It’s a cargo of provisions for the English troops. The Liberty Boys are making sure they don’t get them,” the waterman told him. “There’s a
nother party gone up to the arsenal to take all the guns and ammunition.” He grinned. “If the troops come down from Boston, they’ll find our boys ready for them.”
“But this is revolution,” Master protested.
“Reckon it is.”
And Master was just wondering what to do when young Solomon found him.
“Miss Abigail said to come home at once, Boss.”
“Oh? What’s happened?”
“Mister James just arrived from London.”
“James?”
“Yes, Boss. An’ he have a little boy with him.”
“I’ll come at once,” cried Master. “And his wife?”
“No, Boss. No wife. They came alone.”
The Patriot
THEY DINED EARLY, James and his father, Abigail, and Weston, the little boy. Hudson and Solomon waited at table.
As James gazed at his family, he felt many emotions. The first hours after his arrival had been a melancholy time. After the shock of discovering that his mother had gone he’d reproached himself bitterly for not coming sooner. But now, looking at his family, he suddenly experienced a great wave of affection. There was his father, still handsome as ever. And Abigail, the baby sister he hardly knew, almost fifteen already, and turning into a young woman. With what joy and hope she’d greeted him. How protective he felt toward her.
And then there was Weston. James had watched his father’s face soften and his eyes light up at the sight of the little boy. With his fair hair and blue eyes, Weston looked like a tiny version of his grandfather.
There was so much to say. James wanted to know about his sister Susan and her family, and it was agreed that he should go up to Dutchess County to see them as soon as possible. He gave them news of the Albions, and recent events in London. There was only one person who had not yet been discussed.
“We are sorry not to have the pleasure of welcoming your wife,” his father said at last.
“Indeed.” Vanessa. On his arrival, James had told them briefly that, because of the need for a hasty departure, it had not been possible for his wife to accompany him. It was an imperfect explanation. But now, with a glance at his little son, he smiled cheerfully, as if her absence were the most natural thing in the world. “Vanessa looks forward to that pleasure in the future.”
There was a pause. They were waiting for him to say more. He didn’t.
“Do you mean to stay long, James?” Abigail inquired.
“I am uncertain.”
“So are the times,” his father replied grimly.
James steered the conversation to lighter topics after that. He wanted to know all about Abigail’s life, what pastimes she enjoyed, what books she liked to read. Everyone made much of little Weston.
It was only some time later, when Abigail had taken Weston off to bed, and James could sit alone with his father, that they could talk seriously about the colony’s affairs.
John Master gave him a full account of the recent events up at Lexington. Whatever the Boston men might think, he pointed out, this had only been a skirmish between the Patriots and a small body of troops, and had no bearing on what the full might of well-trained British troops would do to the Patriots in a real encounter. As for the raiding of the supplies and the seizing of arms in New York, they were rebellious acts for which a price would surely be paid.
“But let me explain the background of these events,” he continued. Going over the last few years of the colony’s history, John Master described very frankly the ineptitude of the royal governors, and the effects of London’s failure to compromise, as well as the obstinacy of the Boston men. He told James about the decline of the Assembly, the rise of the Sons of Liberty and the riots, and about his encounters with old Eliot Master, Captain Rivers and Charlie White. His account was careful, clear and balanced.
Yet underneath his measured manner, James could sense his father’s pain. Everything John Master believed in was under attack. The vicious way that his old friend Charlie White had turned upon him seemed to have hurt his father especially. In the midst of all this turmoil, and without his wife for comfort, John was obviously lonely, and even afraid.
“So I’m glad to have you here,” the older man concluded. “As a loyal family, we have to decide what to do.”
“What do you have in mind?”
His father looked thoughtful for a moment, then sighed.
“I’ll tell you something,” he answered. “When Captain Rivers came here, he asked me if I thought of going to live in England. At the time, I was astonished he should say such a thing. God knows, we’ve been here for generations. Yet if matters don’t improve, then, for your sister’s sake, I confess I almost wonder if perhaps we shouldn’t all return to London.”
James did not express an opinion, but he asked his father several questions, gave him what comfort he could, and promised they should discuss all these matters in the days to come.
As they were retiring to their bedchambers, however, his father suddenly stopped him.
“I do not wish to pry, James, but I was surprised that you and Weston came without his mother. Is all well with your wife? Is there anything you wish to tell me?”
