FiveFiveOn Monday morning, Egan O’Rahilly and the other men in Tom Henneberry’s gang climbed into the steel cage for their daily descent into the tunnel. At the bottom, they picked up their tools from the wooden boxes where they’d been locked for safekeeping. Then they trouped to the heading they were working on.
Henneberry was as silent, sullen, and mean as always, but at least he was not as voluble as usual, which was a blessing. He was detoxing from a massive intake of rum that had started on Saturday evening and had not stopped until he passed out late on Sunday night. His head throbbed painfully, his body was weak and unsteady, and he gave orders in a slurred, scarcely audible mumble. The orders were unnecessary, however; everyone knew what to do.
It was Henneberry’s gang’s turn to work in the pilot heading, a twenty-foot section of tunnel that was drilled in advance of the main tunnel.
The pilot tunnel, as it was used at the Gallitzin summit tunnel, had been developed by British engineers in the 1830s for use in drilling through shifty, wet, and unstable soil. The pilot heading was about twenty feet long, ten feet wide, and eighteen feet high; and it was dug along the top, or crown, of what would become the main runnel. The function of the pilot was to allow the miners to make a firmly founded roof, beneath which the tunnel builders could safely dig the main tunnel. As the pilot tunnel was dug, the heading was supported by heavy timbers. Once these were securely in place, the heading was gradually widened, deepened, and enlarged, becoming in due course the main tunnel.
The especially hazardous moment in this process was the transfer of the roof load from the original pilot shoring to the permanent shoring of the main tunnel. Holes had been dug down to what would be the floor of the main tunnel. These would accommodate the permanent vertical posts. As they were dug, the holes were immediately lined in order to prevent slippage. After this was done, the weight of the roof would be transferred from the temporary to the permanent posts.
Once that was accomplished, masons were brought in to cover the roof and sides.
Henneberry’s gang had to start shifting the load from the temporary to the permanent shoring. True to his word on Saturday, Tom Henneberry gave Egan O’Rahilly the most dangerous job of all, working the jack.
As they began, the lanterns were dim at best. There wasn’t nearly enough light for the men to see clearly, and the floor of the tunnel was made of mud that came up to their ankles. Pumps throbbed in the distance, pulling out some but not all of the water that drained out of the mountain into the new hole that the men were boldly—or else foolishly— digging. Lagging covered the tunnel roof and walls, but that did not stop the steady trickle of water from pattering down on top of the men like rain. The best thing about the lagging, as far as Egan was concerned, was that it covered most of the raw face of the tunnel, and thus hid from sight the visual evidence of the tremendous weight of the mountain above them.
Egan, Geraghty, Ferdy O’Dowd, and the twins worked the jack, while the rest of the crew set the huge thirty-inch posts into place.
As they worked, Tom Henneberry leaned against one of the posts that was already set down, complaining now and again. Otherwise he was harmless.
“Damn it all to hell!” Geraghty said, struggling with the huge and cumbersome jack. They were having a hard time making a firm foundation to place it on.
“Easy, man,” said one of the twins, as he braced the foot of the jack with a block of wood.
That wasn’t enough to stabilize it, and Ferdy inserted a stone chip the size of two bricks. The jack then looked steady and firm.
Next Egan and Geraghty began working the jack, taking the load off of the post to be replaced and putting it on the jack.
As the two of them turned the handle, the ground beneath them groaned and then made a barely perceptible heave.
They stopped what they were doing, alarmed.
Henneberry, no less alarmed than the others, straightened himself up and moved to take charge.
“Keep at your work there. Don’t you be worried. That was just a straightenin’ out of the ground underneath,” he said unconvincingly.
“Huh?” Egan said. “What do you mean by that?”
“That weren’t nothin’ to worry about is what I’m sayin’. I’m sayin’ to git on with your job.”
Another heave then followed, stronger and more pronounced this time, and with it was a deep, grinding boom from below.
“Somethin’s wrong down there!” Geraghty cried, pointing to the floor of the tunnel. He was obviously worried; they were all terrified of the possibility that millions of tons of earth above them would come crashing down on top of them. They never suspected that the floor would cave in.
