Time Out of Mind (77 page)
Authors: John R. Maxim
Tags: #Horror, #General, #Psychological, #Suspense, #Memory, #Thrillers, #Fiction, #Time Travel
“
His
New York Elevated,” Jay Gould sighed. “His At
lantic cable. These are businesses, Mr. Beckwith. Not mon
uments. Cyrus Field was defeated in the end by his own
vanity. And I pray you, sir, do not be so naive as to conclude
that Mr. Field is exempt from greed or is above deceit. He
tried to force me out of a business that was essential to other designs of mine. He tried it secretly and through guile. He
bought shares under any name but his own in his effort to wrest control from myself and Russell Sage.”
“
But you knew what he was doing. And you bush
whacked him.”
“
Naturally.”
Tilden could only stammer.
“
Is it possible that shocks you?” Jay Gould asked calmly. “
The man had his agents buy seventy thousand shares in less
than a year. His purchases alone, nearly all on margin by the
way, drove the price from ninety-five dollars to a hundred
and seventy-five. Sage and I dumped our shares on the mar
ket because their value had been inflated far beyond their
worth and the profit was there to be taken. Is this not a first
principle of investing, Mr. Beckwith?’'
Tilden could have argued. But he knew it was pointless. He could have noted that Gould picked the time when Cy
rus Field was recklessly overextended and when the crash
Gould engineered would have left him a literal pauper, but
Gould would simply have asked, “What other time was
there?” He could have argued that greed played no part in
Field's actions, although vanity certainly did to some de
gree. But never greed. The shares he'd bought would never
have stayed at the value to which he'd forced them. Nev
ertheless, he would have his elevated and the working clas
ses would have cheap transport to their jobs and the city
would expand marvelously because fully another third of
Manhattan Island was now practical as a place of residence
for them. Planners would come from all the great cities of
the world to study this newest miracle he'd created and
there would be no Jay Gould, no Russell Sage, to shake it
and wring it dry. Oh, Mr. Field. If only you had been a bit
less thoughtful of your place in history and a bit less in
nocent. But I will have to grant him it was as much suicide as murder.
Fair enough, then.” Tilden withdrew on that issue.
“But I admire him nonetheless and will not see him reduced further.”
”
I admired him as well. I trusted him.”
“
You trust no one.”
I trusted him. He was the only one. He broke my
heart.”
wondered, even Jay Gould's wife, ever heard such words
from him. And they seemed honest words. He saw the pain
in the little man's eyes.
I will tell you how Cyrus Field affected me.” Gould stepped closer to Tilden. “For twenty years I watched him
as he did great things in apparent defiance of the laws of
nature. How, I wondered, could a man who was trusting,
loyal, and patient as a country parson not only survive in
business but prosper. Here was a man who could walk
through the valley of death happily sniffing a carnation.
Here was a man who could trust in the protection of the Almighty and actually receive it. When I allied myself with
him in the elevated business, I will admit to you, sir, that
my first thought was to share in that protection. But I grew
to admire the man and even love him. He had no great
head for business and he was too much ambitious of saint
hood but I held him in great esteem nonetheless.” A fire
was growing behind the pain.
, “Even when he fought me,” Gould continued, “on the
matter of doubling the fares, which of course is what fares
are for, I yielded to his pleas that the higher fares would do great harm to people who were nothing to me, who
would thank me not at all, and who would soon be fleeced out of the extra nickel I left in their pockets regardless. By
that time I was so accustomed to Field's apparent altruism
that it never occurred to me that he might have some other
design, that he might be secretly scheming with you and
your father.”
Tilden, who had been following this with difficulty, was
now lost. “What on earth are you talking about?’'
”
I bear you no grudge for it. If I did, I'd have long since
built a tannery next to each of your properties.”
“
No grudge for what, sir?’'
“
He did not want the fares increased because he feared
that the higher tariff would make your northern real estate
holdings less attractive. He was in them with you. He was
a money-getter no less than the rest of us.”
Tilden felt dizzy. There was not a word of truth to it.
Field had no interest at all in real estate, financial or oth
erwise. His interest was in systems. Communications.
Shrinking the globe. But now Tilden was beginning to re
alize with growing horror that Cyrus Field's destruction
was based upon a mistake. And worse, that Tilden’ s own
persecution these past three years, the damage to his business, the violence to Margaret's peace of mind, even Ansel Carling's disastrous seduction of Ella and Ella's betrayal of him and of Cyrus Field, all followed from a single wrong
suspicion in the dark little mind of this sick little man.
“
Did you ever ask him if this was so?” Tilden's voice
was suddenly hoarse.
“
There was no need. Sage had good intelligence of it.”
“
And you simply took the word of a grasping miser who
won't spend more than ten dollars for a suit of clothing, and you began baiting traps for Mr. Field.”
He set his own trap. When he knew I would not again
yield on the matter of the fares, he began his attempt to force us out.”
Tilden turned his back and walked a few steps away from
Gould, his hands pressed over his ears whether to keep out further evil or to comprehend the enormity of what he was
hearing. “And you are still not finished with him.” Tilden
closed his eyes. “He is a bad example to others, you said.
