New York - The Novel
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.
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