The ground beneath them was supposed to be solid; yet it was moving now…
Suddenly Ferdy screamed: “Look! There!”
About ten feet up the tunnel, ahead of them, the sides and roof, including the support beams and posts, seemed to be twisting out of shape.
All at once everybody started shouting; many were screaming in terror. They all dropped their tools and tried to run back toward the shaft.
But nobody in the gang got very far, because just as they began to run, part of the floor of the main tunnel between the pilot and the shaft to the surface collapsed, and the ceiling of the tunnel that they had spent days of hard toil shoring up broke through the lagging. Tons of rock and mud smashed down onto several men and closed off the escape of those who were not instantly crushed.
Then the floor they were standing on sank still more, before pitching downward, throwing the living and the dead on top of one another.
Dust, grit, and mud droplets so filled the little space now left to the survivors, that it was nearly impossible to breathe.
There were no more screams and cries of terror; they were replaced by moans of pain and whimpers.
Egan was alive, but he could not move. Nothing pained him or seemed broken, and he was thankful for that.
He was grateful, too, that the mountain beneath them had stopped heaving and that the dust, grit, and mud had started to settle, so that he could at least breathe.
Ferdy O’Dowd was also alive. Egan could hear his voice. Dazed and shaky with pain, Ferdy was reciting an “Our Father.”
Egan listened: “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will…”
And then the ground groaned and heaved one more time.
Mr. Abraham Gibbon, attorney at law, maintained offices on the fourth floor of a building on Third Street (near Chestnut) that was primarily occupied by the Franklin Bank and Trust. But he also maintained a second set of offices, in a much seedier building, at the corner of Wharton and Second streets in the warehouse district along the Delaware River. In his Third Street offices, Abraham Gibbon dealt with those clients who desired for the most part to keep in compliance with the laws of the city of Philadelphia and the state of Pennsylvania, as well as with any applicable federal laws. In his other offices, Abraham Gibbon saw those clients who might from time to time choose not to comply with some— or most—city, state, or federal laws.
Gibbon was comfortable in either office, just as he was happy to operate on either side of the law. And in fact, not surprisingly, rather a larger portion of his considerable income derived from activities generated from his Second Street office.
On this particular Monday morning in April, Abraham Gibbon was alone in his Second Street office waiting for a pair of new and very important clients. One of these was George Kean, a leading teamster in Pennsylvania. At any given time, Kean probably had almost fifty ten mule wagons operating somewhere between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. He was also active in canal shipping. Because Pennsylvania teamsters were a clannish group, he had close friendships with most of the other teamsters who ran more than one wagon between the major cities of Pennsylvania.
The other man Abraham Gibbon was expecting was Tom Collins. Collins was a labor contractor, and he ran the work gang at the Gallitzin Tunnel, which was the largest work gang on the Pennsylvania Railroad’s mountain division.
Collins was the first to arrive at Gibbon’s office. He was a smallish man with silver-gray hair, a quick, nervous, high-pitched voice, and an ingratiating manner. But for all his flattery and efforts to please, he was a man who carried an air of authority. In him the ingratiation was clerical rather than servile. Indeed more than once Tom Collins had been mistaken for a priest out of cassock. And those so mistaken were not very far off the mark, for in Ireland Tom Collins had been a priest. He had, however, been defrocked because he liked young girls more than the holy sacrifice of the Mass.
Abraham Gibbon rose to his feet when filins entered the room. “Good day, Mr. Collins,” he said. “Please sit down over there. You’ll find my furnishings comfortable, though dilapidated. Will you have a spot of whiskey or rum?”
“Thank you, Mr. Gibbon,” Collins said, sliding into the chair Gibbon had pointed out. “I’ll take a drop of your whiskey if you don’t mind.” He was wearing his best black gabardine suit and a clean white shirt. But he had gone out without collar and tie, and the last time he had put a razor to his face had been at least a day before. Since he was a man who did not show a heavy beard, he did not look terribly scruffy; but Abraham Gibbon was unusually fastidious, and consequently he thought badly of Tom Collins for appearing so unkempt. Abraham Gibbon was a fussy, peevish man who took offense easily and swiftly. And this morning he was much more peevish than normal because of a searing and relentless pain in one of his back teeth.
