Montayne’s Tavern

1758

IT WAS GUY Fawkes Night, and they were burning the Pope in New York.

In England, the Fifth of November was an important day. A century and a half had passed since Catholic Guy Fawkes had tried to blow up the Protestant Parliament, and they’d been burning his effigy on bonfires on that day ever since. Indeed, it being the same season, the celebrations had pretty much taken over the ancient rites of Halloween. And Guy Fawkes Night had come to New York, too. But by and by, the New Yorkers had decided to improve on the old English model and get to the heart of the matter. So they carried an effigy of the Pope himself through the streets, and burned him on a great bonfire in the evening, and everybody celebrated. At least, pretty much everybody. The Catholics in the town may have objected; but there weren’t too many of them, and they had the sense to keep quiet.

When John Master saw Charlie White through the crowd on Broadway that evening, he waved and smiled. And Charlie nodded, but he didn’t smile. And John realized it was years since they’d spoken. So he started toward him.

And maybe John Master felt a tad awkward when he said, “It’s good to see you, Charlie.” And he almost said, “I was thinking about you the other day,” but he didn’t because it would have been a damn lie, and they both knew it. Then fortunately he realized that they were right outside Montayne’s Tavern, so he said, “Let’s have a drink.” Like it was old times.

Old times. Charlie remembered old times, all right. Those had been the days, when he and John Master had been boys together.

Happy times mostly. Fishing in the river. Walking up Broadway arm in arm. Sleeping out in the woods, and thinking they heard a bear. Taking a boat out to Governor’s Island and spending all day there, when John was supposed to be at school. Getting into mischief in the town. Once or twice John had let him come in one of his father’s longboats to run the molasses in from the French vessels at night. And John’s father had given Charlie a handsome tip, to keep quiet about it, though Charlie would rather have died than breathe a word.

He’d been almost one of the family. That was friendship.

As John had got older, they’d gone to the taverns too. But Charlie couldn’t get drunk the way John did, because he had to work. So John mostly got drunk with the sailors, and Charlie got him home afterward.

When John had turned away from all that, and started to work, he hadn’t seen so much of Charlie, and Charlie had understood. He doesn’t want to see me, Charlie thought, because I remind him of what he’s trying to get away from. I remind him of what he used to be. He understood it, but he was still hurt. They’d see each other from time to time, even go for a drink. But it wasn’t the same any more.

Charlie had made a small mistake once. He’d been in the market place, and happened to see John standing near the entrance to the fort, talking to a merchant. He’d gone over and greeted his friend, as he usually would, and John had given him a cold look, because he was interrupting him. The merchant hadn’t been too pleased either that a fellow like him would interrupt them. So Charlie had gone away quickly, feeling a bit of a fool.

The next day John had come round to his house first thing in the morning.

“Sorry about yesterday, Charlie,” he’d said. “You took me by surprise. I’d never done business with that fellow before. I was trying to understand what he wanted.”

“That’s all right, John. It’s nothing.”

“Are you free this evening? We could have a drink.”

“Not this evening, John. I’ll come by soon.”

But of course, he hadn’t. There was no point. They were moving in different worlds now.

John hadn’t forgotten him though. About a year later, he’d come by again. Charlie was a laboring man, but he also had a cart, and was engaged part-time in the carrying business. John had asked him if he could engage with the Master family to transport goods up to some local farms. It was a regular contract, a full day every week, and the terms were good. Charlie had been glad of it, and the arrangement had continued for quite a while. John had put other business his way when he could, down the years.

But by the nature of things, it was a case of a rich man giving work to a poor one. The last time the Masters had given Charlie work, it hadn’t been John, but a clerk who’d come to make the arrangements.

They’d both married, John to the Quaker from Philadelphia, Charlie to the daughter of a carter. They both had families. John wouldn’t have known the names of Charlie’s children. But Charlie knew all about John’s.

