Men of No Property (64 page)

“No,” the judge said, “that is true in part only. All these gentlemen foresee that in the fullness of its corruption the Tammany nest will crumble, and with a minimum of effort on their parts, and less chance of their getting dirty. Also, there is the war, my boy. What is it Lincoln says of the riots: one rebellion at a time is about all we can handle? There is relevancy.”

“Am I mistaken, sir, in believing that there is something corrupt in their attitude?”

The judge brought his brows together. “Feeling the way you do and doing nothing about it might signify the beginning of corruption. Now all these gentlemen will sustain you and Mr. Farrell. Do not mistake them: they are not cynics. They are merely tired old men like myself.”

“Then where do I go?” said Vinnie.

“You go to the politicians. You should know by now that there is no such thing as a tired politician. Reformers weary and go to bed, but along toward morning the politician goes to work. And let me tell you, Dunne, in such company Farrell’s Irish origins will not hamper him a ballot’s worth.”

And once again Vinnie thought of Mr. Finn. To the end of his life, however disinclined he might have felt toward exerting himself, he had risen to meet every challenge to his faith. How rare a man, Vinnie thought, he was only now realizing.

Vinnie did go to the politicians. He sought them out amongst the Republicans and the War Democrats whose coalition made up the Union party. They were calling in speakers from all over the country, including Vice President Hamlin, and with the tide of the war turning finally in the Union’s favor, they believed they could bring down the governor despite the city vote for peace, Lavery and Seymour. How welcome then a candidate who could carry the upper wards against Lavery and at least splinter the lower. Stephen Farrell for Recorder! It was soon forgot who first proposed his name, and that was fine with Vinnie. Like Mr. Finn before him, he was content with a quiet vigil. He tallied the crowds, bought a drink for a thinking man to make him think aloud, and listened at Lavery’s tar barrels: the rant against the rich man’s war, the poor man’s wage; his own glorious defense of the rights of men of no property.

“Mr. Lavery will tell you,” Farrell addressed the lower wards, “that he has only your interests at heart, the defense of your rights as poor men. God knows, your rights need defending, but I doubt if the right to be poor is one of them, though Lavery defend it to the death. Dennis Lavery needs the slums and tenements, but you who dwell in them do not need him. You need help out of them, not contentment in them, someone who will work toward their destruction, but not toward yours. In these days of enlightenment wherever there are kings upon the earth and their people are abused, we say shame upon the kings…but in this blessed democracy when the people are abused, the shame is upon the people.”

“G
ODALMIGHTY,” DENNIS SAID AT
the breakfast table, “they’re standin’ with their mouths hangin’ open listenin’ to him. If he was talkin’ Arabic they could make as much sense out of what he’s sayin’.”

“And yet I hear,” said Peg, “he has an excellent chance of tumbling you.”

“Where are you listenin’, sister?” said Dennis. “You know, don’t you, that if ever you take a step out of this house without Norah, you’ll never come into it again?”

“I am well aware of your hospitality,” Peg said, and left him to Norah.

When he was gone from the house, Norah came up to her room with a jug of hot water. Peg had the dye pot and a brush waiting, and sat with a towel about her shoulders before the looking glass.

“Be lenient with it,” Peg said as Norah took a strand of her hair in one hand and the brush in the other. “I don’t want to get up from here looking like an Indian.”

“I’m tryin’ my best not to paint your scalp, but you better not take off your hat where you’re goin’.”

“Neither hat nor shoes,” Peg said, watching her sister’s face in the glass. Her bawdish intent was wasted.

“I’ve put new buckles on your slippers,” Norah said, “and I’ve a nice plume for your hat.”

The words brought Peg a sudden vision of herself on the threshold. A cold shiver ran through her.

“Are you catchin’ a cold?” said Norah. “Maybe you’d better put it off a bit longer.”

“No,” Peg cried. “Do what you’re doing, but for the love of God, neither push nor pull me, Norah. Let me take one step at a time, today.”

“Alannah, alannah,” Norah said, looking down on her with great love, “I’ll take your hand.”

Peg smiled remembering how as children Norah was always reaching for her hand, and she hiding it to be able the quicker to run off from her sister.

“There,” said Norah at last, “I’ve done no more to you than the sun to God’s green grass.”

Peg dried her hair before the grate, and then bathed her body, and remembered Miss Parts-and-Parcel. She was sitting in her chemise, breathing deeply, when Norah brought a pot of tea and a slice of bread. “Sure, the bath’s weakened you,” Norah said.

