PRAISE FOR THE WRITING OF DOROTHY SALISBURY DAVIS

“Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler and Josephine Tey … Dorothy Salisbury Davis belongs in the same company. She writes with great insight into the psychological motivations of all her characters.” —The Denver Post

“Dorothy Salisbury Davis may very well be the best mystery novelist around.” —The Miami Herald

“Davis has few equals in setting up a puzzle, complete with misdirection and surprises.” —The New York Times Book Review

“Davis is one of the truly distinguished writers in the medium; what may be more important, she is one of the few who can build suspense to a sonic peak.” —Dorothy B. Hughes, Los Angeles Times

“A joyous and unqualified success.” —The New York Times on Death of an Old Sinner

“An intelligent, well-written thriller.” —Daily Mirror (London) on Death of an Old Sinner

“At once gentle and suspenseful, warmly humorous and tensely perplexing.” —The New York Times on A Gentleman Called

“Superbly developed, gruesomely upsetting.” —Chicago Tribune on A Gentleman Called

“An excellent, well-controlled piece of work.” —The New Yorker on The Judas Cat

“A book to be long remembered.” —St. Louis Post-Dispatch on A Town of Masks

“Mrs. Davis has belied the old publishing saying that an author’s second novel is usually less good than the first. Since her first ranked among last year’s best, what more need be said?” —The New York Times on The Clay Hand

“Ingeniously plotted … A story of a young woman discovering what is real in life and in herself.” —The New York Times on A Death in the Life

“Davis brings together all the elements needed for a good suspense story to make this, her fourth Julie Hayes, her best.” —Library Journal on The Habit of Fear

“Mrs. Davis is one of the admired writers of American mystery fiction, and Shock Wave is up to her best. She has a cultured style, handles dialogue with a sure ear, and understands people better than most of her colleagues.” —The New York Times Book Review on Shock Wave

Men of No Property

Dorothy Salisbury Davis

TO THE MEMORY OF MY MOTHER,

MARGARET GREER SALISBURY

“Our independence must be had at all hazards. If the men of property will not support us, they must fall; we can support ourselves by the aid of that numerous and respectable class of the community, the men of no property.”

WOLFE TONE

CONTENTS

PART I

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

PART II

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

PART III

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

PART IV

1

2

3

PART V

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

PART VI

1

2

3

4

PART VII

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

PART VIII

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

PART IX

1

2

3

4

5

About the Author

PART I

1

THERE WAS A MUTE companionability amongst the people who waited on the dock, an unspoken sympathy for each other lest the pity of it be turned, by each upon himself, a voyager halted and his journey scarcely begun. Fear nibbled at their quiet, almost itself a sound. For all of them there was time, and for some of them the means yet to turn back to Ireland. Margaret Hickey would not so much as cast her eyes upon her sister, fearing to start the word from Norah’s lips. She prayed for a quick distraction. Could none of them sing? Was here to be a packetload of Irishmen and not a story-teller amongst them? Not a fiddler? Ah, but there was a priest, fair comfort that to some. Gone aboard but an hour before, he’d not shown himself since, but neither had he taken his leave, and Peg wondered in her bitter way if he wasn’t coaxed on to lull the Irish until sailing, or sure maybe no priest at all, for there was something queer in the fit of the cassock and the way he wore it—like an Irish recruit in a redcoat. There was never a priest she knew at home didn’t wear it like his skin.

She watched then as a man came striding along toward the dock, his boots clacking on the cobbles in the noontime quiet. No emigrant he, the girl thought, though he took the emigrants’ measure as if he expected their company. He put down his dinner box at the side of a capstan and was there intercepted by a lad whose like Peg had often seen on the streets at home. He was plying his trade a last time this side of the Atlantic. She strolled the distance by which she might watch him at work, for the beggars of Dublin were artists!

“Give us a ha’penny, yer honor.”

The man pulled the tail of his coat from the clutches of the small beggar, the boy no taller than his waist but with the big round eyes of an owl and the same look of age about him, and the same mute show of cunning. He was puffed up like the bird, too, stuffed with the nothing of hunger.

“What do you want with a ha’penny?” the man said. “Aren’t you off today to America?”

“The oul’ lady won’t give us from the packet t’eat. Give us the ha’penny.”

The man hunched down to be nearer the boy’s level. “And why won’t she give you from the packet?”

“She’s savin’ it for the crossin’. Give us the penny, yer honor.”

“So now it’s a penny, is it? You’re getting in practice for the swells of New York. Christ, what a parcel of creepers we’re exporting from Ireland this year of our Lord! Put your chin in the air, lad, and look a man in the face. How old are you? Eight? Ten?”

“Thirteen and yous can kiss my arse.”

The man started back as he might from the snarl of a dog. He gave a great laugh and fetched a purse from the tail of his coat. “That earns you tuppence, my lad. Give them that in New York and you’ll prosper.” He moved down then, the man with the generous purse, upon the emigrants where they lolled amongst their belongings. He looked from them to their ship. The workers were at it again with their hammers and tar. “The Valiant,” he said derisively, “well named for exporting the Irish.” A spate of blasphemy came from the emigrant men, a dribble of prayer from the women. Lying in a Liverpool dock The Valiant had sprung a leak. On the wild Atlantic she might as soon split asunder.

“God save Ireland!” the man cried.

Ah, that was it, Peg thought, a Young Irelander. And sure enough, he began coaxing and abusing the men, trying to push them back to Ireland.

“No man who is a man has the right to leave Ireland,” he cried.

In this year of our Lord, Peg thought, in this year of our Lord, 1848, no man who is a man has the right to leave Ireland. But who had the choice of staying? Didn’t he know Young Ireland itself was scattered? Its revolution no more than a whisper in the wind? Oh, the rights of Irishmen were many, the right to starve and the right to beg, the right to toil in the fields from the skriek of dawn till the drag of night and to own not so much of the soil they tilled as the scrapings of it from the soles of their feet; the right to load ships near to sinking with the harvest their sweat nurtured, and to unload the last harvest before it coming home again with the sweet stamp of charity on it…a few months too late for a hundred thousand or so dead who plainly did have the right to leave Ireland. Let him bag his own bones and take them back to Ireland, Peg thought, for the women were setting up a lamentation that would curdle the marrow in your spine. A rising, he was talking now, a rising that was, and another to follow.

A great handsome lad grown out of his clothes stood up then amongst the emigrants. “How the hell could you have a risin’ and not a ha’porth of yeast in any of yous?”

Go it, Peg thought, go it! and added her voice to the men’s approval until her sister hushed her. The English seamen laid off their deck work, and even the priest came to the rail. The emigrant shrugged his shoulders as though to cast off timidity.

“Young Ireland, is it?” he said.

“It is, and proud I am of it,” the agitator answered.

“And is it that walk into Tipperary you’re callin’ a risin’? Were you there, man?”

“Would God I had been and died there,” the agitator cried.

“Amen to that, I’m thinkin’,” said the emigrant, and Peg realized he was more a man than the fit of his coat described him. “Oh, what an army of yous died there. The marvel of it was how all them dead bodies could get up and run.”

“Look up to your ship now and see why it failed!” The agitator shook his finger at the priest who had turned from the rail and bowed his head, clouding his eyes with his hand. “’Tis not the first time the clergy has turned their backs on us. You spoke of Tipperary, young one. Let me tell you true what happened there. The people came out with pikes to join us, pikes, pitchforks and gentlemen even with their fowling pieces. They swore with us an everlasting fealty to Ireland, a fight from ditch to cave. And then came on your holy men. Midwives you’d think they’d be to Irish freedom. But nay, my friend. They turned the people from us. Dry nurses they are, I tell you, with empty paps! They’re suckling Ireland to her death!”

The women wailed out in horror and the men groped through their possessions while the emigrant spokesman let fly a great spit in the face of the agitator. All of them then gave something to his banishment: if they had but two shoes, one of them was aimed at his head, pipes, pots burned black with stirabout, jugs, pitchers which were to hold their first milk in America. And through it, Young Ireland stood, his eyes streaming, until one iron pan felled him. The constabulary came for him then, and the sailors leapt from the deck on the mate’s whistle, and with ropes and billysticks herded the emigrants up the plank and down into the ship’s hold, each one blessing his reverence as they hurtled by him. Peg hung back as long as she could as did the boy who got tuppence, having but half eaten his loaf.

On the dock the agitator found his own legs and shook off the support of the constabulary. “Oh, mother England,” he wailed out, “you could never hurt me like this!” He limped off while the police gave him a cheer. At a safe distance, he picked up his lunch box, turned, and thumbed his nose at them. He did not see the one salute given him in honor, Peg thought, the priest, whoever he was, touching his fingers ever so gently to his forehead.

Farewell, Young Ireland.

2

AS SOON AS THE tug-steamers sounded their approach, the hatch was closed and fastened upon the emigrants. It was not that the captain was a cruel man. He was merely honest. He had been paid by the head for his human cargo—his other cargo was pig-iron and pottery—twelve pounds for each adult and six for an infant, and in his long experience with the Irish emigrant, he had seen more than one of them pitch himself into the sea after a few uneasy hours in The Valiant’s groaning belly. Starting with two hundred and sixty head, he would bring that number into the Atlantic at least, and with fair winds and a generous sky he would bring two hundred into the New York harbor. The rest would have died on land or sea. He, at least, could give them a clean burial and a deep grave.

Below, a shout and a curse exploded with the clap of the hatch. The silence then amongst the emigrants was leaden. A solitary lantern, smoke-grimed and flaring fitfully, hung from a stanchion. The bunks were scarcely visible, and the wide furtive eyes of the occupants gleamed as from the depth of a pit. The slough of water and the creak of the ship as she buoyed up with the tide was like the sigh and the crackle of bones in an old woman’s rising to a dreary chore. A child whined. His mother muffled the cry, his mouth against her breast.

“Let him cry. It’s the sound of life in him, and it’s a good thing hearin’ it.”

All eyes followed the dark shape of the speaker. He strode down the center passageway, swung around each stanchion until he stood, his face level with the lantern. It was he who had spoken up to Young Ireland on the dock. Now his face was softer and there was the promise of an easy smile about his mouth.

“I’ve heard tell they batten us down till we’re on the high seas,” he called out and lowered his voice when it came pounding back at him from the low ceiling. “There’s no malice in it, yous understand. It’s only they don’t want us pollutin’ English waters.”

There was no response to his words except in the steady blinking eyes on him.

“Well,” he tried again, “’Twas a poor joke but the best I had on no notice. I’m Dennis Lavery, and I come from Henry Street, Dublin city.”

Again he waited.

“Have none of yous tongues?” he shouted.

A boy’s head poked over an upper bunk near him. “Eee! Vincent Dunne here, Mulberry Square.”

This brought a shiver of welcome laughter. Mulberry Square was amongst the most elegant of Dublin’s residential sections.

Lavery leaned away from the light to see the boy’s face. “Ah, that accounts for the tuppenny loaf I seen you with,” he bantered. “Did you save us a crumb itself?”

“Och,” a woman said from the bunk below, “if he’d only a potato he’d give you the skin. Come down and stand on your feet when the man’s talkin’ to you, Vinnie.”

“Aye,” said Lavery. “Come down and be introduced proper. We’re all to be gentlemen in America.”

The boy shinnied down the post, his bare toes groping for the floor. Standing beside Lavery, he cocked his head up at him and grinned. The eyes had mischief as well as cunning and the nose was saucy as a cork on water.

Lavery smiled and extended his hand. “Here I thought it was a giant in the loft and you’re no more nor a mite of a boy.”

The lad put his full grip into the handclasp. “Gi’ me any gam under five stone an’ I’ll miff wi’ him.”

“Oh an’ flatten him,” Lavery said, flexing his fingers. “I give yous Vinnie Dunne, the mighty Irish mite. Which is your ma, Vinnie?”

“Me ma’s dead. Her there’s Granny, takin’ us over.”

“It’s him takin’ me an’ the little one,” the woman said, easing herself off the bunk. She was a big, puffy woman who would take on weight if from nothing but water. She jerked a self-conscious bow out of herself. “I’m Mary Dunne, an’ the little one’s name is Emma. Vinnie was only spoofin’. We lives on Townsend Street.”

Lavery moved toward the bunk, his arm about the boy’s shoulder. He stooped and squinted in at the child, who after the look at him, slipped behind her grandmother and sucked on a piece of sugared rag.

“A broth of a girl,” Lavery said.

“Good as gold, she is. No trouble at all. The father’s waitin’ the first sight of her, him goin’ off to America after dottin’ his ‘i’. But that one. He’s no notion what he’s gettin’ with him at this age.”

Lavery agreed, but winked at Vinnie when he spoke. “’Tis a troublesome age.”

Together the man and the boy moved down the aisle. They paused at every bunk and took the hands of its occupants. Those in their wake clustered with them that were greeted before, and those ahead moved to the front of their bunks, the quicker to meet Lavery and the boy.

At one halt Lavery stayed beyond his introduction of himself. “By a foul light here’s a fair sight,” he said.

Two girls drew deeper into the shadows, but one of them laughed aloud, her teeth gleaming in the near darkness.

“Don’t be bold, Peg,” the other whispered fiercely.

“Ah, but do be bold, Peg,” Lavery said, and gave the boy a nudge to carry on by himself. “It’s a bold country you’re goin’ to. And if you be Peg,” he moved closer to her companion, “who would this be?”

“Norah, my sister,” Peg said. “We’re Margaret and Norah Hickey.”

“Margaret and Norah Hickey,” he repeated. “Poor, poor Ireland, her fairest blooms blowin’ out to sea.”

“Are you a poet, Mr. Lavery?” Peg asked.

“The name is Dennis and I can scarce write my name.”

“I can read and write,” Peg said. “I could teach you.”

“I’ll wager there’s much you could teach me,” he said, “and me willin’ to learn it. How ever did they let the two of yous leave home?”

“We’re run away,” Peg said. “Sick we were of Ireland.”

“Peg, will you keep your wits about you? You’ll have us took off the boat,” her sister said.

Lavery, accustomed now to the murkiness, explored Peg’s face. She would be under twenty and fair indeed with a bit more flesh on her bones and color in her face. Her eyes were too large, but dark and full as her tongue of the daring. In her good time she would rule a man, a house or a country—or all of them at a stroke.

“’Tis a sickness in the guts of all of us, Peg. Else why would we be here?”

“We paid our own passage,” Norah said, lifting her head.

“As I did myself,” said Dennis.

“Worry your pride, the two of you,” Peg said. “I was all for stowin’ it in my shoe and swearin’ myself a pauper. I don’t see the why of bein’ so bloody honest in a kingdom of thieves.”

“Peg, for the love of heaven, hold your tongue. Have you no modesty left?”

“I’ve more modesty than money. You seen to that.”

Norah drew away, easing herself along the bunk, her feet not touching the floor for fear of the dankness there.

Dennis extended his hand. “We’ll be friends, Peg. We know our enemies, you and me.”

She grasped his hand firmly and clung to it to pull herself out of the bunk. With him and the boy, she made the rounds of the quiet, fearful people.

They ranged one side and then the other of the wide aisle, barking ankles and knees on the barrels, boxes and bundles heaped there. The women and children had one side and the men the other. Many a man was the more sullen for the thought that he might see his wife only in the daylight. And the girls amongst them were the more apprehensive for thinking that one bunk was like another in the darkness, and maybe one woman were she sleeping. Fierce tales had come home of unholy crossings. The air was already foul, stale with the dampness of a quick wash after too many long, crowded voyages.

The screech of the anchor chain suddenly broke over the muffled talk.

“Mother o’ God, we’re collapsin’,” a woman cried.

“We’re weighin’ anchor,” Lavery shouted. “We’re throwin’ off our chains! To hell with England, and God deliver us safe to America!”

The Valiant gave her first great heave toward the sea and Lavery raised his voice above the lamentation of the women and the muted clang of the harbor bells. He sang the words of an old hymn which came to him first, and remembered all of a rush his mother fastening the stiff white stock about his neck for Sunday Mass. Even in the dankness he could recall the smell of fresh bread about her, for she baked on Sunday mornings, and he could remember the softness of her bosom as she pulled his face into it. It was better than the last sight he had of her, her eyes watered with the thought of his going. Louder he sang until his voice was near cracking.

“Holy mother, heav’nly queen,

List while thy children pray thee.

Guide us through the shoals of life

And o’er its storm-tossed sea…”

Margaret Hickey joined a fine soprano voice to his, and some then mouthed the words tunelessly while others had the tune but not the words. Soon everybody joined in the hymn.

The long night’s singing blended into talk, and through it the rumble and grind and even the motion of the ship grew familiar. Those not possessed of too great a stomach misery clung together. The quickest friends to all the emigrants were those who spun aloud legends and dreams of New York, the wages and homes they hoped for, the sights they expected…New York, where beeves were herded by the hundreds into a dozen markets every dawn, where the streets were crowded with stalls, and the stalls spilling with greens, the barrels bursting with treacle and honey; where milk came in buckets and meal by the bushel, where potatoes rolled in the streets overflowing all measure, where you could drink your choice and your fill for a thrup’ny bit; where no man was more than your equal and no woman beyond your hope, where the gaslights spun around in circles, and music crowded the stars into daylight; where they vied on the dock for your service, paying cash and the work not begun; where they hoisted the green flag of Erin alongside the stars and stripes, and sent runners to meet every emigrant ship, shouting and waving and crying out, “Welcome home!”

3

FROM THE SECOND DAY out the emigrants whispered amongst themselves at the wonder of a priest aboard who wouldn’t show himself amongst them. All of them able to go up to boil their water saw him at one time or another, walking, always walking the few paces there was room to walk on deck, and he would smile at them; a sweet, sad smile the women said which led some to speculate on whether he was not fleeing the temptation of a woman, for he was a handsome one, and Margaret Hickey said out in her quick way she would be tempted to tempt him herself. Others put his aloofness down to politics: there were priests, albeit only a few of them, with strong sympathies for Young Ireland, until a bishop put down his foot on them.

But before they were a week at sea many of the voyagers fell ill and lay upon their hard bunks day and night without rising and the captain was often sent for. His presence was the best part of his medicine, for he assured the ailing they would soon see land. One unfortunate, however, would have none of his assurances. Mary Dunne said that she was dying and asked for the priest.

“He has no powers on the high seas,” the captain said, and Peg thought it a strange thing, for a priest was supposed to be a priest the world over.

“Please, sir,” Norah said, holding the child Emma whose care had fallen to her, “tell him it’s not his powers but himself is needed.”

“Take that word to Mr. Russell, sir,” the captain bade the seaman who made the rounds of the sick with him.

“Russell, Father Russell,” the name was whispered among the emigrants.

The man was not long in coming, though by the way he stood groping near the steps he could not come quickly. He was blind from the light of day. Margaret Hickey caught the captain’s lantern from his hand and went to guide the priest.

“Her name’s Mary Dunne, Father,” the girl said, “and she’s terrible troubled, takin’ her grandchildren to their father, and thinkin’ now she won’t live till it’s done.”

“Thank you. I shall do what I can for her…and I’ll be as true to her faith as God gives me the power.”

For an instant their eyes met over the lantern, and Peg said, “Come, Father Russell,” although she was sure now he was not even a Catholic.

The ship’s captain made way for him. “I’ve done what I can for her,” he said. “I’m not a medical man.” He held his hand out for his lantern, but instead of giving it to him, the girl put it into the hand of the priest, and the captain went up in the dark.

Norah Hickey, holding the infant, pulled her sister into the opposite bunk beside her. “Do you want us to leave, Father? We can go some place else, but here’s the child.”

He nodded for them to stay. He lifted the lantern between his own face and the old woman’s as he knelt down beside her and took the puffy hand in his.

“Is it the priest?” she whispered.

“God bless you, Mary Dunne,” he said, and when he looked about for a place to set the lantern, Margaret Hickey leaped from the bunk and held it for him. He rubbed the swollen hand gently as though he would summon warmth into it. Yet on his own face the sweat was shining. “You’re a strong woman, Mary Dunne, to have come this far. It may well be you’re stronger than you know and will take the little ones safely on.”

“If I was an ox I’d never get up from here, Father. There’s a weakness in my bowels spillin’ the life out o’ me.”

“Tell me then what I can do,” he said, for the very smell of death hung about her.

“Go under my head and get my rosary.”

He groped about the damp pallet and drew the beads out. When he closed her fingers about them she lifted them up before her eyes. He dipped a rag lying by her face into the bucket of water beside the bunk and brushed her forehead with it. She thrust her hand toward his face then, her fingers poking into his cheek for she could not judge the distance between them, but he did not flinch. When he saw that she was trying to better see his face he took the lantern and held it close to him.

“Do you know, you put me in mind of my Tom a little? You’re awful young to be a priest.”

“I’m twenty-seven,” he said.

“Ah, ’tis me that’s awful old.”

Her eyes lost their cogency and presently she tried to move her body. The weight of it was beyond her strength. She began wandering in the mind then, sometimes scolding, sometimes crooning.

“Be easy, Mary Dunne,” the man said, trying to hold her hands. But they were the only part of her body she could move and the holding of them so chafed her he let them go.

She groaned and threshed her arms about. “I’m heavy, heavy and the pains is comin’ fast,” she cried. “Tom, run for your father, run!”

“She thinks she’s with child,” the man said, gazing up at the wide-eyed girl who held the lantern.

“Are ye never comin’, Tom?”

“I’m comin’ sure.”

“Father Russell” bowed his head. The words were spoken from the foot of the bunk where Vinnie Dunne had come to answer to his father’s name.

She grew easier then and searched the man’s face with her eyes, her imagined recognition warming them. “You’re a good boy, Tom. I don’t know whatever I’d ’ve done without you.”

“Mother, mother,” he said quietly and she managed a smile. He called for the children and drew the boy close while Norah brought the little girl. The old lady tried to look from one to the other of them. Then, giving up the struggle, she closed her eyes and died.

“Father Russell” said the prayers for the dead and only his careful saying of the words might have distinguished him from a parish curate, Peg thought. There were not many men in Ireland after the years of famine who had not heard them often enough to know them by rote.

“Will you bring the children up?” he said then to Norah, rising from his knees. And seeing so many faces peering silently into his as he gazed about, he called out: “God bless all here!”

At the steps he took the child from Norah’s arms and carried her up. Vinnie followed and Norah after him. At the hatchway he told the mate that Mary Dunne was at rest.

Peg bit her lip and set to the chore of laying out the dead woman while the living hung back in fear of what she might have died of. She had no more than put a comb to the woman’s hair, however, when two grim-mouthed seamen came down with their rude winding sheet and thrust her away, attending the body themselves. The emigrants were often too fond of their dead, and Mary Dunne was given a quick burial with only her family attending.

Peg waited and waited for Norah to come down. She’d been pining the voyage, Peg thought, to go to the priest and now wasn’t missing the chance. Some went up and some came down when the hatchway opened, but Norah was not among them, and presently the word came down that the priest wanted Dennis Lavery. Hard then were the eyes of the women upon her. Well Peg knew what they thought of her, with their men sighing after her when she passed and doing their best to come on her in a tight place so she’d need to squeeze by them, and never the men were blamed but herself only, the women plaguing Norah with their accounts. They’d sidle up to her with a bit of goose grease for the baby and a tongue lathering to tell some new tale of Peg’s immodesty. Sitting snug with Dennis Lavery, they’d say, pretending to teach him his letters as though ever a woman taught a man aught but temptation. Ah, this was their favorite tune, the tempting of Dennis Lavery, for they knew that in her heart Norah herself was cherishing him. A plague on the lot of them, Peg thought—a parcel of creepers, as Young Ireland called them. And the devil a care she had for Lavery either, save the pleasure of seeing him lap up the learning.

Norah came down then, snuggling the child as though she had borne her. What a thing it would be to part her from that when they got to New York, Peg thought, as hard as parting her from the old man, drunk as he was, the morning they skipped Ireland.

“I thought you’d leave her with the priest,” Peg said.

“And what’d he do with her?” said Norah.

“Did you ask him?”

“I did not. Dennis is keepin’ the boy with him till we get there.”

“And you’re not keepin’ her any longer, mind,” said Peg. “What did the priest have to say to you?”

“He’ll give you a book if you go up to him, Peg.”

“Was it me you confessed to him?” Peg cried.

Norah put the child into the bunk and gave her a bit of sugared rag to suck on. “I needed to tell someone what we did to Pa,” she said, “and I’m easier for it now.”

So, Peg thought, she had confessed to a man who was no priest at all the sin of escaping Ireland, how they had sold one thing and another out of the house, and counted the old man his share, never letting on to him what they planned to do with theirs while he spent his on the drink. “I wonder,” she said in bitter sarcasm, “is Pa the easier for it.”

And that set Norah into a burst of tears. She pounded her fists on the hard straw pallet. “Oh, Peg, I keep thinkin’ of him gropin’ round the house with the candle to see are we home yet.”

“Put it out of your mind!”

“I can’t. I try but I cannot.”

“Then I’ll give you the picture to drive it out, him foulin’ himself on the stoop of a Sunday mornin’.”

“Stop it, Peg! You’re possessed of the devil.”

“Then stop it yourself. You’ve a wonderful way of forgettin’ the bad and mindin’ the good. I’ve not and I’ll never forget it. I’ll never forget Jimmie Dolan comin’ round to walk me to church and runnin’ off when he seen him. There wasn’t a decent thing in him my mother didn’t nail there. He fell in a heap when she went, and for all of me he can lie there till he rots.”

“I hope you’re never in as much need as him,” Norah said fiercely.

“If I am, I hope they’ve the sense to let me lie in the gutter. I’m goin’ up now and take the air.”

“Peg, you don’t understand. You’re too young to know what a man suffers.”

“Am I?” She swung around the post and whispered: “Then I’ll learn first what a man pleasures, thank you.”

Norah flung the flat of her hand at her.

Peg dodged it and said: “What did the priest have to say to your blather?”

“He was in it with you,” Norah said, “more’s the pity. He said pa was beyond savin’.”

“And I suppose you had an answer to that with your conscience?”

Norah lifted her chin. “I asked him why we were beyond tryin’. And he said God Himself would have to give me the answer to that, and it maybe the riddle of Ireland altogether.”

4

DENNIS LAVERY HAD BEEN standing at the ship’s rail marveling at the great wide cleanness of the sea. He was a good sailor. There were some in the ship’s belly who had not been up since the sailing. They should be forced up and not down, he thought, for his own strength doubled when he faced the wind. The wonder to him now was that he had not run away to sea as a boy. He had dreamed of it often enough. But the furthest from home he had ever ventured was the ride in a tinker’s caravan into the Wicklow hills. He would likely not be going to America at all if a brother were not there ahead of him.

Still, he had known a wonderful transformation the day he made up his mind on America, and with every step toward it, he became more of a man than he had known of himself before. He tested the strength of his back with every challenger, and with the very day of sailing he had tried the power of his tongue, and to his own satisfaction he had bested a born agitator parrying words with him on the Liverpool dock. What a discovery that for Dennis Lavery! There was no more to becoming a leader of men than a man’s declaring himself a leader. There was no more to speaking than spitting the words out. What had prompted that first rise in him, he did not know. No more than restlessness, perhaps, or the lumped dumbness of them he was amongst. Perhaps it was the fire in the eyes of Margaret Hickey daring him to be more than the rest of them for he had seen her the moment she stepped on the dock. A shiver of pleasure ran through him with the thought of her.

He had known one girl only and her a gypsy’s half-wit who took to him when he was fifteen. She had tortured him to be a man to her and scalded the manhood out of him. Now he had it back again, and time at twenty-three. Nor was her lithe sweet body all he saw in Peg, he reasoned. Oh, she was fair, with the fine high forehead, the brown hair with the gold in it flowing out like a silk shawl when she loosed it, the quick smile and the gleaming teeth; but it was the proud word that won him, and her generous heart. Her wit provoked the clown in him and set him dancing. The green daring of her eyes stung him to long plans of a world he could make which even she would wonder at. Even now while she taught him letters, he gave her words for them she had not dreamed the sweet sound of. And, he hoped, seeing her turn them over in her mind to better get a hold on them, he was himself settling more deep inside her with every one she cherished. Oh, mother of the world, he thought, I could leap from mast to mast at the promise of a sight of her, dry the ocean with the heat she kindles in me.

He watched now, his mind no longer to the glory of the sea but to the image of Peg’s rising out of the hatchway. He willed her coming. No games would she play with him, no giddy, giggling games like the rest of them, pretending to chance upon him when all the while they had plotted their course.

Margaret Hickey, he whispered into the wind, I want you. I’m thinking of you and nothing but you. Put down the nonsense you’re scribbling for some poor cuddy. He wouldn’t know a rosebud from an egg of horse dung or he wouldn’t be down there. Come up, Peg. My heart is calling you.

And, as often happened, when she came into his vision close upon the white heat of his dreams, her presence, after the first leap of his heart, chilled him. He cursed himself for his fears. Love was a torturing thing. It turned a man into a croaking toad when he wanted a golden tongue. He turned quickly back to the rail and himself played the game he scorned in women, pretending not to have seen her come up.

By the flounce of her skirts seen from the corner of his eye, he could tell she was in a temper and bringing it to him.

“Fancy it!” she said to his back as though she cared not whether she spoke to him or the sea. “That fine, high sister of mine went to the priest about me.”

He turned and smiled, secure himself in her temper with someone else. “I’d love to’ve gone to a priest about you myself,” he said slyly, hoping she would find the kernel of earnestness in it.

If she heard him at all, she did not let on. She frowned and shaded her eyes against the shock of sunlight on the water. He tried to think of another way to pursue it when she cooled off.

“And him no priest at all,” Peg said. “There’s the shame of it, goin’ up with her rigmarole to a stranger.”

“Eh?” said Dennis, thinking again himself about the man called Father Russell. It had struck him from the beginning that there was something familiar about his face, but he had put it down to maybe him being a missionary, and having preached some time or other in Ireland. “What is he then?”

Peg shook her hair out in the wind, the way it would drive a man wild, wanting to run his hands through it. “My own guess is he’s one of the Young Ireland bunch, running out of the country in a priest’s robe.”

“By the glory, that’s it!” Dennis cried. “I’ve been tryin’ to think where I’d seen him. Wait now—he had a bit of a beard—it’s on my tongue. His name’s on the tip of my tongue.”

“He’s not Mitchel,” Peg said. “He was transported in spring.”

“And it’s not Duffy nor O’Brien, nor Meagher of the Sword…”

Peg shrugged. “You know more of them than I do.”

“Aye,” said Dennis bitterly. “I know more of them than they do of the likes of me sure, gentlemen all.”

“’Twas no gentleman on the dock,” said Peg.

“He’d ’ve quit them soon enough at home, him on the dock. He was a workin’ man. There! I know who he is, the one masqueradin’ a priest. ’Tis Farrell, Stephen Francis Farrell.”

“Ah-ha,” said Peg, “he was the editor of Irish Freedom till it was banned. I knew he had the learnin’ when I heard him speak, and a handsomer man I never seen.”

“You’d say the same of the devil if you seen him in breeches,” Dennis snapped.

She construed the reproach to her own liking. “You’re that bitter against him?”

“I am,” Dennis said, laying abuse on the heavier for his jealousy of her praise. “The fine words he had for us many a night, and the soles of his feet when it came time for risin’. Does he think because we lift the sledge from mornin’ till night we can’t bring it down as sure on a skull as a stone? Let me tell you somethin’, Peg: when Ireland’s aflame, it’ll be the workin’ men set torches to her, and not them spellin’ her out in Gaelic and Greek.”

“Beautiful words, Dennis. You’ve the power of beautiful words.”

He looked again to the sea. Praise from her ran through him like water. “The power of words,” he said, “and the heart of mush.”

“What are you belittlin’ yourself for all the time?”

“Peg, it’s with you only.” He caught at the rail to keep his hands from her. “You’ve the power over me now no woman ever had, and I’ve a great strength of my own. I won five pound at the Wicklow Fair throwin’ the king of the tinkers, and him the strongest man comin’ out of Galway in twenty years.”

Peg laughed and he looked at her. Her eyes were as sharp as her small white teeth.

“Is it to wrestle with you, you’re tryin’ to ask me?” she mocked.

The shame burst through him for his body was crying out to crush against hers and he had no way of gentleness and no words to disguise his want—only a boast of strength to coax her mockery. He lifted his foot and gave a great kick to one of the water kegs roped in a row. The staves split like a fan, the fresh water rushing over the deck.

“Hey, you bloody Paddy,” the watch cried down from the crow’s nest. “You’ll get the lash for that, you will!” He pulled the whistle to his mouth and getting the deck watch from the pilot house, pointed at Dennis.

Peg caught at his arm. “What’d you do that for? Run down below and I’ll soothe them.”

“I’ll stay and watch the soothin’,” he said. “There’s more hurt in your tongue than there is in a lash.”

“Don’t be a fool, Dennis. My tongue’s got no more schoolin’ than your toe has.”

There was softness and pity in her heart for him after all, he thought. With the taste of her mouth on his the lash would be a tickle on his back.

“Peg, I’m out of my mind for you, don’t you see?” he tried to explain as he caught her and pulled her to him.

For an instant her eyes met his and little flames seemed to spring into them. Her fingers, strong and nimble, played down his body from chest to thigh.

“Surely they’ll kill you…” she started.

He smothered the words with his mouth and thrust her legs back with his own as he drove their bodies against the side of the ship, crushing his arm between her and the rail. Whether she was struggling against him or urging a hunger of her own upon him he could not tell.

Not until they pulled him from her and he saw the wrath of her eyes did he realize that her teeth upon his lip were venomous. She kicked out at him, aiming, he knew, at his groin. He had deserved it, hurting her, and yet he was confused even beyond his passion. He yielded to the iron grip of the seamen as they flung him face downward on the deck and then pulled him up again, his arms pinned behind him and his legs roped to within a few inches of one another. They forced him around before her. She stood, sucking in great gasps of air, her breast rising and falling in the quickness of her need for it. Her eyes on his were searing, tearless and full of scorn. No hurt was in them.

“Now, biddie!” a sailor cried, tightening the vise on Lavery’s arm, “you can let him have that fancy toe of yours.”

“Kick high and he’ll remember!” another chimed in.

“Oh he’ll remember, he’ll remember you.”

Still she stood, proud and full of hate, waiting for him to beg it too, he thought.

“Forgive me, Peg!” he cried out. Something needed forgiveness. He did not know what.

Her lips parted and the smile was crueler than her eyes.

“A good word, Peg,” he cried, for now he hated her and thought this to be the best of taunts that he could thrust at her who had no good words to comfort a man, only bad ones to tempt him.

She turned her back on him, and he could see the high tilt of her chin as the wind fanned her hair about it.

They dragged him away and thrust him down the steps of the forward hatch. “While he lay below, breathing the smell of rust from the cargo, and waiting the irons they promised, an old Scots seaman who was the easiest of his captors, said: “Ah, lad, dinna ye know better nor ask a gud word o’ the de’il’s whore?”

5

THERE WAS THIS TO be told of Peg: nothing she did was contemplated with malice aforehand. Indeed, by this lack of contemplation she was often the last to discover the mischief of which she was the origin. She was restive and curious, and did love things of flame and beauty. She was running through youth as she might through a fire, fearful at times, but more often wild with the excitement of something she perceived but did not understand, and her one determination was to turn back from nothing.

She had small pity for Dennis Lavery in his solitary confinement, thinking her own lot much the worse to have been tumbled, feeling raw and naked, back into the hold to the spitting scorn of the women who cried “Shame!” at her day and night the week since. She was ashamed, but not for the reasons for which they chastized her. She was ashamed now because she knew that Norah was pining after Dennis Lavery and she had permitted him and herself the temptation when she cared not a fig for him more than she had cared for any man she had ever known. She could have killed him herself for the kiss he forced upon her, for rousing in her something of torturing pleasure that left nothing but shame in its passing. Whether she despised herself or him more for it, she could not say. In truth, there was much she could not say, and no ears willing to listen if she could, save the boy, Vinnie, who took to her out of instinct or because he was lonesome entirely.

“You must go to the priest,” Norah pleaded with her. “For my sake, do, and they’ll forgive you, seem’ it.”

“If it’s for your sake, go yourself,” she said. “You’ve been to him before.”

“If you confess yourself,” Norah said, “he might put in a word on Dennis’ behalf. And you did tempt him, Peg.”

Peg laughed. “What do you know of temptation, keepin’ your heart wrapped up in flannel?”

“You’re as selfish as sin, Margaret Hickey, and I could wish now what I never thought would come into my heart—I do wish you weren’t my sister at all. There’s people sick and ailin’ he’d sing a song to. He’d cart water for them not able…”

“Is it for all the others you want him back?” said Peg.

“Peg, I swear it to you before heaven, I wouldn’t try to take him from you if I could, so do say the word to the priest.”

“Oh, for the love of God!” Peg exploded, and went up without another word.

Her first wish when she gained the deck was that Dennis had not burdened her with the knowledge of Farrell’s true identity. She must still pretend him a priest to herself or she could not speak to him at all, she thought.

“I would see the priest,” she called up from below the captain’s bridge.

“Would you?” said the mate, and then to a seaman and with a wink of his eye, she thought: “Tell Mr. Russell one of his parishioners is down here—the bad one.”

She turned her back and waited, trying to fashion her first words for when the man came. He was so soon there that he spoke before she was aware of his presence. “Yes, Miss Margaret?”

She swung around and seeing him tall and quiet and waiting patient for her words, she knew she could not blame herself before him. “I’ve come for the book you promised by my sister.”

“It’s been so long I’d quite forgot it,” he said.

“I’ll forget it myself,” she said then. “I’ve no great need for it…Father.”

“I’ll see what I have if you’ll excuse me a moment,” he said, ignoring her words and retreating up the steps quickly.

He was as shy of her as she was of him, she realized. Oh, what nonsense ran through people’s minds of one another! Did they know themselves so poorly to be that fearful of them they didn’t know at all? Was conversation a game to conceal the truth instead of revealing it? Now here was a man as well known by name as his times in Ireland, for his paper had stirred up a storm of tempers with every issue, and he needed to get a book in hand before he could talk to her! It gave her a fine and dangerous sense of her own power, and she entirely forgot Dennis Lavery for the moment.

“I wonder,” he said on returning, “does your taste run to poetry?”

“It runs wherever I chase it, Father,” she said, and held her hand out for the book. He was slow in giving it. “Sonnets. I heard of them but I never seen them afore.”

“There are all kinds of sonnets,” he said.

She thumbed through the book. “There’s some here on love.”

“There are. And some on gardens and some on the sea. All manner of things touching a poet’s fancy.”

“You said that pretty, Father,” she remarked, glancing up at him. And seeing the little alarm in his eyes she plunged into the mischief. “Ha!” she cried. “Wait till they see what you gave me! I better tell them this is a prayerbook.”

“You’ll tell them nothing of the sort,” he said. “If you can’t tell the truth of it, you’d better not take the book at all.”

“Father, I know it’s hard for a holy man to believe, but I’ve been in more trouble by far for tellin’ the truth than ever I got into for tellin’ a lie.”

The trace of a smile warmed his mouth and she found him much to her liking. “Perhaps we should walk a bit,” he said, “if your legs are as steady as your tongue.”

“They both run off with me at times,” she said. “It would be grand could we go to the front of the ship. I do love to look before me and never back though it be the same.”

He held the rope up for her as might a gentleman, and with not a word for permission to the dour sailors watching them. He was accustomed to taking the way he wanted, this one, and not wasting words to ask it. “What will you do in America?” she asked, looking up at him suddenly.

“I rather think I should be asking you that question,” he said.

“Oh, I’ll marry the lord mayor of New York and live in a mansion.”

“I shall not be surprised to learn it,” he said, “but I do think your sister would settle now for your promise of something less.”

Peg sighed. “She’d marry me to a jailer if he’d keep me in chains.”

“That’s unfair, Miss Margaret,” he said. “She has reason to worry, you know. New York is not Dublin.”

“What’d I be goin’ there for if it was?”

“To discover it yourself,” he said.

“Ha! You know me well and just made my acquaintance. Have you seen poor Dennis Lavery where they put him away?”

“The captain will not permit it,” he said. “He’s chosen to make an example of him to his men.”

She thrust the book toward him. “Would you mind readin’ me one of those so’s I’ll know how it’s supposed to sound?”

“I would mind,” he said. “I gave it to you to read and it will have to occupy you for the rest of the voyage.”

“Oh-h-h,” she said, trailing the word while she planned a new tack. “You gave it to me to keep me from mischief. Will you listen then to see do I read it right?” And before he had the chance to protest she opened the book and read:

“‘Love’s a thing as I do heare,

Ever full of pensive feare;

Rather than to which I’le fall,

Trust me, I’le not like at all:

If to love, I should entend,

Let my haire then stand an end:

And that terrour likewise prove,

Fatall to me in my love.

But if horrour cannot slake

Flames, which wo’d an entrance make;

Then the next thing I desire,

Is to love, and live i’ th’ fire.’”

She read each word as a child might, but her savoring of some of them indicated more than a child’s discovery. “Oh, I like that last,” she said, “‘to love and live i’ the fire.’ Did I read it all right?”

“By your pleasure in it,” he said, “I should say you read it excellently.”

“By my pleasure in it,” she repeated. “Do you think I’d make an actress?”

“I’m certain of it,” he said.

She looked up at him sharply. “Because you think I’m always actin’ you say that, is it?”

He nodded.

“But that doesn’t make an actress at all to my notion. I’d need to be shy o’ the brogue and speak as eloquent as you.”

“God help you then,” he said, “if I answer your notion of eloquence.”

“There’s them eloquent never say a word,” she said. “I was wonderin’, Father, though ’tis bold to ask it, would you know them in New York you could put in a word for me with? I do fancy myself a governess first while I’m learnin’ my way—for you seen how I can read and I can write as well.”

“I am no better acquainted in New York than you, Miss Margaret.”

“But you won’t be there long and takin’ up with a fine class of people. I’ve the notion of betterin’ myself, you know. Will you have a parish there?”

“I shall not have a parish and you know it,” he said, his eyes upon her then chill as morning mist.

“I’d better go down now,” she said, for it was a poor game after all, and she was already ashamed of it.

“Are they all as wise as you down there?” he said.

“There’s some wiser, thank God.”

“I would not deceive them any longer,” he said, “if they are deceived still.”

“They are better off deceived, Mr. Farrell, for to my thinkin’ a priest is what you make of him.” Their eyes met at her mention of his true name.

“That sounds very Protestant,” Farrell said.

“I must’ve caught the disease from Young Ireland.”

“Did you know me from the beginning?”

“By reputation,” she said. “Many’s the time I read Irish Freedom aloud to my da.”

“And did you like what you read?”

“’Twas grand soundin’,” she said.

“But hollow as a drum,” he said. “We were all of us wrong except Mitchel and Lalor. We should have first claimed the land for the people, and then the people for the land itself.”

“’Tis done now,” she said.

“Done and undone, all in a day.” He touched his fingers to her elbow to turn her back. “We had better go now before I confess myself to you.”

“Would that be so terrible?”

He smiled without answering her question. “I hope you savor the book. There’s meat in it, and I shall try again on Lavery’s behalf.”

“I would…Father, for I’ve the notion he’s a man who can carry a grudge, and you never know what a man’ll turn out to be in America.”

“Thank you,” Farrell said in a smiling, far-off way that put more distance between you and himself, Peg thought, than if you had never met.

6

A BOOK WAS A book wherever it came from, and Peg learned it by heart before the week was out. When Dennis did not come back, the rumor spread first that he was ill and then that the crew had crippled him, and not one amongst the emigrants had the courage to speak of him to the priest. “’Tis best we don’t know or he’d tell us,” they said, and asked no more of Farrell ever than the prayers for the dead. They would have no spirit left at all in them, Peg thought, if they were much longer at sea, and then the hard times worsened.

The Valiant fell into a becalmed sea, and as sullen was the ship and crew as the fog hanging round them. The watch stood his vigil with a pistol in hand, and the men worked only under threat of the lash. They snarled at one another and spat at the emigrants, who for their own safety were permitted on deck but an hour morning and night and the women not at all.

Misery in the hold demanded intimate company and the division of the bunks, men on one side and women on the other, was no longer respected. Whenever the urge was upon them, man and wife, they climbed silently into the nearest bunk and sated the only hunger left them. The children watched and some of them tried it, finding the darkest corners to shroud themselves. The widowed and virgins hid their faces. No one gainsaid it, for the captain came only to seek out the dead, and would hear nothing of the women’s complaints lest his men overhear them and mutiny for the privilege themselves. Peg drew from her portmanteau a scissors and put it into her sister’s hands. They sat down face to face, walked hand in hand, lay down side by side, one wakeful while the other slept and giving the child no more care than her crying demanded.

On the third night of the torpid stillness Peg was aware of a stirring. Norah and the child lay asleep. When she recognized Vinnie creeping by she watched him as far as a few bunks and closed her eyes again. She was dozing off when she heard him scream and without quite realizing what she was doing she darted out of the bunk and across the aisle. The boy and a man were threshing and howling. “Thievin’ my gold” and “Crackin’ my ear” cried one and the other, and as she tried to pull them apart she was tumbled on top of them. As sudden as life the entire hold was crawling and leaping with angry men and women. Some tore at her and some with her, women clawing her face and spitting names at her as foul as their breath. When she saw Norah trying to flail a way across to her and beaten back entirely, the fear thickened her throat beyond speech. Men clogged the aisle, threshing one another, breaking open barrels and heads alike. The fiends in hell behaved no wilder.

