Men of No Property (44 page)

“Vinnie.”

“Yes?”

“Talk to me about Stephen. Whatever will become of him?”

“Mr. Finn says he’ll live happily ever after.”

“I’ll be God damned if he does,” Peg said, and cast sand in his face with her feet as she turned and hastened from him into the house, the gay, gay house…

V
INNIE AND ALEX TAYLOR
became faster friends than ever after Vinnie’s return from Peg’s—in the way of friends surviving shame before each other. If Taylor had been cured of a brief enchantment, Vinnie had lost an old one. He could pretend to be at ease with Bohemia, but the truth was he found a woman in bloomers a startling vision, and when she waggled a cigar from her mouth, as did more than one of Peg’s guests, and hung on the neck of one man and then another, he was shocked to the point of blushing. And it was not the freedom this represented that distressed him, he thought, but that this was the manifestation of freedom. Surely there were women of independent thought who deported themselves genteelly. If there were, he did not find them that summer. When the Taylors returned to the city at the end of August, he and Alex chummed everywhere together, museums and coffee houses, galleries and the opera at the Garden, but not the theatre. Peg was rehearsing a new play to add to her repertoire and the theatre had been redecorated for Valois’ company and re-named
The Valory.
Yet Vinnie was not sorry he must return to school before its opening.

Twice Taylor came to dinner with Mr. Finn and Vinnie. He took the delight of a small boy in magic with the house set upon a store; he examined the library, Mr. Finn’s collection of locksmithy relics, the Persian tapestries—all the things Vinnie had come to know so well he had all but forgotten. He could remember then how strange they were when first he had come amongst them, and how he grew familiar with them through the warm, happy nights when Peg came to listen and Mr. Finn read aloud to them. They were gone for good, those nights. Mr. Finn was about for his comings and goings, but most often he was secluded in his own study, and always he was careful not to intrude on Vinnie’s attentions. Too careful. And when Taylor remarked after meeting him: “What a delightful old gentleman,” Vinnie was aware that Mr. Finn had aged considerably.

He took his breakfast tray to the kitchen one morning to talk with Nancy about it.

“Mr. Finn well enough in the stomach,” Nancy said, “but he thinkin’ too much, all the time broodin’ an’ thinkin’.” She poked her spoon at Vinnie. “They ain’t all like you, Masta’ Vincent, not by a long row an’ a short hoe, they ain’t.”

That could only mean Dennis, Vinnie reasoned. He and Mr. Finn had spoken very little of Dennis. Vinnie had taken supper there one night soon after school let out, and Dennis had said as little of Mr. Finn. Only Norah had inquired after him. Dennis could talk nothing but politics and his acquaintance on equal terms with Stephen Farrell. There was a time such news would have pleased him, but his present enthusiasm was not enough to satisfy Dennis. Dennis had jibed at him: “You’re not goin’ Native are you with your society friends?” “My friends are not Natives,” Vinnie replied. “How about Abolitionist?” “I know several.” To which Dennis retorted, quoting Fernando Wood as he did more than once that night, “Scratch an Abolitionist and you’ll find a Native as Fernandy says.”

Mr. Finn had a better opinion of panel thieves than he did of Fernando Wood, Vinnie knew, and Dennis was high in Wood’s council. But that Stephen should join them…

During his last days before the commencement of the fall term Vinnie turned as gloomy as the weather. Mr. Finn tried in vain to learn the reason. “There’s nothing disturbs me more,” he said finally, “than to see a young man bored. I trust that’s not your trouble, Vincent?”

“No, sir. I don’t have any trouble truly.”

“Ah, then, that’s it. You’re troubled for want of trouble.”

Vinnie tried then to unburden himself of the nags and torments he had felt over Peg. He described the night he had spent at her cottage, the people and her remark about Stephen and his happiness.

“I expect all that means, Vincent, is that she will never believe him to be happy. That is her measure of self-comfort, of pride.”

“But the way she said it—cruel.”

“Margaret is not cruel, whatever else she has become, Vincent. If she were a ruthless woman—I may be wrong, but I think not—I expect she could have married Stephen. He is not the strongest man in the world, though I dare say, he has sources of strength none of us have seen.”

“And she drinks, Mr. Finn.”

