The train was almost an hour late. Yawning, he rested his forehead against the window and watched raindrops on the other side. He wished the engineer would speed up. He'd been away four nights. He knew men who could leave their wives for weeks and enjoy it. He couldn't. He imagined Constance in their warm bed at Belvedere. He'd be there soon, his body curled around hers, holding her as they slept.
Constance heard a strange sound.
She put down her hairbrush, rose, and walked to the dormer nearest the canopied double bed. She wondered about the noise, because both the children were away at school and the house was empty except for the servants in a remote wing.
Frowning, she pushed the window open six inches. Lightning glittered behind the laurel-covered mountains. The misty night sky was reddened by light leaching up from Hazard's furnaces. Rain blew in, dampening her face and her powdered cleavage. She'd chosen the Chinese silk bed gown because George was coming home tonight. He was late.
She stared into the storm, trying to recall the sound. But it was difficult. She assumed some piece of debris had been lifted by the wind and flung against the dormer. It was two and a half stories above the lawn, but the wind was strong.
Constance was tired, but happily so. She'd spent the evening in the kitchen, helping to bake pastries for the holiday. Every cranny of Belvedere was awash in pleasant scents that spoke of Christmas: the yeasty smell of bread dough; the tang of the huge blue spruce tree down in the parlor; the smoky sweetness of perfumed candles that burned throughout the mansions until very late in the evening. She looked forward to the warmth and festivity of Christmas — to the children being home from their schools, to the family being together.
Over the noise of the rain, she heard a distant whistle. She smiled. That was his train. She closed the window, leaving it unlatched as she always did. Seated again, she gave her gleaming red hair twenty more strokes, then performed her customary evening inspection of the woman in the mirror.
A woman not unattractive for her age, Constance believed. But definitely overweight, by at least thirty pounds. Most days she ate sparingly, inspired by the previous evening's mirror inspection. And yet she gained weight. Who would have thought that a happy life could include that kind of struggle?
Smiling drowsily again, she stretched. George should be home and in bed within a half hour. Thoughts of him drew her attention to a small velvet box lying amid her pins and cosmetic pots and brushes. He was such a dear, generous man. He liked giving her presents, even when there was no special occasion. The velvet box held the latest — earrings.
She took them out. Two large pearls were clasped in tapered mountings of filigreed gold. The effect was that of teardrops. She held one up beside her earlobe, pleased with the effect. She thought of how much she loved her husband, how good their life was after four years of war and separation.
Gazing at the mirror, she didn't see the dormer window slowly begin to open.
Taking the full brunt of the storm, a contorted figure had clung to the roofpeak of the dormer when Constance opened the window in response to the strange sound. Presently she had closed it, but the figure had remained still as a gargoyle on a cathedral.
Down among the misted town lights at the foot of the mountain, an arriving train whistled into the depot. The man on the roof had paid no attention, caught up in what was about to happen. Tonight was the culmination of years of waiting. Months of wandering and planning. Days of skulking about the town asking questions. Then more waiting, until nature provided the cover of this thunderstorm. Tonight, the guilty would begin to pay for thwarting and hurting him.
The climb to the dormer, using slippery gutters, ornamentation, windowsills, had taken a half hour. The wetness, the slickness of everything increased the difficulty. So did his own memories of the fall into the James, the ghastly pain lancing his body as it caromed from rock to rock. He was proud, very proud of himself for overcoming those memories and the accompanying fright, and for making the climb successfully.
He had waited a few moments, then reached down from the roof of the dormer. He worked grimy fingers into the thin space between the frame and the upper edge of the window. A wind gust tore the stolen top hat from his head. He grabbed for it, causing his right foot to slip and scrape the roof. The hat sailed away. He clenched his teeth, cursing silently. Just such a noisy slip had brought Hazard's wife to the window the first time.
He hung in a strained position, waiting. Nothing happened. Evidently she hadn't heard the second scrape. Slowly, he crept down the side of the dormer and with great care pried the window open.
Squinting through the narrow opening, he saw a gaslit room, handsomely furnished. Beyond a canopied bed a woman sat at a dressing table, holding earrings to her ears to study the effect.
He pulled the window open, stretched a crippled leg over the sill, and jumped into the room.
Switchmen with lanterns uncoupled the private car. Above the dim lights of town George saw the shining windows of Belvedere on its terraced peak. To his left the sky shimmered red; the night crews at Hazard's were at work.
Preparing to leave the car, he enjoyed a rare moment of tranquillity. In Pittsburgh he and Jupe Smith had negotiated the purchase of McNeely's Foundry. McNeely, a premier Pennsylvania ironmaster, had died in late summer, and George had stepped in to try to buy the foundry from the heirs. McNeely's was ideal for conversion to the new Bessemer process.
Tonight he was coming home on the crest of success. He had McNeely's in his pocket, and here in Lehigh Station, Hazard's was operating day and night, turning out everything from rails and architectural wrought iron to iron frames for a growing Chicago piano manufacturer, Fenway's. George felt very good about all of it, and in that way he reflected the prevailing mood of the North. The North was enjoying almost unprecedented growth and prosperity. In the wake of four years of carnage and deprivation — years that had clearly shown war of any kind to be unthinkable — Americans of all classes exhibited a fierce dedication to turning a profit. Out of ashes, the industrial phoenix was rising triumphantly.
No credit was due the politicians. George thanked God that he'd gotten out of Washington before the war ended. He couldn't stand to be there now, enduring the sordid intrigues and partisan schisms. Indeed, some conversations he'd had in Pittsburgh suggested that a great many citizens were growing tired of the political war. They were tired of Johnson's harangues about constitutional principle, tired of the Radicals' maneuvering to impeach him, and, sadly, they were tired of the issue of Negro rights.
As always, the politicians failed to recognize a changing mood, or chose to ignore it. But the signals were clear. In the fall elections, the Republicans had been turned out in New York and Pennsylvania and their majorities whittled away in Ohio, Maine, and Massachusetts. Referenda on black suffrage had been defeated in Kansas, Minnesota, and Ohio, states thought to be enlightened.
Despite a weakening hold on the electorate, the Radicals continued on their narrow course. Johnson remained the Arch-Apostate, or the "arch-demon," as Mr. Boutwell, of the House Judiciary Committee, called him. The committee had brought in a 5-4 vote to impeach, although some moderate Republicans with whom George agreed — Wilson of Iowa who wrote the committee's minority report was one — refused to take part in the blood sport. So did the House as a whole. On December 7, it had rejected impeachment, 108-57.
Unfortunately the Radicals remained undeterred. They would find grounds. Stanley's crony and patron, Wade, was already in place as president of the Senate. The Congress might well name him President of the United States if Johnson could be removed.