New York - The Novel

to either,” he said. “But the family business must still be attended to.”
    He realized that, like many women, she planned to refashion the man she loved, and it quite amused him. But he hadn’t the least intention of neglecting his affairs, all the same.
    He also remarked several times that they must think of crossing the Atlantic to visit his family, who would be anxious to meet her. To this she replied, “Not yet, James. Not with little Weston so young.” And as this seemed reasonable, he did not argue.
    When she became pregnant again, he was delighted. He’d rather hopedfor a girl this time. Then she lost the baby and he was very sad. But for Vanessa, the loss took a greater toll.
    She became depressed. For weeks she remained in the house, going out little, staring lifelessly through the window at the sky. She seemed to do everything listlessly. He tried to comfort her, persuade her to amusements, but mostly in vain. She seemed to shrink from intimacy. Even Weston seemed to bring her little joy. After a short time playing with him, she would hand him back to the nursemaid and motion them away.
    Gradually she returned to her normal state, or something like it. But there was a change. Though she allowed him into her bed, it was plain to James that she did not really welcome his embraces. He tried to be tender, and hoped for better times. Almost more difficult for him to understand was her attitude to Weston.
    He had assumed that all women were maternal. It was, he thought, their natural instinct. It was strange indeed to him, therefore, that even after she had recovered, Vanessa did not seem to care for her son. To outside eyes, she was a perfect mother, but she was going through the motions, and in her attentions to the child, there was little warmth. Once, with the little boy on her knee, she gazed at Weston’s face and remarked to James: “He looks just like you.”
    “He’s the image of my father, actually,” James replied.
    “Oh,” she said sadly. “Is that it?” And she put little Weston down, without enthusiasm, so that James could only wonder whether she had affection for either him or for his son.
    It was shortly after this incident that James encountered Benjamin Franklin in the Strand. When he introduced himself and explained who he was, the great man was friendly. “Come back to my lodgings,” he said, “and let us talk.”
    As always, Franklin was enlightening. They spoke of the Patriot cause, and James related the conversation he’d had with young Hughes.
    “I confess,” he told Franklin, “that I have often pondered his words since, and wondered whether he may be right. Perhaps a fundamental agreement between the British government and the American colonies can never be reached.”
    But Franklin was more sanguine.
    “I cannot fault your young friend’s logic,” he said cheerfully. “But the political art uses negotiation and compromise rather than logic. The question is not whether the British Empire makes sense, but whether men canlive together in it. That’s the thing. I am still hopeful that we can, and I trust you will be too.”
    It was in a happier mood that James walked back from the Strand to Piccadilly. Turning up into Mayfair and arriving at the house, he was let in by the butler, who informed him that his wife had a lady visitor, and that they were in the small drawing room. Ascending the stairs, James came to the drawing-room door, and was just about to let himself in when he heard his wife’s voice.
    “I can scarcely bear it. Every day under this roof has become a torture.”
    “It cannot be so bad,” he heard the visitor say gently.
    “It is. I am trapped in a marriage with a colonial. A colonial who wants to drag me to his cursed colony. I tremble that if we go there he might want to stay.”
    “Stay in America, when he has the chance to live in London? I cannot think it.”
    “You do not know him. You cannot imagine what he’s like.”
    “You told me that as a husband he is …”
    “Oh, I do not complain of his manhood. For a time I even loved him, I think. But now … I cannot bear his touch.”
    “These things are not so uncommon in a marriage. They may pass.”
    “They will not. Oh, how could I have been such a fool, to trap myself with him? And all because of his cursed child.”
    “Do not say such things, Vanessa. Does he know your feelings?”
    “He? The colonial? Know? He knows nothing.”
    James turned silently from the door. He