Gibbon poured a small portion of cheap whiskey into a glass for Collins. For himself he poured a larger portion (because of his tooth, he rationalized) of better brandy. He had chosen not to offer the brandy to Collins. Nor would he offer it to Kean when he arrived, although Kean would be offered a better whiskey than Gibbon had made available to Collins.
“And how is your family, Mr. Gibbon?” Collins asked affably, after Gibbon had resumed his seat behind his large, though shabby desk. There was a slight trace of brogue still in his voice, even though he had been twenty years on the western side of the Atlantic.
“My family, sir?” Gibbon asked, petulantly. “What do you know or care about my family? I should think my personal life would be of little interest to you.”
“I’m sure I know nothing at all about your family or your personal life, Mr. Gibbon,” Collins said, a wide charming smile spreading across his face. “I was only starting out our conversation this morning by, as it were, passing the time of day. Truly, I wish you and your family well, Mr. Gibbon. And if you would prefer not to talk about them, then I would be most pleased to pass the time of day talkin’ about something else. That is, of course, until the other gentleman arrives. On the other hand,” Collins went on pleasantly, “if you’d like to talk your business before he comes, then by all means let’s set to that. Because I’m here at your service, and that’s for sure. Make no mistake about that.”
“That’s quite all right,” Abraham Gibbon muttered uncertainly, not sure why he felt a bit belittled.
“I, of course, have never had the good fortune of marrying, and so I don’t have the blessing of children.”
Or the curse of children, Gibbon thought but did not say. He was recalling his older son Jeremy, who had gone to California to look for gold. He had only been at his diggings a month before he discovered what turned out to be his true mother lode—gin and whores. He had returned to Philadelphia addicted to drink and riddled with syphilis.
“I have children,” Gibbon said abruptly after a long and uncomfortable silence. “Two daughters and a son. The two daughters are of marriageable age, but they are unmarried and ugly. My son will never be married. And my wife is dead.”
“It is indeed fortunate,” Collins replied, making the most he could out of Gibbon’s misfortune, “that you have two fine women to take care of you. You will be soon at an age, I’m sure, where you’ll need more than ever the care of women.” Collins’s charming smile never deserted him.
“Twin harpies!” Gibbon muttered into his glass as he took another large gulp of his brandy. Collins’s whiskey was scarcely touched.
He was about to offer Mr. Gibbon another encouraging thought when George Kean arrived. Kean was a large, rough, outdoorsy man with a loud voice and few words.
After the introductions and dispersal of whiskey, Gibbon announced his business.
“A client has approached me who has asked me to keep his identity most confidential, but I can assure you that he is a man of the highest stature and… urn,” he coughed, “integrity. This man of, as I say, wealth and position has asked me to provide certain discreet services for him. And after a careful search of possible candidates to execute those services, I have settled upon the two of you.”
George Kean nodded cautiously, but Tom Collins spoke.
“That’s most kind of you,” he said. “I’m sure that your confidence will be well rewarded by good and faithful service.”
“That may be as it will be,” Gibbon said mysteriously.
“Go on,” said George Kean to Gibbon. “State the business.”
“At any rate,” Gibbon said, “my client has approached me with a proposition. I should add that he has significant interests in various enterprises specializing in shipping and transportation. And he views with alarm the successful completion of the Pennsylvania Railroad’s main line across the mountains to Pittsburgh.”
“So do I,” George Kean said. “The bastard will ruin my business.”
“Exactly!” Gibbon agreed. “It will destroy the enterprise you have constructed by the sweat of your brow.”
“And may the good Lord spare you such grief, to be sure,” Tom Collins said.
“And now,” Gibbon said, “my client has no illusions that the Pennsylvania can be stopped. But it would serve all of our purposes, as you will soon learn, if the successful completion of the Pennsylvania’s main line can be delayed for a year or two, or perhaps if all goes well, three.”
Kean nodded.
“You do know that I am employed by the railroad,” Collins said, his face lighting up with scarcely concealed shrewdness.
“That, sir, is exactly the source of your usefulness to my client,” Gibbon said.
“Keep talking,” Kean said.
