Railroad

by Graham Masterton

  Mrs Pangborn herself was waiting in her back parlour. It was a small, stuffy room, with a heavy sideboard, a bookcase crowded with dog-eared editions of pornographic books, and a tall china Dalmatian with one of its ears chipped off. The leaves of the mahogany table had been extended, and Mrs Pangborn had draped it with a white sheet. On the sideboard, her instruments were laid out, with towels, bandages, and a china basin of water.

  ‘Well, my love,’ said Mrs Pangborn. ‘You’re back again, then.’

  The statement was neither accusing nor surprised. Mrs Pangborn was as forgiving and as tolerant as twenty priests, and apart from that she had seen between more legs than most people could count. She was small, and well rouged, with a face as intense as a beaver’s, and her gingery hair was piled into tight curls, out of which her diamond earrings swung alarmingly. While Hannah stood in the doorway, she tied a floral apron around herself and gave Hannah a reassuring grin.

  ‘All right last time, wasn’t it?’ she said. ‘No problems, no complications? Well, it’s going to be just the same tonight.’

  Hannah felt faint, as if she were dreaming. But she took Mrs Pangborn’s words as the cue to take off her coat and lay it over the arm of the sofa. Then she turned around, so that Mrs Pangborn could unbutton her dress.

  In a few minutes, Hannah was lying awkwardly on the table, her head propped up by a pillow, her underskirts raised up, and her thighs spread so that Mrs Pangborn could get to work. Mrs Pangborn washed her hands, and then brought the oil lamp closer, so that she could see what she was doing.

  ‘Would you care for a drink?’ she asked Hannah. ‘I’ve got a bottle of brandy in the cupboard.’

  Hannah shook her head, ‘No, no. Just – do what you have to do.’

  She lay back on the pillow as Mrs Pangborn reached for her instruments, and closed her eyes. This is the second and last time, dear God. I promise you that. Next time, the Railroad Act will have been passed, and Collis will have his charter, and the child can live. Next time, when I get pregnant, it will be the most important event in Collis’s life.

  She let out an ‘Ah!’ of pain as Mrs Pangborn thrust two fingers deep inside to feel the neck of her womb.

  ‘Well, that looks dandy to me,’ she heard Mrs Pangborn saying. ‘That all looks dandy to me.’

  Then she leaned over Hannah and said loudly, ‘You won’t even know what’s happened.’

  Hannah looked across at a cheap etching on Mrs Pangborn’s parlour wall. It showed a dour Indian overlooking the Mariposa Trail in Yosemite. She thought that she had never seen an Indian. How curious, to come to the West, and never to see an Indian.

  She thought of Collis, too, and tried to imagine his face in her mind. My dear Collis, she thought, and for some reason her eyes filled with tears.

  Mrs Pangborn said, ‘Am I hurting you, my love?’

  But Hannah whispered, ‘No. You’re not hurting me at all.’

  The letters crossed at Panama City. Collis’s letter had just reached the Pacific after being carried across the isthmus by train; and Jane McCormick’s letter had just reached Panama on the Pacific Mail steamer Icarus.

  Collis’s letter read:

  Great and wonderful news! Today, President Lincoln at last signed the Railroad Act, and we have been granted nearly all the money I wanted. I am so pleased that I cannot describe my feelings, although somehow after all these years of trial and struggle the final Presidential signature has come as something of an anti-climax. Theodore and I are proceeding instanter to New York, where we are going to order up all the rails we will need, and all the railroad equipment. We will also establish the Sierra Pacific Railroad as a New York company and try to raise extra money. I expect to be back in Sacramento by September at the latest, so do take heart.

  Jane McCormick’s letter read:

  I write with tragic intelligence. Late today, Mrs Edmonds was found expired in her carriage on the outskirts of the city, after a search by deputies and by friends for the greater part of the morning and afternoon. She had not returned home last night after taking the carriage and telling Juno that she would be spending the evening with Mrs Weiss. At midnight, Juno alerted the neighbours, who immediately initiated a search. Mrs Weiss had not seen Mrs Edmonds, nor did she have any arrangement to meet her. Dr Gizzard has already inspected Mrs Edmonds’s remains, and is of the opinion that she passed away as a result of blood loss following the miscarriage of a child.

