For the first time John said, "No."
"Why not?"
As the battlefield shifted to John and Elizabeth, Andrew stepped back from the table, amazed that the discussion had pressed this far. Yet for the first time, and with a feeling of amazement, Andrew was forced to admit that it might, with large portions of cunning and daring and luck, work.
As the argument continued behind him, Andrew paced as far as the arch which led into the drawing room, feeling a need for distance, for a clear perspective of the mad scheme.
He ran through in his mind all the pitfalls and hazards, and with complete astonishment found himself thinking again: It might work.
As his thoughts increased, growing more positive in nature, so did his excitement. By God, it might work. Of course, John would need a good solicitor, someone trained in the matter of drawing up agreements, leases, mortgages, bonds and all the other instruments of property which would become necessary throughout such complicated and intricate transactions.
Suddenly he was aware of a cessation of voices behind him. He looked back, amazed to find expressions of victory on both their faces. Collateral was no longer a problem.
"Well?" John said, as though they had wasted enough time on inconsequential matters. "Any more arguments, Andrew?"
Not quite able to believe what had happened, Andrew shook his head. "About a hundred," he said bleakly.
"Any with weight behind them?"
"If posed to a sane man, yes. To you, no."
John laughed, though the expression faded as rapidly as it had appeared. "As I said before, Andrew, I need help, most specifically yours. Do I have it?"
In spite of the urgency on John's face, Andrew withheld his answer. He knew John Murrey Eden too well to commit himself
lightly. He knew further that a firm commitment meant one of two things: they would either rise together to incredible heights, or fall to equally incredible depths. And he knew that he would have to abandon his own fledgling law practice.
"Well?" John prompted, his face reflecting the tension of the moment. Everyone else in the room was looking toward Andrew as well, not a sign of doubt on any of those faces. The man they adored had formed a plan. How could it possibly go wrong?
Stalling for an additional moment, Andrew turned away and tallied up a credit sheet which hopefully would match the debit ledger. There was this to be said. Those early years of apprenticeship under Thomas Brassey would now serve John well. Of all the clerks in the ofEce, John had been the brightest, the quickest to grasp the endless rows of statistics and figures concerning cost overruns, capital investments, stock percentages.
His steps took him as far as the drawing room, and he looked back, amazed that John was being so patient with him. In the continuing silence, Andrew glanced over the spread deeds scattered about the dining-room table. The primary assets for a master builder were land and materials. John possessed the first. In addition he certainly possessed the fool's daring necessary to any speculative venture. Of greatest importance, he possessed, perhaps to a damaging degree, the need to succeed. All he lacked were the sources for the enormous sums of capital needed to keep his enterprise going. But with Elizabeth's help, Andrew could foresee a way around even that.
Then what stood in the way of giving an answer? Nothing. After murmuring a prayer in the direction of the ceiling, he stepped toward John, extended his hand and smiled. "I'm with you."
At first, John seemed too stunned to respond. Slowly he received Andrew's outstretched hand and drew him close into a warm embrace and heard him whisper, "Thank you."
Then the quiet moment was over and he turned energetically to the table, calling, "Come, Andrew, let me tell you my plan."
As Andrew drew near the table, he saw John shuffling through the deeds, searching for one. "There!" he exclaimed finally, flattening one deed atop the others. "We'll start there."
Andrew leaned close. It was the Paddington property, near the new railway station. As John unfurled the map of London, Andrew peered closer, feeling another objection forming. "Not a very good place for houses, John. The traffic and noise—"
"I don't intend to put houses there." He beamed. "Look at the area, Andrew. Can't you see the need?"
Andrew looked again. Opposite him he was aware of Elizabeth drawing close, attracted to the puzzle. She too bent over the flattened map, one hand playing distractedly with the strand of pearls about her neck. All at once she looked up. "A hotel," she exclaimed. "There's not a decent hotel of any size in the area."