For the fact was, Charlie often thought of John. He’d often pass by Master’s handsome house. He knew what Mercy Master looked like, and her children. He picked up gossip about them in the taverns. A curiosity, which may have been a little morbid, made him do it. But John Master would have been surprised to know what a close watch Charlie White kept on his affairs.

They sat down at a wooden table in the corner and nursed their drinks.

“How’s your family, Charlie? You doing all right?”

Charlie needed a shave, and his face was getting furrowed. Under the mess of his black hair, his eyes narrowed.

“They’re well,” he admitted. “They say you’ve been doing well.”

“I have, Charlie.” There was no point in denying it. “The war’s been good for a lot of people.”

It was three years since John’s mother had died and his father Dirk had retired from business and gone to live on a little farm he’d bought north of Manhattan, up in Westchester County. He lived there very contentedly, looked after by a housekeeper. “You’re like an old Dutchman,” his son would tell him affectionately, “who’s retired to his bouwerie.” And though Dirk liked to be told about what was going on, it was John Master who was entirely in control of the family business now. And thanks to the war, business had been booming as never before.

For the old rivalry between France and Britain had taken a new turn. If the two powers had been struggling since the previous century for control of the subcontinent of India, the rich sugar trade in the West Indies, and the fur trade of the north, their conflicts in America had mostly been skirmishes, conducted with the aid of the Iroquois, on the upper Hudson or St. Lawrence rivers, far to the north of New York. Recently, however, both powers had tried to grab control of the Ohio Valley to the west, which joined France’s vast, Mississippi River territory of Louisiana to her holdings in the north. In 1754, a rather inexperienced young Virginian officer in the British Army, named George Washington, had made an incursion into the Ohio Valley, set up a small fort and promptly been kicked out of it by the French. In itself, the incident was minor. But back in London, it had caused the British government to come to a decision. It was time to drive their traditional enemy out of the North-East once and for all. They’d gone to war in earnest.

“I should thank George Washington,” John Master would cheerfully say, “for making me a fortune.”

War had meant privateering, and John Master had done well out of that. It was a high-risk business, but he’d figured it out. Most voyages made a loss; but the profits from the few captured were spectacular. By taking shares in about a dozen ships at a time, and averaging his risk, his profits had more than paid for the losses. In fact, he’d been able to double or triple his investment every year. It was a rich man’s game. But he could afford to play.

The real benefit to New York, however, was the British Army. Before long, ten, twenty and soon twenty-five thousand redcoats had arrived from England to fight the French, together with a huge fleet and nearly fifteen thousand sailors. They came to New York and Boston.

Armies and fleets need provisioning. Not only that: the officers wanted houses built, and services of every kind. In addition to his regular trade supplying the Caribbean, John Master was getting huge government contracts for grain, timber, cloth and rum; and so were most of the other merchants he knew. Modest craftsmen, swamped with demand, were upping their prices. True, some laboring men complained that off-duty soldiers were taking part-time jobs and stealing work from them. But by and large, laboring families like Charlie’s could get unheard-of wages. Most people in New York with anything to sell could say with feeling: “God bless the redcoats.”

“I get a lot of building work,” said Charlie. “Can’t complain.”

They talked of their families, and of old times, and they drank through the evening. And remembering his youth, it seemed to John that it hadn’t been such a bad thing that he’d spent time with fellows like Charlie. I may be a rich man of forty now, living in comfort, he thought, but I know the life of the streets, the wharfs, and the taverns, and I run my business better because of it. He knew what men like Charlie were thinking, knew when they were lying, knew how to handle them. He thought of his own son, James. James was a good fellow. He loved the boy, and there was nothing much wrong with him. He’d taken pains with his general education, always explaining things about the trade of the city, things to watch out for. Putting him on the right path. But the fact was, John considered, that the next generation was being brought up too genteel. What James needed, his father was thinking, was to learn a few of the lessons that he’d learned himself.

So when, late in the evening, Charlie remarked that his son Sam was thirteen, exactly the same age as James, John suddenly leaned over to him and said: “You know what, Charlie, your Sam and my James should get together. What do you think?”