“Both of you could be instrumental in delaying the railroad. And my client would be pleased to pay you both a fair price for your help in accomplishing that goal.”
“Keep talking.”
“You, for instance, Mr. Kean, could easily mobilize a number of teamsters who feel as you do about the railroad. Together you could, I’m sure, use your imaginations to find ways to hinder the construction.”
“I’ve had a thought or two about that,” Kean said in a low, quiet voice.
“Of course you have. Of course you have.” And then Gibbon turned to Tom Collins. “And you, Collins, because of your responsibility as contractor for the largest work gang on the mountain division, are in a position to, umm, encourage strife among the laborers. And instill in them in any other way you can devise the desire to loaf and malinger.”
Collins thought a moment. “First off,” he said, warming to the task, “there’s not enough whores an’ booze. We’ll need more whores. An’ more booze.”
“Yes, precisely!” Gibbon said brightening, nearly forgetting in his excitement his painful tooth. “That’s the time! I’m sure we can provide a limitless supply of both commodities.”
“And you would like my teamster friends to rough them up?” Kean asked.
“I trust you to devise your own suitable solution to my client’s problem. It helps of course that his aims and yours so nicely coincide.”
“What will he pay?” Kean asked.
Collins looked up sharply.
Gibbon rolled his glass back and forth a few times between the flattened palms of his hands. “One thousand dollars,” he said finally. “Five hundred now. And five hundred on the successful completion of our enterprise. You, Mr. Kean, would of course stand to profit doubly from our project.” He paused again, rolling his glass. “There will be papers, that I have drawn up for each of you to sign. These will commit you to the project and ensure your loyalty to it. I will keep these papers in a safe place, and they will be returned to you when our enterprise is completed.”
“No,” Kean said. “Nothing goes in writing.”
“I’m for that too,” Collins said. “Make no mistake about that.”
“And second,” Kean said. “I don’t like the money. There’s not enough of it. And there’s not enough to start with.”
“That’s right,” Collins agreed.
“My client has been most generous,” Gibbon said. “I’m afraid that he has only authorized me to make one offer.”
Actually, the client was paying Gibbon a ten thousand dollar fee, out of which Gibbon would take care of all expenses.
“I don’t care a damn about generous, you pompous fraud,” Kean said. “I care about fair. I can do what you want me to do, and you know it; or you would not have come begging me to do it. I’m going to be takin’ a lot of risk, and it’s goin’ to cost me more ‘an a little. So you or your man better be able to pay.”
Collins looked from one to the other with a beatific smile on his face.
“I cannot, Mr. Kean, I truly cannot offer you a more substantial sum,” Gibbon said.
“Then I’ll tell you good-bye,” Kean said, rising.
“Wait!”
“What’s on your mind?” Kean said. By now he was halfway to the door.
“I cannot guarantee this,” Gibbon said, “but I may be able to prevail upon my client to offer you an additional five hundred dollars. Payable at the end of the project, naturally.”
“No. Two thousand. Half now. Half then. And no papers. I’ll sign no papers.”
“Yes,” Collins agreed.
“Outrageous!”
“Stand up Collins,” George Kean said, “and leave with me.”
Collins rose. He was immediately followed by Abraham Gibbon. “No, no, no,” he said, shaking his head in surrender and dismay. “I can’t have you leaving.”
“Well then?”
“Two thousand.”
“And no papers?”
“No papers.”
“Thank you, Mr. Gibbon,” Kean said, returning to Gibbon to shake his hand. “Then I’ll take your hand on that.”
Collins also extended his hand, and Gibbon reluctantly shook it.
“When will we see the money?”
“In a few days,” Gibbon said vaguely.
“Wednesday,” Kean insisted.
“Wednesday,” Gibbon sighed.
After the two were gone, Abraham Gibbon walked to his other office. And from there he later proceeded to his club, not for the sake of pleasure but for the sake of business. He needed to contact some of his sources of local gossip on behalf of his new client who was quite interested in finding out why William Patterson quickly required an amount well in excess of $100,000.