Then from the hatchway the priest leaped like a black bird upon them beneath him and strove to pull one man from another. He was sucked down in their midst, swallowed, then disgorged again by the cursing, groaning men—imploring them in God’s name and by the saints they honored, his words like so many more blasphemies, until he was quieted by a blow. When he fell still they moved suddenly back from him. The women held their tongues a moment.

“Jasus, we’ve flattened the priest!” a man cried. Then did the women set up lamentation.

Slowly Farrell got to his feet and wiped a smear of blood from his face. He looked from one man to another and then drew a deep, rasping breath as though he had to suck the atmosphere to find air in it. He looked up to the hatchway where the grinning faces of the seamen hung round, as many as could crowd the space.

“Get out from there!” he shouted. “The carnival’s over, shut up for the night!”

When they were gone he turned back to the people. “How did it start?”

The men were silent, looking down to the floor.

“Can none of you say even that when you were all in it?”

“Oh, I’ll tell ’ee, Father,” a woman finally cried. “It were the bold she!”

And as though one tongue had fifty prongs, the others joined their abuses to hers. One phrase rang out above the chorus: “She’s a devil to be cast out!”

“The Lord Himself said,” Farrell called out, his voice near a chant, “the Lord said ‘which of you will cast the first stone?’”

“I’ll cast it, oh Lord, I’ll cast it quick!” a harpie to the fore screamed. She flung around clutching the air as though a stone were in it. “Send her up where I’ll call her! Slut an’ strumpet o’ hell! I seen her climb in on the man. Send her up an’ let the priest shrive her or drive her out or we’ll murder her truly.”

Cries of approval went up like hallelujahs.

The women surged back to surround her, and then writhing snake-like as she was hauled from one to another, Margaret Hickey was brought to the man’s feet. Norah spun and twisted, trying to follow.

“I’m not a priest!” Farrell shouted. He tore the buttons from the cassock as he pulled it off and flung it into their midst. Madness it was, but in the way of an act of madness where there is no sanity, the gesture took on an enormous logic. The people fell away from the priestly frock as though it were enchanted, moans and shrieks of fear rising from those it chanced to fall upon.

Norah Hickey gave it all meaning. “Father, don’t abandon us in our agony!” she called out. “Father, forgive us.”

The mea culpas started as one and another fell to his knees.

“Exorcise her!” the harpie cried. “Exorcise her!”

Peg stood, her head up. Her breast was near bare, her bodice shredded, but she raised not a hand to cover it. I will not bow down, she thought, I will not though he strike me before them, for his face was wrathful. “I did nothing,” she said, and her eyes held on his face until he himself looked away.

“I have no powers of exorcism,” he said and then looked again upon her. It was not wrath she saw in his eyes now, but a sudden searching desire, the sight of which trembled her body. She was near to fainting.

Farrell lifted his voice in a pained cry: “I am as full of lust and sin as any man.” Then he bowed his head. “Let us pray God together for our deliverance. Let Him lift us up in the palm of His Hand, and set us down soon, free men on free land. Our Father, Who art in heaven, hallow’d be Thy name…”

They prayed the Lord’s Prayer through with him, and he the Hail Mary with them, and Peg kneeled to it, setting her mind against the faintness with the praying. Had he not confessed himself of lust she would have thought that instant the terrible fancy of her own mind.

“Go back to your bunks,” he said when the prayers were done. “Our enemies do not deserve that we kill one another in their stead.”

“Ah, Father, if only we could get a bit o’ sky down here to look into,” an old woman crooned.

“I shall see to it,” he said. “Margaret Hickey, you will come up with me for a while.”

“I’ll stay where I belong, wanted or no,” Peg said.

“I ask it,” he said quietly. “I do not command it.”

When the aisle was empty he picked up the cassock and folded it over his arm. His shirt was soaked with blood and sweat. Peg went up the steps with him.

“Let them come up fifty at a time and get some air,” he said to the captain who waited him at the hatchway.

“Will they come peaceably?”

“They will.”

“See to it,” the captain bade the mate. “What about her?”

“She will compose herself in my cabin and go down with her sister at the last. And I should set Lavery free if I were you, sir.”

“Do you tell me, Mr. Russell, that the ruction you settled down there was on Lavery’s behalf?”

“No sir,” Farrell said, “but I tell you the longer you confine the man, the greater their anger with this woman.”

“Ah,” the captain said. “That may be the truth.”

“The truth, sir, is that you are responsible for the discipline of your own men. You have no right to imprison a passenger in order to set them an example.”

“When this vessel is on the high seas, Mr. Russell, there is nothing beyond my right. You are arrogant beyond your station.”

“I am arrogant then,” Farrell said wearily, “because I believe humility is without reward. The ship, sir, stinks with foulness. I would that every pound note she earns stank as foul in the pockets of the men who put her to sea.”

“She was clean leaving port,” the captain said.

“So were her passengers!”

“No sir, they were not, and if you were honest you would see it. Let me tell you, Reverend sir, I’d as soon command a ship of niggers.”

“And you call yourself a Republican,” Farrell said scornfully.

“No sir. I call myself by no such name. I say that men worthy of freedom are free, and I will consort with free men anywhere. Some call that Republicanism. Let me tell you a bitter truth: the slaves of South Carolina are as capable of self-determination as your countrymen below. You will not be long in America when you’ll see it for yourself. They are mastered by the priest and the politician. And if you are a priest, sir, which I doubt and which I care not—you will do well to scour your flock and teach them to think as well as to pray before proclaiming them free men and democrats, for I tell you, sir, democracy in the hands of the ignorant is a dangerous weapon. I should rather serve a king than a slave.”

Farrell stood through the tirade even, Peg thought, as she had stood below, and when it was done he said only: “Let them up and give them each a measure of water, sir. A humane man could do no less.”

The captain turned on his heel, but ordered a half-measure round.

“Is he right about us?” Peg said.

“If you believe him, he is right.”

“Do you, Stephen Farrell?”

“I would rather die than say it.”

He guided her to his cabin and left her within it. She was aware of the vigil he walked nearby until Norah came, and aware, too, she became in the quiet light of the sluggish lamp of the few books and papers of the man, his shaving cup, the water jug from which he must drink, the slop crock, the coarse linen towel which she dared presently to touch, to lift to her face, and into it she wept her sudden tears.

7

LAVERY FELT THAT HELL would hold no tortures for him, for hell at least would be his lot if he earned it. Sometimes, throwing himself against the planks within his reach, he found the pain a pleasure, a diversion from the dread monotony. The only distraction otherwise was the rare visits of idle seamen who came to gibe at him and ridicule his small success with the woman. They regaled him with tales of their own prowess, their seductions the world over. Better no distraction, better the recollection of every description of hell he sat through in church of a mission day.

Many times for comfort he thought about the boy, Vinnie. Of all on board, he told himself, Vinnie Dunne was the only one he cared a tinker’s damn for. The lad had guts and a wily ken of people. He could play the dwarf or blow up his station to that of a man, depending on the nature of his benefactor. And by the God in heaven, Dennis swore, he’d make America his benefactor, that lad would. What a son his father was getting, and a lamb for a daughter he could fancify and bait a new wife with!

The new wife was a notion he had picked up from Norah Hickey. Did she, Dennis wondered, picture herself in the part? Was that in her mind, mothering the baby Emma all the time? She had the hermit’s fear of sin whenever she thought of New York. And nothing would soothe her short of a snug nest to climb into. Och…There was no blaming her for that, flying her life at the crack end of her sister’s whip.

He learned to sleep through crashing and wheezing, and to wake only when there was no sleep left in him, or sometimes when the rats skipped over him. He woke screaming curses at them that night, and then, when he was still, he heard his name called softly.

“Eh? Is there someone there?”

“Aye, it’s me, Vinnie. Are ye havin’ a nightmare, Dennis?”

“If I am, you’re in it. Where are you, lad?”

“I’m at the bottom o’ the ladder an’ it’s dark as a public shit-house.”

“That’s no talk for a boy. You’re learnin’ from the British navy.”

“Will you come get me, Dennis?”

“How can I come get you and me anchored here like a bull in pasture?” He guided him then with his voice, and finally when the boy came within his reach, he caught him up in his arms and hugged him.

“Eee,” Vinnie said. “Put me down. Ye stink terrible.”

“Aye and I’m crawlin’ with nits.”

“Me granny uster scratch me raw chasin’ after them. Are ye chained?”

“I am. By the leg.”

“Bastards,” the boy said.

“How did you get down past them? Is it night or day?”

“’Tis comin’ midnight. I brought you a bit o’ bacy on a biscuit.”

“God bless you, lad, but I’m hungrier for talk. How long are we out from the land?”

“Twenty days. Will ye quit pawin’ me, Dennis? It’s makin’ me skin crawl.”

“There, lad, you mustn’t mind. I’m that starved.” He pulled the boy down to the bench where they could sit side by side. He was ashamed, wanting to hold Vinnie’s hand. He sat very stiff, that no part of him should touch the boy. The moment’s silence between them was as terrible to him as a night of it. “Will you talk to me,” he cried out, “or what did you come for?”

“Yer gettin’ queer,” Vinnie said. “They was sayin’ you’d be techy.”

“Who was sayin’?”

“All them with us, and her.”

“The devil take her,” Dennis said.

“Did you give it to her good, Dennis?”

The fury exploded like lightning in his head. Dennis lept from the bench until the pain from the clamp on his leg tore through him. “You’re a whelp of hell,” he cried at the boy, “comin’ down to torment me.” To his greater shame then, he could not control a fit of tears and sobbing that overcame him. They were right above. He was losing hold on his reason.

Vinnie went after him and caught his hand, squeezing it, hugging it to him, until he got the man to yield and grope the way back to the bench with him.

“I didn’t mean nothin’, Dennis. I’m more a man nor I look. She’s chippy by me.”

Sweet Jesus, Dennis thought, weighing the boy’s words for a moment. Even the children first trying on breeches took after her. He drew a deep breath to steady himself. “You don’t know what it’s all about,” he said, wishing it were so.

“I know more’n you think.”

That you do, Dennis thought. The children on the Dublin streets were wiser in their time than he in his. He said nothing, breathing deeply of the dead air.

“Are ye all right, Dennis?”

“I’m weak,” he said. He could feel the cold sweat oozing out of his body. “I’m that weak.”

“Have ye the biscuit by?”

“I have in my pocket.”

“Then swally it down. It be runnin’ wi’ grease and’ll slide down easy.”

Dennis obeyed him and presently did feel stronger. “What’s gone on since I’m exiled?”

“There was a grand fight wi’ us tonight. Did ye not hear it?”

Dennis wiped his face on his sleeve. “I did and I didn’t. I thought I dreamt it. Was it her again?”

“She was on my side in it. Oul’ McCarthy it was started it…”

Dennis remembered McCarthy, a complainer from his cradle until he found the right coffin. He could hear the spit in the boy’s mouth as though there were taste to the tale he had to tell.

“It started wi’ him bellyachin’ all day on Emmy’s cryin’…”

“Is the little one sick?” Dennis interrupted.

“No worsen all of us. Snivelin’, she’s always snivelin’.”

“Maybe there’s somethin’ wrong with her,” Dennis said.

“What’d be wrong wi’ her save somit she et an’ she’s givin’ that up fast as they get it down her so what’d be wrong wi’ her?”

“All right, all right. I thought I’d ask itself.”

“Is it her or the fight you want to hear on?”

“Get on with the fight. You’re crabbed as an old man.”

“Well McCarthy’s complainin’ all day, did ye get that?”

“I got it.”

“So over goes I tonight to even the score. I’d a rat by the tail, ye see, to put i’ the bunk wi’ him. But he grabs me afore I can swing it on him an’ it flies into the bunk across an’ the woman starts screamin’. By this time McCarthy’s batin’ me to a pulp an’ sayin’ I’m thievin’ his gold. Then over comes Peg and he pulls her in atop us, an’ with the other one screamin’ afore I know what’s happenin’ at all, half the ship is pullin’ us out of the bunk, howlin’ an’ cursin’ an’ tearin’ every bloody thing in sight to ribbons.”

“You’ve a fine way with a story for the age on you,” Dennis said. “Yous must’ve had the whole bloody ship down on you.”

“Nary a man dassed it save the priest.”

“With soothin’ words and a bottle o’ honey,” Dennis said sarcastically.

“He soured the fight sure. I wasn’t listenin’. They hauled Peg up to him and he throwed his cassock at her.”

“That he might,” said Dennis. “It was no fit on him.”

“He gave her down a book t’other day. She’s all the time readin’ me out o’ it. I can’t make head nor tail o’ it, but she’s daftin’ over it.”

“Is she daft now over him?”

“Eeh?”

“The priest. Is she trailin’ after him now?”

“What’d she do that for?” the boy said. “She seen him and got the book for penance.”

“The great penance it must be and her sharin’ it with you.”

“She says she’s a terrible sinner, but I don’t think it, do you, Dennis?”

“Are you askin’ or tellin’, you little owl?”

“I’m tellin’ and leavin’ out the best part o’ the story.” The boy whispered then: “Is there somit down here wi’ us?”

“None with two legs,” Dennis said.

The boy tugged at his sleeve. “Oul’ McCarthy did have a bag o’ gold sovereigns. I got me fist into them durin’ the fight.”

Dennis thought about that. For all his poverty, he had never stolen more in his life than a jujube drop from a tray of sweets.

“So now they’ve thrun you down with me,” he said.

“Na-a-w,” the boy said boastfully. “But it cost me one o’ them to the bloody watch gettin’ me down here to see you.”

“Don’t be blamin’ your thievin’ onto me,” Dennis said. “If I was your da I’d give you a thrashin’ for it.”

“Yer not old enough to be me da, Peg says so.”

“Was she in the bag with you?”

“I’ll shell her out half for startin’ the fight.”

“The devil take back her soul where it came from,” Dennis swore, “connivin’ with a chile to plunder the unfortunate.”

“No connivin’,” the boy said. “She came on me under his bed-tick, an’ what else can I do but share alike wi’ her?”

“And what of McCarthy and his life savin’s? Did a thought of that never come to the two of yous?”

“Didn’t he pinch ’em afore us? Where else ’ud he get ’em?”

“Have you the proof of that, lad?” Dennis said, trying in his mind to find the best way of saving the boy.

“Poof on the proof,” Vinnie said.

The words might have come from the lips of Peg, so like her was the sound of them. Dennis thrust his hand toward the boy in the darkness and catching the front of his jacket he lifted him from the seat and shook him.

“Your granny lookin’ down on you is waterin’ the heavens with her tears over this,” he said. “Now you can go up and claim back the sovereign you give to the watch. You’ve killed me altogether and yous don’t have to pay to see a dead man.” He flung the boy from him and heard the soft thumps his body made colliding with a post and slumping down beside it, the very sounds making the man sick. The boy was still for a moment. Then came the whimpering, choked noise of crying that would not be held in. Dennis tried to endure it in silence, but he could not. He strode as far toward the boy as the chain would let him. “Vinnie, come here to me,” he called.

Still the boy sobbed.

“For the love of God come before I tear me leg off with this chain.”

A minute later he felt the hands of the boy on his leg. He had crawled the distance on the slimy floor. “Get up on your feet and stop crawlin’!” He pulled the boy up and tried to steady his own voice. “Did you steal at home, Vinnie? Tell me the truth.”

“Somit,” the boy said.

“Did your granny know it?”

The boy cleared a great blob from his head. “I told her I begged it.”

“Then,” Dennis said, “you knowed it was wrong?”

“I knowed it.”

“Are you plannin’ to thieve in America?”

“No-o-o,” the boy wailed.

“Was it her? Was it Peg eggin’ you on?”

“No!” Vinnie shouted. “She never had no part in it at all.”

Admiring Vinnie’s loyalty, he said quietly, “Only claimin’ her share of the loot.”

“’Twas me, I’m thinkin’ to give it to her and tell her Granny left it me…”

“Aye, aye,” Dennis said. “You’ll tell her your granny hid it under McCarthy’s bedtick. Don’t addle your head thinkin’ up lies to save her in my opinion. I’d as soon never lay eyes on her again but no matter. Has McCarthy explored his loss yet?”

“No.”

“Vinnie, what did you have in mind, takin’ the gold sovereigns?”

“I had in mind gettin’ as many as I could wi’out bein’ caught at it,” the boy answered bluntly.

“Was it to buy somethin’ in America?”

Vinnie was slow in answering. “No-o-o. I’d nothin’ special in mind. I was wishin’ maybe I could meet me da wi’ me pockets jinglin’!”

“Do you remember him at all?”

“Somit. He was nothin’ much. All I remember, him pokin’ me ribs tryin’ t’make me laugh. He was all the time slobberin’ over granny and me mother.”

“Do you remember your mother?”

“I do. She was all the time ailin’ and lookin’ a place to spit. Dennis, if I tell ye somit, will ye promise not to laugh at me?”

“I promise.”

“I’m afeard of him, me da. I’m plannin’ to run off soon as ever I deliver him Emmy.”

“Ah,” Dennis said, “so that’s it. Do you know, Vinnie, I’m afeard myself? I am. I’ve no notion what waits me in America and I’m tempted to run with you.”

The boy caught at his arm. “Would ye, Dennis? Ho, eeh! What a pair we’d make, and nary a woman between us! I’m strong for me size and…”

“Hold on a minute, Vinnie, just hold on. We’ve got to think this out careful. Where did you get the money for the passage?”

“Me da sent it,” the boy said glumly.

“Aye, and me brother sent for me. We’ve to stay with them long enough to return their hospitality.”

“All right,” the boy said impatiently. “And then?”

“I’ll tell you what we’ll do. We’ll make a pact, you and me. We’ll meet in the same place they land us a fortnight from the day of landin’. What do you say to that?”

“I say t’hell with it. Yer sayin’ this to be rid o’ me,” the boy said.

“I give you my solemn oath,” Dennis said. “Here’s my hand on it.”

Their hands found each other in the dark.

“Now I want you to do somethin’ for me,” Dennis said before the clasp was broken. “I want an honest man for a partner.”

“E-e-eh?” the boy said. “I’m to gi’ back the gold t’oul’ McCarthy?”

“Aye.”

Dennis could imagine him shaking his head while he thought about it.

“I’ll take the pledge on the day o’ our meetin’,” Vinnie said finally.

“You’ll take it this night or there’s no meetin’.”

“He’ll tan the livin’ hide off me,” the boy said.

“You’ll put them back without him knowin’ it.”

“And how’ll I do that and him stretched there over the bag o’ them?”

“You’ll get the one to distract him was partners with you in the first place. She’s a grand distraction to a man.”

“She’d laugh at me, Dennis, was I to ast her.”

“Oh worry the chains that bind us!” Dennis cried. “You’ll part wi’ them sovereigns or part with me, and you can find your own way to it while I’m gropin’ here in the dark.”

“I’ll distribute the worth o’ them t’ the poor when we’re landed,” the boy tried again, having been so counseled by more than one priest in confession.

“You’ll distribute them to the man who owns them and there’s an end of it.”

“I wisht they was in the bottom o’ the sea,” Vinnie said. “I’d better go now. The priest got us up a while and if I’m clapped out it’ll be worse nor if I was clapped in.”

“There’s a word I want you to take up with you,” Dennis said. “I want you to go to the one behavin’ himself a priest in the mornin’. You’re to tell him for me, he’s to get me out o’ here afore nightfall or I’ll unfrock him before man and God.”

“E-e-e, Dennis, I couldn’t say that to him. He’d ha’ me on me knees, haily-holyin’ all the way to New York.”

“Say it. I give yous my word, it’ll cost you no penance.”

“Yer off yer nut truly,” the boy said, “but I’ll tell him you sent me. Can ye turn me now the way I’ll find the ladder?”

Dennis put his hands on the boy’s shoulders, and taking measure of where they stood, faced him toward the ladder. “God be with you, Vinnie Dunne, and bless you for what you’ve done this night.”

“And make me an honest man,” the boy added fervently.

8

A NORTHEAST WIND BLEW up before morning lifting the fog and filling one after another of the sails unfurled to it in the dawn. Every man of the crew sucked its freshness into his lungs and gave thanks. The Valiant had been wasting for days in the natural bed of a hurricane and in the season, but no storm had taken her. Now she rose up as might a maid in flight and scattered the foam about her like petticoat frills. The strong wind holding, a tall man could spit with it to the shore before the week was out.

Lavery, who got his first decent meal—a chunk of salt meat and molasses on his biscuit—and a civil word from his jailer, thought Vinnie had been marvelously quick in carrying his message to Farrell. That Farrell was thick with the captain, he did not doubt. As thick as treacle, he told himself, licking the plate for the last of its sweetness. It was the way with Young Ireland, a pack of gentlemen shaking hands with the poor to get the feel of them and poking snuff up their noses to be rid of the smell of them. Oh, they were up to snuff all right.

His next visitor took the shackle from his leg. “I’ll be catchin’ me death o’ cold without that,” Lavery said.

“You’ll catch something if you’re as free with your tongue to the captain. Up you go there, lad!”

“Are ye springin’ me?”

“Eh?” the sailor said. “Springing you, that’s bloody good. But let me give you a bit of advice, my lad. Don’t try it on the captain. He likes his humor from his equals, he does. Even the mate don’t make a joke to him. Leastaways before the men he don’t. Move along there, can’t you?”

I can and I can’t, Dennis thought, thankful for the palaver which covered his weakness. Suddenly, the daylight closing his eyes on him as he met it at the foot of the ladder, he was beset by withering fear. A dozen terrors stabbed at him like the pains in his eyes—fear of the light itself, of people, his first moment back amongst his fellow passengers with his head matted and his beard thick as a Connemara broom, the look of Norah, the scorn of Peg, the judgment of the captain, and above all, the meeting with Farrell after his threat to expose him. His legs bent beneath him as though his weight was more than their duty to carry. With God’s halt on a brazen tongue, the boy might have forgot the threat and remembered the plea. I’ve not the wits to match him, he thought of Farrell, nor the strength to stand up if he struck me. If he says he’s a priest, I’ll say “yes, Father” and to hell with it. He’ll have to settle all with the Almighty in the long run, and who am I to hold the whistle on a match like that?

The seaman gave him a vulgar poke, and he leaped and scrambled up the ladder. “I sprung you then! Ho! I sprung you then, my lad!” the sailor cried in delight.

While he waited on the bridge outside the captain’s cabin for his jailer to announce him, Lavery got a long look at the sea. There was the promise of land in it now, he thought, though nothing parted it from the sky. It was in the smell of the air, and in the great leaning-to of the emigrants who crowded the rail with the sun on their backs. Not a one looked up to him. Small wonder, him riding the captain’s walk, he thought. Land was their salvation. Wasted and bent, they seemed. How many had died while he was in exile? There was that blessing on him at least. He had been spared the agonies of the dying and the lamentations of the lonesome.

The captain came out to him, and Farrell with him. Chums, he thought. The officer looked at him from top to toe before speaking. Then: “I’m releasing you, Lavery, on the good word of Mr. Russell. He is vouching for your good behavior until we land.”

Mr. Russell still, Lavery thought. He said only: “Yes, your honor.”

“You’ve learned your lesson, have you?”

Not at your bloody knee, he thought. Again he said: “Yes, your honor.”

The captain turned to Farrell. “I wish you well with him. Good day, sir.”

Farrell merely nodded. What a delicate air he had, Lavery thought. A gentleman could answer a gentleman without opening his mouth. He had spoken to but one gentleman before in his life, and that was to ask if he could curry his horse while its master took his dinner at the inn where his mother charred. The worry a curry the horse had got, showing his great teeth in a grin every time Dennis laid the brush to him.

“I’m obliged to you, sir, for speakin’ on me behalf to the captain.” Where the words came from he did not know. He had planned none of them. He hated them and the old habit which pushed them out before his wits could halt them.

“He had a deaf ear,” Farrell said, “which apparently could be penetrated only after a change in the weather. I doubt that my petition had much to do with your release. You got the worst of it, Lavery, but there was small comfort anywhere aboard.”

“Well, the worst is none too good for an Irishman,” he said. “Am I free now to go below where I’m more at home?”

“From this day forward,” Farrell said. “… Are you listening, Lavery?”

Dennis lifted his eyes, and finding the other man’s level with his stretched to his full height that he might have that advantage at least. “Aye, I’m listenin’.”

“From now on,” Farrell said, “you are free to go wherever on this earth free men travel.”

“By your leave, sir?” he said sarcastically, the boldness coming with the other’s wish to make him bold, and telling first his wish to hurt as he had been hurt.

“By God’s leave,” Farrell said, “and by the revolt of free men the world over. Will you get it into your head that you’re beholden to no man?”

“I’ll try to get used to the notion,” he said. “It comes easier with a full belly, but yous wouldn’t know that at all.” He struck what he expected was a thoughtful pose. “Yous’ll have an easier time of it stirrin’ a revolution in America. I might even join you myself if the pickin’s is good.”

He watched the color drain from Farrell’s face and enjoyed the sight of it. It was a fine feeling to bring up the gall in a man and to see him stand in it, petrified. The devil a fist would Farrell raise. There, Lavery thought, measuring more of his own wisdom: he had Young Ireland by the tail. As long as they could shoot with their mouths there was no battle they wouldn’t charge into, but they were as shy of a real fight as a bat of daylight.

“So long as the pickings are good,” Farrell said, his voice quivering, “you don’t care whether they come from the feast or the gutter?”

Lavery grinned, thinking it would further provoke the man. “The devil care I, so long as me bag is full o’ them.”

Farrell looked at him for a long moment. Uneasy under the gaze, Lavery turned from him, and measured the distance from the rope to the rail below. He leaned on the rope, arched a spit over the rail and into the sea, and turned back drying his beard on the ragged sleeve of his jacket. Farrell’s expression changed. He threw back his head and laughed aloud.

“I wish you great good luck in America, Dennis Lavery,” he said, extending his hand.

“I’ll have it, and not be beholden even for the wish. Take a laugh at that while you’re howlin’.” He dug one hand into the palm of the other behind his back.

“You’re acting a child,” Farrell said, “which is why I laughed. If I offended you, I’m sorry.”

Dennis tried a laugh himself. “It’s a wonderful thing, collectin’ the apology of a gentleman. It’s somethin’ I’ll be tellin’ my grand-childer’.”

“If you live to have them,” Farrell said. “I know very few gentlemen who wouldn’t knock you down for that.”

“Would you have a try at it, sir?”

“I would not. You’d better go below now.”

“Ah, for the guts of Young Ireland,” he sneered.

He saw Farrell take the steps between them, almost dancing steps and he gathered into his muscles the strength he knew of yore, the joy of it quick and brief, for as he thrust his shoulders forward, he saw that Farrell was not before him at all, but waist-high to him. He felt in the same instant the thrust as of a wedge, parting his knees, and a great clamp around his thigh and under one buttock. He was off his feet and doing a backward somersault down. He landed on his back in a stretch of ship’s sail which a quartet of seamen were mending. They bounced him out of it into the arms of the emigrants who flocked from the rail at the excitement.

Hellos and how-are-yous, thanksgivings and commiserations flooded over him and drowned his sense of time and direction. Farrell, when he looked up, was still at the bridge, and catching his victim’s eye in search of him, lifted his hand in salute. Dennis put his thumb to his nose to him, and Farrell laughed. Dennis could hear the laughter above the rumble and mumble of the people and the deprecations of the sailors whose work he had flown into; and playing an obbligato to it, another laugh chased after Farrell’s. She was at the rail apart, a book in her hand. While Dennis watched her, she lifted the book as she might a kerchief in a gesture of greeting to the man above. Farrell saw her and bowed.

“Father! Father, come down quick!”

It was Norah Hickey calling up to Farrell. Vinnie Dunne was beside her, holding a bucket.

“He’s no priest,” Lavery shouted. “Aye, worse than that if he had his way there’d be no priesthood at all and no church in Ireland!”

The eyes that had welcomed him a moment before turned cold on him now, cold and pitying as though he’d taken leave of his senses. To Farrell they looked back with pleading and affection.

“Will you come, Father?” Norah said again, and others added a pleading.

The man on the bridge came quickly down the steps and made his way through the people to the emigrants’ hold.

Lavery ran to Norah and caught her arm. “It’s the truth I said, Norah.”

“What’s the truth to a dyin’ man,” she said, “except that he’s dyin’ truly?” She laid her hand lightly on his arm. “Ah, Dennis, don’t come back to us bitter. Our days was bitter, too, and the worse without you to jolly us. Have you no cheerful words?”

“None,” he said. “But I’ll keep the black ones to myself.”

“Dennis,” said Vinnie, “I’ll give back the sovereigns.”

“Now here’s an idea, maties,” said one of the seamen re-mending the canvas. “If we could stitch me a petticoat out of this, I’d have an archdiocese.”

“And,” said his partner, “if you didn’t have balls I’d marry you.”

PART II

1

“HEY! HO! HALLELUJAH! WILL you get up and glorify God in the dawn! There’s the promise o’ land in it truly!”

The emigrant swung by his hands from the brace of the hatchway, shaking his legs out as though they were things had been stored in a box and were now at last to be useful.

The whisper and cry of “Land!” rose from one mouth and then another. A dream it was to some, a prayer to others: a prayer, a plea, a demand. There was in their way of saying the word a beseechment for life, a rant against delusion.

“Did you see it with yer own eyes or dream it, man-up-there?”

“I seen a light and there’s a name on it, Fire Island. It’s burnin’ bright and no star at all, but land truly.”

The children were tumbled into the middle aisle and their tattered nightshirts peeled from their bare behinds. Clean clothes were put upon them and the caution not to stir. The women hauled out the best they owned and laced each other into corset and bodice.

Dennis Lavery swore at his breeches which, in his haste, seemed to have but one leg. “Worry the clothes they fashion a man,” he said, “I’d as soon work my way into a bagpipe.”

“Eee, think o’ all the legs ye’d need to fill it,” Vinnie said. He had no trouble dressing, wearing the same rags night and day.

“Have you no clean things to put on and meet your father decent?” said Dennis.

“Mind yer own business,” the boy said. He jerked himself up from the slouch and walked off to the hatchway.

“Aw, for the love o’ God wait up for a man and don’t be so touchy,” Dennis cried, but the boy was gone. He had just managed his own clothes in time to hear Norah calling his name.

“We’ve made a wee outfit for Vinnie out of a plaid shawl. Will you put it where he’ll find it?”

“Bless you, Norah Hickey, I will.”

“I’d no way to measure him save with my eye, so if the fit’s bad will you coax him into it and go between us till it’s right?”

“I will, but I’m warnin’ you, Norah, there’ll be small thanks but abuse.”

She sighed. “The times in my life I’ve taken that for my thanks.” She looked up then and laughed. “And glad to get that itself.”

They were together on deck, the Dunnes, the Hickeys and Dennis Lavery, when the first American boat showed its sails in the dawn. A fishing vessel, it scudded between them and the misted shore, its bell and The Valiant’s ringing a thin change in the vastness. At the bell’s tolling, realization of the peril they had gone through touched the people like a cold wind. A ship’s bell sounded no more on it than the tinkle of a spoon on a wine glass. Everyone sang out hallos to drown the fears of fancy. Those with feet to warm as well as hearts tried the deck for clogging.

The mist lifted and there was the land as surely as trees need soil to root in. Husbands kissed wives, their own first and others as soon as they could reach them, and on the way the virgins. Children were lifted up that they might see and the captain volunteered to every drinking man aboard a measure of wine for toasting and half a measure to the women.

Other ships, from schooners to steamers, passed them, the Boston packet, the Charleston packet and the packet to New Orleans; U.S. gunboats, Navy frigates and a great square-rigger bound for Marseille. Soon the waters were studded with every manner of vessel afloat. A tender put aboard men from the New York morning press. They announced themselves from the captain’s bridge, and bade the voyagers welcome. Farrell stood beside them, and introductions passing, got his hand well shaken. There was long talk between them and the sad nodding of heads which might have meant “Alas! poor Ireland,” to them below had they been watching. But land itself, villages, farms and island forts were better watching than sad men.

There were moments in the day which everyone might recollect: a customs officer waving his hand like a benediction over all the huddle and muddle of immigrant imports without so much as a peek beneath the lid of a basket; the tug steamer hitching onto the tired Valiant, its paddle wheel churning up water like a terrier digging a badger; the coming of land to either side of them, past twin forts as they entered The Narrows, the first ferry boat with waving, bonneted women, and men, slower by far with their hands in welcome; rafts of corded wood, trailing one another like a string of sausages; then Quarantine and land dear and dread at once beneath unsteady feet, examinations to the skin in rooms so disinfected clean as to be foul with the smell of cleanliness, and a white ticket for most which entitled them to carry on with The Valiant; then their first sight of New York City, a great sweep of humped and hewn structure seeming to rise and fall as though it had the movement and not themselves, and slowly defining itself to their searching eyes: the spires of dozens of churches and scarcely a cross topping one of them, great pillared buildings and flat ones looking piled one on another and capped with turrets like crowns; a thousand masts on as many ships and keel rows for more in the making, a great green park and half a circle of slumping trees like so many women letting down their hair at the water’s edge; a raft made of spit and a blister with two white-suited black boys on it dancing and whooping to catch their attention, the first dark-skinned people they had ever seen, and a sign on the raft: STOP AT MRS. O’REILLY’S BOARDING HOUSE: the lettered amongst the passengers read it aloud, and another: MR. O’REILLY WILL MEET YOUR BOAT, and someone muttered, “I wonder which one is O’Reilly.”

The sounds were as medley as seeing: the hissing of steam from the hoists in every slip they eased by, iron crashing on iron, the grinding of capstans, whistles, and an undertone that might be the clatter of a hundred thousand hoofs and as many wheels over the cobbled and paving-stoned streets; church bells, the clamor of cargo alive from geese to squealing pigs; the scrape of boat against boat in the crush at docking and the great loud curses of the men who poled them; the roar of cascading coal down a slide to the carts and the whinny of horses in fright; a mournful accordion striking a sudden Kerry reel at their coming, and “How can they tell we’re Irish?”

The immigrants were herded down then for a last clap in the hold while the deck was cleared and the rigging hauled. They listened and measured every groan and turn of The Valiant as she was brought round and crammed into her slip. When they came up it was to a screaming pack of runners who swarmed aboard from the dock, their shirts open at the throat where the force of their lungs might have burst them, their faces streaming sweat and from their mouths the brown spray of tobacco as they shouted; train tickets they were hawking and lodgings for a shilling a night, a free cart for your baggage and that in their hands already; the girls were tapped for employment, but only the pretty and strong, and men tried to lock arms with the free ones while a black-cloaked evangelist shouted, “Beware!”

Vinnie clung to Dennis who, in the miscellany of faces, could not tell his own if he saw it, much less his brother’s, and clinging to Vinnie was Norah, the child mute in her arms. But Peg winnowed through, a spit full in her mouth for the eye looking sharp on her and her nails set for the hand a fool might lay on her. She took the measure of the star breasted policemen at the quay’s end and chose one to her liking.

“Are you nailed down there, or can you help a girl?”

He came near to losing his hat in the river in his haste to salute her.

“They’re near murderin’ my poor sister and her infant. Are you all savages over here?”

“No, Miss. Come along and I’ll clear off the leeches.”

He shouldered his way through hustlers, runners, carters, lookers-on and lookers-after, Peg at his coat tail marveling at the breadth of his back and the map the sweat through his coat made there.

“Hallo, I’m bringin’ help!” she called, waving wildly.

But at that moment, Dennis came roaring down the gangway, his trunk on his back. He shouted abuse at an unfortunate carter who was trying to make an honest shilling amongst the rogues. The man was burthened with the whole of Peg’s and Norah’s baggage, and stumbled at bay with it while the runners bated him, trying to coax him into connivery. Dennis made free with his toes and his elbows, driving them off, and with the sharp edges of his trunk as he swung it around like a sledge on a pivot. Norah was in their wake, and Vinnie in hers, sweating less with the weight of his bundle than the heat of his new wool suit. It was a snug fit in the jacket, but the trousers looked in front as though his behind might have the chance there it obviously did not have in the back of them.

The policeman charged through to them at Peg’s bidding and drove the scoundrels off.

“Dennis Lavery!”

“Here!” Dennis shouted. He turned to seek the voice. The face of the man coming to him was as clear to his memory then as the taste of salt to his tongue.

“A roar like that,” his brother called out as he came, “and I knew another Lavery had landed.”

Dennis heaved his trunk from his back, flung the coat on it and opened his arms. “Kevin, Kevin, Kevin.” The one thing coming back to Dennis as he hugged his brother was seeing him at the bottom of a hill outside Dublin when as a child he thought himself lost in a storm at the top of it. His heart beat now as it had then when he had run with all his might and been caught up and carried home in Kevin’s arms.

The two men pushed away from each other to measure the change since their last meeting.

“You’ve grown twice the size of a man, Denny!”

Kevin looked his ten year start, but in a fine, settled way. “You’re startin’ to gray already!” Dennis exclaimed.

“I’d of stood still and willin’, if the Lord had let me. How’s the old lady?”

“Middlin’, middlin’ good.”

“Norah, are we to stand here and gawk till we’re caught in the dark?” Peg demanded.

Kevin jerked his head toward them, aware for the first time of their presence. Dennis felt the heart in him sinking. He glimpsed the sullen, tense face of Vinnie.

“Where do you make inquiries here?” he said to his brother.

“What did you lose?”

For the instant, Dennis wished he had lost all of them. “These are friends of mine, Kevin,” he said, “and I’d like you to know them: Miss Norah Hickey, Miss Margaret Hickey. The little one’s Emma.” He laid his hand on Vinnie’s shoulder thinking it might put some starch in the boy. “And this here’s my best friend, Vincent Dunne.”

The boy squared himself and took the hand Kevin offered him. Kevin bowed to the girls, sweeping his wide-brimmed hat to his waist with the grace of a dancing master.

“We’ve to find Vinnie’s father,” Dennis said. “He’s meetin’ the boat.”

“He missed it,” Vinnie said. “I’ll take me oath he missed it. He didn’t want us out in the first place, so why ’ud he meet it?”

“Vinnie, don’t take on. We’ll find him,” Norah said.

“I’m not takin’ on,” the boy shouted. “I’m takin’ off.”

“Vinnie, get hold of yourself. We’ve a bargain,” Dennis said firmly.

“I’ll get a man with a trumpet,” Kevin said. “Now don’t go from this spot.”

“Are you all right now, ladies?” the policeman said, having waited the greeting. “I must get back to my post.”

“Sir,” Norah said, hoisting the child higher on her hip, “can you recommend us a boarding house?—a respectable one for single ladies?”

The policeman looked down on her and the child, startled. “Single ladies?”

Peg remembered the pretense on which she had fetched him, to help her sister and her infant. “Aye,” she said, her eyes dancing with mischief. “Unmarried ladies.”

“No, Miss. You might try the Sisters of Mercy,” he said. His face flooded with color and he retreated in haste.

Peg laughed aloud.

“Behave yerself, Peg. “We’re in a fine state and you laughin’.”

“Shall I stand here and cry? Will it get us out o’ it?”

“Here, gimme the child,” Dennis said, for Emma had her fist so deep in Norah’s bodice she was in danger of splitting it down the middle. She merely dug in the deeper.

“Put her down an’ I’ll take her,” Vinnie said. “She’s mine and I’ll take her and yous can go yer own way.”

“Stop makin’ a fuss,” Dennis said fiercely. “Here, Norah, sit down.” He shoved her and the child down on his trunk.

“Sisters of Mercy,” Norah said thoughtfully. “Are they a charity over here?”

“They run a home for fallen women,” Peg snapped.

“What?” said Norah.

“Oh for the love o’ God,” Dennis said desperately.

“Cheerio, matie! No ’ard feelings!” A sailor, his seabag over his shoulder, swung past them, clapping Dennis on the back as he went. It was the one who had delivered him to the captain.

Dennis shook his fist. “You little wart!” he called after him. “I’d like to blister yous up to the size of a carbuncle!”

When he turned back, Norah had leaped up from the trunk. Standing beside her was Young Ireland. The coat didn’t fit him, whosever it was, but it was an elegant cut, nonetheless, and no priest ever wore one of its color.

“Is there any way I can help you?” Farrell asked.

Dennis drowned out the thanks of the others. “None at all,” he said airily. “We’re waitin’ our carriage.”

Farrell ignored him. “Vincent, have you found your father?”

“He’s busy wi’ somit,” Vinnie said, taking his tone from Dennis. “We’re waitin’ him now.”

“I see.” Farrell bowed slightly to the girls.

Norah put the child down on the trunk, and when Emma would not release her, she pried the small fingers loose and bade her not to be naughty. Then Norah turned back to Farrell.

“You were very kind to us all in our trouble, Mr. Farrell,” she said, taking great care with her words. “I hope you have good fortune in America.” She offered her hand to him.

Dennis stood, his mouth open. She had understood, after all, and sifted her pride through with pity. A deep one, Norah Hickey, for the quiet tongue and the soothing manner.

Farrell lifted her hand to his lips. “Thank you,” he said. “If there’s any way I can serve you, get word to me through the Irish Directory. God bless you all.”

He was gone, a boy at his heels carrying a seabag, the loan apparently of The Valiant’s captain. At the end of the dock, he whistled up a hack, and waved back to them from the window as he jogged off. His porter shined up the sixpence.

“That,” Dennis said, and not without admiration, “is the way every Irishman should tumble onto a foreign shore.”

Kevin Lavery returned bringing a priest with him instead of a trumpeter. The priest heard the story of Vinnie’s grandmother and then queried him on his father’s name and address, and after that his occupation. His name was all that Vinnie knew. Kevin paid a callboy to go up and down the docks, singing out: “Tom Dunne…Thomas Dunne, yer wanted by The Valiant…the good ship, Valiant, Thomas Dunne…go to The Valiant…”

The crowd dwindled and the runners, run down, passed a bottle amongst themselves. Dockhands herded the stragglers out of the way of preparations to unload The Valiant of her heavy cargo.

Dunne, Thomas Dunne, Dennis thought. Done truly. The child was fretful and hungry. So were they all hungry, and the temper was rising in Peg’s eyes. The priest looked solemn. He looked as though the only prayers he ever said were at a wake. “We’ll find him, my boy,” he kept saying. “Pray to God and we shall find him.”

Kevin took a gold watch from his waistcoat pocket and opened it to stare at its face a moment. He closed it again, and all as though one had been dangled to him in his cradle, Dennis thought. Kevin replaced the watch and ran his fingers along the gold chain. Then he smiled broadly.

“Well, how often in a lifetime do you come to America!” he said heartily and rubbed his hands together. “We’ll hire a coach and go home till we’ve found him.” And the tone in which he said it made it seem as though Thomas Dunne had had his chance and lost it.

Dennis felt himself near to tears. “All of us?” he said, before he could measure the tact in it.

“All save the priest,” Kevin said in high humor. “You’re invited to a Sunday dinner, Father Shea, Thirty-nine Cherry Street, a long block from the market.”

This was interesting, Dennis thought, if he had but the time to ponder it. By all the signs, in America the priest came when he was invited.

Kevin had turned to the girls, and already had Emma in his arms. “I’ve a fair house and a willin’ wife,” he said. “Are you from Dublin?”

“We are,” Peg said.

“Then you’ll be welcome as the flowers in May.”

“Have you childer’, Mister Lavery?” Norah asked.

He smiled and all the lines of his face converged in the rays of pleasure. “I have,” he said. “Two gallus ones.” There was no doubting the pride intended in the words.

2

MARY LAVERY WAS EVERY bit as willing as her husband promised. She stood at the top of the steps, her arms open to Dennis and to all who came with him, making no more of their entrance than to count them off against the number of plates in the cupboard. She was never a beauty, Dennis decided, but her heart was as big as the bosom heaving over it. Her hair was flaming, heaped on the top of her head like a bank of live coals and her face was but a shade lighter in her excitement. She proclaimed a stew that would stick to their ribs to be waiting on the back of the stove and the water boiling for tea. “We’re not stayin’ long,” Norah said in the doorway.

“She’s leavin’ before she’s come!” Mary cried and gave Norah a little nudge into the house. “Go in and settle yerself. Is the house rockin’ to you ?”

“It is after the boat.”

Mary gave a great laugh. “The day I got off the boat I’d of swore the Lord was jugglin’ the earth in one hand and the sun in the other. Ah, isn’t she sweet, poor thing?” She had discovered Emma. “Sally!” she called out, and then to Emma said coaxingly, “I’ve the one that’ll love you, pet.” To the girls she said, “My Sally is five and there’s nothin’ she wants more in this world than a baby.” She gave Peg a poke with her elbow as Sally came in from the kitchen. “They cost a great deal of money, comin’ all the way from heaven in a bird’s pocket, but I promised I’d buy her one when she grows up.”

“Hey, Denny, come back down here and give me a hand.”

Dennis went out the door and down the steps at the side of the building. The Laverys lived over Kevin’s carpentry shop. The whole of Cherry Street seemed a combination of homes and factories. It had the look of running more to manufacturing although the houses serving both had carried an air of respectability into old age. There was an iron fence here and there and the heads on the hitching posts looked to have been chosen in their time one to top the elegance of its neighbor. Dennis noticed a boot shop, a grocery, a grog shop, a candle and soap maker, and across the way a livery stable giving off a strong odor of dung.

“’Tis a good smell,” Kevin said. “It freshens the stink from the soap maker. We damn near run him out when he opened.”

