New York - The Novel

whole, and also to keep track of the various interest payments due from a number of reputable businesses in the city. For since, unlike London, New York still had no banks, Master and other merchants of his kind made most of the loans necessary to the business of the place.
    So his father Dirk had agreed to come back to the city, and live in the house while John was away. John wasn’t sure that his father particularly wanted to do it, but he’d agreed with good grace, and there was certainly no one better fitted for the task.
    It had also solved one other problem.
    Mercy had been disappointed when her daughter Susan had not wanted to accompany them to London, but she had understood it. It was not that Susan was lacking in affection for her parents or interest in the world. But everything she already wanted was in the New York colony—her friends, the man, whomever he might be, that she would one day marry. The ocean crossing to London was not a small undertaking and it might be a year before they were back. To a girl of Susan’s age that seemed a long time, a year of her life given up for no future purpose, and that could have been better spent in America. To argue with her was pointless. They could force her to go, but at the end of the day, for what purpose? She wasn’t going to change her mind. And the presence of her grandfather in the house meant that she could be safely left there under his care.
    But James was another matter. When he’d confessed to his mother that he had no desire to go to London either, she’d told him frankly: “Your father is quite decided that you should come, James.” And seeing her son look vexed: “It would break his heart if you didn’t, you know.”
    She wasn’t surprised. Boys of that age were often moody. It made it worse that he was the only son and that his father’s hopes were centered on him. It was only natural that John was forever making plans for the boy, and just as natural that James should feel oppressed. But she really couldn’t see what was to be done. “Your father loves you, and means only for your good,” she would remind her son. And in her opinion, her husband was right. James should certainly come to London; and she told him so herself.
    But the voyage had been a trial. Summer had already begun before theytook the packet which sailed, in company with several other ships and a naval escort to protect them against French privateers, across the Atlantic to London. Her husband was a wonderful sailor. The weeks on the ship didn’t seem to bother him at all. Whether it was drinking in the great silence of the night sky under the stars, or weathering a squall while the ship pitched and tossed, she’d never seen him happier. James, on the other hand, would sit for hours on deck, staring gloomily at the Atlantic Ocean as if it were his personal enemy; and in rough seas, while his father was cheerfully up on deck, James would stay miserably below and think bitterly that if he drowned, it would all be his father’s fault for dragging him uselessly on a journey where he never belonged in the first place. To her husband, when he complained that their son wouldn’t speak, she said: “It’s just his age, John, and being cooped up on a ship.”
    “I think he blames me,” John remarked sadly.
    “Not at all,” she lied. But she hoped very much that James might cheer up in London.

    They had no sooner arrived at the London waterside than a pleasant, middle-aged man, with the bluest eyes she’d ever seen, came forward with hand outstretched to greet them.
    “Mr. Master? I am Arthur Albion, sir, at your service.” And within moments, he had them all in his carriage, with two boys loading their luggage into a cart behind. “I have taken the liberty of procuring you some lodgings,” he announced, “not far from those occupied by another distinguished gentleman from the American colonies, though he is away from London at present.”
    “Indeed?” said John Master. “And who might that be?”
    “Mr. Benjamin Franklin, sir. I dare say he’ll be back in London soon.”
    But if there was no sign of Ben Franklin in the weeks that followed, it hardly seemed to matter. For London was all that Mercy had hoped, and more.
    It wasn’t long before John told her he was satisfied that Albion’s were one of the best trading houses in London. They were solid, and well trusted. Arthur Albion was a member of one of the best city guilds. “As for our friend