New York - The Novel

Albion,” John declared with a laugh, “he’s a most gentlemanly fellow. But if there’s a chance to turn a pretty penny, I’ve never seen a man move quicker in my life.”
    He proved to be a perfect guide. Though he was a merchant and a city man, Albion came from an old family of landed gentry down in the New Forest, and through family connections, and his own courtly manners, he had access to a number of London’s aristocratic houses. His wife came from an old family of French Huguenots. “Silk merchants and jewelers,” she told Mercy cheerfully. What better person could there be to guide her round the fashionable shops? They were fast friends within a week. Hats and ribbons, silk dresses and shoes, not to mention the daily delicacies to be found in Fortnum & Mason the grocers—they sampled them all. Since servants were needed to wait upon them in their handsome lodgings, the two ladies interviewed them together.
    Best of all, Mercy could buy things for her husband.
    She could see at once that Mr. Albion, though he dressed quietly, had a perfect sense of fashion. John dressed well. And London fashions reached New York quite quickly. But there was a certain style, a special look, hard to define but unmistakable, in a London tailor. She had Mr. Albion take John to his tailor and his wigmaker before they’d been there a week.
    Then there were the other things, that she and Mrs. Albion could buy for him together. The silver buckles for his shoes, a fine new watch, a sword, a sword knot, linen for his shirts. She even bought him a silver snuffbox. The fashion for snuff had come to New York, of course, and several American tobacco merchants had started manufacturing it. But if John Master smoked a pipe now and then, he drew the line at the snuffbox. “If I start snorting snuff, I’ll sneeze over you all day—and all night too,” he promised cheerfully.

    John Master was enjoying London very much indeed. Albion had chosen their lodgings wisely—just off the Strand, in the thick of everything. In no time, John was frequenting some of the best coffee houses, where you could find the newspapers and the
Gentlemen’s Magazine
, and strike up conversations with all kinds of interesting fellows. The theaters showed comedies that were to his taste. To please Mercy, he even sat through a concert of Handel’s music—and quite enjoyed it.
    But their great relief was James.
    John Master could remember his own youth only too well and what a disappointment he’d been to his own father. So if he often made plans for James, it was only because he hoped that his son might do a little betterthan he had himself. If in New York he’d thought James should learn about fellows like Charlie White, here in London, the opportunity seemed entirely different. Here was a chance to acquire, at the empire’s fountainhead, all the history, knowledge of law and manners that a gentleman should know. Before they had sailed, he’d written to Albion, asking him to find James a tutor. He hoped this wasn’t going to make James even more morose. But to his great relief, it was soon clear that Albion had chosen well: a bright young fellow recently down from Oxford, who could give James some companionship as well.
    “The first few days,” the young fellow announced, “I think I’d better show James round the town. I can give him some history lessons as we go.” And it seemed to work. A week later, when Master went across to Westminster with his son, he was quite astonished at how much of the history of the British Parliament James knew. A few days after that, James even corrected him, politely but firmly, upon a point of grammar. “Damn your impudence,” his father cried. But he didn’t mind at all.
    James was getting along famously with his young tutor. When the Albions introduced him to rich London boys of his own age, he found them not so different. Indeed, the young bloods of New York had taken up the nasal drawl of London’s upper class when they spoke, and James knew how to do it. It was agreeable to find that these English boys accepted him as a good fellow like themselves. Albion’s own son Grey, who was three years younger than James, obviously looked up to him, which raised his spirits further, and soon the Albions’ house by Lincoln’s Inn became his second home.
    And flushed with this new confidence, James also began to seek out his father.
    John Master knew that boys of this age needed the company of their father,