The Lady of Bolton Hill (10 page)

T
he offices of Alfred Forsythe Industries were nothing short of decadent. The walls were adorned with red velvet wallpaper and densely covered with artwork from the Renaissance masters mounted in gold-leaf frames. When Clara’s eyes continued to travel up, she saw gilded crown moldings and a painted ceiling filled with cherubs dropping flower petals from a cerulean blue sky.

The railroad magnate had agreed to meet with her to discuss the simmering tensions within the labor unions. At least, that was what she had told this man of business. What she really needed was to get a sense of who Alfred Forsythe was, and if there was any prayer of brokering a truce between him and Daniel Tremain.

Alfred Forsythe had been a Union general during the Civil War, and he still had the ramrod-straight bearing of a man accustomed to being in command, but his eyes were kind as he welcomed her into his office. His face was creased with the lines of age, and he sported an immaculately trimmed Van Dyke beard.

He offered her tea and a chair at the small table in his stately office. “I appreciate your willingness to speak directly to me about your concerns,” he began as they settled at the table. “I fear that it is easy to believe the worst of us capitalists, because we simply don’t command as much attention as stories of burning barricades and families starving for want of decent wages.”

“Do you believe there is any truth to such stories?” Clara asked.

To her astonishment, he did. “Hunger is a scourge on our society and the shame of our generation. With the productivity of American industry there is no cause for any child to go hungry in this country. But rioting and sabotage will hardly result in more jobs. These actions taken by the labor unions result only in greater tension, not progress toward a more just society.”

The ease with which Mr. Forsythe delivered these lines made Clara suspicious. Forsythe was planning to run for the governor’s office next term, and filling a journalist’s ears with such careful wordplay was to be expected from a man on the verge of a political career. They spoke for almost an hour before Clara began steering the interview in her ultimate direction.

“And what about tension among the leading capitalists? Does the competition play any role in the wages paid to workers?”

Mr. Forsythe straightened in his chair. “I presume you are alluding to Daniel Tremain?”

“Yes.”

He paused as he chose his words. “Mr. Tremain is to be admired for the manner in which he rose from the working classes into a man of considerable means. I gather he had a difficult life as a youngster, and still carries some scars from that.”

No journalist worth her salt would settle for such a glib response. “I am acquainted with Daniel Tremain, and I think we both know his grievances relate to a very specific incident.”

“So I have been informed.”

“Would you care to comment on the incident?”

Mr. Forsythe leaned forward. “How well acquainted are you with Mr. Tremain and his history?”

There was no point in denying anything. “Daniel Tremain has been a close friend of my family for many years. But I’ve only heard his side of the story. I’d like to hear yours.”

“I see.” Forsythe rose to his feet and walked to the window overlooking the commerce square. “I have over seven thousand people who work in my company, ranging from Wall Street lawyers down to boys who shovel coal in the foundries. Producing steel and laying track is a tough, dirty job, and my workers are well compensated for that. But it’s a dangerous job, too. People get hurt, and sometimes people die.”

He turned to look her in the face. “I have six steel mills, and each one of those mills is filled with boilers and forges and furnaces. And each piece of equipment has hundreds of mechanical parts. I hire people to keep the equipment in good working order. Miss Endicott, I can’t be held responsible if a valve is incorrectly installed on one of those machines.”

“Mr. Tremain believes the safety valves were defective. That this was known before the accident, but the policy was not to replace defective parts unless they failed.”

“An investigation at the time of the accident exonerated my company from wrongdoing. The accident happened twelve years ago. There isn’t a prayer of gathering better information at this point.”

Mr. Forsythe pulled a chair close to her and sat down, losing a little of the starch that kept him so meticulously formal. “Miss Endicott, if there is any insight you can provide to help me bring this vendetta to an end, I’d be grateful to hear it. That accident has cost both of our companies and has served no purpose. What is it that this man
wants
?” Forsythe’s voice was tense with frustration as he looked to her in appeal.

“I think he wants an apology.”

The steel returned to Mr. Forsythe’s spine. “That is not going to happen.”

“It is your best shot at bringing this feud to an end.”

“I haven’t done anything wrong,” he ground out. “I refuse to apologize for something that happened more than a decade ago, on a piece of equipment I never touched. I refuse.” His voice cracked like a whip and Clara almost flinched at the ferocity. It was spoken with the same intransigent tone that Daniel had used when he referred to Forsythe, and Clara knew there was very little hope for a compromise.

Daniel’s house was a sleek and modern structure, with a portico stretching the length of the front facade. Inside were dark slate floors and ivory paneling. Light streamed in through the oversized windows that graced each of the rooms, which were comfortably furnished in masculine leather furniture.

Daniel seemed oddly hesitant as he showed Clara through the rooms, all of which smelled of lemon polish and were entirely devoid of the bric-a-brac that decorated most houses of the elite. He watched her as she strolled through the rooms, noting where her gaze landed and what objects snagged her attention. That he was immensely proud of his home was apparent, but he also seemed determined to seek her approval as she toured the house. “This is what I bought with the royalties from my last patent,” he said as he gestured to the painting above the fireplace in the parlor.

It was an awe-inspiring image, filled with vivid splashes of amber and saffron exploding across the canvas. Clara stared at it for several moments. “Is it . . . is it a sunset?” she asked.

