The Trainmasters Read online

  “No, no,” John said to Mr. Leiber, loud enough for him to hear. “Please keep playing. We’ve only stopped for a moment.”

  After Mr. Leiber resumed playing, John, with his hands on her waist, gently turned Kitty completely around. “Now?” he asked. “It’s really perfectly obvious.”

  “What?” she said, exasperated. “What’s your secret? What’s your mystery? What do you want me to force myself to perceive? You tell me. I can’t guess it.”

  “It’s not a secret, Kitty. No mystery. It’s exactly why we’re here tonight, in this room. It’s the reason why we mustn’t let our minds fill up with worries and anxieties about what will happen when we reach port tomorrow.”

  “I still don’t understand what you’re getting at,” she said.

  “The very thing that is here tonight, my love—the reality —is the two of us. Alone. On this grand dancing floor, initiating it. Practically the only passengers on the maiden voyage of one of the greatest and swiftest ships in the world. Racing for her home port. This is the last and only ball that will ever be… like this.” And then he added, “On the last night in the world… the most beautiful night.” He looked at her. “Don’t you understand that?”

  And then she understood.

  “Yes,” she said, her eyes misty, “I think I do.”

  “So then let’s dance some more,” he said, moving once more to the music of the waltz Mr. Leiber was playing.

  “All right,” she said, smiling, her eyes gleaming.

  But a little later, she said, “John?”

  “Yes, Kitty?”

  “I never thought you could be like this.”

  “Like this? I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Yes, you do,” she said. “You know exactly what I mean.” But there was now a new look in her eyes, a look that John had never before seen.

  And not long after that, he discovered what that look meant.

  “It’s time,” she said, “to end the ball.”

  “So soon?” He laughed. “It’s early still. It can’t be three o’clock yet.”

  “Yes, I know,” she said with a melting smile. “I’d love to dance on into the night. But it’s time. Come with me.” And then she walked quickly over to Mr. Leiber. “We’ll be stopping now,” she said to him. “I’m sure you’ve deserved your rest.”

  “As you wish, madam,” he said. Scarcely concealing his relief, he rose to his feet to escort the couple to the door.

  When they were alone outside, Kitty turned to him. “I want you to come to my room with me.”

  He looked at her.

  “Would you stay this night with me?” she continued. “Please?”

  He paused. Then answered her. “I’d like nothing better,” he said, powerfully grasping her hand.

  “First you have to kiss me,” she said and turned to face him, stepping toward him, pressing against him. “And tell me that you love me. I don’t want to make anything easy for you.”

  “But kissing you and telling you that I love you are the easiest things in the world,” he said.

  “I know,” she said.

  Tuesday, August 3, 1852

  On the Tuesday morning following the arrival of the North Star, four men met in a quiet back room of Cornelius Vanderbilt’s house at 10 Washington Place, near the square: Vanderbilt himself, John Edgar Thomson, Sir Charles Elliot, and John Carlysle, who was present more as an observer than a participant, but he was an observer whom both Elliot and Thomson wanted very much to be present. They discussed that morning and for the rest of the day and late into the evening the strategy they would use to prevent the precipitous slide in the stock of the Pennsylvania Railroad that would allow Daniel Drew to make the financial killing he hoped to make.

  In the course of the day, the four men agreed that the way to accomplish this end was to attempt to corner the stock of the Pennsylvania. For this vast and risky operation, Sir Charles Elliot would provide most of the investment capital, while the Commodore would pilot the group through the labyrinths of the Stock Exchange. And Thomson would preside over the railroad and coordinate its operations with the two financiers.

  As stock owners sought to unload their declining shares— declining, of course, because of Daniel Drew’s designs against the railroad—before they plummeted dangerously, the agents of Elliot and Vanderbilt would acquire such blocks of shares as became available. This operation had to be performed with greater than surgical care, for the Elliot-Vanderbilt-Thomson consortium had to take care that they didn’t bid the stock up so high that they’d overpay for it. But neither could they let the price of any of the blocks fall so low that Drew would be tempted to buy them in order to cover his short sales.