“Where are the children?” Peg asked. “I don’t want them watching.”

“They’re all in school,” said Norah, “and this is Emma’s day to help Mary Lavery. Did you know her and Kevin are goin’ back to Ireland? They’ll never get over losin’ the boy, and Dennis says Kevin’s no hand at the business.”

“I keep forgetting,” Peg said. It seemed like yesterday was summer and the children were on holiday.

“Drink the tea and nibble the bread for strength.”

The one mouthful she took of the bread wadded in her stomach, but the tea gave her life and she dressed herself with great care. She had done it every day for a month now, if to go no further than the park with Norah.

“Oh, look at herself,” Norah cried. “The picture of fashion as ever she was!”

Peg did not have the strength now to spend on words; she needed it all, every breath and thought, to accomplish one step at a time on her determined journey. She sat very erect and composed in the vestibule while Norah ran out to summon a cab. “Will I go with you, love?” said Norah, holding the front door for her. “I’ll sit in the cab if you like.”

Peg shook her head and looked to the sky, the street, the houses. “How big it is,” she said of the outdoors.

Norah, thinking she meant the cab, said: “If they make them any bigger two of them won’t be able to pass on the street. Mind now, go in for a cup of tea if you feel anythin’ naggin’ you. You’ve the price of it and your cab, and you’ve the powder the doctor gave you. Don’t be ashamed to take it.”

“The Broadway Theatre, driver,” Peg said, and climbed into the cab. She waved her hand to Norah without looking at her, and the vehicle began to move. She could stop him at the end of the block and be off with his fare in her hand, his fare and the price of a cup of tea, ha! She was not even trusted with the money to bring her home. Norah would come out with that when she came. But the purse in her lap itself was worth a couple of shillings, and the buckles, the lovely new buckles on her toes. She dug the nails of her hands through the gloves into her palms. “Hail Mary, full of grace,” she said aloud each word clearly, “the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus…”

“How nice it is of you to see me, Mr. Richards.”

“Well, Mrs. Stuart, for old time’s sake…”

“The very reason I came,” said Peg. “I’ve been ill, you know.”

“I’m sorry to hear it.”

“And so I understand is your ‘walking lady.’ What a pity.”

“An exaggerated account. You know the newspapers. She’s a bit liverish. That’s all.”

“Mr. Richards, you made a small fortune on Gallus Mag, didn’t you?”

“A long time ago, Miss Margaret,” he said, never lifting his eyes from his cigar. “I’ve lost it many times over since.”

“But we were talking about old times, for old time’s sake. I should like to be added to your company at a small salary—not as small as Gallus Mag’s, to be sure—but neither am I proposing myself your star. I should make a most competent walking lady, and I do know that yours is very ill.”

He pulled at his cigar, clogging the air between them with smoke through which he squinted at her now and then while he thought of the matter. Finally he said: “I was out of town all summer, but I read the dispatches of what happened here, Mrs. Stuart.”

“Oh yes,” Peg said, “I was away, too, being ill. But they were brought to my attention as you can imagine. That dreadful woman. She claimed to have been an actress. Some of the papers said her name was Stuart, some even Peg Stuart. The implication was strong, so strong that a young lawyer friend of mine suggested I bring suit for libel—against the newspapers, that is.”

“But not against the woman?”

Peg lifted her chin. “I don’t suppose it was the first time she libeled me, Mr. Richards.”

“And do you believe it was the last, my dear?”

“I understand, on reliable authority, that she is dead,” Peg said.

“I hope she is for her sake,” Richards said. He put down his cigar and leaned across his desk. “Since you were so direct inquiring of my Gallus Mag fortune, allow me a direct question also: if I were to employ you in some small capacity, Mrs. Stuart, what would you do with your first salary?”

“I should visit a dentist,” Peg said without a moment’s hesitation.

Richards straightened up. “Give me a few days to think about it, Margaret. Leave your address with the boxkeeper.”

“Do you know,” Peg said, rising with a grace she had thought lost, “Old John seems no older now than the day he first brought me and Valois up to this office.”

“He’s not,” Richards said. “The rest of us turn gray and grow paunches, but old John will petrify. Perhaps he already has and we don’t know it.”

“I am very much beholden to you, Mr. Richards.”

“I like to have gracious ladies in my debt, Margaret. I have so often been in theirs.”

Norah, Norah, wait till you hear! Oh and here’s the thruppence you gave me for tea. And did you notice the cab fare was half? I walked up Broadway, oh yes, I did. I looked in all the shop windows and do you know, there’s the promise of Christmas already about, and Norah…I shall be playing by Christmas.