Like Abraham Gibbon, Edgar Thomson maintained two offices, but for very different reasons. Thomson’s official office was in the Pennsylvania Railroad’s administrative building adjoining the railroad yards in northwest Philadelphia. His second office was in a converted railroad passenger car. The car also contained two cubicles for sleeping and a small galley kitchen. From his railroad-car office Thomson could not only oversee the everyday workings on the line, but he could also travel out to construction sites.
It was out of this office, in fact, that Thomson mostly worked, and it was there on Monday afternoon that his daughter, Kitty Lancaster, was told she could find him.
As she approached the car, Kitty could see that something unusual was going on. Most noticeable was a temporary telegraph wire that joined her father’s car with the line that connected the main office with the work sites in the west. And as she approached the car, she could see several more people than usual inside it. Some of these she did not instantly recognize. Among those she did recognize, however, was the man whose name she didn’t know but whom she nevertheless vividly recalled. It was the Englishman who had attended the dedication ceremony on Saturday afternoon. The man had been often on her mind during the two days since then. And she remembered especially his penetrating, yet warm and kind, green eyes.
She was lifting her skirt up so that she could climb the high step leading to the platform at the fear of the car when a young clerk burst out of the car door and dashed down the steps, very nearly knocking her off her feet.
“Oh, excuse me, ma’am,” he said, embarrassed. His arm stretched out to steady her. “Are you all right?” he continued, when he was sure she would not fall.
“Yes, I’m fine,” Kitty said.
“Then I have to run.”
“Wait!” she called out after him. “What’s happening?”
“Sorry ma’am,” he yelled back over his shoulder. “I have to run.” He waved at her a handful of telegraph flimsies by way of explanation.
She shook her head in exasperation and tried the step again, more cautiously this time.
Inside was pandemonium. At her father’s desk a telegraph machine had been set up. Its operator now occupied her father’s usual chair behind the desk. Her father stood behind the operator, bent over him, watching him decode and transcribe a message. Clerks and secretaries had been positioned on the other side of the desk and elsewhere in the room. As they wrote, they whispered among themselves. Their chattering was full of alarms and forebodings, Kitty thought, though she could not imagine why.
She was about to walk over to her father when the tall Englishman intercepted her.
“Hello again,” he said, smiling.
“Oh, my!” she said, startled. She remembered that he was a railroad man, and so there was probably a logical explanation for his presence. She also realized that she was glad to see him again. And she had no doubt that he was glad to see her. Though he had the same serious expression she remembered from the other day, his face had softened perceptibly when he recognized her.
Kitty was about to address the Englishman again, but Edgar Thomson had heard her voice. When he saw who it was, Thomson looked up and angrily shook his head. “Damn it, Kitty. You’ve picked the worst possible time to come here.”
“But what’s happening, Father?”
Her father did not hear her question. While she was asking it, he was shouting at no one in particular. “There are too many people in here!” he yelled out. “I only need one stenographer. The rest of you get the hell out of here and find something useful to do.” Then he looked at his daughter. “Kitty,” he said, in a softer voice, “you sit down and keep quiet. Or better still, leave and come back later.”
“But, Father, what’s happening?”
Edgar Thomson, ignoring her, returned his attention to the message the telegraph clerk was transcribing. As the message continued, Thomson’s face grew increasingly grave.
Meanwhile, all but one of the other clerks trooped out the door. And the room, after they left, grew silent, except for the dots and dashes of the telegraph receiver. Kitty sat down. But then the tall stranger leaned over close to her.
“Come,” he whispered, motioning with his hand toward the door that led out to the rear platform. “I’ll explain.”
Kitty rose and glanced at her father, but he was still intent on the message. So she followed the Englishman out the door.
“It’s the tunnel at Gallitzin, Mrs. Lancaster,” he said to her once they were standing outside on the platform. “There’s been a collapse. It looks extensive.”
“God! A collapse?” She raised her hands to her face in dismay. “Were many people trapped inside?”
“It’s very hard to say—which is the reason why your father is so intent on the telegraph reports.”
“Was the damage great? Will it take long to clear it out?”
“No one knows very much about that either.” The stranger shook his head sadly.
“What will happen next?”
“Your father is learning all the information he can from the first reports. Then he will go up to the tunnel and direct the rescue attempt.”