"Precisely." John smiled. "A hotel, Andrew. Can't you see?"
He could now, and nodded, though still he warned, "It's an ambitious undertaking for the first—"
"Then all the more reason to do it," John said. "Let's call attention to ourselves right off, shall we? And no simple medium-priced place, this, Andrew," he went on. "You said it yourself. Money follows money. I intend it to be the grandest hotel in all of London, first class, for the bloody aristocrats and landed gentry and anyone else who can afford the tariff."
He grew expansive, encircling the table, stopping once to kiss Dhari's hand, though not missing a beat in what he was saying. "The finest materials, Andrew, the finest artisans, the most modern kitchen, and of course we will hire the chef from Europe."
"You will need an architect," Andrew said.
"I have design ideas of my own," he protested, coming around the table.
"You are not a draftsman," Andrew reminded him.
"Then we'll hire one," John conceded, "but he will take direction from me." He continued filling the air with his glorious description of the new structure, standing beside Elizabeth, one arm about her shoulder, his voice lifting as he announced, "And we shall call it, 'the Elizabeth.'"
"No," she protested.
"Yes," and apparently suffering an irrepressible surge of joy, he lifted her into the air.
Amidst her faint protest, he lowered her to her feet and confronted Andrew with a direct question. "Where shall we work?"
"You'll need an office."
"You'll work here," Elizabeth said, straightening herself. "In the drawing room. It's never used."
"It would save money at first," John agreed.
Andrew nodded. "Then the drawing room it is, though I warn you, it will be quite disruptive."
"Dhari and I will stay out of the way, won't we?" Elizabeth
smiled, retreating to where the young woman sat. "Unless, of course, we're needed."
Dhari looked as though she wanted to speak. Elizabeth hugged her.
If John saw the little drama, he gave no indication of it. Instead he continued to hover over the scattered deeds and map of London, his mind clearly moving ahead to other projects. Without looking up, he said, "Why are you standing about, Andrew? There's work to be done. How long will it take you to draw up instruments of corporation?"
Andrew faltered. "About a week," he murmured. "And the deeds must be brought up-to-date as well, the taxes paid." He smiled. "I wonder how many times in the last few years other builders have searched for the owner of those lost deeds?"
John seemed to relax. "Well, we're found now, aren't we?"
"We are indeed," Andrew agreed, then added, "I have a few cases I must finish first, before I can—"
"Finish them quickly," John urged.
"I will. In the meantime, I'll compile dossiers on all the practicing architects for you."
"And bring me everything you can find on the financial structure of Cubitt, and who was the other?"
"Burton." Andrew smiled, seeing the intention behind John's request. He would be an apt student, but he needed a body of knowledge, and how better to learn than from the mistakes and accomplishments of those two great master builders?
Then Andrew saw a look of fatigue on John's face, as though the expenditure of energy during the last hour had drained him. He leaned against the table and cast a final glance over the scattered deeds. "It will work," he murmured. "We'll make it work."
<
br /> As the echo of the whispered vow hung heavy over the quiet room, Andrew realized that he had no further objection. There wasn't a force in the world equal to that avowal.
He saw John glance toward Aslam, as though reminded of his presence, though in truth the little boy had never left his place at the end of the table, had listened to every word that had been said.
Gently John reached out and ruffled his hair. "You'll help me, won't you, Aslam?" he asked, and in characteristic fashion answered his own question. "Of course you will. I'll make you a partner one day, so that fifty years from now, the richest man in all of London will have dark skin."
Suddenly he threw back his head, laughing. "Oh, God, how marvelous that would be."
Aslam watched intently, his patrician features breaking into a smile, as though he was well aware of the joke he shared with John.
John reached for the little boy and invited, "Come, one quick game of chess before bed."
Andrew watched along with Dhari and Elizabeth as the two headed into the drawing room. But a few steps this side of the door, John stopped, as though a pressing thought had just entered his head. He did not look back, his voice low, as though on this point, he wanted no rebuttal. "The corporation, Andrew," he began. "I want it in my name."
