“No. But he waved.”
An hour passed. Then another. The silence was eerie. At last, her father heard the rattle of muskets. But in a few minutes, it stopped, and silence resumed. Twenty minutes went by. Then a lone horseman cantered into the street.
It was James. He rushed indoors.
“It’s over. I have to leave.”
“Was there a fight?”
“Fight? Hardly. The British started to come across the island. Our men were to make a stand above Murray Hill, and Washington came down to supervise. But at the first shots, our men bolted. Washington was like a madman, beating them with the flat of his sword, cursing them for cowards and worse. But they paid no heed. They ran like rabbits. It was shameful.”
“I thought Washington was a dry fellow.”
“No. He has a fearful temper. But he controls it, mostly.”
“Where are the British now?”
“On their way here. Howe moves at a snail’s pace—it’s almost as if he’s letting us get away. Perhaps he is. Who knows? But I have to leave now, Father. I only came to bid farewell.”
“My son.” Master put his hands on James’s shoulders. “You see how it goes with the Patriots. I implore you, for your own sake, for the sake of your family, give this business up. It’s not too late. Take off your uniform. Remain here at the house. I hardly think the British will give you any trouble if you do so.”
“I cannot. I must go.” He embraced Abigail, went to where little Weston was watching wide-eyed, picked him up and kissed him. Then he turned back to his father.
“There is one more thing I have to say to you, Father.”
“Tell me quickly.”
“In all the world you are the man I would soonest trust with my son.” With that, he embraced him, and was gone.
They watched James until he was out of sight. After that, they turned indoors, and her father went into his office and closed the door. A moment later, through the door, Abigail heard him burst into tears.
“Come, Weston,” she said to the little boy, “let us go to Bowling Green.”
The entry of the British was like the entry of every conquering army. Whether out of joy, or fear, people waved and shouted with delight. Her father hoisted a Union Jack above the door. Since much of the city was empty, the army could have their pick of quarters. “Though no doubt,” her father warned her, “some colonel will want to commandeer this house.”
The British were moving quite swiftly now, to take over most of Manhattan Island. But the next day the Patriots, having fled so ignominiously before, suddenly put on a show.
Up in the north of the island, just below the Patriot encampments on Harlem Heights, a party of several hundred redcoats, chasing some Connecticut Rangers away, suddenly saw a swarm of Patriots sweeping down upon them from the high ground. There was a sharp exchange, but the Patriots pressed bravely forward, and this time the redcoats had to flee.
No doubt this put some heart into the Patriots. But strangely, Abigail noticed, it seemed to please her father too. “At least the Americans gave some account of themselves,” he remarked.
It was at eleven o’clock precisely the following morning, while her father was out, that Hudson came to inform her that an English officer was at the door. “No doubt he wants to commandeer the house,” she said with a sigh, and went to the door.
And found there an officer, a little younger than her brother, whose hair was a mess, but who looked down at her with the most beautiful blue eyes.
“Miss Abigail?” he inquired. “I am Grey Albion.”
Fire
1776
THE GREAT FIRE of New York began at midnight on September 30.
Hudson saw the flames when he went to shutter the upper windows. They weren’t far off, down below the fort on Whitehall Dock, he guessed. “Wind’s blowing this way,” he told his wife Ruth. “I’d best go and take a look.”
It was only a few yards from the door of the house to the corner of Broad Street. Turning down Broad Street, he went swiftly toward the waterfront. The wind was blowing briskly in across the East River from Brooklyn, and he felt it in his face. At the Dock Street crossing, he saw the fire. It was at the far end of the street where it met Whitehall. He could see that the Fighting Cocks Tavern was already a mass of flame, and the fire seemed to be spreading fast. He wondered how it could have happened so quickly. People from the area were standing and staring, but almost all the firemen, being Patriots, had fled the city, so nobody was doing anything. The house beside the tavern was already well ablaze. Just south of the tavern, a small warehouse suddenly began to burn.
He frowned. That was odd. The wind was blowing the other way.