“I’d like that, John.”

“Why don’t I send him over?”

“You know where to find me.”

“Day after tomorrow, then. Noon.”

“We’ll be waiting.”

“He’ll be there. Let’s have a last drink.”

The Pope had been burned to a cinder by the time they parted.

The following morning, John Master told his son James about Charlie White and that he was to go to visit him the next day. He reminded him again that evening. Early on the day in question, before he went out, he gave James precise directions for finding Charlie’s house, and told him not to be late. James promised he’d be punctual.

Mercy Master had a visitor of her own that afternoon. She’d chosen a time carefully. Both her son James and his elder sister Susan were out. Her husband wouldn’t be home for a long time yet. When the architect arrived, he was ushered by Hudson into her parlor, where she had cleared a little table, and soon the drawings were laid out upon it.

She was preparing her husband’s tomb.

Not that she wanted John dead. Far from it. Indeed, it was part of her passion that John should be well cared for, dead or alive. And so, as a Quaker, she was being practical.

Mercy’s passion for her husband had only grown with the years. If she saw a new wig, or a fine coat in the latest London fashion, or a splendid carriage, why then she would immediately think: My John would look well in that. If she saw a fine silk dress, she would imagine how it might please him to see her wearing it, and how well they might look together. If she saw a Chippendale chair in a neighbor’s handsome house, or some beautiful wallpaper, or a handsome silver service, she would want to buy them too, to make their own house more elegant and worthy of her husband. She’d even had his portrait painted, along with her own, by fashionable Mr. Copley.

Her passion was innocent. She had never cut herself off from her Quaker roots. Her love of such finery was not to make a worldly show at the expense of others. But since her husband was a good man, who had been blessed with success in his business, there seemed no harm in enjoying the good things that God had provided. In this, she certainly had the example of other Quakers before her. In Philadelphia, the Quaker oligarchs ran the city like Venetian nobles; just above New York, it was a rich Quaker named Murray who had built the magnificent country villa called Murray Hill.

And here in the city, God had never provided such opportunities for elegance before. If the cultivated classes of Boston and Europe had found New York somewhat coarse in John’s youth, things were changing fast. The rich classes were drawing ever further apart from the hurly-burly of the streets. Tidy Georgian streets and squares were closing themselves off into a genteel quiet. In front of the old fort, a discreet and pleasant park, called the Bowling Green, after the fashion of Vauxhall or Ranelagh Gardens in London, now provided a haven where respectable people could promenade. The theater might be limited, and concerts few, but the aristocratic British officers who had recently arrived in the city could find themselves in houses quite as fine as their own at home. The town house of one rich merchant family—the Waltons—with its oak paneling and marble foyer, put even the British governor to shame.

England. England was the thing. If the British shipping laws ensured that few goods from Continental Europe could get into American ports, it hardly mattered. England supplied everything that elegance required. China and glass, silver and silks, all manner of luxuries, dainty or robust, were being shipped from England to New York, along with easy credit terms to induce people to buy. Mercy Master bought them all. Truth to tell, she would dearly have loved to cross the ocean to London to make sure that she wasn’t missing anything. But that was not to be thought of, with all the business that her husband had to do.

There was only one thing that John Master had denied her. A country house. Not a farm, like the old bouweries of the Stuyvesants and their like. A country house might have a few hundred acres of farmland, but that wasn’t really the point. It was also a place to escape the unhealthy city in the hot and humid summer. But above all it was a trophy—a villa in a park—a place for a gentleman to show off his good taste. It was a fine old tradition: rich gentlemen had set up these parks in the Renaissance, the Middle Ages and in the Roman Empire. Now it was New York’s turn. Some were on Manhattan; there was the Watts house at Rose Hill; and Murray Hill of course; and others with names taken from London, like Greenwich and Chelsea. Some were a little further north, like the van Cortlandts’ estate in the Bronx. How well her husband would look in such a place. He could well afford it. But he had adamantly refused.