“There’s but one smell in my head now,” Dennis said, “the stew Mary promised us. She’s a fine, big woman, Kevin.”

“Ah, she’s gallus,” he said. “We’ll stow your trunk and all this stuff in the shop for now and get up to our supper. I’m fearful for the boy’s father, you know that.”

“Aye,” Dennis said. “From what I can collect he was home once to Ireland and off again after plantin’ the seed for the wee ’un.”

“That’s worse, him home and the discontent takin’ hold on him again.”

“Well, there’s not much in Ireland today to content a man,” Dennis said, carting the trunk into the shop. He marveled at the stacks of boards of all sizes, and noticed a boy at a bench by the window.

“Jamie, came and meet your uncle from Ireland.”

Dennis tried to measure his age. There were men not so tall, but he hadn’t a hair on his face. He’d be near the age of Vinnie, with half his cunning and twice his growth, God love America. Here was the foundation of a family fortune and Kevin none the worse for gaining it but a few gray hairs. Jamie shook his hand and returned to the bench.

“Which of the girls do you fancy?” Kevin asked at the bottom of the steps.

Dennis paused. “I’ve fancy for neither,” he said after a moment. There was no sense in giving Kevin the rigmarole of his unhappy crossing. “The one’s too sweet and the other’s too sour. And what ’ud I be puttin’ myself into bondage for and my foot not steady on free land?”

“Don’t be riling up at me. ’Twas a natural question.”

“’Twas an unnatural alliance altogether,” Dennis said.

His brother looked at him. “Then you are committed?”

“I’m committed to the boy only!”

Kevin shook his head. “And the boy’s committed to his sister, and she’s committed to the one and the one to the other.”

“Oh, the devil worry it,” Dennis said. “We’ll be shed o’ the whole of them as soon as the childer’ are settled.”

“And if we don’t find the boy’s father?”

“I’ll keep the boy wi’ me and put the girl in an orphanage. They have the like over here, don’t they?”

“They do,” Kevin said sadly, “full and runnin’ over. Well, we’ll go round to Father Shea after our supper. He’s promised to find out what he can for us.”

It was a meal none of them would forget, great chunks of beef browned and in gravy swimming with leeks, carrots, a great variety of vegetables including tomatoes. When the girls wondered at them, Mary bounced into the kitchen and brought a dish of them raw. She ran them through with the knife, the juice spurting out, and eased the slices onto each of their plates.

“You eat them with a bit of salt,” she explained.

“They’ve the taste of sun in them,” Norah said after trying one. She wiped the juice from her lips.

“It’s near the last for the season,” Mary said. “My Kevin could eat a meal of them. They do say they’re tryin’ to pickle them now to preserve them. I can tell you, I’d as soon eat them out of a slop bucket.” She thought about it further. “I dare say too many tomatoes ’ud be bad for a person. What the good Lord wants us to eat, he gives us in season.”

“He may give us the season,” Kevin said, “but I’ve never had the tomatoes yet without payin’ for them. You’ll all stay the night in whatever Mary can hatch in the way of beds….”

“I’ve it all calculated in my head,” Mary said, and Dennis saw Vinnie look up at her great turret of hair as though he wondered if she planned nesting some of them there.

“The boys will go down to the shop in the shavin’s…”

Kevin lifted his hand. “Figure it what way you will. You’ve three heads to put to it. Just don’t put me and Denny out where the cats’ll be lickin’ our faces. Finish your tea there, man. I want to take you round to the fire station to meet Mulrooney.”

“Who’s Mulrooney?”

“You’ll know when you meet him,” Kevin said. “He’ll be there tonight with the elections coming up.”

“Kevin used to run with the engines,” Mary said, “but he’s gettin’ too old for it now. Oh but he was handsome in those days. When he was courtin’ me, he’d hire a horse and gig of a Sunday, and there wasn’t a pair in New York could catch us. There was room on the streets in them days for a gallop. Now you can’t step off the walk without gettin’ a horse’s hoof in your pocket. And of a Saturday night we’d go to the theatre. Do you remember Foley, Kevin?”

“I do.”

“There was never a man could die on a stage like him.”

“When he was good,” Kevin said. “And when he was bad, he’d to die twice. Ho! What we used to put that man through.”

“I wonder, Mr. Lavery,” Peg said, lifting her chin to give an air to it, “where would a girl start, makin’ her way on the stage?”

“I know where some of them have to start, God help them,” Kevin said.

“Kevin, the childer’,” Mary said. She turned to Peg. “It wouldn’t be respectable, what they’d give the likes of you to do, dear.”

“And what’d they give the likes of me?”

Mary fanned herself, a habit she had when she became excited as though to scatter the heat coming over her. “They’d want you to make a clown of yourself.”

“I’d a sight rather be a clown than a clod,” Peg said, her eyes snapping.

“Oh my dear, I didn’t mean you were a clod. You’re a fine, handsome girl,” Mary cajoled, and went on to number Peg’s attractions.

It angered Dennis to hear her go on, for the word “clod” was Peg’s and he suspected it was her notion of Mary.

It was Norah, however, who put things right, and in a way that surprised him. “You don’t need to flatter her, Mrs. Lavery. She’ll make what she will of herself in the end. If she breaks our hearts doin’ it, small heed she’ll take o’ that. Maybe when she’s got her own to carry around and it split inside her, she’ll have a little decency.”

“Well,” Kevin said, too heartily, “let’s leave them the house.”

“Dennis, can I go with yous?” Vinnie asked.

“You can not,” Kevin said. “It’s men we’re goin’ amongst.”

It was not that he meant to be bluff with the boy, Dennis thought, but that he felt the reins of his own house to be slipping out of hand. “We’ll see the town, you and me, tomorrow, Vinnie,” he said.

“If yous don’t find me da tonight,” the boy said. “I know somit more’n a blind man.”

“After the chores are done,” Mary coaxed, “Jamie’ll take you for a walk as far as the park. I’ll give you the price of a sweet.”

“I’ll go with you,” Peg said. “I’m dyin’ for a sight of the city.”

Mary started to protest, but Norah laid her hand on her arm.

“Are you comin’ out of it, Denny?” Kevin said.

“Do!” Mary cried. “You’ve my nerves unraveled, the two of you, with your goin’ and not goin’.”

“We’ll see the priest first,” Kevin announced grimly when they reached the street. “We’ll walk up to the Square and take the bus.”

Dennis strode alongside him, content to share the silence. It was as though they had entered a pact to lay by plans and recollections until the distractions were settled. The gaslights had come on, but the streets beneath them were dark, and the few people out forlorn and cold looking, October having no kindness for them without heat after the sun’s going down. The shops were closed up for the night and the buildings seemed no more than great humps of emptiness although the cry of a child, a rattle of talk might come from one now and then, or a bit of song from a basement snug. The sky all to the west of them was bright, and almost bright to the north. The hum of traffic from there increased. Then, as they neared Chatham Square the city seemed coming alive, the life in it coming to meet them: a torchlight parade with a drum booming out and in a minute smothering that, the blare of a German band. They stood in an alleyway while it passed and in the light of the flares, Dennis noticed all manner of faces poke out from the buildings he had thought deserted. The Dublin slums had faces no worse, he thought, but it might be the dancing light making monkeys of them as they squinted from darkness. They must take to their beds early, poor devils, he thought.

The music stopped and a chant began as the marchers passed. The words were no sooner started than a chorus of “boos” and “aways” drifted down from the watchers.

“What are they sayin’?” Dennis asked.

“Free soil, free speech, free labor and free men,” Kevin chanted in imitation of the marchers.

“Jesus,” Dennis said, “that’s for me. Let’s give them a cheer.”

“Free niggers. Is that for you, too?” Kevin snapped. “Keep your tongue in your head where you’re going tonight and don’t show your ignorance.”

Father Shea was an assistant at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. He met them in one of the rectory sitting rooms with as solemn sadness as he had left them on the pier. This time he had reason. Thomas Dunne had been buried alive under a landslide in the laying of a new track for the New York and Harlem Railroad. The funeral had been held from the Cathedral parish two months before. Father Shea had been fairly sure of it when Kevin met him on the dock, but they were not tidings to be given if there were a chance of error.

“Couldn’t there be more than one Thomas Dunne?” Dennis asked, his eyes pleading the lost cause.

“There could,” the priest said, “but I went around to his lodgings, and there is no doubt he was your man.”

“Did he have a place for them he was bringing over?” said Kevin.

“He did, but it’s taken.”

“Did he leave them anything itself?”

“If he did, that’s taken too. He lived near the Five Points.”

Kevin shook his head. “Well, wherever they go, they’ll be better off than they would there, God help them.”

“If he’d no decent place to take them,” Dennis said, gathering that the Five Points was far from a respectable neighborhood, “what did he send for them for in the first place?”

“That’s a question we ask every time a boat lands,” Kevin said.

“A man must live in hope,” the priest said. “Thomas Dunne was a good man. He worked hard as an Irishman must in this country if he wants a better life. They’re not all as fortunate as your brother, Mr. Lavery—meaning no disparagement of you, Kevin.”

“I know what you mean, Father,” Kevin said. “I came over in a different boat, or I might not have made it.”

“But that’s what they all hope for,” the priest said.

“You live in hopes if you die in despair,” Dennis said. “Oh, God Almighty.” He turned away, for the tears rose in his eyes as he thought of the man whose high, lost dream it was to take his children out of the slums and degradation and who, by the sound of the two of them here, had no more chance of success even if he had lived, than a dog in a ratpit.

He took a deep breath and rubbed the tears and the drip from his nose away with his hand and dried that on his pocket. “Well,” he said, turning back, “they never knew the man, and what they didn’t know, they won’t miss. I’m obliged to you, Father, for your trouble.”

“It’s late now,” the priest said, looking up at a clock on the mantel. “If you’ll come in the morning after the eight o’clock Mass, I’ll take you down the street to the orphanage.”

“’Tis handy,” Dennis murmured. He too was looking at the clock, and thinking it a strange thing, the two pieces on the mantel, a clock and a crucifix. He shook his head as a peculiar notion chased through it: at what o’clock was Christ to get off the cross? As though it were part of the same notion, he remembered making Vinnie give back the gold sovereigns. It worried him, where that thought had come from.

“Would you like to stop a minute and see the Cathedral?” Kevin asked as they reached the street.

“I would. I’d like to light a candle for Thomas Dunne—and one for his mother. It must’ve been a great surprise to her, findin’ him in the next world ahead of her.”

In the church while the words of a prayer were on his lips, his mind slipped back to the gold sovereigns. Suddenly the thought was whole: Christ had been crucified between two thieves; one of them went to paradise and welcome.

3

“THIS IS MY BROTHER, Dennis, the one I was telling you about. He got off the boat today.” Kevin jerked his head around. “Dennis: Daniel Mulrooney, alderman of the Seventh Ward.”

Dennis held back the hand he was about to extend because there was none offered to take it. Whatever an alderman was, the seventh or the seventieth, Mulrooney was no gentleman. They had trailed him from the fire house to one pub and then another, the praises of Cass and Butler, Walworth and O’Conor, yes O’Conor, hanging in the air after him. All the while Kevin had laid down the law to Dennis: he was to take whatever Mulrooney said with a grace and if he didn’t like the looks of him, he was to keep his taste to himself. He understood Kevin’s fears now, for when they found him, Mulrooney shook hands with Kevin without lifting his backside from the chair. He looked more an Irishman’s notion of John Bull than an Irishman. Instead of a greeting, he gave Dennis a slow going-over with his eye, and that half-closed.

“Two more bog poteen!” he called out to the barkeep, which, by the signs around, Dennis thought, was his word for Irish whiskey. “Two more and to hell with old Zach Taylor!”

“To hell with Zach and the whole Whig pack,” came out of the half-drunken refrain.

Someone clamored above it: “And here’s to Van Buren, that ol’ potful of urine!”

The din grew louder and still Mulrooney took Dennis’ measure. Half the eyes in the barroom plucked him apart in time with Mulrooney, Dennis thought. The place was a lather of smoke. They lit up when Mulrooney passed the cigars and drank when Mulrooney toasted. If Mulrooney farted, he thought, they could launch a balloon.

The politician finally spoke to him. “How tall do you measure?”

Kevin, near as anxious as the rest to please Mulrooney, answered: “He’s six foot and an inch.”

Mulrooney grunted. “If he’s a hundred and sixty pound, he’s no more.”

“He’ll have some flesh on his bones in a week. McGovern at the station is taking him on if we get him a job. He’ll outrun and out-pump any man on the engine.”

“Will he know a Hunker from a Barnburner by election day?”

“He’ll know them before this night is out,” Kevin said.

“Send him down with a shovel in the morning and we’ll start him from the bottom.” He squinted up at Dennis. “Didn’t you bring a tongue with you over from Ireland?”

“I did,” Dennis said, the heat in him whiter than he had ever known it, “but I didn’t bring it to lick your ass with.”

“Oh, Jesus Christ,” Kevin said, and they were the last clear words Dennis heard for a while.

Mulrooney slapped the flat of his hand on the table, and instinct told Dennis to sidestep something coming at him from behind. He did, and as a giant of a man lunged past him, he gave him a kick that sent him sprawling over Mulrooney’s table, his face puckered into his master’s. Behind him Kevin, the barkeep and his helper were trying to block the rush of howling men from the front.

“Ho, there, young man!”

He looked to the voice and spied a small man at the back waving for him to come. He was no match for a dozen, Dennis knew, though he’d love dearly to blister Mulrooney and chum. He decided to chance their next meeting, and that maybe on higher ground, snatched his hat from the floor and answered the little man’s beckoning. The stranger opened the door and waved him through it with a bowler hat, much as he might have cheered a runner past the last hurdle. He followed him out, closed the door, turned the key in it, and then when he joined Dennis on the pavement, flipped the key into the gutter.

“You’re either a fool or a wise man,” he said. “Come, we shall see.”

A thing most distasteful to Dennis was to walk a street with a man much smaller than himself and especially when only the small one knew where they were going. He felt like a bull on a chain. His companion, near skipping to double his steps, led the way down a foul smelling alley, then into the street, a long street at the corner of which they jogged into another and from there Dennis could see the Square he and Kevin had walked to hours before.

“If you’re tryin’ to lose me,” Dennis said, “I just found my way.”

His companion stopped. “Oh my, I’d forgotten. You’re new to our city.”

“I feel old to it, but I landed today.”

“Do you know where you live?”

“I do. Thirty-nine Cherry Street.”

The man settled his hat on his head, and then disturbed it again looking up. “I haven’t introduced myself, have I?”

“You’ve not.”

“Jeremiah Finn at your service, Mr. Lavery.”

“What do you do, Mr. Flynn?”

“Finn. As in a fish but I’m not,” the man said precisely. The same quickness that was in his gestures and walk was in his speech, and Dennis found it hard to follow. “I’m a locksmith by day and a follower of the strange ways of men by night.”

“Are you an Irishman?”

“I’m afraid not, but you mustn’t hold that against me. I’m very fond of the Irish, but I confess there are times when I think the world would be in a sad state if we were all Irishmen.”

“Oh,” Dennis said, “call on Ireland herself as your witness.”

“Do you like coffee, Mr. Lavery?”

“I’ve no notion,” Dennis said. “I never tasted it.”

“Then I’ll stand you a first cup and show you a bit of New York as well.” Jeremiah Finn settled his hat and skipped to the corner, his finger in the air to signal the first empty hack.

It’s a dream, Dennis thought, for the weariness had begun to take hold of him, but not a bad dream, with this queer little man mincing through it, and he was in no hurry to waken before Kevin was home and asleep. He had many things to settle in his mind, if he could but settle his mind before the night was over.

“Can I do you something, chuckie?”

Dennis started at the voice. A woman was standing near face to face with him when he turned, and the sick sweet smell of her wafted the rest of the distance.

“Here, be off!” Mr. Finn cried, scurrying back and waving his hands up and down.

“Call off yer dog or I’ll snitch his gigg,” the woman shrieked at Dennis, kicking out one foot and then the other at Mr. Finn. Then she called over her shoulder. “Hey, Jack! Here’s a pair!”

“Come along,” Finn said. “We’ve to run for it now or have a muss here.”

Dennis followed him toward the Square, the little man holding his hat on his head while his coat tails flapped out in the wind like a duck’s feathers.

“There!” he said when they were settled in the cab and he had caught his breath. “That’s Daniel Mulrooney for you. A decent citizen can’t put his foot out the door after ten in the ward. He has a fortune to spend on elections, and where does he get it? Blackmailing blackmailers. He has a piece from every crib, fence and brothel and they are legion. Oh, I tell you, Mr. Lavery,” and his voice quivered with the words, “it’s a long tail he wags, but he’ll soon get it nipped down to a bloody stump.”

“I’d like to make him eat it,” Dennis said.

“Which, God bless you, is why I came to your rescue. What is your trade, Mr. Lavery?”

“I’m a day laborer. I’ve no trade, Mr. Finn.”

“You were a day laborer, let us say. I am not without connections of my own.”

It was a dream after all, Dennis thought. Mulrooney’s thug had knocked him into it. “I’ve a fair power of words,” he said then, “though I couldn’t put one o’ them after the other if I’d to do it on paper.”

“Mmm,” the man beside him said, meaning, Dennis thought, that he had expected no more. A strange sort, this one, with a nose long enough to be half his journey before he left the house. He might be forty or fifty, for Dennis could not guess the age of a man who had passed his youth but was still that side of old age.

Mr. Finn leaned forward. “There on your right is City Hall park. A pretty place for a den of thieves. On your left is the motherhouse—that frame building there—Tammany Hall.”

Dennis mulled the word “motherhouse.” “I’m a Roman Catholic, Mr. Finn,” he said.

“I’ve never known an Irishman who wasn’t to start with,” Finn said.

“I’ve started and I’ll end that way, and if yous don’t like it, you can put me down.”

“Bless you, I shouldn’t care if you were a Shaker. Ah, here, my friend, is Broadway. You’ve not seen it at night, I dare say.”

Nor was he going to see it that night, Dennis realized. It was a blur of color and a blare of sound and he was becoming sick with weariness. He heard music and hawking, and Mr. Finn’s voice as he pitched it high to celebrate wonders as they passed by. It was all a far sound wafting over the grind of the cab wheels and the wheels of multitudinous hacks and carriages debating the street with theirs. Dennis leaned back and closed his eyes. If he could but fall asleep for a minute, he thought, it would settle his stomach and keep him from disgracing himself.

He came half-awake on his feet, the hack driver on one side of him and Mr. Finn on the other.

“He’s not drunk. He’s exhausted.”

“Small matter that, if we’ve to carry the size of him up the steps. Will you wake up, lad?”

“I’m awake,” Dennis said although he wondered for the instant what world he had wakened into.

Norah ran down the steps to them, her slippered feet making a patter like rain in the quiet.

“He’s not drunk, Miss,” Finn said, trying to manage his hat without taking his support from Dennis.

“Is he hurt, never mind is he drunk?”

Dennis pushed the men from either side of him. “Let me get my bearin’s and I’ll stand on my own.”

“There, you’re fine,” Mr. Finn said. “You’re jolly fine. Woops, catch the rail!”

Dennis swayed as he might with the boat still under him.

“Now, Miss,” Finn clapped his hat against his breast. “Jeremiah Finn at your service.” He poked a white card at Norah which she took at arm’s length and sensitive to her shyness, he retreated a step and raised his voice. “I should like Mr. Lavery to call on me at that address. It’s to his advantage, you might remind him.”

With that, he hopped into the cab and signaled the driver to carry on.

“I’ll be damned,” Dennis said, as the sound of the horse’s hoofs faded. “It’s been the queerest night.”

“It has that,” Norah said. She ran out to the middle of the street.

He looked after her and saw that she was out without cloak or shawl, a frail thing, looking up and down the street as though she had no home. Nor had she, he thought. Yet her chin was as high as her courage, and there was from her chin down her throat to her breast such a clean white line in the night’s murk, that something inside him broke as he observed it—an ache: loneliness, hunger, a yearning after purity in a dirty world. He took off his coat, carried it open to her and hung it gently about her shoulders. Never, he thought, had he been wider awake.

To match his tender impulse hers was as quick. She turned and thrust her head against his breast, her arms strong around him. The need they told drained his strength and then returned it of a rush so that he wanted to near crush her for the moment and then lift her as high as the stars, for there surely she belonged. The brief time she clung to him, he patted her clumsily that his strength might not betray him into bruising or breaking something precious.

She pushed away from him then and wiped her eyes. If he wasn’t an ox, he thought, with hoofs for hands, he might have done that for her.

“There,” she said, “I’m all right now. It was a minute’s weakness.”

“An hour of it would’ve been as short to me,” he said.

She smiled, her teeth gleaming. The smile, too, was brief. “Dennis, Vinnie and Peg are gone.”

“Gone?” he said. “Where could they go at this time of night?”

“They’ve been gone since after you and your brother. They went out with Kevin’s boy, and then sent him home by himself.”

“The schemin’ pair of them,” Dennis said. “Let’s go in. They’ll come back when they’re hungry.”

“Jamie was loath to leave them, he told us and I believe him. They were terrible rude to him. Vinnie said to him, ‘Me father’s dead, and there’s nobody goin’ to tell me what to do now.’”

Dennis shivered, more from the thought than the want of his coat. “So he guessed it,” he said.

“Is it the truth?”

“Aye. The priest told us tonight. He was killed afore they ever left Ireland. He died afore his mother.”

“God have mercy on us,” Norah said. “I could tell from the way the wind was blowin’ tonight, it blowed no good. It was like it was tryin’ to push us back to the sea.”

“We’ll not be pushed back, Norah,” he said, “when we were all but pushed out. We’re not Jews to be wanderin’ the face of the earth.”

“We’re not,” she said fervently. “We’d better go up now, you standin’ out in your shirt.”

“I wonder is Mr. Finn a Jew,” he said on the steps. “He’s the queerest man I ever met.”

“Where did you meet him?”

“Ah, that’s a story. Is Kevin home yet?”

“He’s not, and Mary was noddin’ in the chair so’s I made her go to bed.”

The oil lamp on the table, a yellow frame shielding its glare, and the candles sputtering down and then up with the opening and closing of the door, cast a warm light over the room. There was a nest of coals in the grate. Dennis gave it a kick and started the glow in them. Chairs with cushions, a rug on the floor, a sailing ship framed on the wall and a row of plates catching the glow of the fire; papers on the table, and a row of books on a window seat: Dennis took them all in for the first time as he turned the quilt over the pillow on the sofa where it was made up to bed whichever of them was last in, and sat down. He took off his brogues and stretched his feet to the grate while Norah hung the tea kettle over the coals.

“I’ll warm my feet now,” he said, “in case Kevin sends me out on them when he comes in. The nights are cold here.”

“Did you fall out with him?” Norah said, turning her face round to him without her straightening up. Her hair had strayed in the wind and the color had come into her cheeks.

“Well, you might say I didn’t fall in with his plans for me. You know they’ve politicians here, you’d swear was carryin’ the queen’s own brochure?”

“I’m not surprised,” she said. “I was never one to let the promise of America blind me to human nature.”

“Did you have a home like this in Ireland, Norah?”

“Once there was a likeness,” she said.

“I’ll never rest till I match it, piece for piece,” he said, “and read every word in them books.” He raised his voice: “And know what I’m readin’.”

“Hush. You’ll wake the house,” she said. “Are you hungry? Will I find some bread?”

“No, I’m not hungry.” He thought about it, and about her and the books on the shelf and Jeremiah Finn. But I am hungry, he thought: not for bread, nor for meat; for something to fill the growth of a man and blunt the knife-sharp edges of it. He got up and stood beside her where she waited the kettle’s reaching a boil. “Norah, what’s to become of Emma?”

She bit her lip and took the poker to the coals. “If a woman had the rights and privileges of a man in this world,” she said, jabbing the fire, “I could tell you what’d become of her, and see to it it did. I don’t know what’s to become of her, Dennis. I’ve thought and thought about it, for I’d a premonition on the boat as sure as Vinnie himself this was comin’.”

He clung in his mind to the first words she poured out in the torrent. When she was done, he said quietly: “Would you take a man and get his rights and privileges into the bargain?”

She looked at him, her eyes wide and her lips parted and then flung away in tears. “Don’t torture me, Dennis.”

“Is it torture when I’m askin’ you to marry me?”

She could control neither tears nor sobbing then, and he had to take the poker from her where it was streaking her arm black and her dress. He turned her to him and held her. “Norah, Norah,” he said, and brushed her forehead with his lips.

When the sobs eased, she managed: “It’s everything in the one day.”

He cursed to himself for not having a bit of clean rag to offer her. He pulled out the long tail of his shirt. “Here.”

That made her laugh. She pulled away from him and started from the room. “I’ll be back in a minute. Don’t let the kettle put out the fire.”

“There’s nothin’ll put out the fire,” he called after her.

He listened for the sound of her blowing her nose, and then heard her pour water into a basin. There was a great rhythm pounding through it, and after a moment’s wonder, he realized it was the beating of his own heart. He wet the tea while he waited and thought of his mother. The first money to spare he’d have a daguerreotype made of Norah and send it, and one of himself beside her maybe in the same pose, would she have him.

Norah returned, the moisture still in her eyes, but her cheeks rubbed dry.

“I’ve the tea ready,” he said, “and I’ll pour it to show you my civilization.”

“Thank you,” she said. She sat on the sofa’s edge and said not another word until he put the cup in her hand.

“You’re wise to sit quiet through this,” he said. “I’m a dangerous man with a teapot.”

She took a few sips, and he scalded his lips on the first try. “What are we drinkin’ tea for,” he said, “and my heart scaldin’ me as it is?” He put the cup on the mantel.

She put hers on the table and folded her hands. “’Tis wonderful kind of you, Dennis,” she started, and waved down his attempted protest. “For all our wish to do so, we must not think of Emma now.”

“Oh, damn Emma,” he blurted out, “bless her sweet soul. She’s nothin’ to do with it but gettin’ me over the hump.”

She looked at him and he could see in her eyes the wish that it were so. A great fear clutched at him that he might not convince her. A fool he was not to have thought it out before broaching the matter. But how could he have thought it out when it came into his mind but a few minutes before?

“What do I know of the child,” he said, “save she wets my shirt when I hold her and my knees when I settle her?”

“Don’t make a joke of it, Dennis.”

“I’m a clown when my heart’s dancin’,” he said. “It’s only to cover my ignorance. And I won’t always be ignorant, Norah. I’ve the vision of a job now from Mr. Finn. Whatever he’s in he’s a locksmith.” He slumped down on the floor beside her, laying his arm on the sofa to where his hand was near her should she wish to touch it. “He’s fashioned a key for us, darlin’ girl, and I’m darin’ to bring it to you. Give it a twist, Norah, and I promise you all the wonders of a lovin’ heart.”

“Do you love me, Dennis?” she asked, her eyes almost terrible upon him as she searched his for the truth.

“As God gave me the power and the tongue to tell it, I do love you, Norah.”

She laid her hand over his, but looked into the fire while she spoke. “I loved you, Dennis, from that first day: you comin’ amongst us and singin’ when our hearts were burstin’ with fear.”

“Will you look at me, Norah, and say it?”

She looked at him. “I thought it was Peg all the time,” she said.

“I thought it myself,” he said, “but I was ever a fool about my own fortune. ’Tis you and only you.”

“I love you, Dennis. My heart’s achin’ with it.”

“And mine’s crawlin’ up in my throat.” On his knees, he pulled her close to him, and while their lips met, he lifted her up as he rose to his feet. Her toes scarcely brushed the floor as he held her, putting himself, he thought, between her and the world, and herself in a way between him and his fear of it.

They were sitting hand in hand before the fire when Kevin returned, his heavy step a forecast of his mood.

“So you’re home,” he said, throwing off his coat. “I’ve been scouring the streets for you.”

“Where would a man come but home after that?” Dennis said.

“If he knew his way and was able. You could’ve been crippled for a thing like that.”

“But I’m here and whole,” Dennis said, getting up. “And more than whole, I’m doubled. Kevin, put down your anger at me a minute. I’m sorry for provokin’ you trouble but I was fresh from abuse on the boat and spoilin’ to dump the gall out of me. I’m empty of it now and full of honey.”

“Full as a bee’s balls,” Kevin said vulgarly. He jerked his head around to where Norah sat, having forgot for the moment her presence. “I’m sorry, Miss, but do you know what he did tonight?”

Norah lifted her chin. “He asked me to marry him,” she said, “and I consented.”

Kevin stood a moment and then walked across the room to her. It occurred to Dennis that his brother wanted to be sure which of the sisters it was. Kevin went on then to the fireplace and warmed his hands, still without speaking. Finally, he said: “I’ll never forget when he was a lad home. If he threw a stone at a window, he’d break his finger doing it. He threw the cat in the river once, and then damn near drowned himself getting it out.” He turned around and rubbed his hands together. “Well, God bless you both.”

He smiled then, and Norah would no more forget it than she would his first welcome to them on the dock. He went over to her and kissed her cheek. “I’ll be proud to have you for a sister, Norah Hickey. He’s less the fool than I thought.” He swung around to Dennis and thrust his hand at him. Dennis pulled him into a hug.

“There’s somethin’ I’m dyin’ to ask you,” Dennis said, pushing him away. “Who’s Jeremiah Finn?”

“O-oh?” Kevin said in surprise. “It was him got you out?”

“It was, and he’s give me a card to come round and see him.”

“He’s got a fine shop on Chambers Street and money in the bank by all telling.”

“But where does he stand in your politics?”

“As long as I’ve known of him,” Kevin said, “he’s been standing on the outside throwing bricks at them on the throne, but he’s a Democrat.”

“There was nothin’ exact that he said,” Dennis went on, “but he gave me the notion he’d find me a job.”

“Then to hell with Mulrooney,” Kevin said. “He can carpenter his own house or pay for it.”

“Is that the price he was askin’?”

“He wasn’t asking. He was telling.” Kevin shook off his thoughts of Mulrooney. “Are you sitting here in the dark on the night of your betrothal with nothing between you but a cup of cold tea?”

The candles had burned out, and only the oil lamp lighted the room.

“Wake Mary while I break out a bottle,” Kevin cried. “I never knew the likes of her for falling asleep before the crux of a celebration. There’s candles in the kitchen. Light us up, Norah!” He paused a moment, passing her, and put his finger under her chin. “The light in your eyes’ll shine your way to the kitchen.”

“Ho,” Norah said. “You’re brothers truly!”

“The boy, Vinnie, and her sister is gone off in the night,” Dennis said.

Kevin scowled and then banished the scowl. “It’ll be the less strain on the bottle,” he said. “I can’t laugh and cry at the same time, and as long as I’m given a choice in this world, I’ll take the laughing.”

“And so will I,” Norah said. “Peg’s life is her own, and mine…” she paused and whispered to Dennis, passing him, “…is yours.”

Kevin might not have heard the words, but he sensed them. He leaped to the hall door and shouted, “Mary, come out, love, till I give you a whirl! I feel as though my own wedding night was before me!”

Dennis, alone the moment in the parlor, heard footsteps on the outside stairs. He signaled Norah to be still when she returned, and then Kevin. They waited, listening. Just as the footsteps reached the top, there was a bump, bump, bump down the stairs as though someone had dropped a ball.

Kevin pushed Dennis and Norah into the kitchen, following them into the dark, and at that moment Mary charged into the parlor from the hall, her red hair streaming behind her, her wrapper spread like an angel’s wings. She turned round and round, seeing no one.

“Where are you all?” she called out. “Come in here and not be spoofin’ at this hour!”

Peg opened the outside door a crack, and said “Sh-sh” through it.

Mary turned round on her and thumped across the room. “Oh, I’ll shush you!” she cried, flinging the door open and pulling first Peg and then Vinnie into the room. “You’ll have us disgraced in the neighborhood, on the streets at this hour!”

Her hand on Peg’s arm did violence to the skirtful of apples the girl was carrying and they tumbled over the floor, rolling in all directions.

“Glory to God,” Mary said, staring round at them. “Were you goin’ in the business?”

Kevin danced into the room, picking up an apple and then another, and a third, taking them to his wife. “We’ll have applesauce, and roast apples, and dumplings, dumpling.” He flung his arms around her.

Mary pushed him away. “We’re housin’ a nest of idiots and you’re catchin’ it.” She looked around the room and saw Norah and Dennis standing arm in arm. “Oh-h,” she said then, “I’m beginnin’ to catch on. Every time he goes to a weddin’ he’s actin’ the bridegroom. It’s the two of you, is it?”

“It is,” Dennis said, “and I’m burstin’ with pride.”

Norah had not taken her eyes from her sister. Now when Peg turned and looked at her and lifted her arms, Norah ran into them and hugged her. “Oh, Peg, I’m so glad you’re back. I was afraid you’d run off and left me.”

Peg kissed her cheek. “What are you cryin’ for, silly? Isn’t it you runnin’ off now and leavin’ me?”

“I’d never leave you,” Norah said. “We’ll be makin’ a home now, Dennis and me, and it’ll be your home when you will, and Vinnie’s…” She turned to him. “And little Emma will start with us.”

“And the next boat load from Ireland as well,” Kevin said. “You’ll need to prosper, brother of mine.”

“And prosper I will,” Dennis said. He looked at Vinnie. The boy had set his share of the burden he and Peg had brought home on the floor, a great jug with a handle and a bundle of books tied with a rope, a fancy parasol, and his cap full of chestnuts. “Vinnie, have you nothin’ to say to us?”

“I’ve somit,” the boy said, sniffling to clear his head. “I’m goin’ t’marry Peg when I’m big enough.”

They all laughed, including Peg, but she went to Vinnie and gave him a hug. Thirteen though he was, his head came no higher than her breast. “Bless you, Vinnie,” she said, “I’ll be waitin’ for you.” She swung around. “Give them the jug, Vinnie. ’Tis the best Irish whiskey we seen in New York.”

“Save the jug for the wedding,” Kevin said, “and I’ll whistle a tune down its neck when it’s dry. Is the kettle boiling? I’ll make us some punch.”

“Do you know where we were tonight?” Peg cried. “Up and down Broadway. Norah, Parliament Street is a cowpath. The lights, you’d think there was rainbows shinin’ at night. There’s a band playin’ over your head one place, and you never heard the like of the noise they make. Like a flock o’ geese wi’ the cat chasin’ after them. And there was a place we looked into…” She poked her finger as she walked round the room telling the story, her hips in time with the telling. “The players were black, and one o’ them was beatin’ a drum, rollin’ his eyes to the ceilin’ and them white as the moon. And the dancin’: up in the air and down, over, under and around as though they were prancin’ on coals…”

Dennis watched Vinnie as she told it. The boy’s eyes were as bright as her own. A child of the streets, he thought, Vinnie found them of New York a paradise. Raised on the streets, he had no fear of them, and he wondered if a night in the country wouldn’t terrify the boy.

“Oh-h!” Mary said in her hearty way, “will you listen to her carry on? She could get a job herself on the Barnum balcony!”

Peg stood still. “Do you think I could?”

“Don’t be puttin’ notions into her head,” Norah said. “She’s wild ones there already.”

“From the pile you brought home with you, it looks like you spent your inheritance, the two of you,” Kevin said from where he was squeezing a lemon into a pitcher.

“We earned what we spent,” Vinnie said.

Mary buried her fist in her bosom. “God help us, how’d you do that?”

“We sang,” Peg said proudly. “We sang in the doorways till they invited us in or paid us to get out. And if you’d like to know, I did a jig when they asked it.”

“Did you make more getting in or getting out?” Kevin teased.

“You’re not thinkin’ o’ doin’ it again, are you?” Norah asked.

“No, we’re not,” Peg said, suddenly grave. “’Twas a lark for a night, but the streets are full of creatures maybe as bold as us once. They’re dried up and whinin’, and God help them when the wind’s blowin’. There was a child with legs like a chicken goin’ the rounds of the cellars with apples. ’Twould break your heart…”

Dennis knew then where the apples had come from, and likely the rest of their take, save the whiskey. There was more running through her than sand to a stone heart after all.

“In Dublin there’s not much to yearn after,” Peg went on, “but here there’s laces and linens and furs, and windows closed up on mountains of teas and fruits and sweets.”

“It’s a hard lesson you learned,” Mary said. “The night wasn’t wasted.”

Peg sat down, suddenly weary. She took a deep breath as Kevin poured the boiling water over the lemon, sugar, and spice. “Oh, what a lovely smell that.”

Kevin added the whiskey, stirred the punch and poured it in mugs with handles which he had lined up in a row.

“Vinnie,” Dennis said, “how’d you like to be a locksmith?”

“What’s that?” Vinnie said.

“A man makin’ locks for doors and the keys to open them.”

Vinnie shrugged. “I never seen one. I’d rather sell papers.”

“The town’s crawling with newsboys,” Kevin said. “If you’ve a chance for a trade, take it. There’s not many Irishmen have it in this country, God help us.”

“I’ll speak to Mr. Finn on an apprentice,” Dennis said.

“You better first speak to Mr. Finn on yourself,” Kevin said, handing him a mug. “Isn’t it you that’s getting married?”

“It is,” Dennis said, carrying his drink as fast as he could to Norah that she might have the first sip from it, and he the first sip from hers. “We’ll be married the first priest we can capture.”

“There was one on the boat wasn’t a priest at all,” Peg said.

“Sure,” Mary said, “there’s fish in the ocean with wings. Will you give us the toast, Kevin?”

“I will.” He lifted his cup: “To Norah and Dennis.” He looked then at his wife. “May their happiness be as great as my own. I could wish them no more.”

4

IN THE MIDST OF the preparations for the wedding, Peg made her own declaration of independence. It was the easier done with the distractions of Dennis’ new employment, the finding of a flat for him and Norah, and the coaxing of Vinnie into giving a try to Mr. Finn’s. She fretted one day, and then another attending the children while Mary and Norah skipped to the joys of making a feast. On the morning of the third day, she skipped out herself. Returning at nightfall she announced she was taking a hotel room. The abuse fell about her like hailstones. When it melted, Mary Lavery found her a place in a respectable house kept for working girls by a Mrs. Riordon. Peg moved into it the morning after the wedding.

No one could doubt the respectability of Mrs. Riordon. She was straightened and starched with it, and fortified by an enormous set of false teeth. If ever there had been a Mr. Riordon, all signs of him had been scrubbed from the house on Chrystie Street.

Peg’s first days alone were gloriously to her liking. She came and went from the house at will, taking care however to be down for breakfast and home for tea which were included in the two dollars a week she paid for her room. She determined to squeeze as much of New York out of the money she had as was squeezable. God knew, the lodgings were a fit beginning. She wondered, first seeing the room, that in a country the size of America, they could afford you no bigger a place than where a mouse would knock his head if he got up on his haunches. But she took it without complaint, as she did the meals for there was no telling the tales Mrs. Riordon would carry to the Laverys if she had the provocation.

Indeed, whatever complaining was done in the house seemed the privilege of Mrs. Riordon and not of her boarders. The towels: “If you don’t hang them proper, you’ll have to wash them yoursel’s.” A good washing, Peg thought, would vanish them altogether. “And don’t be lettin’ the curtains fly out the window.” If a sparrow flew out the window, he’d crush his wings on the way, Peg thought. “Help yoursel’s to ’taties and greens,” Mrs. Riordon would say as she slivered a joint of mutton on Sunday, “for a bit of meat costs tenpence.” The rest of the week was made up of fast days. If you looked up from the mush seeing the pattern of the plate shining through it when she set it before you, she’d say: “It’s a fast day. You wouldn’t want to be violating the regulations of Holy Mother the church?”

Holy Mother the church would never have raised the family she had on Mrs. Riordon’s bill of fare, Peg thought. But the astounding thing about the place was not Mrs. Riordon. Peg had seen her like many’s the time picking over the vegetables in the Dublin markets. They were of a kind the world over, the keepers of cheap boarding houses. It was the girls Peg marked with greater wonder. They arose at five-thirty, breakfasted at six, and scurried out of the house at six-thirty. If they spoke at all in the morning, it was to God alone and, Peg thought, He must have answered them, for how else should they have known they were His children? Their faces were as pale as the mush they devoured and their eyes watery as the tea. They were sewing girls, most of them, and at their tables from seven until six with an hour at midday to explore the dinner bucket Mrs. Riordon packed for them at an extra tenpence a week.

Well, God help them, Peg thought after the first week’s observation, theirs was not the life for her. At home if she sewed a dress, it was a dress she sewed and not a thousand sleeves with never a whole thing to see and admire.

She gave them little thought from dawn to dusk, spending her mornings over the books she and Vinnie had bought that first night, and the afternoons promenading the New York streets. Many were the sharp eyes cast after her, and many an arm was offered her in escort. She fashioned herself the dignity of a dowager for such encounters and pretended to be waiting the return of her escort from a man’s errand. She was free, too, with the use of the parasol Vinnie had given her, exploding it into the face of the persistent. She learned the places a girl could go without a man, the picture galleries and the ice cream saloons, and idled many an hour in them, listening always to the accents of the genteel. Alone, she would mimic them and try to thin out her brogue.

Getting out of a night was more difficult, for Mrs. Riordon locked her house at nine. If a girl got a key, it was not put into her hand but into the hand of her escort, and that only after he had been vouched for by his parish priest. Peg made friends with the two girls who were courting, and thus gained her freedom two nights a week. She huddled half her belongings between the blankets on the bed making a shape of them and stole out while Mrs. Riordon stopped at the commode on her way from the kitchen; she stole in on the courting key, while the lovers whispered in the hall to cover the sound of her step. She was into her bed before the girl tapped on Mrs. Riordon’s door and slipped the key under it.

On such nights Peg hastened across the town, having come to know the streets as well as ever she knew Dublin, and lingered outside the theatres until it was time for the curtain to rise. She came to know the performers by sight and the managers by mood. She bided her time and her courage for the night she would speak to one of them. When it was curtain time, she bought the cheapest seat, and took her place amongst the fancy women whom she knew to be there not to see, but to be seen and engaged for the evening. During the intermissions, she would slip into a vacated box and apologize for having mistaken it for her own if the owner returned too soon, or she would stand as tall and remote as she could in a crowd, pulling fretfully at her gloves as though impatient of being left alone for so long. The game was wearing thin, she thought, and she would not like a lifetime of it. She found herself, now and then, looking after a dandy she had dispatched in dudgeon, and wondering what an evening in his company might be like. The thought of its climax drove temptation out of her head.

She made a marvelous discovery at the New National Theatre. The farces were not much to her humor; she wondered at the people rocking and rolling in the pit, laughing till they had to scratch themselves with it. Then it struck her of a sudden that Mose and Lize were the very sort who had danced and howled and boasted till dawn at Norah and Dennis’ wedding. If she had not seen Mr. Chanfrau himself playing Cardinal Richelieu the week before, she would have sworn he was the one near knocked her senseless throwing her up in the air till she cracked her head on the beam…the cigar in his mouth, the to-hell-with-you slouch as he stood taking the measure of the audience before he said a word, the removal of the cigar and the examination of it, the insolent spit from the side of his mouth and the first words: “I ain’t a-goin’ to run wi’ dat machine no more.” Hadn’t she already heard the words herself a dozen times? Wouldn’t Dennis soon be saying them? Six weeks in the country, he was already the pride of a prize company, and Norah swallowing down her heart every time the alarm bell sounded. He’d be quitting for years after answering one more call. Oh, she thought, Mr. Chanfrau was an artist truly.

But in the dark stillness of her room before sleep came, she came to think less about Mr. Chanfrau and his actors and more of the great company of laboring men and women from whom he had taken his characters: butchers, dock workers, mechanics, coachmen, hod carriers and bill-posters, and the women they courted and married. Their like was not in Dublin, for all that the trades and labors might be the same. There was a bounce to them here, a noisy joy when they were together, a bawling riotous companionship that made them as bold as their red undershirts. They spoke out their contempt for the aristocracy and called themselves Democrats to the last man. They voted to prove it and counting the votes, declared half of New York to be their own. If there was a place for a woman amongst them, she thought, except as they could boast her rescue, she would go home. Norah was home. Running down the steps of her flat with a tin to the milk man, she was home. Carting an armful of mending to Mary Lavery’s and sitting with it over a cup of tea, she was home. In a church pew on Sunday with Dennis, and Emma between them, she was praying a blessing on her home. Taking Dennis his dinner warm in a bucket to where he worked at the Catherine Street Market, she was home. Snug in his arms at night, his breath whistling through her hair, she was as much at home as ever a woman might be on earth.

On the morning she counted Mrs. Riordon out the last of half her share of the money she and Norah had brought from Ireland, Peg dressed herself in her best and took a twopenny omnibus ride to an intelligence office on Broadway near Bleecker Street. Ordinarily, she would have walked it, but she wanted to look her neatest. Besides, the condition of her slippers was such now that the truth could shine through their soles. And the truth was she had spent half her money against the advice of everyone whose business it was and whose business it was not and, she thought, they would never count the little wisdom she had gained a fair exchange for it.

It was not yet nine o’clock, but the intelligence office was swarming with women, most of them sallow and harried looking as though they had hastened in to escape the light of the sun. They wore all fashion, fit and color of bonnet and shawl, the cast-offs, no doubt, of a previous employer. As mismatched were their costumes as a brogue and a dancing shoe. Peg stood apart for a moment to get her bearings. She had never before sought employment through an office which procured it, but, she thought, if any of these unfortunates polishing their drab skirts on the pine benches had the sense they were born with, they would stick their heads in the air and get the more pay for it. As close as they came to lifting their chins was to gape at her where she stood and jerk their heads toward her while they nudged one another. Peg felt the color rise to her face. She had heard tell of the kind of work a girl might be sent out to from here if she had the size and shape and taste for it. It took no great wisdom to understand where these lovelies would place her if they had the chance.

