Six hours later, he disembarked at Boston’s new South Station, a gigantic, pink-hued stone temple to railroad power. He took an elevator five stories to the station’s top floor and checked in with Van Dorn’s Boston office. His father had wired back: “I hope you can stay with me.” By the time he made his way to his father’s Greek Revival town house on Louisburg Square, it was after nine.
Padraic Riley, the elderly butler who had managed the Bell home since before Isaac was born, opened the polished front door. They greeted each other warmly.
“Your father is at table,” said Riley. “He thought you might enjoy a late supper.”
“I’m famished,” Bell admitted. “How is he?”
“Very much himself,” said Riley, discreet as ever.
Bell paused in the drawing room.
“Wish me luck,” he muttered to his mother’s portrait. Then he squared his shoulders and went through to the dining room, where the tall, spare figure of his father unfolded storklike from his chair at the head of the table.
They searched each other’s faces.
Riley, hovering at the door, held his breath. Ebenezer Bell, he thought with a twinge of envy, seemed ageless. His hair had gone gray, of course, but he had kept it all, unlike him. And his Civil War veteran’s beard was nearly white. But he still possessed the lean frame and erect stance of the Union Army officer who had fought the bloody conflict four decades ago.
In the butler’s opinion, the man that his master’s son had grown into should make any father proud. Isaac’s steady blue-eyed gaze mirrored his father‘s, tinged with the violet bequeathed by his mother. So much alike, thought Riley. Maybe too much alike.
“How can I help you, Isaac?” Ebenezer asked stiffly.
“I’m not sure why Andrew Rubenoff sent me here,” Isaac replied just as stiffly.
Riley shifted his attention to the older man. If there was to be reconciliation, it was up to Ebenezer to make it stick. But all he said was a terse, “Rubenoff is a family man.”
“I don’t understand.”
“He was doing me a kindness… It’s in his nature.”
“Thank you for inviting me to stay the night,” Isaac replied.
“You are welcome here,” the father said. And then, to Riley’s great relief, Ebenezer rose gallantly to the opportunity his son had presented him by agreeing to stay, which he had not in times past. In fact, thought the butler, the stern old Protestant sounded almost effusive. “You look well, son. I believe that your work agrees with you.”
Both men extended their hands.
“Dinner,” said Riley, “is served.”
OVER A WELSH RAREBIT and a cold poached salmon, Isaac Bell’s father confirmed what Marion suggested and he suspected. “Railroad magnates are not as all-powerful as they appear. They control their lines by wielding small minority interests of stock. But if their bankers lose faith, if investors demand their money, they find themselves suddenly on a lee shore.” A smile twitched Ebenezer Bell’s lips. “Forgive my mixing shipping metaphors, but they get in trouble when they must raise capital to prevent rivals from taking them over just as their stock plummets. The New England Railroad you rode here today is about to be swallowed whole by the New York, New Haven and Hartford. And not a moment too soon-little wonder the NE is known as the ‘Narrow Escape.’ Point is, the New England suddenly has no say in the matter.”
“I know that,” Bell protested. “But Osgood Hennessy has gobbled up every railroad that ever crossed his path. He is too intelligent and too well established to be overstretched. He admits that he will run out of credit for the Cascades expansion if the Wrecker stalls it. That would be a terrible loss, but he claims that he has plenty of credit to operate the rest of his lines.”
“Consider how many lines Hennessy has combined, how many more he is allied with . . .”
“Exactly. He owns the mightiest combine in the country.”
“Or a house of cards.”
“But everyone agrees that Osgood Hennessy is secure.
Morgan’s man used the word impregnable.”
“Not according to my sources.” Ebenezer Bell smiled.
In that moment, Isaac Bell saw his father in a different light. He knew, of course, that as a young officer Ebenezer had distinguished himself in U.S. Army intelligence. He had the medals to prove it. But a strange idea stuck Isaac. It was one that he had never thought of before. Had his father too once longed to be more than a banker?
“Father. Are you saying that if the Wrecker were in a position to buy, if the Southern Pacific Company tottered under the weight of its failed Cascades expansion, he could end up owning it?”
“Not only the Southern Pacific, Isaac.”