New York - The Novel

time. His voyage to Boston with the English fleet had encountered storms. When he had reachedBoston and gone to the family house, now occupied by his brother, Eliot had greeted him with a look of horror, followed by hours of silence that, Tom decided, were even more unpleasant than the storms at sea. His brother did not actually throw him out of the house, but he made it clear in his quiet, serious way that, dead or not, their father should be obeyed; and that Tom had violated every rule of decency by attempting to re-enter the family circle.
    At first Tom had been hurt, then angry. The third day, he’d decided to treat the whole business as a joke; out of sight of his brother, he had laughed.
    But finding employment in Boston proved to be no laughing matter. Whether he had a bad reputation, or whether Eliot had been busy warning everybody about him, he could find no encouragement from any of the merchants he knew. Evidently, if he remained in Boston, life was going to be difficult.
    He also wondered if his father had made any provision for him in his will. But when he asked his brother, and Eliot told him, “Only under certain conditions, which you do not fulfill,” he had no doubt that his brother was telling the truth.
    So what was he to do? Should he return to London? Eliot would probably pay for his passage, if that would remove him permanently from Boston. But it irked him to be run out of town by his own brother.
    Besides, there was still the other consideration that had brought him here.
    The Duke of York’s fleet remained in Boston harbor. The commander was making a show of attending to the Duke’s affairs in Boston. But a conversation with a young officer had soon confirmed what Tom had suspected all along. The fleet was going down to New Amsterdam, and soon. “If the Duke can take New Netherland from the Dutch, he’ll be master of an empire here,” the officer told him. “We’re carrying enough cannon-balls and powder to blow New Amsterdam to bits.” The King of England’s assurance to the Dutch had been that amusing monarch’s favorite tactic: a brazen lie.
    And if this was the case, then the opportunities for a young Englishman in the American colonies were about to improve. It would be foolishness on his part to return to England now. What he needed was a plan.
    The idea came to him the next day. Like many of Tom’s ideas, it was outrageous, but not without humor. He’d met a girl he remembered, in atavern—a girl of no good reputation—and talked to her for a while. The day after that, he returned to talk to her again. When he told her what he wanted, and named the price he’d pay, she laughed, and agreed.
    That evening, he spoke to his brother.
    He started with an apology. He told Eliot that he felt repentance for his past misdeeds. This was greeted by silence. Tom then explained that he wanted to settle down, no matter how humbly, and try to lead a better life.
    “Not here, I hope,” his brother said.
    Indeed that was his plan, Tom told him. And not only that, he thought he’d found a wife. At this news, Eliot had gazed at him in blank astonishment.
    There was a woman he had known before, Tom explained, a woman who had also led a less than perfect life, but who was ready to repent. What better way of showing Christian forgiveness and humility than to save her?
    “What woman?” demanded Eliot coldly.
    Tom gave the girl’s name and the tavern where she worked. “I was hoping,” he said, “that you would help us.”
    By noon the next day, Eliot had discovered enough. The girl was nothing less than a common whore. Yes, she had told him, she’d be glad to marry Tom, and be saved, and live here in Boston no matter how humbly. For anything was better than her present, fallen condition. Though Eliot saw at once that this might be a hoax, he did not see the humor of it. Nor did it matter whether the thing was true or not. Clearly Tom was prepared to make trouble, and embarrass him. Alternatively, Eliot assumed, Tom would be prepared to leave—for a price. That evening they spoke again.
    The interview was conducted in the spirit of mournfulness in which Eliot seemed to specialize. It took place in the small, square room he used as an office. On the desk between them was an inkwell, a Bible, a book of law, a paper cutter and a little pine box containing a newly minted silver dollar.
    The offer Eliot made was the inheritance that Adam Master had left for his younger son if, and only