  To return to New York after all the years he had spent in California was, for Collis, a moving but also an unexpectedly depressing experience. As the steamer Ariadne paddled her way slowly in through the misty reaches of New York harbour, and he saw once more the rooftops and spires around Battery Park, he had to turn away, and walk the length of the deck, with Kwang Lee following a little distance behind him.

  He came across Theodore leaning on the railings and staring out towards Governors Island.

  ‘Are you pleased to be back?’ he asked Theodore.

  Theodore shrugged. ‘You don’t look as if you are.’

  ‘It was about here, about this far out of the harbour, that I first saw Hannah,’ Collis said. ‘Before that moment, there was nothing worth having in my life at all. No purpose, no merit, nothing.’

  ‘Is there now?’ asked Theodore sharply.

  Collis stood beside him, looking at him with an expression of regret. ‘Do you really have to hate me?’ he asked. ‘After all, we’ve got everything we wanted. You’ve certainly got everything you wanted. As soon as we’ve collected enough iron and steel together, we can start to build a railroad.’

  ‘It wasn’t worth the price.’

  After they had docked, and collected their baggage, they took a cab to the St Nicholas Hotel. Collis said nothing as they were driven to the corner of Spring Street and Broadway, but simply stared out of the window at passing streets.

  Time, and the war, had changed New York more than he could have imagined. Maybe his memory was playing him tricks, but the streets seemed to be far more crowded than they had ever been before, and the gutters were piled even higher with rotting garbage. The buildings seemed meaner, and closer, and in worse repair than before; although several new hotels and bars had materialised from nowhere, and there was a magnificent new store not far from the St Nicholas Hotel.

  If Collis had driven uptown he would have seen more change. House-building on the East Side had reached as far as Fifty-ninth street, where he had ridden his horses with Delphine and Alice Stride; and the potter’s field on Park Avenue between Forty-ninth and Fiftieth streets had been broken up for the building of the Women’s Hospital. It would later become the site for the Waldorf-Astoria.

  The only suite of rooms free at the St Nicholas was the bridal suite, on the second floor. Collis liked the irony of that, and he took it, although it cost more than they could really afford. ‘Isn’t that fitting, Theo?’ he asked as they were shown upstairs. ‘Here we are, on the brink of a divorce, and we’re sharing the bridal apartment!’

  Theo gave him a quick grimace and said nothing.

  The bellman opened the doors of the suite for them and let them in. The suite was justly famous. Putnam’s Monthly had called it ‘scandalously splendid’ and reported that ‘timid brides are said to shrink aghast at its marvels.’

  There was a massive rosewood bed, covered with white lace and satin, heaped with white satin cushions, and topped by a white satin canopy. Even the walls of the suite were covered in white satin and the furniture was carved and gilded in the most extravagant French style. Four crystal chandeliers were suspended from the ceiling, and their light gleamed on the white satin drapes.

  The bellman said expressionlessly, ‘I hope you’ll be very happy together.’ Collis tipped him generously and grinned.

  ‘I suppose we’ll have to sleep in the same bed,’ grumbled Theodore.

  Collis sat on the end of the white satin coverlet and unlaced his boots. ‘Well, you know what they say.’ He smiled. ‘Necessity makes stran
ge bedfellows.’

  ‘Are you going to ring for some drinks, or shall I?’ Theodore asked. ‘I’m thirsty enough to drink the East River.’

  ‘Champagne?’

  ‘Why not? If we’re going to be divorced, we might as well celebrate.’

  Collis went over to the cinnunciator, and pressed the button that would send a metal disc marked ‘Room Service – Bridal Suite’ down to the first-floor office. ‘I’m surprised they didn’t put any flowers in our room,’ he remarked. ‘A blissful couple like us.’

  There was a knock at the door. ‘That was quick,’ Collis said to Theo. ‘I must have gotten used to the slow pace of life in Sacramento.’ He walked across the silvery-grey carpet to answer it.

  It wasn’t room service, though. It was a messenger boy from the hotel’s telegraph service. He saluted, and said he was sorry the message hadn’t been waiting for Mr Edmonds when he arrived, but the Rebels had temporarily interfered with the telegraph lines from Washington, and they had only now been repaired.

