William Stronnar
Characters
Many of the people in the Third Trust lived. Those marked Real person are drawn from the historical record, altered where the story needs it. The rest are invented.
Nothing here gives away what happens to anybody.
Minister of the United States at Passy, seventy-four in 1780, with gout in his right foot and a ring he never lets out of his coat. He raises a million pounds that is not his own, and bets it on the only thing he trusts to last: ordinary people who keep a few plain rules. He cannot instruct the Trust. He can only suggest.
A Maryland merchant, bankrupt, thirty-three in 1780: a justice of the peace who would not swear, a man who wins by counting. All he wants is to pay his debts and get home to his wife and children. Franklin has other ideas.
James’s sister, married to an actor and living near London. She thinks in roads: how a letter gets from one place to another, and who can be trusted to carry it. The Trust’s communications are hers.
Of the Drury Lane company, once a lieutenant of marines. Franklin recruits him to keep James alive. He can be anybody, and frequently is.
James’s stepbrother in Bristol, who owes the family more than money. What he does about it is his own story.
Banker, of the Keizersgracht in Amsterdam. Holds the largest part of the Trust’s money, and a forest in Courland, “for friends”.
A Quaker of Front Street, Philadelphia. The Trust’s man in America. Says little and witnesses everything.
A London clerk who writes “like nobody” and carries the Trust’s papers up a stair in Clerkenwell without ever opening one.
Three men in a garret over a watchmaker’s: a Genevan banker with a clasped book and a watch, a man nobody can read, and an empty third chair.
James’s wife, born a Galloway, given the keys of Tulip Hill at fourteen. She keeps the house book and checks every figure. She knows there is a book her husband will not let her see.
Anne’s father: planter, merchant, a Quaker who says “thee”. He stands on his roof between the chimneys to think, and owns the people who work his land.
The Cheston children. Nancy, the eldest, gave her father a shell to carry.
Enslaved at Tulip Hill: about sixty, the best oarsman on the West River, a builder of boats. He rows James out in 1780. He asks the questions nobody else in the house will.
Anne’s mother’s woman, who held Anne when she was born, and has run the kitchen since before light every day of her life. Nearly sixty, with a rheumatic hand she will not mention.
Juno in the house; Phebe in the tobacco at the Ridge. Two women who see what the family does not.
Comes on Thursdays with the Gazette, and everything else.
Annapolis lawyer and Signer of the Declaration, with an office over a saddler’s in Church Street. Big, red-faced and on James’s side, whether James likes it or not.
A farming family of the Sassafras who have no reason to love James Cheston. Jacob, a seaman, finds he has every reason to follow him.
A maid from Middlesex who has never seen the sea, until she does.
A Cornhill Street storekeeper in Annapolis who copies everything, and sells what he copies.
Franklin’s grandson and secretary, with a beautiful hand and his father’s face. He copies everything and is told nothing.
A Scots wine merchant and London wit, Franklin’s old neighbour, secretary to the British peace commission.
Franklin’s clerk at the second table. Mild-eyed, careful, and nine parts in ten what he seems.
Irish master of the Graaf van Vlaanderen, out of Waterford. Will not sail on a Friday. Keeps hens, and trusts them more than passengers.
At L’Orient in the autumn of 1780, fitting out the Ariel.
A man in Hanover Square with a cousin at the Treasury and a calendar on his wall. He never needs to do anything. He writes a letter.
The Gentleman’s man for eleven years. Civil, patient, and harder to read than his master.
Big, fair and quiet, with a pleasant face that nobody would remember. Somebody blacks his boots for him every morning.
One of the King’s Messengers, of Craven Street, who has been looking for a Maryland gentleman of thirty-four.
A young clerk of the Navy Office, a mastmaker’s son from Deptford, who notices that the best masts have stopped coming from Courland.
An old purser in Bills and Accounts, lame, who thinks Ward should be careful, and helps him anyway.
Steward of Lindenhof. He has never found out whom he works for.
A tall man of fifty in a short red coat gone the colour of brick dust, with one shoulder lower than the other. He reads, and he asks newcomers the three questions the officers will ask, before the officers do.
A washerwoman on the shore below Canvas Town, the burnt half of New York. She keeps the General’s word in a tea tin on a nail, and has it by heart.
A Somerset County man who lost his farm on the Manokin for being a King’s man, and now sails as a prize master. He speaks to people as if they were stock he has not yet been paid for.
Phillis’s sister, and cook at the Ship in Annapolis. Sold in 1782, at the same sale that sent her grandson’s mother to Virginia, she keeps the boy on a stool by the meal bin, where she can see him.
Rose’s grandson, who plucks pigeons very slowly, feather by feather.
A Virginia member’s man, who has spent seven years standing behind chairs saying nothing, and cannot sit in a room. He talks to everybody in every kitchen from Annapolis to the Rappahannock.
Keeper of the Ship, who calls his soup turtle.