City of Promise (18 page)

“All the same,” his father said, “a railroad that runs over our heads, spilling smoke and cinders while we walk below . . . It seems a rather unsightly choice.”

“It’s that or we must travel under the ground like moles,” Simon said. “There are folks suggesting that, you know. Though I would imagine the upheaval caused by all those tunnels would be as unsightly as Boss Tweed’s elevated railway.”

“When,” Carolina said, “has New York City considered the sightliness of anything? At least when weighed against the possibility of profit. However, given that I’ve nothing to do but lie abed and read the papers, I can tell you I sense trouble brewing for Mr. Tweed. His enemies are gathering and I think they smell blood.”

“May I ask a question?” The others turned to Mollie. All at the same time, rather like a music hall performance. She was still an exotic, a rare bird that had flown into their contented nest up here on distant Seventy-First Street. “When you moved your family to Sunshine Hill, Dr. Turner, did you not require to travel to the city?”

“At least three or four days a week,” he agreed. “And my wife as well. She was responsible for all of Devrey Shipping in those days.” Patting Carolina’s hand in a way that made it obvious he wasn’t shamed by her legendary activities in the world of men.

“Then how,” Mollie asked, “did you and Mrs. Turner manage to get back and forth?”

“By carriage,” Nick said, looking as if he thought the question a bit odd. “There wasn’t any other possibility. There still isn’t really. Carriage or horseback. Simon rides every day as far as Forty-Fifth Street. Then leaves his mount at a livery stable and takes the horsecar.”

“Exactly,” Mollie said. “That’s what I’ve been thinking. At least since you raised the point, Mrs. Turner. Josh”—he’d returned to sit next to her—“what about stables? The flats are to occupy three adjacent lots. Dr. Turner owns six. Could you not build a stable beside them?”

He shook his head. “No good would come of it. The sort of people we’re hoping will rent our flats are unlikely to afford private carriages or even a horse. The units won’t be grand enough to attract those who—”

“You’re missing Mollie’s point, Josh,” his mother interrupted. “At least if I understand her. You mean a commercial stable, do you not, my dear?”

“Exactly, Mrs. Turner. I’m sure Joshua can prevail on one of the omnibus companies to do two or three runs a day from Sixty-Third Street, if they can stable their horses and lodge their cars at a favorable rate.”

Josh smelled the smoke of Trenton Clifford’s cigar before he heard his voice. “What’s this then? Looks like a Yankee barracks. How are you keeping, Joshua?”

“Well enough.” He’d wakened with a fierce ache in his left thigh, and a sharp pain in the right leg he did not have. Not uncommon, his father had assured him years before, to feel pain in the missing limb. Science could not explain it, but the phenomenon had been reported
countless times. And occasional cramp in the leg that bore the brunt of his weight was to be expected. Worse always when the weather turned cold and damp as it had now that it was almost November. “You’re a good way from your usual precincts, are you not, Clifford? What are you doing here?”

“I came to see if the rumors were true.”

“What rumors are those?” Though he already knew the answer.

“That you’re setting about building your human storage units up here on Sixty-Third Street amid the city’s garbage heaps. I declare, son, I’m disappointed in you.”

Joshua had pretty much the same thoughts each time he covered the distance between Grand Street and his construction site. Usually he did it on horseback, straight up the Bowery, which became Fourth Avenue, except for the stretch from Seventeenth Street to Grand Central which was called Park Avenue. The name change occurred because for those few blocks grass and shrubbery had been planted to conceal the grates above the tunnel that carried the trains beneath fashionable Murray Hill. Whatever he told Clifford and everyone else, after dark he’d not do the run without a rifle. “The city is moving north at a tremendous clip,” he said. “It’ll catch up.”

“Possibly,” Clifford allowed. He was craning his neck to examine the yet unfinished roof above their heads. “So this is what you and Ebenezer Tickle devised between you.” Two steel girders stretched the thirty-foot back-to-front length of the brick-framed structure. “Seems a bit of a waste.”

“This isn’t the flats.” He’d had the stable built first because it was much the easier project, and used the steel girders because, given that he was already producing them, there was little expense in doing so.

“I realize that. A livery stable. You’ve done a deal with old man Hopkins. I heard that as well.”

“I expect that’s common knowledge by now.” The sign was to be delivered and hung outside this week, even though the interior of the stable remained to be finished.
HOPKINS AND SONS OMNIBUS COMPANY—DAILY JOURNEYS TO NEW YORK
.
You want that in place as
soon as ever it can be, Josh. So people will have confidence in the promise.
It’s what Mollie had said and he agreed with her.

“Also,” Clifford flicked a thick nubbin of ash from the end of his cigar, “that you’re counting on Tweed’s scheme for an elevated railroad along Third Avenue.”

“Eventually there’s to be one along Second as well.”

“So they say. But there’s others as say different, son. You might consider throwing your lot in with theirs.”

Josh felt himself beginning to totter; the good left leg had taken as much punishment as it could tolerate. His stick, meanwhile, lay atop a half-built stable wall some fifteen feet away. “I’m not, thank God, your son. Is that all our business, Captain Clifford? If so, perhaps you’ll excuse me.” Josh turned and started for the wall and knew when he took the first step he was more unsteady than he’d realized and might stumble and go down. He did sometimes. Not so bad if he was alone. He could always crawl to something sturdy enough to allow him to haul himself up. But now . . . Dear God, don’t let him fall with that bastard looking on.