  And they had to have enough capital themselves to cover every possible contingency. In effect, that meant that they had to have available enough capital to acquire all the stock of the Pennsylvania—though if they were lucky, that wouldn’t be necessary.

  If the comer worked as planned, Drew would have to pay more for delivering the stock he borrowed than he had sold it for months ago, when he borrowed it. And in the best of all possible worlds, he would be forced to short even more stock, in the hope (and gamble) that he could cover his losses more easily later.

  If that happened, Drew could lose many more hundreds of thousands of dollars, because by then the consortium would have cornered even more Pennsylvania stock.

  By then the consortium consisting of Elliot, Vanderbilt, and Thomson would probably own the majority of the outstanding shares of the Pennsylvania Railroad.

  Monday, September 13, 1852

  “GODDAMN IT TO HELL!” Daniel Drew yelled, his face livid and contorted with rage. The man he was screaming at was Leonardo Grimaldi, who was standing in front of Drew’s desk with his head bent down—the perfect image of a man lowering his head to place his neck on a block. “WHAT KIND OF TRICKS HAVE YOU BEEN PLAYING ON ME?”

  “I’ve played no tricks on you, Mr. Drew,” Grimaldi said. “I followed your instructions to the letter.”

  “Impossible!” Drew said. “Inconceivable! There has to have been a betrayal. And you’re the logical traitor. There’s no other explanation for it.”

  He was referring to the recent rise in the price of Pennsylvania Railroad stock. It was now being quoted at fifty-one. And rumors were circulating that it might go up to sixty or even seventy. If that happened Daniel Drew and Leonardo Grimaldi both knew that Drew would be pretty nearly ruined.

  ‘There’s been no betrayal by me,” Grimaldi repeated. “Or by Sutherland either, if you’re thinking of him. We both took care of your business, exactly as we agreed.” Sutherland had taken a recent opportunity to travel to Savannah, where he had business interests.

  “Damn!” Drew said. “If you’d done that, the stock would be selling at twenty-five! So now I want to hear how come it’s not selling at twenty-five? Can you tell me that?”

  “The exchange is a marketplace, Mr. Drew,” Grimaldi said. “Somebody offers something for sale, and somebody else makes a bid to buy it. And if somebody else bids higher, then he gets the deal.”

  “Don’t give me no fucking lectures, Mr. Grimaldi. I know how the exchange works.”

  “Please forgive me, Mr. Drew, for seeming to remind you of truths you already know. But those are still the facts of the case. There were moves to unload Pennsylvania stock, just like we knew there’d be. But every time a block of Pennsylvania was unloaded, a buyer would come and pick it up. There are many people, it seems, who still want to acquire Pennsylvania stock, in spite of all we did to make the company appear unsound. There was nothing further we could do to change their minds.”

  “You still ain’t telling me anything I don’t know,” Drew said.

  “I don’t know what else to tell you.”

  “That’s because you’re stupid and incompetent.”

  “I’m sorry you feel that way.”

  “Well, shit,” Drew said, shaking his head with frustration and anger.
“That’s exactly the way I feel. And you’re not going to help me through it. So get out of here so I can work something out.”

  Grimaldi obeyed swiftly, leaving Drew to work out his ,plans… and to turn his wrath on himself. Grimaldi didn’t need any more of Drew’s rage. He’d had enough for a lifetime during the past three weeks.

  And Daniel Drew racked his brain for some brilliant new scheme that would pull him out of the fix he was in.

  But his mind remained that day and for several months afterward empty and unencumbered by brilliant new schemes.

  1855

  At precisely noon on the first day of November in the year of Our Lord 1855, train service between the cities of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh was inaugurated. The first official train connecting the two largest cities in Pennsylvania departed Philadelphia on the newly completed main line of the Pennsylvania Railroad.