She walked the length of the room and back before approaching an empty place on one of the benches. The two women on either side of it moved closer to one another, closing the breach.

“Sluts,” she said under her breath. She retreated with more grace than she felt. For the first time in New York, she was afraid. She walked around and around them, their eyes following her, until she felt the strain tearing at her. She felt as though she was turning into an animal, that she should leap upon them and destroy those she could before the rest devoured her. Finally a man came out from behind a glass-paneled door. He wore spectacles and pulled them down half the length of his nose to explore the applicants. It gave him the appearance of looking with his nose and not with his eyes at all. It might well be that he could tell as much with his nose here, Peg thought. He waved her onto the bench with one finger, and the crones made way for her, toppled by the finger of authority. Crones they were, though many of them were no older than herself. They were crones in the cradle, she thought, and wondered where they were cradled.

“I’ve several places,” the man said. “You can all wait today.” He jabbed a finger in the direction of the girl nearest to him. “Come, you.”

“I was here when ye turned the key in the door!” a woman cried.

The man took off his glasses and polished them on his cravat. “The last shall be first and the first shall be last, as the good book says.”

“And the devil can quote scripture to his own purpose,” Peg said in a murmur.

He closed the door on her words, but not before he had seen who was speaking.

With his promise of places, the women perked up. Some grew very nearly companionable.

“Yous shouldn’t of spoke like that to him,” one next to Peg said. “Yer a greenhorn or yous wouldn’t. I always say there’s two kinds of people in this world you don’t talk back to—them givin’ out the charity and them givin’ out summonses.”

“I don’t count employment a charity,” Peg said.

“Don’t yous now?” The woman looked into her face, her eyes small with envy. “When yous’ve lost the good looks, yous’ll change yer tune.”

“If I was you, love,” one down the line said, sticking her thin neck out of her collar and cocking her head till it looked like a knob on a cane, “if I was you, I’d look for a place as a waitress in one o’ them fancy restaurants. They do say you can get yer pockets filled on the side, they say.”

“Providin’ you don’t wear pockets if you know what I mean,” another one said, poking her elbow into the ribs of her nearest companion.

A woman opposite Peg rocked back and forth. “You can all wait today,” she mimicked the intelligence man. “Today and tomorrow and the next day, and if ye die on his hands the city’ll bury you.”

“And make a profit on layin’ yer out.”

Peg lost track of them talking, picking up only fragments of the complaints and lamentations. If she had any doubt on where they were cradled she lost it. Ireland had mothered them all.

“… And when I axed her for the job, she sticks her nose in the air. ‘I told them not to send me another Irish girl,’ she says. ‘My dear, I’ll give you the bus fare. Go back and tell them I want a nice black girl.’ ‘Well,’ says I, and me needin’ the work awful bad wi’ my Joe laid up on me, says I to her, ‘if ye’ll turn yer back a minute, I’ll go up the chimney and down and yous can take another look then at me color.’”

“To my way of thinking, all intelligence offices should be licensed,” one said. “The places they send a decent girl…” She rocked back and raised her cry to the ceiling.

“You say the word, licensin’, and it’s red republicanism they call it,” said a girl in a yellow bonnet that looked to have been saved from the gutter.

“It sounds like somethin’ you’d put yer foot on if you seen it,” another one said.

“Oh,” said the woman next to her, “did you hear Bishop Hughes on Sunday? They’re risin’ up like a plague over the earth. France is the worst, by all accounts. There was a bishop shot at the barricades in the street fightin’.”

“And what was he doin’ at the barricades?” asked the one in the yellow bonnet.

The one telling the story had no time for questions. “And the terriblest thing of all—there’s a crop of them took root in Ireland.”

“They’ll die there for want o’ nourishment, ha!” said the one with the long neck.

Or in exile, Peg thought, for she had heard Young Ireland cursed before. She had not forgotten Stephen Farrell, but that strange brief knowing of each other seemed to have made even speaking acquaintanceship impossible. He had not permitted a lone moment between them on the boat after it, and many dreams since had washed between her and her memory of him. Once or twice she was tempted to boldly look him up through the Irish Directory. “I’m as fit now to be a governess,” she fancied herself saying to him, “as ever a girl turned out of a female academy.” And hadn’t she once coaxed the promise of help from him? She wasn’t near as bold as she thought, she decided now. Day by day, the words had stuck deeper in her throat. She hadn’t the gall to put herself up to a theatre manager, much less to Stephen Farrell. Things had not turned out as she expected declaring her independence. Relieved of the responsibility of Norah, in some black magical way she had been relieved of the power to deal even with the responsibility for herself.

She let her eyes roam over the carping women: rags, bones and a prayer. A silence fell over them when the glass-paneled door opened letting out the one first chosen. She ran to the street door, the chosen one, clutching the white slip of paper as though it might be torn from her hand. Long-nose beckoned the next chosen into his parlor after scenting her out from the rest. The two were the neatest, Peg realized, except herself. In skipping her either he had some dire purpose in mind for her or no place he felt she would satisfy. That was it. When she spoke out, he decided she was too quick tongued for domestication. Something like terror rose in her. Until she was like them here, they were her betters. She tried to still the fear in listening to the carp and cant as it started again on the door’s closing.

“Ach, Ireland…” It was the one in the yellow bonnet again. Her face was lined with pain, a young face aging fast, and there was the look in it of having thought about the pain and where it came from, and why it came at all, for the lines showed the power of thought as well as the pain. “… She calls them tellin’ her to rise up patriots, and when they rise up for her she calls them traitors. When they’re dead she makes martyrs out o’ them. Will he keep us sittin’ here all day like niggers on a block?”

Today, tomorrow and the next day, Peg remembered, wondering then how long ago and where it was she heard the words. What chance had she for a governess coming out of here? What chance of becoming a lady? And what want? There was, lower than these rags, bones and prayers, yet another pit of degradation. She had seen it the first night in New York and night and day since, and pitied it. Pity be damned. All of them here were perched on the rim of it. She could see, her head swimming with the vision, face by face of them over a pot of hot corn, a bundle of sticks, a fistful of matches. She could hear their wheedles of beggary, their curses and their whined blessings for a ha’penny. Which of them wouldn’t now give what was left of her joy to lay her head against a red-shirted chest? She got up stiffly and looked around to the outer door, wanting to be sure of it before she took her first step, lest that be as uncertain as she felt of the future.

“Where’re you goin’, lovie? There’s no conveniences here, you know.”

“I’m going home,” Peg said.

“She’s had a change of heart,” said another.

“Isn’t she the lucky one, that’s the only change comin’ on her.”

Once on the street, Peg felt herself steadying. It was the closeness of the room, she thought, remembering the windows high from the floor where a person would need stilts to look out. She could never stand to be penned in. The great trees on either side of Broadway were bare and somehow greater for that, for the sky shone through them. There were good homes in this part of town, she could see, looking east and west, fine stone houses with the stoops shining marble. The brass knobs and knockers gleamed in the sunlight. A woman was out here and there, her skirts folded into a coverall, polishing the brass, and clutching a shawl at her throat while she worked. There was the cry of winter in the wind, Peg thought. Half the drays on the street were carting firewood. Little whirlwinds churned up the dirt to stir round with the posters of last week’s election.

In the afternoon she began a search of Chambers Street. Of the people she knew in New York including her sister, the only one she wanted to see now was Vinnie. He had called upon her twice since the wedding, once soon after it when she had planned an escape for the evening and was short with him, fool that she had been, and the second time to sit a miserable hour with her in the cold parlor and colder presence of Mrs. Riordon and her sewing.

“So you’re apprenticed to a locksmith,” Mrs. Riordon had said, sliding the thread along her false teeth until she found a place where they met long enough to clip it.

“Yes…ma’am,” Vinnie had said.

“Every greenhorn ought to be sworn into apprenticeship as they step off the boat,” Mrs. Riordon pronounced. That, Peg had known, was a dig at her. If the woman had known the only apprenticeship Peg wanted to serve, she would have dug deeper and shoveled her out of the house entirely.

“Do you like it, Vinnie?” Peg had asked.

“Somit,” the boy said.

“Of course he likes it,” Mrs. Riordon said. “He knows it’s for his own good. I had a nephew once apprenticed to an iron monger. He was killed in the Mexican War, poor lad. It lost the family a fortune, him dyin’ ahead of his master. Ah, but the Lord knows best. Is he a bachelor, Mr. Finn? Mrs. Lavery tells me he is.”

“I dunno,” Vinnie said.

“If he is,” Mrs. Riordon had pursued in her way of asking a question to which she proclaimed an answer in the same breath, “there’s your future if you’re a canny lad. Is he havin’ you live in, Mrs. Lavery says?”

Vinnie said that he was.

“Is it yoursel’s alone?”

“Yes…ma’am.”

Peg had marked his “ma’ams” coming awkward as they did, but coming nonetheless.

Mrs. Riordon had grinned, her thin lips stretching hard around the teeth. “And no woman at all?”

“Only the servant.”

“Oh, you fell into a feathered nest!” she exclaimed. “There’s confection there on the table. Break yoursel’ off a piece.”

With an ax, Peg had thought. The sweet was as hard and cold as her charity. “Is it a nice room you have, Vinnie?” Peg tried.

“’Tis. There’s two windows in it lookin’ different ways.” He had almost come to life then to tell her about it.

Mrs. Riordon had drowned him. “Never lie between them of a night,” she cautioned. “You’ll catch your death.”

And lose another acquaintance of hers a fortune, Peg had thought. “There’s a nice coat you’re wearing, Vinnie,” she had tried again. “’Tis a better fit than the one Norah made you.”

“Here’s me sellin’ coat,” the boy said, holding up his arm as though to display it better. “I wear t’other at the work bench.”

“He has you sellin’ already!” Mrs. Riordon cried, “and him a bachelor.”

“Can you count the money?” Peg asked.

“If I can’t I ask,” the boy said. “I never seen so many kinds.”

“Money is money,” Mrs. Riordon said, “if you can see the numbers on it.”

“There’s some people,” Peg said, out of patience, “hold it tight enough to feel the numbers.”

Vinnie had laughed because of the need to laugh or to shout or to cry. She had not even managed a word alone with him at the door, Mrs. Riordon following him with an invitation to return soon, which he had not done. “I wonder,” she had said finally, standing between him and Peg, and as sly as a chimney draft, “it was him got Mr. Lavery’s brother into the market, was it, Mary tells me? I wonder could he do something for a chit of a girl—something nice and cheery that wouldn’t dirty her hands or bleary her eyes?”

“Let him do for them who want his doing,” Peg had said, and her anger had seemed to turn on Vinnie and his master when she had meant it for Riordon. Anxious to put an end to it quickly, she had dispatched the boy. “Good night, Vinnie. Tell Norah when you see her I’ll be round one day soon.”

But she had not gone around. She had seen neither Norah nor Vinnie in over a month. She knew it was unfair to blame them. And I don’t blame them, she said half-aloud as she slowed her step, but wouldn’t it be a humiliating thing if Riordon, the old crow, was right? and I too found a position through the intercession of Mr. Finn? She tried to tell herself that it was not to this purpose she was going. She stopped at every window to peer into it, and saw nothing of the boots, the fancy goods, the clocks, the chandeliers and girandoles she stared in upon. She would be in a terrible state if she turned back now. Something had happened to her and the worst of it no later than this morning. She was afraid. Instead of chasing the world she was running from it. She bit her lip, and found some little comfort in the pain, as though it made her sure she was herself. Something seemed to be very wrong. No longer wanting to go where she had started for, she had no sense of direction. She could not remember whether she had come up or down the street. She was lost, and worse she wondered if something weren’t slipping in her mind. It might be fever, she thought, putting her hand to her forehead. It seemed hot and she leaned her head against the glass window. How long she stood that way, she did not know.

“Peg?”

She jerked her head up at the sound of her name. A dream seemed to have broken. Vinnie was standing beside her, his mouth half open as though he was not sure whether to stop or to run for it.

“I thought it was you and then I thought it wasn’t,” he said.

He stood, his arms dangling. He had grown already, she thought, or else she had started to wither. The swollen stomach was gone from him, and a little flesh had taken the gauntness from his cheeks.

“Vinnie, ah Vinnie,” she said, lifting her hand and then dropping it after ever so lightly touching his shoulder. A lifetime seemed to have passed since she was able to hug him to her. “Are you in this neighborhood?” she asked, thinking it might cover the confusion he had found her in.

“Down a piece. I’m out on an errand.”

“I’ll go with you,” she said.

“’Tis done. Weren’t ye lookin’ for me, Peg?”

“I was,” she said then, “but I wasn’t sure you’d want to see me.”

“Why ’ud I not?”

“I was mean to you last.”

“’Twas the oul’ hen scratchin’ between us,” the boy said.

Peg laughed. “Ah, Vinnie, you’re an owl yet.” She put her hand on his arm then, and he squeezed it between his and his ribs. God bless him, she thought, oh, God love him.

“Would you come meet Mr. Finn? He’d ask you for tea.”

“I’m perishin’ for a cup,” she said, “but maybe if you’d ask him off an hour we could go some place and have a tupenny cup to ourselves.”

“It ’ud be nice could you see where I’m livin’,” the boy said. “’Tis a strange, weird place.”

Peg allowed herself to be led along the street. A few steps in Vinnie’s company and she began to feel more her old self. And as they waited their chance to cross the street before it, she realized that Jeremiah Finn’s was a fine establishment. The columns outside it made it look an emporium. More than locks and keys were made and sold here. All kinds of hardware were displayed in the window: link chains, sledges, tongs, axes, hammers, even a plow. Another window was given over to kitchenware, kettles, copper pots and pans hanging against a blue backboard like so many suns in the sky. For them I’d be a scullery maid, Peg thought.

A clerk came to attention at the ring of the door’s opening, shooting great white cuffs out of his sleeves in anticipation. He soon shot them in again and returned to his ledger. At the back of the store was a shop where in the brief glimpse Peg caught of it, she saw the sparks exploding as a man worked over a grinding stone. The screech of stone on metal followed them up the stairs. There, his eyes glistening in the light of the gas jet, Vinnie knocked on a door and opened it.

“Mr. Finn?”

“Come in, come in, lad. What did Murtaugh say when you gave him the package?”

“He said ‘Thanks’,” Vinnie said.

All Peg could see was Mr. Finn’s white-shirted back where he sat on a high stool like an ordinary clerk, his legs woven into the stool’s legs.

Mr. Finn grunted. “Which is his way of saying, ‘You’ll have to take me to the law to collect for it.’ I tell you, Vincent, not business but the law—that’s the career for a man.”

“Mr. Finn,” Vinnie said, “I met me friend and I ast her to tea.”

“You what?” Mr. Finn said, and Peg was ready to flee.

But it was Vinnie’s pronunciation the man was questioning.

“As-k-t,” Vinnie said carefully.

“That’s better,” Mr. Finn murmured.

“And she’s here wi’ me now!”

Mr. Finn cocked his head around to glance over his shoulder. “Oh my, why didn’t you say so?” He hopped down from the stool and caught his coat from where it hung on a halltree at the ledger. He pulled it on saying, “Oh my, oh my,” as though, Peg thought, she would be destroyed at the sight of a man without his coat.

When he was frocked he came across the room, his hand extended. “So this is Peg,” he said. “Miss Hickey, I am delighted to make your acquaintance.”

How long Vinnie had been waiting for this, she thought, having so prepared the man. She smiled into Mr. Finn’s puckered face. He was no taller than she, and when he smiled his face knotted up like a wild rose at sunset.

“Blow out all the lights, Vincent,” he cried. “All accounts are no account when we’ve a lovely guest to tea.”

He led the way up a second flight of stairs, calling ahead of them to someone named Nancy that they were coming and bringing a lady to tea. Nancy, Peg discovered, was a large black woman with a soft warm voice that seemed to roll like she did. Mr. Finn ordered Peg into a chair the size of a throne while he fussed about arranging the fire in the grate and the chairs for tea. If he were to bump into Nancy in the preparations, Peg thought, he would bounce half across the room. It was a room near as big as a store, hung with tapestries and pictures and cluttered with books. Never one for observing the furnishings of a house, Peg took in only the books and the fine size of the room where a person could stretch and walk and take his ease in a dozen places.

“So much—space,” she commented.

Mr. Finn seemed to bound to her side. “I dare say you think it strange for a man the size of myself. But I was raised in a box, as it were. My grandmother, bless her, said it was that which stunted my growth.”

“I know many a man no bigger than you, Mr. Finn,” Peg lied.

“Well, small odds so long as the heart has its full growth, eh?”

“Mr. Finn has a pitcher showin’ all of a man in his bones,” Vinnie said.

“Picture,” Peg said, and Mr. Finn smiled at her.

“Would you like to see it?” said Vinnie.

“She would not like to see it,” Mr. Finn decided. “It’s intended for medical students, and it’s not the thing to be offered for the amusement of a lady. There are pictures enough about without that.”

“Just let me sit and look at you,” Peg said. “You’re a sight for sore eyes, Vinnie.”

“Nancy is doing her best to nourish him,” Mr. Finn said.

Nancy herself confirmed it, bringing in a great tray of meat, butter and cheese. “I loves to fatten a man,” she drawled.

Vinnie helped clear a place for the tray. He was clumsy, but the very act of helping showed his ease and his growth, Peg thought. Her heart yearned after such settlement. “Vinnie,” she said, “I could eat you.”

The boy made a face at her in his self-consciousness. “Are you lonesome, Peg?”

“Heartsick with it,” she admitted.

“There, there!” Mr. Finn cried, clapping his hands as though to drown such thought. “I think we’re ready. Will you pour, Miss Hickey?”

Peg took the chair he pulled out for her, gathering her skirts beneath her in the manner of the ladies she had watched in the ice cream saloons.

“Will you give us a blessing, Vincent?” Mr. Finn said as he seated himself opposite Peg.

She noticed that the man in no way participated while Vinnie murmured his “Blessus oh Lord”. He sat, one hand on the table, and his eyes on his hand. Nancy gave a deep “amen”, having waited for the grace before leaving the room.

“It is my opinion,” Mr. Finn said, folding his napkin over his cravat, “that an intelligent person must be lonesome a good part of his life. Vincent tells me you are very wise. He tells me that you chose to live alone, and that is the way of wise people. Lonesomeness is the high, cold price of it.”

“I’m lonesomer than I’m wise,” Peg murmured, pouring the tea.

“Which, my dear young lady, is why you are here,” Mr. Finn said, pointing his finger in emphasis. “What I believe happens is this: we take our wisdom like water from a well. When we have a full burden of it, we have to go out and find the thirsty. Vincent and I, now, could use a sip, eh lad?”

“Aye,” Vinnie said, lathering a muffin with butter.

“What I brought today,” Peg said, “you could put in your eye.” She watched the boy shove half a muffin away at one try. “You look to be thriving.”

Mr. Finn beamed while Vinnie could answer her only with his eyes. It occurred to Peg then, looking from one to the other of them, that there was a likeness in their faces: age without years in the both of them, except in the eyes. Those were full of ginger. It was not surprising, she thought, that Mr. Finn had taken to Vinnie, and it was plain that he had—but that out of all the arabs on the streets of New York, he had not found one to his liking before Vinnie landed. Perhaps he had, and the boy outgrown his apprenticeship in the nick of time for Vinnie.

“I’m a-goin’ to school next week,” Vinnie said when he could spare his mouth for speaking.

“Are you? And what form’ll you be in?”

“That’s a hard question,” Mr. Finn said. “There’s a prejudice against wisdom in the young here unless they can point to the books from which it came. I’m afraid Vincent may have to sit down with some not half so prudent as himself.”

“You’ll be doing what I did in Ireland!” Peg said, as though there were joy in the recollection. “Do you remember me telling you on the boat how I sat in the infant school, and I could’ve dangled half the form of them on my knee?”

“There is nothing save ignorance to be ashamed of in this world,” Mr. Finn said.

“What about thievin’ and murder and all them things?” said Vinnie.

“Those things, too, are a matter of ignorance. Take away ignorance, and virtue must survive. I believe it as I believe…” Mr. Finn cocked his head as though he were listening… “in the goodness of man. Now do have a muffin while it’s hot, Miss.”

It was easy enough to believe in the goodness of man, Peg thought, sitting snug at a fire with butter dribbling down your chin. How long would it take him to convince Vinnie of it, Vinnie knowing the cruelty of the streets? Would he stay to be convinced, or would he fly out of a night when the window was open? He must not, she thought. If there was any wisdom she brought today that was it.

Throughout the meal there was little conversation, but now and then Peg caught Mr. Finn’s eyes on her face. She colored under them once and his expression turned to shock. He had been trying to tell her something with his eyes, she thought, and had suddenly realized that she might misconstrue his gaze as an overture on his own behalf to her. For an instant then she entertained wonder at what marriage to him might be like. Fifty he was likely: twice and a half her age. She took a great mouthful of tea to scald out the notion. Was she not to see a man but to measure his worth to her?

Mr. Finn finally dusted his face with his napkin and folded the napkin into a ring. “Now, Miss,” he said, “I expect you have seen more of New York than has Vincent. I wonder if you two shouldn’t like to talk about it a bit? I must go back to work. Vincent will work the harder tomorrow for the rest of today off, I dare say.” He got up and bowed his excuse. It would be hard, Peg thought, for a short man to be graceful, however fine his manners. He paused a moment at Vinnie’s chair. “He’s a hard-working lad and doing splendidly. I hope…” He shrugged and left the sentence unfinished. “Well, you’ll tell him, won’t you, Miss Margaret?”

He need not have tried to convey his meaning with his eyes, Peg thought, doing it very well in a few words. It was not Vinnie’s need to have his courage nailed into place that saddened her, and she felt the sadness coming down on her like a cloud over the sun’s face, but that her misery showed so abundant that Mr. Finn could collect it and weigh its influence against Vinnie’s temptation back to the streets.

They sat in silence before the fire, Vinnie and Peg, while Nancy cleared the table. She could feel the heat through the soles of her slippers and she glanced at the boy’s boots. They were stout and shone a reflection of the fire. Without Mr. Finn, he would have had his feet wrapped in burlap, his toenails darker than the soles of the boots. What a trick she could play now on Mr. Finn, she thought, for if he had fears they must have foundation—what a trick she could play, saying to the boy: do you remember the night, the time we had singing duets on Broadway?

“Isn’t it a long time,” she said aloud, “since you and me went around that night, singing and dancing for pennies?”

“Oh Peg,” the boy said of a rush. “I was thinkin’ o’ the same thing. What a time we had and nobody clockin’ us!”

It was only then that she realized she had said the very thing she least intended. Norah was right. She had a devil. Given the chance of power, she couldn’t resist using it. She had used it on the boat on Dennis and a variety of poor creatures, and now on a slip of a boy when it could destroy him.

“I ought to be horsewhipped,” she said. “There’ll be a man some day take a whip to me.”

“He does and I’ll kill him,” Vinnie said fervently. “I’ll tell you somit, Peg. This here’s not for me. Me toes is cramped like nuts wearin’ these handy dandies.” He thrust his feet up in the air. Even his speech collapsed. “I’ve splintered me arse slidin’ up an’ down the stool over his damned put-two-and-carry-ones.”

Peg whirled around on him, swinging the flat of her hand against his face as she did it. “You don’t talk like that to a lady!” she cried. “It’s rude and vulgar.”

The boy’s mouth fell open.

She got up and looked down on him. “And I am a lady,” she said, tossing her head back. “I walk proper, and I am asked to pour tea in company.” She pronounced every word with great care. “I am studying Shakespeare. Some day, if you are a gentleman, you will sit in a stall and applaud me. I shall see you if you send your card in to my dressing room first…” The boy’s eyes had grown misty and the marks of her fingers streaked his white face. She softened her voice. “And the only flowers I’ll keep will be yours, Vinnie. I’ll send all the rest to the Cathedral.”

Vinnie tried a bit of a grin. “Mr. Finn took me to see somit t’other night,” he said.

“What did you see?”

“Macbeth.”

“Did you like it?”

“The fightin’ at the end was gallus.”

“I shall play Lady Macbeth,” Peg said, and lifted her hands to examine them. She widened her nostrils as though a smell was rising to them and repeated the line: “‘All the perfumes of Arabia…’” She flung her hands down and then lifted a finger to point it at Vinnie. “And I’ll not run after him on the stage as though I had a shillelagh in my hand. Oh-h, no-o-o…” She folded her arms and took several slithering steps before the fire and back. “She’s a cat, Lady Macbeth, and she has no children because she can bear only kittens.”

“Ee-eh!” Vinnie said. “Yer makin’ me flesh crawl.”

Peg smiled. “Do you know how many times I saw it? Three. And I’d have gone again if I’d been able.”

“I’d almost sit again to see the fight,” he said.

Peg went to the arm of the sofa and sat beside him. “I’m sorry I slapped you, Vinnie.”

“I’m sorry I said somit like that. Times I go round sayin’ dirty words over and over to meself. ’Tain’t easy here, you know.”

“I know,” Peg said.

“I’m workin’ from seven till ten, and studyin’ books till one. As soon as me dinner is down I’m put out in the front wi’ the customers. After tea I’m back at the bloody grindstone. Look at me fingers! They’re gnawed down to bloody stumps.”

Peg folded her hand over his. “And at night he finishes the torture by taking you to the theatre.”

“Dennis said he’d tar me if I run away.”

“Do you see them often?”

“I go to church wi’ them Sundays and then home there to dinner.”

“Mr. Finn’s not a Catholic?”

“He’s a Free Thinker,” Vinnie said, and in a solemn tone that implied he knew what it meant.

Peg nodded. “It must be a marvelous thing thinking whatever comes into your head and never worrying is it a sin.”

“He’s a teetotaler, too,” Vinnie said.

Peg thought about it a moment. “Why would one with that religion worry about taking a drink?”

Vinnie shrugged. “He’s a queer man truly. He goes out nights, you know, makin’ the rounds o’ the pubs, and Dennis says he’ll set a man up a drink any time. Only never a drop hisself.”

“Ah,” Peg said. “That’s where the free thinking comes in. Did you go to any other plays?”

“We went to the opera at Niblo’s.” Vinnie held his nose with two fingers.

“You didn’t like it?”

“I got sick in the middle.”

“Ah, Vinnie,” she said, laughing. “You’ll be a hard nut to crack.”

“Emmy’s just got a big tooth in the back of her head,” the boy said.

“Is she talking yet?”

“You can’t get her to shut her gob at all.”

“If I was starting,” Peg said thoughtfully, “I think I’d want to hatch the first one myself.”

“Peg, are ye marryin’?”

“Amn’t I waiting for you?”

Vinnie shook his head. “’Tis too long a wait. Mr. Finn says you should marry quick like Norah did.”

“More of his free thinking, is it? Does Mr. Finn have someone in mind to go along with his opinions?”

“He didn’t say. But he told me once if you were hard up to find work, he’d put in a word for you some place.”

“What place?” Peg said, her heart leaping at the words.

“He didn’t say. If you’d tell me what you have in mind, Peg, maybe I’d talk to him.”

“What have I in mind,” she said, “night and day, day and night…” Then she cut off the words, remembering the length of the nights. “All I want is a place where I can better myself.”

“He’s not much of an opinion of actresses,” Vinnie said.

“Did I say the word?” she snapped.

Vinnie looked up at her. “Yer a funny oul’ one, Peg.”

She smiled. “You’re a bit queer yourself at times. You’ll stay on here, Vinnie?”

“Aye,” the boy said solemnly. “’Twouldn’t be a fair fight if I was to run away.”

At dusk, Peg started for home. Vinnie handed her into a cab and paid the fare beforehand as he was bade by Mr. Finn. All along the cobbled street, the horse’s hoofs seemed to ring out: I clouted the devil, I clouted the devil, I clouted the devil. And so, she thought, she had. At least she had given her own special one a hard knock.

The following morning Vinnie called on her early. She was to see a Mr. Valois, a French confectioner on Broadway, to whom Vinnie had already delivered a note on her behalf from Mr. Finn. She watched in silent admiration while Vinnie blocked out the numbers of the address on a piece of paper for her.

5

PEG WAS NOT AT work long in the French confectionery shop when much of her old self confidence returned. The shop, mirrored and mahogany paneled, was as stylish as its customers and Peg soon took lessons from them on her own dress and demeanor. With her first month’s wages in her pocket and her hair braided round her head, she visited Norah and Dennis. Her welcome was such she might have been prodigal. For a time the two sisters were as close as ever they had been at home, and Peg thought herself the great fool to have ever coveted more than a quiet hearth and a rough man’s love. Ah, but where was the rough man to her fancy or to fancy her? One and another of them Dennis paraded home of an evening, at Norah’s insistence, she knew. They would sit in the room with her hunched like otters in the presence of a fox, boys she knew to be full of song and jest and quick of tongue with a girl they favored. And in truth, had she pleased them, there wasn’t a one she could warm her heart to. She was soon going less to Norah’s and more to Mr. Finn’s, and there was little Vinnie learned that winter but that she learned it with him.

She was a long time taking the measure of Mr. Valois, although he worked by her side in the shop from morning till night. She had never before known a Frenchman, and everything about him was strange to her. He was slight and sleek as a colt, wearing his black shining hair near the length of a mane. He was forever playing his delicate hands over it and he would almost prance to the door in the wake of an elegant customer. The custom of the shop were by their own confession the very best society. They loved truffles and trifling, Peg thought, and anything foreign so long as it wasn’t an Irishman. With her Valois was almost prim, and for all that he seemed to be forever chattering, at the day’s end she could find nothing he had said which told her of the man himself.

Nor could she learn any more of him from questioning Mr. Finn. “Oh, a fine fellow,” Mr. Finn would say, and then add slyly, “but rather theatrical, don’t you think?” as though that should provoke her into some discovery of her own. And yet she felt of Valois that there was something worthwhile which he was hiding from her with all the palaver, and she wondered at times if he did it because she was Irish.

Then one day he was very tired. His baker had failed to show up the night before and he had spent the night at the ovens himself. He flirted his giddy customers in and out of the store as usual, but one there was, prissed and curled and as bold as the Barnum trumpet. At the door she caught hold of him and whispered in his ear. He bowed and scraped, but when he turned from her his face had blanched to the color of flour. The woman gone, Peg chanced a mischief she had often practiced in other company: she mimicked her ferociously, the mincing walk, the lisping tongue. “And if monsieur will deliver himself, I shall be home from four to six, n’est-ce pas?” Peg threw off the imitation. “Pa or no pa, she should be horsewhipped.”

“Why?” said Valois, his eyes sharp with amusement.

“For making an ass of herself.”

Valois threw himself back against the counter in laughter that was like a woman’s in its high abandon. “Hereafter you will protect me, yes?”

“I will protect you no,” said Peg, mimicking him as well, for he spoke English better than ever she had learned it, save with those who liked it frenchified. “The devil a protector you need.”

His face was suddenly grave. “You are quite right,” he said gravely. “The bigger fools they.”

Peg realized then his strangeness: there was as much woman as man in him. God help us, she thought, there were more poverties in the world than want of money. “Ignorance is bliss,” she muttered of herself half-aloud, and clattered a tray from the shelf.

“No,” he said, “it’s not. Not ever and sometimes even the truth can be comfortable. Especially when you are weary of the lie. What do you do when you go home from here, Margaret? Do you mimic me as you did that frump?”

“I suppose I do,” she said. “I’ve always been afflicted that way, but I live alone so there’s no harm in it.”

“A mimic without an audience,” he said. “A sad plight that.”

“A sad plight anybody without an audience who needs one,” she said.

They were not long after this in discovering a passion they shared which embarrassed neither of them: he, too, loved the stage. Every word of his conversation held magic then for Peg. He talked endlessly of his acquaintances in the theatre here and abroad. His idol was Rachel, the French tragedienne, and of her Peg pleaded the same stories over and over as a child will hear a fairy tale, for Rachel was the daughter of a street peddler, and herself sang in the streets of Paris for the petty coins of the realm. When Valois spoke of the theatre, she noticed, he spoke like a gentleman and not at all like a Frenchman. He was indeed a conundrum to her.

“Are you keeping company, Margaret?” he asked her one night as he was closing the shutters.

“Not at the moment,” she said.

“Will you have supper with me then at Windust’s?”

“Oh I’d dearly love it,” she said, for Windust’s was the congregating place of writers and artists and theatre people.

Mr. Valois, or Val as he bade her call him out of the shop, was well acquainted at Windust’s. He would introduce a player to Peg if he stopped at their table, or identify one and another for her as they passed and nodded without stopping. “He’s the heavy man at Burton’s,” he might say, or “She’s the walking lady at the Olympic. Did a commendable Lady Sneerwell last week.” The walking lady was the actress of all parts in a company. Peg could no more than sip at her coffee, nibble at the food on her plate. She thought she would choke if she tried to swallow.

“Do you always eat so poorly?” Valois murmured.

“Oh, no,” said Peg. “I have a fine appetite.”

“Obviously then we shall have to come again to prove it to the management.”

By the appetites of most of its patrons, Peg thought, Windust’s wasn’t often troubled about wasting food.

They did go again, and often, sometimes after his taking her to the theatre where, Peg realized, he watched her almost as much as he watched the stage. He knew all the old plays by heart, and the new ones he took apart for her. And at Windust’s, when the players became accustomed to her presence, they would come and sit to talk with Valois, earnestly begging his opinion of their work, seeking to learn how others had played the role. He slit the fat from any pompous one, Peg thought, who came to him for praise instead of criticism, and larded the timid ones, though never with more than their due. He was more than a fancier of the theatre, and the books he loaned her proved it.

“Do you mind if I ask a question, Val?” she said one night.

He shrugged. “Please.”

“”Were you ever on the stage yourself?”

He pursed his lips for a moment. “In my mother’s womb, yes. I believe I was born during an intermission.”

Peg looked down at the table. “I didn’t mean to pry.”

“But of course you did and I’m flattered. Why, when I preach so exquisitely, do I not attempt the practice, so?”

He was being French and flip again, she thought, touched on something he cared more about than he wanted to admit.

She nodded. “So.”

“What shall I play? Myself? I am not so enamored of the character. Do you see me a lover? The Gladiator perhaps, or a fragile Hamlet. To be or not to be. Can’t you hear them howl in the pit if I were to ask that question at, say, the Broadway, and after Mr. Forrest had bullied the moon with it?”

“Please, Val,” she said, for he had gone quite pale.

“You wished me to be serious,” he said. “I have not finished being serious. Miss Cushman may play in breeches, but I am resolved that I shall not play in petticoats.”

Peg felt an aching pain in her throat. It brought the tears to her eyes and she kept them cast down.

“Margaret?” When she did not look up he slapped his hand on the table. “Oh, God in heaven, what are we into? What folly it was I should have known. We should never have walked out the shop door together. Stop the tears or I shall do something stupid. I cannot brook tears in a woman. I’m helpless. I shall flee from here. Or worse, I shall discharge you.”

Peg lifted her head. “Mr. Valois, I want to be an actress. That’s why I asked you—what I asked.”

“Oh,” he said. Gradually the distortion of anger, of fear, of shame, of whatever haunted him left his face. It was, she decided, a beautiful face when it was quiet. He spoiled it again now with a sour smile. “Forgive me, Margaret.”

“For what?”

He shrugged. “For what—I thought you wanted. What did Jeremiah tell you about me?”

“Nothing,” she said.

“But before he sent you to me for employment?”

“Less then. All he did was send Vinnie with word and your address.”

He smiled. “Nothing and less than nothing. No wonder you know so much. He and I were begotten by the same spirits, you know. Both our families were strolling players.”

“Then you’re not French at all,” Peg exclaimed.

He laughed. “Sometimes I forget how innocent you are.”

“Don’t make fun of my ignorance,” said Peg.

“Your ignorance is as surface as dew.”

“I was given to understand Mr. Finn has a low opinion of actresses,” she said.

“He likely acquired it on suspecting your ambitions, but long ago he must have learned that the only cure for them enamored of the theatre is the theatre itself. What a sly fellow he is! Here we are four months discovering his intention. So! Will you go to school to me, Margaret?”

“You think I’ve the makings then,” she said.

He shrugged. “A mimic is not an actress. We shall see. Will you attend me?”

“Oh, dear Lord,” she said. “On my knees, but what’ll I pay you for the privilege?”

He fingered his fringe of chin whiskers. “Two dollars a week. Is it high?”

“It’ll pinch,” she said, “but I’ll squeeze. Have you ever taught it before?”

He laughed heartily. “So you’re asking me for references! Fair it is. Yes, Margaret, I have. For seven years I coached at the Theatre Royal in England as well as playing there. Then, ten years or so ago, I chanced my fortune upon the stage here at home. It was calamitous. This is the country where they worship manliness and wish nothing more of their women than acquiescence. Well, there you have me: Monsieur Valois, born David Valory, a merchant of poisonous sweets to a society pining after decadence before it has achieved a culture.”

“What will you teach me?” Peg asked after a moment, for she could not altogether understand him.

“I will teach you to walk,” he said, “and to breathe from where an actor must breathe, and I will rid you of that brogue if I have to cut it out of your throat.”

“Am I never to play an Irishwoman upon the stage?” said Peg.

“I hope not. At any rate not until you can play an Englishwoman—if it is proven you can play upon the stage at all.”

The beginning of her instructions with Valois brought her socializing with him to near an end, and as well, for there were times when she despised him. He could not have driven her harder with a whip than he did with his tongue. It was barbed with mockery, and where she could mimic him, he made a caricature of her for herself to view her own gaucheries. Twice a week she went to his house from eight until eleven at night. She was admitted by a gaunt and withered woman who was neither introduced nor explained to her, and who sat in the room with them like a black ghost, making neither sound nor motion, and who after the first session was forgot entirely.

Learning from him the spate of authority, Peg drowned Mrs. Riordon in it and obtained a key to the house. All she demanded of her girls, Mrs. Riordon explained to cover her retreat, was respectability. And nothing, Peg knew, was more respectable in her eyes than middle-aged bachelors who owned their own businesses. Three nights a week Peg went to Mr. Finn’s, sometimes not even climbing the stairs, for he gave over his office to her night-time study, and if there were eyes or ears attuned to her solitary practice, they belonged only to a journeying mouse.

6

NOTHING SHORT OF HIS death or her prostration, Peg came to believe, would release her from the routine Valois imposed upon her. She must rise a half-hour before her breakfast and exercise in breathing before an open window. If he but knew the smells she breathed in, she wondered, would he still insist upon it? Likely. Such was the concentration he exacted, she must smell a rose in a charnel house if a rose it was she must think of. She must lie on the floor and believe it a silken couch. She must walk with a book on her head and think it a crown. She must sit with her hands like dead birds in her lap and bring her knees to a point like an arrow. She must make sounds like a dove, like a lamb, like an owl. She must laugh like a brook and call like a shepherd’s pipe. He came to pretend he could tell by the look on her face in the morning had she done her full work of the night. But beyond that inquisitor’s gaze, he scarcely noticed her now at all in the shop. He took on another girl the first of May although business did not warrant it and treated them with precisely the same indifference. Truly he was an extraordinary man.

“We shall not have our usual session tonight, Margaret,” he said on the following Monday and while the other girl was out to her dinner. “Instead I shall take you to see Macbeth.”

“Mr. Macready?” said Peg.

“Certainly not Mr. Forrest.”

“Oh, I shall love that,” said Peg, “but it’s a wonder you wouldn’t give me warning that I might have a gown in order.”

Valois grinned like the demon she sometimes thought him to be. “Do you realize that there was a time you would have gone out from here to there in your pinafore?”

“There was a time,” Peg snapped, “when I had naught to go in but my pinafore.”

The rivalry between the English Macready and the American Forrest brought more than common interest to the New York stage that night. Forrest had been shabbily treated by the English press on his tour there, and the penny press of New York was set to make amends. If in the comparison of the two performers, their art was discussed at all it was to call attention to the virility, to the particularly American quality of Forrest’s. It was found apt that Forrest should appear at the Broadway Theatre while Macready found his home in Astor Place at the Opera House. Everyone seemed to think it “cracking” fun that they should both program Macbeth that night. The dandies, the gallants, and the best society would sustain Macready while at the Broadway Edwin Forrest would give the democracy a Thane of Cawdor they could hie till midnight.

Peg was as much aglow as the Opera House itself as she followed the usher down the carpeted aisle. For all her complaint of the morning, her wardrobe was as well in order as her purse gave warrant: she had but the week before finished work on a gown of emerald silk patterned out of the latest Godey’s. She was wearing it first, and over her shoulders a Cornelia of white wool. Well aware she was of the gentlemen’s eyes, and she fancied their wives, if they patronized Mr. Valois, exclaiming in disdain when she passed: “A clerk, a common clerk, my dear!” A clerk, but an uncommon one, she thought, and not a clerk for long.

Val had booked their seats ten rows from the stage, for in the Opera House the pit was most respectable. Not so the gallery that night as they discovered the moment Macready stepped upon the stage. The Forrest boys were not with Forrest. They set up a din of hissing and catcalling that made a dumb show of the play upon the stage. Peg’s first reaction was heartache for the players. Beside her then, she realized, Valois was trembling. “The curs,” he muttered, “the scum of the streets!” The hissing persisted. “Why don’t they ring down and clear them out?” Val cried aloud. Indeed everyone was talking now. A wave of silence followed. The play recommenced, then the hissing through it and the murmur rising again. Still the players went on until something struck the stage with a splash. A barrage of vegetables followed, and the metal clatter of pennies, the clack of wooden bricks, the thud of potatoes. A stench soon seeped over the gaslights and the women in the front rows hastened from their seats, perfumed handkerchiefs to their noses. Their flight pricked the glee of the mischief-makers. They howled in delight. The great velvet curtain fell and the lights were opened. Mr. Hacket, the manager, came to the footlights. The safety of his company, he said regretfully, required that they not proceed. The gallery rang with a cry of victory while below the respectability sat in awed silence. “Well,” a man near Peg said, “Mr. Forrest seems to have played in two theatres at once tonight.”

“Then I’m glad we saw no more of him in either,” Val said, rising. Outside the theatre, he asked Peg if she would be offended were he to send her home alone in the carriage as he wished to be amongst those waiting upon Mr. Macready. She too would have liked to wait upon him, but such a duty was too stern for women.

She found some consolation in carrying the news to the pipits in Mrs. Riordon’s parlor. They sat with their wide pale eyes catching the green of her dress in their glisten.

“Oh,” cried one, “I’ll wager my Jimmie was there in the gallery!”

“I remember Mr. Forrest in The Gladiator!” said another, “as long as I live I’ll remember.”

Gallus, gallus, gallus!

They were all soon chirruping at once, picking over the tale she had brought them, and the strange thing about it, Peg thought, going up the stairs and not missed from among them, it had not occurred to her once to wish herself amongst the gallery partisans.

The morning papers were full of the incident, and there was talk of little else upon the street. Valois said nothing although Peg’s eyes begged him for an account of his interview with Macready. What a nuisance this other girl, this Ellen he had hired. Her presence made the merest reference to Peg’s relationship with Val conspiracy. Peg fumed and clattered the trays and slammed the panels until the cases shook; yet he paid her far less attention than he would a fly upon the counter. At ten o’clock he shed his frock, donned his morning coat and left the shop without a word.

“Margaret,” the girl said, “you shouldn’t bang around like that. You put him in a temper, you do. Here’s a good position and times is hard. I wouldn’t take no more chances if I was you.”

“Oh, you wouldn’t?” said Peg.

“No indeed,” said the other, her face more solemn yet. “It wouldn’t surprise me if he went direct out of here to an intelligence office.”

“Is that where he found you?” said Peg, pretending alarm.

The little one cocked her head haughtily. “He picked me out of a dozen, he did.”

“And what qualifications did he ask of you?” said Peg.

“That I bathe three times a week.”

“Oh,” said Peg, “and do you?”

“In parts,” the girl said airily, “if not in parcel.”

Within five minutes of Ellen’s departure for dinner, Valois returned. “My other bird has flown from the nest, I see.”

“I pushed her out,” said Peg. “I’d gladly have drowned her this morning. What’s happening?”

“You’ll be glad of her when you’re ready to fly,” Val said. “Or at least, I shall.” He took a great sheet of paper from his pocket and opened it before her.

“A Petition to Mr. Macready,” she read aloud.

“I delivered him a copy of this this morning. You will see his Macbeth after all. He will do it again on the tenth and we shall know who is in the theatre that night.”

“Oh my God!” Peg cried. She had skipped the message of the petition to the names of its signers. Amongst them was Stephen Vincent Farrell. “I know him!” She pointed to the name. “I know him well.”

“Do you?” said Val dryly. “And did you go to school to him also?”

“Only on the boat,” said Peg. “He was disguised as a priest.”

“I can believe it. How else could a gentleman pass amongst the Irish?”

Peg flared up. “I’d rather be Irish than gentle, and if all of them capering in here are a sample of gentlefolk, I’ll find no company in their midst.”

“Be quiet!” Val cried. “Your tongue is as thick as a Pearl Street whore’s. You know what I think of our gentle custom. I prefer the honest whore to them, but God deliver me from the ignorance of the Irish.”

Fortunately a customer entered the shop at the moment. Both Peg and her master dropped their wrath as though it were the disguise and geniality their disposition. It was late afternoon before they had the chance of words alone again. “You were quite right, Margaret,” he said then. “I have so little pride in my own origins I forget how important they must be to others.”

