A Passionate Girl (7 page)

“Three hundred dollars,” Dan said, looking at the bills in his hand. “That's a good day's pay.”

“Don't forget two hundred belongs to us,” Michael said.

With icy contempt, Dan handed him one of the bills. He started to give me the other one, but I told him to keep it. Half jokingly, I remarked that they might not be real. I found it hard to believe Pickens's story that we were the talk of New York.

Captain O'Hickey was inclined to believe him. He said that the
Herald
was the biggest newspaper in the country. Its support could mean great things for the Fenians. The government of the United States trembled when the
Herald
attacked it. Michael and I found these ideas almost incomprehensible. Newspapers in Ireland attacked the government only at the risk of their existence. The idea of a newspaper having power was strange to us.

By midday we were passing the Narrows, the headland that guards New York's great bay. We paused there to let two quarantine officers board us. They were both Irish and asked in thick country brogues to see “the Fenian girl.” I was duly exhibited to them, to my growing bewilderment. The formalities of quarantine and inspection were brief. The
Manhattan
was a small ship, and we were the only passengers. Within the hour we got under way again for the inner harbor. Soon the city of New York was open to our view.

It looked immense, squatting there on its island with the broad shining river streaming past. A thin cloud of light gray smoke hung above it, from burning coal that drove machinery in the factories. In winter, when furnaces consumed coal by the ton to keep the citizens' houses warm, the cloud was often much thicker, Captain O'Hickey said.

Suddenly, from a round fort on an island at the foot of the city, a cannon boomed. For the first time we noticed that there were a dozen boats cruising back and forth near the fort. Now they wheeled and headed for us. Most of them were sloops under sail. One or two had steam engines. As they drew closer, we saw that they were flying green flags, decorated with gold harps and sunbursts. Their decks were lined with men, many of whom fired pistols and rifles in the air. Pickens was right. We were being greeted like conquering heroes.

Several boats ran alongside the
Manhattan,
and voices shouted: “I'm Wiley of the
Tribune.
I'm Case of the
Sun.
I'm Jones of the
World.
” But Captain O'Hickey, true to the promise that he had made to reporter Pickens, ignored the other newshounds and made steadily for his regular berth at Halsey's Wharf in the East River. There, as the ship was nudged against the pilings by a waiting tug, we encountered another amazing scene. The wharf and the street beyond it were crowded with cheering people waving green flags. A brass band was booming out “The Wearing of the Green.” I found myself wishing mightily that I had something to wear besides my peasant rags.

On hand to greet us were no less than the mayor of New York, the Honorable C. Godfrey Gunther, a barrel-shaped German, and sundry other politicians. With them were numerous Fenians, led by John O'Mahoney, a burly, deep-browed man with a full graying beard and long hair of the same color. The mayor made a speech, in which he claimed that all New York was waiting to welcome us. We were the vanguard of the Irish army of liberation that would soon rise to plant the green flag over an Ireland as free and prosperous as the United States of America. Although he was not of Irish blood, the mayor said, he was ready to enlist in that army and carry a musket in the ranks.

I thought the mayor was vastly misinformed to call three fugitives an army of liberation. I was even more amazed to hear O'Mahoney say the same thing in a briefer speech. He added that the Irish were deeply gratified by the encouragement they were receiving from their “American brethren” to fight England, the enemy of both nations. We were then shepherded down the wharf to a carriage waiting in the street. All around us the immense crowd cheered, and the band blared out “The Wearing of the Green.”

As we walked, a tall, very well-dressed man wearing a high black hat fell in step with me. “Your sister Annie sends her love and hopes to see you soon,” he said.

“Where is she?” I said, much excited.

“She lives at the Metropolitan Hotel. You may go see her there anytime.”

“What is your name?” I asked.

“Connolly,” he said. “Dick Connolly. I'm Annie's closest—friend.”

He smiled in a knowing way, as if he expected me to understand something in the way he paused before saying “friend.” I understood nothing and simply thanked him. “I'll come see her as soon as I can,” I said.

“By all means do—soon. You're famous, you know. We want to help you make the most of it.”

At the carriage, reporters rushed upon us from all sides, shouting questions. O'Mahoney and the other Fenians shoved them away and said they would have to wait until we made our official report to the Fenian government. In the carriage, the first thing we heard from the Fenians was a denunciation of Mayor Gunther as a vote grabber. He was thinking about running for reelection, even though the Democrats no longer had any use for him, and he had come down to welcome us to improve his chances with Irish voters.

“What did that fellow Connolly want with you, my girl?” John O'Mahoney said. He had a rough, blunt way of speaking that reminded me of my father.

“He was telling me where I could find my sister. She lives in New York.”

