Men of No Property (46 page)

Mr. Finn shook his head. “What I want to ask is this: would you say that my coming to this house, accepting and returning your hospitality, would you say that made me a follower of Fernando Wood?”

Dennis squinted at the little man. Wily as an asp.

“I’m not trying to trap you into anything, Dennis. I merely want to show you that I am no more a Wood Democrat for my association with you than I am a Know-Nothing by my acquaintance with Valois. As for your other remarks last night, they were too unspeakable. I will not admit they were uttered.”

Word for word, Farrell had carried the tale. He could not turn round now to face the tale’s retelling. “Mr. Finn,” said Dennis, “do you remember the night you helped me escape Mulrooney?”

“Indeed I do.”

“You didn’t much like Mulrooney and you took a fancy to the boy you thought might one day lay him low. Then you weren’t sure of the boy either and it was a handy way to cripple them both, pittin’ the one against the other. Tell me somethin’—how did you know to look for me in the Empire Club that night?”

“Dennis!” Oh, the shock in his face at that one. “I presume I went there as you did, expecting to find you where I’d find Mulrooney.”

“Aye,” said Dennis, “that’s what I’ve been told. And the bargain was such not a Chatham Street cart was overturned in the crush.”

“I see,” Mr. Finn said. “I begin to see.” His face was as white as his stock. He sat stunned and rubbed one hand with the other. “I had forgot some of the Mulrooney history. A number of years ago a faction of Tammany put up a man named Noah for sheriff—you should hear this, Stephen…”

“I’m listening,” Farrell said, finally turning his face into the room.

“It was a dirty business, but the burden of the opposition’s message was this: should a Jew be allowed to hang Christians? To which Mr. Noah responded: ‘Pretty Christians, to need hanging.’ And he was elected.” Mr. Finn took up his hat. “Do not use my origins as an issue, Dennis. It will do neither you nor your cause any good.”

Dennis doubled his fists until the nails near drew blood. Whatever the little bastard was, had been or would be, he could hurt to the quick with a melancholy word. It was like stepping on a cricket to abuse him, or slapping a child in your own temper…and yet there he was—if not a toiler for the Natives, the best tool they had.

“You can come round after me, Jeremiah Finn, if you don’t like what I’m sayin’,” Dennis cried, “and not be curlin’ up in the shadows. The streets are as free to you as they are to me, and there’s none of us silenced yet in this country.”

“If I must, I shall,” Mr. Finn said. “Are you coming, Farrell?”

“Yes, I’m coming. There were things I thought we might say this afternoon, but I realize now there is no purpose to it.”

“Didn’t you say them all in the paper?” said Dennis. “Priests and grog sellers. Did ever the Natives do themselves as good a turn as you did this mornin’?”

“Then I shall do them another in those terms,” Farrell said. “If you fulfill the promise you made to that crowd last night—if you persist in calling Jeremiah Finn, I promise you a scandal Fernando Wood will not survive. I shall seek you out and publicly horsewhip you tomorrow morning.”

“You braggin’ son of a bitch,” said Dennis.

T
HERE WAS NOT A
role in which Peg felt less at ease than Sheridan’s Lady Teazle, and despite Val’s protestations, she knew her performance to be a burlesque of the satire. She would, she thought, be hooted off an English stage for it, but here where much of society was as ignorant as it was artificial, she was thought quite the polished English lady. Far more at home was she in Shakespeare, and although she never said it to Valois, she had always had the feeling that Shakespeare’s mother, at least, must have been Irish.

Truly she did not like to play Lady Teazle. She found herself contemptuous of her audience, remembering all the pips of fashion flitting in and out of Valois’ shop. She needed to restrain an impulse to break from the script with a bawdy remark. What a start that would give them! And what a finish to herself! She was, it seemed, in her personal life forever starting and finishing, pulling herself up from something, pushing something away. Val had put an end, for the time at least, to her sojourn with Bohemia. “But of course, they’re your friends. Did I not first take you myself to Windust’s? But you must realize that you are a star now, and furthermore that it is only as a star you can help your friends. Which of them down there can help one another? And if you must marry again, Margaret, for God’s sake, marry respectable.” “Have you someone in mind, Val?” And behold, he had taken her seriously. That autumn she had been introduced and fêted amongst New York’s proudest. Her acceptance in proper society seemed to wait no more than an appropriate marriage!