“If I was prouder of mine,” said Peg, as honest as himself, “maybe I wouldn’t be so violent in their defense.”

7

WORKING MEN

SHALL

AMERICANS

OR

ENGLISH RULE

IN THIS CITY?

The crew of the British steamer have threatened all Americans who shall dare to express their opinions, this night at the

ENGLISH ARISTOCRATIC OPERA HOUSE!

We advocate no violence, but a free expression of opinion to all public men

WORKING MEN! FREEMEN!

STAND BY YOUR LAWFUL RIGHTS!

So read placards posted throughout the city on the morning of Macready’s second Macbeth. Peg saw them everywhere as she rode the bus down the Bowery into Chatham Street. And along the waterfront were strewn handbills addressed to the British seamen: “Englishmen, sustain your countryman. Be at the Opera House…” She wondered if she would see any more of Macready this time than the last for all their petitions.

Valois did not appear that morning, sending round a messenger with the key and instructions for Peg to open the shop. When he came at noon, he wore such an air of importance it would have been amusing even in a person less theatrical than himself. She was beginning to understand him. He might be righteous in his indignation over Macready’s treatment, but he was enjoying the occasion. “I met with Mr. Greeley this morning,” he said, “… you know who Mr. Greeley is?” She knew. Well, she could not blame him truly. He was an artist who belittled his own artistry. He found little welcome no doubt in the company of the men he most admired and was the darling of women he despised. If the politicians were making capital of the occasion, she thought, so was Valois. For her own part she could scarcely wait the night’s excitement.

In the afternoon when the custom was slowest and the day seemed longest she took the occasion to retire into the comfort room off the kitchen. Valois, in his passion for cleanliness, had installed a great tin tub there, and Peg bucketed herself a bath. She was returning to the shop at her leisure when she heard voices before she reached the swinging door, and one of them made her heart leap. Stephen Farrell was at the counter. She tiptoed to the door and watched and listened unobserved. He looked thinner, she thought, and pale and intense as on the night he had come into the ship’s hold to her rescue.

“… Ridiculous,” Val was exclaiming. “How can I? And if I could call it off I would not.”

“Tell me, Mr. Valois,” Farrell said quietly, and Peg could see the anger making a white line about his mouth, “did you anticipate this inflammatory mischief when you sought the signatures for your petition?”

“I will say I knew the potential for it. Yes, in honesty I must admit that. Tammany never misses a chance to make trouble when they’re not in office.”

“And the Native Americans have nothing to do with it, do they?” Farrell said sarcastically, and Peg wondered then if Valois wasn’t a Native American himself, with his scorn of the Irish and the Catholic Church. “You know of course I should not have signed it under the circumstances. I have been the dupe of all you estimable gentlemen.”

“Is it dupery to be on the side of law and order?”

“You are manipulating the law as surely as the politicians are manipulating the people. Can’t you see that, Valois?”

“I am afraid, Farrell, you are accommodating logic to your fears. You are soliciting me to prevent a performance which but yesternight you swore with me must go on. Why not address yourself to the Catholic clergy? Why not solicit them to muster their flocks in the churches tonight? To exhort their faithful not to riot? Why not?”

“It is too late for that,” said Farrell. “I have tried.”

“It was too late in the beginning and you know it. The churchmen are as wily as politicians…which they are and nothing more. What they cannot carry off they will not attempt. They will have power only so long as they pretend to no more power than they have. Be glad that you signed the petition, Farrell. Be glad that one Irishman’s name will be upon it at least.”

“I will not be glad of it,” Farrell said. “I did not realize that I had come three thousand miles to betray my people. Better I had died for them at home.”

Ah, Stephen Farrell, Peg thought, better not. You might have died at their hands.

“Look at it this way,” Valois said, and Peg could have spit upon him. He had the soothing manner of a priest giving Extreme Unction. “If they riot—and after all they may not with the promise of grapeshot—but if they do, they will betray you.”

“To whom will they betray me? To you? Are you my enemy?”

“Indeed not,” said Valois almost preening himself. “I should like to be your friend.”

“They betray me then to a friend, and I them to their enemies. Good day, sir.” He turned quickly. Peg would have pursued him now were it not for Valois. She had never known a man more to her liking, and she never liked him more than when the odds were greatest against him.

“You will be with us tonight?” Valois called out, and Peg strained after his answer.

“I will,” Farrell said, “come what may.”

And I shall be there as well, Peg thought, come what may.

Rowdy, shouting gangs milled into a mob outside the Opera House long before time for the curtain. Their tempers swelled with their numbers, and some who came for no more than bantery riled up at the demagogues’ bating and screamed for admission to the theatre. As soon as Valois led her into the crowd Peg knew the dire mistake of it. “Make way for more aristocrats, boys, and one of them a lady-oh!” A wedge opened but closed upon them like a giant maw. “Hold back, hold back! God almighty, hold back!” But the crush of groaning, howling, churning flesh pushed in on them, carried them forward now, now backwards, as though the sea itself were back of them. Fear welled into Peg’s throat sour and sudden as retch. Swallowed alive they were. She could not lift her arms from her sides and all she could see in the twilight were the towering, heaving men on all sides; she could smell their sweat, their whiskeyed breath, the foul stench of decayed fruit and vegetables, spoiled entirely crushed in their pockets. Valois she saw for an instant only, his face distorted and twisted against the back of a giant. Suddenly she felt the thrust of two great hands beneath her ribs. She was squeezed up into the air and even there she could scarcely breathe for the sobs of relief she must let escape. A great man had lifted her to his shoulder and she clutched his hair for steadiness. He rocked back and forth and then lifted his knees like a prancing horse. Men squealed and cursed as he trod upon them, but he plowed through the mob and over them until a cordon of star-breasted police stayed him and lifted her down. He was gone before ever she saw his face. “You should never’ve come here, lady. What kind of a man let you out of the house?” a policeman said as he hurried her into the lobby.

No kind of a man at all, Peg thought, straightening the clothes upon her back. He had the power of an angry mouse. She inquired the way to the lady’s retiring room of a distracted usher. Everywhere workmen were rushing among the patrons with boards and hammers and she looked in vain for another woman in the house save for the black attendant in the ladies’ room who was rocking herself to and fro like a mourner. Peg’s hands trembled so that the comb escaped them. The attendant managed the comb and between them they repaired the damage to Peg’s coiffure.

“I think it’s exciting,” Peg said, more to convince herself than the woman.

“It’s killin’ excitement, that’s what it is,” the woman said. “And them out there don’t like black people.”

“There’s plenty of whites they don’t like either,” Peg said, and gave the woman twopence.

However they were getting through, patrons had begun to fill the theatre. Peg strained her height in her search for Valois. For pride’s sake she wanted desperately to be on a gentleman’s arm when first she encountered Stephen Farrell. But a woman alone was easier discovered than the most extraordinary man and it was Farrell who saw her and made his way to her.

“How appropriate, Miss Margaret, that I should find you here!”

“I’m looking for my escort, Mr. Valois. You know him, I think. Or was it not you I saw in his shop?”

“Well enough,” Farrell said. “Come, it will be easier for him to find you, and our seats are likely to be near each other.”

He had come alone, Peg realized, as most men had. She laid her gloved fingers on the arm he offered. “It’s lovely meeting you again, Mr. Farrell.”

“I’ve thought often of you and your sister,” he said. “Is she as well as yourself?”

“Blooming,” Peg said. “She married Dennis Lavery, you know.”

He nodded, giving his seat number to the usher. “I wondered which of you might.”

You don’t know me very well, Stephen Farrell, to say that, she thought.

The men amongst whom they settled rose at Peg’s arrival as Farrell nodded around, but the words exchanged were few.

“It may be Val was hurt in the crowd,” Peg said, “and won’t make it at all.”

“That would be a great pity, he was so determined the performance should be given.”

“I heard you this afternoon. I work for him, you know,” Peg said.

Farrell looked down at her. “How did you conceal from him that you are Irish?”

His eyes, even his smile, she thought, still had that sort of distant sympathy in them. In another man she’d have called it condescension. But really it was not that: it was just his manner of keeping people at their distance. Shyness, perhaps. “I did not conceal it,” she said. “I’m not ashamed of it and he knows it.”

“Forgive me,” Farrell said. “I did not realize you were so fond of him.”

“I’m not so fond of him at all,” Peg snapped.

The people in the next row glanced back at them, much, Peg thought, as though they were talking in church. She noticed then the deadly silence within the house. No one save themselves had a word to say, themselves and the policemen walking each aisle who now and then leaned down to mutter something to an uneasy patron. Farrell looked up at the boarded windows. So did she. A hundred watches were read every minute, the staccato snapping of their cases plucking at the silence. There was a crash of glass somewhere off and with it the sound of the mob. Peg shivered. Farrell laid his hand on her wrist for a moment.

“I’m not afraid,” she said.

“I am…for them.”

A disturbance blew up in the gallery. Only Farrell and Peg turned in their seats. Above, two policemen had collared a man and were carting him out, whacking him on the head and shoulders with their sticks. “He’ll be a model of behavior when they’re done with him,” Farrell said with irony.

Those within hearing laughed, needing the laughter for their nerves, but Peg saw the white line again about Farrell’s mouth. “There,” she said. “They’re putting down the lights.”

The great curtains parted and a murmur of relief ran through the audience. When the main curtain went up a patter of clapping welcomed the players, but when Macready stepped upon the stage, the house rose in a body to pay his courage tribute, and perchance to screw their own. Farrell kept his seat and Peg stayed in tune with him. “I should as soon stand now,” he said, “for God Save the Queen.”

Peg could think of but one thing for which she was grateful: Valois had not found them. She wished now that the mob would disperse. They had had their sport. Let them go home to bed. She could think of a dozen things to say about the play to Stephen, and she would dare call him Stephen in such a conversation. But the mob did not disperse. Their anger seemed to rise on their discovering that the curtain had gone up on Macready despite them. One window after another was shattered, the people within cringing at each crash although the boards deflected both brick and glass. The play at times was a pantomime. It was a puppet show, the players lurching, jerking, all, Peg thought, as though they could fall in a heap at one blow. It near came when the doors were cracked and the police spilled back from the lobby into the aisles. They dug their hobnailed boots into the carpeting and heaved against each other until they surged out again, a human barricade. Acts one, two and three. Was it heraldry backstage or fire trumpets out? No, a bugle, a regimental bugle, and a ghostly stillness in its wake. Was it a player intoning lines not quite Shakespeare? The man next to Farrell whispered to him, and Stephen then whispered to Peg: “They’re reading the riot act in the street.” Peg did not fully understand. But one great howl went up when it was done, and then the crackle of gunfire. Stephen flinched as though he himself had been struck, and Peg put her hand on his arm. He caught it and held it hard in his own for a moment. On the stage a pitiable Dunsinane awaited Birnam Wood. Outside the crowd had fallen back, but the shrieking recommenced. A captain of police appeared on the stage as the play finished. “Remain in your seats…” he started, but another volley of fire drowned his words while the smell of the powder of the first round seeped into the house. The stillness was sudden and awful and as soon as the doors were opened upon it, jagged screams of pain could be heard in the distance.

People huddled in the aisle, dumb and patient, waiting their own delivery. Farrell, his hand shadowing his eyes, did not move for some moments. Finally he said: “It’s too bad your Mr. Valois missed it. He must be very proud of the night’s achievement.”

Peg rose from the seat and pushed away from him toward the side aisle. She was clammy and nauseated. She looked back at him. “What good is it, sitting there keening? I’m going out and see what’s up.”

He followed her then. “It’s no place for a woman, Margaret.”

“By the sounds,” she said, “it was no place for a man either.”

He put his arm about her and the pressure, ever so light, gave her more courage than she knew she had.

The lights in the theatre were full behind them by the time they reached the door, making the darkness of the street more intense. Only an occasional torch glowed in it. The rioters had smashed the street lamps. The police were herding everyone south, away from the scene of bloodshed. “Watch your feet, watch the lady’s feet. They’ve busted the water hydrants.”

Farrell guided her to the paving’s edge and then carried her across the flooded street. But as soon as he put her down, Peg followed the cries and the torchlight to where the wounded and dead still lay as they had fallen. Here and there amongst them the bully boys were trying to haul away a fallen chum, or to find one, striking matches in the faces of the prostrate. But no one thought to attend them where they lay! To one and another of the stricken Peg went, sorting the living from the dead. Some had fallen with the bricks still in their hands and some were washed by the water they had loosed. An ambulance came then, the horses stumbling and balking through the flood, the litter-bearers running ahead. Peg took her shawl to stanch the wounds of one man, biting her lip against sickness when she felt the warmth of his blood.

She tore off her underskirt and moved to another. “I’m shot through like a sieve!” the man shrieked as she tried to plug the grape holes in his back. Farrell hastened to her side and held the man. “You’ll see daylight through me if I live till dawn,” the man groaned. “You’ll live,” Peg said, “as sure as you’re Irish.” But he was dead when they laid him down. “I’ve wasted my skirt on him,” she said, and put her hand beneath the dead man to snatch the bandage away and carry it to the next one. A pair of litter-bearers came to take him. “Leave him to the priest,” Farrell said, “and take the living.”

Peg stood a moment to wipe the sweat from her face. There was much she could understand now that talk would never have told her. Nine out of ten of the fallen were Irish. Whoever baited them and whatever the bait, no honest man could deny their origins. And the priests had come out at last, bringing the church with them in holy charity. In the light of heaven maybe it was better than not coming at all, but to the dark plundered ignorance of them lying here, what was charity now when a little wisdom might have kept them home? Paddy did their dirty work in America, all right, even to the dirtiest work of all, destroying himself.

The street was cleared of its mortal litter at last. Peg watched an ambulance make its last trip and remarked the sudden stillness on the neighborhood. The water hydrants had been closed, the street barricaded. The lights were coming on again in the elegant houses well fenced and walled behind them. Farrell stood beside her, a torch in his hand. Peg touched her toe to something on the ground: an empty boot.

“Wait there for a one-legged man,” she said, and gave the boot a vicious kick into the gutter. She looked to the sky and then to herself and the tatters her best gown was in. “It’s not as dark as it was, when I can see myself.”

“It was never darker,” Farrell said.

She glanced up into his face and started at the look in his eyes, that same naked hunger she had glimpsed when she stood in shreds before him in the ship’s hold. The blood ran scalding through her veins. She lifted her head and her breasts, thrusting back her shoulders, and parted her lips as though they might tell without words what she knew of him, and what she would, in truth, have him know of her.

It was but an instant of delicate torture.

“Don’t!” he cried out as though in agony.

Shame and contempt and fear flamed into her mind. “You are a priest truly,” she said with spitting sarcasm, and turned from him to find her own direction.

She saw the sputtering torch spin past her. He caught her arms and pulled her back to face him.

“You should wear a mask or blind your eyes,” she cried, trying to wrench free.

He loosed her arms but for a second of time that he might lock his own about her. His breath was upon her face and then his mouth, searching for hers, finding it, sealing it with his desire. His hands sought their way to her body, fiercely strong, shredding her garments as though they were tinsel. He lifted her from the ground, hugging her to his body, and turned her about with him while he measured the distance of the stone wall at their backs and then plunged them along it to the iron gate. It opened at his hand and admitted the way to a sheltered garden. There he laid her down upon the grass, sweeping her legs from beneath her, and in the darkness they bared each to the other and found their searing, torturous pleasure.

The far sounds of the night came to them when their own breathing hushed. What a strange, peaceful thing, Peg thought, spreading her hands in the cold moist grass, to lie upon the earth and with no ceiling but the sky itself. The man sat up, and seeking her face with his hand, he brushed her cheek, her chin so gently. She could see but the shape of him and that broken by the trees against the sky. “We had better go,” he whispered, and then when she was slow to move, for so lovely was this wake of peace, he murmured, “oh, my God, my God.” He began to sob, choking sobs that escaped him the more for his trying to muffle them.

Peg roused herself and put her arm about him. “What is it at all, Stephen?”

But he drew away until he composed himself and it was not until an hour or so afterwards when they had taken coffee in his apartment and he was about to take her home and she asked again what it was that made him weep that he tried to tell her.

He frowned and thought about it, sorting his words carefully, she thought. “When I went down to you that night on The Valiant, Margaret, into that bloody melee, I wanted to draw blood myself.” He gathered his fingers into a fist and shook it. “I thought to myself: if I could smash a man now, it would make me Irish, blood of their blood, flesh of their flesh. And then I knew that if I yielded to it I would betray all that I held sacred, yea, Ireland itself. Tonight again I wanted to kill Irishmen, Margaret. Can you understand that much?”

“Ah, that I can, Stephen. ’Tis what makes Irishmen Irish.” He smiled as he would to a child, she thought, who had done its best to understand his meaning and was not able. She tried to shake off the weariness that clouded her mind. “And was tonight with me a betrayal of something sacred, is it that you’re trying to tell me?”

He shook his head, the smile gone from his face. “But it was part of the same lust consuming me. Though I died for it, Margaret, I could not have denied tonight.”

“I wanted you, Stephen, so is the betrayal in it still?” The tears welled into his eyes again but he did not shed them. “Perhaps the deeper for that,” he said, but he opened his arms to her, and though his eyes were troubled, he took her to him and held her in gentle closeness.

They parted at the crowding of dawn upon the shadowed stoop of Mrs. Riordon’s boarding house. The word between them was goodbye, but Peg knew in her heart they would soon find each other again. More than that she did not want to know.

PART III

1

NORAH, AWAKENING IN the night, lay a moment thinking perhaps to hear again the sound that roused her or to recall the dream out of which she had started. Nothing stirred in the building: neither the baby in her crib, nor Emma in the room across; nor was there a sound from the livery stable over which they lived. She put her hand to the pillow beside hers. Dennis had not laid his head upon it that night. She arose and groped her way to the door. There was a light in the kitchen. She followed it on tiptoe and watched Dennis at the table a moment before speaking. Many the time, waking thus or to take the baby to her breast, had she found him over a book or over a paper, his tongue nesting in his cheek, the quill poised in his hand, and the candle so low she would have to chip the tallow away from the handle.

“’Tis late by the candle, Dennis,” she said softly.

“By the glory,” he said, jerking his head up, “I have a marvelous power. Come here to me, love, and let me show you.”

When she reached his side he caught her about the legs and pulled her close, pushed his face into her stomach and burrowed a kiss there.

“Is there anything new in there, do you think?”

“Not yet, please God,” said Norah.

“Look,” Dennis said, indicating the top sheet of his papers, “at what brought you out of your sleep. Read that.”

She leaned over the paper. “I’m not much for readin’ in the middle of the night, Dennis.” Or at any other time for that matter, she thought, exploring the bold strokes of his quill.

“‘I love my wife,’” he read, pointing each word with his forefinger. “ “I love my wife and my darling Kathleen bawn.’ That’s what it says there. That’s what I was writin’—I love my wife.”

“’Tis a pity you wouldn’t be tellin’ it to her at this hour,” said Norah, “and not to the kitchen table.”

“Look at that ‘I’,” said Dennis. “Did you ever see one more elegant save on the priest’s robes?”

“You’ve a beautiful hand,” said Norah, “and I’m awful proud of it.”

“Aye,” said Dennis. “I am myself.” He gathered the papers. “Are you wakened enough to hear a scheme I’ve hatched tonight?”

“Wait’ll I get Kathleen. Maybe she’ll take her feedin’ now.”

“Aye, our first born should be in on it,” Dennis said. He got up and paced the room while he waited. There were plates on the wall and a cupboard of food. A rocker awaited Norah and the child and over its back hung a woolen shawl to which he put his hand in passing that he might feel the soft excellence of it. A scuttle of coal sat by the stove and a box of kindling should their comfort ask it. And a child that wasn’t their own was as well provided as any in the house.

Norah came with the baby, and Dennis held the shawl until they were settled and then wrapped it about his wife’s knees. The infant found her nipple and took nourishment without troubling to open her eyes.

“I envy herself snugglin’ like that,” said Dennis. “Nary a worry of the well runnin’ dry.” He rubbed his hands together, shrugged his shoulders and stretched his neck, a manner he had of preparing himself for a speech whether public or private. “I’ve been in the market now over a year,” he started. “It was never much of a job, policin’ you might say, but I’ve a good and careful wife and I’m not a drinkin’ man…”

Norah nodded and smiled. The child and herself might be his only audience, but he pitched his voice to carry over the neighborhood.

“I’ve a hundred dollars laid by. It isn’t much, but the very island we live on was bought for less. I’m goin’ into business for myself. For ourself. I don’t fancy business. I look to myself instead, if the truth be told, as a comin’ politician, and there’s them agrees with me, bless their powers of observation. But an aspirin’ politician, without a business of his own to recommend him, is like a donkey without a cart. You’re a damn fool if you put your money on him before seein’ him in harness.

“Well, I’m goin’ to put on the harness now. I’ve been observin’ a terrible waste in the market. There’s scraps of beef thrun to the dogs at closin’ time, and there’s people, God help us, ’ull fight the dogs for it. There’s farmers at the end of the day heap cabbages, carrots, potatoes, bags of stuff back into their carts to haul home to the pigs—produce, mind you…” he shook his finger at his audience… “which was handpicked in the mornin’ to be sure of the best. There’s meal dumped in the gutter and waifs scoopin’ it out with their fists and cartin’ it off in their hats. I don’t like to see mortal man grovelin’ for his food like that.”

He paused and Norah nodded, smiling, and made the gesture of applause with her free hand on her knee.

“Now I propose to save the farmers and merchants from total loss,” Dennis recommenced. “I’ll buy what they’ve left at the end of the day, and for more than they’ll get from their pigs for it. Mind you not much more, for I’ve a long association with pigs and know what they can pay—but enough to save men and horses wearyin’ themselves cartin’ the two ways. After closin’ time—and by then I’ll have bought what I’m buyin’—I’ll sort and freshen up my produce and sell it at half the market price and twice my own purchasin’ price. Lavery’s Eight O’clock Market. How do you like it?”

Norah thought for a moment. “At eight o’clock I won’t be over-fond of it and you gone since six in the mornin’.”

Dennis took a chair to her side, straddled it, and caught her hand in his. “Darlin’ one, it won’t be for a lifetime. Maybe if it prospers, until I get my citizen affidavit.”

“In a way you’ll be deprivin’ the poor of their pickin’s,” she said.

“If I didn’t know you put up things in my way to see me jump over them,” Dennis said with an edge, “I’d be in danger now of losin’ my temper. I’ll be puttin’ food at a price they can pay—unless it’s your opinion that poor men prefer to eat from the gutter.”

Norah pulled her breast gently from the mouth of the sleeping child. “Dennis, I wish you wouldn’t try the sting of your tongue on me. I’ll love you whatever you do. I think it’s a grand scheme though I fear you drivin’ yourself too hard.”

Dennis rose from the chair grinning, stretched and flexed the muscles in his arms and back. “I’ve the power no man can drive out of me, myself included. All I needed to bless the venture was your consent.”

“You’ve more than consent, dear man. You’ve my heart’s blessin’.”

And more even than that, she thought, carrying the child to her cradle as he took the candle before them: her heart’s thankfulness, for with such responsibility surely he must give up running with the engines.

Dennis had no trouble persuading the farmers and merchants to his scheme. Kevin built him a shelter and stalls and by way of Godspeed on the venture paid down the first quarter’s rent to the market commissioner’s office. He still had the need of Norah’s help and all the help he could get in establishing himself, because as Mr. Finn cautioned when Dennis took the plan to him for approval, he had need to draw a straight line between the hours he owed the city as market roundsman and the time he devoted to his own interests. So it was arranged Norah should sit watch in the stalls from four until six each day, and Jamie Lavery, Kevin’s son, was hired at a dollar a week after school to gather the day’s remains from the closing merchants. He would do no bargaining, no weighing; Dennis proclaimed his intentions to every man he solicited: he would pay at the rate of a quarter of that day’s price and settle each day’s account as rendered by the merchant himself on the following morning before the market opened. He calculated that for one man who overcharged him another would throw something into the barrel for nothing, and Jamie, fine lad, had a winsome smile.

The plans were glorious and the date set for the opening, September third. A half dozen boys were dispatched with placards in the morning to hawk the streets of the lower wards. “A poor man’s market,” they proclaimed, “the victuals of the rich at a price the poor can afford.” All through the feverish day as Dennis angled his rounds from his own establishment, the pride and the fear and the wonder clamored up and down inside him. His stomach felt as though a parcel of children were bouncing on and off it. He had never known such a sense of family; a clan it was, by the glory. Kevin was touching up here and fortifying there. Mary, his wife, was on hand, her red head like a beacon attracting relations Dennis had no notion he could call his own.

“Shake hands with your cousin Eamon,” Mary stopped him once. A great, dark man was Eamon with a jeweled pin shining from his cravat. “On which side is he my cousin?” Dennis whispered when the man turned away. “On the buttered side,” Mary confided into his ear.

Dennis grinned and skipped off to his watch, observing from a distance that cousin Eamon was supervising the arrangement of something, and making notes on it, by the glory. Oh, the wonder of cooperation a man could stir up by a little gumption!

In mid-afternoon Dennis marked Jamie starting his rounds of the stalls with the cart. The farmers were closing early, as was their custom, to be home for evening chores. One trip and another made Jamie, and Lavery’s Eight O’clock Market was filling with produce. Dennis was turning away that pride might not blind him to his duty when he saw Vinnie Dunne. The lad had come in his work clothes, but he was hanging back at a distance he must have thought kept him from the eyes of the family. He was watching with narrow-eyed longing every chore young Jamie went upon. Had Dennis known this day was coming, he might have kept the lad with him from the beginning. But what was coming? What did he know of the future? Only a fool prospered others on his own dream. There had never been reason to regret putting Vinnie with Finn, and if the lad was becoming something different from what he started—well, there were still less gentlemen in the world than beggars. And here he was in his work-clothes.

“Vinnie,” he called out as though he were first spying the lad.

The boy pretended as much surprise on discovering Dennis.

“Walk my rounds with me a bit,” Dennis said. “What do you think of Lavery’s Market?”

“I’m smut with it,” Vinnie said, grinning.

“You’re what?”

“Smut. It’s a word we use. Like smitten, only smut.”

“I see,” said Dennis. The “we” he supposed were lads at the grammar school where Vinnie had just started. “You’re not cribbin’ time on your studies, comin’ here?”

“I’ll make it up,” the boy said. He stopped and looked back and then up into Dennis’ face. “Dennis, I wish I could help. Could I?”

“’Tis scarce the place for a gentleman like yourself,” Dennis said slyly.

“Shit,” said Vinnie.

Dennis was at a loss to know how to react to the vulgarity. Vinnie was a boy one minute and a man the next. “Well,” he said finally, “I guess I asked for that, but ’tis strange language to be comin’ out of a grammar school. Of course, you can help. I’m countin’ on you to go over the accounts with me.”

“Right now I mean,” said Vinnie. He jerked his head at Jamie who was hurrying by with the empty cart. “He’s no more to you than me, is he?”

“Bless you,” said Dennis, “my own child is no more to me than you and your sister. Hop to it and welcome. Thrupence an hour and supper when all is done.”

He called out the last words to Vinnie for the boy already had a hand on the cart, and when Dennis came round to them again, wherever and whichever of them got it, they had a cart apiece, and both loaded.

Even Peg who had all but vanished from their midst through the summer appeared at the day’s end, stepping out of a hack if you please, and beckoning for someone to come to her aid. Dennis, on his own time at last, looked up from a barrel and lost his count of the pickles. There, he thought, was a girl living within somebody’s means but not her own. Kevin skipped like a goat to her aid and Vinnie beside him. Vinnie got a kiss before the eyes of all, and Dennis thought, behind the eyes of all Kevin might have done as well. He caught a drop of sweat from his nose before it fell into the brine. He saw then that Peg had come with more than her elegance. She was loading the arms of Kevin and Vinnie and cousin Eamon with trays out of the hack. God forgive my ungrateful mind, he thought, wiping his hands and going to her aid himself.

“What are they at all?” he cried, looking down to a tray after accepting a kiss on his own cheek without conscience.

“They’re French confection,” said Peg, “direct from Broadway, and for all that they’re a day old, you’ll make an excellent penny on them.”

“Aye,” said Dennis, testing the cream off one with his finger. “If they can’t stomach them they can wear them. What’ll they cost me?”

“Nothing for this batch,” said Peg. “If they go, we’ll make an arrangement.”

To Dennis’ amazement and Norah’s delight, Peg took from the bag dangling at her side a fancy tea apron which she shook out and tied about her waist. She folded back her frilled cuffs and set about clearing a counter space for herself. When she was set she looked up at the gaping family. “Madame?” she said to Mary Lavery, sending the woman into a great “Oh-h-h” that resounded over the whole marketplace. Then showing her pretty teeth in a smile, she turned to cousin Eamon: “Monsieur?” He bowed and pulled out a fat purse.

“By the glory,” said Dennis, “I’d be leery of an arrangement like that!”

More than one merchant stopped by after his own closing to wish well to the Eight O’clock Market and as many as stopped took home a French confection. Any who lingered an hour more saw a great venture launched. Half the population of the ward turned out, it seemed, men along with their women and prodding them not to be squeezing their pennies. A gang of newsboys cleaned Peg out of her sweets tout de suite as she said, devouring them as fast as they dredged their pockets for twopence. The cream frothed from their lips, and some that melted trickled down their wrists until caught by their tongues. “My eyes!” cried one, pointing to the groove of white flesh his tongue had licked clean, “I’m white an’ nut black as they tuld me!” “Aw,” said his chum, “yer muther was a striped bass an’ yer futher a minnow.” “An’ you wuz hatched by a rooster! Hey, Muss, ain’t you gut some yer hidin’ fur yer fella? I’ll be yer fella fur anuther o’ them!” “Puddinhead!” cried another, leaping up on Puddinhead’s back. “Take me, Missie, I’m prettier!” Peg looked into their pert and impish faces. Pinched by necessity they were, but not trapped by it. Free-swinging, free-betting, free-spending, urchins of democracy, its petty merchants, the youngest of Young America, its plague and its promise, for these were the b’hoys of tomorrow, not one of them doubting his rights as a man and claiming them now to be certain; they owned what they paid for if it was no more than a dozen copies of the penny Sun, and there was not a craven peasant heart among them.

Pushing in and through the boys and scattering those at anchor were the beggars turned shoppers. Women bundled cabbages, tomatoes and slabs of cheese into their shawls, men nestled eggs in their caps; meat was weighed into the pot it would cook in and butter slapped into jars greased by nothing sweeter before than salt pork drippings. Corn sold at three ears for a penny; potatoes were high, sixpence a bushel, but that quartered if you had but a penny and a half. No prices were haggled the night of the opening, and no wares were unsold by lantern time. As Dennis remarked on the way home with his money-box loaded, a mouse couldn’t find a crumb, not even if he came with a gold nugget to lay in its place. All nights were not as good as the first, but none of them were bad, and even the perishing storms of November could not destroy Dennis’ daily profit. Before long peddlers were bringing their hand carts from Chatham Street into the shadow of Lavery’s and hawking their second-hand clothes, trinkets, coffee-sacks, old shoes and pots mended-to-new. Let them come, Dennis said, so long as they don’t bring produce. Well he knew that the stomachs of the poor made the first and loudest demands upon their scrabbled pennies, and he often remarked of himself that he was not a greedy man. By the end of the year he resigned his job as city roundsman, and began to look to the opening of another Eight O’clock Market.

2

OF ALL THE TIMES that Dennis had been to see Jeremiah Finn, he had always been received in the office. He had been in the household apartment but once, that when Finn was away and when invited by Vinnie to see his room. So much out of place had he felt then that he scarcely observed the house at all, except to wonder if it was safe to live under the same roof with as black a woman as Nancy. Climbing into the omnibus after Vinnie on a Sunday afternoon in January, he felt a spark of pride that Mr. Finn had sent for him to tea. He was glad now that Finn’s patronage had not extended to friendship until he felt himself almost the equal of the little man. He shuffled his feet through the straw in the bottom of the bus and thought he would have been even more equal to the invitation if they had taken a hack. Vinnie was huddled in his greatcoat, his breath shooting out of the collar like steam.

“Is it business or social?” Dennis asked, leaning near the boy’s ear.

“I didn’t ask,” Vinnie muttered without lifting his chin.

He was beginning to take on airs, the boy, Dennis thought. When he came round now, he kissed the cheek of Norah and of his sister where before you had to corner him to give him a bit of affection. But more loving then was he than now with his courtly kisses. A few months to a boy this age made a great difference. Whether it was shyness he was overcoming or the snob bubbling out of him like the pimples, Dennis could not tell. When they got out of the bus at the corner of Chambers and Broadway, he made the boy wait while he brushed the chaff from his own trousers. Vinnie said nothing, but when they reached the lower hall of Mr. Finn’s, Vinnie took off his coat and hung it on a peg, and there took a bristle brush to his own suit.

“Why didn’t you tell me we could brush off here?” said Dennis.

Vinnie looked at him in surprise, as though, Dennis thought, the boy had come of his natural growth with a bristle brush in his hand. “Because I thought you were ashamed to be seen on the street with straw on your legs.”

“Vinnie…” Dennis thumped him on the chest. “I grew up with it in me hair.”

The boy laughed but not hard enough to destroy himself. More politeness. Dennis gathered his gloves to carry up with him. Vinnie touched his hand to a bell as he opened the apartment door to give fair warning, Dennis thought, for he heard at the same time a woman’s laughter. And Peg herself it was, planted on the sofa as though she had grown there. He was irked then that Norah had not been included. But seeing how completely at ease was Peg and in the home of a bachelor with the black woman as their lorn chaperone, he wondered if Norah’s neglect wasn’t a compliment to her. By the glory, it came to him all of a rush, this might be where Peg was feathering her nest! But of Jeremiah Finn he had expected better. The dapper little gnome wore such a look of sanctity on the street he could vanish a whorehouse by blowing his nose.

Mr. Finn rose and shook his hand and took him to the fire. Tea was soon served, Peg pouring and presiding and palavering until Dennis slopped his tea in the saucer with their bloody distractions. He cursed them as well as himself for his awkwardness. She had the air and the speech and the giddiness of a lady—as though that was all it took to make one.

When the tea was done Mr. Finn approached the matter on which he had summoned him, and though it might be to his own interests Dennis could not put down the resentment he felt at their ease. He sniffed charity in the air and having reached the place where he imagined himself able to dispense it, he found it the more difficult to accept.

It had come to Finn’s attention that in the Common Council of the City of New York there was rising agitation for strict enforcement of the closing hour in the city markets. “It would seem, Dennis,” said Finn, “that your enterprise has won you enemies. It is my observation, however, that no man is a success without them. Eh?”

Dennis glanced at Vinnie and Peg. They apparently concurred in Finn’s notion of his success. This served at least to take the curse off the charity. “Is there a regulation closing hour?” he asked.

“Sundown, it seems.”

“Well,” said Dennis, “’tis a certainty I can’t keep the sun up from his bedtime. Who is it that finds me a bother—for that’s the gist of what you’re sayin’, isn’t it?”

“It is. And I should say the complaint comes from the gentleman who first brought us together.”

“Mulrooney?” Dennis rang the chandelier with his laughter. He stopped abruptly seeing a look of pain on Mr. Finn’s face.

“I should join you,” the little man said, “if I were not aware of his powers of mischief. It is not only your Eight O’clock Market at issue. I suspect he sees in you a threat to his domination of the ward.”

“And he’d stunt my growth at the beginnin’,” Dennis mused. “Does he have the full power of the council in this? Have they nothin’ better to do than swat flies in the city markets? What more am I to men of their importance?”

“He has the power of the council—until they are reached and persuaded against him.”

“Are they persuadable?”

Mr. Finn put his fingertips together. “Easily by money…”

“And where would I get the money?” Dennis interrupted.

“If you had the money, would you pay it?” said Peg then. Pure as a dove, Dennis thought.

He whirled on her. “Who the hell are you to be askin’ a question like that? I’m not stealin’ sovereigns from under the head of a crippled man at least.”

“We put them all back,” said Vinnie from over a book he had taken apart from them. “All excepting one.”

Excepting one, Dennis thought. Quelled entirely by recollection he sat quiet.

“Vincent,” said Finn, “stir up the logs like a good lad. I have never believed in testing my own strength against the winds of probability. Nor should I care to be judged for my temptations. I shall fare poorly enough on performance. I was about to say, Dennis, that however easy it is to reach the council with money, it is possible to do it also with what we shall call ‘promise’. If I were you I’d call on certain of the aldermanic gentlemen. Make a show of your wit and ambition—a modest show—as we have seen it. They know a potential candidate almost as well as they know their own credit. We shall see. We may find it propitious, should the matter come to a Council vote, for you to make an appearance in the chamber.”

Dennis’ heart began to throb harder. “Do you think I’m ready for that yet, Mr. Finn?”

“No, but you may be after confronting each of them singly.”

Dennis arose to leave in high spirits, as confident of winning as he was of making the fight. Jeremiah Finn had a way with people. He gave a man a grand sense of his own importance, the power within him which, if it wasn’t for the likes of Finn, might never be primed at all.

“Sweet are the uses of adversity,” said Peg, smiling.

He grinned down at her. “Aren’t they now? Ah, Peg, you’re a grand woman entirely and I’m not holdin’ nothin’ against you.” He took her hand in his for a moment. “Come round soon and see your sister. She’s missed you. She’s near the style of yourself—but not quite.”

“Thank you,” said Peg.

Vinnie went down with him and held his coat. Dennis ventured to give the boy a hug. “You’re apprenticed to a prince, lad, a prince in his castle.”

Vinnie, shy of the embrace, said: “Yes, sir.”

Dennis slapped him gently on the chest. “Look who he’s sayin’ ‘sir’ to.” He fitted his hat carefully to his head, examining the fit in the hallstand mirror. “Well,” he said thoughtfully, “it’s not altogether undue, the ‘sir’. It was me responsible for bringin’ the two of you together.”

“Yes, sir,” said Vinnie again.

Dennis turned from the mirror and took the boy by the arm. “But to be serious for a minute, it’s you that’s responsible for that up there.” He jerked his head toward the stairs.

“For what, Dennis?”

“Try for Norah’s sake if you can to get them to marry. I think we could find a lenient priest.” Vinnie’s mouth fell open. “You’ve eyes as well as me,” he went on, irked at the boy’s show of surprise. “You’re near a man now and more a one than ever I was at your age. You’ve a responsibility to me too, you know. There’s nothin’ quicker to blight a man than a scandal in his family.”

“I swear to God, Dennis,” the boy said then, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Them! The two of them up there!”

“What about them?”

“Amn’t I just after sayin’ it? It isn’t decent for the two of them to be sittin’ snug up there with nothin’ but the nigger woman between them.”

Vinnie’s face puckered up to the shape and color of a split walnut, and Dennis thought he had offended the boy’s loyalty. He had forgotten how staunch a friend the lad could be, indeed needs be by his nature, and he must now be true to both Peg and Finn. Still, Dennis decided, he must learn that loyalty was one thing and decency another. For all the fancy learning he was getting from books, it was plain to see he was missing his catechism.

“We’ll talk of it another time,” he said, “like men and the friends we are.” He did not offer his hand in fear that the boy might refuse it and harsher words come between them. It was better, having alerted him, to let his own eyes perceive the rest.

3

DENNIS SHOULD NOT HAVE said that, Vinnie thought, as he started up the stairs. He poked on every step and would have lingered downstairs in the workshop had not the cold struck him like a blow when he put his face in the door. He should not even have thought it, Vinnie decided, because it wasn’t true. Peg and Mr. Finn were friends and people could be friends without getting married. Peg had a friend and maybe even the way Dennis meant, but it wasn’t Mr. Finn or Vinnie Dunne either. And he was coming this very night again after months in Washington. If he told Mr. Finn what Dennis had said, Mr. Finn would laugh. Peg would laugh, too, but maybe not if Mr. Finn was there. Vinnie paused a moment to think about that. Why? He eased the door open and then slid through it, playing the game of not making a sound. Because if what Dennis said was true, Mr. Finn would not have minded.

Peg was in the kitchen with Nancy already, clattering and singing and laughing both of them fit to bust. Nancy liked nothing better than to make a feast and what a feast there would be in the house tonight! Vinnie passed Mr. Finn’s study without making a sound and went to his own room. Nancy had roused the fire in his grate. He lit a taper from it and took it to the lamp on his desk. He opened his books and tried to study. The Greek alphabet and ancient history. Blast and damn the both of them, could he run away. Now, within the hour before Mr. Farrell arrived. He could, too, if he wanted to. He could hide for the day and the night. Oh, he knew ways of hiding, all right. His one good caning in school had come from that, and with Mr. Finn watching. He had contrived an escape for himself and three others from Saturday afternoon study. They had managed to meet at the privy and bolted from there to the street. Vinnie had sooted their clothes and faces at a store ventilator and all of them then ambled into Buttercake Dick’s pretending themselves newsboys. From there they went to the Bowery Theatre—and got into a muss with the regulars. It was worth the caning, they all admitted that. He could go out now and hide, but he wouldn’t. Mr. Finn would like to escape, too, but he wouldn’t even admit it. He would laugh and talk and make out he was having a grand time until Peg and Mr. Farrell left. Then he would sigh and wheeze like an oysterman’s mule.

Vinnie applied himself to the Greek. He was allowed to take it on probation, the opinion of his instructors being that if he could get it at all, he would fall off in the rest of his studies. “My good man,” the master had said to Mr. Finn when he suggested that Vinnie be allowed to commence the study, “you are not training a parrot. The boy has no foundation in English, much less in the classics.” “He has the only foundation necessary,” said Mr. Finn. “He has a good home and encouragement.” So, as Vinnie told Peg that morning when she inquired after his studies, he was puddling now in Greek. He put his fingers to his ears, closed his eyes and summoned one and another of the characters to memory until all of them paraded before him in order. He then made them dance to his calling out of order, one and another as he called them at random. And no parrot he, thought Vinnie of himself as he rose to stir the fire. Many a myth and legend of the ancients could he tell from hearing Mr. Finn read them aloud to him and Peg, and proved it. He had stood with boys of twice, even thrice his learning, and on his feet until fourth from last in a classics bee. Twelve had gone down before him. “Well said, Dunne!” cried the master. “Ah,” the boys chided, “but could you do it in Latin or Greek?” and rattled off words at him like beans dumped out of a bag. And so he was puddling in Greek, and with a will of his own.

Mr. Finn tapped on his door and opened it. “Are you ready for me, Vincent?”

“Yes, sir.”

Mr. Finn drew up a chair to the opposite side of the desk as was his custom and heard Vinnie’s memorizations of the week-end. The complete darkness of night had fallen when they were done. “I am pleased with you, Vincent,” the little man said, rising and closing the shutters. “Tonight of all nights.”

It was Mr. Finn’s rule that if Vinnie were not perfect in his lessons on Sunday night the boy must take his supper in his room whether there were guests in the house or not.

“I do know that alphabet now, don’t I?” said Vinnie.

“You do indeed. You will learn to read in the language soon, the only true reward for your endeavors.” Mr. Finn contemplated the palm of his hand as though something were written there. “I hope you will also learn Hebrew one day.”

“Why?”

“Because it also is an ancient and honorable language, with a literature worthy of scholars.” Whatever he had found in his palm he put behind his back. “Come, we must see to our guest.”

“Has he come?”

“No, but we may expect him at any moment.”

“I think I ought to do a little more studying, Mr. Finn.”

Mr. Finn smiled and held out his arm. “Turn out the lamp, Vincent, and come along.”

They waited before the parlor fire, Vinnie and Mr. Finn, and presently Peg, who seemed unable to sit a moment without the recollection of something to be done in the kitchen, as though, Vinnie thought, Nancy weren’t “bidin’” her there as she did him whenever he made a move to help her. “I just bidin’ you, Masta’ Vincen’. I just bidin’ you in my kitchen.”

“Well,” said Mr. Finn as Peg tried again to compose herself to their company, “I’m looking forward to a first-hand account of Washington. I hope things are not as confused as the papers indicate.”

“I hope not,” said Peg, as though she cared. “Stephen will know.”

“I dare say,” said Mr. Finn.

It seemed in the silence they dared say no more. Farrell had gone off in the early fall. Vinnie well remembered his last night here. He had suspected then what he couldn’t doubt at all now with Peg blushing and bleaching, sitting and flying. Vinnie liked Farrell, but he couldn’t get over the notion that he was a priest, though plain enough he wasn’t after what the bishop said of him. The bishop had nailed up the door of his immigrant school, Stephen said, and if it was not much of a school, at least a few Irishmen had learned their sums and their signature at it. The hammer fell after the riot because Stephen began then to plead with the Irish to get out of New York. “Vanish yourselves from the city,” Peg had read aloud to Mr. Finn and Vinnie. “There is land you can buy and for no more money than you pay in a month here for rooms without windows; where you will dig your food from the earth and not from the gutter, where you can follow the plow and not the Philistines; where you can breathe in love and not suffocate in hatred.” It sounded beautiful as Peg read it, and terrible the reply of the bishop: the wolf will disperse the flock and destroy them one by one. Whoever dispersed them, Stephen’s flock soon left him. He needed to make his choice then between the law in which he was trained and journalism, which he fancied.

Dennis didn’t even know Farrell had been around at all, much less that all of them were chums. Vinnie had not told him because on the first day when he was about to, Dennis exploded in glee over the bishop’s pronouncement. “Scatter the Irish, will he, damn his eyes,” said Dennis. “It’s time we excommunicated the whole tribe of them! They’re no more Irishmen than he was a priest.”