  Before the inaugural train began its journey, various dignitaries—state and city officials, men of the cloth, and officers of the railway—delivered inspiring, or at least impassioned, speeches. And as the train started up, bands played rousing marches, and choirs sang soaring hymns.

  Hundreds of people stood beside the rails, cheering the powerful new locomotive and the grand, gleaming passenger cars. Flying above the locomotive and cars, as the train proceeded west, were bright-colored flags and banners; red, white, and blue bunting was strung beneath the windows along the sides of the cars; and flags, banners, and bunting lined the right of way.

  The celebration on board the train showed no sign of slowing even after the train had pulled many miles out of Philadelphia. There was as much champagne and wine and whiskey and beer as any person could possibly desire, as well as food, from the daintiest of tidbits to the heartiest of roast beefs. The party was boisterous and happy. All were glad to be aboard.

  Not far out of Lancaster, a reporter from the Nyles Weekly Register took the chief engineer aside to ask him a few questions. In order to avoid the din, they conducted the conversation outside on the rear platform, even though it was a chill, raw, autumn day.

  The chief engineer was not much impressed with the reporter whose name was Bill Richardson, when the two initially met. Richardson, a cadaverous man, burning with a dark hunger for a truth more hidden and mysterious than mere facts could provide, approached the subjects of his interviews as though no other person could come near his own intellectual or moral stature. So the chief engineer contrived to disappoint him as much as he was able.

  “Mr. Carlysle,” the reporter said, “this is quite an impressive scene. You must be quite excited.”

  “It’s been a good deal of work to come this far,” John Carlysle said. “I’m glad that it’s finally seen fruition, and we can all reap the rewards of it.”

  “You’ve been working on the Pennsylvania for several years, haven’t you?” Richardson asked, glancing at his notes. “Since 1852?”

  “Since the spring of ‘52,” John agreed.

  “And so you participated in the events of 1852?”

  John smiled. “What events?”

  “Well, for starters, there was the collapse of the Gallitzin Tunnel,” he said, glancing at his notebook. “And then I understand that there was a great deal of labor trouble. And this was followed by near open warfare with a group of disgruntled teamsters. And then there was a run on your stock.”

  “It was an awfully busy year,” John acknowledged blandly.

  “I’d be much obliged if you would give me your version of those events, in your own words.”

  John looked away from him for a time and stared down the tracks vanishing behind him. “There’s so little for me to tell, really, Mr. Richardson. I’m neither a teller of tales nor a maker of them. I’m an engineer, a practical man. I work with machinery and processes and not with people.”

  “I’m sure you saw much of what happened during that extraordinary year,” Richardson pressed on. “I’m sure you could talk to me about the things you’ve seen. And participated in.”

  “You’d be disappointed with what I could relate to you. I’d bore you with facts and figures… miles of road graded and track laid, and such matters.”

  “Surely you were present when the runnel collapsed?”

  “Oh, no,” John said. “I was in Philadelphia then. I wasn’t actually employed by the railroad at the time.”

  “But you must have been on the payroll by the summer of ’52, during the time of the labor crisis?”

  “One of the contractors went beyond his brief, and the laborers resisted. The matter was solved relatively easily, and to everyone’s satisfaction.”

  “You were not involved in that?”

  “I was present at Gallitzin when the difficulties arose. But I was there as an engineer. I tried not to concern myself with the labor force.”

  Richardson glanced again at his notebook. “My information is that you were much more involved in those events than you are telling me.”

  “Most stories magnify in the telling.”

  “And after that,” Richardson said, moving on, “you were, according to my informants, very closely involved in leading the action to stop the teamster raids on Pennsylvania property and equipment, isn’t that so?”

  “As I told you earlier,” John said, “it was a most busy time. And many of us were involved in doing what we could to keep the line going. But I was hardly as involved as many others—Mr. O’Rahilly, for instance, the labor contractor. He’s on the train now somewhere. You should talk to him. And so is Mr. Stockton, the chief engineer of the western division. He’s also on the train. Or my son Graham, though he is, unhappily, not here now. He and his wife moved west last year. Or Mr. Thomson himself. All of them would be much more competent to talk to you than I am.”

