Part 23 (1/2)

They were, of course, all trying not to think of Carolina's absence, nor the fact that Nick looked twenty years older now he had buried his wife.

For her part Mollie sat at the foot of the table and did everything expected of her. But she did not once meet Josh's glance, and she disappeared upstairs the moment the guests left.

On Friday she did not join him for breakfast and he saw her outside, bundled up against the raw November wind, wearing a broad-brimmed hat and a long coat and a scarf that was whipped about by the wind. She was using a sharp stick to mark places in the soil, while the stable boy came behind her with a narrow spade, digging a hole in the places she indicated. She seemed to be issuing a string of instructions and she spoke to Ollie Crump, Josh noted, with more animation than she'd mustered for her husband in six months. Certainly more than she'd exhibited the other night when he shared her bed.

He went outside through the pair of gla.s.s doors McKim had added to the breakfast room as an afterthought. Given that your wife is making such a feature of the plantings, French doors might be pleasant, don't you think?

Neither the boy nor Mollie acknowledged his arrival. ”I thought gardening was a warm-weather activity,” Josh said. ”What are you doing?”

”Planting tulip bulbs,” Mollie said. ”They arrived from Holland only a few days ago. They must be planted now if they're to flower in the spring.”

”I see. And what's that?” He pointed to a small tree, its leafless branches showing above the burlap wrapping tied over its roots.

”A young Roxbury Russet apple from Suns.h.i.+ne Hill. Your father sent it over. We shall plant it later today. Over there.”

She used her pointed stick to indicate a spot some ten feet from where they stood. It looked to Josh not unlike any other place on the lot and he started to ask her why that was the favored position, but she had turned back to Ollie and was saying something about the depth of one of the holes. Joshua had come out without a coat and the wind was freezing. He turned and went back into the house.

That evening he called on Francie Wildwood.

Francie was exultant. She'd bided her time and kept her mouth shut, knowing that to be a wiser course of action than simply telling of Mollie's arrival at the house on Bowling Green. (She'd suspected from the first the visit was made without his permission. Joshua Turner was far too proud to send his wife to drum up custom for his business.) At the time she had weighed her options carefully. If she told she would have the momentary satisfaction of seeing his face darken with anger and disapproval. But though the chief cause would be the almost-spinster who'd got him to propose marriage, the anger would quickly be directed at her as well. Francie, after all, was in charge of the rooming house, and she had allowed the meeting to take place. So she'd stayed silent. And here he was back in her bed not fifteen months after he married that skinny, drawn-out creature who, as it turned out, hadn't managed to give him a child in all that time, and according to what she heard never would. And thanks in part to Francie helping to rent those first flats and saying nothing of it to him or anyone else, the Joshua Turner who'd returned to her was a lot richer than the one who'd smacked her bottom and given her pearl earrings to mark the last time he took advantage of her charms. ”I mean to keep my vows, Francie. But I'd be happy to have you stay on running this house.”

”Course I will,” she'd said. ”And if you change your mind or just get lonely, I'll be here on Bowling Green like always.”

And so she was.

16.

INSUFFERABLE HEAT ON the August day of 1873 when Eileen Brannigan summoned Joshua to tea at University Place. She let him in herself and ushered him upstairs to her sitting room, and sat him down to one of Hatty Ellis's sumptuous midafternoon repasts. Beaten biscuits on this occasion, and peach preserves with candied ginger. ”Please have another, Joshua. You're looking quite peaky. I think you are working too hard.” According to Mollie, the pattern of the nine months since they had moved into their new home did not include many meals taken in the opulent dining room Eileen had furnished with such care. Business, her niece said. Restaurants for both lunch and dinner most days. Joshua prefers it so, Auntie Eileen.

He nonetheless was falling with abandon on Hatty's home-cooked delights. So as not to draw attention to the fact, Eileen made constant small talk while he ate. ”Do you think, Joshua, Mr. Darwin's latest theory is correct? He says human beings have also evolved, not just turtles and lizards and whatever else he reported on a while back.”

”Evolved from animals, not simply like them,” Josh said, heaping preserves on his fourth biscuit. ”We, apparently, were once apes. Darwin is very convincing. Why does that make you smile?”

”I'm thinking that some men have not evolved all that far. Ah, I'm embarra.s.sing you. Never mind, I see you've finished your tea so I must get to the point before you go rus.h.i.+ng off.”

Josh sat back, content to wait until she spoke her piece. Eileen Brannigan never wasted his time.

”I have a . . .” Eileen hesitated, as if seeking for a word, ”a colleague,” she said. ”He is very clever and has certain connections.”

”As have you, yourself,” Josh said.

”Indeed. But these days I don't see as much of the important gentlemen who once visited regularly. I have come to rely on this particular colleague for business advice.” She had dinner with Sol Ganz once a month. Always at Delmonico's on Chambers Street where he arranged a private room. The food was unfailingly superb, but the talk still more interesting. Mr. Ganz, she had discovered, for all his folksy manner, was a man who knew just about everything about just about everyone. Their discussions always finished with him inquiring after her niece and nephew-in-law. Mr. Turner's business is still doing well? Very well, Mr. Ganz. Good, good. I am delighted to hear it.

