The Map of Time (Trilogía Victoriana #1)(37)
However, once William had succeeded in the difficult task of convincing him that his sophisticated seat was not as essential to the Empire as he had imagined, they found themselves back at square one, without a single decent idea to their name.
Desperate, they concentrated on the flow of merchandise coming in from the colonies. What products had not yet been imported? What unfulfilled needs did the English have? They looked around carefully, but it seemed nothing was wanting. Her Majesty, with her tentacular grasp, was already divesting the world of everything her subjects needed. Of course, there was one thing they lacked, but this was a necessity no one dared to mention.
They discovered it one day whilst strolling through the commercial district of New York, where they had gone in search of inspiration. They were preparing to return to the hotel and soak their aching feet in a basin of saltwater, when their eyes fell on the product displayed in a shop window. Behind the glass was a stack of strange-looking packets containing fifty sheets of moisturized paper. Printed on the back were the words: “Gayetty’s Medicated Paper.” What the devil was this for, they wondered? They soon discovered this from the instructions pasted in the window, which without a hint of embarrassment depicted a hand applying the product to the most intimate area of a posterior. This fellow Gayetty had obviously decided that corncobs and parish news-letters were a thing of the past. Once they had recovered from their surprise, William and Sydney looked at each other meaningfully. This was it! It did not take a genius to imagine the warm reception thousands of British backsides raw from being rubbed with rough newspaper would give this heavensent gift. At fifty cents a packet, they would soon make their fortune. They purchased enough stock to furnish a small shop they acquired in one of London’s busiest streets, filled the window display with their product, put up a poster illustrating its correct usage, and waited behind the counter for customers to flock in and snatch this wonderful, timely invention from their hands. But not a single soul walked through the door the day the shop opened, or in the days that followed, which soon turned into weeks.
It took William and Sydney three months finally to admit defeat. Their dreams of wealth had been cruelly dashed at the outset, although they had enough medicated paper never to need worry about procuring another Sears catalogue in their lives.
However, at times society obeys its own twisted logic, and the moment they closed their disastrous shop, their business suddenly took off. In the dark corners of inns, in alleyway entrances, in their own homes during the early hours, William and Sydney were assailed by a variety of individuals, who, in hushed tones and glancing furtively about them, ordered packets of their miraculous paper before disappearing back into the gloom. Surprised at first by the cloak-and-dagger aspect they were obliged to adopt, the two young entrepreneurs soon became accustomed to tramping the streets at the dead of night, one limping along, the other puffing and panting, to make their clandestine deliveries far from prying eyes. They soon grew used to depositing their embarrassing product in house doorways, or signaling with a tap of their cane on windowpanes, or tossing packets off bridges onto barges passing noiselessly below, slipping into deserted parks and retrieving wads of pound notes stashed under a bench, whistling like a couple of songbirds through mansion railings. Everyone in London wanted to use Gayetty’s wonderful paper without their neighbor finding out, a fact William slyly took advantage of, increasing the price of his product to what would eventually become an outrageous sum, one which most customers were nevertheless willing to pay.
Within a couple of years, they were able to purchase two luxurious dwellings in the Brompton Road area, from where they soon upped sticks for Kensington. For in addition to his collection of expensive canes, William measured his success by this ability to acquire ever larger houses. Amazed that the reckless act of placing his entire savings at his brother-in-law’s disposal had provided him with a fine mansion in Queen’s Gate, from whose balcony he could survey the most elegant side of London, Sydney resolved to enjoy what he had, giving himself over to the pleasures of family life so extolled by the clergy. He filled his house with children, books, paintings by promising artists, took on a couple of servants, and, feeling at a safe distance from them now, cultivated the disdain he claimed he had always felt towards the lower classes to such an extent it became complete contempt. In brief, he quietly adapted to his new life of affluence without minding that it was all based on the ignoble business of selling toilet paper. But William was different. His proud, inquisitive nature made it impossible for him to be satisfied with that. He needed public recognition, to be respected by society. In other words, he wanted the great and the good of London to invite him foxhunting, to treat him as an equal. But, much as he paraded through London’s smoking rooms doling out his card, this did not happen. Faced with a situation he was powerless to change, he could not help building up a bitter resentment towards the wealthy elite, who subjected him to the most abysmal ostracism while wiping their distinguished backsides with the soft tissue paper he provided. During one of the rare gatherings the two of them were invited to, his anger boiled over when in a drunken repartee some wag bestowed on them the title Official Wipers to the Queen. Before anyone could so much as laugh, William Harrington hurled himself on the insolent dandy, breaking his nose with the pommel of his cane before Sydney managed to drag him away.
The gathering proved a turning point in their lives. William Harrington learned from it a harsh but valuable lesson: the medicinal paper to which he owed everything, and which had generated so much wealth, was a disgrace that would stain his life forever unless he did something about it. And so, spurred on by his overwhelming contempt, he began investing part of his earnings in less disreputable businesses, such as the burgeoning railway industry. In a matter of months, he became the majority shareholder in several locomotive repair shops. His next step was to buy up a failing shipping company called Fellowship, inject new blood into it, and turn it into the most profitable of any oceangoing concern.