flicked a speck off the green-velvet blotter. The rattle in Richard’s lungs had grown worse with the cold weather. The ever-increasing progress of his disease was too much like the month the typhoid had crept through his family’s London neighbourhood while everyone waited to see if they or someone they loved developed the fever. The question for the Faircloughs had been answered when Silas’s father had fallen ill. The determination, energy and spirit that had carried his father through a hundred difficulties with the Foundation hadn’t been enough to fight off the disease and he’d passed, leaving so much for Silas to carry, just as Richard would. Silas swivelled his chair around to peer out the large window behind him at the packed dirt of the Baltimore Southern rail yard. The landscape was made starker by the grey clouds hanging low in the sky and the bare trees dotting the edge of the property. He was prepared to take over the management of the railway, but he didn’t want it in this manner just as he hadn’t wanted his father to die. He wouldn’t disappoint Richard in the end the way he’d disappointed his father.
‘Mr Fairclough, there’s another matter of some concern that I must discuss with you,’ Mr Hachman said, halting Silas’s melancholy turn. ‘Our English solicitor called on your mother and was informed that the Fairclough Foundation has not received their usual monthly drafts for the last six months.’
‘How is that possible?’ Silas swivelled around to face his manager. ‘I personally sign those bank drafts and include a letter with them every month.’
‘I don’t know. This was all the solicitor sent concerning the matter.’ Mr Hachman removed a paper from his portfolio and handed it to Silas.
Silas read the man’s brief account of his conversation with Silas’s mother in October. He jumped to his feet, flinging the letter down on his desk. ‘This is two months old.’
‘It was sent by packet ship which was delayed in Liverpool while they waited for the hold to be filled.’
‘Given what we pay him to represent our interests in England, he should’ve had the wherewithal to send this by Cunard steamer.’
‘I’ve sent word that all future correspondence regarding any Baltimore Southern or Fairclough family business is to be sent the fastest way possible.’
‘But what about this?’ His stomach knotted at the prospect of his family going without or enduring financial straits due to this unexplained delay. If he hadn’t been so preoccupied with the foundry, he might have kept a better eye on the regular payments instead of leaving it to others. He could have stopped this problem before it had even become one.
‘I’ve received no follow-up correspondence since this letter. Our solicitor, having heard nothing from us, may have assumed the issue was resolved or is still waiting for additional instructions.’
‘I wonder why one of my sisters didn’t write to tell me there was a problem.’ They’d never been shy about describing the most trivial details of their lives and delighting over any description of his, cheering him on from afar. He had no idea what his mother thought of his life in America. The few letters she’d sent to him over the years had been terse in regards to whatever business had forced her to break her missive silence. He couldn’t blame her for not putting pen to paper more often. He hadn’t given her a great deal of reason to write to him when he’d left England.
‘I can’t say, sir, but if you have any other channels through which to investigate the matter, I suggest you employ them.’
‘I’ll send a letter to Lady Alexandra, my father’s cousin. She’s on good terms with my mother. If they’re in trouble she’ll know about it. Arrange for a bank draft to include with the letter. I want it sent by steamer immediately.’
‘Yes, Mr Fairclough.’ The man clapped closed his leather folder, collected his things and left.
Silas laid a piece of paper on the blotter and, in very concise terms so as not to create a panic where there might not be one, but also to stress the urgency of the situation, wrote to Lady Alexandra. Silas prayed his mother would turn to Lady Alexandra for help if things were truly dire, but he knew the strength of the Fairclough pride. His father used to say that Silas possessed an overabundance of it, just like the Earl, his grandfather.
It can’t be that bad. If it were, Lady Alexandra would have written to me about it at once.
The fact that he had not received a concerned letter from her or either of his sisters gave him some hope. Perhaps there was already a letter on the way stating that all was well and the bank drafts had been received and cashed.
It’d been a long time since he’d communicated with Lady Alexandra and as he dusted the letter and prepared it for the inclusion of the draft, he thought of the Christmases that he and his family had spent at the grand dame’s manor house. His sisters might not have cared to spend time at Lady Alexandra’s estate, but Silas had been mesmerised by her lavish life, stately house, manners, servants and the bit of port she used to slip him after dinner. Time with her had been his first taste of true prosperity and he’d appreciated it, especially the Christmas after his father had passed.
When was the last time I was home for Christmas?
He couldn’t remember. It was long before Liverpool. During the last few years, the railroad’s affairs had made it impossible for him to travel. He summoned his clerk and gave him the letter for Mr Hachman. The attorney was one of the best man of affairs Silas had ever worked with and he reminded Silas of Septimus Clarke, the Fairclough Foundation’s general manager who’d helped see it through the difficult years following Silas’s father’s death. He was the same man who’d convinced his mother to find a place for Silas in Liverpool with Jasper King, placing Silas on the path that had led him to Richard and finally to success.
Silas wondered if his mother cursed her decision to let him go to Liverpool all those years ago, especially since Septimus had retired. Millie had written to Silas about Jerome Edwards, the new manager who’d been engaged to take Septimus’s place. She’d spoken highly of him, but Silas regretted not having been there to help interview him and other prospective candidates, to at last put his business skills to use for his family and show his mother that his natural gifts had real value. Instead, he’d trusted from afar that his mother and sisters had made the right decision, just as he’d trusted that the monthly payments had reach them. They hadn’t.
The door to Silas’s office opened and Richard strode in with confident steps but there was no mistaking now the looseness in his suit or the hollowness in his cheeks. Silas touched the signet ring with his thumb, his heart dropping even while he smiled. ‘Richard, what brings you here?’
‘I want to see the plans for the new English locomotive you’ve been telling me about.’
‘It’s magnificent.’ Silas laid out a number of drawings of the English-built locomotive that had been sent to him during his correspondence with Mr Williams, the engine’s designer. They were drawn in a fine hand with strong lines and a view from every angle. ‘It uses half the amount of coal as our current model and is stronger and faster. With this engine we can reduce travel times and haul twice the freight. Between this and the new track, we’ll surpass our competition.’
‘I have no doubt it will be as successful as our foundry.’ He clapped Silas on the back, the heavy fall of his hand much lighter than before. ‘Let’s go for a walk and you can show me the new steam works.’
They left the relative quiet of the office for the clatter and banging of the machine shop. Silas and Richard called out and replied to greetings from the workers whose faces