She shook her head. Her father had to remain here, in Philadelphia. He was required at the board meeting on Wednesday! Yet she knew that his presence was also immediately required at the tunnel. Oh, damn, damn, damn! she thought, baffled and frustrated.
Then turning away from him in order to collect herself, she stared off at the maze of tracks that made up the railroad yard. For quite a long time she searched for a cure for her frustration. But she did not succeed. Then, realizing that she was ignoring him, she brought her attention back to the tall Englishman.
When she was once again facing him, she saw that he was watching her intently despite his casual air.
She was disconcerted, nonetheless, not by his gaze but by her own embarrassment. She had been grossly impolite to him by ignoring him for so long.
“Oh, my,” she said to him, a warm and vivid flush spreading from her breasts to her neck and face. “I’ve been totally dreadful to you, Mr… !” She stopped, for she realized that she didn’t even know his name.
“Dreadful?” He smiled warmly. “How so?”
“I’ve been terribly impolite, ignoring you just now.”
“I could see you were distressed. It would have been impolite of me to interrupt your privacy.”
She lowered her eyes briefly at that, for she was touched by his sensitivity. Then she looked again at his face.
“But now I’ve been the impolite one,” he said, with a gentle, playful laugh. “What a rogue I am! You don’t know who I am. Nor why I am here.”
“No,” she admitted, “I don’t. And, I’d like very much to know who you are.”
“My name is John Carlysle, Mrs. Lancaster,” he said. “And I’m an engineer… from England.” He extended his hand, and she took it, liking again the warm, hard outdoorsy feel of it.
“Please call me Kitty,” she said, still holding his hand. “It’s so much less formidable than Mrs. Lancaster.”
“All right.” He paused uncertainly, “Kitty.”
“I’m delighted to meet you, Mr. Carlysle. This second time.”
“Not Mr. Carlysle, Kitty, but John.”
“John.”
And then her face lit up. “Of course!” she said. “You must be the one Father has been talking about!”
“He’s been talking about me?”
“About a new engineer from England who is about to take an important position under him. A man with the very best recommendations and the very highest qualifications. He has been looking forward to your arrival.”
“He has?” John said, politely modest. “I’m glad to hear it.”
It was now her turn for gentle, playful laughter. “There is other news of you, as well,” she said. “He tells me that the Englishman has been spending his days talking to bankers and business leaders about the railroad, conducting his own private investigation into its operations and management.”
“Is he bothered by that?” he asked.
She gave him a grim face, but then she laughed again before he had time to become worried. “No, not at all! He adores that. It’s exactly what he himself would have done!”
John explained to her that although he had arrived in the country over a fortnight ago, he had waited to schedule his initial interview with her father until today. The tunnel disaster had occurred during their meeting.
“I’m really terribly delighted that you’ll be working for my father,” she said after he was finished.
“And so am I, Mrs. Lancaster,” he said, meaning it. He avoided calling her Kitty, for he was uncomfortable with the familiarity.
“Thank you.”
“And now, Mrs. Lancaster,” he said, “perhaps we should go back inside.”
“Yes,” she said. “I think we should.”
Edgar Thomson was now sitting at his own desk, and the telegraph clerk was standing off to one side by a window. The other clerk was no longer present; he must have left by the door at the front of the car. But he had been replaced by another man whom Kitty identified for John as Herman Haupt. Haupt was the superintendent of the railroad. The earlier pandemonium had now subsided, but it was replaced by grim faces and deep, heavy breathing.
The office itself was austere and functional. Besides Thomson’s desk, there were a table and hard chairs and two wooden benches with backs.
When he was on his feet, Thomson looked at John and Kitty, who stood together just inside the door.
“What news is there from Gallitzin?” Kitty asked.
Thomson shook his head and frowned. “Please don’t ask me,” he said. “I’m too overwhelmed. I don’t want to speak of it.”
And then he shifted his attention to John Carlysle. “I imagine that you have had a chance to become acquainted with my daughter,” he said.
“Actually,” Kitty said before John could reply, “John Carlysle and I have met before today, but until now, I didn’t know his name.”