I am not to help him. He is to be ground down further.”
“
On the contrary,” Gould said softly, ”I wish to raise
him up. But it must be me who does it. He must come to
me.”
It was too much.
“
To be humiliated.”
“
To apologize.”
“
Apologize.”
I will not make him grovel, Mr. Beckwith, if that is
what you fear. The act of coming to me will be sufficient.
I will offer him my hand and I will raise him up.”
He won't come. I pray that he won't. I will give all
that I have to prevent it”
Then you will lose all that you have. All that you value.
Your house in Greenwich is made of glass no less than this
one.”
Tilden's mind, as he recalled it later, seemed to shut
down when this was said. He'd been pacing Gould's greenhouse like an animal, he thought, but he felt as if he were
floating. He remembered his hand coming down upon a
large metal watering can and he remembered the can spin
ning once around him before sailing through the air and
smashing a four-foot hole in the glass greenhouse wall. The
shock of it caused other panes to crack and fall. The place
seemed to be raining glass. He remembered seeing Jay
Gould choking and coughing at the end of an arm that held
him by his shirtfront, and he thought that it was only Mar
garet's hand upon his other arm that kept him from smash
ing a fist into that red and frothing face. Then he
remembered that his mind had cleared at the sound of Char
ley Murtree's voice saying, “Ah, now you done it,” and
seeing Murtree and the other man, Calicoon, the silent one,
advancing toward him between rows of flats, each man with
a rifle in his hand, and he let Jay Gould fall to one side
and then raised both hands to show that they were empty before he made them into fists and smiled an invitation to
Charley Murtree who smiled back nodding and laid his rifle
down and so did Calicoon.
thought. Both men went down, one to his knee and the
other into a trough of seedlings. Tilden was sorry about the
flowers. And more glass fell. So much glass. The second round might have been a draw. There must have been a
third, but Tilden could not remember it.
Laura Hemmings took a long sip from her cup, peering over
its rim at the faces of the women in the room. Everyone
was there. The entire membership. It was the first chapter
meeting she could recall at which there were no absentees.
Even Belle Walker, who had not attended in weeks, and
who'd seemed to want nothing more of her membership
than her name upon the roster, had dared not miss this meeting. Belle looked ill. Old Spanky. Take care it's not you who goes bottoms up this time.
Of the other faces Laura saw, some seemed to be enjoy
ing this. Some were titillated by the very idea that they
might once have had bodies and skills for which men would
pay hard cash. Others were fascinated by Anthony Comstock's tales of vice avenged. Many thought the whole af
fair tedious, yet they had taken the trouble to primp very prettily, thank you, for their moment in front of Comstock's
camera. A few, only two or three, were enthusiastic. And, oh, so righteous. They testified loudly of their feelings to
ward women who had betrayed their sex and brought shame
to the noble temple that is the female body. Laura made a mental note to cross them off her list. After she'd cut them
dead, of course. She also made a mental note to see more
of Peggy Gannon, on whom fell the duty of introducing
today's guest speaker and who, when asked by him why
she did not join in the restrained applause that followed his
message, replied, “Because you are an ass, sir.” Peggy was
the first to be photographed.
Poor Margaret. Now third in line, the regular members being taken alphabetically. Smile, Margaret. Look at ease.
And for heaven's sake, put down that cup and saucer before
it starts shaking like a roundsman's rattle.
Laura crossed quickly, her own cup in hand, to the place where Margaret stood trembling, babbling something about
Margaret's lovely dress while being careless of the
hem of
her own. “Oh!” the two women cried at once. Laura's cup skidded from its saucer well and dashed its contents over
the fine ecru linen of Margaret's skirts.
“
Oh, I've ruined it, dear Charlotte.” Laura seemed close
to tears. “Oh, come, let us soak it quickly. You there.”
She stepped past the first two women and waggled a finger
at the fat man who was sorting through a valise full of
Kodak cameras. “You there. Comstock. Make your pho
tograph of this girl at once or not at all. I will not be bound
to replace her dress because you took overlong in your
foolish business.” She sat Margaret down in the chair that
Comstock had placed facing a sunlit window, first turning
it slightly so that the light would be less favorable.
The vice crusader made a dithering effort to restore the
orderly system he'd intended, but a half dozen more women
now surged forward, some attempting to blot the stain and others calling advice for its removal. It was a bad job, he
realized, best to give it up. Comstock took two exposures
of Margaret. The first was of her face looking down upon
the stain and half hidden by the brim of her hat. With all
that, Laura also brushed the big man's elbow as he pressed the shutter release. For the second, he demanded that Mar
garet look up. She did, but the camera captured a face
writhing in discomfort from the hot staining liquid, a face
that imitated the expression pantomimed by Laura from her position behind the photographer. Laura then took the next place in line, alphabet or no, and gazed sternly into the lens
with an expression never seen on Little Annie. She next
took Margaret quickly to a Post Road cab and had the linen
dress soaking in milk and soda ten minutes later. Laura
poured a sherry down Margaret's throat even before the
stays were loosened and another down her own. By their second glass she had Margaret smiling at her imitations of
Anthony Comstock and of the several women who joined
him in ringing testimony.