New York - The Novel

alone when it was getting dark.
    “How d’you know I won’t rob you?” he muttered through his scarf.
    She looked up, only able to see his eyes. Her face was kind.
    “You would not harm us, sir, I am sure.”
    “You’d better get up,” Charlie grunted. He indicated the space on the seat beside him, then nodded to the back of the cart. “The young lady can sit on the sack.”
    He turned the horse’s head down Broadway.
    So this was the wife of John Master. He’d recognized her at once, of course, though she didn’t know him. And she thought he wouldn’t harm her. Well, I dare say I wouldn’t, he thought, once I’d burned your house down.
    As they started down Broadway, he gave her a sharp look.
    “You don’t look as if you belong in the Poor House,” he remarked in a less than friendly tone.
    “I go there each day,” she said simply.
    “What do you do there?”
    “If we have them to spare, we take a load of provisions up there in our cart. Sometimes blankets, other things. We give them money to buy food.” She glanced back at the sack of flour. “We do what we can.”
    “You take your daughter?”
    “Yes. She should know what kind of city we live in. There’s much for any good Christian to do.”
    They were just coming level with Trinity Church. He glanced at it with dislike.
    “Would that be a Trinity Christian?”
    “Any Christian I should hope. My father was a Quaker.”
    Charlie knew that too, but he said nothing.
    “My daughter talks to the old ones,” she continued quietly. “They like to talk to a child. It comforts them.” She glanced at him. “Have you been in the Poor House?”
    “Can’t say I have.”
    “There are many children in there, and some of them are sick. I was tending one of them today. That’s what I chiefly fear now. Some have died in the cold, but most will be fed. They are weak, though. The old onesand the children are starting to fall sick. It’s disease that will carry them off.”
    “You could fall sick yourself, going in there,” he muttered.
    “Only if it’s God’s will. Anyway, I’m not in their weakened condition. I don’t think of it.”
    They had just gone down Broadway another hundred yards when they saw a cart being driven by a black man coming swiftly toward them.
    “Why, there’s Hudson,” she remarked. “Hello, Hudson,” she called. As the two carts met, Hudson looked relieved.
    “The Boss sent me to bring you safe home,” Hudson said.
    “Well, this kind man has brought us down, as you see. But we’ll come with you now.” She turned to Charlie. “I don’t know your name,” she said.
    “Don’t matter,” said Charlie.
    “Well, let me give you something for going out of your way.”
    “No.” He shook his head. “I reckon you were doing the Lord’s work.”
    “Well, then, God bless you, sir,” she said, as she and Abigail got down.
    “And God bless you, too,” he answered. And he was level with Trinity before he silently cursed himself. Dammit, he thought, why did he have to say that?

    If John Master hadn’t come out to fetch Mercy himself, it was because he’d received an unexpected visit. Captain Rivers had called to see him. He’d arrived by ship from Carolina that very morning, and informed Master that he’d already taken lodgings in the town. He looked older. He had some gray hairs. But John had to admire the straightforward, manly way that Rivers explained the reason for his visit. Namely, that he was broke.
    Well, not entirely. If, during the last ten years, many Southern landowners had got themselves in trouble with their London creditors, the recent collapse of the London credit markets had made matters much worse. Captain Rivers himself had always dealt with Albion, and his credit there was good. But his wife was another matter.
    “She’s had dealings with other London merchants going back to the time before our marriage. I wasn’t even aware of the extent of them until recently. It seems we owe far more than I realized.”
    “Can you retrench?” Master asked.
    “We’ve done so. And the plantations still provide a good income. But the London creditors are pressing. And they’re so far away. They’ve no way of seeing how we run things. To them, we’re just another damned colonial plantation in trouble. What I want is to pay them all off, and raise a new debt to someone here in the colonies. The plantations provide ample security. If you came down to Carolina, you could see for yourself that