New York_ The Novel - Edward Rutherfurd [271]
After thirty-five years of kindness?
“Yes, Mrs. Master, I promise.”
“Well, then. I am worried about my husband. And so is Miss de Chantal. Miss de Chantal is a dear friend of my husband.” She smiled at Lily. “We are both worried about him, Mary, and we think that perhaps you can help.”
Mary stared at her. What was she saying? How much did she know?
“Your brother Sean has had dealings with my husband for many years, as you know, Mary. And Miss de Chantal tells me that your brother knows her too. What we need to know is, has your brother ever talked about Miss de Chantal?”
“About Miss de Chantal?”
“Yes. As a friend of my husband?”
“Why …” And Mary, despite her promise, was about to tell a lie. Except that she blushed. And Mrs. Master saw it.
“It’s all right, Mary,” said Hetty Master. “I’ve known for twenty years. How long have you known?”
“Ten,” said Mary, awkwardly.
“Sean told you?”
Mary nodded. He’d kept it to himself for a long time, you had to give him that, but in the end he’d told her.
“Good,” said Mrs. Master, “that might be helpful. And has he told you about Miss Donna Clipp?”
“Miss Clipp?” Mary hesitated. “I don’t know the name.” This was true. Two weeks ago, Sean had muttered that Master was making a fool of himself, and that at his age he’d better be careful. But that was all he’d said.
“Well, that’s her name. Now, Mary, we need your help. Mr. Master is not a young man, and we must protect him. When are you next seeing your brother?”
“I often go to see him on Saturdays,” said Mary.
“That’s tomorrow,” said Hetty Master, with great satisfaction. “Could you see him then?”
“I could if you want.”
“Then here’s what we need you to do.”
There was no doubt, Sean thought, that Gabriel Love’s plan was a work of art. And part of the beauty of the thing was that it was not what you’d expect Daddy Love to do.
Daddy Love liked to sell short. If he sensed that the market was going down, or better yet, if he had private information that a stock was going to be in trouble, then he’d offer to sell you a parcel of shares, at a future date, for well under their present price. Like a fool, you’d suppose you had a bargain. And sure as fate, when the day arrived, the price of those shares would have dropped far further than you would have dreamed, and he’d buy them cheap himself, and you’d be obliged to take them off his hands at the higher price you’d agreed, leaving him with a handsome profit and yourself with a massive loss. And all he’d needed to do was make the bet—or, more precisely, stack the odds, since he’d certainly known something about those shares that you didn’t.
Only this time, Gabriel Love was going to do the opposite.
In any game there are winners and losers. In this game, the loser would be one Cyrus MacDuff.
“Cyrus MacDuff hates me,” Mr. Love had explained to Sean. “That’s his problem. He’s hated me for twenty years.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because I once cheated him out of a boatload of money. But that’s no excuse. If Mr. MacDuff exercised Christian charity, if he knew how to forgive, then the awful fate that is about to befall him might be avoided. It will be his evil nature, I believe, that will blind him to reality, and which the Lord will punish.”
“Sounds good to me,” said Sean. “How is God’s will to be done?”
“Through the Hudson Ohio Railroad,” said Mr. Love.
There was only one thing, in the year 1888, that you could say with certainty about the railroad business. It was dirty.
With the opening of the great American West, the opportunity for carrying goods by rail was expanding hugely. Great fortunes were being made. And wherever there is money, there is competition. While the British developed their far-flung empire, and the powers of Europe rushed to colonize Africa, so the bold entrepreneurs of the East Coast scrambled to build railroads across the huge tracts of the American West.
Sometimes there would be a fight for control of a certain route, or of a company that already had a route sewn up. Two groups could be building railroads almost