“Where?”

“At the Metropolitan Hotel.”

“Not the best address,” said the man sitting next to O'Mahoney. He introduced himself as Patrick J. Meehan, owner of the
Irish-American,
the city's leading Irish newspaper. He was short and dapper, with brown hair slicked tightly on his wide head. Beside him sat a bigger man with a thick black handlebar mustache. He was introduced as Colonel William Roberts.

“Why isn't it a good address?” I said.

“Never mind, my dear,” O'Mahoney said. “As a newspaperman, Mr. Meehan is naturally malicious. I prefer to think the best of every man and woman until I find out the contrary. For now let us celebrate your safe arrival.”

“The devil with celebrations,” replied Meehan. “I want an interview for my paper. I want it now.”

“I don't see how we can do that,” Michael said. “We promised the reporter from the
Herald,
Mr. Pickens, that we'd give no interviews to anyone for twenty-four hours.”

“Goddamn it,” snarled Meehan, “where did you see him?”

We told him and got even worse cursing for a reply. “I suppose he paid you for it?”

We admitted as much, and Meehan instantly ordered us to hand over the money to the Fenian treasury. O'Mahoney murmured that this was not necessary, but he accepted our cash. Colonel Roberts took from his pocket a wad of bills even larger than the one flashed by Pickens, and handed us a hundred dollars each to spend as we pleased. O'Mahoney said that, too, was unnecessary; we were agents of the Fenian government and would have all the money we needed. Colonel Roberts ignored O'Mahoney and said the money was a gift from him, to express his appreciation of our services. O'Mahoney muttered disagreeably into his beard but made no further objection.

Meehan insisted on interviewing us for his paper. Dan and Michael stuck to our bargain with Pickens and refused to tell him a thing. I let the men do the arguing while I studied the sights of New York. We were moving into the crowded part of the city. All around us swarmed a mass of hurrying people, dressed in the wildest variety of costumes, from well-groomed gentlemen in frock coats and high hats to ragged workmen. On almost every street corner, little girls stood barefoot, crying out the hope that someone would buy some hot corn from them. Around them four or five boys waved newspapers and screeched something about the trial of “the Southern conspirators.”

I looked worriedly at Dan and asked if the government was trying the rebel Southerners for treason. Everyone laughed. “No,” O'Mahoney said. “Just the fools who assassinated Lincoln.”

Soon the street was perfectly jammed with carriages and wagons. Through our open window came a dreadful smell, a mixture of manure and a hundred other species of decay. The day was warm, and the heat seemed to redouble the odor. Though I had grown up on a farm and knew the smells of the barnyard intimately, I had never inhaled anything like this stench. I said as much to Colonel Roberts, who laughed and said I would get used to it. He no longer even noticed it. O'Mahoney said he would never get used to it. He'd grown up breathing Ireland's sweet air, he said with a sad smile, and the hope of breathing it again was the chief reason he remained a revolutionary.

After creeping along for a half hour we reached Broadway, where our progress stopped entirely. The street was packed not only with carriages and wagons but with great long omnibuses drawn on metal rails by teams of horses. Nothing moved except the pedestrians on the sidewalks. The air was full of the cracking of whips and neighs of horses and the profane shouts of drivers. Our hosts were unperturbed. They said such a pace was normal for New York at this hour, when many offices and factories quit for the day and ladies who had completed their shopping were going home.

I was content to enjoy the view. Broadway was the one street in America I had heard about—as had almost everyone around the globe. My first impression was of a totally artificial world of bricks and mortar. There was not a tree or a blade of grass in sight. On either side, huge stone buildings confronted each other. A single person standing in front of one of these monsters would have been dwarfed, but this impression was lost in the mass of the crowd. Up and down both sides of the street they rushed, at a pace that left me bewildered.

Mr. Roberts pointed out Alexander Stewart's palatial department store, which we could see a block or two above us, opposite City Hall Park. It was fronted with cream-colored marble. Roberts discoursed on the tremendous display windows, the first of their kind in the world, over twelve feet long and seven feet high. He recited to us other startling facts—the store employed three hundred salesman and clerks, twice as many people as lived in our little village in Ireland. Seven million dollars changed hands within those marble walls each year.

Eventually we began to creep along once more and finally reached our destination as dusk descended. Sweeney's Hotel was to be our home. A huge Fenian flag flew from a staff on the roof. The lobby was crowded with cheering, smiling Irish, shouting, “God bless you! Up the Republic! Three cheers for Ireland!” Our host, Mr. Sweeney, a small, excitable man with an odd bend to his nose, led us to the elevator. It was our first experience with one of these magical contraptions, and Michael and I were suitably amazed by its silent rise to our rooms on the fourth floor. The Irish-Americans were delighted by our exclamations. Apparently we greenhorns were performing exactly as expected.