“Yes, I suspected that. It’s a disease so many Irishmen take as a cure. I don’t know that we can do very much about Margaret, Vincent. After all, she is by way of becoming one of the most successful and independent women in the country. It is sheer accident that you have seen this, shall I call it, core of weakness. Most of us have it, a sort of private demon which we must battle all our lives.”

“Do you have one, Mr. Finn?”

The little man rocked back in his chair. “Oh my, indeed I do.” He did not name it, however. Instead he made what amounted to a compact of privacy with Vinnie, countering: “Don’t you?”

“Yes, sir,” said Vinnie, knowing in an instant that it was true: the whole holiday he had been fighting the desire to again visit Maggie Shins’.

“Vincent, is it because of me you have been but the once to see Norah and Dennis?”

“No, sir. It’s because of Dennis. He’s not like he used to be.”

Mr. Finn smiled. “I wonder. Perhaps it is that you are not the same.” He got up from the chair and began to move back and forth, his hands behind his back. “No. That is an overdose of charity. I must be as honest with you as I am with myself. I should like to think Dennis has been misguided by nothing more than concern for his people. It would be no easier to oppose him, as I am doing with all my might, but at least I should be able to keep my respect for him. I suppose sooner or later one imputes bad motives to all the advocates of a cause he abhors. I must try to avoid that. God knows, the Know-Nothings are a vile lot, and I doubt that after this election we shall any longer be able to deny their strength. But Fernando Wood, oh my. He is a hypocrite and a scoundrel, and I do believe a Native himself.”

“Does Dennis know that?”

“My dear boy, you might as well try to tell Dennis the pope is an Orangeman.”

“But how do you account for Stephen?”

Mr. Finn opened his hands. “A convent burned in Massachusetts, a church in Newark. And Wood was a signer on behalf of the Irish in ’48. True, he was about to run then for mayor, but only the likes of myself remembers that. And I am by no means sure Stephen will go all the way with them.
The Citizen
may be misguided and impudent, but it is not dishonest. Stephen will never fashion truth to expediency, though where he will take his stand…” He shrugged. “You know, Vincent, despite the contrasts of experience in your life, you have had a somewhat narrow upbringing. Are there any Southern boys among your acquaintance?”

“A few, but I’m not intimate with them.”

Mr. Finn sighed. “I wish you would call on the Farrells. This is the time he most needs his friends, not when he is in agreement with them.”

Vinnie did call, but it commenced as an awkward, embarrassing visit. No one had told him that Delia was pregnant, and here the child was due within a month. Delia at such a size looked pampered and spoiled, and by her eyes Vinnie judged she wept often. Her conversation turned frequently to her own family. “Stephen, you remember cousin so-and-so?” she would say, and Stephen would murmur, “Oh yes, a fine fellow.”

“If only it wasn’t for these elections,” Delia said to Vinnie, “we could’ve gone home and had our baby among kinfolk.”

“It’s not the elections,” Stephen said patiently.

“Oh, no. It’s far worse than elections.”

Whatever it was, Stephen diverted the conversation. “We are trying to bring Delia’s mammy up North,” he said. “It was she who brought Delia into the world.”

“An’ what a fussin’ we’ve gone through,” said Delia. “Papa had to free her first, a whole rigmarole, and then d’you know what? She don’t want her freedom, don’t want it at all. Isn’t that perishin’ funny?”

“It is ironic,” Vinnie murmured.

Delia picked up a cup from where Stephen had brought her tea and flung it across the room. “Men,” she cried, “I despise all of you! You’re cold and stubborn and you got no feelin’ at all for a woman’s sensibilities.”

Stephen got up and smiled. “That, Vinnie, as my mother, God rest her, would have said, is the sure sign of a male child.” He went to the mantel against which the cup had crashed and gathered the fragments into a heap with the toe of his boot. “Come, Vinnie. I shall stick my head in next door and summon gentler company than ours.”

Vinnie arose and bowed. Delia could scarcely see him for the tears, but she gave him a damp, limp hand, and cared not this time that he did not raise it to his lips. Stephen, however, when he bent to kiss her forehead, she clung to. Vinnie turned his back. Stephen summoned a neighboring lady who popped out as though accustomed to such calls. She caught up her embroidery and flitted down the hall to Delia.

“If we were to listen at the door,” Stephen said, “you would discover the tears but a prelude to laughter. But let’s go downstairs for a drink.”

“I must call on Dennis, too,” Vinnie said, looking at his watch.

