Silver

by Graham Masterton

  ‘Are you really going to California?’ George Davies asked him, over a cold beer in the Gristmill Saloon. ‘I hear they’ve got some really fancy women in California, San Francisco especially.’

  Henry sat in his favourite chair, its back legs tilted, watching through the saloon window while carriages and waggons rattled backwards and forwards along Main Street, their harnesses ringing, the spokes of their wheels catching the afternoon sunlight.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I’m really going to California.’

  ‘And what are you going to do there?’

  ‘Same as I do here. Carve epitaphs.’

  ‘Don’t you want to make your fortune? Get rich? Maybe you could dig for gold.’

  Henry turned to George and shook his head. ‘I want to be content, that’s what. Let me tell you something, I could have been content here, with Doris, if things hadn’t happened the way they did. But contentment’s worth more than all the money you can think of. Did you ever hear of anybody rich, and contented, too? There’s no such man.’

  ‘Well, I’d like to be rich,’ said young Amos Duke, twisting his neck around in his high starched collar to ease the soreness. ‘Then I could give up working in that darned bank; and go fishing all day; and spend all night fornicating with girls.’

  George swung a friendly cuff at him. ‘You don’t even know how to spell fornicate, let alone do it.’

  ‘I do too,’ Amos retorted hotly. ‘Fawn like in deer, ick like in sick, and eight like in seven plus one.’

  On Thursday, there was a fierce electric storm, although it didn’t rain. Henry was walking back to the house after lunch at the Hoosick Hotel when he met Augusta, hurrying the other way. She was carrying a carpet-bag; and when she saw him she said, ‘Oh!’ as if she were disconcerted.

  ‘Augusta,’ he said, taking off his hat. Behind him, over the top of Prospect Mountain, the thunder grumbled and echoed, and lightning flickered like electric snake’s tongues.

  ‘Oh, Henry. How are you? I hear that you’re off tomorrow.’

  ‘Right after the funeral. Jack’s giving me a ride over to Troy, and then I’m taking the New York Central, down to New York.’

  ‘Yes, your father said. I think he’s going to miss you. We all will.’

  ‘I’ll come back to visit sometime, when I’ve settled myself down in California.’

  Augusta patted nervously at her plaits. ‘Well, yes. But California’s a very long way, isn’t it?’

  Henry said, ‘I shall think of you all, don’t worry. And I’ll write, too. We’ll still be friends, won’t we, in spite of the distance?’

  ‘I hope so,’ said Augusta, a little breathlessly.

  ‘Well, I’ll see you before I go,’ Henry told her, and leaned forward to peck her cheek. She blushed, and then she hurried on her way. Henry watched her go, his hands in his pockets, and shrugged.

  The day of Doris’ funeral was hot and clear. She was to be buried at the far end of the cemetery, where most of the Patersons had been buried over the years, under the shade of a twisted old brittle-willow, one of hundreds that had been planted in New England before the Revolutionary War, for basket-making. The willow’s leaves rustled sadly in the warm morning breeze; the congregation in the church sang ‘Rock of Ages’.

  Henry waited by the gate until all the mourners had left the church and followed the pale oak casket up through the winding cemetery paths towards the grave. Mr Paterson was one of the leading pallbearers, red-faced and grim, his bald head gleaming in the sun. Cissy and Eleanor accompanied their mother, in long black taffeta dresses sewn with black velvet ribbons, their faces hidden by long black veils. When they were all assembled around the grave, Henry came closer, standing by the Thomas mausoleum about thirty or forty feet away, his hat in his hand. He could hear Cissy sobbing.

  The Reverend Jones said a prayer for Doris, that she should find peace and joy in Heaven. He spoke of the martyrdom of the young, that Heaven should have its share of youth and beauty. ‘There is a reason for every death; God does not gather his children without purpose.’ Cissy wept so much that she had to turn away. Henry stood in the sunlight with tears running down his face.

  At last the casket was lowered into the grave. It was then that Henry walked quickly forward, through the assembled mourners, right to the edge of the grave; and before anybody could protest, tossed on to the casket a single white wild rose, which he had cut only an hour before in the meadows where he had played as a boy.