Eileen was convinced Mr. Ganz already knew everything there was to know about Mollie and Josh, but since his fortunes were now in some measure tied to theirs, she no longer found his interest alarming. She believed instead that he was looking out for them. An opinion confirmed the night before when Mr. Ganz did more than simply ask after their well-being. ”I have things to tell you. I can explain only a limited amount, but you must pay close heed to what I say and act on it swiftly.” Following that announcement he spoke earnestly for a number of minutes.

As soon as she got home Eileen wrote to ask Joshua to come to tea at his earliest convenience.

So here he was, awash in excellent tea and stuffed full of delicious biscuits and jam. And though there was no one in the house other than the two of them and Hatty Ellis, Eileen got up and closed the door, then returned to sit across from him. ”I have something of great urgency to tell you.”

”I'm listening, Aunt Eileen.”

She nodded, but she did not speak. In another example of that caution Josh found remarkable, Eileen reached for a piece of paper and a pencil, wrote something, and pa.s.sed it to him.

Josh was looking at two letters. A J and a G. Both capitalized. ”Initials?” Josh asked.

”Precisely.”

He thought for a moment. ”I'm sorry. I can't think of anyone I know who-”

”Someone you know of,” Eileen interrupted. ”In the world of business and finance. Very high finance.”

”Jay Gould.”

She s.n.a.t.c.hed the paper back and began tearing it into tiny pieces. ”Yes.” Spoken quickly, as if it might be a curse and she didn't want the G.o.ds to overhear. ”Him.”

”Aunt Eileen, Mr. Gou-That particular gentleman operates in circles far above mine. I have no connection whatever to-”

”Please, just listen to me. I believe it is the intention of Mr. J. G. to arrange things so that he can acquire whatever he wants anywhere in the country at the lowest possible price.”

”Nothing new in that,” Josh said. ”He's been doing it for years.”

”This is different. More . . . extreme. The market, Josh . . .”

”Yes.”

”At the moment it is not reliable.”

He thought for a few seconds. ”You're talking about a run, aren't you? A panic. Like '57, or even '37.” Her silence was confirmation. ”Aunt Eileen, I a.s.sure you, rest easy. There are new laws in place. The Treasury Department promises such an event can't occur again.”

”My friend,” she said quietly, ”is extremely reliable. I am myself sometimes astonished at the extent of his knowledge. And his . . . influence.” Mr. Theodore Paisley . . . found dead in his home . . . ”Please take this information very seriously, Joshua.”

So, his choices were Eileen Brannigan and the high-level friends she had cultivated over better than three decades, or a Was.h.i.+ngton politician who might well be gone in the next election. ”I shall take it very seriously indeed, Aunt Eileen. I promise.”

September 18th was a Thursday. Still warm for so late in the season. Sticky as well. It seemed the men on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on Wall Street were doing business with something less than their usual exuberance. The weather, someone said. Another pointed to a character called Two-finger Tommy-the other eight digits had been lost at Second Bull Run-a trader known to act for a number of different princ.i.p.als. When the market was about to leap in one or the other direction Tommy inevitably got itchy. No explaining it, he insisted, but it was as if biting insects were crawling up and down his body. At just after ten that morning Tommy was scratching like mad and jerking up and down as if possessed by a devil.

There was never any evidence that Two-finger Tommy had advance knowledge of the meeting a short distance away at the New York office of Jay Cooke and Company, a Philadelphia investment bank believed to be among the strongest in the country. It was held in strict secrecy and only a handful of the most important bankers and brokers in the city, men who made the market, had been invited. Once a.s.sembled they listened to Cooke's senior people plead for an investment of capital to keep their bank from going under. It did not take long for the leading lights of finance to make clear their refusal to bail out a firm that was the victim of its own bad judgment.

Vanderbilt voiced the explanation most everyone believed. Jay Cooke had overreached. He'd hired fellows-advertisers they called them these days-to convince people that the stark badlands of the Dakota and Minnesota territories through which his Northern Pacific Railroad ran were ripe and luscious and accessible, a courtesan waiting to be enjoyed. The extravagant tale sold some stock in the short run, but the price collapsed once people saw the actuality. ”If people will carry on business in this madcap manner,” Vanderbilt insisted, ”they must run amuck.”

The moneymen left Cooke's office at eleven, convinced they had done the right thing. The bad tidings were telegraphed to Jay Cooke in Philadelphia. He immediately closed his doors and suspended all business at every branch of his bank.

The news was announced on the floor of the Exchange at 11:22, and like a wounded beast the market roared in pain and plunged into frenzy. The vast majority of traders couldn't sell fast enough. Jay Gould made an instant fortune on the decline. Vanderbilt opposed him and bought with abandon, desperate to start the bulls running. He succeeded in hanging on to the New York Central line, but Gould grabbed much of the rest of his rival's holdings. Brokers large and small failed in a matter of hours and a dozen banks collapsed.

Friday, despite a driving rain, seething crowds churned the downtown streets into mud as they dashed from one bank to another trying to withdraw their funds. Lines formed around entire blocks and the police had all they could do to maintain order. The banks, meanwhile, had pretty much run out of cash. Their vaults were stuffed with railroad bonds, each of which was losing value as the seconds ticked by.

On Sat.u.r.day at eleven a.m., forty-eight hours after the panic began, the governors of the Exchange shut down trading. Someone asked for how long. The answer was a shrug.