Then he noticed something.
By the time Hudson got home, the blaze had spread over a whole block. He found Master and the rest of the household already up. “Breeze’ll bring it this way, Boss,” he announced, “an’ there’s no firemen.”
“Not much we can do, then,” said Master grimly.
But that was when young Mr. Albion spoke up.
“I think, sir,” he said, “we could try.”
When Mr. Albion had first arrived at the house, the Boss had been quick to see his opportunity. Within a day, he had Albion and two other young officers quartered there. “Mr. Albion’s our personal friend, Hudson,” he’d explained. “And I’d rather house some junior officers here as guests, than have to move out for some colonel.” Undoubtedly young Mr. Albion seemed very gentlemanly, and the two other officers gave no trouble.
That night, certainly, they were splendid. In no time they had the household filling every available container with water. Solomon had appeared in the kitchen, and Hudson made him go out and man the water pump. Before long there were buckets and troughs of water up on the top floor, and by all the windows on the south-west side. Albion had prepared a station for himself up on the roof, from which he had already stopped the drainpipes and filled the gutters with water. “Luckily the roof’s slate,” he told them. “That’ll help.”
“I’m afraid he’ll get trapped up there,” Abigail confided to Hudson, but he told her, “Don’ you worry, Miss Abigail, I reckon he can look after himself.”
Meanwhile, the fire was coming toward them. The breeze was carrying it in a broad swathe, two blocks wide. Its spread was assisted by the fact that, over the decades, the old Dutch ceramic tiles on the roofs had been replaced with wooden shingles. From the waterfront, it moved up the blocks between Whitehall and Broad Street, and its progress was rapid. By one o’clock, it was less than two blocks away. Half an hour later, looking from the front door along Beaver Street toward Bowling Green, Hudson saw the flames catch the roof of the last house.
A great black cloud was towering over the southern side of the street now, filled with glowing embers. He could hear the embers pattering down on the roofs of houses nearby. A house on the other side of the street was catching fire. The huge roar of the moving furnace was getting louder. Master called down to him to close the door, and he went quickly back inside.
Young Albion was very busy now. The other officers had rigged up a pulley to carry buckets of water up to him. He also had a brush with a long pole with which he could push embers off the roof. As the walls of the house were solidly built of brick, the key was to douse the woodwork and the shutters. With luck, the gutters full of water would put out the embers before they set fire to the eaves, but one of the young men had gone into the attic, with more buckets of water, to try to stop the roof timbers catching fire. Abigail had joined her father at one of the windows. Solomon was still busy at the pump.
“If I give the word,” Master ordered, “everyone must leave the house at once.” Hudson wondered if they would. The young men seemed to be enjoying themselves too much. A message came from Albion that more than half of Beaver Street was already alight.
It was almost two o’clock when flames began to crackle from the house next door. Up on the roof, Albion was exerting himself wildly. Hud
son went up to help him. Flames were licking one side of the house. They poured buckets of water on that part of the roof so that the gutter would overflow down that wall. The heat was getting fierce. Albion’s face was streaked with black, and seeing tiny embers in his tangled hair, Hudson poured a bucket of water over his head, and the young man laughed. Below, they heard Master’s voice, calling out for them to leave. Hudson looked at Albion. The young officer grinned.
“I can’t hear a thing, Hudson, can you?”
“No, sir.”
And they were just pushing some more embers off the roof when Hudson noticed something. He pointed to the smoke. Albion stared, then let out a shout of triumph.
“Quick, Hudson. Tell ’em to get back. We can still save the house.”
The wind had changed.
The Master house escaped the Great Fire of New York that night. The huge charred line of destruction ran along the entire southern side of Beaver Street, but on the northern side the last two houses, next to Broad Street, were spared. The rest of the city was not so lucky. For as the wind shifted toward the eastern quarter, it carried the fire across to Broadway. A little later, shifting back again, it carried the conflagration straight up the great thoroughfare. There was nothing anyone could do to stop it. Trinity Church, with its noble spire, went up in flames and was a blackened hulk by morning. In the poor quarter to the north and east of it, the modest timber houses went up like kindling wood. On and on the fire swept, all that night and the following morning, from Broadway to the Hudson, until at last, some time after Charlie White’s dwelling had gone up in a single flash, it came to an end, only because, reaching empty lots, it ran out of houses to burn.