  To him, it was an unchallengeable symbol of everything that he had felt for Doris; and a tragic recognition of her purity.

  Mr Paterson made a noise like an injured dog, but Mrs Paterson caught at his sleeve, and prevented him from pushing his way forward and creating a furore. Henry turned away and left the graveside as quickly and as unobtrusively as he had come; and there was nothing that Mr Paterson could do; not unless he was going to turn his beloved daughter’s funeral into a brawl.

  Henry walked down the sloping path of the churchyard. Jack Davies was waiting for him outside the gate in his surrey, reading a copy of the Arable Farmers’ Gazetteer. All Henry’s trunks and bags were stacked in the back of the surrey, along with a canvas roll containing all his stonemason’s hammers, chisels, and mauls.

  ‘Ready, then?’ asked Jack.

  Henry climbed up on to the surrey’s front seat. ‘Yes,’ he said, quietly. ‘I don’t think Mr Paterson was particularly pleased; but there you are.’

  ‘He’ll get over it,’ said Jack, snapping his whip.

  ‘I wish I could,’ Henry replied.

  It was a good twenty-four miles from Carmington to Troy; and even at a moderate trot, Jack’s chestnut mare could only manage about eight miles an hour. Given that they would stop at Boyntonville for lunch, they would only just make the four o’clock New York train in time. But Henry wasn’t sorry that he had gone to Doris’ funeral. It had somehow made his feelings about her more complete. It had made him realize, too, that she was really dead; and that she could never come back to him, no matter what.

  Jack said, ‘Everybody thought you were so damn lucky.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, with Doris and all. She was so damn pretty.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Henry.

  They rolled slowly through the Taconics, along the winding rutted road, sometimes out on a dusty ridge, sometimes plunged into the shadow of overhanging trees. They talked very little; just as Henry had talked very little to Fenchurch; although Jack did say that his father was dead set against Lincoln, and all those fanatical Republicans who wanted to abolish slavery. ‘My father says live and let live; if the south need their niggers, then let them keep them, there’s no harm in that. And what would the niggers do, in any case, if they weren’t slaves? They’re fed, and clothed, and given honest work, and that’s as good as any man can expect, black nor white.’

  Henry was very subdued. He was, after all, leaving all of his life behind. At Boyntonville, they stopped at the Inn for pig’s feet and a panful of Great Northern white beans. They ate in the open air, on a wooden table, and drank a pint of ice-chilled beer. Jack said, ‘We’re going to miss you, you know, back at the old Gristmill Saloon. Won’t be the same without you.’

  ‘I’m going to miss you, too,’ said Henry, and meant it, although his mind was already looking forward to New York, and beyond, to California. He clasped Jack’s arm. ‘Drink a toast to me, won’t you, when you get back there? Wish me luck. And say hallo to Augusta for me, whenever you see her. Tell her I always thought well of her.’

  ‘Augusta?’ asked Jack.

  ‘Don’t say one bad word about Augusta, ever,’ warned Henry. ‘She has a heart of gold, that girl; and she never did wrong by anybody. So just make sure that she’s taken care of, and that she gets whatever she needs.’

  ‘When you say “taken care of”, you don’t actually want me to step out with her, do you? Or marry her?’

  Henry punched Jack in the arm. ‘No, I don’t. Don
’t be so darned ridiculous. She’s going to make someone a wonderful wife, one day. She cooks well, and she’s always good-humoured. Someone like Olaf would love her, if he could only pluck up enough courage to ask.’

  ‘Olaf’s in love with Cissy.’

  ‘Everybody’s in love with Cissy,’ smiled Henry. But as he smiled, he pictured his white rose falling on to Doris’ casket; and he knew that he would dream about it for the rest of his life; the polished oak; the golden coffin-plate, with Doris’ name etched on it; and the white rose falling like a bird, or like a memory.

  They travelled westwards towards Troy through the sultry afternoon. Occasionally, Jack sang.

  ‘I want to go where the fishermen go

  Out beyond Nantucket;

  I want to be surrounded by the prettiest girls

  Eating oysters and spitting out the pearls.’