“There’s always my father’s farm to go to,” he told her. Further north, he’d already bought two thousand acres up in Dutchess County, which he was clearing. “Westchester and Dutchess counties will be the breadbaskets of the North,” he said. “And I’ll grow grain on every yard of land I own.” And if she sighed, the Quaker in her knew he was right.

But from time to time she’d continued to wonder, what else could she do for her husband, within the city’s bounds? They had their house, their furniture, their portraits: what more remained?

Why, a tomb. A mausoleum. If you couldn’t build a house in which to live a few years, you could, for far less expense, build a tomb in which to rest for all eternity. The mausoleum would honor her husband; she could be buried beside him; and their descendants after them. It was a project. You could employ an architect. You could show people the designs. For a month, now, she had been engaged on the business, but in secret. She meant to surprise her husband with it on New Year’s Day.

And so when, at three o’clock that afternoon, her husband came home earlier than expected and discovered her with the architect and the plans, she was much put out.

John Master gazed at the plan for his tomb. It was fit for a Roman emperor. He knew very well that some of the old landed families of the region—especially if they were Presbyterian—laughed at the pretensions of the New York merchants, and he didn’t entirely blame them. But as he gazed affectionately at his wife, he only remarked: “Why, Mercy, I’m little more than forty and you want to bury me already.” Then, since his loving wife’s only failing was that she did not always see a joke, and the preposterous magnificence of the tomb struck him once more, he sat down on a Chippendale chair and burst out laughing.

But soon he got up and kissed his wife and told her he was grateful. And he smiled to himself at the discovery of her plan. For as it happened, he also had been preparing a surprise, for her. But of his secret, he thought with satisfaction, she still knew nothing at all.

“Did James get back from Charlie White’s, by the way?” he asked; and was told he hadn’t. “Good,” he said. That probably meant the meeting was going well.

At noon that day, Charlie White and his son were ready in front of their yard. The street on which they lived lay on the west side of Broadway, not far from Montayne’s Tavern, and about half a mile north of Trinity Church, which owned the land. If the streets in the fashionable quarters of the city were neatly cobbled and the houses made of brick, the streets up near the Common where Charlie lived were dirt, and the ramshackle houses made of unpainted clapboard. But the area was cheerful enough.

In the yard behind them stood Charlie’s cart, with its number painted on it in red. Charlie had three boys and two girls. The oldest boy was a sailor, the next was a fireman, who rode proudly on one of the new fire engines sent over from London. Young Sam helped his father. Sam wasn’t sure what he felt about James Master coming to visit.

“What am I supposed to do—take him with me selling oysters in the street?” he asked. Oysters, the poor man’s food. Sam often earned some extra money selling oysters.

“Just be yourself,” replied his father. There was no need to say more. If rich young James Master should become Sam’s friend … Well, you never knew what a friendship like that might lead to.

The fact was, Charlie White had become quite excited about this visit. After all these years, his childhood friendship with the Masters was to be renewed. Was it back to the old days?

Last night, he’d told his family stories about the times he and John Master used to spend together. He’d had a few drinks during the evening. He may have boasted a little. His children had always known there had once been a friendship, but it had never seemed to amount to much, and their father seldom spoke of it. Hearing him that evening, therefore, they’d been a bit surprised, and quite impressed.

His wife was less impressed. Mrs. White was a plump, comfortable woman. She loved Charlie, but after years of marriage, she knew his weaknesses. His carting business had never been as good as her father’s had been. He didn’t always concentrate on the work in hand. She was afraid that he was going to be disappointed with this encounter, and she certainly didn’t want their children getting any foolish ideas. Years of marriage to Charlie had left her skeptical.

“So you had a few drinks with John Master, and invited his son round.”

“Wasn’t my idea,” said Charlie. “It was his.”

“When he was drunk.”

“I’ve seen him drunk. He wasn’t drunk.”

“You think rich young Master’s going to show up?”

“I know he is. His father told me.”