And then Edgar Thomson realized where he had seen the tall Englishman before this afternoon. Before Kitty’s arrival he had felt that there was something familiar about the very handsome, elegant, and obviously competent and knowledgeable Englishman, yet he had not until this moment been able to place him. But now, when he saw John and Kitty standing together, he knew at once where he had seen him.
He smiled an austere smile, then turned to his daughter. “Kitty,” he said, “has Mr. Carlysle explained that he will be a new addition to my staff?”
“He has, Father.”
“He’ll be a most welcome one, I’m sure. He is a friend and colleague of my good friend Sir Charles Elliot, who has urged me to take him on, praising him with words so glowing that I would be embarrassed to hear them said of me.”
“Actually, Father,” Kitty said, “I told Mr. Carlysle that you’ve been telling me that an Englishman was coming to work with us. But from the way you’ve been talking, Father, I was expecting… someone much older.”
“I’m glad that I have not met with those expectations,” John said with a smile.
Kitty laughed, too. She liked this Englishman’s sense of humor. He was quiet and earnest, like her father, but he was not solemn.
“Before you come to think of me as a roaring youth,” he said with another warm and gentle laugh, “you should know that I was married and have three sons… one of whom is twenty years of age.”
Kitty’s eyes widened. And her voice fell. “And where is your wife?” she said to John.
“I’m afraid that she is dead,” John said.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” she said quickly. Her heart actually felt lighter when she heard that, though she was ashamed of herself for the feeling after it happened.
“After she died, I decided to try my fortunes here in America. And Sir Charles helped me along.”
“He’s helped him most handsomely,” Thomson said to Kitty, “to the tune of a thousand shares of our stock.”
“My, my, a thousand shares,” Kitty said and looked at John with greatly renewed admiration. “That is handsome. Amazingly so. And from Sir Charles Elliot?” She was about to pursue that question, but before she could, her father spoke.
“All of you are standing,” he said, somewhat abashed that he might be thought a bad host, “and looking extremely uncomfortable. Please sit.” Everyone complied. Kitty looked at the empty place next to John on one of the hard benches. But she decided it would be more proper for her not to sit next to him.
“And Herman?” Thomson spoke to the superintendent, “find us some whiskey. I expect we all need it by now.”
While Haupt went to the cabinet where Thomson kept his whiskey, John Carlysle spoke.
“Are you able now to tell us the news from Gallitzin?” he asked.
“I’d much prefer not to, but you have a right to hear it,” Thomson said, shaking his head. There was a grim set to his lips. “It’s not good. Not good at all. There are many deaths. Though God only knows how many. The cave-in was toward the end of one of the headings being worked from the eastern shaft. And there were several men working behind it. It’s a damned bad business.
“I’m going up there later this afternoon,” Thomson said as he took a glass from Haupt, who was handing them around. “I’m leaving as soon as a locomotive can be made ready. I should be in Tyrone by morning, and from there I’ll ride up on horseback.”
Tracks had not yet been laid as far as Gallitzin.
Kitty stared again at the Englishman. His face was lit by an intense and driven expression. Clearly he was most keen to join her father when he traveled to the tunnel.
He spoke what his face had already revealed to her. “I hope there will be a place for me with you.”
“Absolutely,” Thomson said. “I’d welcome your presence. Can you be ready by late this afternoon… or at the very latest early this evening?”
Kitty looked hard at her father. “Are you really needed up there, Father?” she asked him.
“It appears so.”
“That means you will be gone for several days?”
“Several days at least.”
“But what if,” she paused, “you are more needed here on Wednesday? What if…” She left the thought unfinished.
“What if?” John asked, recalling their earlier conversation outside on the platform.
Herman Haupt broke in before she could answer. “I think, Mrs. Lancaster, that it would be better if we do not discuss that right now.” He obviously did not think it was prudent to talk about confidential company matters in John’s presence, for he was as yet an outsider in his eyes.
“It’s not a secret, Mr. Haupt,” she said, less sure of herself than she sounded.
“No, but the moment is inappropriate and inopportune,” he said and glanced significantly at John.
“Perhaps I should leave?” John asked, offering to do the polite thing. He got to his feet. But it was clear to Kitty that he was more than just terribly curious, he actually longed to take part in what was going on.