She sat at her dressing table that night of All Souls, having disposed of her first Lady Teazle, and thought upon the matrimonial prospects amongst her new acquaintances…Whiggish in politics, Episcopalian or Presbyterian, with seats on the Stock Exchange, houses in Newport, and their choice of the disinfected whores at Madame Baglioni’s; bachelors or widowers, they were gentlemen all of manners and taste and reputation, and not a one would say shit if his mouth was full of it.

“Goodnight, John.” This to the doorman as she fled her own thoughts.

“Goodnight, Mrs. Stuart. An excellent performance, if you’ll permit me to say so.”

“When I don’t permit you to say so, John, I shall no longer belong upon the stage.”

“It was only a manner of speaking, ma’am.”

“And so was your compliment. I am an impossible Lady Teazle and you know it, having seen the best of them.”

“That I have, Mrs. Stuart.”

“Goodnight, John. Wear your muffler. There’s a cold wind.”

And to the hack driver who waited her every night she was playing, she said: “Am I later than usual, Tom?”

“A bit, madame. Are you alone tonight?”

“Quite. Everyone is politicking, I expect.” Valois had not even waited the curtain.

“Aye, ma’am. The town is stinkin’ with tar barrels and Chinese fire. They’re mussin’ it up, lower side.”

“Are they? Who will you vote for, Tom?”

“You won’t hold it against me?”

“Certainly not.”

“I favors Wood myself, and Seymour, me not bein’ a Temperance man. Not that I drinks, mind, but you never knows when you might need one.”

Peg laughed. “And why Fernando Wood?”

“I figures him to clean up the mess at City Hall.” He tucked the robe about her ankles. “Are you goin’ home, Mrs. Stuart?”

Peg made up her mind in an instant. “How long would it take to drive to Mercer Street and Canal?”

“Not long if we can stay out of parades.”

“Do,” Peg said. “We may turn around and come back if they’re abed.”

The third house from the corner, Peg thought, as the cab moved away from the theatre. She had driven past it once, and Norah had brought the children out for a ride with their Aunt Margaret and a stop at an ice cream saloon, but she had not been in the house. The word had not been precisely said, but it was Dennis, and with Dennis the lump in his craw was Valois. No wonder. Well, if women were allowed the vote, she would cast hers for Wood, and that should mollify Dennis. And if he were not mollified, she would turn around and come home. Home, home, home. She missed the old man with his tales of the children. He needed his sleep, poor soul, wondering why a job which once but rippled his muscle should now all but collapse him. He had become a nuisance through spring and summer but now she missed him. All day she had thought of him and Norah.

The horse shied suddenly in the traffic, and she could hear Tom soothing him and persuading him into line. It seemed impossible to miss the parades. The torchbearers swung into the street and marched chanting alongside the restive carriages and busses. They marched with order and precision such as Peg had never seen even amongst soldiery except at home—the redcoats changing the guard before Dublin castle. No Irishman would march that way, and no American soldiers she had seen: they prided themselves on their independence, even in marching—citizens first and soldiers second. Valois! She saw him beneath a torch, his face set like an ancient monk’s. She unstrapped the window and called out his name. He must have heard her: onlookers beyond him turned her way, but Valois wavered not an inch.

Peg leaned back and listened…until the gist of the words came clear to her. She sat bolt upright. “Let us banish the Pope, let us silence the brogue, America for Americans only…vote the People’s Party…” God in heaven, had it come to this? No wonder this was a night of discontent. The traffic crawled alongside the marchers, yielding more and more of the street to them as their ranks swelled with admiring onlookers—dapper young men streaking out of the billiard halls, the oyster bars, the ale houses. Then howling down a side street with the rush and power of flood came a human battering ram. The frenzied “democracy” split asunder the ranks of the Natives. Tom leaped down from the carriage and caught his horse near the bit, leading him through the cursing, screaming men into the street whence the boys had come. Peg drew deeper into the corner of the cab and pulled the robe up to her chin.

The Lavery house was well a-lit. From the curbing Peg could see the old man nodding at the grate and Norah came to the window at the sound of the carriage. Peg stepped out and waved. Norah flew from the window and started her father. Out she came into the night, her arms open in welcome, but her stomach in the way of her intentions.