"Of course," Andrew agreed. He'd never entertained any other possibility.
"In my name," John repeated. "But I want the 'Eden* dropped."
Out of the corner of his eye, Andrew saw Elizabeth start forward. As though John had sensed the objection, he repeated himself, in a voice without margin. "I want the 'Eden' dropped."
Andrew saw Elizabeth retreat, no match for the will of the man standing in the doorway. To Andrew it seemed a petty request. After all, it had been Edward Eden's foresight in signing over the Ragged School properties to John that was making this entire venture possible. "Are you certain?" he began.
"I'm certain," came the strong reply. "I want the 'Eden' dropped. My father was well known in the city. I don't want my competitors to get us confused. Edward Eden was the philanthropist. I am not."
He waited to see if there would be objection coming from anyone. Then on a fresh burst of energy he led Aslam into the drawing room, proclaiming, "Be on your guard tonight. I'm feeling victorious."
With that, the two disappeared around the corner, heading for the gaming table.
Andrew looked back toward Elizabeth. The disappointment on her face was astonishing. But at last she was calm, looking back at him with a bewildered expression, as though she were suffering from the sensation of riding on the tail of a comet, wondering whether it would rise to the rarefied air of the heavens, or plunge to earth.
London, Late January 1858
In spite of the mountainous problems pressing upon him, John glanced about the drawing room, which now bore no resemblance to a drawing room, and thought, quite simply, that he'd never felt more alive, thought too how much he missed Jack Willmot. With the hiring of the workmen ahead of him, he needed one good professional foreman. In short, he needed Jack Willmot.
From his cluttered desk near the window, he looked out at the wintry day, amazed at the line of men stretching around the corner. The firm had run four simple adverts for men from separate trades who wanted employment on a continuous-wage basis. He'd expected perhaps fifty to appear for the interviews. He glanced again out of the window, seeing at least double that number, a continuous line of burly unemployed men, slapping their arms and stamping their feet against the cold.
Although he hated to do so, he called to the young clerk at the desk near the end of the room. "Hold them a moment longer. I expect Mr. Rhoades at any moment. I want him to be here."
The young man nodded, a bright eager fellow named Archie whom Andrew had recruited from somewhere.
John cupped his hands about his forehead and stole a look upward at what once had been Elizabeth's drawing room. Early on, that first week, all the furniture had been moved out. Now a solid row of filing cabinets lined the far wall, the room stripped of all furniture save for his desk, and over there, Andrew's, and the clerk's desk at the end of the room.
The same day that the carpet had gone into storage, John had had several large display boards delivered, which now stood about the room bearing large maps of central London, and pinned to the largest, the magnificent drawings done by the architect Mr. Lewis Chis-well of "The New Elizabeth" which shortly would rise out of the congestion around Paddington Station.
Lowering his hands and leaning back in his chair, John gazed in admiration at the elegant structure. A "domesticated and practical Blenheim," Chiswell had called it, incorporating all the theatricality of that great estate with the exigencies and needs of a modern hotel. "Think of all the ordinary people who would like to pass a night at Blenheim," he'd joked with John.
Now, for an exorbitant tariff, they could. John gazed upon the drawing, an intricate composition of Baroque movement, arched windows, the segmental colonnade of the main front and the interplay of convex and concave forms. In a way, it was an intensely emotional design, eliciting either instantaneous adoration or revulsion.
Fortunately the board of directors at the Metropolitan Equitable Investment Association had fallen into the former classification, had been so smitten with the idea of royal lodgings for affluent commoners that they had readily lent him fifty thousand pounds of the Association's money plus another twenty-five thousand pounds from private investors.
Thus armed, he had been able to listen to Chiswell's suggestion of Italian marble for the large reception rooms. Although he'd spent hours studying the drawings, he looked at them as though seeing them for the first time. They were impressive. It would be a landmark.