“Oh, no,” Kitty said, “there’s no need for that.”
“Stay,” Edgar Thomson said in a quiet voice. He rose and waved John back to his seat. Then he gave Haupt a nod indicating that he trusted John. “There’s no harm in speaking openly in this company,” he added.
“Well,” John said, “the three of you have sparked my curiosity.”
“Kitty,” Edgar Thomson said, “since you brought the matter up, why don’t you spell out to Mr. Carlysle the reason you feel I should stay in Philadelphia.”
And so, with great enthusiasm, for she was obviously convinced that the matter was nearly settled in her father’s favor, Kitty told John Carlysle about the struggle between her father and William Patterson for control of the railroad, and about how it would likely bear discussion before the board of directors’ meeting that was scheduled for Wednesday.
As it happened, John had learned everything she had to tell him during his intelligence gathering of the past two weeks, but he decided that it would not be wise for him to reveal his knowledge at this moment.
“It doesn’t look terribly hopeful for Mr. Patterson,” he said when Kitty was finished. “And that means that you, Mr. Thomson, will become president of the line, doesn’t it?”
“I would never count William Patterson out,” Edgar Thomson said cautiously.
“Oh, Father,” Kitty said, “you’re such a worrier.” To John she said, “Don’t take him seriously. I’m sure that he will be president of the Pennsylvania before the end of the week if … he doesn’t throw it all away by running off to the mountains.”
“I’m afraid that I can’t believe that until it happens,” Thomson said, ignoring her final remark.
“You see, Mr. Carlysle, Father is hopeless. He takes nothing on faith.”
“One of the reasons he is a good engineer,” John said with a soft chuckle. “I like to trust engineers who don’t take things on faith—bridges for instance.”
Thomson laughed at that.
Kitty turned her gaze to her father. “But I wish you weren’t going up to the mountains,” she said. “Not now. Not at this crucial time.”
“I have to go, Kitty. You know that. The men up there depend on me.”
“Well, I hope you haven’t made a mistake,” she said. “I hope things don’t fall apart here while you are gone.”
“It’s all out of my hands anyway, Kitty.”
“Precisely! And that’s why you must be here to take care of it.”
He threw up his hands but said nothing else. He knew his daughter too well to fall into the trap of continuing an argument with her until she was willing to end it. She was as persistent and pugnacious as a bulldog.
She gave her father a devastating look. But she decided not to try to go on, for she knew him well enough to know his mind was made up. “And so, Mr. Carlysle,” she said, “you will be going to the mountains with Father?”
“Yes. Of course,” he said with certainty and confidence. “I’m sure I can be useful.”
“I’m convinced of that,” Edgar Thomson said. “I know you’ll help a great deal. Could you gather some clothes and be back here in, say, two hours?”
“I could make it back by then.” John said. But as he said that, worry lines furrowed his brow. “Except,” he said, “I don’t know about arrangements for my two younger boys.”
“What about the older one?” Charles Lancaster said. “Won’t he be able to handle them?”
“I doubt that I’ll find him,” John said. “I expect him to be… unavailable… for quite some time.”
Kitty noticed tension in his voice. She guessed that for some reason John didn’t always get along with his son. But then Kitty thought of a solution to John Carlysle’s problem.
“What about me?” Kitty asked.
“You?” John replied.
“I’d love to watch your boys for a few days.” Indeed, she was liking the idea very much, especially now that she had lost the battle with her father over whether or not he would travel to the tunnel. For a moment she had considered going with him, but she instantly saw that it wouldn’t be to her advantage to push him on that right now.
“Mrs. Lancaster, I don’t think…” John protested, though actually he welcomed the idea.
“I have plenty of servants,” she continued, overriding his objections, “and no children of my own.”
“A splendid idea,” Edgar Thomson said. “I do want John joining me.”
“Then it’s settled?” John asked, not sure that it was.
“Of course,” Kitty said. “It’s absolutely settled. I have a carriage parked nearby. We will run into town, you will pick up your boys and whatever they will need for the next few days, and I will take them home with me. Then you can come back here.
“And on our way, you must tell me all about yourself and your boys. And your life in England.”