Stephen stopped in his tracks. “You must find these calls very trying,” he said coldly.

Vinnie could feel the heat in his face. “I’m sorry, Stephen. I don’t have much tact, do I?”

“Not much. But you will be spared your call on Dennis. He is in Syracuse at the state convention.”

“Mr. Finn says Fernando Wood is a Know-Nothing.”

“Is that what you came to tell me?” Stephen said, standing, his hand on the railing. Vinnie had not intended to mention it at all. It had come into his mind at the mention of Syracuse and with his need for something to cover his chagrin. “If that is so, why is he not their candidate? He would stand a better chance of election.” Vinnie did not answer. He could not. “Is it appalling to you, Vincent, that a friend of the Irish should become mayor of New York?”

“No, sir. I’m every bit as Irish as you are.”

Stephen smiled and continued down the stairs. At the end of the long mirrored bar he ordered them each a brandy.

“Stephen, I’m sorry I’ve been such a priggish lout,” Vinnie said. “Mr. Finn’s right. Friends don’t have to agree to be friends.”

“Well,” Stephen said, “they have to agree to be friends, but to be friends they don’t have to agree.”

Vinnie grinned.

“You are neither a prig nor a lout, but a trifle dogmatic.”

“But I don’t approve dogma,” Vinnie cried.

Stephen laughed. “Even as all barkeeps are sober men!”

Their glasses tinkled as they touched one to the other. “To the Farrells,” Vinnie said, “present and expected,” and seeing Stephen’s grateful smile, he was very glad Mr. Finn had prevailed upon him to make this call.

A
S ELECTION TIME DREW
near, Dennis no longer needed to count himself a novice in politics. At the state convention in Syracuse he’d been primed and exampled by experts: in the city convention and after, he proved his worth to his mentors.

Many a strange turn was taken in convention that fall amongst all the parties. A shocking thing to discover was what the passage of the Nebraska bill had done to the Democracy. The President’s name was hissed and it was common talk that Illinois was burning Stephen Douglas in effigy. Cochrane and Rynders and all the big boys had hammered Nebraska into the Syracuse platform, but as one of them after remarked, it might be a coffin he had nailed, and perchance himself inside.

In their convention the Whigs crawled out from under the thumb of Thurlow Weed and nominated Myron Clark for governor, and for lieutenant governor, Henry Raymond, publisher of the
New York Times.
Poor Greeley. If it weren’t for the hatred the Democracy bore him, they might have pitied him to be so passed up for an upstart. But of pity they had none to spare, for there was in the Whig nominations a frightful warning. When they deserted Weed they were scorning his man, Senator Seward, the friend of Archbishop Hughes and no enemy of the Irish-born. Clark and Raymond might not be Know-Nothings, but all the same the Natives shook hands at their selection. Little they cared, the Natives, who was governor, so long as they showed their strength in his making. They put their own candidate in the field like a scarecrow with the flag in his mouth, and secretly went to work in the gardens of Whigs, Reformers, Anti-Nebraska Democrats and Temperance men.

Ah, but in New York City they cared very much who was mayor. The People’s Party they called themselves, nominating the head of an Irish Protestant lodge, an Orangeman, no less! Did Fernando Wood need more to recommend him to all true Democrats? What matter national issues after that? What good a country to a man who can’t earn his bread in it? No Irish need apply. God’s curse on them.

Night after night, Dennis stumped the city and left his gloves at home. On whatever corner a Native preached—not politics but hate—Dennis and his boys thundered down on him, laden with thrice-handled vegetables, as foul as the mouths of the spouting Natives. And taking up their abandoned stations while his boys stirred the tar barrel fires, Dennis rang the night with his deprecations. What lower creatures on God’s earth than men who preyed upon the unfortunate? Ghouls waited at least till their victims were dead, but these cravens would carve up the living. They would cut out a man’s heart to see if it pumped a few drops for the old Faith, to see if it spared a beat for Ireland. They would then chop it up, true butchers. They didn’t know, the fools, that Irish hearts were immortal. When a Wolfe Tone died, a Robert Emmet lived, and when Emmet died, there was in the shadow of the scaffold a Daniel O’Connell…

“Beautiful, Dennis, and fearful, terrible words,” Norah said, when he went over them for her. “Did you learn them from Mr. Farrell?”

“The words are my own,” Dennis snapped. “All he did was turn over a few pages of history for me.”