New York - The Novel

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 wrinkled 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. Ididn’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
    J AMES 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.
    James was very proud of being British. It was how he’d been brought up. With what rapture, when his parents had first taken him to London, he’d listened to Ben Franklin as the great man described Britain’s imperial destiny. How overjoyed he’d been to go to Oxford, to enjoy its stately quadrangles and dreaming spires, and to imbibe the knowledge of ancient Greece and Rome that was proper to an English gentleman.
    For when Englishmen walked through London’s classical streets and squares, or took the waters at Bath, when aristocrats made the Grand Tour to Italy and commissioned Palladian country houses back at home, or when politicians made fine speeches full of