New York - The Novel

were walking together down by the waterside, when suddenly he had turned to her, and remarked in a soft voice, but with great feeling: “You are still so young. Yet where would I ever find another, such as you?”
    Then she had awoken, to find him awake and gazing at her thoughtfully. And she had wondered whether he might actually have spoken the words, or whether she had only imagined them in her sleep.

    A curious feature of Master’s business at this period concerned the visits of Susan from Dutchess County. Every so often she would appear with two or three carts of produce. Master would arrange for their sale, and the British were only too delighted to buy whatever she had to offer. This business had become even more profitable than usual in recent months, for until then, the Iroquois in the North had been shipping boatloads of corn downriver to the city. But now the Patriots had intercepted this traffic. The last time Susan had brought down two wagonloads of corn, Master had been able to sell it for five times the price he’d have gotten before the war.
    As far as the ethics of these transactions, when Abigail had once asked her sister which side she was on, Susan’s reply had been simple.
    “The same side as my neighbors, Abby,” she’d said. “And plenty of others. The Patriots control Dutchess County, so I’m a Patriot. But if the British will buy my corn, for good money, I’ll sure as hell sell it to them. As for the silks, and the tea and the wine I’ll be taking back from New York, there’s plenty of Patriots where I live that’ll be glad to buy them, and they won’t be asking where they came from.”
    “How would Washington feel about your selling us corn?” Abigail asked.
    “He’d be mad as hell. But he won’t know.”
    “And James?”
    “The same, I guess, but he won’t know either.”
    As far as the British authorities were concerned, the return traffic was illegal. Loyalist merchants in New York were not supposed to supply the rebels with anything, but nobody took much notice. British merchants were cheerfully supplying the upstate Patriots with any luxuries they could pay for. It was illegal if one were caught, so few people were. Susan simply paid the guards at the checkpoint when she left the city.
    But here Master had shown his own old-fashioned sense of loyalty. For although he knew perfectly well what Susan was doing, he had always refused to take part in supplying the Patriots himself. So Abigail was greatly surprised by a conversation that took place in her father’s library one day in September.
    Grey Albion was out. The day before, as thanks for all that she had done in nursing him, he had given Abigail two beautiful presents. One was a silk shawl, carefully chosen to go with one of her favorite dresses; the other a handsomely bound edition of
Gulliver’s Travels
, which she had once told him she enjoyed. And she had been pleased and touched by the evident trouble to which he’d gone. That morning he had left the house to see General Clinton at the fort, and was not expected back until later. Weston was at school, so Abigail and her father had been alone when Susan arrived at the house.
    She had come into the town with three carts that day. Her father agreed to come with her at once to arrange the sale of the goods. But then, to Abigail’s amazement, he remarked: “I’ve a quantity of silk, and some excellent wines and brandy in the warehouse. Do you think you could dispose of them for me on your return?”
    “Of course,” Susan laughed. But Abigail was shocked.
    “Father! You’re surely not going to supply the Patriots?”
    Her father shrugged. “No point in leaving goods in the warehouse.”
    “But what if General Clinton found out?”
    “Let’s hope he doesn’t.” And something in Master’s tone of voice told her that, for whatever reason, some change must have taken place in her father’s soul.
    She had just left her father and Susan in the library and stepped into the hall, when she saw Grey Albion. She had not heard him return. He was standing still, looking thoughtful. Afraid he could have heard whathad just been said, she blushed, then, murmuring some excuse, went back into the library to warn her father that he was there. When she came into the hall again, Albion was gone.
    During the rest of that day, she wondered what Albion would do if he had heard them. Would he feel obliged to inform General Clinton? Would he pretend he knew nothing?