“Well, maybe he will, and maybe he won’t,” said his wife. “But I’ll tell you one thing, Charlie. John Master wants something. I don’t know what he wants, but when he’s got it, he’ll forget about you again, just like he did before.”

“You don’t understand,” said Charlie. “He’s my friend.”

His children were all looking at him. His wife said nothing.

“You’ll see,” Charlie said.

So now Charlie and Sam waited. The street was busy. Once in a while, a respectable person came by, but no sign of young James Master. A quarter of an hour passed. Sam glanced at his father.

“He’ll come,” said Charlie.

Another quarter-hour passed.

At one o’clock, Charlie said to his son: “You can go in now, Sam.”

But he himself remained, for a long time, staring up the street.

At six o’clock that evening, James Master walked toward his home, and hoped his father was not there. He was still working out what he was going to say.

He’d meant to go to Charlie White’s house. In a way, when you came to think of it, he’d almost done so. At least he’d set out for the place in good time. But something had held him back. He hadn’t really wanted to meet Sam White. Not that he looked down on poor people. It wasn’t that. But if only his father wouldn’t make all these arrangements for him.

For he knew what this was, of course. It was another of his father’s plans for improving him. He thinks I need friends like Sam White, so I’ll understand the world and grow up like he did, he thought.

And then, if only his father hadn’t kept reminding him about it, and giving him directions. You couldn’t tell him, of course, but it seemed to James, right now, that it was really his father’s fault more than his own that he hadn’t turned up.

Perhaps it was just fate. He’d been on his way when he’d met a friend, which had caused a necessary delay. And after that, he’d still almost gone; but he realized that the delay with his friend had been so long, that it was too late to go now, anyway.

So maybe the best thing to do was say that he couldn’t find the place and that he’d go back the next day. And he’d pretty much decided that was what he’d do, when he met his father just a minute sooner than he expected, in front of the house.

“Well, James, did it go well?” His father was smiling expectantly. “Charlie’s quite a character, eh? And what’s Sam like? A chip off the old block?”

“Well …” James looked at his father’s eager countenance. “No. He’s pretty quiet, I guess.”

“But he was friendly, I hope. And you were too?”

“Yes … Yes, I was.” He was getting in so deep now, where he hadn’t meant to. Should he break down and confess? His father would probably take a strap to him, but he didn’t mind that. It was the sense of disappointment the whole thing would create. He just wished he could get his father off his back.

“So you’ll meet again?” his father said hopefully.

“I reckon so. Don’t worry, Father, we’ll see each other if we want to.”

“Oh.”

“You should just leave it between us, Father.”

“Yes. Yes, of course. Don’t worry, my boy. I won’t interfere.” And with that, his father let him escape into the house.

Had he got away with it? He wasn’t sure. He knew his father didn’t see Charlie White too often, but they were sure to see each other, all the same. The best thing, he reckoned, would be to go round to Charlie White’s house the very next day, say he got the date wrong, and spend time with Sam. That would cover his tracks, pretty much, and make everything all right. And he very nearly did. But he put it off until so far into the afternoon that unfortunately, he realized, it was too late again. Same thing the next day. The third day, he was starting to put the whole thing behind him, when in the middle of the street, a cart with a red number painted on it stopped and the driver, a thickset man with a few days’ stubble, and a heavy leather coat, leaned down and asked him: “Would you be James Master?”

“I might. Who’s asking?”

“Name’s Charlie White. I had an idea you were coming round to my place the other day.”

It was his chance. He could say he was just going round. Make his excuse. Make everything right. The work of a moment. Why didn’t he take it? Because some inner resistance to the whole thing, or maybe a stupid panic at being caught, suddenly intervened. He hardly knew what it was, or why it happened. Yet he heard himself say: “Not that I know of, Mr. White. Can I do something for you?” And it was said so politely, with a voice and expression of such perfect innocence, that Charlie White was taken in.

“Nothing, young gentleman. My mistake. I must’ve gotten the wrong person.” And he whipped up his horse and drove his cart away.

