New York_ The Novel - Edward Rutherfurd [127]
“Do you think James will come?” she would sometimes ask.
“I wrote in December,” he told her truthfully. “But the journey takes time.”
“I shall wait for him as long as I can.”
When Abigail sat with her mother, she would sometimes sing to her. She did not have a large voice, but it was tuneful, and pleasant. She would sing very quietly, and it seemed to soothe her mother.
Every evening, John Master would eat with Abigail. Hudson would serve them. Master would try to talk to her of other things. He would describe to her the great network of trade that linked New York to the south, the West Indies and to Europe. Sometimes they would discuss the political situation. She liked him to tell her about England, and all that he had seen there, about the Albions and, of course, James. Sometimes she’d ask him questions about his childhood and youth. But if he did his best to distract her, he soon came to realize that she too, in her quiet way, was deliberately asking him questions in order to take his mind off their troubles, and he was grateful for her thoughtfulness.
If Abigail was a support to him, he had to say that Hudson’s son Solomon had also come into his own. Hudson was always finding ways to keep the boy busy in the house. When a leak appeared in the roof after a storm, the young fellow was up there fixing it in no time, and did the job thoroughly. Twice, in the early months of the new year, Hudson had asked if Solomon mightn’t be sent to work for Susan for a while up in Dutchess County. But the young man was making himself so useful here in New York that Master had refused to think of it.
By mid-March, Mercy was getting very thin and her face was gaunt. But nature in her kindness seemed to be taking her away into a realm of increasing sleepiness. If John worried about Abigail, who was looking tired and wan, he scarcely realized how strained he looked himself. Just before the end of March, when he was sitting with Mercy one night, she put her thin hand in his and murmured: “I can’t hold out any longer, John.”
“Don’t go,” he said.
“It’s time,” she answered. “Thee has suffered enough.”
She faded away at dawn.
It was three weeks later that one of the warehouse men came running to the door with the news from Boston.
“There’s been a fight. The British redcoats have been licked by the Patriots at Lexington.”
John Master rushed out of his house at once. For an hour he gathered all the news he could. As he came by the waterfront, he noticed that a ship had just come in from England. But his attention was drawn to a crowd of men by another ship that was about to leave. The men, with whoops and cries, were busy unloading its cargo onto the dock.
“What on earth are they doing?” he asked a waterman.
“It’s a cargo of provisions for the English troops. The Liberty Boys are making sure they don’t get them,” the waterman told him. “There’s another party gone up to the arsenal to take all the guns and ammunition.” He grinned. “If the troops come down from Boston, they’ll find our boys ready for them.”
“But this is revolution,” Master protested.
“Reckon it is.”
And Master was just wondering what to do when young Solomon found him.
“Miss Abigail said to come home at once, Boss.”
“Oh? What’s happened?”
“Mister James just arrived from London.”
“James?”
“Yes, Boss. An’ he have a little boy with him.”
“I’ll come at once,” cried Master. “And his wife?”
“No, Boss. No wife. They came alone.”
The Patriot
THEY DINED EARLY, James and his father, Abigail, and Weston, the little boy. Hudson and Solomon waited at table.
As James gazed at his family, he felt many emotions. The first hours after his arrival had been a melancholy time. After the shock of discovering that his mother had gone he’d reproached himself bitterly for not coming sooner. But now, looking at his family, he suddenly experienced a great wave of affection. There was his father, still handsome as ever. And Abigail, the