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.