The Trainmasters (4 page)

A pole had been rigged up in front of the reviewing stand, just to the side of the podium, and a long, crimson silk ribbon
had been tied to it. At the end of the ribbon a magnum of champagne had been attached. After saying a few words Mrs. Lancaster
would propel the champagne so it would hit the front of the locomotive.

William Patterson presented the bottle to her. Holding it out in front of her and smiling, Kitty Lancaster looked toward the
locomotive and at the throng of people clustered around it. And then she laughed and spoke to them. “Do you people want to
back away?” she asked in a loud voice, still laughing. “Soon it will be raining champagne.” Her voice was full, rich, and
vibrant. And she was looking directly at John Carlysle.

Since the Carlysles were standing only a few feet from Tiger’s pilot, they figured to take much of the splash, but John, smiling,
made no move to leave, and Alex and David giggled.

No one else moved either. There were many chuckles.

“It’s not every day we get champagne weather,” said a voice near the Carlyles.

“Then you’ve been warned,” she said, still looking at John.

Mrs. Lancaster’s voice then took on a serious tone. “In the name of the Lord, the people of Pennsylvania, and the directors
and stockholders of the Pennsylvania…” She halted in midsentence. Instantly William Patterson moved to her side, fearing she
was ill or growing faint. But she raised her hand to stop him from supporting her. “No, no, no, thank you,” she said, backing
as far away from him as the limited space allowed. “I’m quite all right. Please, I’m not ill. I’m quite all right.”

“What’s she doing?” Graham Carlysle whispered to his father.

“Damned if I know,” John said. But it is certainly interesting, whatever it is, he thought to himself.

Then Mrs. Lancaster did a most remarkable thing. She loosened the crimson ribbon from the magnum of champagne and pulled the
bottle free.“Do please excuse me for interrupting the ceremony this way,” she said to the crowd after she had finished freeing
the bottle.

“But I’ve had a sudden flash of inspiration. And I have always made it a practice to follow my instincts.”

There was nervous laughter in the crowd and from those on the stand, and not a few of the dignitaries’ faces registered embarrassment.

A short, steep stairway led from the reviewing stand down to the street. Within minutes Kitty Lancaster had scrambled down
it and pushed her way to the front of the locomotive. Then, lifting up her skirt, she pulled herself up onto the tiny platform
at the top of the pilot, and raising die champagne high over her head like a torch, she shouted, “Such a powerful machine
deserves to be christened right and properly by the direct and personal action of a human being!” She paused until the murmurs
of the crowd stopped. Then she spoke again. “I hereby christen you Tiger in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, the people
of Pennsylvania, and the directors and stockholders of the Pennsylvania Railroad.”

With a powerful swing of her arm, Mrs. Lancaster smashed the bottle across the nose of the engine. Instantly a great cloud
of champagne burst out, and for half a second, she was surrounded by a golden nimbus of champagne mist.

She stood radiant and smiling, basking in the waves of cheers and applause from the crowd. Then she began to look for a way
to descend from her perch.

“Here,” said a voice, “take my hand.” It was a rich, pleasant baritone with an educated British accent. When she looked to
see who the voice belonged to, she realized it was the man she’d been glancing at for much of the ceremony.

“Thank you,” she said and gave John Carlysle her hand. His hand felt firm and solid, just like his voice sounded. But it was
calloused and chapped from working outdoors. And this surprised her, for the man was well dressed and well mannered. She wondered
if he was a soldier or perhaps a sailor. Yet she didn’t sense anything rakish about him, nothing that suggested an adventurer.

She was much intrigued by this man. And with his help she carefully made her way down to safety.

“Thank you again,” she said.

“You are most welcome, Mrs. Lancaster.”

She wondered for a second how he knew her name, but then she realized that it had been announced before she christened the
locomotive. She realized that he was still speaking to her.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “but I missed your words.”

He smiled. “That’s quite all right,” he said. “I was saying that you handled the champagne like a true expert.”

“Why, thank you again,” she said, returning the smile, politely.

“I think I should like you to christen a locomotive of mine someday. Would you?”

“I don’t know,” she said, a little flustered. “I couldn’t say.”

“When the time comes,” he said, “perhaps you will be able to give me an answer.”

“Are you a railroad man?” she asked, hoping he was.

“That I am,” he said.

Well now, she thought, that’s better than a soldier! Better than an explorer! She gave him her most radiant, official smile.
Then she started to make her way back to Matthias Baldwin on the reviewing platform.

“Wait,” he said. “Before I let you go, I’d like you to tell me something.”

“What is that?”

“I’d like you to tell me why you’ve been staring at me … earlier, when you were up on the reviewing stand.”

Mrs. Lancaster didn’t answer him. Giving him a look that she hoped conveyed how impertinent she thought him, she pulled away
and quickly fled back up the stairs and onto the reviewing platform.

When she reached the top, there was a great clatter of applause and cheering from the crowd. She turned and acknowledged the
crowd, and then she looked at the Englishman below and gave him a nod. Finally, she smiled.

Two

Along with more than seven hundred other Irish immigrant laborers, Egan O’Rahilly worked in the depths of the earth, digging
the long summit tunnel for the Pennsylvania Railroad at the crest of the Alleghenies near the village of Gallitzin. Thousands
of other Irishmen toiled on other sections of the line. Indeed every tie was laid over a dram of Irish blood spilled in its
making.

