The Trainmasters (55 page)

“Yes sir, I’d like that very much.”

“And I take it that isn’t all you’d like?”

“There is more, sir.”

“I suppose I’d better listen,” Drew said. And he put an intent look on his face, but he only heard Collins with half an ear.
He preferred at that moment not to dwell on the little man and his little schemes. He’d pay Collins off, and the man would
go away.

But the manipulation of the Pennsylvania stock …
that
was a matter of vast scale and grandeur. And so it was upon that that he rested his mind, as Tom Collins related his demands.

At ten in the evening of the final night of the voyage, John Carlysle paced restlessly and expectantly in front of the wide,
double glass doors that were the formal entrance to the great ballroom of the
North Star
. John was dressed in formal evening clothes, and he was waiting for Kitty Lancaster, who, he knew, would be wearing her best
and newest gown. Somehow she and Diane Elliot had found time in London, during their brief stopover there, to purchase it
and have it almost instantaneously tailored to fit. And tonight was the night she had chosen to wear it.

For tomorrow he and she both would be forced back into the world of commerce, industry, and financial manipulation.

But now on a luxury yacht they practically had to themselves they would dance their last, private ball together.

And then he saw her coming toward him, across the wide open space that separated the ballroom from the dining saloon. And
she was magnificent, from her hair, newly folded and curled, to her satin slippers. The slippers were the color of pale roses.
And the gown itself was an equally pale peach, a peach that was also touched with roses. Her shoulders were bare, but there
were pearls about her neck. The waist was narrow, and the skirt was full.

As she approached, her smile grew wider and more radiant.

“You’re glorious!” he said to her as he took her hand to lead her through the glass doors.

“I hope so,” she said. “It’s the only way I could possibly match you.”

He laughed. “I didn’t mean that as flattery. It was the simple truth.”

“You don’t think I’d stoop to flattery myself,” she answered, her eyes bright and daring, “at a moment like this.”

Inside they passed by the empty tables directly to the dance floor. Across the floor was a single table lit by a single candle
and a pair of champagne glasses. Beside the table was a bucket containing an unopened bottle of Veuve Clicquot.

Above them the lamps were turned low. And the sconces on the walls, at John’s command, had not been lit. He did not want to
dance this evening in a blaze of light.

The steward, Mr. Leiber, an Austrian from Salzburg, was standing next to the piano. They walked up to him before they began
the dancing, for John had ideas about the music, just as he had ideas about the lighting.

“Sir. Madam,” Leiber said, bowing slightly. He, too, was dressed in formal evening clothes. “How can I help you?” As he said
that, he indicated with a slight but unmistakable gesture that there were servants in the shadows prepared to accomplish their
slightest wish.

“Tonight is our last night with you, Mr. Leiber,” John said.

“I’ll be sorry to see you go.”

“And I’ll very much miss”—he waved his arm broadly— “all this,” John said.

“As will I,” said Kitty.

“And so we would both like this last night of dancing to be particularly memorable,” John said.

Mr. Leiber gave a warm smile in answer to that. “I am, of course, at your complete service,” he said.

“What we would like, then, tonight,” John said, “is nothing but waltzes.”

“Of course,” he bowed.

And then to Kitty John said, “Come.” He extended his hand. Together, they moved to the center of the floor. When they reached
it, they paused for a time, poised, expectant. And then the music began.

They danced for over an hour without a pause. And when they stopped to rest it was more for Mr. Leiber’s sake than for their
own. As soon as they reached their table, a waiter appeared, opened the champagne with an impressive flourish, and poured
some into their glasses.

After he backed away, Kitty lifted her glass to John. “A toast,” she said.

“Absolutely. A toast.”

And then she hesitated, for a moment at a loss for the perfect words. Finally, with her eyes locked on his, she spoke, softly,
firmly, “This glass I offer… to your children … and to ours.”

“To … all of them,” John responded in a voice scarcely louder than a whisper, and then he touched her glass with his.

Fifteen minutes later, Mr. Leiber struck a grand, introductory chord. And John and Kitty rose to dance again.

Later still—it was now well past midnight, but neither of them was ready to slow down—she spoke to him as they swung around
the floor. “It’s Monday now, isn’t it?” she said.

“I imagine so,” he said. “But I haven’t checked. Shall I?” He made a move to pull out his watch.

“Don’t bother,” she said. “It will come soon enough.” She said these words darkly. A shadow had crossed her face.

“You’ve begun to worry,” he said. “Haven’t you?”

“Yes,” she admitted, “a little.” She looked up at him. “Tomorrow … we’ll be… it will start. The labor and the anguish. The
schemes and the money and the manipulation.”

“Don’t let that spoil this moment, Kitty, my darling.”

“That’s easy to say, but not to feel.”

“What you’re saying is all true. But then, on the other hand, look around you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Here.” He stopped dancing so that he could better direct her mind. “Look at the place where we are now.
Look.
”

She turned her eyes here and there. “Yes. All right. I’ve looked. Now what should I see?”

“You don’t
see
it yet?” John asked, then paused and cocked an ear. The music had ceased.

When he saw them stop dancing, Mr. Leiber stopped playing. For he was growing weary, and he hoped they would soon call it
an evening.

“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.

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.