Suddenly he heard the front door burst open, and saw Andrew in the archway, his arms bulging with portfolios, a scowl on his face. "My God, John, we mustn't keep those men standing out there any longer. Why didn't you start?"
"I was waiting for you," John called back, in high spirits, ignoring the scowl. "Did you find him?" he asked urgently. "The man named Hazlitt?"
"I found his boardinghouse," Andrew muttered, moving to the warmth of the fire. "According to his landlady, he is in France. Seems there's a Frenchwoman—"
"Damnl" John exploded, leaving his chair and striding toward the window, where he saw the line of men still growing. He had been
counting on Hazlitt, though he'd never met the man. In his search for a professional foreman, the name Hazlitt had come up again and again. Employed for years by Thomas Cubitt, and largely responsible for the efficiency of his crews, John had heard that the man had taken only occasional jobs since Cubitt's death in 1855. J onn na d hoped to hire him, knowing better than anyone the need for a strong voice of authority to keep the workmen in line and extract their best labors.
"Surely he's' not the only foreman in London," Andrew soothed.
"Then find me another," John muttered.
"I thought that tomorrow I might call on Thomas Brassey. His files are extensive and—"
"No!" Abruptly John turned from the window, amazed that Andrew would make such a suggestion. "I want nothing from Thomas Brassey," he went on. "If it weren't for Thomas Brassey, Jack Will-mot would be here instead of lying at the bottom of the Black Sea."
"I'm sorry," Andrew murmured. "We'll find someone. Perhaps one of the men outside,"
John appreciated his understanding, but doubted seriously if there was a mentality in that frozen hungry line of men capable of performing the duties of a foreman.
"Let's get it over with," he said, dreading it, the inevitable process of selecting some, rejecting others, all in need. To the young clerk at the end of the room he called out, "Let them in, two at a time. Take their names and experience. And don't forget. I want only skilled workmen. If they're just looking for a week's wages, send them packing."
The young man nodded. As he disappeared into the entrance hall, Andrew drew close to the desk. "Chiswell finished the last of the drawings today, including t
he elevational designs." He pointed toward the portfolios on his desk. "They're marvelous. As soon as this is over, I'll show them to you. The detail in the individual chambers is elegant. London will never have seen anything like it."
Sitting behind his desk, John smiled. The praise was good, especially coming from Andrew, who'd seemed hesitant at the beginning. With every passing day, Andrew's enthusiasm had increased, and now it was he who kept John bolstered when the problems mounted. And how they had mounted, and with what skill Andrew had solved most of them, from negotiating to retain the freehold to buying up additional properties, thus giving them the space they needed on which to erect the Elizabeth. He was a skilled solicitor and a good
friend, and the awareness of both softened John's newly awakened loss of Jack Will mot.
As the front door opened again and the cold draft of air raced across the floor, preceding the two disreputable-looking men who appeared, hats in hand, John and Andrew were both seated behind their desks, ready to commence the hiring.
John waited while the clerk took down their names and experience, recalling how often he'd done this for Thomas Brassey. It served one best to put aside all humanitarian tendencies and let only the conservative instincts hold sway. They were a clever lot, the poor and unemployed, capable of spinning heartbreaking fiction. Every one had an ill wife, crippled children and a hungry white-haired old mother. Unfortunately, as John knew all too well, most of the fictions were true.
For over an hour John and Andrew sat at their desks, enduring the stream of unemployed workmen. Their hiring goal for this first job had been three hundred men. By four o'clock in the afternoon they had less than half that number, always holding out for the most skilled, the most experienced, the healthiest. At some point, Archie had taken pity on the shivering men, and had tactfully suggested to John that they let as many into the warmth of the house as the entrance hall would hold, the others outside moving in to take their places as space permitted.
John had agreed, though now he was well aware of the crowded foyer, literally packed with frozen, hungry men.
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