“However did you know to come?” she cried.

Peg left off her arrangements with the driver. “Is there something the matter, Norah?”

“Nothin’ but unease in our hearts. Pa and I were talkin’ of you the whole night.”

“I must have heard you,” Peg said. “Is Dennis at home?”

“He’s not and no matter if he was, you’re welcome.”

The unguarded word hurt although she had known the truth.

The old man built up the fire and the kettle soon carried a tune. Peg looked about the room. Never did an Irish house have so many chairs—and a pianoforte which Norah said the girls were playing nicely. “Do you remember at home when you were childer’?” the old man said. “I had a bit of a flute I used to blow on?” He went on about the flute and on about it, and as well, Peg realized. Norah was far too uneasy to talk.

The tea was just wet when Dennis came in. It had been three years since Peg last saw him, but the change had little to do with time. He seemed to have spread through the shoulders and chest, though that might be no more than his manner.

“So you’ve come in out of the storm,” he said, observing Peg from under a scowl.

“And welcome she is,” said Norah.

“Am I denyin’ her? Pour my tea for my throat’s parched.” He pushed restlessly about the room, and that was the change in him, Peg thought. His manner was such he might be thrusting some great invisible weight before him.

“I was worried,” said Norah.

“And well you might’ve been,” Dennis said, taking the tea. “They tried to fire two of my stores tonight.”

“Oh, no.”

“Oh, yes, and early, thinkin’ to muzzle me.” He slopped down a mouthful of tea and set the cup on the mantel. “Jamie was set for them and their bottles of fire. There’s one of them will hide his face in hell, the ruin was made of it.”

“Oh, no,” Norah crooned again.

“Don’t be moanin’ after them! They’d roast the child out of your belly knowin’ it to be Irish! We’re settin’ a watch on the Cathedral. The Archbishop asked it. All over the city they’re out, cursin’ the Pope from the Battery up.”

“I know,” said Peg. “I heard them and I saw them—a fearful sight, Norah. They march like men with no souls.”

Dennis fastened his eyes upon her. “Aye,” he said, “you’ve called it. Men with no souls.” He began again to move across the room and back, clenching and unclenching his fists. “Well, I called them all! I had to call them—not only the big ones standin’ up front for them, but the little ones crawlin’ and leavin’ their filth like rats in the snow…” He stopped at the mantel and took a gulp from the cup.

“Whatever are you talkin’ about, Dennis?” Norah said. “You’re unnerved, and unnervin’ me.”

He turned on her ferociously. “Why aren’t you in bed? What are you sittin’ for the night waitin’ a man like you owned him?”

Norah drew back from him. He was a stranger to her as well in this mood, Peg thought. He glowered at one and then the other of them and then blinked his eyes as though it were something else entirely he saw. “I’ll go up to the childer’ and see are they tucked in,” he said in a gentler manner.

“Whatever he’d do without the childer’ I don’t know,” Norah said when he was gone from the room. “I’m no help to him and he tells me nothin’.”

“There’s things you’re better not knowin’,” the old man said.

“Hush, Pa. I know more than I’m told.”

There was one thing Peg could tell her, she thought, whether Norah knew it herself or not: Dennis was frightened. She had known fear and seen it in men’s faces, and the very smell of it had come into the room with Dennis. She started herself at the sound of a galloping horse and the scraping wheels of a rig. They all knew at once it would stop at their house, though how they knew it they could not have said. Dennis was down the stairs with a bound, a pistol in his hand.

“It may be for me,” Peg called out. “I asked the driver to pick me up.”

“You’ll stay the night,” said Dennis. “I’ll not unlatch the door to any man.”

Outside a man leaped from the rig, calling out Lavery’s name. He pounded on the door and at the same time gave the bell a pull that brought it down from its arm. “It’s Jerry Lynch! Open up!” And to prove himself rushed to the window and pushed his face against it. “See, see! Open up, Lavery.”

Dennis shoved the pistol into his trousers and went to the door. “Go upstairs, all of you!” he said back to them, but no one moved.

He flung open the door and greeted the man: “Am I to have no peace at all, what is it?”

“Fernandy sent me to put you on guard. There’s been a shootin’. Some of the boys from the Seventh Ward, they came on the little Jew…”