  Collis took the telegraph, saluted the boy in return, and tipped him two bits. Then he walked slowly back across the room, tearing open the envelope with his thumb.

  The message was from Colonel Merritt ‘Bones’ Bonham, who had opened a letter addressed to Collis by mistake, and was sending it on; but who thought that the wartime postal system was erratic enough to warrant a telegram of confirmation, too. After all this wordy preamble, the telegram simply read: ‘Your wife is dead.’

  Theodore frowned. ‘Collis?’ he asked. ‘Collis – what is it?’

  Collis found a chair somehow and sat down. He felt as if he had been hit very hard with a spade handle. He put his hand up to his face and then back to his lap again. There were tears running down his face, and he didn’t even know it.

  Hannah, dead: Hannah? He couldn’t believe it. And yet here it was, in a telegraph, and a letter would follow later. He turned his head towards Theodore, and he felt as if the whole bridal suite had become a blur of white satin, and pale sunlight, and pain.

  ‘Hannah’s dead,’ he said, not for Theodore’s benefit, but for his own.

  Theodore came over and took the telegram out of his hand. He read it, and then said, ‘My God. Collis, I’m sorry.’

  Collis shook his head. ‘I can’t believe it. It doesn’t even say why.’

  Theodore laid his arm around Collis’s shoulders. ‘Do you want to go back to Sacramento? I can book you a steamer.’

  ‘There’s no point,’ said Collis. ‘It must have taken that letter a month to arrive in Washington, and it’s going to take me at least six weeks to get back to Sacramento. She’s been buried now, Theo, and a grave can wait.’

  ‘I see,’ said Theodore. ‘Well, I suppose that’s practical.’

  ‘Practical!’ shouted Collis hoarsely. ‘The only reason I don’t want to go back is that a grave is all there is. No Hannah. No wife. Just a mound in the local graveyard with a marker sticking out of it. Would you want to go back, if that was all that was left of Annie?’

  ‘Collis, I didn’t mean –’

  ‘I don’t know what the hell you meant!’ yelled Collis. ‘I don’t know and I don’t care! But it’s about time that someone told you that you don’t have exclusive rights on morality, or propriety, or human righteousness! It’s about time that someone told you that a dream like yours isn’t sacred! It’s more than sacred! It’s the actual stuff that this country is made of! Raw! and vital! And when you try to sanctify it, you take all of the guts out of it! The morality isn’t in the dream, Theo! The morality is in getting it done! This country needs a railroad to grow, and to keep its people alive, not to satisfy some snow-white vision that some clever engineer has been keeping inside of his head!’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Theodore said, tight-lipped.

  Collis, still full of steam, still full of annoyance and grief, said, ‘For Christ’s sake,’ and then found that he couldn’t say any more. He covered his face with his hands and sobbed – huge, agonising sobs that compressed his chest and hurt his throat. Theodore didn’t know what to do except stand beside him in silence.

  A little while later, when his weeping had subsided, Collis took out his handkerchief and blew his nose. There was another knock at the door, and Theodore went to answer it.

  ‘It’s room service,’ he said. ‘You still want that champagne?’

  ‘Why not?’ asked Collis, the words sticking in his throat.

  Theodore said to the boy, ‘Two bottles of champagne, will you? And as quick as you like.’

  Then he quietly closed the door, and stood there in the absurd celestial whiteness of the St Nicholas bridal suite, too fat, too untidy, too tired, and too regretful; unable to speak even one word that would give Collis comfort.

  After a while, he sat down, his head lowered and his hands clasped together, and wished to God that he was back in Sacramento.

  At first, Collis felt a sense of loss that was smashed and fragmentary; as if a framed daguerreotype of Hannah had been accidentally trodden on and broken. Because he hadn’t seen her dead with his own eyes, he couldn’t imagine that she was really gone. All he could picture in his mind was the way she had sat in the carriage at the Front Street levee, under her lemon-yellow parasol, one hand raised in a sad goodbye.

  Only when the effects of four bottles of champagne began to wear off did he begin to understand that the broken frame was empty now, and that the daguerreotype had been taken away from him. He could search the world for the rest of his life, and he would never find Hannah again.

