A Promise for Tomorrow (55 page)
Margaret held her for several moments, then released her and nodded. “I have always . . . and will always . . . love you.”
“I love you, too, Mama,” Carolina whispered, barely able to speak. “Now and always.”
Having arrived in Wheeling on an earlier mail train, Carolina and James anticipated the arrival of the official celebration locomotives with as much excitement as the rest of the crowd. Carolina had found the new line to perch perilously in spots where high, narrow passageways made it necessary for the railroad to cling to the side of scenic cliffs. She had held her breath with the other forty-some passengers when they passed over the Monongahela River bridge, wondering if such a vast expanse would hold up to their imposing weight.
But they had arrived safe and sound, and now they awaited the governors and board of directors who would set the official celebration in order. Bands had been put in place to entertain with a variety of marches and reels, while military units, including the Steubenville Grays and the Bridgeport Artillery, were on hand to offer salutary cannon fire. The air was crisp and cold on that January tenth of 1853, but few people seemed to notice. And even as night came and dampness rolled in from the river, the people refused to give up their party. Wheeling was finally going to have its railroad, and even though the line came in south of the city proper, it was enough for now, and the people were stirred to a frenzy unequaled by anything they’d ever known.
Carolina found herself remembering the first time she’d ever wandered through a crowd like this. She had been a child of fifteen, yet it seemed like only yesterday. The blast of a steam whistle caused her to strain to see beyond the pressing crowds around her, and for a brief moment, she could nearly hear her mother’s voice chiding her to act like a lady.
James leaned down and whispered something in her ear, but she couldn’t hear it as cheers rose up from the men and women all around her. The bands struck up, each playing something different, adding to the confusion and revelry in their own disorganized ways, and Carolina stretched up on tiptoe in order to see better.
“I ain’t never seen no train,” a man wearing a straw hat told the plump woman beside him.
“I heard tell they set ever’thin’ on fire with them thar sparks,” another man behind Carolina spoke out.
She laughed to herself, remembering the comments of the Washington Branch crowd when she was fifteen and viewed her first locomotive. Women had fainted dead away, children had cried, and men had been notably impressed. Then, Virginia had supposed it to be indecent to expose women in a family way to such activities. But the memory hadn’t stopped Carolina, who only that morning had advised her husband that she would give him yet another child in the summer. It only made her celebration of the railroad more complete. One promise fulfilled. Another yet to come.
The whistle blasted again as the steam locomotive came into view. Even against the night skies, moonlight illuminated the billowing smoke. Steam hissed and the whistle blew several more times before the great lumbering monster came to a stop.
But to everyone’s surprise, this wasn’t the celebration train they’d anticipated at all but was in fact yet another mail train. Everyone laughed and the festive spirit remained, even as it began to rain and it was realized that the expected locomotive had somehow been delayed. But hours later the trains were still delayed, and so the crowd dispersed and went back to their homes for a good night’s sleep.
Disappointed, Carolina and James made their way back to their room at McClure House. “I pray they have not met with trouble,” Carolina told her husband as they prepared for bed that night.
“As do I,” James replied. “I especially pray that it wasn’t my tunnel that slowed their progress.”
Carolina laughed and blew out the lamp. “I suppose we shall all know what the problem was when they finally arrive.” She settled down in her husband’s arms, her mind racing with thoughts of the celebration and the people who waited so patiently for their step into the future of railroad travel.
Finally, three days after having begun their journey in Baltimore, the two trains of dignitaries arrived in Wheeling. Because it was the middle of the night, no one was on hand to greet them, but the passengers hardly concerned themselves with this matter. In pure exhaustion most everyone went happily to a peaceful night’s sleep, not even noticing that they had arrived at their final destination.
But later in the day, the celebration spirit was revived and the people of Wheeling paraded and bands played and children squealed with delight at the wondrous sights and sounds. A procession was led to the courthouse, where a formal reception was headed up by Maryland’s young governor, Enoch Louis Lowe. He made a dignified speech congratulating the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad for their fair and faithful dealings with the state, and predicted that this was only the beginning of many destinations yet to come. He easily saw the future as connecting the Chesapeake and San Francisco bays via the railroad.
“Who can measure her destiny?” he had cried out to the crowd, and a tingling sensation had run down Carolina’s spine. Who indeed?
Later that night they sat down to a banquet dinner of mass proportions, and Carolina laughed to see grown men act like schoolboys.
“They are behaving as though they’ve just won a game,” Carolina said, leaning over to tell James, only then to remember her husband had been positioned several chairs down.
“What was that?” the formally attired gentleman at her right questioned.
“Never mind,” she said, smiling her apology.
The aroma of huge quantities of food mingled throughout the banquet hall, and Carolina welcomed the succulent flavors of roasted lamb and rice. The gentleman beside her had cutlets of veal smothered in a truffle sauce, while the woman across from him had boned turkey and lobster salad. There truly seemed no end to the variety and choices afforded them.
At eight o’clock the champagne was brought around, and attention turned to speeches and toasts. Thomas Swann lifted high the silver trowel that Charles Carroll had used at the B&O ground breaking on July 4, 1828. “If the people of Baltimore could have seen the country through which we were trying to build a railroad,” he told the crowd, “it would have been abandoned.” He continued by singing the praises of Ben Latrobe and others before giving up the floor to someone else.