  They drew up at the railroad at Troy just ten minutes before the New York train was about to leave. The station yard was bustling with waggons and lumber-carts and businessmen in heavy side-whiskers who had just come up from the city. The train itself was ready; a big burnished Amoskeag locomotive with a bell-shaped stack, and a short but comfortable consist of four passenger-cars, a restaurant-car, and a red-painted caboose. A porter helped Henry to load his trunks on to the train; and then he bought some cigars and a newspaper, and said goodbye to Jack Davies.

  ‘Carmington won’t be the same, now you’re gone,’ said Jack.

  The day was still warm. A news-butcher called out, ‘Wide Awake rally in Albany! Read about it, read about it!’ Dust floated across the station yard like golden muslin. Henry took Jack’s hand and clasped his elbow and from that moment on could never remember what Jack looked like; although Jack would always remember Henry, in his grey travelling-cape, and his smart grey suit, and flourishing black necktie, his hair combed back from his forehead, and those earnest-intelligent eyes.

  ‘He said that all he wanted was contentment,’ he would remark about Henry, many years later. ‘But all I can say about that is, some men don’t know what they want, even the most ambitious. They have to find what they want before they know that they want it. They have to have it presented to them, on a silver platter.’

  At five after four, the conductor blew his whistle, and the train pulled slowly out of Troy, on the Schenectady-Troy track which had now been incorporated in the New York Central. Henry sat back on his bench seat and watched the sidings jumble past him, then the outlying buildings of Troy, and eventually the trees and fields of Rensselaers county. The afternoon sun shone in through the clerestory windows in the roof of the railroad car, and gilded the mahogany woodwork. Henry lit a cigar, and opened up his newspaper. There was a long speech by Abraham Lincoln about the right to strike. ‘I am glad to see that a system of labour prevails in New England under which labourers can strike whenever they want to. I wish such a system might prevail everywhere.’

  ‘Going to New York?’ a sharp voice inquired.

  Henry lowered his paper, and found himself face to face with a thin pointy-faced man in a tight green coat and tight chequered britches. The man raised his hat, and said, ‘Alby Monihan, glad to know you.’

  ‘How do you do,’ said Henry, guardedly.

  ‘Mind if I take a seat?’ asked Alby, taking a seat without waiting for an answer. ‘First time in New York? You’ll like it. Well, like it or hate it. Some like it, some hate it. You have to know the right places to go, the right people to meet.’

  ‘I’m only travelling through,’ Henry told him. He was amused by Alby’s long wilting hair, and his small pursed-up eyes. He thought to himself that if a man were to dress himself up deliberately to look like a card sharp, or a confidence trickster, then he could count himself successful if he looked even half as untrustworthy as Alby Monihan.

  ‘Me, I love New York,’ Alby enthused, crossing one bony knee over the other, and leaning back as if he were used to reclining on luxurious sofas. ‘I lead the life of Riley. All the best parties; all the best restaurants. I had supper with the Astors not a week ago; and played a game of rummy with Sarsaparilla Townsend.’

  ‘Well, well,’ said Henry. ‘And what have you been doing in Troy?’

  ‘Visiting my aunt. She’s sick, you see, had the phobia for years. Sick, but very rich. Every time I visit, she heaps money and bonds on me as if she were stoking a fire.’

  ‘So you yourself must be reasonably comfortable,’ Henry suggested.

  ‘Comfortable enough to lead the life of a gentleman.’

  ‘You’ll have to excuse me,’ said Henry. ‘I’m going to the restaurant car for something to drink. I’ve been travelling for most of the day.’

  ‘Well, I’ll join you,’ said Alby.

  They went through to the restaurant car, where afternoon tea was being served on scores of clinking cups and saucers. They took a seat in the plushly-decorated bar, with its mahogany tables and its brown velvet curtains and its engraved-glass windows; and a black bar-boy in a sharp white cutaway jacket brought them two glasses of whiskey, and a small dish of salted almonds.

  ‘Do you have a place to stay in New York?’ Alby asked, splitting an almond with his sharp front teeth.

  ‘I was recommended the Collamore, at Broadway and Spring Street.’

  ‘Oh, the Collamore, that old place. Fine hotel once, not so plushy now. Still, if you’re travelling on a budget.’

  ‘Where would you recommend?’ asked Henry. He finished his whiskey and beckoned to the bar-boy for another.