In our suite, we found a dozen other Fenian leaders waiting, with their wives. I was both pleased and embarrassed to see these ladies, all elegantly dressed in the latest fashion. Mrs. Roberts, a large, big-bosomed woman of about forty, which I guessed to be her husband's age as well, took charge of me. “If we're to display this Irish beauty to her best advantage,” she said, “we can't let her stay another moment in these peasant rags.”

With a smile she told me that the ladies had brought along a selection of their own wardrobes, which they were determined to share with me until I was able to buy some clothes of my own. Not being sure of my size, they had even brought along a sewing machine, which they had set up in an adjoining room. With that declaration, the women swept me away with them, leaving the men to enjoy the numerous bottles of champagne that they were busy opening.

These women were as strange and exotic to me as so many Chinese. They were elaborately dressed, with innumerable ruffles and bows on sleeves and skirts, and fingers glittering with rings. Most amazing were their huge skirts, which were stiffened with great iron hoops. These were utterly unknown in the Irish countryside. I also was puzzled by the stiff way all the ladies moved, their upper bodies rigid, like soldiers on parade. I soon discovered the rigidity was caused by corsets laced so tight the wearer was in constant danger of suffocation. On their cheeks were bright patches of rouge against a deathly white background of powder. Most remarkable to me was their hair, piled in intricate coifs and curls that stayed miraculously in place and had a bright pleasing sheen.

They could not have been nicer to me. In fact, their sympathy was extravagant. “Oh, my dear,” cried Mrs. Meehan, the pretty red-haired wife of the owner of the
Irish-American,
“how did you ever survive on that ship for weeks without a woman to talk to?”

“I don't know, I think I enjoyed having two dozen men all to myself,” I said.

“Now, now,” said Mrs. Roberts, “even though we're among friends, let us not be risqué.”

With this remark, I caught a glimpse of the delicate line I would have to walk with Fenian women. They were utterly ignorant of the hard, rough world in which their men moved. I turned to outfitting myself. To my delight, Mrs. Meehan's dresses fit me almost exactly. They only needed a little tucking around the waist, which we were able to do quickly, with a needle and thread. The sewing machine went unused, but they gave me a demonstration of it anyway, as one of the wonders of the age, freeing women in America from endless hours of drudgery.

While I dressed, they plied me with artless questions about my adventures in Ireland. Was it true, they asked, that I had stabbed a British policeman to death when he was about to molest me? Was that why I'd had to flee with Dan's help?

They looked disappointed when I denied it and added that there were no British policemen in Ireland, they were all Irish. But wasn't there a reign of terror raging in Ireland? That is what they heard. No woman was safe from the lust of the local landlord or his bailiff. Again, I disappointed them by knowing nothing of such things. Our landlord, Lord Gort, was in his seventies and had never shown an interest in Irish women. He spent most of his time in London. “Ireland's chief woe,” I said, “is the landlords' lust for money. It's what drives so many poor to join their fellow exiles in England, America, and Australia.”

“Exiles?” said Mrs. Roberts. “My dear, we're not exiles. We're
Americans,
as proud of that fact as any descendant of the Pilgrims. Those of us who have made their
fortunes,
here in America, like my husband, have no interest in returning to Ireland. We merely want to right a great wrong.”

The other ladies all nodded vigorously. One of them added that as long as Ireland was beneath the British heel, it made the Irish in America feel ashamed of their names and blood. It was why so many Irish changed their names to English ones. Casey to Case, Harrigan to Harrison. Ireland's degradation was the reason so many Irish in this country were treated badly. This was all new and startling doctrine to me, awakening once more my sense of a gulf between the Irish and the Irish-Americans.

But I had no time to worry about that now. I was busy putting on petticoats and a gray taffeta dress complete with a hoop skirt. “How do I look?” I asked. Everyone assured me I looked lovely. My only unhappiness was the whalebone corset, which threatened to strangle me. I thought it was superfluous for me, though it was no doubt vital to keep some figures in place. But Mrs. Roberts insisted I had to get used to it. Every fashionable woman wore one, no matter what her age.

When we returned to the sitting room of our suite, the champagne was flowing, but Patrick Meehan was looking more disgruntled than ever. Everyone was standing in groups of two and three, reading newspapers. “The
Herald
put out an extra for you,” Meehan growled. “Listen.”

He led me to the window. Above the noise of the traffic on Broadway rose a newsboy's cry. “
Read about the Fenian girl!
”

“What does it say?” I gasped, my head beginning to spin with the upheaval of the day.