satisfied smile. ‘There he is.’ He reached his hand out for me, and, ‘Come with me.’
I slipped mine – so young again, the knuckles smooth, taut – into his; and I succumbed, to a mutual whatever.
4 January 1892
The president arrived in the lobby at a brisk pace, his boot heels clacking down the marble staircase. He was exactly as he’d been described: tall and uncommonly thin, about sixty years old, with a broad forehead and a silvery, scrupulously neat beard. His suit was black, cut close and worn with a frilled dress shirt, an eccentric touch that somehow increased the severity of the overall effect. The clerk at the desk – who’d been eyeing Merrill from time to time, as if suspecting that he might try to pocket an inkwell – was off his stool immediately, retrieving coats and hats from a small chamber beside the doors. Merrill rose to his feet, doing his best to appear alert and useful. Uncle Bob, descending a few feet behind the president, gave him a weary look.
‘This is James Merrill, Mr Leyland,’ he said. ‘My nephew.’
The clerk helped the president into a black overcoat, which was buttoned up to the neck, and then handed over a spotless black topper. After fitting this carefully on his head, the president turned towards Merrill for a momentary appraisal. There was an odd blankness about his eyes, and when he spoke his voice was devoid of interest.
‘He dresses well.’
Uncle Bob accepted his own coat and shrugged it on. ‘Dressing,’ he replied, ‘Merrill can do.’
Before joining the National Telephone Company Uncle Bob had been an officer of infantry, ranking somewhere in the middle, and you could see it in him now – that deep-dyed regard for hierarchy that soldiers were prone to have. Attending on this Mr Leyland, he was every inch the loyal lieutenant, moving aside smartly as the president made for the doors. Only then did Merrill realize that someone else had come down with them, another junior like himself; this man was older, though, thirty-five at least, blond-whiskered and bordering upon portliness.
‘I am Mr Carlens,’ he said, skirting the desk to fetch a grey coat and bowler. ‘Mr Leyland’s private secretary.’
Was that condescension in Mr Carlens’ expression – a shade of scorn, even? Merrill could hardly blame him if it was. His situation was plain enough, there for anyone to divine: that stale story of hapless youth, surrendered to an upstanding family elder for correction and supplied with an unearned career in business for which he was proving markedly ill-suited. Merrill wasn’t at all proud of this. There were days, in truth, when he could scarcely bear the sight of his own reflection.
The two juniors went out into the dull January evening. Uncle Bob had been summoned to Leyland’s office in the City only an hour or so before, to escort him back to the telephone company’s premises on Temple Lane. No cab was being called, however, nor was there any sign of the grand private carriage that the president was said to keep on hand both day and night. Merrill saw that Leyland and Uncle Bob had turned to the left, and were following the crowds that tramped down towards Cannon Street.
‘Are we not—’ he began. ‘Forgive me, Mr Carlens, but isn’t there a—’
‘Mr Leyland wishes to take the underground.’
Merrill managed to contain his disbelief – merely to nod, as an unquestioning subordinate should do. Frederick Richards Leyland was, without doubt or exception, the richest man in England. Some at the telephone company claimed that by the end of that year he would be the richest man alive. He had millions in the bank. Carriages and country houses. A Kensington mansion in which the finest modern paintings were displayed like stamps in an album.
‘This surprises you,’ Carlens observed.
They started out in pursuit of their employers. Merrill watched the president’s pristine topper shimmer as it passed beneath a street lamp. ‘I haven’t been with the company very long, Mr Carlens. There is much I do not—’
‘It is true that Mr Leyland is averse to crowds, generally speaking.’ The private secretary lowered his voice; Merrill sensed that he relished his position at the president’s side and the insights it permitted. ‘There are a good number who conduct their business hereabouts whom he would not care to meet. Who might well seize upon the chance to speak with him.’ Carlens surveyed the hundreds streaming around them: this world of men, emptying out at the day’s end, marching off to stations and omnibus stands. ‘The chances are slight, of course – but still, eyes peeled, eh?’
Cannon Street was broad and busy, bending away to the right; beyond the buildings was a clipped view of St Paul’s, the half-dome almost lost in the dark, starless sky. Directly ahead, among the bright shop fronts, a steady procession of people was disappearing between a stationer’s and an optician’s, down a tiled stairway into the underground. Merrill knew the District line with regrettable intimacy. It was an unchanging fact of his existence, ridden from Earl’s Court to Temple and back again: an hour eaten out of each and every day. Routine had numbed him to the point where he didn’t usually notice how it was. That evening, though, as he left the street and hurried onto the steps, he saw it as the president must surely be seeing it. The cracked and grubby tiles. The cement floor, littered with flattened cigarette ends and scraps of paper. And the blasted smoke, that gritty, metallic smell, tobacco and coal intermingled, hazing the air and making the subterranean ticket hall yet dingier.
The president and Uncle Bob had stopped in the middle of this low-ceilinged atrium, a pair of ill-matched rocks lodged in the ceaseless flow of commuters. Uncle Bob, clearly uncomfortable, was tugging at his grizzled moustache. Leyland was taking in his surroundings with evident distaste, coughing genteelly in the muddy atmosphere.
‘Tickets, Merrill,’ said Uncle Bob, as if this was obvious and really should have been guessed. ‘First class, back to Temple.’
Chastened, Merrill went to join the queue. Five windows were open at the office, and perhaps two hundred people presently trying to pay. He could only choose a line and stand in it. Around him was a dense, lulling murmur, several dozen shifting conversations, their words blurring together. His thoughts wandered to a common in high summer, near a friend’s house at Richmond; to Emily in her blouse and boater, and that song they’d all sung together: Within the musk-rose bower, I watch, pale flower of love, for thee …
‘Louse!’ someone shouted.
Merrill turned sharply to see a man, a perfectly ordinary-looking man in a blue sack coat, standing up close before the president and yelling in his face.
‘Louse,’ he repeated. ‘Villain – wrecker!’
A companion was trying to restrain him. Carlens strode forward to assist, planting a hand on the shouting fellow’s chest and gesticulating angrily, ordering him away. Uncle Bob was colouring, huffing something under his breath, outraged on their master’s behalf – for Leyland himself seemed entirely unmoved. He was looking across the concourse as if this man in the blue sack coat simply didn’t exist. Seeing he would get no response, the assailant barked ‘wrecker’ for a second time, and asked the president loudly if he understood at all what he had done, what he had destroyed; and then he stalked off furiously towards the street.
Merrill returned his gaze to the ticket office. Not that slight a chance then, Mr Carlens! he thought. He wondered what lay behind this little confrontation. There was much talk about Frederick Leyland over at Temple Lane. President of the National Telephone Company, Merrill had learned, was but one of his positions. Leyland was also a major figure in electricity, having a sizeable stake in Edison, and a ship-broker with a huge transatlantic fleet. This was the origin of his wealth, in