  ‘The Fifth Avenue, between Twenty-third and Twenty-fourth streets, no question about it. The newest, and the finest. Opened only last year.’

  ‘That’s where you’re staying, I take it?’

  ‘My dear fellow,’ said Alby. ‘I wouldn’t dream of staying anywhere else.’

  ‘Would you care for another drink?’ Henry asked him, as the bar-boy came up; and Alby beamed, and raised his glass for a refill.

  As the train rattled southwards at twenty miles an hour, through Rhinebeck and Poughkeepsie, its shadow lengthening across the fields and cuttings beside the track, Henry and Alby sat at a table in the restaurant and ate supper together, fried fish and boiled kale, and the sun burned through the blinds, bloated and red and almost intolerably hot.

  After the meal, they shared a bottle of wine out on the observation platform, smoking cigars. The breeze lifted Alby’s hair like a damp string mop.

  ‘You know something, my dear fellow,’ Alby remarked contentedly, ‘there is nothing to compare with travel; and in particular there is nothing to compare with travel in the company of excellent friends.’

  ‘I’m flattered,’ said Henry, with a cautious smile. He had been trying to work out what Alby’s angle was; what he was fishing for with all this talk of luxury and fine hotels; and the graces of comfortable living. So far Alby hadn’t given him any indication at all. There had been no talk of cards, or women, or buying plots of land in Nebraska. Still, Henry remained on his guard; the last thing he wanted to happen was to be taken for a Rube on his first day away from Carmington. He recalled that George Davies had gone to Manchester once, to stay with a friend, and lost all of his $17 spending money on a shell game, on the train.

  It was plain that Alby wasn’t everything he said he was. The cuffs of his coat were shiny with wear, and his collar looked as crumpled as a month-old newspaper. Even if his story of having a rich aunt in Troy were true, he certainly hadn’t spent any of her money on clothes.

  It was when the conductor came around in his smart grey uniform to collect the money for supper that Alby’s game began to reveal itself. ‘Don’t you think they’re smart, these uniforms?’ Alby remarked, as he dug into his pockets for his wallet. ‘Just like Central Park policemen.’

  Henry paid the conductor his dollar-ninety for lunch and tipped him a nickel. Alby couldn’t seem to find his wallet in its accustomed pocket, and frowned, and began to search his other pockets, one by one, growing increasingly frantic wit
h each pocket. The conductor stood patiently beside him, his hand held out in the manner of a man who has come for his due, and under no circumstances whatever is going to leave until he has got it.

  ‘Do you know something?’ Alby asked Henry, with a worried look on his face. ‘I do believe that some rascal has taken my money. I had it here, in this pocket, two hundred and nine dollars in bills! My God, Henry, I’ve been robbed!’

  The conductor said, ‘Don’t you have any loose change, sir? Enough to make up a dollar-ninety?’

  ‘I regret not. I spent my last penny at the station, buying a posy of flowers for my aunt. This is most distressing; my God, and embarrassing, too. Henry—Henry, you don’t think that you could possibly...?’ Alby inclined his head towards the conductor.

  Henry reluctantly reached into his wallet again, and produced another two dollars. ‘Keep the change,’ he told the conductor, and the conductor tipped his cap, and went back inside to collect what was owed from the rest of the passengers.

  ‘My dear fellow, I really can’t thank you enough,’ said Alby. ‘You saved my bacon. And my face, too. I shall of course repay you as soon as we get to New York.’

  ‘Don’t bother,’ said Henry. ‘Have the meal on me.’

  ‘Well, that’s more than generous.’

  ‘Yes, it is,’ Henry agreed. ‘And stupid, too. I should have let the conductor throw you off the train.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ Alby looked sharply surprised.

  Henry leaned forward. He had drunk rather more wine than he had meant to; and to have divined so quickly that Alby was a confidence-trickster had made him feel pleased with himself, and rather rakish. ‘You have no money at all, do you?’ he asked. ‘You never have done; and you certainly don’t stay at the Fifth Avenue Hotel.’

  ‘I have on occasions,’ said Alby, offended.

  ‘But you have no money?’

  ‘Of course not. I told you. Somebody stole it.’