Mary took the thickest letter from Jane out of the drawer and opened it to read again about Jane’s wedding at St George’s London last year. Her sister described the cream satin of her dress, the fine lace of her train, the music, guests and every detail of the dishes served at the wedding breakfast. It was everything that would have been Mary’s if she hadn’t been so weak and stupid, if she’d followed her head instead of her heart. It was a mistake she would never make again.
The jingle of equipage and the snort of horses on the kerb outside drew Mary to the window. She pushed aside the curtain to see the black-lacquered top of Mr Fairclough’s carriage glistening with the carriage lamps affixed to the sides. The front door opened, spilling light into the street as Mr Fairclough crossed the pavement with sure, firm steps that made the edges of his cape flutter. His head was bent down, tilting his top hat at an angle of contemplation made obvious when he stopped outside the carriage door to raise a hand in goodbye to Richard. It was the same motion Mary had made when bidding the servants at Ruth’s cottage goodbye after Mary had overseen the packing up, selling and dispersing of Ruth’s things according to her will. The rest had been sent on to Richard to be absorbed into the various rooms of his house. Every once in a while Mary noticed them, pausing to think that they shouldn’t be here, she shouldn’t be here but in the London Jane described.
Fool. You were such a fool. She crumpled the letter and let a tear of anger and self-pity slip down her cheek before she roughly wiped it away. It all could have been different if she’d chosen better, but she hadn’t and it’d cost her everything: her family, her heart, her future, her life and all the things about it that she’d loved.
Mary watched Mr Fairclough climb into the carriage. She could see nothing of him through the dark window at the back, but if even one of his thoughts turned to her and what Richard had suggested she hoped it was favourable. The driver snapped the reins and the clop of the horse’s hooves echoed off the cobbles as the vehicle carried him away. She’d listened to Mr Fairclough tonight speaking in her native accent about ideas and prospects, the future and plans for himself and the business, and she’d been impressed. She wanted to be like him, to come from nothing and make something of herself. Marriage to a man of his standing and potential could help her achieve that goal. If she put as much effort into herself and this matter as he did his railroads, the future she’d once imagined for herself could be hers again. She would be a married woman, even if she knew very little about the man she was setting her sights on.
Not a difficult problem to rectify, she could hear Richard say, and it wasn’t.
She hadn’t been expected to marry for love when she’d come out in England. There was no reason to allow love to be the guiding force in a match here either. After all, her parents had supposedly loved her, but they hadn’t hesitated to cast her out of their lives. Preston had sworn to love her, but he’d abandoned her the moment he’d had the chance. Only Ruth had loved her and death had stolen her away, leaving Mary to grieve as deeply as she had in that dirty inn on the lonely road to Gretna Green. Mary refused to allow love to guide her or to shatter her or her world again. Her last attempt at marriage had been the wild imaginings of a lovesick girl struck dumb by infatuation. Her next marriage would be one of sense and rational thought, of a partnership with a man she respected who could make her a true lady once again.
December 1842
‘Here you are.’ Silas dusted and dried the ink of his signature and handed it across the desk to Mr Hachman, his man of affairs. Outside his office door, and down the stairs, the whir of machines in the Baltimore Southern machine shop made a steady hum, broken now and again by the metal clink of hammers pounding steel into the parts and pieces needed to build and maintain a railroad. This machine shop was the first of what Silas hoped would be many to come. Soon they and numerous station houses would dot the landscapes of Baltimore and cities across the States, helping ferry people and the mass of goods entering Baltimore’s ports up and down the coast.
‘Congratulations, Mr Fairclough, on your first delivery of steel railway tracks from your, I mean the Baltimore Southern’s, new foundry.’ Mr Hachman collected the signed papers and slid them into his leather portfolio. ‘The regular deliveries will keep the men employed here and on the tracks busy for ages.’
‘Good, for there are a great many men in need of jobs.’ The country hadn’t entirely recovered after the panic of 1837 and with cotton prices still low, there were many men in need of work. Silas and his railroad would give it to them. He touched the signet ring on his left little finger. His father had once accused Silas of not possessing a charitable enough spirit, of being greedy and grasping, but he wasn’t; he simply pursued charity in a different manner than his father. After all, there was nothing wrong with helping one’s self while helping others. It didn’t all have to be privation. ‘We’ll dominate the American market and never have our progress hampered by the Atlantic Ocean or foreign politics again.’
‘It is a grand day, Mr Fairclough, and a grand future for you and Mr Jackson.’
‘All we need now is the new English engine to haul more goods and people over our freshly laid tracks.’
We also need Richard to remain well enough to see everything come to fruition.
Silas flicked a speck off the green-velvet blotter. The rattle in Richard’s lungs had grown worse with the cold weather. The ever-increasing progress of his disease was too much like the month the typhoid had crept through his family’s London neighbourhood while everyone waited to see if they or someone they loved developed the fever. The question for the Faircloughs had been answered when Silas’s father had fallen ill. The determination, energy and spirit that had carried his father through a hundred difficulties with the Foundation hadn’t been enough to fight off the disease and he’d passed, leaving so much for Silas to carry, just as Richard would. Silas swivelled his chair around to peer out the large window behind him at the packed dirt of the Baltimore Southern rail yard. The landscape was made starker by the grey clouds hanging low in the sky and the bare trees dotting the edge of the property. He was prepared to take over the management of the railway, but he didn’t want it in this manner just as he hadn’t wanted his father to die. He wouldn’t disappoint Richard in the end the way he’d disappointed his father.
‘Mr Fairclough, there’s another matter of some concern that I must discuss with you,’ Mr Hachman said, halting Silas’s melancholy turn. ‘Our English solicitor called on your mother and was informed that the Fairclough Foundation has not received their usual monthly drafts for the last six months.’
‘How is that possible?’ Silas swivelled around to face his manager. ‘I personally sign those bank drafts and include a letter with them every month.’
‘I don’t know. This was all the solicitor sent concerning the matter.’ Mr Hachman removed a paper from his portfolio and handed it to Silas.
Silas read the man’s brief account of his conversation with Silas’s mother in October. He jumped to his feet, flinging the letter down on his desk. ‘This is two months old.’
‘It was sent by packet ship which was delayed in Liverpool while they waited for the hold to be filled.’
‘Given what we pay him to represent our interests in England, he should’ve had the wherewithal to send this by Cunard steamer.’
‘I’ve sent word that all future correspondence regarding