So his wife had been right, Charlie thought. After all his hopes had been raised, after he’d thought his so-called friend had felt some affection for him, Master hadn’t even told the boy at all. Just left him to look like a fool in front of Sam, and humiliated him in front of his family. He’d already had to endure his wife’s studied silence on the subject. He’d seen his children looking at him with a mixture of pity and mockery. Maybe John had forgotten, or changed his mind. Whatever the cause, it showed one thing. At the end of the day, a poor man’s feelings were of no account. There was no friendship, no respect, nothing but a rich man’s contempt. There was no other explanation. And from that day, though he never knew it, John Master had a secret enemy.

John Master didn’t see Charlie White in the next couple of weeks. He once again asked James if he and Sam were meeting, but James had mumbled something evasive, so he’d let the matter drop. But he still might have looked in to see Charlie, if a small incident hadn’t occurred.

His son James at the age of thirteen might be somewhat diffident, but his daughter Susan, who was three years older, and possessed his own striking blond good looks, was already a confident and popular young woman who was attracting the interest of the men of New York. Susan had a cheerful, easy-going character, but she already knew exactly what she wanted—which was to marry a man with a good-sized estate in Westchester or Dutchess county. And given her looks and fortune, there was no reason why she shouldn’t.

So when the two young New Yorkers, both Yale men, came to dine at the house, Master had assumed that, with his daughter’s favor in prospect, they’d be equally anxious to get into his own good graces.

If only the conversation had not turned to the subject of universities.

If Massachusetts possessed Harvard College, and Connecticut had followed with Yale, New Yorkers came to think that they, too, should have a place of higher learning. So King’s College had been set up. It was only a small establishment, in the poor section of town where Charlie White lived—though it had pleasant gardens down to the Hudson River. Since Trinity Church had given the land for the college, the Trinity vestry reckoned it should be an Anglican foundation, and the English governor had agreed. But this had brought howls of rage from the other churches, especially the Presbyterians.

Most of the rich city merchants like Master belonged to the Anglican Church. The Trinity crowd, some called them. And it was true that the Trinity crowd dominated the Assembly and most of the best appointments. So this attempt to control the new seat of learning as well was seen by all the other congregations as a monstrous abuse. Presbyterians said it was a conspiracy. Even poor folk, who might have small interest in the university, hurled insults at the privileged Anglicans. Tempers had run high. Master considered the whole thing was blown out of all proportion. And a compromise had been reached. But the business exposed much bad feeling in the city, and the rumblings could still be heard.

The young Yale men had been Presbyterians. The discussion had become quite heated. And the young men had dared to insult him and call him a lackey of the governor—in his own house! He’d thrown them out after that, and Mercy and Susan had supported him. But for days afterward, John Master had felt irritable and ill at ease.

And because Charlie White, who mightn’t have cared about the university himself, belonged to the class that had abused the Anglicans, John Master had experienced an unconscious aversion to seeing the carter and his family just then. It was quite unfair, and he was scarcely aware of it. But he hadn’t gone over to Charlie’s house, even by the year’s end.

It was New Year’s Day when John Master announced his surprise. He led up to it gradually.

“You know, Mercy,” he said, “the unpleasantness of those two Yale men and all the bad feeling over the university has been making me think, I wouldn’t mind getting away from the city for a while.”

“We could stay in the country, John,” she suggested. “Or we could go to some of my relations in Philadelphia, if you like.”

“There’s another problem though, which prevents my going away to either of those places,” he continued. “I’m concerned about all the business we have going through Albion’s, when I don’t really know them.”

Five years ago, when his father’s old London agent had retired, he’d recommended that the Masters transfer the agency to the firm of Albion. The arrangement had worked well so far, but the relationship had been conducted entirely by letter; and with the London shipments increasing every year, John considered it was time he got to know the Albions personally, and assess them against the other trading houses.

“What do you mean to do then?” she asked.

“I thought,” and now his handsome face broke into a grin, “that I’d better go to London. And I wondered whether perhaps you’d like to come.”