  He went through a day of total grief and misery, during which Theodore stayed well away from him. He walked across town to the shore of the East River, and sat for an hour on the grassy knoll at the foot of Fifty-third Street, smoking and looking out at the Whitehall boats and the sailing smacks.

  A little after four o’clock in the afternoon, he took a cab to Washington Square, to Henry Browne’s house. He felt like talking to somebody friendly, somebody who would be prepared to sit back and let him talk his grief for Hannah out of his head and out of his heart. He asked the cab to wait while he climbed the steps of Henry’s Greek Revival house and knocked at the door.

  It was almost a minute before anyone came to answer, and then the door was opened just four inches to reveal a thin, sallow, suspicious face.

  ‘Yes?’ asked a vinegary voice.

  Collis raised his hat. ‘I’m looking for Mr Henry Browne. Does he still live here?’

  ‘Yes. Who are you?’

  ‘I’m an old friend of his. My name’s Collis Edmonds. Is Mr Browne at home?’

  ‘Yes. Mr Browne is always at home.’

  There was an awkward pause. ‘Well, that’s fine,’ Collis said. ‘Do you think you might be good enough to tell him I’m here?’

  ‘I might be. But it won’t be of any use.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  The doorkeeper looked him up and down. ‘You’re a friend, you say?’

  ‘That’s right. I used to drink with Mr Browne at the Gem Saloon.’

  ‘Ah. Well, I suppose so.’

  ‘What do you suppose so?’ asked Collis, confused.

  ‘I suppose that I might tell you what has befallen Mr Browne. Why don’t you come inside for the moment?’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Collis.

  The door was opened, and Collis was conducted into the hallway by a very tall, spidery man in a dusty black frock coat and a green satin vest that looked as if it had been used for polishing silver. The house smelled unusually musty, and there was another smell in the air, too, like carbolic arnica salve. A medical smell. A smell of sickrooms and fever.

  ‘My name is Whitworth,’ said the spidery man, leading Collis through to the living-room. ‘It is my allotted task to take care of Mr Browne.’

  ‘Is he unwell?’ asked Collis.

  Mr Whitworth hesitated and stared at Collis with moist blue eyes.

  ‘You could say that,’ he remarked, after considerable
thought. ‘You could certainly say that.’

  The sight of Henry Browne caught Collis completely by surprise. Henry was sitting in the middle of his living-room in a wheelchair, draped in a grey blanket. His head was on one side, and he appeared to be asleep. The room was still the same as Collis remembered it – with the cut-glass decanters and the pipe rack and the oil paintings of gun dogs flushing out wild turkey – yet none of the decanters or the tobacco jars appeared to have been used for a very long time. There was a thin film of dust on everything except for the small table that stood beside Henry Browne’s chair, a table that was crowded with medicine bottles, syringes, pill packets, eyedroppers, and jars of ointment.

  ‘Henry?’ said Collis softly. The name fell unnoticed in the twilit room, like a bird settling on a telegraph wire.

  ‘He can probably hear you, but I’m afraid his ability to answer is – well, limited,’ said Mr Whitworth.

  Collis circled slowly around his friend’s chair, and gradually realised the horror of what had happened to him. The side of his face which he kept turned away from the door was almost completely missing. There was no cheek; only bare teeth protruding form a gnarled red confusion of flesh. The right eye was milky and sightless, and bulged from its socket. There was no hair on that side of his head, and his ear was nothing but a scrap of gristle.

  Mr Whitworth watched Collis carefully. Then he opened a small oval box, took out a pinch of snuff, and thrust it deep into his left nostril.

  ‘The tragedies of war,’ he said, in his sharp, off-key voice.

  Collis said nothing. All he could do was stand staring at the grotesque ruin that had once been his drinking partner and friend. He remembered running with him that night through the Bowery. He remembered moments of hilarity and fun and mischief. He remembered Henry Browne.

  Mr Whitworth blew his nose and inspected his handkerchief closely. ‘Mr Browne answered the President’s call to arms at once,’ he said. ‘He went straight to Washington to join the Army of the Potomac, and they made him a lieutenant. So they tell me, anyway. I was only employed to take care of him, out of the proceeds of his private income, and his estates.’