“No, Father, there is nothing to say at present.”
“As you wish.” Though he looked concerned, John did not press him further. And James, having wished his father goodnight, was glad to escape to his room, and avoid further questions for the present.
But it was not only the subject of Vanessa he wished to avoid. There was something else he had concealed from his father.
They were just finishing breakfast the next morning when Hudson announced: “Solomon says there’s a lot of people going up to Wall Street.”
By the time James and his father got there, a crowd of thousands already blocked the street. The focus of interest seemed to be City Hall. They had only been there a few moments when two men approached them, and James found himself being introduced to John Jay, the lawyer, and a robust figure wearing a bright waistcoat, who he learned was Duane, the merchant.
“What’s going on?” John Master demanded.
“They want us to arm the city against the British,” said Jay.
“An outrage!” cried Master.
“What’ll you do?” James asked.
“Give them what they want, I think,” Jay answered calmly.
“You’d condone armed rebellion?” Master cried again. He looked at James as if to say, “This is what we have come to.” Then turning back to Jay, he indicated the crowd. “Is that what you and your people want?”
James watched the Patriot lawyer carefully, wondering what his attitude would be. Just then, a roar broke out from the crowd.
“My people?” John Jay looked at the crowd with disdain. “A disgusting mob,” he said coldly.
“Yet you’re prepared to lead them,” Master protested.
“There are larger issues at stake,” the lawyer replied.
“We have to do it, Master,” Duane interposed. “It’s the only way to control ’em.”
Master shook his head in disbelief. “Let’s go home, James,” he said.
But James did not want to return just yet. Telling his father he’d come home in a while, he lingered in the area for some time, watching the people in the street. He walked around the town, pausing now and then to talk to storekeepers and others he encountered—a rope-maker, a flower seller, a couple of mariners, one or two merchants. In the middle of the morning, he went into a tavern and sat, listening to the conversation. By the end of the morning, he was certain that the plan he had already formed was correct.
It was mid-afternoon when he entered the tavern known as Hampden Hall. Inquiring of the innkeeper, he was directed to a table, where two men were sitting. Striding over to it, he addressed the elder of the two.
“Mr. White? Mr. Charlie White?”
“Who’s asking?”
“Name’s James Master. I think you know my father.”
Charlie raised his wri
nkled brow in surprise. “And what would you want with me?” he asked suspiciously.
“A word.” James glanced at the other man, who was about his own age. “You’d be Sam?” The man indicated that he probably was. James nodded. “Fact is, gentlemen, I believe I owe you both an apology. Mind if I sit down?”
It did not take James long to tell them how, all those years ago, his father had instructed him to go to Charlie’s house to meet Sam. He related how he’d meant to come, how he’d procrastinated, failed to show up, and then lied to his father. “The sort of thing,” he admitted sadly, “that boys are apt to do. My father always supposed I’d been to see you,” he continued. “And when I met you afterward, Mr. White, I let you think he never told me to go at all.” He shrugged. “So, as I said, I reckon I owe you an apology,” he concluded, “and my poor father too.”
Sam was looking at his father. Charlie said nothing.
“I don’t seem to be doing much better now that I’m older,” James went on. “My father summoned me home again and again, to see my mother. I didn’t come. Now I’m here at last, and I find that I’m too late. She died while I was on my way.”
“Your mother was a kind lady,” Charlie said quietly. “I’m sorry she’s gone.” He paused for a moment. “This don’t make me your father’s friend, though.”
“I know.”
“You and him will always be Loyalists. Me and Sam will be Patriots. Way I see it, we’ll probably be fighting each other before long.”
“Perhaps, Mr. White. But maybe not. There’s something else you don’t know.”
“What’s that?”
“I’m not a Loyalist, Mr. White. I’m a Patriot.”
Vanessa
JAMES MASTER COULD never have imagined, when he first came to London, that he would marry Vanessa Wardour.
Indeed, when it happened, all London was astounded. The young colonist was a handsome young fellow, certainly, and heir to a considerable fortune. But the lovely Vanessa Wardour was at the pinnacle of aristocratic society. No doubt, they supposed, she’d turn him into a country gentleman, or a man of fashion. But whatever she did with him, young Master could count himself exceedingly lucky to be taken, in almost a single step, from colonial obscurity to the innermost circles at the apex of the empire.
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