  “You’re not being very helpful to me, Mr. Carlysle,” Richardson said, as though that were a moral failing.

  “I’m sorry you feel that way, Mr. Richardson. But you’d do much better to talk with those who are more competent to discuss these things than I am.”

  “Do I take it that you are refusing to tell me your part in the events of that year?”

  “I didn’t say that at all. There are many events of 1852 …and 1853, 1854, and 1855, for that matter… that I would be more competent—as an engineer—to talk to you about.”

  “For instance?”

  “The digging of the Gallitzin Tunnel.”

  “What can you tell me about that?” Richardson asked, hiding his impatience imperfectly.

  “After the collapse of the tunnel in the spring of ‘52,” John said, “and after the labor reorganization of the summer of that year, work proceeded on the tunnel at a record rate. And indeed, in spite of all trie difficulties we encountered, the tunnel was completed on schedule.”

  “Really?” he sighed.

  “Yes. The Gallitzin Tunnel, in fact,” John continued, “was open for business in February of 1854, later than we expected. And I’d be delighted to provide you with the tonnage of rock and soil removed from the mountain during the tunnel excavation.”

  “Very interesting,” Richardson said, closing his notebook and stifling a yawn. “And I suppose you could provide me with more of this sort of information… if I should require it?”

  “As much as you can handle,” John said with a smile.

  “Thank you, Mr. Carlysle.”

  “It was my pleasure.”

  A few seconds after the reporter returned to the party, Mrs. Carlysle made her way out to the rear platform in order to join her husband there. She was convulsed with laughter.

  “You are a terrible, terrible man!” Kitty Carlysle said to John. “Mister simple, dull, practical engineer! I heard you through the door—I kept it cracked open—every word.”

  “What do you mean, ‘terrible’?”

  “You treated that poor reporter like an ignoramus,” she said. “You led him on a leash, and you told him nothing at all worth repeating.”

  “But,” he said, smiling
, “isn’t that the way reporters deserve to be treated?… Assuming, of course, that I treated him badly. I don’t think I did, as I think back on what I said. I’m an engineer. I told him what an engineer should tell him. No more, no less.”

  “You teased him, darling. And every time he rose to the bait, you put on an innocent face and protested ignorance.”

  “I wouldn’t do a thing like that,” he said. “I’m much too simple for that sort of thing.”

  “I didn’t marry a simple man,” she said fondly.

  “Oh, really? I thought you married me because I was an engineer, like your father.”

  “Exactly,” she said. “That’s exactly why I married you.”

  At that moment, the train drew to a clanking and rattling halt. They were out in the middle of nowhere, and there was no apparent reason for the stop.

  But the mystery was soon ended when Kitty’s father passed through the cars making an announcement. “Would everyone please be kind enough to descend from the train? We have a man on board—Mr. Mathew Brady—who has come with photographic apparatus. He’ll make daguerreotype photographs of the members of the party. And he’d like to try to place the train and the party within a rustic setting. So we’ve stopped here for him, in the country.”

  “Sounds like a lovely idea,” Kitty said to John. “Have you ever been photographed?”

  “Never,” John said, as he climbed down the steps to the ground. “And I’m not certain I want to be.”

  “Why not?” she asked, with a teasing scowl. “You’re so shy and stuffy! And you’re such a prude!”

  “Give me your hand.”

  She extended her hand so he could help her down. “Why not?” she repeated.

  “It steals your soul.”

  “You’re mad. It does not,” she said. “It immortalizes you. Who could quarrel with that?”

  And he laughed. “Perhaps. But still, I’d rather not be caught forever on some photographic plate.”

  “It’s not you, darling, it’s your image.”

  “That’s what frightens me.”