Daniel studied the painting. “I think so. Sometimes I think it looks like a fire burst. Or perhaps the inside of a flower. It can be whatever you want it to be.”

Clara had never seen a painting in which the artist made no attempt to be realistic, but the radiance of the work was powerful and oddly mesmerizing. “It seems so surreal,” Clara said. “The colors are lovely, but I’m not quite sure what to think of it.”

“It’s modern,” Daniel said. “I like things that are new and forward-looking.”

“I can see that,” Clara said as she looked about his house. If Daniel wanted to escape memories of his crumbling old tenement house, he accomplished it in this home.

“And this is my favorite room,” he said as he guided her into a library that was lined with books from floor to ceiling. It was a two-story room, with a wraparound balcony spanning the interior of the library. A splendid skylight crowned the room and provided a view straight up into the clouds. The library doubled as a music room, and of course it had a grand piano in one corner. A cello was propped against the wall, and stacks of musical scores surrounded a brass music stand. A massive library table dominated the center of the room, on which sat an odd assortment of equipment, mechanical instruments, and drafting tools.

Daniel strolled to the chair beside the piano and pulled his cello into place. “Are you ready to hear the great masterpiece I penned on your behalf?”

She took a seat on the piano bench. “I’ve been waiting for years.”

“I warn you . . . I was in the throes of adolescent torment when I wrote this. I’m sure it still shows.” And yet, when Daniel pulled the bow across the strings, releasing the low, mournful tune of the cello, the lovely notes were infinitely soothing to Clara. She closed her eyes and remembered the fleeting twilight hours of her youth when Daniel used to play for her in the Music Conservatory. Time slipped away as she let the tones wash over her.

The music tapered to an end, and she waited for her heart to stop pounding before she opened her eyes and looked at Daniel. There were no words; all she could do was smile.

“When I never heard back from you, I wrote the piano accompaniment, as well,” Daniel said. “Want to have a look at it?”

The lump was still in her throat, so she merely nodded. Daniel placed the score on the piano before her, and Clara studied the lines while her fingers subconsciously pressed out the notes in the air. Daniel sat shockingly close on the bench beside her. “Give it a try,” he whispered in her ear.

She placed her hands on the cool ivory keys. The introductory passages were simple, something she could peck out with one hand. She casually played the notes, and then, before she was fully aware of what he was doing, Daniel’s hand covered hers. His hand was so much bigger, the skin darker and rougher than hers, but infinitely gentle as he played the notes along with her, gently manipulating her fingers along the keyboard. His palm was warm and she could feel his soft breath against her cheek.

She kept her face directed squarely at the score, but turned her eyes in Daniel’s direction. All she could see was the side of his jaw and the corner of his mouth, tilted up in the slightest of smiles. He was so close the scent of his soap teased her nose, and she could see a faint shadow of stubble along his jaw. She didn’t know the music at all, but let him guide her fingers across the keys, gently coaxing out the melody.

When the music became more complicated, his other arm encircled her waist and he began working the keys with both hands. There was no point in even pretending she was playing the piano; she simply surrendered to the manipulation of his hands as the melody filled the room.

Then the music was over, and his fingers tipped her chin toward him. An electrical current flared to life between them, tempting her closer to Daniel’s enigmatic gray eyes as they beamed down at her. This moment seemed inevitable, but she knew that if she let him kiss her, it would alter the course of their relationship forever. And that was something she simply could not put at risk just yet.

She turned her head and nodded to his cello. “Are we going to try to put this thing together?” He did not move, just traced his thumb along the side of her jaw as he gazed down into her face. Her skin tingled beneath the gentle sweep of his thumb. It was difficult to breathe and so tempting to lean into him and throw caution to the winds.

Daniel rose. “I suppose we’d better.” His tone was perfectly casual, as though nothing had just happened. He moved to the chair and pulled his cello into place, waiting for her to get in position on the piano, just as they had done a thousand times in the past. He nodded for her to begin.

They quickly perfected Daniel’s duet, and then spent an hour delving through Daniel’s treasure trove of newly imported music from Europe, including the scandalously difficult Brahms rhapsody. She was careful to stay at least three feet away from him—any closer and it was too tempting to get pulled in to the magnetism that radiated from him with each breath he took. When they were finished, Clara could not resist exploring his eccentric library, filled with mechanical trinkets and blueprints of works in progress. Although the other rooms in Daniel’s house were decorated with tasteful artwork on the walls, this room was different. The one wall of this room not lined with books was covered with odd scraps of papers and blueprints carefully framed and displayed.

Clara moved closer to examine them. One document looked like a menu from a pub, the margins of which were filled with simple line drawings and a few mathematical equations penciled along the bottom.

“That was a sketch Ian Carr and I did while having a beer at O’Reilly’s Tavern,” Daniel said. “It’s a rough outline of an idea I had for a timing switch. Eventually it became the first thing I ever patented.” Clara looked over the assorted documents on the wall, most of them patent certificates, but a few of them were drawings that captured the initial spurt of inspiration for one of Daniel’s ideas. “I’d still be shoveling coal into furnaces today if it weren’t for those scraps of paper,” he said.