Dennis was wrong, Vinnie thought, and he could have proved it to a sensible man. Mr. Finn himself wasn’t prouder of Vinnie than was Stephen Farrell, and Vinnie had learned more from him about the Irish than ever he had from Dennis or church or anywheres else. He had been in the house one night when Vinnie came home from whipping a boy for calling him a paddy.

“Do you know what a paddy is?” said Farrell after hearing the tale.

“It was a dirty word by him,” Vinnie said.

“Ah, but was it a dirty word by you? Did you think it an insult? St. Patrick was a scholar as well as a saint. When Europe was dark with war and plunder, the scholarship he started thrived in Ireland. Remember that. It was the only refuge for Christian civilization, and when the dark ages were over, the scholars went out from Ireland and lighted their lamps for them. Some would deny us that heritage, but they will have to rewrite history to do it. Let us not encourage them by denying it ourselves. You are a paddy, I am a paddy. There are Irishmen of whom I’m ashamed, but I’m not ashamed to be an Irishman.”

But Dennis was not always a sensible man, Vinnie decided. He thought what he wanted to think, did Dennis, and stuck to it like a plaster. He was good to them he loved, and Vinnie loved him for that. He was a father to Emma, her calling him “da” and she would go by the name Emma Lavery, and Vinnie did not mind that. But all the same he was ashamed of Dennis for what he said at the door.

The hall bell tinkled and then rang out. Peg went as white as a candle and leaped up from the chair. She came behind Vinnie while Mr. Finn went to answer the door. The boy sat aching and stiff, trying not to flinch while Peg played her cold, trembling fingers about the back of his neck. She was fondling him like a doll she would drop when her heart’s love came. His voice came first, saying the name, Margaret. She gave Vinnie a last hard squeeze and left him as Farrell appeared in the doorway. Vinnie closed his eyes against their meeting.

4

MY HEART’S DARLING, PEG thought in the last torturous moment of counting his steps upon the stair. She abandoned the warning and self-cautioning of weeks in conjuring up the sight and the feel and the taste of him with the sound of his voice in the hallway. His very presence would fulfill her joy, she promised herself, let follow what would follow.

How wrong she had been to expect more than the instant’s pleasure in knowing it was truly Stephen. The quick joy fled her upon the first touch of him. He caught her hands in his and held them while he brushed her forehead with his lips. The holding of them told her of renunciation, not reunion, and his kiss was as killing as the ghostly frost. She drew a long, painful breath that needed to cut its way through the sorrow which choked her, smiled and took his gloves. It had been more than the bishop’s persecution he had fled to Washington. She had known it really, the full meaning of his flight, had she faced up to her knowledge of it: he had fled her and his own passion. To return, he must believe himself its master. She curtseyed when he complimented her, and told him he looked well—which he did not. He was very pale except where the cold had pinched his cheeks. But it was a small lie compared to the one she had told herself. How fortunate, she thought, as they went in to supper, that she should meet him, this new Stephen, in the company of other friends who apparently found less change in him than she did.

Supper seemed interminable and yet not long enough; nor the drinking of wines and coffee and the talk of the Great Debate: slavery, union and disunion, of men on the mention of whose names his eyes lit up as nothing else lighted them this night… Webster, Clay, Calhoun, the giants, and big little men, as he called Douglas and Seward. Who were any of them that he must so honor them? Every so often he said to her: “And listen to this, Margaret…” as though he feared her thoughts were capering off to hide where he dared not seek them. “Oh, I’m listening,” she would say. “’Tis marvelous interesting.”

“Then will there be a compromise, Mr. Farrell?” said Vinnie, as though, Peg thought, he was the president’s own son.

“Ought there be,” said Finn. “That’s the question. I doubt that compromise will settle it.”

“So do I,” said Stephen, “but Clay will carry it all the same if Webster stands behind him. Calhoun, they say, is dying.”

“And as well,” said Mr. Finn. “He has outlived his usefulness to the country now.”

“The South don’t think so.”

“The South don’t think at all. They have appropriated logic to their own ends—as Mr. Calhoun has appropriated the Constitution to defend States’ Rights.”

“The Abolitionists would tear it up,” Stephen said. “I wonder if it would not be better to use it than destroy it.”

Mr. Finn smiled. “A dead horse or a live horse hobbled.” He sighed. “Better Mr. Clay’s compromise.”

“God help us then,” Stephen said. “The enemies of slavery will turn on the unfortunates who advocate it out of fear. That will be the Natives’ holiday.”

“There is a great difference between Abolitionist and Native,” Mr. Finn said.

“True, true,” said Stephen, “but it is remarkable how often they are on the same side.”

God’s curse on them both, thought Peg. “Will you be returning to Washington, Stephen?” she asked when if they had not exhausted the question of politics it seemed to have exhausted them.

“In a fortnight, I hope,” he said, his eyes meeting hers and then fleeing to the glass he turned in his hand. “It seems that the only way to the Law is through politics, and my only value to politicians is journalistic.” He pushed the glass from him and folded his hands. “Politics and the law are not the same. Not to be confused.”

“True, true,” Mr. Finn said slyly. “But it is remarkable how often they are on the same side.”

Stephen laughed and looked up at Nancy as the big woman brought hot coffee. “What a splendid supper, Nancy. I have not had its like in these three months.”

“Thank you, Mist’ Farrell. Miss Margaret, she did all the fussin’. I just did the fixin’.”

Peg smiled as though it were the compliment the colored woman intended to pay her.

“Peg could do the fixing, too,” Vinnie blurted out as soon as Nancy left.

“Indeed,” said Mr. Finn hastily, “I think you had better do some fixing now yourself, Vincent. Prepare your books and lay out your clothes. Tomorrow begins a week.”

Begins a week, Peg thought, begins a fortnight which will end…what is not already ended. “I must take my leave soon myself,” she said. “At whatever hour the best society retire, they rise early to have the first choice of pastries.”

“Mayn’t I take you home?” Stephen asked.

“If you’re passing that way still,” Peg said, and the color flamed up in her face. Old words did not suit the new occasion. But so had they taken their departure of Mr. Finn on the happy nights of the summer past, intending to part each other’s company directly and upon the steps of Mrs. Riordon’s boarding house, and abandoning such intentions in their first moment alone in the shadowed entrance below. It trapped them always into each other’s arms. She never came that way but that the recollection staggered her. How could they pass through tonight untouched, untouching? Better she had refused his courtesy and kept a memory.

Mr. Finn glanced from one to another of them. “Don’t hurry from here tonight,” he said, rising. “But you must excuse me for a time. I have preparations of my own to make for the morrow. You are welcome…oh my, you know how welcome you both are!” He shook hands with Stephen and scurried off to his study with better intentions than grace.

Both he and Vinnie knew too much of her, Peg thought, and Stephen through them, if he had not known. She laughed aloud on Mr. Finn’s retreat.

“Don’t laugh at his embarrassment,” Stephen said.

“I’m laughing at myself. Oh, isn’t it fortunate that I never wanted to play the coy one, Stephen?”

“I’ve missed you,” he said. “I’ve found no company as happy as yours.”

“I’m giddy with the happiness,” said Peg. “So you missed me?” He nodded. “So much that you’re returning to Washington.”

“I must do that.”

“Of course you must. And it’s not because of me at all. ’Tis flattery I’m paying myself in thinking it.” She waited but he said nothing. “If it’s on my account, then make no account of me, Stephen. I shall soon be going off out of here myself.”

“To where?”

“I don’t know yet,” she said, having but flirted with the notion until this moment’s need of it. “I shall no doubt travel with a theatrical company. I’m to have a chance in New York soon. It’s all arranged, you know.”

“Margaret!” he cried, coming to her as though it were the greatest news in the world.

“It won’t be much of a part,” she went on airily, “but then I’m not much of an actress yet and I shall need the training of…many parts.” She stopped, sick of the pretense before it was well begun. “Oh, Stephen, sit down. Do. Be glad for me, but not that glad. I don’t think I meant to tell you of it at all. I don’t want anything of you—I never have—that you can’t give. I told you that long ago. Was it me made you run away?”

“In part, I suppose.”

“’Twas very ungenerous of you. It’s a selfish man who won’t take something he can’t give back in full measure.”

“It would be selfish of me otherwise,” he said, “and so very unfair to you, Margaret.”

“For the love of God, don’t be sorry for me.”

“If I were sorry for you, Margaret, I should ask you to marry me.

She got up then herself and walked the length of the room and back. It was the first time the word had ever been spoken between them. The very thought of it was too painful. “What a world of mischief you got into, off by yourself and thinking…Tell me about your lawyers and politicians. You’ve made a connection, haven’t you?”

Stephen nodded. “A hard, hard Democrat who would trust me with his reputation, but as yet not his briefs.”

“Does he have a daughter he would trust you with?” said Peg, trying heavily for lightness.

“Alas! and married.” He smiled and held his hand up to her. When she gave hers he pulled her down beside him on the sofa. There he seemed content to sit, hand in hand, to talk of the differences in the law here and at home, of music which he loved as no woman, of old friends re-met in Washington whom she had never known, nor likely would, of railway cars and a mouse he swore to seeing leap from a lady’s bonnet. His white cuffs shone above the long sensitive hands which showed no sensing of the terrible strain composing hers. She drew away from him and pulled her stole about her shoulders.

“I’ve missed you too much for this, Stephen,” she said quietly, getting up. “I’m going home now. A cab will come from the corner at the sound of the bell and Mr. Finn will come out and talk with you when I am gone, and laugh at your lady’s bonnet with its nesting mice…as I cannot do.”

He leaped to his feet and pulled her back to him as she was turning away, saying her name over and over. Her own strength ebbed as she knew the quickening of his and her body seemed to run molten against him, her mouth waiting and receiving his, taking succor from it, breathing his breath, tasting his taste. She pushed herself gently from him and examined his face. He grimaced in the effort to smile, to make a mask for his desire.

Without a word she got her cloak and muff and his gloves and they went down together, saying only a brief adieu to Nancy at the scullery door.

“I cannot play a game of ticktack-toe with love, Stephen,” she whispered when he drew her close to him in the cab. She put her hand beneath his coat and found his heartbeat. “When my heart runs off as yours is now, I can’t stay behind and chatter for all that it is the fashion of proper folk. I am not a proper folk.”

“I was trained in nonsense,” he said, trapping her hand against his heart.

“The horse’s hoofs beat almost as fast,” she said.

“And yet not fast enough,” he said. “If I were holding the reins I should lash the beast.”

“You could not,” she said. “I know that of you, Stephen. Were you to bear his burden instead, you could not lay the whip on him.”

“Do you honor me in that—or pity me, I wonder.”

“I pity the horse—when he shall have a new master,” she said, thinking not of the horse at all, but of herself, perhaps at the end of a fortnight.

Stephen pulled her close and kissed her hair, her eyes.

The little French clock on the mantel struck ten as Stephen lighted their way into his rooms. “I wound that this morning,” he said, “and it runs as though it had never unwound.”

She did not speak. Nothing seemed changed from when she had last been here, things grown familiar through the summer, and yet not friendly as was most every piece in Mr. Finn’s house. She would no more straighten a scarf askew here on the table, nor tilt a chair to smooth the rug beneath its leg than she would pluck a hair from off a stranger’s shoulder.

“Let me build up the fire,” he said. He flung his coat upon a cushioned chair and only then did she venture to sit down—beside the coat and with her hand upon it. He glanced back at her suddenly from the grate. “My dear, you look like a little girl sitting there. Lost and hoping to be called for.”

She threw back her head. “I’m disapproving the work of your sweep. She has no taste, except in employers.”

He threw off the wide-cuffed work gloves as the fire flared up and opened his arms to her. “What need have we of a fire, truly? I’m aflame with my love of you, Margaret.”

“Then draw me into it quick, Stephen, and turn down the lights. This room is full of ghosts.”

He held her a moment first, his hands strong upon her back. “Puritans all,” he whispered. “What do they know of Irish love? I’ll bring us an eiderdown plucked from the goslings of Wicklow and we’ll vanish ourselves from their prying eyes.”

Afterwards, they lay upon the quilt with another over them and watched the fire until the French clock struck eleven. Again she put her hand to his heart, this time with the clock’s striking. “It’s quieter now. It can even keep time.”

“Pluck it out, Margaret. It knows no other master.”

She sat up and pulled the quilt about her shoulders. “And would you like it to know another? Is that it, Stephen?”

He took her hand and lifted it, palm to his lips. “I would sometimes master it myself, that’s all.”

“And I’m interfering with that, is that what you’re saying, Stephen? Speak it out plain for I’ve a simple mind but I want the truth.” He said nothing. “You came tonight thinking yourself done with me—cured, like I was a disease.”

“I was a fool,” he said at last, “and I knew it all the while I played it out. But at least I played it out…a little way.” He spoke the words as though in desperate pride of the achievement. “I am weak with the love of you, Margaret. I am crumbled with it in your presence.”

“The ways of people are strange,” she said, easing her hand away. “You’re weak with it and I am strong with it. The marvels I’ve been able to do…” Little marvels, she thought, miracles within herself of improvement and courage that some people likely did without so much as a thought much less wonder at their doing it. Nothing to do with love had any of them and yet all done in the singing glory of having known him and been known by him.

“I’m very glad, Margaret,” he said as though following her thoughts.

“Stephen, are you ashamed for us?”

“Yes,” he said. “I am ashamed to take love as I have taken it, and not offer marriage.”

“Suppose I tell you that you are not—the first?”

“I should know that you were lying,” he said, “and be the more ashamed for having prompted such a lie.”

“Stephen, I wish you would ask me to marry you.”

“Dear, dear girl, I do ask it then.” He made a shelter of his body and pulled her into it. “With a heartful of promise, I do ask it, Margaret. I am afraid—you must know this and help me overcome it. How I don’t know but it must be done.”

“Afraid of what?”

“I don’t know exactly. Of you, I suppose. Of myself for loving you, wanting you at all costs. When I have the right to call you mine, I shall be more than a jealous lover, Margaret, and I know it of myself. I shall weigh my strength in the balance of your affections and if you fail me I shall fail you and myself and all the heritage by which I’ve claimed the right to help turn a people’s destiny.”

She laughed a little and moved a bit apart from him. “Ghosts should come out of the past, Stephen, not out of the future.” She sighed. “What’s a puritan?”

He thought about it a moment as though he knew he was going to have to put into words something she already had the gist of in her own mind. “I suppose it’s someone whose world is never strict enough to suit him.”

She nodded satisfaction with his words. “Help me gather my things. The hour is late.”

“You haven’t answered my offer,” he said. “I’ve hurt you with my confession, and it was to shrive myself I told it, that you might understand and help me.”

“Will you light the lamp?” She watched him. His fingers trembled as he brought the taper and held it to the wick. “You confessed yourself and you confessed me,” she said slowly. “I cannot answer an offer that was not really made. I had planned the answer of ‘no’ however you caged it, but I didn’t know how willing I could give it.”

“Please, Margaret.”

“Please, what? Not say the truth as I see it? For all the fancy-way you put it, Stephen, it comes to this: I gave myself to you without marriage, so how could you ever be sure I’d be faithful to you in it.”

“No, no, no. I swear before God that was not my meaning.”

“I suppose it wasn’t. You’ve judged yourself in it, and I’m depriving you of your guilt.” She managed a smile. “I wonder can puritans live in the world they make themselves.”

“Not for long,” he said harshly. “They grow suspicious and destroy one another.”

“Just as you prophesied for us,” she said.

“My true meaning,” he said, “and I do believe it. Not because you loved me without marriage, but because you could love me without it, and I could abandon all else for love of you. Such ecstasy cannot endure, Margaret…”

She quieted him with her hand upon his arm. “You are telling me what I knew in the beginning, and I was happier not hearing the words for it. I knew from the first if I waited for you to come courting, to come searching for the maiden virtues a man looks for in a good wife, I knew I never should have you at all. I made my choice the night of the riot and suited my conscience to it. I’ve tried to tell you that in as many ways as I can. You could not force the disaster of marriage upon me now if you wanted to, Stephen. It would kill our love as surely as a lamb must die in a lion’s mouth. If you can suit your conscience to that and have no shame for it, as I have none—I will come to you again if you need me and want me, until some other fate puts a stop to it.”

“And if I cannot without conscience, Margaret?”

“I never again want to lie down with it like a sword between us. It cuts me to the quick. I am more than flesh and bones, Stephen. I’ve feelings you can’t put your finger to, or even your lips, and I’ve a pride as deep as yours for all your heritage.”

“I begin to see,” he said, “what I did not see before.”

“I wish,” said Peg, “I had not seen it.”

He put his arm about her and drew her gently against him. “I’ll not further hurt you by asking forgiveness,” he said, his lips to her forehead. After a moment he lifted her chin with his finger. “You have seen me weep, Margaret. Have you no tears?”

“Only in anger. Hurt dries them up.” “And love?”

“Love will prime them for its leaving,” she said. “Dearest, dearest, dearest.” He cradled her in his arms and rocked her to and fro before the fire.

5

THE FIRST STOP DENNIS made with Mr. Finn’s forecast of trouble was at the engine house of Number Eight. He ran with the engines still, and whatever danger he chanced in the running weighed light against the power of friends it made him. John Gilley, a printer by trade and with a small hand press of his own which saw heavy service during elections, went with him to see Alderman Hodge. Hodge, on the standing committee of markets, was a man of influence, and in Gilley’s presence at least, of sympathy with Dennis. Such was his sympathy, in fact, he permitted Dennis to stand him a drink at the Crystal Bar where they were sure to meet other men of influence. Dennis quailed and quipped in their presence, as he afterwards told Norah, hoping the quips would cover the quails, and for the first time in his life wrote his name on a piece of paper in lieu of having enough money on his person. I’ll remember the day, he thought, when I first tried my credit at the Crystal Bar and found it solvent. By Monday night he could report to Mr. Finn that one way or another, he had reached seventeen out of eighteen aldermen, and he thought it as well to skip Mulrooney!

“And they were well disposed toward you?” said Finn.

“I’m not easily disposed of,” said Dennis, “and I don’t think they want to.”

Mr. Finn nodded. “My own concern with the Council at the moment is transportation. I’m a seller of small wares, most of which can be carried home by bus. But quite aside from my own interests, the city is in need of a central line. Yet there are merchants who would block such a franchise lest it disrupt their carriage trade.”

Dennis whistled. “By them standards, I’m dealin’ in mites.”

“Precisely. So don’t be foolish enough to think your buying a man a drink persuades him of anything except your amiability. And if you’re too amiable, he’ll take you for a fool.”

The little ferret, Dennis thought, wondering if he had come by his knowledge by instinct or by report. “There was no man I set up more than twice,” Dennis said. “And none in whose presence I took more than one drink myself.”

“Splendid,” said Finn. “I’m at City Hall each morning now for the reading of the day’s agenda. I’ll send for you posthaste when the committee on markets reports back. Room thirteen.”

“And what’ll I do when I come?”

“Why, either you will sit and observe yourself ruled out of business, or you will speak on your own behalf. And now you will not be a stranger to most of the gentlemen.”

Dennis grinned. “Not even to Mulrooney.”

The message came one morning mid-week. Dennis was hugging the stove in the kitchen watching Norah in profile and wondering was it the shape of a son he could see in the making. He gave the messenger twopence and insisted that Norah brush him down before he hoisted on his greatcoat, although in her worry she was near brushing him into the street.

“Have you no confidence in me at all?” he said, standing his ground at the door.

“Ah Dennis,” she said, “would I be hurryin’ you into a match if I didn’t think you its equal?”

He kissed her cheek and patted her stomach.

The halls and the chamber were a crush of cigar chewers and tobacco squirters. All the lotions and potions of Broadway couldn’t sweeten the smell of them, Dennis thought as he pushed through the horde. “Hey, chum,” said one of them into his face, “who’re yer hittin’ for? If yer need a runner, I’m yer boy. Jackie Nolan’s m’name. Remember it, eh?” “Sure,” said Dennis, “I’ll remember.” A policeman blocked his final way to the door. “I’ve an interest in the markets,” said Dennis. “I’m expected in there.” He was passed on his air of authority.

Within the chamber, he stood against the wall, for all the seats were taken. After a moment’s squinting through the cigar smoke he recognized the men beyond the railing: the Common Council of New York. Mr. Finn sighted him and gave up his seat to come and stand by him.

“The market report will be called up next,” he whispered.

“You’ve the wonderful ear,” said Dennis. “All I can hear is them growlin’.”

A mutter of “ayes” finished whatever business was then in debate, and the chairman of the day pounded his gavel. A great flurry of clerks and dispatchers caught up papers and messages from various men of the council and fled the room with them. Mr. Finn, meanwhile, whistled up a page and sent him to the council table with a note to Mr. Hodge. “That’s to tell him you’re in the chamber,” Finn explained.

“Godalmighty, but I wish I was out of it.”

The gavel fell again and the grumbling-rumbling subsided. “You have the report on the city markets, Mr. Hodge?”

“I have,” said Hodge, and cleared his throat. He ran through a muddle of figures that must have made sense to someone, Dennis thought, for they “ayed” him at the end. Again he cleared his throat. “A complaint was brought before us last week on a violation in the Catherine Street market of the regulation closing time.” He spoke out as Dennis prayed he would, but lo, he might as well have been whispering, and in another county at that, for all the attention paid him at the table, except for Mulrooney. He nodded at every word, puffing his cheeks like a toad. But the rest of them concerned themselves with their own papers while Hodge tripped through an account supported by affidavits of the increase in crime and rowdyism over the past four months in the Seventh Ward. “According to the complainant, gentlemen,” Hodge concluded, “eight out of ten of the men, women and boys taken into custody by the police admitted having gone to their mischief after patronizing the so-called ‘Eight O’clock Market’…”

“I’ll be damned,” said Dennis under his breath, and there was a murmur of amusement at the council table itself.

Mulrooney put up his hand.

“May I finish my report, sir?” said Hodge. The chairman sounded his gavel.

“If it please the chair,” Mulrooney growled, “I’m askin’ a point of privilege. I want to speak on the report seein’ you gentlemen find it laughable.”

“Do you yield, Mr. Hodge?” said the chairman.

Mr. Hodge yielded whether he wished to or not, for Mulrooney proceeded, rumbling as though each word was wrenched from the pit of his belly. “I’ve fought all my life at the side of the workin’ man to win him a twelve hour day. He has the need of his rest and his supper at a decent hour. It’s no laughin’ matter that out of twenty men I talked to, eighteen of them were gettin’ home to their supper and findin’ no supper. Their women were off to market at that unholy hour of the night. What’s a man to do when there’s no supper and no wife waitin’ him?…” The Council, Dennis noticed, leaned back to enjoy themselves, for Mulrooney was not ashamed of his honest emotion. “He goes out into the street and maybe takes a drink to warm him, and after one drink another until he never gets home at all…That is a very sad story, gentlemen. Now I wouldn’t say that this Eight O’clock Market business is the only thing wrong in my ward…”

“Hear, hear!” someone murmured.

Mulrooney scowled and summed up: “But it’s one thing wrong we’d have no trouble correctin’ with the cooperation of the City Council. Thank you, Mr. Hodge.”

Hodge took a squint around the table and proceeded quickly: “The committee suggests that the phrase ‘sundown’ in the market regulations is too ambiguous. We recommend a six o’clock closing weekdays, nine on Saturdays.”

He was through, Dennis thought, astounded. Forgot were the drinks poured in the Crystal Bar, washed out with Mulrooney’s deluge. That it was a trifling matter to all of them, nothing but spoof and spit, was obvious. But since Mulrooney had decided not to let them get round him, they weren’t troubling themselves to go through him.

“I’ll entertain a motion to amend…” murmured the chairman.

“So moved…”

“Seconded…”

“Will the clerk read the motion?”

“… Six o’clock… nine o’clock…” was all Dennis heard.

“Now,” said Finn, “or you’re through.”

“Your honor!” Dennis called out, and having the council’s attention, lowered his voice. “May it please the council to give me a minute before you?”

“Is it to speak on the motion?”

“It is, sir.” His heart throbbed as though it would splinter his ribs. He drew the foul air into his lungs as he went forward to the railing. “You’ll excuse me, gentlemen,” he said, not knowing where he would find the words. He took a handkerchief from his pocket, intending to wipe his sweating hands, but seeing a look of amusement on their faces at its appearance, he found his lead. He ventured to lift it to his eyes and that brought a quiver of laughter. “I was near overcome with Mulrooney’s sad story. Oh, Lord, I says to myself, tryin’ to keep back the tears…oh, Lord, I says, but he’s a good man, Mulrooney is. And isn’t it fortunate for all them poor workin’ men in the ward, isn’t it fortunate he isn’t turnin’ his wrath on the grog shops? Where would a poor man turn, says I to myself, and his wife caperin’ off to that den of iniquity, the city market, if he couldn’t find himself a snug nook in Mulrooney’s bosom?”

A howl of laughter went up in the council at the phrase. Dennis began to enjoy himself. He pulled a long face and went on. “I can see I’ll never touch your hearts like Mulrooney. But I wonder if maybe I can’t tickle your pride? Is it presumptuous of me to ask—is there a man here would go home two nights in a row—one night maybe, but two nights in a row—to his supper and no supper to go home to? By my faith, it wouldn’t happen in my house! And I’ll venture to say it don’t happen in Mulrooney’s, for he does look to be a man well able to fill his own trousers…”

There was more laughter. “The question,” Mulrooney growled. “Let’s have the question.”

The chairman gaveled Mulrooney down but Dennis had the sense not to spoil his advantage. “Let me say my name and be done, for you’ve more work to do than I’m liable to have by your rulin’. I’m Dennis Lavery, and you’ll not be surprised to know I’m the owner of the Eight O’clock Market. If you must close me up, by all means close me up. I’m an enterprisin’ lad. If I wasn’t I wouldn’t have the gall to be here.” He laced the sarcasm into his final remark. “I’ll have a new start and in a business where I won’t be corruptin’ the neighborhood with butter and cheese and a bit of meat. I wonder which of you gentlemen is in charge of licenses, for I do fancy myself openin’ a groggery.” Their laughter drowned his thanks for the council’s attention.

Before he reached the back of the room the question was put to a vote: a single aye and a thunder of nays.

Dennis strode out of the chamber with Finn in his wake and well aware of the eyes upon him which had taken no notice of his entrance.

“I’m proud of you,” Finn said when they reached the City Hall steps. “I’d go so far as to say I should hate to be your antagonist.”

Dennis grinned. “I was prayin’ at first the earth would open up and swally me, and I ended up feelin’ I could swally the earth.”

Finn grunted. “Well,” he said, “remember the fable of the fox and the cock. Don’t crow too loud in the city market.”

Dennis decided that he would not crow at all except to Norah. He had little use himself for a braggart, but he did wish profoundly that word of his performance before the council would leak out amongst his friends. It more than leaked although he was not aware of it until his day’s work was done, his market boarded up, and he stopped at the station house on his way home. All the boys in the house seemed on his entrance to be working at the game of cribbage which but two of them could play at once.

“Where’s Gilley?” he asked, warming his hands at the stove.

They turned their faces up to him like sunflowers. “Snug in Mulrooney’s bosom!” they chorused, leaping up then and pounding him on the back, howling their boisterous glee over the rise of one of their own.

“You heard about it then?” said Dennis.

“Heard about it! We read it in the Evening Post. Here.”

Dennis took the paper they thrust upon him to the light and read almost word for word, his remarks to the council. “Did I say that—presumptuous?”

“You must of if it’s in the Post.”

“Isn’t it fortunate,” he said, smiling round, “they didn’t ask me to spell it? Can I keep the paper?”

He ran most of the way home with it to Norah, and before sitting down to his supper had read her the piece three times over. Norah finally persuaded him to eat, and through it she sat, puzzling out the words, one by one for herself. “Dennis,” she said finally, “do you think they printed this to put you up or to put Mulrooney down?”

Dennis stirred his tea violently. “If you mean were they worried lest my market be closed on me, they were not. Why are you always lookin’ for hidden meanin’s, Norah?”

“I’ve a fearful nature, I suppose. Peg, now, is more like yourself. The both of you are ’cross the river and safe before ever lookin’ to see was the ice crackin’ under your feet.”

“Ah, love,” said Dennis, putting his hand on hers, “I’ll carry you across in my arms wherever I go. Will you drink a cup of tea if I bring you a cup?”

“I will,” she said, “and maybe it’ll break the chill. I’ve the feelin’ of a pooka over the house all night.”

“For the love of God will you leave off your superstitions? The night we landed you could feel a wind blowin’ us back into the ocean. And could a hurricane budge us now? Look at us, Norah—what we’ve got and landin’ without the nails to scratch ourselves. A child of our own, and one near as dear dependin’ on us, and another well on his way…and all of them with shoes to their feet as never I had at home.”

“Ah,” said Norah, rocking back and forth, her hands on her stomach, “I’d the feelin’ myself this afternoon he was wearin’ shoes.”

“He’s kickin’, is he?” Dennis cried. “Oh, by the glory!” Norah nodded and smiled. “Ah, love,” he said, kissing her. “You’ve the changes in your face of a summer sky.”

It was near midnight when they let the fire die out and went to bed, for Dennis worked at his account book and Norah would not go without him. She sat with her knitting and rocked, the creak of the rocker across the floor setting Dennis’ nerves as nearly on edge as her own. But he said nothing because of her condition, and knowing the familiar noise drowned out the strange ones for her. In bed the sound of his breathing gave her the same comfort. Sleep had almost come to her when she heard the pounding of hobnailed boots up the steps.

Dennis himself started up at the fierce, cold clutch of her hand. He leaped from the bed as hammering struck at the door and a voice without called, “Lavery! For the love of God, Lavery, open up! They’re wreckin’ your shop!”

“I’ll let him in, God help us,” said Norah. “Dress yourself.”

Dennis managed a light for the candle and gave it to her. He pulled his clothes on in the dark while she went to the door.

Report of the wreckage had reached the station house and one of the men sleeping in had come running. “A gang,” he said, “is all I know. They’re at it with sledges and rocks. Will I turn out the boys say the word?”

“No,” said Dennis, “they’ll be done by the time we get there.” And done they were, with only the urchins of the ward groping in the dark amongst the ruin when Dennis swung his lantern upon them. Their eyes stared up at him from behind the sundered counter, their wizened wee faces with no more expression than so many pennies. One lad leaped into a barrel, by oversight left whole, and squealed out his misery. He was up to his belly in freezing brine. Dennis turned him out and added his laughter to the wild screams of it from the urchins. “Here, take hold, me lads!” he called out. “What you can take is yours! Firewood? Grab onto the door there. They splintered it down for yous!” A couple of lads had laid hold of a peddler’s cart where it was stored behind the shop. “Bring that back when you’re through. It don’t belong to Lavery!” Dennis shouted. He put his foot through what was left of a bin. The arabs grappled amongst themselves for the meal spilling out and ran into the night with it dribbling out of their pockets. “Better you than the rats, me lads!” he called out again, plying the rest with potatoes they nibbled at raw. And who could tell the difference in the species, he thought, from the look in their eyes? Who could tell which it was God gave the souls to, the rats or the children? But easy it was to see He made no distinction when He gave out the bellies. Spending a part of his wrath on the Almighty, he was finally able to face the devil. Dennis abandoned the market as Kevin approached it. He heard his brother calling out his name and went on without answering. He could hear him scatter the urchins, ringing curses out on them like changes in hell. There was not a hack on the street and not a horse if there were could keep pace with him. His own boots raised up sparks as he trod hard upon the cobbles, and the sound of them echoed through the hollowed stillness of the empty streets. Across through Franklin Square he went and up to Chatham Street, along it to Park Row, past Tammany and in view of the darkened City Hall until he came to the Empire Club.

He knew Captain Rynders, its owner only by reputation: and fearsome it was, Rynders’ reputation. A member of the Tammany General Committee, he was for hire for the direst and dirtiest of political jobs—but only on the highest level—flavoring the Forrest-Macready feud with political riot, for example. He would not himself break up sticks for Mulrooney. But his club was something else. Its basement saloon, the Arena, was known to snuggle sports and politicians into the early hours. Where better for Mulrooney to caucus a few rogues? The door was locked. Dennis tweaked the bell viciously as though it were his enemy’s nose. From within he could hear the voices of jubilant men and the pretty tinkling of glasses: a delicate business they toasted, no doubt. A doddering grandpa of a man squeezed his head through the width he opened the door and wheezed: “Who is it you want to see for we’re closed?”

“Mulrooney,” said Dennis.

“Oh-h-h, he’s a-bed. Dan’l’s a-bed,” said the old man.

“Then we’ll turn him out.” Dennis shouldered the door from the old man’s grasp.

He pounded across the hallway into the barroom from whence came the sounds of revelry. A dozen heads tilted his way, leaving off their wagging over the bar. There were men in the booths to the back, some collecting, perchance, for their mischief. The purr of their talk made the silence in front more perishing.

“Is Daniel Mulrooney in the house?” Dennis called out. “I’d have a word with him.”

Even the purring left off, and not a word was spoken. One and then another of the men at the bar turned around as though they preferred not to trust their backs to him. More than one of them groped in his pocket for something, Dennis thought, to adorn his knuckles. He stood, his legs apart, his coat open and his red shirt wide at the throat.

“Is there a man here then who’ll speak for him?” Dennis cried.

The barkeep plucked the stub of a cigar from between his teeth and jerked his head toward the rear of the room.

“Call him up here,” said Dennis, “for I’d like your impartial witness.” He knew well that his every word carried to the back of the room. He waited, his hands on his hips. Mulrooney was here, he thought. By God, Mulrooney was in the house. He could feel the wrath riling up in him and sped a singing mouthful of it into the nearest brass spittoon.

A chair scraped across the floor in one of the booths and Dennis saw a tuft of black hair above the panel. It told him the height of the man rising. He fancied his own hair rising by the feel of his scalp. He moistened his lips and glanced at the men before him. They were as tense as himself, dapper chaps for the most part. If there was a fight, they’d give odds in a minute and stand ready to hold your coat. “By the glory,” Dennis murmured, making of his remark a confidential aside to them at the bar, “I was afraid there was holes back there for the rats to crawl out of.”

The big man hove out of the cubby and lumbered forward, flexing his shoulders as he came. His face was near black with his beard, the flesh surrounding his eyes like a mask. His hair crept down his forehead leaving a scant half-inch between itself and his brows. It was more the face of an ape than a man and the prowling walk on him let you know he was aware of the resemblance and intended to make the most of it. In the crouch he wore, his face was the level of Dennis’ when he came up. Would he straighten his back, he’d be a head taller.

“’Tis Mulrooney I wanted,” said Dennis, “and though I can see the resemblance, you’re not the man.”

“D’yer know who I am?” said the black one, smiling with great yellow teeth. “Tell him, boys!” This he flung to the men at the bar.

Not a word did they answer, which meant, Dennis calculated, that if they were not his friends, neither were they overly fond of the black one.

“I’m the Albany ‘Buster’ and I speak for Mulrooney!” he roared in his own praise. “State yer business.”

Dennis brought his fist up like a hammer catching the jaw hanging out for it. The “Buster’s” feet left the floor at the crack on his jaw and for the instant he lay against the men he had crashed into the bar with his fall, the metal knobs shone on the soles of his boots. God save the man he got down, Dennis thought, poising himself as the men hoisted the “Buster” back at him. He came like something sprung from a catapult and Dennis aimed to meet his mouth with his fist. Instead, his knuckles slid along the beard searing the brute’s floppy ear. The black one was upon him like a clinging beast, his arms a vise and his legs crooked around Dennis’ till they bent at the knees and Dennis tumbled down atop the brawler on the floor. Dennis heard a crack as the man hit the floor and smelled the foul breath of the “Buster” in his face, heard the clacking of his teeth, and hoped it was his skull was cracked. Nary the sign of damage. As though his back was curved and crusted like a turtle’s, the “Buster” rolled from side to side with Dennis atop him, helpless in his animal grip. Dennis strove with his might to break it, but he could not. He could not get his fists on the bastard. He’d be crushed like an egg before he got loose.

“Your teeth, lad. Use your teeth!” someone screamed at him.

They were all screaming now and lights were coming up for them better to see. The ear of the “Buster” was at Dennis’ mouth. But he could sooner have chewed off his own finger than put his teeth to it. The “Buster” gave a great heave and Dennis found himself flat on his back. He hugged his enemy to him, learning from him, for in the instant he gave him a few inches trying himself for leverage, he saw the brute’s mouth working like an infant’s in search of its mother’s breast. No qualms had he on using his teeth. The great bulging neck turned like a capstan and Dennis felt the mouth brush his ear. He strained his own head away until the veins in his neck felt like bursting and yet the brute atop him stretched further and caught the lobe of his ear in his teeth. The pain shot through Dennis, so fierce there was color to it. He clawed at the brute’s back and bouncing his own buttocks on the floor, he lifted the “Buster’s” weight, let it fall on him, lifted it again, down and then up, down and then up until one knee slipped free of the bowed leg knotting it, and Dennis brought it up full force into the bruiser’s groin. The Albany “Buster” howled and went limp for as long as it took Dennis to break free of him, to get astride him, and then Dennis began to shave and blister his face. He worked at it till his knuckles were raw. A cheer went up for him, but not a man who cheered him put more of himself than his voice between Dennis and the screeching crew that plowed toward him from the rear.

Dennis rose to meet them, swinging, kicking, stomping like his foes, enjoying the pain in his hands with every blow he struck, the wild mad hurt of crashing his head into a welter of flesh and bone. He was not altogether alone against them he realized when he was flung into the bar and lay a moment on his elbows against it. Two of the muggers coming for him were caught from behind and flung off. He laughed inside at the sight, for he could not seem to part his lips. The men on his side were in nightclothes. He grew weak with the effort to laugh and felt himself slipping his hold. The last thing he saw was the brass spittoon, shining like the sun in the sky as he thought he was lifting his face to it.

He came to, stretched out on a bed, with his brother Kevin standing over him, and beside him Jeremiah Finn, and all round them the peculiar crew in their nightclothes. He closed his eyes as soon as he had opened them, for the pain in his body was torture.

“I’ll bleed his ear again soon,” someone said. “But it’s best not to move him. He may have a broken rib or two.”

I’ll be lucky, Dennis thought, if I have one or two whole. But he said nothing. Clinging to the rim of consciousness he caught bits of conversation that told him the men in their nightclothes were lodgers on the top floor of the club and that Rynders himself was amongst them. He hoped it was himself they were praising in their talk. It must have been for presently Mr. Finn was explaining the business of the market, and Kevin chiming in on the wreckage. Norah must have flown like a bird in the night to alarm them. He parted his lips on that thought, and managed the sound of her name.

“Vincent is with her.” That would be Finn said that, thought Dennis. He was the only one calling the boy Vincent.

“Rest easy, Lavery,” a voice said into his ear. “You’ll soon be restored, and so will your market.”

Dennis groaned his thanks.

“He doesn’t know where he’s at.” That would be Kevin, Dennis thought, always with the poor mouth among politicians.

“I hope he don’t think it’s Mulrooney’s bosom.” Whoever said that brought a great laugh, and Dennis felt snug amongst friends.

6

THERE WAS BUT ONE reason Valois resented Peg’s relationship with Stephen Farrell: it distracted her from her study. He cursed the man’s return at this time especially, and so was especially pleased when Peg turned up from their reunion in so bleak a humor. It portended well, by his calculations, for her attention to her imminent debut. The approximate date had been set for it. She had been viewed and interviewed by Mr. Richards, manager of the Broadway, with Valois coaching first the one of them and then the other because, Peg thought, Mr. Richards needed prompting to see the virtues in her Val proclaimed. But all the occasion waited was the proper vehicle. “A lady of some gumption,” Val specified the role he wanted for her. There were several ladies of gumption in a new play he contemplated doing, Mr. Richards said dryly. Mr. Valois might have his choice of gumptions for his protégé.

Mr. Richards was a man of disturbing suavity, and Peg thought from her first meeting with him, he was the sort who could smile on you with his mouth, caress you with his voice, and at the same time cut out your heart with his eyes.

“Val,” she said, the day after Richards had told them of the new play, “are you paying him for taking me on?”

“Indirectly, I am.”

“How?”

Valois sighed. “Sometimes you are very wearisome, Margaret. The chore is sufficient without my having to account it. I am to give his mistress instructions also in the art of acting.”

“Has she talent?”

“Sufficient to the needs thereof,” he said maliciously.

“I don’t like it at all,” Peg said then. “If I’m worth my hire he will profit from it, and if I’m not he can discharge me at no great loss.”

Valois yawned. “Of whom are you seeking to be independent, Margaret? Of him or of me?”

She did not answer for he had probed a tender root.

“Don’t you think I know how eager you are to escape my tyranny? Let me tell you, Miss, the profession you aspire to is a greater tyrant. So don’t flee one until you’re prepared to cope with the other. And I will tell you more while you listen: this is not a profession where you start at the bottom and work your way up. Nine out of ten who start there stay there. The street is alive with two shilling players who have waited their lives in poverty for their one great chance. And hear this well, my dear: one thing only would drive them from the stage, the getting of that one great chance. They would flee it as they would the cholera.”

Nonsense, Peg thought, but she said nothing. They bickered a great deal now in the shop and out of it, due in part to her impatience, but more to his cynicism. He spared her nothing of his opinions, using her like a household mirror before which he might pose them. He was at ease with her, but his ease was that of a caged animal. He did not miss a chance to flaunt the Irish at her, to remind her of how poorly Farrell did at their hands. If he disliked them before the Macready affair he loathed them now. His very nostrils turned white at the chance recollection of the night when he was closer to them than he had ever been to any mortal. All the perfumes of Arabia, Peg thought.

Then at last the letter came from Alvin Richards. He was about to produce The Streets of New York and would Mr. Valois and Miss Hickey call to read the script that morning? Ellen was put in charge of the shop—parts and parcel, Valois told her, for Peg had passed along the girl’s remark about her bathing practices, and it served them often as a catch phrase. Ellen herself saw nothing familiar in the phrase, but she had long since sensed the familiarity between Peg and their master. She was waiting herself the day of Peg’s departure from the shop, parts and parcel, and if this foretold of it, Godspeed to them.

They took a cab although the Broadway traffic at that hour would have clogged a prairie, but within the cab Val could remind her of all the things she had forgot in the first excitement, her speech, above all she must watch her speech. I’ll have no speech to watch at all, Peg thought, if I can’t get the lump out of my throat.

“Margaret,” he said then, “I’ve decided you must change your name.”

That banished the lump. “I’ll not,” she said. “I’m not ashamed of it.

“Hickey,” Val said. “It’s an outrageous name. It sounds like a carbuncle.”

She had never in truth been over-fond of it herself. “I’ll trade it for one that’s Irish then,” she said after a moment’s thought.

He sighed. “Why not just…Margaret? No last name at all.”

“I wasn’t born an orphan,” she said, “to go about with but one name.”

“Better you were than what you were born, an Irish mule! If you’re as supple on the stage as you are in the mind, we’d better turn back now to the shop.”

“Are you trying to unstring me entirely?” Peg cried.

The cab pulled up at the Broadway Theatre and Val grinned like an imp. “Only your tongue, my dear. Only your tongue.” He hopped out of the hack and gave her his hand. For the first time he kissed her. On the cheek to be sure, but it was a kiss. And having paid the hack, he gave her his arm and whispered, “I have never had more confidence in anyone, not even in myself.”

The boxkeeper opened the door to them, and left them in the lobby while he carried their names to where Mr. Richards was engaged in the day’s rehearsal. An old, old man, the messenger looked to be able to carry nothing heavier. “There is but one thing wearier than a boxkeeper,” Val said. “That’s a call boy.”

Peg looked at the pictures hanging on the walls: portraits of Edmund Kean, Junius Brutus Booth; daguerreotypes of Anna Cora Mowatt, Charlotte Cushman, Davenport, Forrest…She turned to see Valois open the door to the pit through which the boxkeeper had passed. He left it open and stood, peering down toward the stage, his hands on his hips. Then he thrust his head forward in the manner of the old man, and as Peg watched, fascinated, she saw a change come over him as truly as if the hand of God was ladling the years upon him in that instant: his knees bent, his shoulders hunched, and slowly, painfully it seemed, he worked one hand toward the other behind his back until he could clasp them. The boxkeeper looked no older. Suddenly, aware of her observation, he sprang back into shape and remarked that he had once taken on years to play Richelieu. She would not forget that instant, Peg thought. In front a single branch of gas shooting up from the footlights was the only illumination in the house. Beyond it the players moved like blue ghosts.

The boxkeeper returned and fetching a lamp took them to Mr. Richards’ office on the second floor where he unlocked a case and gave them a script copy of The Streets of New York. He opened the shutters and left them side by side at the one script. As its title implied the play was a series of scenes depicting life high and low of the city. Some humor there was in the writing, but as Val murmured once, “It will take playing.” Richards came in when they were nearly done and sat down opposite them. He lit a cigar and seemed to be watching its smoke, but it was their faces he was trying to read.

“There are moments in it,” Valois said, “good moments.”

Richards made a noise in his throat and waited Peg’s finishing. “I want to try something,” he said. “Before you say anything I want each of you to write on a piece of paper, without consulting one another, the role you think proper for the young lady here. Mrs. Haversham is out, by the way. That goes to our leading lady.”