One after another, men stood and toasted the Baltimore and Ohio, the men who had worked the rails, the engineers who had designed such feats, and the investors who had remained faithful backers of the dream. The thirteenth toast came to Benjamin Latrobe, who stood and thoughtfully greeted his fellow revelers with a smile. He admitted that he’d been too busy to complete a speech for the occasion. Last-minute conflicts and problems, including the excursion’s lead train breaking an axle, had consumed his mind. But he thanked his friends, including James Baldwin, and Carolina felt her heart swell with pride for the husband she had so long loved.
“I have not, however, a right to call it finished,” Latrobe told them all very seriously. “No railroad, indeed, is finished while the trade for which it was constructed continues to grow; and progress is the genius of our people.”
Cheers and toasts continued for some time, until to her surprise, James stood and held his own glass aloft. “I give my praise to all of you,” he told his comrades. “To those who are with us now, and to those who could not make our celebration.” Carolina knew he spoke of Philip Thomas and Louis McLane, both of whom had sent their regrets. “We accomplished this task,” James continued, “only because we pledged ourselves to the dream. I salute you.” Cheers went up yet again, and Carolina smiled when her gaze met James’. His expression turned from serious to loving. “And,” he shouted out above the din, waiting only momentarily for the crowd to quiet, “to my dearest friend and confidante. To the woman who has made my life worth living and who shares in our dream. I could not have become half the man I am today without her. She has endured the building of this railroad and has poured every bit as much time, sweat, and tears into the completion of this line as has any man in this room. To you, my darling Carolina.”
Hearty approval was rendered by the men around her, and even the women in attendance couldn’t help admiring the praise given their dining companion. Carolina could barely see through her tears. She had never expected such praise, and yet she found herself so blessed by James’ words. He had publicly drawn her in, given her credit and validity. He had shown them all that he found her worthy of a place outside of mere convention.
The celebration continued into the late hours, but when James appeared at her side and suggested they leave, Carolina willingly followed him into the starry night. Signaling a carriage driver, James helped his wife up, then joined her, spreading a blanket over their legs.
“Take us along the river,” he told the driver. Then turning to Carolina, he whispered against her ear, “I thought perhaps a moonlit drive would be the perfect ending to our evening.”
Carolina snuggled against him, grateful for his warmth, content in his love. The evening had been exhausting, but magical—so, too, the journey from that first moment in Washington City when she’d stained her kid gloves with locomotive grease and soot, to the completion of the railroad to the banks of the Ohio River.
After riding for a while in silence, James turned and said, “I hope you know I meant every word I said tonight.” He put his arm around her shoulder and pulled her close. “I love you more than you will ever know.” He lowered his mouth, pressing his lips tenderly against hers.
Carolina felt the old feelings of passion and desire ignite. He had only to touch her and she was completely and totally his. He pulled away and she sighed. “So where do we go from here?” she asked softly.
“There’s a whole country out there begging to be settled.”
She straightened and caught his contemplative expression in the moonlight. “Mr. Sullivan of the Central Ohio Railroad has promised to connect his railroad to ours within eighteen months.”
“Then there’s that whole transcontinental matter,” James said, a twinkle in his eye. “I suppose,” he added with a mock sound of exasperation, “that you will want to be a part of that, as well.”
Carolina laughed and the sound echoed into the night air. “I suppose that shall depend on a great many things, Mr. Baldwin.”
“Such as?” His brow arched in question.
“Such as whether you will be a part of it, for I could not consider such a thing without you by my side.”
“I suppose I might be persuaded to consider it,” James teased. “But, of course, there’s a great deal of work remaining here. Just because the line is through does not mean it is in any way finished.”
“I know. I heard Ben’s speech,” she said, grasping his gloved hand in hers. “But it honestly doesn’t matter. So long as we are together.”
Just then the melancholy sound of a steam whistle broke through their thoughts. Like Noah’s rainbow and the promise God gave him, the whistle touched something deep within her soul. Carolina squeezed her husband’s hand. “One dream fulfilled and another just beginning,” she said, unable to hide her enthusiasm.
James nodded and removed his hand from hers, placing it against her rounding stomach. “A never-ending journey,” he said, pure pride radiating from his eyes.
“One we’ll make together,” Carolina replied, putting her hand over his and looking out across the expanse of the river.
The land seemed to stretch out forever and disappeared into the blackness of the night, but Carolina knew there was more there than met the eye. The western horizon beckoned them with a promise for tomorrow. A promise Carolina intended to embrace.
Books by
Judith Pella
The Stonewycke Trilogy
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Texas Angel
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Mark of the Cross
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AUGHTERS OF
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Written on the Wind
Somewhere a Song
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Homeward My Heart
P
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C
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Bachelor’s Puzzle
Sister’s Choice
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Distant Dreams
A Hope Beyond
A Promise for Tomorrow
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with Michael Phillips
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with Tracie Peterson
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Where My Heart Belongs
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Dawn’s Prelude
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Under the Northern Lights • Whispers of Winter
Alaskan Quest
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C
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A Promise to Believe In • A Love to Last Forever
A Dream to Call My Own
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ROADMOOR
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EGACY
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A Surrendered Heart
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OWELL
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D
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Shadows of the Canyon • Across the Years • Beneath a Harvest Sky
H
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Land of My Heart • The Coming Storm
To Dream Anew • The Hope Within
L
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A Lady of High Regard • A Lady of Hidden Intent
A Lady of Secret Devotion