What had started the fire? Was it an accident, or deliberate arson? If arson, it must have been the Patriots. Inquiries were made. Nothing was established. One Patriot officer was caught in the city. He admitted he came there to spy, but denied that he’d started the fire. General Howe had to hang him, as a spy out of uniform—the rules of war demanded it. But the cause of the fire remained a mystery.
Hudson waited a week before he spoke to his son Solomon.
“When I was out by the fire,” he said quietly, “I saw something funny. I saw two people running away from a warehouse near the tavern. One of them looked like Charlie White.”
“That so?”
“Man with him was black. Younger. In fact, I could’a swore it was you.”
“I was at the house when you got back.”
“And before?”
“Didn’ you tell me you was once accused of starting a fire in the dark?”
“You stay out of trouble,” said Hudson, with a furious look.
Love
July 1777
ABIGAIL WAS SITTING on a folding stool, with a parasol over her head. Her father stood behind her. Weston was cross-legged on the grass. There was quite a crowd around the edge of Bowling Green: ladies, gentlemen, officers and men.
“Oh, well hit!” cried her father, as the ball soared over the heads of the crowd, and everybody applauded. “Grey’s having quite an inning,” he remarked with a smile to his daughter. Indeed, Albion had nearly fifty runs.
They were playing cricket.
There were two teams in New York now, one in Greenwich Village, just above the city, the other out at Brooklyn. But you could see children playing with bat and ball on any street in the fashionable quarter. Albion had already taught Weston how to bat and bowl. “Though I’ve nothing to teach him about fielding,” he’d laugh. “I’d hate to be batting if Weston were on the other team.”
Grey Albion had been in high favor with John Master since the night of the fire. Indeed, as the months went by he’d become like a second son to John and a favorite uncle to Weston. Though he was in his late twenties, almost as old as James, there was something boyish about him, with his handsome face and unruly hair. He would romp with Weston, make the other young officers join in a game of blind man’s buff, like so many children, or once in a while organize some outrageous practical joke upon Abigail herself that kept the household laughing for days.
She knew that other girls thought him attractive. “It’s so unfair,” they cried, “that you should have him living in your house.” But if his blue eyes melted the other girls, she had long ago decided that she was not so impressed herself. Besides, he treated her entirely as a little sister. Indeed, at times she found him almost infuriating—not because of anything he did, but on account of his assumption of superiority.
“This business with the rebels will soon be over,” he’d assure her. “Another battle or two against a real army and they’ll run like rabbits to their holes. They’re just a rabble led by men who aren’t gentlemen—I exclude James of course.”
Not that the other young officers she met thought any differently. They all had the same easy contempt for the rebels, as they always called the Patriots. For even if they understood that the colonists might have had complaints, once a man took up arms against the king, he was a rebel, and rebels must be put down. There was nothing more to say.
Indeed, when it came to James’s choice to be a Patriot, Albion was honestly mystified. Abigail seldom spoke of James in his presence. But although, if his name came up, Albion only spoke to her about James with respect and affection, she once overheard him telling her father: “To tell you the truth, sir, I cannot imagine what made him do it. If he walked into the room now, I don’t know what I’d say to him.”
Once she had tried to question him about her brother’s wife. Around the turn of the year, John Master had received a letter from Vanessa. In it she told him that she had received a communication from James, letting her know that he was with the Patriots, and that Weston was in New York. She did not disguise her feelings. In her bold hand, the words stood out in capitals: SHAMEFUL, TRAITOR, VILLAIN. She thanked God, at least, that her little son was in such safe and loyal hands, and hoped that the time would soon come when she and Weston should be reunited. Though when this was to be, and in what manner, she did not say.