Contracts for the tunnel had been signed in 1851, though its completion was expected in 1853, when at a length of 3,570 feet,
it would be one of the longest railway tunnels in the country. It was, more significantly, one of the most difficult holes
to dig, and one of the most dangerous.

Late on a Saturday afternoon, along with twenty mates, Egan awaited his turn to be lifted out of the tunnel. He would be hauled
to the earth’s surface in a metal cage attached to a steam-powered winch at the top of the four-hundred-foot shaft.

With a screech of metal grinding on metal, the cage returned to the tunnel floor for another load. The next gang of men climbed
in; they were crowded closer together than sheep in a slaughtering pen. The cage was only ten feet square.

With a great, tumultuous heave, the cage jerked and began to rise. Egan’s gang was next in line. He hated being down in the
tunnel where the air was dank and close, and the oily stench of mud and toiling men—many of whom had not washed in weeks—was
strong. The tunnel floor was a running stream. Except for the lanterns at the actual working sites and at the bottom of the
shaft, the tunnel was pitch black.

In addition to the two headings at the eastern and western ends of the tunnel, two more shafts had been sunk, making six tunnel
headings in all. Egan worked out of the easternmost of these shafts. Although a third shaft had recently been attempted, the
surrounding ground was too unstable, so the shaft had been abandoned.

That was a typical problem at the Gallitzin Tunnel. Most of the ground penetrated was wet and muddy, requiring extensive shoring
and foundation work. Egan’s job, therefore, was doubly perilous.

Yet such danger did not affect the workers’ pay. Since the men who labored on the tunnel were Irish, they were all paid Irish
wages, $1.15 a day. Out of this sum the men were expected to purchase their own room and board and tools.

That didn’t leave much for themselves or their families, but it was better than nothing. And nothing was what was available
elsewhere.

Egan O’Rahilly was a young man of twenty-two with a family to support. His wife, Deirdre, and their young daughter, Peg, lived
in a cellar room in Philadelphia. He adored Deirdre and Peg limitlessly, and he missed them more than he missed working in
the light. He thus sent home the greater portion of his weekly pay.

Other men were not as generous; they spent most of their wages on drink or on the few hard, ancient, and ugly camp whores
who had set themselves up nearby. Egan did not blame the other men for taking what comfort they could get in the groggery
next to the camp, or from the whores. Their jobs were physically exhausting and mentally debilitating.

Although Egan joined his mates in the groggery after work, it was for the companionship, not the oblivion alcohol offered.

Egan was of medium height, slim but tough, wiry, and lithe. His hair was curly and sandy. And his splendid tenor voice was
his most valuable contribution to the groggery at the end of the day. He liked to sing, and the other men liked to listen
to him.

Five years earlier Egan, his younger sisters, Teresa, Maria, and Anna, and his parents had taken the American packet
Queen of the West
from Liverpool to New York. The passage had cost five pounds apiece for space in steerage, and it took seven stormy, tortured
weeks, during which time Anna, Maria, and the two elder O’Rahillys died of ships’ fever, a form of typhus. After landing in
New York, the two surviving O’Rahillys went to Philadelphia, but there they separated. Egan, who had met Deirdre on board
the
Queen of the West
, married her.

Teresa, who was beautiful and smart, had looked for work in domestic service. And, because she was beautiful and smart, she
quickly found a position. And just as quickly she lost it. She found another almost immediately. Then she lost that one too.
After several more jobs and several more dismissals, no one would hire her. The women who employed young “Bridgets”—as the
Irish girls were called because so many of the girls had that name—did not like her. She was contrary and self-willed; she
was not properly humble and meek. Her beauty and intelligence too often played against her: Many of the husbands of her employers
made it abundantly clear that they would welcome her sexual favors.

So when work in service became impossible, Teresa chose what she saw as the only course left to her. What she had to offer
was her beauty, her wit, her intelligence, and her lively personality. She found men willing to pay for her companionship,
not just for a night, but for weeks or months at a time.

This meant, of course, that Teresa often took these men to bed. Yet Teresa did not consider herself a whore. She believed
she had become a kind of courtesan. And so Teresa O’Rahilly became Teresa Derbyville because the English name, she felt, bestowed
on her more class, and she was much sought after by the younger gentlemen of Philadelphia.

While Teresa deluded herself about her chosen profession, her brother did not. Egan interpreted his sister’s behavior with
utter severity, and he cut her off completely. He despised Teresa; he hoped he would never see her again. Yet he failed to
see that he suffered from the very same pride that led Teresa to her current position in life. Pride was an O’Rahilly family
trait.

The O’Rahillys had left Ireland during the worst horrors of the potato famine. They had never been farmers, nor did their
livelihood depend on fanning. The O’Rahillys were traveling thespians, part of a troupe of players who put on skits and dramas
from town to town and village to village. They also sang, juggled, or performed acrobatic routines— anything to entertain
and earn a few pence or a few potatoes if there was nothing else.

There had never been much for them as they wandered through the counties of Ireland, for the farmers and townspeople had very
little left over from their meager crops and earnings; but the Irish did adore a good time, and so there had always been something.