Research into newer and more elaborate products would be halted, with a focus fixed solely upon improving the manufacture and cost-effectiveness of existing devices. They were without the bottomless war chest that J. P. Morgan provided Edison, and so their culture was naturally quite different. They did not aim to be some manner of pie-in-the-sky idea factory. Westinghouse worked. The company would continue to make things, and they would be the highest-quality electrical products in the world. That had always been their goal, and it always would be.
Even the program to develop a new light bulb far afield of Edison’s would be abandoned. They could not continue to afford the manpower on a task that had, after a year, borne no progress at all. Westinghouse’s engineers were good, but they were expensive, and not one of them was Nikola Tesla. The immediate survival of the company was at stake.
They would need only a moderate injection of capital to keep things going through the coming winter. The few hundreds of thousands of dollars they required to maintain operations were small beer compared to the fortunes to be generated by electric light.
But every time Paul and Westinghouse concluded their practiced supplications, they were reminded by the apologetic millionaires across from them that this all depended on a victory over Edison. From the safety of their glazed oak desks, the bankers were quick to suggest that if direct current became the standard of the day, then the Westinghouse Electric Company would play little part in the prosperity. The problem was not with the frugality or operational efficiency of the company—it was with the fragility of its very existence. Who would profit from providing expensive medicine to a man whose illness was already terminal?
They did experience moments of success. Fresh investments were secured from Hugh Garden, A. T. Rowand, and William Scott, extending the company’s life by a few frenzied weeks. Carter and Hughes lent their extensive connections to the cause, producing a much-needed $130,000 just a week into the crisis; it bought them another month. Paul was able to scrape together a few days of survival here and there through his Columbia network. These were the terms in which they now measured—not in dollars and cents, but in weeks, days, even hours. A million dollars could buy a year. A thousand dollars barely afforded a day.
By a unanimous vote, the firm of Carter, Hughes & Cravath decided to defer their legal fees until after the crisis was over. To be sure, the dues owed them continued to mount. They dutifully recorded their labors in the leather-bound ledger they kept for such a purpose, scribbling every meeting, every letter, every late evening beneath the office gas lamps. The right-hand column of their book filled with imaginary dollars. Who knew if they would ever be paid? As the firm—as Paul—built a theoretical fortune, the men remained all too aware that these paper riches might never become real. Paul continued to manage his “associate attorneys” in secret in the hopes that they might uncover another hole in Edison’s patent. Paul paid them from a combination of his own rapidly depleting savings and whatever scraps he could surreptitiously borrow from the firm’s meager accounts. No day ended with a promise of the next.
—
One September day Agnes Huntington strode into his office. Four months had passed since their goodbye in Nashville. She hadn’t made an appointment.
He hadn’t written to her. He hadn’t known what to say. Seeing her in front of him, he still didn’t. He knew her secret. She knew his heart. They were in this way intertwined by the impossibility of their predicament.
“Miss Huntington.” Once again the name felt foolish on his lips after what had passed between them. But what else was he to call her?
“Good morning, Paul,” she said as she shut the door behind her.
“It’s good to see you,” he said. He was telling the truth. “Will you take a seat?”
The humid September air wafted in through the open windows. It had rained only that morning, and the breeze was damp.
“How is Nikola?” she asked.
He told her what he knew. He’d instructed his father not to use the inventor’s name in letters, since they couldn’t be sure if anyone was reading Paul’s mail. Erastus was to speak only of the Tennessee sunflowers in their garden. As his father described the sunflowers, Paul would know that what he was really describing was Tesla. The old man hadn’t liked this subterfuge, but he understood its necessity. His most recent letter had said that the flowers were blooming nicely. Not as tall as he’d hoped, but they were showing their color.
Agnes complimented Paul on handling this with typical cleverness. Paul was proud to be clever in her eyes. Between them, they’d spent a lot of time in the company of geniuses over the past year. Clever would do just fine.
“And how is Mr. Jayne?” Paul asked. He still wasn’t sure just why she’d come to see him. But this was the figurative elephant in the room. He couldn’t go without mentioning it.
“He’s invited me to journey with him to Paris next month. Three weeks of traveling and sightseeing through France. I haven’t been since last I sang there. His family—well, they have their house in the city, in Paris. And a summer cottage farther south. Near Lyon.”
Of course they did. “Are you to be married?” The question was difficult to voice. But he had to know.
She swallowed. “Paul…I…” She stopped herself. When she tried again, her voice was lighter. “I believe the purpose of the trip is so that he might propose.”
“Of course.”
“He’ll offer me his grandmother’s ring in Paris, I’d imagine. Then we can celebrate through the countryside for a few weeks, before returning to Manhattan and Philadelphia to tell our respective families what they assuredly already know.”
“And you’ll accept his proposal?”
“Paul…”
“What does he think of your performing at the Met? Surely he’ll want you to stop?”
“Henry is a good man,” she said. “You think I must be compromising myself for his money. Well, let me tell you, he’s a better man than most, and any woman would be lucky to have him. Just because he comes from money doesn’t make him callow. And if you knew how much I’ve wanted to stop singing professionally, or how many times I’ve almost quit…It is not the constant jockeying for position and stature that I love. I can sing for anyone. Henry doesn’t have such a poor voice himself.” Her voice was firm. But her eyes were wet.
“I understand,” he said. “I respect your decision.”
“You haven’t written me.”
“Nor you me. I’ve been trying to win this suit—or at least not to lose it.”
“So we’re both playing games. You cannot blame me for winning mine just because you’re losing yours.”
They were silent for a moment. Paul wondered if she too felt like a pawn on someone else’s board.
“I didn’t come to tell you that,” said Agnes finally. “I came about your case. About Westinghouse. I know you’ve been to every investor below Fourteenth Street, trying to scrounge up funds. And I know it’s not going well.”
“How do you—” Paul didn’t need to finish the sentence before he realized the answer. “Jayne.”
“Of course he knows that you’re my attorney. And he told me about your troubles. That every banker in town knows of them. But he told me something…well, something that not every banker in town knows. He told me why you’re having such a hard time.”
“Why is that?”
“J. P. Morgan.”
“Morgan owns sixty percent of Edison General Electric,” said Paul. “Personally.”
“Yes,” she said, “but think of what else he owns.”
His mind raced to see the implications of her suggestion. In addition to his controlling shares in EGE, Morgan possessed a piece of nearly half the companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange. This was the very reason that Westinghouse had hired Paul in the first place.
“Morgan’s people have been visiting all of our prospective investors ahead of me. Morgan has been threatening them. ‘Invest even a dollar in Westinghouse’s company, and you’ll be punished.’?”