“If I were your leading lady,” Peg said, “I shouldn’t want to play Mrs. Haversham.”

“Oh? Write as I directed. Then we can talk.” He gave her paper and dipping the pen, handed it to her.

Without hesitation Peg wrote: “Gallus Mag.”

“Miss Trueheart,” Val wrote and said the name aloud as he wrote it. A dozen Miss Truehearts passed through the door of his shop every day.

Mr. Richards had taken Peg’s paper. He shook with amusement and Peg could feel the color climb up her throat and crimson her face. Without a word Richards gave Peg’s paper to Valois.

“I won’t permit it!” he cried and crumpled the paper in his hand.

“Why not?” said Richards.

“I didn’t attend a rose to harvest a cabbage. You don’t have an actress in the company who’d essay that part with pleasure and you know it.”

Richards shrugged. “Fools that they are,” he said blandly, “you are right. Miss Cushman before she became a star would have done it.

“And unsexed herself in the doing,” Val said. He looked at Peg with scorn.

Peg felt herself suspended between the tempers of the men, and her own was calm in the balance. She could be cruel now to Val, for she knew how to clinch the role for herself with Mr. Richards. Docile to her teacher she would be, but true to her own instincts also. She tried to find a delicate way of explaining to him that Gallus Mag was very feminine, however low her place in society. All she could remember was something Stephen told her once, and in her mind it seemed quite apt. “Val,” she said gently, “they say there were more children born out of the famine in Ireland than out of prosperity.”

“What in the name of God has that to do with the matter?” Valois leaped out of his chair and began to pace the room. “Can you see it, Richards?”

The producer nodded. “I think I can. Courtship, so they tell me, occurs even among animals.” He took the cigar from his mouth. “If she will do it, I will have Miss Margaret in the role of Mag, even over your protests. It might be very interesting.” He studied the ash on the cigar. “And Miss Haversham may wish she had not been called.”

Peg flew first with her news to Norah, never counting it strange she had not apprised her sister of her training or its purpose although the training had been evident to both Norah and her husband. Dennis had made his own calculations on it, but now the purpose might prosper all of them.

“A sister-in-law an actress,” he said aloud, testing the notion.

“Not just a come-on and go-off sort of actress either,” said Peg. “It’s an excellent part I’ll be playing.”

“Well,” said Dennis, “I thought you playin’ a part since the day I met you.”

Norah rocked the burden within her and began to recount little things in Peg’s childhood pointing ever and anon to the stage had they but the eyes at home to see it. She was turning into a grandmother, Peg thought, and only out of childhood herself.

Dennis poked up the fire. A great lump of plaster surrounded his ear like a dumpling, the last token of his fight with the “Buster.” “Maybe you’ll give me a hand one day on my speakin’.”

“From what I’ve heard you don’t need it,” Peg said.

“Did you hear about it?”

“Didn’t she send round a cake?”

“Oh, aye,” said Dennis, “and my stomach like a sour churn at the sight of it.”

“There were stomachs able enough amongst your chums,” said Norah. “What an army of men brought him home to me, and paradin’ in and out since.”

“They’re all big men,” said Dennis, “and they’re lendin’ me a hand, startin’ again. Did you ever hear of Fernandy Wood?”

“No,” said Peg. “Should I have?”

“He ran for mayor of New York last year.”

“Did he win?”

“God save your ignorance, he’s not a Whig! You’re in America now, girl. You should know what goes on in the country.”

“I dare say Mr. Finn will know about him.”

Dennis scowled. “I’m not askin’ an opinion on the man. I was acquaintin’ you with my acquaintances.”

Peg sighed. The only time she and Dennis could be truly friends was when she needed his help, or perhaps when he needed hers though she doubted the latter. “Aren’t the children up from their naps?” she said. “I’d like to see them before I go.” Little she cared about the children truly, but less about Fernandy Wood.

“Go in, Dennis, and rouse them while I wet the tea,” said Norah. And when he was gone she explained: “He’s as restless now as a cat on a clothesline, but the doctor won’t let him go back to work yet.”

“Will he go back to city roundsman?”

“Indeed he will not. He’s openin’ two markets at once in the spring, the one in the Catherine again and another in the Essex Market.”

“There’s a distance between them,” said Peg.

“He has his own horse in the stable below.”

Peg gathered her gloves. “Norah, you might be interested in my acquaintances this year, too. I’ve been seeing a great deal of Stephen Farrell.”

“Have you,” Norah murmured. “I would love to see him myself. I ever thought he was a fine man.”

“In spite of the bishop?” And in spite of Dennis, she thought, though she did not say it.

“To my way of thinkin’,” Norah said carefully, “it was a matter of politics and I was never much for the clergy in politics, even a bishop.”

Peg caught Norah’s hand and squeezed it. “We’re sisters truly. I don’t think I’ll wait now to see the children. I want to see Vinnie and Mr. Finn.”

“Not even for a cup of tea?” said Norah. Peg shook her head. “Well, I’m glad you come home first with your news.”

Home must have been where she wanted to come, Peg thought, but once here she could not wait to be off again. “You’ll come to the theatre?”

“If needs be with a midwife!” Norah threw back her head then and laughed at her own boldness.

“You should do something about your teeth before they all need pulling,” Peg said. “Bid Dennis God-prosper-him for me.”

“He forgets to come back when he’s with the childer’,” Norah said, and then as they reached the door: “In what way are you acquainted with Mr. Farrell, Peg?”

Peg smiled. “I suppose you might call it a passing fancy. God bless!”

What a week of confusion followed upon that day for Peg. What she did, she did by instinct with scarcely a thought to prompt her. She saw Stephen but once and he swore he would stay to see her debut if she did no more than carry a pitcher upon the stage. She told him nothing of Gallus Mag, not even the name or her nature. Why she did not tell him more, she could not say, refusing to think about it even were she mistress of her own thoughts. Norah had carried the news to Mary Lavery, and Kevin’s wife to her good friend, Mrs. Riordon, who pretended a knowledge of it already rather than confess herself surprised by one of her girl’s fortunes. Peg came home that day to find herself moved from the attic nook to the second-floor front with a canopied bed and lace curtains on the window. Mrs. Riordon stood at the door of the room, near shooting her teeth in smiling pride.

“Are you to be a star, Mrs. Lavery tells me you are?”

Peg screamed at her in rage. “Put me back in the rookery! By what right do you move my things without my permission?”

For once Mrs. Riordon did not feel herself in command of her own house. “I’ll not charge you more until you can pay,” she said. “I thought you’d like it and need the room for your practice, they tell me.”

“Who tells you?” Mrs. Riordon shrugged helplessly. “Well, I’ll tell you,” Peg shrieked. “I’ll do my practice now upon the stage, and precious little I could have done here to get upon it. Bring up my things!”

She ran from the room and up the trembling steps to her old nook. There she flung herself upon the naked mattress and spent her wrath in tears. Was nothing familiar to be left her at all? Was the world she knew to crumble beneath her before her foot was steady upon another?

She was fresh from the tears when Mrs. Riordon appeared in the door with a cup of broth. “Here, this’ll steady your nerves. You must be under a terrible strain they tell me…a terrible strain it must be to be under.”

Peg laughed aloud at the woman’s attempt to break a habit to please her. Mrs. Riordon fled her as she would a madwoman. “Never mind my things!” Peg called after her. “I’ll move down after all.” Why not? What was treasurable here or in any part of her past to cling to? Home? What was home but sleep? She sipped the broth and wondered what kind of teeth Gallus Mag would have. She might blacken out one or two in the front.

Valois did not abandon her. There were times she wished he would. “There is but one way to cope with the inevitable,” he said. “Accept it.” And having said that, he set about making his own analysis of Gallus Mag. He was not long about it when he came up with a complete grotesque: the pitiable toy of the depraved who would bray her lines like an idiot. Seeing his notion of the role, Peg could understand his horror of it; but she was not strong enough in experience to fight him. She scarcely knew how to express her own concept, and his was easier by far. And often the line between them blurred. Yet at the end of every torturous day with him, she tried to remember her first feelings for Mag: pity that a woman so needed love that she took it as a street bawd; and she was “gallus” because she was gallant, gallant and uncomplaining. If she could but cling to this concept until she was called for rehearsal, then with Mr. Richards’ help, she might save something of it.

She lay one night, near fevered with the thought of it, and rose to stand before the open window, the cold wind sluicing her body. In the morning she awoke with a chill and a head giddy with cold. Mrs. Riordon came up when she failed to appear for breakfast, and soon had a doctor in to attend her. In her first comfortable moments Peg took comfort in the illness itself. Assured of recovery on staying a few days in bed, she knew she was free of Valois until rehearsal commenced.

7

THE GREEN ROOM WAS crowded with players for the cast of the play was enormous. It might well be the corner of Broadway and Chambers, so motley were the costumes…tall-hatted gentlemen of Wall Street, bowlered toughs from The Points, campaigners from the Mexican War, whalers, clerks, firemen, dustmen; ladies of fashion and women of none, sewing girls, matchgirls, and the wistful peddler of hot corn. Small camaraderie there was amongst the actors beyond a nod or a wink. Instead of a greeting, you got a man’s lines in your face, or a bit of business tried on your humor. For Peg, the moment she left the dressing-room, her hair done in straggles over her bare shoulders, the part was in straggles as well. She could remember her lines but in snatches and her business not at all. She was not out of the fever by any means, she thought, and the doctor was mad to have called her well. She lost her way to the Green Room and was shooed by the prompter like a cat through the scenery. Better by far he had shooed her into the street. Her mind was a-churn with the shame of rehearsals, the titters and bawls at her ignorance. She could see Val’s face, phosphoric as the devil’s whenever she closed her eyes, or the Richards cigar pumping smoke like a railway engine. That it must be which was choking her now, for she hadn’t the breath to quiver a cobweb.

A party of newsboys rushed in, hired from the streets at sixpence a head. A wall rose between them and the actors and its substance might as well have been mortar. Peg lept over it, let the players think of her what they might. The boys were like Vinnie when first she knew him, and like Vinnie, they made her a welcome. “Where’s yer slung-shot, Mag?” cried one to her. Mother of God, they knew her for the part she’d play! She pulled from the folds of her ragged skirt the stocking knotted at the toe with a potato in it and whirled it over their heads. “Gallus!” they cried. “My eyes, ’Tis her!” they cried till the players hushed them and shushed them down. A little bell rang at the door; another was ringing on stage. In a moment the curtain would rise on Mrs. Haversham and her lover. The call boy appeared in the doorway, taking the uppermost sheet from his fistful of papers. “Miss Trueheart, you are called,” his small soprano sang out. He stood a moment, his eyes contemptuous upon the newsboys before he disappeared. The newsboys brayed after him like donkeys until Peg stilled them. Miss Trueheart left the Green Room, the players sharing her scene in her wake. The stage manager came to instruct the newsboys again; they would come on with Gallus Mag. Small need had they of such instruction. “A fine house,” the manager told an actor, “but cold. They’re sitting on their hands to warm them.” Peg shook off her thoughts of the house. Better think it empty, or peopled only with strangers. Her hands were wet and her throat was dry and her knees no stronger than jelly.

“Gallus Mag, you are called.”

The newsboys made a rush for the door, contriving to trample his highness, the call boy, and carrying Peg on their drive. Otherwise she’d have never got on. But once hell-bent for the stage, she took command of the boys and held them, bear cubs in her power. Gallus Mag’s been called, she said over and over to herself, and damn her eyes but she’ll answer! At the prompter’s cue she unleashed the boys, and they whooped and hollered sweeping onto the stage where a muss was being enacted, Yankee Nolan thumped into a pulp by Killer McVey. “Gallus Mag’s a-comin’,” the newsboys heralded, “Mag’s a-comin’, Killer, beware!”

Peg dangled the slung-shot from her wrist as a lady might her parasol, put her chin in the air and made her entrance. Silence fell on the scene as had been directed while Gallus Mag strolled on. As relaxed as a kitten she came, her shoulders swaying a little, her hips a little, defiance in every step. The footlights made a curtain. Beyond them might lie a graveyard, and the only life in the world waited its start with her words when she reached the prone man on the stage. She stood a moment and looked down at him and then raised her eyes to Killer McVey. “I’m feelin’ mighty lovin’ toward that man,” she said, and with a twist of her wrist brought the slung-shot up and felled the Killer with it. They had worked for hours on the timing and the Killer went down as though he’d been caught on the chin with a rock.

There was no other word for the sound from the audience then but a roar. It started in the pit and echoed in the gallery. Wave after wave of cheering and stamping. The boys recognized their Mag and gave her welcome. Nothing she had ever known was like this, Peg thought. Her feet seemed clamped to the floor. The manager was waving from the wings. She could not guess his meaning. The Killer got to his feet then. “You’d better turn ’round to them, Mag,” he said, smiling. “It’s you they’re cheering, not me.” But she caught his hand and as she turned pulled him into the bow with her. Even the actors joined the applause, and the newsboys jumped up and down with glee. The house would not be quiet. Mr. Richards gave up his pantomime from the wings and came on the stage. “We’ll take it again from Mag’s entrance and play through,” he said, then herding the newsboys off the stage.

The play went on and oh, the challenge Peg met to convey the true Mag after so broad an introduction; but meet it she did, and even some men in the audience wept when Mag in the end, and according to the legend after which the scene was fashioned, goes a little mad upon the death of her lover and is carried to the door of the asylum van reciting: “The quality of mercy is not strained…” Gallus Mag, the story had it, was an actress who fell upon hard times in the wake of scandal, and set herself to scourge the city.

8

MR. FINN MADE A supper party that night to which were invited Peg’s family, friends and theatre acquaintances. Vinnie was charged to bring the guest of honor. It was a weeping Peg he found in the dressing-room when he was allowed to go down. Most of the cast had departed, yet the crowd outside was hanging on for a sight of her.

“Are you watering the flowers, Peg?” the boy said from the doorway. The drab little room was crowded with great vulgar clumps of them.

“Oh, Vinnie,” she wailed, throwing her arms around him. “I feel so lonesome.”

“You won’t when you see the crowd outside. I’ve got a carriage waiting you, and everybody’s at Mr. Finn’s.”

“Are they?” said Peg, changing from tears to smiles. She turned to the square of looking glass and from the table took a string of pearls out of a case. “Look, Vinnie.”

“They’re cracking,” he said in awe as she fastened them about her neck. They fell like a circle of snowdrops on the dark red velvet of her bodice. “Are they from Mr. Farrell?”

She nodded. “Just before curtain a messenger brought them. Will he be there, too?” She had hoped it might be Stephen when Vinnie came to her door.

“I don’t know,” the boy said. “He was invited, so was Mr. Valois, and Dennis and Norah and…”

Peg laughed. “A prince’s mixture! Poor Val, he’ll be swimming again in Irishmen. Vinnie…” She grew serious then. “Was I really good?”

“I thought you were wonderful.”

“Everybody says it. Wait till I tell you who all was in. Even some critics, Vinnie. ’Tis very unusual.” She caught his face between her hands and pulled it down, kissing him gently on the mouth. “Here,” she said, getting up and gathering one bouquet of flowers which she put in his arms to carry. “These are the only ones I’m keeping. Remember?” He nodded, for these were the flowers he had sent her. “I’ve left word for all the rest to be sent to the Cathedral.” She flung her cloak about her shoulders. “Oh, Vinnie, be proud and happy for me!”

“Peg,” he said, “I love you.”

She hugged him. “Then carry me off, for I love you, too.”

“Eleven o’clock call in the morning, Miss Margaret,” the doorman said. She had taken Valois’ advice and was billed under the one name.

“Thank you, Tom,” Peg sang out. Streets was to play every night until further notice and the play must be cut in the morning.

In the little alleyway to the stage door there were people waiting still. “Three cheers for Miss Margaret!” came the cry when she stepped through the door. She stood under the lantern a moment and smiled around. Then she plucked a few flowers out of Vinnie’s bouquet and threw them toward the ladies. The clapping of hands accompanied her to the carriage.

She sat back in its quiet darkness and held Vinnie’s hand.

“Peg, I lied to you,” the boy burst out when they had traveled a few blocks. “Mr. Farrell won’t be there tonight. He asked me to give you his regrets.”

“Just that,” said Peg, after a moment. “Not a note? Nothing?”

“That’s all,” Vinnie said.

“When did you see him?”

“When I was waiting for you.”

“Vinnie, tell the driver to turn around. I want to go first to Bleecker Street.”

“Peg, they’re waiting at home.”

“Let them wait. Tell him, Vinnie, or I shall.”

Vinnie tapped on the panel and instructed the driver.

“He didn’t like me,” Peg said. “I suppose I knew from the beginning he wouldn’t like it. That’s why I never told him what the part was.” She gave a cold little laugh, her anger mounting. “He and Val, a pair! What fools! I degraded myself, I suppose. I should have minced upon the stage, a true Miss Trueheart…”

“Please, Peg,” Vinnie pleaded. “Let’s not go all the way up there. I haven’t enough money for the carriage.”

“I have,” she said, “and I shall have hereafter.”

“But he mayn’t even be there!”

“Ah, but he will. I know him. He’ll have gone home to brood upon his opinion.”

And he was home. He came to the door at Peg’s ring.

“May I come in?” she said. She went into the drawing-room where, by the signs, he had set himself up for contemplation before the fire. A glass of sherry had been poured and his pipe sat by the crock of tobacco. “Whatever your weaknesses, Stephen, I never thought you a coward.”

“I should have written you tonight,” he said.

“Why? To give me a letter—something to keep in remembrance along with tonight’s bill, my call sheet, a flower I should press in a prayer book, and maybe with these?” She took the pearls from about her neck.

“Those were for you, Margaret. Not for Gallus Mag.”

“Tonight I was Gallus Mag, and will be tomorrow night and as many nights as she is welcome on the stage. I’ve forgot the box they came in. I’ll send it round.” She laid the jewels upon the mantel.

“You needn’t, for I’ll not be here to receive it,” he said in a sudden wrath of his own. “God in heaven, Margaret, why did you do it?”

“Because I am an actress.”

“Oh, you are, and a fine one. The part should never have been played.”

“I did not write it.”

“You gave it life as no playwriter could have given it.”

“And well I might,” she cried. “I’ve had a lifetime to study her likes!”

“And you’d have the world study it with you. There is not a magazine in the country, not a newspaper that doesn’t show the Irishman half-man, half-ape. Not a part can he play on the stage except to be their clown. When he wins the day it’s by chance as a child might and at the curtain’s fall he’s left scratching his head in wonder as to how he did it. That’s the legend they want of us: sluts, drunkards and braggarts, court fools at our best. That’s what you gave them tonight, a drunken slut who might have been a woman. She would not have been tolerated on the stage were she any race but Irish, and I say God damn you, Margaret, for playing it.”

His words fell upon her like a lash and she lifted her head a little the better to endure them. When he was done she stood quite still for a moment for she could say nothing.

“Oh, Margaret, Margaret,” he said finally, “you look like a queen standing there. And queens we have had in our history, Maeve and Deirdre, as proud as any reigned the earth. When will come the poets to remind us of them, to lead us out of this degradation?”

Peg lifted her hand to the mantel and touched her finger to the pearls. “I think Gallus Mag is a queen,” she said quietly and turned to him. “Goodbye, Stephen.”

“Take the pearls, Margaret. Please take them.”

She smiled. “I think not.” She shrugged a little, pulling her cloak tighter about her. “Truly, I don’t like souvenirs.”

PART IV

1

“IF IFS AND ANDS were pots and pans there’d be no use for tinkers’ hands.”

When Peg awoke that morning to the chambermaid’s tap upon her door she lay quite still for a few seconds and cast her eyes about the room to find some object by which to distinguish it from all other hotel rooms. She listened to hear some sound without her window to distinguish the city from other cities. Churchbells, peal after peal of them, in tune and out. But one city in America rejoiced in such clamor, New Orleans.

The chambermaid came in and set her breakfast tray on the bedside table. She was a dark handsome girl with the high cheekbones of the Indian and the skin of an African. “Wake up, Missee. This is ’appy day.”

“If I marry him,” Peg said, remembering suddenly the day it was. “Or perchance if I don’t…”

The Creole showed her strong white teeth in a knowing smile. Such doubts did not beset her, Peg thought. Likely she was oft married and should know. “If,” the girl said reproachfully, and shook her head as though there was no possibility of an “if” at all. Then ran the Irish saying through Peg’s mind: If ifs and ands were pots and pans, there’d be no use for tinkers’ hands. She must confess herself in the afternoon—if, and pack this morning—if. That at least must be done, no ifs and ands about it.

If ifs and ands were pots and pans…If Mr. Finn had not had a friend named Valois…If Mr. Richards had not had a mistress, or if his mistress had fancied herself as Gallus Mag and not Miss Trueheart. A pale Mag she might have been and soon have faded altogether, to reappear perchance a Juliet and never queried “Why for hast no slung-shot, Juliet?” Ah, Mag, thy name is legend, more famous far than Tam-o-Shanter’s mare, for all that the better part of each of you has proved a horse’s ass. New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Charleston, New Orleans…St. Louis, Cincinnati and New Orleans again: give us a scene from The Streets of New York, one scene’s enough—The Gallus Mag scene to fill our bill! A tasty piece to garnish Richard II, or if you like to soberize a minstrel show, to split a ballet program, or to liven up a patriotic tableau. A good mixer, Mag, half-gal, half-gamin. And Miss Margaret. Who? Miss Margaret. Margaret Hickey. Who? Oh, Mag, the one plays Mag! Of course! She’s gallus, as they say up New York way. For God’s sake, let us sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of an actress’ fame.

Her trunk locked and strapped at last, she went to the hotel window, parted the netting and stepped out on the iron-railed balcony. New Orleans in June: the torpid heat already hung upon the city, fouling the air with a sick-sweet smell, making the starched linens of morning the rags of the afternoon, muffling the garbled patois of Creoles and Negroes into a common tongue to her ear at last. Even the church bells seemed muted. The fear of death, fear of the Yellow Jack hung in the air like the blasphemies of a pious man. Was it here Evangeline found her lover? She could not remember, nor could she remember where she had heard the poem, or read it, in what magazine, in what hotel, in what city. Only the sweet sadness of it lingered with her: love enduring, love pursued, not fled. And I say God damn you, Margaret…Goodbye, Stephen. You cursed me better than you knew.

Down the narrow street then, almost skipping in his haste, looked after like a madman to so speed his health away in the midday heat, came the man she waited. Scarcely a man; scarcely more than a downy youth; her own age, over twenty-one, but younger by far. Yet old enough to vote and coming from a great family of voters. “Why, Miss Margaret, us Stuarts cast enough votes among us to have a representative in Washington to our exclusive interests.” “And what, pray, are your interests, Mr. Stuart?” “You, Miss Margaret, if you’ll excuse my boldness. I got no interests in heaven or earth since meetin’ you, exceptin’ you.”

He had shown no other certainly, proclaiming business in St. Louis when she was programmed there, accounting his devotion up and down the river, and his fortune: enough to take them both to California to find gold. Cotton was his family’s business, and a brother raised sugar cane. But he himself was disinherited until he made good on his own. A kind of gentleman he was, making up in manners what he lacked in education. And ignorant he was, even by his own reckoning: “You’ll teach me, Peg, for I need learnin’. My brothers went abroad, and one went up to Yale. Damn near turned Yankee, Josh did. Pa said that was enough. He wasn’t spendin’ no more money to turn his family Abolitionist. I didn’t care much till now, to tell the truth. I never saw a book I liked as well as a pine wood in the fall. But pine woods get lonesome to a man in love.” Books get lonesome, too, Peg thought, to one in or out of love.

She waved him a welcome now, Matt Stuart, for he had seen her watching and doffed his hat to bow with it at first and then to flourish it above his head as though to hail a queen. Queen Mag…I think Gallus Mag is a queen…She closed her eyes as though it were the sun’s fault she could not keep the daylight from that corner of her mind. When she opened them she needed to lean over the railing to look down upon the man, the boy she had consented to marry.

He stood, his hat in one hand and a yellow paper in the other, the sweat glistening on his face. “Look,” he cried, waving the paper. “I got a telegraph from Mobile. I got Pa’s blessin’.”

Whose blessing did she have? No one’s, having sought none. She nodded and smiled, playing the beloved like so many of the New Orleans women she had watched. With fans and jewels, they pretended no life save coquetry, no interest in themselves save their lovability. They would acquiesce to a dance at the squeak of a jews-harp, at the beck of a cock or a cuckold, and smile in content at their own grace if they had no more of it than a duck’s waddle. To be loved was the thing—more important by far than to love.

He pursed his mouth in the shape of a kiss, the gesture making his gaunt cheeks more gaunt. He was fair and very tall, and his eyes, large and round like a hungry child’s, were the color of the juniper berry.

“May I come up now, Margaret? Are you ready for me, beloved?”

“Beloved,” she repeated, contemplating the word, not the person. She nodded that she was ready.

The church bells were still pealing when she withdrew into the room and let the netting fall. His knock was at the door.

Queen Mag is dead. Long live the queen!

They were married at vesper-time and went immediately aboard the steamer. A long voyage, the captain promised, shaking hands with his twelve passengers, but by my soul a pleasant one, with seven ports of call before Magellan Strait, a rough nine thousand miles, and another nine thereafter to the port of San Francisco. Two months travel, luck with them. “Without it maybe three. “But what odds that, eh, Mr. Stuart?” This with a wink and a nod to which Matt brayed a laugh that turned all eyes on himself and his bride. He had never before been to sea or to marriage and he could not anticipate a surfeit of either.

Peg directed which of her luggage she wanted up and which they might put down, and learned that the cabin boy’s name was Chancey. From him she learned, too, that aboard were a doctor and wife guarding their supplies, a schoolmaster and marm with a cargo of spellers and primers, and a half-dozen women fearful of the Indians overland or by Isthmus, but set on joining their husbands, wanted or no. A small opinion of women on water, the boy had. By his tune he would sooner transport a parcel of monkeys. The ship was ladened with cotton shirts and breeches, pick-axes and shovels, playing cards and gaming tables, and spirits by the case. They would load sugar at Havana, coffee off Brazil, and Chancey would round Cape Horn for the fourth time and the last as cabin boy, “but don’t tell the captain on me. I’m after gold mysel’ this time, for a man gets weary o’ the sea.” Weary at sixteen and reconciled at sixty, Peg thought, whether of the sea or the plow or the stage.

Weary of that she was herself, and resolved to go no more a-trouping. A good wife she’d be, all loved if not all loving, docile and obedient and please God, bearing children by the name of Stuart. Matt should name the first were it a boy, and the second boy she would call Stephen, Stephen Vincent. Family names, Matt, family names. And when they returned from California they would take their place, their tract of land and brace of slaves among the voting Stuarts of the state of Alabama. Time and again she bade Matt tell her of plantation life and what would be expected of her: congeniality and grace, kind firmness with the slaves: “As if God gave ’em to you like children to watch over and take care they don’t go lazy.” Why was it necessary, she wondered, to buy at auction what God gave into your care. She thought about it, but said nothing, remembering nonetheless Mr. Finn’s Nancy, a cogent, religious woman less the child by far than many an Irish immigrant, or for that matter, a certain Southern gentleman of her intimate acquaintance.

What a different passage this from her first sea voyage: a cabin to themselves with a dressing table and a writing table (which the engine palsied) and shelves in which to stand her unboxed books; dinner at the captain’s table, musicals by members of the ship’s crew in the ladies’ saloon, a pot of coffee in the morning with the captain’s compliments, a bottle of wine from his own store at night to mellow the spirits and calm them as the sea.

“Do you love me, Peg?”

Over and over, Matt asked the question, more frequently it seemed with each day out. They might be sitting in the saloon, listening to the second mate sing “Then You’ll Remember Me,” and he would whisper it. Across the whist table he would shape the words with his lips, during a spirit rapping (for one of the ladies proclaimed herself a medium). Alone in their cabin, his head in her lap while she read aloud the poems of Keats and Byron, he would sometimes move the book from her face and search her eyes for something perhaps he feared to find, and ask again: “Do you love me, Peg?”

“Of course, I love you, Matt.”

“Forever and ever?”

“As I love you now,” she answered, mocking only herself a little in the words.

He was a timid lover, for all his protests of devotion, and she knew no more of him a month at sea than she had known in the beginning because, she thought, there was no more to know. Whatever he got from her reading, if anything, she got no more than a sigh to reward her for it. She must take his patience for his thanks. What, she wondered then, did he get from her? The joy of possessing? Was that it? And was that why he must ask the question endlessly—to assure himself that he possessed her? His mother had died in giving birth to him, and he had told her once the only love he had as a child came from his black mammy. And he owned her, body and soul, a chattel. Perhaps, Peg decided, she knew more of him than she thought.

One afternoon when they were standing alone at the rail, he said: “Peg, I decided there’s something I ought to tell you. There was a girl once home and I made love to her…”

From where, Peg wondered, came this sudden confession. “I’ve been made love to many times, Matt,” she said quietly when he hesitated, shy of what he himself had commenced.

He threw back the thatch of hair from his forehead. “I did more than that,” he said. “I got her with child.”

It was not a confession, she realized, if it was the truth at all. He needed now to boast his manhood to her. She felt so much older than him that moment that she smiled a little sadly.

“You mustn’t take it hard,” he said, interpreting her expression to his needs. “Men do things like that. It’s their nature—hot-blooded-like.”

“Oh,” said Peg. “I’m glad to be enlightened on the nature of men.”

“There,” he said, putting his hand on hers where it lay on the rail, “you mustn’t be jealous. It wasn’t anything really.” He moistened his lips and blinked his eyes like a delighted boy. He had hoped to see her jealous, and hoping it, believed it to be so. “My father settled it…with her father.”

“And who settled it with her?”

“A cousin,” he said. “Not a kin cousin, you understand.”

“What other kinds of cousins are there?”

“Marryin’ cousins.”

“Oh.”

“Peg…do you love me in spite of it?” He put his arm about her, his fingers playing at her breast beneath the shawl.

She drew away until she could look into his face. “Or because of it—that’s what you truly mean, isn’t it, Matt?”

He blushed and then went white. “You got no cause to be readin’ me like one of them goddam books. I’m your husband, and I’ll do the readin’ after this.”

She turned from him and climbed the steps to the cabin where she threw the latch on the door and sat down on the edge of the bunk. Everything was not going to be all right after all. Her penance was not done. Confessed and married by a priest, she was not shriven because there was no penitence in her heart. Therefore was she married? Once more she had decided what was right for Peg and launched herself upon it, and in such a manner that to escape must mean upheaval. Escape what to what? The mistake was the long journey by water. Overland they would have laid bare their flesh to hardship, their souls to survival and not to one another’s barbs. Poor lad to need to make such boasts. Poor lad, she told herself…and yet, kin cousins and marrying cousins. Conveniences, no less. But was her marriage more to her?

A bottle of wine lay nested in the basket and suddenly it seemed the company she most needed. But Matt was at the door before she had the cork drawn.

“Margaret, let me in. I’m heart-sorry. Please, Peg.”

The men would be looking down at him from the bridge, or the watch from the look-out, and in their galley that night the seamen would confirm amongst themselves what their glances already foretold of the wedding couple: gold they’ll never find together though California’s shining with it. She put the bottle away and unlatched the door.

He did not wait for it to close upon him, throwing himself on his knees, his arms about her waist. She leaned across him and slammed the door while his hands clung to her. “I know I ain’t the man you wanted, Peg. I just ain’t good enough, but I swear as God is in His heaven and my mother in the grave, I’ll be a better man than you ever thought of. Just don’t let your eyes go cold on me. I know there’s someone else you’re thinkin’ of and measurin’ me. I’ll show you my measure, Peg, I swear it. There wasn’t any girl and no child either. I’m startin’ life with you…”

“I know, I know,” Peg crooned, finally muffling his voice against her breast as she cradled his head in her arms. As near as she came to loving him was in these moments when he was more a child than lover.

“I won’t ever say things like that again, Peg.”

She smiled, and lifted his chin, looking deep into the frightened eyes. He got to his feet. So tall he was she had to tilt back her head to look at him. “Let’s make no promises we cannot keep, Matt.”

“Then promise me somethin’ we can keep,” he said. “Don’t go away and leave me like that again. Just hit me hard across the mouth when I start the dirty sass, but don’t turn your back and leave me all alone. Promise me that much?”

“That much. Shall we go out on the deck,” said Peg, “and show ourselves again as lovers?”

“It isn’t like a part you’re playin’ on the stage, is it?”

She looked at him in the shuttered light, surprised by the remark and for the first time a little ashamed before him. “Not if you can make it real, Matt,” she said.

He caught her in his arms and lifted her from the floor. “I’ll try, honey, I’ll try.”

She crushed her mouth to his ear as though she would bruise her lips. “Get me with child, Matt. For the love of God, get me with child.”

2

“ONLY A MADMAN SAILS his ship into San Francisco Bay,” said the captain, “and madman I am, but a wise one. Lloyd’s will pay her owners if she never sails out again, and me the courts exonerate, for no man sails alone.” The crew were beady-eyed and restless, sniffing the air for land like hound dogs scenting game. They’d mutiny now could they swim ashore and to the last man, their pay collected, they were expected to desert. “The chances are, of course,” the captain further said, “I’ll sign on as many strangers as regulars desert me, for all that come do not find gold no more than all men enter heaven, and some who find it lose it.” The croupier’s rake is mightier than the pick and stripped to the croupe is many a man, however rich were his diggings. Oh Susanna, wait a while for me. When I’m back from California, then you can cry for me.

As Peg took joy in the sight of the town, Matt seemed to resent it because it lay between him and the gold fields. He counted the hundred idled ships in the bay, but only to number the men before him in the diggings, behaving, Peg thought, as though it were he who had discovered the gold and all the rest were invaders. No eyes had he for the hoveled hills of the city, were it not for the everlasting sun, as shoddy and patched with dwellings as Squattertown, New York. Nor did he mind the poppies where they grew as though the earth were stabbed and bleeding. No wonder had he for the bowed “Chinee” upon the streets, nor for the Spaniards, proud as bulls, nor for the lithe, rust-colored Indian women who spat on men, alike their own and frenzied strangers, and carried their children upon their backs as though they could not bear to see the faces begotten of them by man.

Matt would prance beside her passing the gaudy, glittering palaces of Portsmouth Square, raised to gambling, most of them, to all the luxury gold could buy, where pocket merchants sold diamonds and purging pills and carried a scale in a carpetbag with which to weigh the gold dust. “All this I’ll buy you, Peg. I swear it.” All what? “All the champagne you can drink. You’ll wear diamonds in your hair and have gowns of East Indian silk.” If God hung a sign on the sun: PURE GOLD, she thought, he would start building himself a ladder.

“Tomorrow we’ll go,” Matt said from the first day of their arrival.

“Another day, Matt,” she pleaded, “one more day in civilization. I never loved the sky so much as when there’s land beneath it, and people on the land.”

“The less people we see where we’re goin’,” said Matt, “the better I’ll like it.”

“Matt, I’ll be a hindrance to your speed,” she said finally. “Go without me and return the sooner.”

“What would you do while I’m gone?” he said, and she knew then he was tempted.

“Sit amongst the women at the Gibbons House and dream.”

“Of what?”

“Of diamonds in my hair and gowns of East Indian silk.”

“And of your husband?”

“As often, surely.”

“I’ll go,” he said, “as you say to be back the sooner.”

She tried to still the sudden throb of her heart at the thought of freedom. “Matt,” she said, and out of conscience, “don’t stay forever if you don’t find gold.”

He scowled and set his jaw. “I’ll find it. And you better fix to help me find it, Peg, because we ain’t goin’ home without it. I’m takin’ you back to Alabama in silks, not in the rags of Gallus Mag.”

“Dear man,” she said, and touched her fingers to his scowl, “just remember, it isn’t men you’re fighting, or me, or your father. It’s nature. The gold you’re after is in the earth, and the earth is a vast place.”

He ran his tongue over his lips and nodded. “Will you pray for me, Peg?”

“I will,” she said. “I’ll remember my prayers while you’re gone.”

And he was off within three days, partnered with a Charleston lawyer, a Mexican Campaign veteran who was wily in the ways of men and mules, a team of which he shared with Matt at Matt’s expense, although in justice to him it needed to be said he bought the wagon. Peg stood on the veranda of the Gibbons boarding house and waved them out of sight. She was alone at last as she had never thought to be alone again. If he could bring her all he promised, she would love him no more for it, and if he brought her nothing, no less. She had not told him that. What use to tell him when he could measure himself only by what he could give her? She was not with child. Half his allowance was spent thus far. If he did not strike gold would the other half be spent in searching it? What then? It was a strange thing, she thought, to promenade the dusty streets of San Francisco with only a wedding ring to look upon as consort.

Day by day, the memory of Matt Stuart seemed to fade. Even his weekly letters accounting work and love and other men’s gold failed to conjure it. She could scarcely remember his face, or his voice save for the twang of it or his bad grammar when she heard another make his mistakes. Ha! that Peg Hickey should know bad grammar from good, or grammar at all itself! Peg Hickey. Margaret Stuart, a fine-sounding name that upon a playbill. God forbid her the thought!

What theatres there were in San Francisco had burned to the ground the summer before, some not once but twice, and yet another house named The Jenny Lind was up, and others in the building. Players there were a-plenty from Australia and New York. Not the least amongst them arrived and opening soon, the venerable Junius Brutus Booth and family. He had called upon her once as Mag, albeit on the arm of a young protégé more enthusiastic than his master, but he had complimented her and she expected never to forget the moment. God restrain her from calling now on him!

Peg stayed indoors the night he opened, her only company the spinstery wife of an evangelical preacher. She loathed the theatre, the evangelist’s wife, counting it lower yet than the gaming table, and pined after the souls of her veranda cronies as they departed in conviviality to sin. Peg made herself prim as a chipmunk and read aloud the woman’s Bible to her.

“My dear, you read like a true believer,” the woman said. “Wherever did you learn it?”

“Learn what?”

“To read the scriptures with such feeling.”

“It’s my business,” Peg said.

“I don’t understand,” said the woman. “Are you a Bloomer?”

Peg wondered if Bloomers were not even more offensive to the woman than all other mode of sinners. “No,” she said. “I am an actress.”

“Oh, no,” the woman whispered.

Peg arose and put the Bible at its owner’s side. “Didn’t you know the devil teaches scripture to his own purpose?” she said maliciously.

By evening of the day that followed everyone in the house knew that she was an actress. The men were more willing of conversation with her and the women more watchful of the men. “And what have you played in, my dear, and where, and should I have heard your name?” “My name is Margaret Stuart and I played Juliet to Hackett’s Romeo in New York town, and I’ve played Beatrice, Lady Teazle and Pauline and Rosalind…” (all the latter of course to Mr. Valois.) “But certainly, certainly, I remember you, Miss Stuart! You did Kate with that chap, what’s his name?” “David Valory,” said Peg. “That’s right, I was in the house that night.” If you were, thought Peg, you were in the commode, for the only Kate I ever did was in Mr. Valois’ parlor.

“Well, Miss Stuart, I wondered where I’d seen you. Permit me to re-introduce myself. My card.”

Thomas Foley, she read, ENTERTAINMENTS AND CURES. He was a man of fair height and considerable girth, and what she had most noticed about him before was the enormous silk vest he required to cover his stomach. He wore a watch chain across it from which dangled several fobs and all of them tinkled like bells against the chain when he laughed. He was fifty-odd years and his face yellowed beneath the brown beard from the wind and weather of an overland crossing.

“An excellent combination, Mr. Foley,” she said, “entertainments and cures. Do you administer them in that order?”

The fobs tinkled as he laughed. “You’re Irish,” he said.

“So I’ve been told.”

“By who?”

“By my mother, sirrah.”

“Ha! How long you’ve been here and unnoticed, Miss Stuart. But not by me. I’ve been biding my time and making inquiries. Not about you, but on your behalf, if you’ll permit me to say it. I knew you for an actress from the day you said goodbye to your husband.”

“Then you know me for a wife and therefore an actress no longer.”

“I know many a wife an actress,” said Foley, “and some the better at one for the other. Does your husband forbid it?”

Peg lifted her chin and said, “Yes.”

“You tell me yes and your eyes say no, which if I’m not mistaken, tells me the decision was of your making. Therefore can it be unmade by you if you are properly persuaded.”

“If I am properly persuaded,” Peg granted.

“”Will you take a cognac and coffee with me, Mrs. Stuart?”

“Where?”

“Oh, bless you, in the saloon if you like. My intentions are most honorable. Indeed I have a wife to whom I’m devoted. I might even say she is indispensable to me. She compounds my cures.”

“And plays in your entertainments?”

Foley shook his head. “Only in preference to taking her own compounds.”

There were no doubt some in San Francisco who considered Tom Foley a humbug, but the town was full of humbugs, and few of them provided as much amusement as did Foley. He had brought a circus troupe from the States consisting of three trained dogs and a performing horse. He added two dancing ladies from Australia, an Oriental acrobat and a Mexican snake-charmer recruited in the West. He was amongst the first entertainers to reach California, and when he lacked enough talent to make up an evening’s bill in the town, he betook himself with a banjo and whatever of his troupe he could transport into the mining camps. By day he peddled his cures, by night what he called Tom Foley’s Fooleries, and by the time Peg met him, he had acquired a fair-sized fortune.

“Like every clown who fancies himself a Hamlet,” Foley said, “I’ve for a long time looked to myself as a purveyor of genuine theatricals.”

To that purpose he had recruited himself a company and insisted that Peg meet them. As young as spring were most of them, and as eager to partake in Foley’s stock company as Foley was to launch it. The men must sometimes play as women even as in Shakespeare’s day, but never as leading ladies, Foley vowed. “Fool’s gold they’re getting enough in the hills. They’d tar and feather us to fool ’em here.”

Peg consented at least to a reading with them, having met the players and John Redmond who was to be the manager. She had forgotten his name, but the very night before she had been thinking of him: he was the lad who had brought Booth to see her at the Broadway. Not quite a lad now, and given more to melancholy by his looks than to easy praise, he took her hand in greeting as though never before on earth had their eyes met.

Redmond held the script on her reading of Katherina in The Taming of the Shrew and she was scarcely well begun when he flung the script to the prompter and played Petruchio himself. The excitement that ran through Peg was akin to the thrill of love. He was Petruchio and she must now be Kate, and would be: Kate alive and waking where Peg had gone to bed. A lifetime there seemed in those few moments, and when the scene ended both she and Redmond were wary again of each other and shy in their brief acquaintance. Not so Tom Foley; he came up wiping the tears from his eyes and kissed them both.

Had she been stronger, Peg could not have resisted the offer, and she wrote Matt by the next supply caravan. “A hundred dollars a week,” she wrote, “and a monthly benefit performance. In this way, my dear, I shall be helping. If fortune is slow in yielding to your pick and shovel, we shall be able to keep hammering at her until she gives in.”

Having dispatched the letter, she went directly into rehearsal.

3

FOR THREE WEEKS THEY rehearsed night and day, adding to the Shrew two modern comedies of domestic trial and triumph. Tom Foley had been to the diggings long enough to know the heart’s yearning of the men for home and hearth. “You can do one aristocratic piece to happify yourselves,” he told his manager, “to two for bread and gravy.” John Redmond yielded. To play upon the stage was all he asked. In truth, Peg thought, he was a pale and paltry sort not on it, given to posturing himself a broody poet, selfish and petty, and demanding of the lesser members of the troupe the tribute of court lackeys. “Eddie, will you fetch my cloak?” and the cloak within his reach if he stretched his arm for it. “You there, Michael, my boots are at the cobbler’s. I’ll need them after dinner.” But on the stage he was superb. The grace of a fencing master he had, and a fine voice the power of which he shepherded. “Better they alert themselves to catch the lines than cover their ears lest I split the drums.”

All in all they were weeks of pious ecstasy for Peg. The divorce between Redmond the man and Redmond the actor was ideal to her conscience, and Matt sent a letter in which he blessed her for wanting to help that much, enough to go back on the stage when she had never wanted to again. She had not intended a deception, Peg thought. She had merely changed her mind. Matt was lonely for her and weary and each of his weekly letters grew more maudlin in praise of her self sacrifice and wilder in the things he promised her by way of making up for it. He enjoyed these letters that he wrote, she told herself. She deceived him no more than he deceived himself. It was not faith she broke with him, whatever else it was.

Two women were added to the company coming down from Sacramento when word spread of Foley’s troupe. Foley engaged his theatre, the second floor of the finest barroom in town, equipped it, and called it The Rialto. Two thousand people could they manage and with an outside entrance for the ladies. The bills were posted and on November first they opened with The Taming of the Shrew.

New York’s Niblo’s could scarcely have boasted a more elegant looking audience, the men in broadcloth swallowtails, the women in silks and cambrics. The rougher their lives in the gold fields, the more delicate their ways in society. If it required adventurers to come the long searching way, the adventurers required a certain patrimony to give them their start. In other words, many a man wearing a red shirt here by day was a gentleman at heart and welcomed a social outing by night to prove it.

The Shrew was much to their delight, and Kate their darling from her first threat to “comb your noddle with a three-legg’d stool.” Indeed, by their response it was apparent they found the Shrew an apt parallel to their own circumstance: it took a Kate to venture west with them, but her having ventured, they did long to tame her.