“What is Vanessa like?” she’d asked Albion.
“Oh, a very handsome lady,” he’d answered.
“I mean her character.”
“Well …” He had seemed to hesitate. “I do not often move in such high circles, so I don’t know her well. But when we met, she was always very civil to me. She has a fine wit. She’s known for it.”
“Does she love Weston?”
“I think every mother loves her child, Miss Abigail.” He’d paused before adding, somewhat enigmatically, “But a fashionable lady cannot always spare a lot of time for her children.”
“And does she love my brother?”
“I’m sure she would not have married without love.” He’d paused again. “Though she cannot approve his becoming a rebel.”
“Why does she not come here?”
“Ah.” He had looked a little flummoxed. “She knows that Weston is safe with your father. I expect she’ll have him sent to England in due course. She probably thinks the crossing is too dangerous at present, with Patriot privateers upon the sea.”
Since Patriot privateers were no match for British convoys, this last excuse was weak. But Albion had seemed reluctant to say more, and she hadn’t pressed him.
As for news of James, the last autumn had been the most worrying time. Even moving at his usual snail’s pace, it had not taken General Howe long to drive Washington and his army across the Hudson River. Harlem Heights, White Plains, and the rebel strongholds on the river, Fort Washington and Fort Lee, all fell. Huge numbers of Patriots were killed, thousands taken prisoner. Then General Cornwallis had chased Washington south, past Princeton and over the Delaware River into Pennsylvania. “These are the times that try men’s souls,” Tom Paine had declared.
At Christmas, Washington had led a daring raid across the Delaware and struck at the British and Hessian garrisons. It was a brave gesture. Then he’d been able to dodge Cornwallis, and lead his army to camp at Morristo
wn from where, thank God, James had managed to send a letter to let them know that he was alive. But John Master did not think much of the Patriots’ chances.
“Washington took one trick, but the British still hold all the good cards.”
In New York, however, Abigail had watched as the new British regime set in. For in the mind of General Howe, she now learned, the conduct of war assumed an aristocratic pattern. Summer was for fighting, winter for resting, and enjoying yourself—at least if you were a gentleman. And General Howe, it was soon clear, meant to enjoy himself.
Admittedly, New York was not exactly a resort. In fact, it was a confounded mess. For a start, a vast swathe of the western side of the city had been burned down in the fire. In place of block after block of charming Georgian, Dutch-gabled or wooden-frame houses, there was now a charred wasteland, almost three-quarters of a mile from end to end—a sea of freezing mud in the cold weather, and a stinking morass when it got warmer. This had become a huge bivouac, so disgusting that Master wryly confessed, “I prefer not to be on Broadway when the wind’s coming from the western side.” Besides this, the troops were crowded into a couple of barracks, and another permanent camp up on the Common. But for the British officers, and the Loyalists arriving from all quarters, there wasn’t enough proper accommodation, and hardly enough food to go round.
As for the unfortunate Patriot prisoners, who’d been taken in large numbers, they were being crammed into the almshouse, the Nonconformist churches or any secure space that could be found, and fed scraps if they were lucky.
For landlords, however, the shortage had benefits. “I’ve just been offered three times the old rent for that pair of row houses we own on Maiden Lane,” her father told Abigail in the spring.
Indeed, John Master was soon in high favor with the British command. A Loyalist merchant with huge experience, a fellow who’d lived in London, and who believed in compromise—he was exactly what they thought an American ought to be. General Howe took a particular liking to him, and several times invited him to dine. Wisely, Master was entirely frank with him about James, and the general seemed to trust him all the better for it. “William Franklin has the same problem with his father Ben as you do with your son James,” he genially remarked. In no time Master had contracts for supplying grain and meat from anywhere he could find them. This included the produce from the farmlands up in Dutchess County, and with a pass procured by her father, Susan was able to come into the city with supplies. Business was resumed with Albion in London. The army officers wanted any luxuries and comforts that he could supply. “I’ve never been busier,” he confessed.
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