We’ll say never a word to Dennis, Peg. Let it come on him a surprise.

Never a word, not even when I’m out though he’d rather me out than in, out and down and well forgotten. He’d put a willing flower on my grave.

“I’m going out now, Norah.”

“I’d rather you not and tomorrow elections. There’s the great danger on the streets tonight, and it no place for a woman.”

“I am no ordinary woman, Norah.”

“That you’re not, love, and I’m proud of you. Tell me the hour you’re home and be here.”

“About nine I should say. I’m dining at a restaurant with some old friends.”

“Will you want to pay your own way?”

“It would give me pride,” Peg said.

“And me pleasure,” said Norah, getting her purse.

Peg dined alone, however, and those old friends she saw turned safely from her at a distance. Ah well, Peg thought, they will come back, but I shall have to woo them. I have ever had to woo my lovers. She was almost gay despite it when she paid her bill and Papa Pfaff wished her good luck. But at the door she paused, and read a plaque that stunned her: IN MEMORY OF JABEZ REED.

Go home now, Peg, she told herself upon the street. She had known that Jabez was dead; she even knew how he had died, though how she came to know it she could not say. This was not the time to make such inquiry, and surely not the place. She had not been with the Pfaff crowd then, but with her boys downtown.

And suddenly everybody on the street was going downtown again, a great rollicking crowd of people, the torchlights and the singing; the tramping feet louder than the stamp of horses, bold and boisterous men, and in their wake a tumble of limping, hopping beggars, going down, going down all to give a rousing pledge for Lavery and Seymour. Two gentlemen caught her between them and carried her on a few steps. “Are there none of you going for Farrell?” she cried.

“Sure half us are, but it’s Lavery that’s buying. Come along and see the fun.”

“Put me down quick or you’ll tempt me!” Kicking out with her feet she was soon given back their burden. She caught the first bus uptown and prayed herself all the way home. Norah was watching for her at the window. She rose like the joy of morning.

“Peg, you’re early, thank God!”

“Have you been at the window since?”

“Look,” Norah said, “a messenger brought it.”

Peg took the envelope from her hand and broke the seal.

“Read it out, read it out!” Norah cried.

“‘Rehearsal at eleven in the morning,’” Peg read in a whisper.

Norah flung her arms about her but Peg needed to sit down where she could read the words again, and Norah began a litany of plans, the clothes she needed and who would make them up quick, and all the sleep she needed now.

“Fie upon the sleep,” Peg cried. Not sleep she needed but the waking: the great, noisy brush of people, the touchstone of her living. “The children are abed?”

“They are,” said Norah.

“And the girl?”

“She’s in the scullery.”

“Norah, the town’s alive tonight. There are people singing in the streets, some for Dennis and some for Stephen, but what odds who they’re for? Dennis will speak and maybe Stephen. I’d give a share of my soul to be there. Put on your cloak and let us go down.”

“Oh no, I couldn’t,” Norah said. “There’d be no women.”

“There’s women everywhere,” Peg said. “You won’t even be seen with a shawl on your head, and we’ll keep the carriage waiting near.”

“Sure,” said Norah, “and I’m past the age of temptin’ most!”

She consented in the end and Peg thought it like taking a child to the circus. There wasn’t a flare went up in the sky she didn’t herself explode to. “Ohh-h-h, look at that!” and her voice rising up like the Chinese fire. Women there were, but only a few, and leaving the cab, Peg needed to haul her sister. “There’s Dennis now,” said Peg. “Where? Where?” and Norah followed easier to where she could see him.

Dennis was standing in the light of the tar barrels, waving his hands to the cheering crowd, his patronage in his smile, Peg thought. He was far more at ease on a political stump than ever an actor was on the stage. Where, she wondered, were the ones for Farrell. Dennis gestured his hand for quiet, the motion like patting a dog. Then rose the voices for Farrell, young men by their torchlit faces, giving three times three for Lavery’s foe…Farrell the honest, Farrell the bold, the savior of Irish honor, Farrell, a man who couldn’t be bought for gold. Norah was shrouding her face like a Moslem and began to pull on Peg to go home. Dennis gave a jerk of his thumb to his bullies, never creasing the smile ironed into his face, and as the brawny boys pushed through the crowd, Peg saw Farrell’s boosters link arms. “Hold fast! Hold fast!” She cried out the words, her voice clarion over the crowd’s murmur, and the sound of it hushing them more.