Clifford guessed what he was after and easily outstrode him and claimed the prize. “Nice walking stick,” he said, holding it by the business end and offering it with the ornate horse’s head first. “Looks like an antique.”

“Stick’s new, but the head’s been in my family a time. Thank you.” Josh took the stick and planted it firmly on the dirt floor and leaned on it. Most of his weight shifted to his arm. A fair amount of relief, and thank God he was still upright. Though he knew he’d been grimacing, and that his face was damp with sweat despite the autumn chill.

“My carriage is outside,” Clifford said. “Why don’t we go sit down and talk more comfortably?”

“I thought we were done talking.”

“As stubborn as ever. No, Joshua, we are not done. I’ve come to make a proposition.”

“There are no shares of the project for sale. So I’m not interested in any backing you—”

“Not why I’m here.” Another glance at the steel girders. “I didn’t steer you wrong the last time, did I? About the dwarf, I mean.”

“You did not.” There was little point in denying it with the evidence stretched above their heads.

“Then at least hear me out this time.”

“I’m listening.”

“The overhead railway’s going to fail. The noise and the stink of it will prove little better than what we’ve got now with that god-awful clatter running past our front doors.” A nod toward Fourth Avenue and Vanderbilt’s infernal trains smoking and steaming their way north and south.

“You seem to forget,” Josh said, “the Greenwich Street el’s been extended up Ninth Avenue as far as Thirtieth Street.”

“I’m not forgetting anything, son. But we are standing a considerable distance north of Thirtieth Street. And I declare to you, Joshua Turner, that the way men and indeed women and children are destined to get up and down this thirteen-mile island is in tunnels laid underground. My solemn word on it.”

He could be right, Josh knew that. In which case his arrangement with Hopkins—he’d granted the man a twenty-year lease on very favorable terms—would prove to be folly. But Josh didn’t think so. There was something a bit too far-fetched about the notion of underground tunnels, too exotic for gritty, workaday New York City. “Blown back and forth by pneumatic tubes,” he said, not trying to keep the scorn from his voice. There was a thing of the sort opened the year before in a three-hundred-foot tunnel dug surreptitiously under Broadway. It was a demonstration effort consisting of a single car fitted with velvet cushions and candles, and a grand piano in the station under a building on Murray Street. So decent folk would feel comfortable descending below the earth.

Clifford shook his head. “Nothing like that. No pneumatic tubes, they’re a diversion, a novelty show. I’m speaking of proper trains driven by steam and running underground where we neither smell nor see nor hear them. They’re already doing exactly that in London.
Here, on Manhattan, it will be a revelation, Joshua. A wonderment for the ages. Something that properly compliments your revolutionary ideas for housing the middling classes.”

“And who is to build these tunnels, Captain? They require, I warrant, an amount of capital well in excess of that needed to erect an apartment building.” Even with the stick, he really could not go on standing much longer. Josh felt the blood draining from his face.

“Indeed. A considerable amount of capital. Here, you’re looking a bit pale. Let me help you. We can—”

Clifford reached out to take his arm. Josh shook his hand away.

Clifford sighed. “Very well, Joshua. We shall do things in the direct and somewhat uncivilized way you Yankees prefer. I’m here to tell you to get a message to your brother. He’s in England. He can have a look at what they’re doing in London. Once he’s convinced himself the enterprise is viable, as indeed it is, I want his backing. The Devrey name attached to it would make an enormous difference.”

“I doubt Zac will be interested. He’s a much more conventional business sort than I. Underground tunnels will seem entirely too futuristic.”

Clifford shrugged. “All I want you to do is convey a proposal. You owe me that much,” with another glance up to the steel girder. “Besides, if you’ve your brother’s welfare at heart, you won’t refuse.”

“How so?”

“Use the brains God gave you, Turner. Devrey’s is failing. The entire American merchant marine, if it comes to it. That’s what their war of aggression cost the North, the destruction of their commercial shipping. The very lifeblood of their economic power. The English pretty much have the market cornered now. But there’s still considerable worth in the Devrey fleet. I’m suggesting the ships be sold, and your brother’s company become a major part of a consortium to build underground transportation for New York.”

“Wipe out Devrey’s and invest the return in some wild scheme of yours? Zac will tell you to go to hell.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. He’s in Liverpool, I’m told. Scurrying about
looking for profitable alliances, and as I hear it, having little good fortune. I’d suggest you write him and convey my offer.”

“Boss Tweed’s behind the elevated. You won’t get his backing for your tunnels.”

“We shan’t need it,” Clifford promised. “Everything’s different now, I promise you.” He started for the door, then paused and turned around. “One last thing. Please extend my compliments to Mr. Tickle. Tell him I was asking for him.”

All during the Macy’s years Mollie had gone to her aunt’s every Tuesday evening to do the books. After her marriage the visit had been transferred to Tuesday afternoons. She had not, however, visited Eileen for the past three weeks, not since early October. She could not bear the question her aunt never asked—was she with child?—but which was telegraphed by her quick glance at Mollie’s slim-as-ever waist. She’d no intention of going on this particular Tuesday either. There wasn’t much bookkeeping to be done now that her aunt lived privately. And Mollie had started her monthly flow the day before, so she couldn’t even pretend to be hopeful about the immediate future. Then, about three in the afternoon, the doorbell of the Grand Street house rang insistently, as if someone were tugging frantically at the chain. She opened the door herself because neither Jane the maid nor Mrs. Hannity the cook got there fast enough to quiet the summons, and found a small boy repeatedly yanking at the bell.