Call after call Peg took at the curtain, drawing always her Petruchio with her. He scowled and looked to her and not beyond the lights at all: a theatrical as clever as any in his trade, Peg thought, for by their squeals the audience betook him to be Petruchio still, who now upon his conquest would go hence and tumble Kate. With his eye to showmanship, Tom Foley came upon the stage with them at last, and shook his finger at Petruchio, rubbed his beard in sly contemplation and, winking to the house, shooed the lovers off the stage himself. The audience consented then to leave having shared in the final fellowship, and Foley ordered up champagne and oysters while the cast got out of costume.

Peg’s dressing room was improvised of canvas walls, the doorway curtained with a sheet. To it, in her absence, one of the players had pinned a star and hung beneath it was a letter which she took to the spirit lamp on her table and read:

“We have nought to give you but our love and the applause of players.”

From Tom Foley himself to the call boy, the company had signed it. The applause of players…Once again Peg wept, and remembered the night near two years before with Vinnie Dunne standing amongst the flowers in her dressing-room and saying: “I love you, Peg.”

Ah, Vinnie, would you love me now? And would your voice crack saying it? Full seventeen you must be, and almost a man yourself. I did not wait for you, Vinnie. I was never one for waiting. Well, she decided, she would write him now by the next post, perhaps, and if the Alto California were half as complimentary as the audience, she might send him its report and explain to him how it had come to be that she was Margaret Stuart. “I met Matt Stuart in New Orleans,” she might write, “and oh, Vinnie, but I was lonesome of love, heart-weary of Mag and wishing a home like Norah’s…He loves me very much and you would like him…” No, Vinnie would not like him. Matt had no humor; a rollicking sense of fun he had sometimes, but no power of making a joke at all, except to his private fancy. In no way like an Irishman. Dear, dear Vinnie, though I never write, remember me.

She was half undressed, looking now and then from the glass to the players’ letter to stave off a sudden melancholy, when she caught in her eye a little flutter of movement at the curtained entry. She caught up the skirt of the costume to her naked breast, and whirled around in anger at the unannounced intruder.

Matt was standing there as much surprised, by the gaping look of him, as she was. “I’m glad to see you cover up for strangers,” he said without a greeting.

“Strangers at least announce themselves,” she said. “Come in, Matt.”

“You two were mighty lovin’ on that stage,” he said. “You didn’t look much like you were pinin’ after me.”

She smiled, got up and reached her hand for his. “Ah, Matt, I wouldn’t be an actress if I showed my true feelings on the stage. I am glad to see you.”

His face was smudged with dust and the lines of weariness showed through the tan of his skin. He stood, rocking a little, as though fresh from the sea, and by the look he gave her he was deciding whether she was not acting her welcome, too. The fumes of whiskey came to her from his deep breathing. “I got no gold for you, Peg,” he said finally.

“Did I marry for gold, Matt? Did I ask it?” She opened her arms to him and waited.

He stumbled toward her then and the dust seemed to rise from his clothes when he caught her against them. “I was goin’ to bring you a bag of it tonight, Peg. Night and day I’ve been diggin’ and pannin’ till my hands are raw. Oh, Godalmighty, what I was goin’ to bring you when I saw you were playin’ tonight.”

“Yourself is enough,” she said. “Sit down here while I dress. You look worn out.”

“I am wore out, plum,” he said, and eased himself down into the chair. Great blotches of black beneath his eyes gave witness to his words.

“Did you like me?”

“Fine,” he murmured. “Them goddam nancies out there wouldn’t let me in till I swore I was your husband. They don’t know a gen’le-man except by clothes.”

“It was an elegant house,” she said, pulling her gown over her head. He was reading the players’ address when she looked at him again, the puzzled scowl returning to his face. “What part did you like best, Matt?”

“I’ll tell you the God’s truth, I had to go out and get a drink before it was over. My stomach was turnin’.”

“You should have come home a day early and rested,” she said.

“This ain’t home,” he said, “not to me it ain’t, but I should’ve come earlier all right. I should never’ve left you at all.”

“What’s bothering you, Matt? What is it at all?”

“Nothin’,” he said. “Nothin’. Get dressed and let’s go.”

“I can’t go right away, Matt. Mr. Foley’s giving a reception for the cast on stage. I must attend it. I want you to come with me. We needn’t stay long.”

“You want me to come with you. Like hell you do.”

“I wish you would say out what’s troubling you, Matt. I can’t read your mind. I’m sorry you haven’t found the gold you went looking for. Perhaps you will find it yet. But the truth is, I don’t care except that it is so important to you.”

“Maybe you can’t read my mind,” he said, “but I’m beginnin’ to think I can read yours. You don’t care about the gold, no, but you cared damn well to come to California. I’ll tell you what’s come sudden to my mind—you lied to me, Peg, makin’ out all this was for me, makin’ out you were goin’ to be my ever-lovin’ wife when all you wanted was to get shy of me and off on the stage again. I’m sayin’ you calculated this from New Orleans.”

“As God is my witness, Matt,” she said very slowly that anger might not blight her reason, “I should have preferred to go from New Orleans to your home in Alabama and settled there.”

“We couldn’t do it, I told you!” he cried. “Pa won’t give me till I prove myself!”

“Wherever you went, Matt, when we were married I was willing to go, too.”

He caught her arm and pulled her around to where the light shone up on her face. “Then you’ll come back to the diggin’s with me in the mornin’.”

“In the morning we’ll talk about it, Matt,” she said, meeting his eyes. “Now I must fix my hair.” He let her arm go as she leaned across him to reach the comb for her coiffure.

“No, Peg. Now. You can tell ’em goodbye when you go out there. You done real nice for them tonight.”

“Thank you,” she said with irony.

A voice called from beyond the partition. “Are you coming, Margaret?”

“Coming,” she called back.

“Who’s that?” said Matt.

“John Redmond,” she said, smiling quickly as she sometimes did in temper. “”Wouldn’t you like to meet him?”

“Not even in the outhouse,” Matt said.

Without a word she went to the doorway.

“Are you goin’ to tell ’em, Peg?”

“I shall be back in a few minutes, Matt. You can wash at the stand there while you’re waiting if you like.”

“If you don’t tell ’em, I’m comin’ out and do it myself.”

A table was spread on the stage with white linen, and when Peg made her way to it the whole company turned, glasses in hands, to toast her. She curtseyed to the toast and caught up a glass in which the tiny beads were dancing: “To long and prosperous days together.”

“I hear your husband’s returned,” Foley said to her apart.

“He’ll be on the stage any minute, God help us,” Peg said.

“He’s rousin’ drunk, is he? It’s the first thing they do coming back from the fields, or for some of them maybe the second.”

“It’s not amusing,” Peg said. “He wants me to go back with him tomorrow.”

“God’s teeth, he does!” cried Foley. “A pretty chance he has of that. Has he struck it rich?”

For all the success of the night, Peg thought, looking up at the man, the wild gleam came into Foley’s eye at the thought of a rich strike.

“I’m afraid he’s struck it poor,” she said. “That’s the gist of the trouble.”

“Is he jealous?”

“Not really,” Peg said, “although he’d like to think it. He knows I’ve given him no cause.”

“Shall I talk to him, Margaret?”

“He may well insult you. He’s spoiling for a muss, as they say at home.”

“I’ve been insulted by kings.” Foley took a cigar from his pocket case and bit off the tip. He watched her while he held a candle to it. “Does he smoke, this husband of yours?”

Peg sighed. After all the strain and exhilaration, she felt too empty, too weary to cope with the situation, and she knew that in her heart she wished Matt had not come. “He’s too young to smoke,” she said.

When they reached the dressing room Matt was not there.

“Like as not,” said Foley, “he’s loading up downstairs. He’ll not go back himself tomorrow, much less take you.”

Peg shivered. He’s maudlin when he’s sober, she thought, and drunk he’s a gibbering fool. When he was all there was to me I could abide it…“Oh, God,” she said, “I wish I were as drunk as he will be when we meet again.”

Foley shook his head. “My old mother used to say if you need to take a bottle to bed, you should sit up the night.” He took a flask from his pocket and poured her a jigger of brandy. Peg drank it down.

“That will warm the chill,” she said. “May I have another?”

“We’ve a long day tomorrow,” Foley said, but he gave it to her.

“Longer for me, starting it now,” she said, but she threw back her head and smiled. “Let’s go back and keep faith with our friends. He’ll come for me when he’s ready.”

Foley held aside the sheeting for her. “Does he beat you?”

Peg laughed. “I wish he would.”

Comradeship had mellowed into sentimentality amongst the players, and one lad after another must kiss the leading lady, chaste kisses mostly, and the one that wasn’t from an old trouper, his beard his own and as musty as ever one out of a trunk. Peg gave him a push that sprawled him amongst the empty champagne bottles, scattering them like ninepins. “Alley, alley!” the company cried. “Set ’em up and bowl ’em again, Kate!”

John Redmond rushed in then, having been gone a half hour or so. “Hear this! Hear this!” he cried, waving a piece of foolscap. “Here’s tomorrow’s review in the Alto California.”

“Where did you get it, John?”

“From the typesetter’s hand. He’s my friend.”

“For God’s sake let’s hear it,” Foley said.

Redmond leaped upon the table and struck himself a pose. He came down then and took the paper to a work light. “It’s a pity, they can’t afford us more light.”

“God’s teeth, man, stop the coquetry and spit it out.”

Redmond unrolled the paper. “‘Last night,’” he read, “‘something wonderful happened to the American theatre. The players upon the stage at the Rialto were mortal men and women. Blood ran in their veins and not the ink of ages. John Redmond deserves all credit for his exuberant production, and his Petruchio befit the style he set for all his players. But what shall we say of his Kate? Plain Kate and bonny Kate and sometimes Kate the curst, but Kate, the prettiest Kate in Christendom. Margaret Stuart was indeed all Kates. We cannot help but opine that she may set a new and welcome fashion for leading ladies throughout the land. Realist is the word for her…’ Shall I read on?”

“Oh,” cried Foley, “I’d rather hear it than scratch my belly. Read on!”

Not a disparaging word was there in the entire review and when Redmond was done with the reading, no one in the company had anything to say until finally the First Old Man remarked: “He oughtn’t to have said all that. We’ve got another performance to give tomorrow.”

“And we were right in our letter to you, Mrs. Stuart,” said the boy, Eddie, who was sitting at her feet. “That was my saying, ‘the applause of players’, I wrote that.”

She ruffled his hair. “A beautiful saying. Now you must write me a play to go with it.”

“I can,” the boy cried, leaping up. “I’ll set it here in San Francisco: the curse of gold!”

“Let’s get our share of it first and curse it after,” said Redmond. “Fetch me my cloak and gloves like a good lad, Eddie.”

Peg saw the boy’s face change in disappointment. “Pop the cork on one last bottle, Eddie,” she said. “I’ll get your cloak for you, John.”

“I’ll get it myself,” said Redmond, with as much of a smile as he ever yielded, and brushing Peg’s cheek with the back of his hand as he passed her. “I am scored upon.”

“Let me get it,” Peg said softly. “It will be my little way of tribute to you as well as reprimand. Stay a glass out with us, John. I’m almost fearful of the parting tonight.”

“Good Lord, why? We’re opening, not closing. After Kate, you’ll have Ophelia…” Peg made a face. “All right, Rosalind, and what a Rosalind! No bustles afore or aft for that, good Kate!”

Peg laughed and slipped from the edge of the table where she had been sitting. She was but a few steps on her way when a voice came thick and curdled from the dark house beyond the work light: “You don’t fetch any man’s coat for him, Mrs. Stuart, exceptin’ your husband’s.”

Peg turned, cold and sick at heart and stomach at the sound of his voice. “Are you there, Matt?” she called out, for she could see no more of him beyond the spectral light than a round whiteness that must be his face, which looked disembodied as he lurched forward amongst the benches in the darkness.

“Here and unaccounted, goddam these trees chopped down and lyin’.” He sprawled over the benches and then picked himself up.

Tom Foley caught up the candelabra from the table. “Come up, Mr. Stuart,” he cried out too heartily. “Your wife and I were looking for you.”

“Where were you lookin’,” Matt slurred, reaching the stage, “under Redmond’s bed?”

“Hush, man,” Foley said, leaning his hand down to pull Matt up to the dais. Their bodies teetered giddily, the weight of one sawing against the pull of the other.

“You’re scaldin’ me with tallow!” Matt screamed.

Peg took the candelabra from Foley’s hand, and then with the help of another man, he pulled Matt onto the stage. The actors giggled, mostly out of embarrassment.

Matt swayed like a willow in the wind. His eyes were bloodshot, his mouth sagging. Peg caught his hand and squeezed it fiercely. “Ladies and gentlemen,” she said, turning him to the table, “I should like to present my husband.”

They murmured a greeting but averted their eyes.

“We’re goin’ home and pack your clothes,” Matt said, trying to articulate each word. “We ain’t a-waitin’ till mornin’. I got a horse an’ wagon outside now. We’re goin’ to be in Sacramento by the dawn.”

The women of the cast let out their shock in long “ooohs.”

Matt turned and grinned at them foolishly. “Wanna come with us?”

“Sit down at the table here, Mr. Stuart,” Foley said, “and let’s talk this over like gentlemen.”

“Gold,” Matt said, looking down from his great height on the burly Foley, “that’s what makes gen’lemen. Did you strike it?”

“As you did, my good man,” said Foley. “But I know it and I doubt if you do. Mrs. Stuart is more than gold to either of us. Get hold of yourself and appreciate her, man, before you turn into a Midas.”

Matt cocked his head. “Into a what?”

“Midas.”

Matt grinned and put his hand on Foley’s shoulder. “Midas well sit down,” he said, and laughed. He made a sweeping gesture. “Midas well all sit down.” He stopped half way to the table. “What was it that thing said with all your names on it?”

“‘The applause of players,’ Mr. Stuart,” Eddie spoke up.

Matt nodded. “I applaud her, too.” He clapped his hands. “Before any of you ever even seen her, I applauded her.”

Oh, God almighty, Peg thought. He will account our lives now that he can make good his boast. “Sit down, Matt, and hold your tongue. We’ll have a glass together.”

Again he leaned heavily on Foley’s shoulder and grinned. “Ain’t she modest though? To hear her you’d never think she was on the stage before.” He looked around. “Come to think of it, I wasn’t.”

“You’re on now,” John Redmond said with ill-concealed contempt.

“And so are you!” Matt shouted as though it were a challenge.

Redmond shrugged and sipped his wine.

Matt turned again to Foley. “Did you ever see her do Gallus Mag?”

“No,” Foley said quietly, “I didn’t.”

But Redmond’s head shot up from where he had taken to contemplating his wine. His eyes darted to Peg’s. He had thought he remembered her on their first reading. He threw his head back and laughed soundlessly in the rush of recollection.

“Oh, by God, you should’ve seen that,” Matt said. “Why, man, she could bring a possum out of a treetop wi’ that slung-shot of hers. It’s just too bad she ain’t gonna be around to do that for you here. Do us a bit from Mag now, honey. Show the people.”

Peg stood where she was, her hand tight upon the candelabra.

“Oooh,” Matt said, “she’s frothin’ up. She don’t like Mag no more. I’ll tell you somethin’—I think she’s ashamed of Mag. And I’ll tell you somethin’ else—she’s ashamed of me.” He shook his finger in Foley’s face. “Don’t tell me no, ’cause I know yes. But I ain’t ashamed of her. Oh, no. I’m goin’ to take her back to camp and show her off till I bust wi’ pride. Am I talkin’ too much?”

A twitter of laughter came from the watchers. Matt permitted himself to be led to the table, but he reared back then and jerked his arm from Foley’s hand. “My mind’s made up,” he said. “And when a Stuart makes up his mind, a coon trap…” His mouth hung open while he groped for the words to finish the sentence.

“Well,” Peg cried, jarring the candelabra down on the table, “let’s drink to it—to Matt Stuart, a man who makes up his mind. Slop him out a glass here, Eddie, and one for all of us who’d rather be drunk than soulful.”

“I for one,” said the Walking Lady, gathering herself up in tipsy dignity, “would rather be dead than drunk. Good night, comrades.”

Peg looked after her and jerked her head around to look upon her husband while he settled at the bench and played a game with himself, working his hand to the glass, finger over finger on the tablecloth. She could feel a cruel urge rise in her. Oh, the pleasure she would feel to tear her nails across his face. She smiled. “Or would you like whiskey better, Matt? Of course you would. It’s your party. Name your choice.”

Matt nodded his approval. “Bourbon,” he said, “a man’s drink.”

“Eddie, oblige us, please. Tell the barkeep below we’ve a Southern gentleman here who favors bourbon. Give him a pull at your flask while he’s waiting, Tom. It would be a shame to lose so mellow a mood.”

Foley shook his head. “Margaret, you shouldn’t…”

“Don’t tell me what I should or should not when I am not in your employ,” Peg said. “The man’s thirsty. He must have a drink.”

Foley’s hands trembled as he tried to pour the brandy into the flask top. Peg laughed, took the flask from him, and put it into Matt’s hand. He caught it greedily and tilted it to his mouth. He near lost his balance when he threw his head back. Peg hastened to his back, and supporting his head on her breast, smiled down at him. She twisted his hair between her fingers and yanked his head back every time he was about to take the flask from his lips. He gave a great pull away from her when the bottle was empty, flung it with all his might against the wall, and shouted out his triumph.

“Bravo!” Peg cried and swung around on the players who stood stock and gaping still. “What sort of a celebration this without a dance? Can none of you carry a tune?”

“Shall I fetch my lute, Mrs. Stuart?”

“Aye,” Peg sang out, “a lute or a flute so long as there’s rhythm in it! Gallus Mag, he wanted. I shall do you a Gallus Mag, and this much I shall tell you about her—she was a girl who could dance on her lover’s grave.”

“Wait, wait!” Matt cried, half rising. With a sweep of his arm he crashed the glasses near him from the table. “Clear them off down there!” Those nearest the table scrambled to rescue the remaining glassware. Someone caught up the candelabra. Matt struck his fist on the table. “This here’s your lover’s grave. Let’s see you dance on it, Margaret!”

Peg pranced through the broken glass in her satin slippers and leaped upon the table. She lifted her skirts to her knees. “A Kerry dance!” she cried, “or do you know one from Wicklow, for my true love was a Wicklow man. If you’re Irish, Tom Foley, then sing along with me!”

She began the song herself, a lilting jig to which she danced while singing. One and another voice quavered into tune with hers. Faster she sang and quickened the dance while her husband tried hard to thump out the rhythm. He watched her legs move as quick as prismed light. Suddenly he stopped beating time and stared at her feet. The white cloth was spotted with blood beneath them, the fresh drops marking it with every prance of her foot upon the table.

“Stop it!” Matt shrieked, and in the sudden awful silence, put his head upon his arm and sobbed. “What have I done?” he wailed, “oh, God almighty, what’ve I done.” He took his arm away and thumped his head again and again upon the table. A moment later his arms fell limp. He slumped down on the table and was still.

Peg touched her toe to his face, twisted it to beneath his chin, and with her hands on her hips put her weight into her foot and toppled him from the bench. He sprawled to the floor and fetched each breath in noisy unconsciousness.

“Michael,” she said then, “bring the laundry hamper from the wardrobe.” She waited without a word, without a look to her feet, or to the face of anyone present. “Put him in it,” she said, when two boys returned with the basket. With the help of the others they hoisted and twisted Matt’s great length into the hamper.

She stepped down from the table. “Now, by your kindness, I will permit four of you gentlemen to see us home.”

John Redmond turned the wine glass in his hand, weighed it as though contemplating its worth. He tossed it on the heap of broken glass.

“You are called for eleven in the morning,” he said.

PART V

1

THE AFTERNOON WAS BITTER cold when the school train pulled into Centre Street; it was bursting with boys, the train, having made connections with special runs from Boston, New Haven and other New England towns. They spilled out on the platform and rolled into huddles, each lad to his own school group to make its last cheer the loudest.

“Three times three for Yale, gentlemen!”

Vinnie turned from that cheer with his fellows, settled his bowler on his head, and looked again for Mr. Finn. He had spied him from the train’s platform and lost him again in the rush. It was Mr. Finn found him now, and determined to reach him, Vinnie thought, even at the cost of his dignity. He caught Vinnie’s hands, shaking them both, and whether it was the wind or something else that caused it, the tears welled into his eyes as he gazed up at the boy, a head and a neck taller than himself and with the mark of a razor nick on his chin. To every lad who passed them in the tow of his family and thumped Vinnie on the back with a “Merry Christmas, Dunne,” Mr. Finn turned and bowed a little. Vinnie hoisted his laundry bag over his shoulder and picked up his own portmanteau, not waiting the porter Mr. Finn was flagging.

“I can manage,” Vinnie said. “How is Nancy, sir?”

“A visitation from heaven could not excite her more,” Mr. Finn said. He brushed off the urchins and runners and broke way for Vinnie through the crowd. A carriage was awaiting them on Chatham, and at its door Mr. Finn distributed a purseful of pennies to the beggars. Vinnie flung in his bags and stood aside for his elder, giving him a hand up the step.

“My boy, my boy,” Finn said, laying his hand on Vinnie’s arm when the door was closed on them.

He was going to weep now surely, Vinnie thought, and glad he was they were out of sight of his schoolmates. It was one thing to have a woman watering your breast, but quite another a man of Mr. Finn’s age.

“You must excuse me,” Mr. Finn said. “I am so happy.”

“You didn’t get a letter then?”

“Oh no,” said Finn in sudden alarm.

But Vinnie laid his head back on the cushion and laughed in relief. Many a lad at that moment was asking the same question in trepidation. “I might have flunked trigonometry,” he said. “Old Voss gave us one devil of an examination.”

“You shall have a tutor,” Mr. Finn said.

“No,” said Vinnie. “No tutors this term. The letters went out a week Thursday. You’re sure you didn’t get one?”

Mr. Finn shook his head.

It would have been like him to conceal such news until after Christmas all the same, Vinnie thought. He had done it Vinnie’s first term home in his freshman year. Then the day after Christmas he had introduced him to the tutor. A year ago, Vinnie thought. Ah, but what a difference that homecoming from this! He had come up from school then sick and empty. He had begged Mr. Finn to teach him the trade of locksmith. Yale was for gentlemen, Protestant gentlemen, not the likes of Vinnie Dunne. “I’m not going back. You can’t make me go back. You’re not my father.” “If I were your father, I could care no more about your welfare than I do.” It was Vinnie who had shed the tears then. He had gone to Dennis and Norah for comfort. Norah had soothed him and Dennis had cursed out the Know-Nothings, the Abolitionists, and himself for having sold Vinnie into a parcel of Natives. The Know-Nothings now were a bold lot. They might still have their secret lodges, but they made no secret of their activities—the proscription of all things Irish or Catholic, the glorification of the native born Americans. Dennis had ridiculed Vinnie’s clothes, his manner of speech, his hands with nary a callus and a foot too delicate to wear an honest brogue. He had done more for the boy by this tirade than he knew, forcing him to weigh two loyalties in the balance for the last time, and he had gone home to Mr. Finn. Waiting him there instead of the tutor had been Stephen Farrell.

Farrell had worked with him throughout the holiday and at the start of the next term he had gone up to New Haven with him and talked to the prex and Vinnie’s professors. A Trinity man from Dublin was near as impressive as Oxford or Cambridge to them, and he a footballer at that. Not long thereafter, Vinnie was pledged to a fraternity. He joined a good eating club, and somehow, before the summer was over he had lost the ugly blemishes on his face and the stutter which had made him the laughing stock of every debate. And once out of his freshman year, it didn’t matter so much that he was two years older than most of his classmates. How long ago, those miseries! Truly, he had not expected to flunk even Trig this term. A fizzle maybe, but not a flunk.

He scratched a clear spot on the frosty window with a thumbnail. “Everything looks so new,” he said.

“Fresh stock for Christmas. You will want to shop this afternoon, no doubt.”

“I will,” said Vinnie. “I’ve got a list. When did that happen?” He pointed to a railed-off ruin, the charred remains of a drygoods store.

“Last week. The week before it was Harpers’. A dreadful year for fires.”

“I read about it,” Vinnie said. It was strange, he thought, leaning back. So many things he wanted to ask, to say, and he could not quite get started on them. Always returning from school he felt a bit of a stranger to Mr. Finn, to say nothing of how he felt toward Norah and Dennis, and toward his own sister—as ugly a thing as ever he had seen knotted in pigtails. “I wish…” He started to say something better not said, and finished with something he had not intended at all… “it wasn’t so late.”

“Nancy will give us a quick tea and you can be off,” Finn said. “You’re to meet the Laverys at the eight o’clock Mass in the morning. I shall come along later. They’re in the new house, you know.”

“I know,” Vinnie said. “You wrote me.” The wish he had been about to make was that they might have Christmas to themselves, perhaps with Stephen. Except that that relationship was out of joint now, too. Stephen was married. Vinnie sighed like an old man. “I had a letter from Stephen. From Charleston, South Carolina.”

“They’ll be back for New Year’s,” Mr. Finn said.

“Have you met her?”

“Mmmm. Very nice. You know who she is?”

“Senator Osborn’s daughter,” Vinnie said. “You wrote me. I don’t expect I shall like her very much.”

Mr. Finn laid his hand on the boy’s knee. “Just don’t expect to dislike her.”

Neither of them mentioned Peg. Yet, Vinnie thought, Mr. Finn must have remembered her, too, when they talked of Stephen’s marriage.

Nancy lumbered down the stairs at Chambers Street to meet them, out to the carriage without cloak or shawl and hugged Vinnie into her great bosom in front of all the Christmas Eve shoppers on the street. Passersby turned to gape at them when she cried out: “Masta’ Vincent, you growed as tall as a flagpole!”

She, too, had grown, Vinnie thought, but not up and down. He had to open both doors for her when she went in ahead of him with his bags in her arms. On the stair she paused to speak to Mr. Finn, frowning. “You got a caller upstairs, Mr. Finn. I told him not to wait on Christmas Eve, but he waitin’.”

“Who is it, Nancy?”

“Mr. Valla.” She could never manage the last syllable of Valois, and by her tone whenever she spoke of him, she would have preferred not to have to manage any part of it. Vinnie felt the same way about the sleek and acid gentleman. He was a Native and never missed a chance to show his contempt for the Irish.

“I’ll stop at the office,” Mr. Finn said. “Send him down.”

Vinnie looked at Mr. Finn but said nothing. The older man caught his glance, however. Valois was no longer his own choice of company, but he was not the sort to cut old friends even when he disapproved them. “Never mind, Nancy,” he said. “He may as well have tea with us if you don’t mind, Vincent.”

“Perhaps he has word of Peg,” Vinnie said.

He had reason enough to suspect Valois might carry such news. He had come prancing up the stairs well over a year ago carrying the Tribune correspondent’s account of Tom Foley’s The Taming of the Shrew in San Francisco. “Here she is!” he had cried. “I’ll lay you any odds their Kate’s our Mag! Margaret Stuart indeed!”

Valois had not forgiven Peg for doing Gallus Mag, and in her own fashion. And when she had tried and failed as Juliet (Vinnie thought her wonderful) Valois let his bitterness run over: her own fault it was, he said—her stupid Irish romanticism fancying a guttersnipe for a lady in disguise, a harlot for a pining virgin. It was a night, that, when Peg sat stunned at her reception and took Valois’ abuse on top of it. His final remark had been too much for Vinnie: “Well, I’m not the first fool to have started a silk purse from a sow’s ear.” Vinnie had flailed into him, fists flying, but Peg herself plucked him off, and seemed to take Valois’ side in the matter and even to cherish his abuse. Why? Why? She had said the strangest thing when the man was gone: “It all reminded me of Stephen.”

Not long after that and Peg was gone without a word to anyone. “Touring,” her landlady said: “not even telling her sister. Isn’t it a shame, Mrs. Lavery says.”

Not a word from her or of her until Valois brought the notice of Margaret Stuart as the Shrew. “And where would you say she got the name Stuart?” Mr. Finn had asked. “History, man,” Valois had said. “The Battle of the Boyne. What better name for an Irish romantic to assume?” “I think you exaggerate Margaret’s romanticism,” Mr. Finn had said. “Why not from a husband?” The question had cast Mr. Valois into a pet. He much preferred his own explanation.

“Vincent,” Mr. Finn said now, “stop here a moment with me. We shall come along presently, Nancy.” When the big woman had closed the apartment door on herself and Vinnie’s luggage, he said: “I’m afraid there is already word on Margaret. I’d hoped to keep it to myself for a few days. Mrs. Stuart is rather famous now, and quite aside from her playing on the stage. There was a husband named Stuart, Matthew Stuart. He was killed in an attempted bank robbery at Sacramento a few months ago.”

“He was robbing a bank?” Vinnie said foolishly.

“Mmmm,” Finn said. “A gold prospector who could not find gold. And by his dying statement, it was the only thing with which he could win back his, ah, alienated wife.”

“But,” Vinnie said after a moment, “but Mr. Finn, that’s not Peg. She wouldn’t care about gold. That’s not our Peg at all. It’s someone else.”

“I hope you’re right, my boy,” Finn said, “much as I should have wished her the success of Margaret Stuart on the stage. But if it is our Peg, she’s not only famous, she’s notorious.”

Mr. Valois sat some moments over tea paying Vinnie compliments on his improvements which the boy did not wish, and with his sharp eye and clever tongue probing this distaste as well: “Even your manner of disdaining my observations speaks eloquently of the American college. Well! When we have no choice but to be provident, we provide well, eh, Finn?”

“I have always believed character to be quite as important as providence in the making of a man. Pray, let the boy alone, Valois. He’s had a long journey. You may withdraw if you wish, Vincent.”

“I should like to stay, Mr. Finn.”

“A gentleman amongst gentlemen,” Valois chaffed. “You would not raise your hand to me now as you once did, would you, Vincent?”

“Not, sir, if my foot were idle,” Vinnie said.

Mr. Finn said: “Vincent!”

But Valois leaned back and laughed. “Well said,” he exclaimed.

As perverse a man, Vinnie thought, as ever a woman was so characterized. Mercurial, and Vinnie decided, not to be trusted.

“I’m in receipt of a letter,” he said at last, “which I thought might interest this house.”

“From Peg?” Vinnie said out.

“No, but concerning her. She is indeed the Mrs. Stuart if there were any doubt of it in your mind. And she intends to be known only as Margaret Stuart. She has at last, it seems, laid the ghost of Gallus Mag. Alas! but to raise another—Matt Stuart, the husband. You’ve heard of that misfortune?”

Both Vinnie and Finn nodded. Valois took the letter from his pocket and laid it open before him on the tea table. Vinnie could see no more of it than heavy, blotched writing.

“This is from Mr. Foley, her manager. I entered into correspondence with him some months ago to the purpose of bringing her back to the New York stage—as Margaret Stuart. So you see, Vincent, I am not as recriminatory as you would like to think me.”

Vinnie leaned forward. The devil take him and his self esteem. “Is she coming, sir?”

Valois wagged his forefinger under Vinnie’s nose. “Let me continue. Mr. Foley was not well disposed to the idea despite my offering him a partnership…”

“In what?” Vinnie interrupted.

“Well, in a manner of speaking, in Margaret. I must provide the theatre here, the brass band, as it were…There. You’ve broken my train of thought.”

“Mr. Foley didn’t like the idea,” Mr. Finn prompted.

“And why should he?” said Valois, “having built his own theatre there, and filling it every night of the week. Now by this post, however, matters have changed. The unfortunate husband let it abroad before he died that she was ah… well, here’s how Foley puts it: ‘cuckolding him with the leading man, John Redmond.’”

“I don’t believe it,” Vinnie said.

“That matters not at all,” said Valois, meeting the boy’s eyes with something like malice in his own as he went on to say sweetly the bitterest thing of all: “We all know her to be incapable of an affair outside the bonds of matrimony, don’t we? Foley himself believes there is nothing between her and Redmond, but nowhere on earth is morality more demanded of public figures than amongst people who are without morals in their private lives. Certain groups of the righteous out there are now attempting to close the theatre. When it is attended, there is danger of a riot.”

“Oh dear, oh dear,” Finn said.

“It may work crossly to our fortune,” Valois went on. “Mr. Foley writes me here that he has signed Margaret Stuart to another year’s contract, and that he is now in a position to consider my offer.”

Vinnie frowned, thinking about it.

“To bring his company to New York?” Mr. Finn questioned.

“Two members of it at least. He has Redmond under contract also.”

“How does Peg feel about it?” Vinnie said, for there was something in the issue not to his liking.

“Mr. Foley does not say. He does stipulate, however, that under no circumstances are we to breach her wish to be known only as Margaret Stuart. If we attempt in any way to exploit her success as Gallus Mag it is in violation of contract. God knows, I shall not breach that!”

Mr. Finn shook his head. “By which we are to understand, Val, that you and this Foley will exploit her—scandal?”

“I shall exploit only her ability as an actress,” Valois said sharply. “Only because of my faith in that did I write to Foley in the first place. I have spent a good many hideous years in the accumulation of money by which to become a theatrical manager. Three years ago I should have risked a great part of it except for that chance and stubborn misjudgment of our Margaret’s. I had hoped to make a star of her myself after her apprenticeship to Richards. But she took to Mag as a cat to milk and won such fame she could not escape it. Was her Juliet so terrible?” He ran his fingers through his mane of hair as though he would tear it from the scalp. “It was not! But it was not an actress her critics saw: it was a wanton in from the streets for a lucid hour, a freak. Well. That’s past. Not Mag, but Margaret Stuart is coming home to us, gentlemen.”

“When?” said Vinnie, and he would, for that last speech, forgive Valois anything.

Valois shrugged. “Not directly. Unless I misjudge Thomas Foley, he will try to recoup his losses on the way. He intimates as much here: our partnership will not take effect until they reach New York. I cannot assume that is because he wishes to spare me his current losses in San Francisco. They will work their way home.”

Mr. Finn folded his hands. “I suppose we must console ourselves with the future. It was good of you to bring us word today, Val.”

Valois rose from the table, taking Finn’s thanks as a wish for his departure. “Tell me,” he said, “what does her sister know of her?”

“No more than we do,” Finn said. “I have told her we suspected Peg and Margaret Stuart were the same.”

“And of the husband’s death?”

“Nothing to my knowledge yet. I doubt Vincent and I will burden them with that intelligence over Christmas.”

“I think they should be burdened with it,” Valois said. “Quickly and with the full scandal of it.”

“Why?”

“Frankly, I should prefer them scandalized. I fervently hope they shun and disown her. In today’s temper, their association will not prosper her. It’s the truth, gentlemen. Face it. Good day. Thank you for an excellent tea.”

“Not even a Merry Christmas,” Vinnie said when he was gone.

“Oh, my boy, rather than share a holiday with the Catholics he would deny the birth of Christ.”

2

AT SIX-THIRTY IN THE morning, Nancy tapped on the bedroom door. “Merry Christmas, Masta’ Vincent,” she called.

The first thing he saw when she brought the light into his room was his own breath. He could shoot steam like a geyser. He ducked his head under the coverlet.

“Ain’t you even gonna say Merry Christmas when it Christmas mornin’?

He poked his head out. “Merry Christmas, Nancy.”

“Thank you and the same to you.” She lit the fire in his grate and set the wash-stand close to it, opening then the shutters. “It comin’ on daylight now and them churchbells ringin’ fit to crack. I never knowed there was so many Catholics in this town. I goin’ to service at eleven, myself, like civilized folk. We got the nicest preacher up by my brother’s. He holds by Christmas like some don’t. Are you listenin’ to me, Masta’ Vincent?”

“No,” Vinnie said.

“That what I thought,” Nancy said. “I wanted to fetch you in a cup of coffee, but Mr. Finn, he say you goin’ to church and can’t have nothin’ new in your stomach. I bringin’ your hot water now, and you better get ready t’ use it or it goin’ to freeze right in the pitcher.” She shook the top quilt in passing. “Get up now, get up! It the Lord’s birthday an’ you don’ want to be late to the celebration!” Down the hall she went, humming “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen.”

Vinnie was wide awake by the time she returned. “Did you find something outside your door, Nancy?”

“Did I find somethin’,” she repeated. “I near broke my neck findin’ somethin’ in the dark. I don’t lie abed till daylight like you.” She looked around at him over her shoulder. “If you don’ mind, Masta’ Vincent, I ain’t going to look at it till I gets to my brother’s. I wants to surprise him, too.”

“I hope you like it,” Vinnie said.

“Bless you, if it was a pan of roasted snow I’d love it.” She came to the side of the bed and looked down at him, her hands on her hips. “Stretch your feet out there.”

“It’s cold down there,” he said, but pushed his feet to the bottom.

“Lord above us,” she cried. “I can remember when you first come to us. Them feet didn’t reach the middle, and scrawny! You was like a just-hatched bird. Your water’s in the jug.”

Vinnie swung his feet out of the bed and into his carpet slippers as soon as she turned her back. He pulled on his dressing gown and padded across the hall. He tapped on Mr. Finn’s door and opened it. “Merry Christmas, sir.”

Mr. Finn, still in his nightcap but his face lathered with shaving soap from jowl to jowl, put down his razor and opened his arms to Vinnie. The boy felt awkward, but he did love the man. He never said a word against anyone. He might lament the things they did, but he always looked for people’s reasons. Mr. Finn caught his face in his hands and pulled him down for a light kiss on either cheek. “Bless you, my boy. Hurry, or you’ll be late for church now.”

“Yes sir. Thank you for everything you’ve done for me, Mr. Finn.”

“Go along. You are your thanks.”

3

DENNIS HIMSELF LAY ABED that morning until the last minute with the infant, Michael, swaddled beside him. He was pretending sleep to the rest of the children, and every time he spied the door open a crack he let out a great snore. This sent the three peeking in at him near into hysterics with giggles, which in turn brought a great shushing from Emma who was charged with stilling Kathleen and Johnny lest they disturb their father. The door was clapped shut with a bang and Dennis winced thinking of the fingers that might have been in it.

Downstairs Norah was rattling at the kitchen stove. At least he presumed it to be Norah. The coals were crackling in the bedroom grate and he had slept through the setting of them. If the old man had fetched them he’d have clattered till Dennis awoke. Handy he might be, Norah’s father, as she proclaimed him, but the devil a chore he put his hand to without being sure his son-in-law knew it. They had brought Michael Hickey from Ireland the summer before on his pledge to leave the bottle behind him. By all the signs he had parted with it fairly, and he did love his grandchildren. So, Dennis thought, would have his own mother, but she died without coming, God rest her.

The infant in his arm made suckling noises and caught at his nightshirt pocket. “Here,” said Dennis, “don’t you know your father from your mother? I can’t do a thing for you in that line.”

The door popped open again, and Emma, who topped the others by a head and a skinny neck, opened her mouth. “You’re awake, Da!”

He threw his head back on the pillow and gave an enormous snore—too late. The three bounded abed like rabbits, Johnny with his backside as bare as an apple. “Watch the baby!” Dennis cried. “You’ll smother him afore he’s baptized!”

“Merry Christmas!” Norah cried, coming in with a steaming jug and a string of pewter cups. “Hot nutmeg milk, lovies. Come get your cups.” They leaped out of the bed as fast as they had into it. “It’s near seven o’clock, Dennis, and you’ve to put you-know-what in the parlor.”

“What, what?” cried the children.

If they didn’t know what by now they were deaf, Dennis thought, it whimpering the whole blessed night in the kitchen. Ah, but they knew well enough. They were a cagey lot, whispering amongst themselves and letting on innocence to him.

“Johnny, where’s your bottoms?” said Norah, as the two-year-old pranced in his shirt for the milk.

“Potty,” he said.

“Ah, you’re a good boy. You went by yourself,” said Norah.

“He didn’t. I took him,” said Emma over the cup.

“There,” said Norah, “you’re the darlin’est girl in the world,” and to Kathleen who looked up with eyes brimmed with reproach, “and what did you do, love?”

“I peed on the floor,” she said.

“Well,” said Norah, turning away from them to Dennis quickly, “we won’t have to wait in line for that at least. Emma, bring your cup in the nursery till I comb your hair by the fire. Dennis, get out of that bed or we’ll miss the Eight O’clock, and Vinnie waitin’ in the cold for us.”

“Vinnie’s coming, Vinnie’s coming,” Kathleen sang.

“He’s my brother,” Emma said.

“Mine too, mine too,” said Johnny, although it was unlikely he could even remember Vinnie since the summer.

“He’s not. He’s your uncle,” said Emma. “You’re to call him Uncle Vinnie.”

“He Michael’s godfather,” Kathleen said after great thought. “So he my god-brother, mommy, isn’t he, mommy?”

“Hush,” Norah said. “Finish your milk. Michael’s not even baptized yet. We’ll figure it out then.”

“Not only that,” said Dennis, “he’s not had his breakfast.”

No one in the family could have said how it was managed, but at five minutes before eight o’clock Dennis paid off the cabman at the Cathedral door. Proud he was to be seen with the four children, the girls beaver-muffed and bonneted and Norah beavered from throat to ankles. He regretted not having a boy the oldest, but when Vinnie came to them, his tall hat in hand, smiling and merry if not handsome and the height of himself if not the fullness, even that regret vanished. It was Vinnie who carried Michael into the church with his sister hanging beside him.

“You’re getting pretty,” he said to the girl.

He won’t think so, Dennis thought, when she opens her mouth. And sure enough, at the compliment, Emma raised her face to her brother and her smile was like a broken fence with her front teeth missing.

It took a pew and a half for the Laverys and if they were not regulars at the Cathedral parish, they were not unknown to it either, for one of Dennis’ markets was in the heart of the Fourteenth Ward. He bowed to the greetings around in the vestibule, and with his tribe distracted several of the faithful from their devotions. He murmured his own thanks to God for the position by which he could afford the things making himself and his a distraction. He liked coming to St. Patrick’s whether on Sundays or holydays. It was the first church he had stopped in the day he landed in America. In the gloom that night, lighting a candle for Vinnie’s father, he had not foreseen such a return as this.

“I will go unto the altar of God, of God who gives joy to my youth…” He knelt as the low Mass began. He had served as altar boy in his childhood, and God sustaining their life, Johnny and Michael would serve in theirs. At the rail on Our Lady’s side was the Christmas crib. Norah, beside him, was saying her beads, her eyes on the crib and not on the Mass at all. She would be praying to the Virgin, he thought, to the Virgin Mother, having excused herself to the Lord for not attending Him directly. It was this the bigots despised in Catholics, he thought, so much they would banish Christmas altogether if they could because it was the one day in the year they had to admit Christ had a mother. It was all so clear and natural, he thought, this reverence for the Virgin Mother: what man in the world wasn’t honored himself when honor was paid his mother? And yet they came out of a rush, the Natives, to cheer a street-corner bigot and make a martyr of his arrest. Peace on earth to men of good will!

The archbishop himself preached the sermon, for it was the children’s Mass and he did love them. The Christ child was their brother, their baby brother, he told them, and it was their duty to protect Him, to watch over Him, and see that He was not abused by the wicked, by the Herods of our times. It was too bad, Dennis thought, His Eminence couldn’t come home with them and explain Vinnie’s relationship as well to Kathleen when she sat down in the chimney corner to puzzle it.

What a chorus of piping voices sang the Communion hymn! Adeste Fidelis, and what a procession to the altar then, hands palm to palm, heads bowed. This they feared, the fools! Popery, they called it, treating the word like a blasphemy. And what did it mean, the Pope? Papa. Father. A kindly word, and yet for the saying of it, No Irish Need Apply! No Irish—Know Nothing. God forgive them, for they know not what they do.

Home they went to their breakfasts set at the kitchen table. They could have but an egg apiece including the grownups for at two o’clock would be dinner. And the goose began to crackle before the eggs were vanished. Into the parlor then, draped with holly and lit with candles, and stockings stuffed hung from the mantel, packages heaped and a hobby horse rocking, and into the midst of it, squirming and wiggling and wagging his tail clear, it seemed, from his belly, an Irish setter pup which Dennis called Boru. Vinnie dashed from assembling Emma’s dollhouse to the window, for his presents would come with Mr. Finn. Mr. Finn was not in sight but Vinnie had company in his vigil: Boru at his feet and Kathleen at his knee. She brought a doll and clothes she could not put on it until he held it in his arms for she had selected him to be its father. “Father-brother,” she called him then, and that throughout the day. “Father-brother, lift me up. Please give me a sweet, father-brother.”

Mr. Finn arrived at last laden even beyond Vinnie’s expectations. Norah’s father went out to help him. The two men shaking hands, their mufflers in the wind, touched Vinnie in a way he could not have explained. They could not be quite of an age, though not far from it, Mr. Hickey near sixty as close as Norah could place it (for he would not place it at all). Nor was there much in their past to make comrades of them, Vinnie thought. And perhaps that was it: they were congratulating each other without saying a word of it on their good fortune this Christmas day. There were icicles at the horse’s bit, and while Mr. Finn paid the cab, Mr. Hickey ran his hand over the horse’s neck, pulled its muzzle against his chest and broke off the icicles at its eyes as well as its mouth. Vinnie remembered hearing that he had been a blacksmith by trade in Ireland before he was tricked by the bottle.

The door was not long closed on Mr. Finn when the Kevin Laverys arrived. They had come by way of the Broadway bus, as cold as an Englishman’s heart, Mary said, and proclaimed an Irish house the warmest thing in the world. She went from curtains to lamps to cushions and tested every chair with her ample bottom, crying out in her hearty voice that never did a girl have the taste of Norah in furnishings. “And not many a husband as providing,” Kevin added. Vinnie thought he would question the taste if not the providings, but what odds if it was to their liking? He was glad to be here now although a quiet pipe and a book would suit him well when it was done. He shook hands with Jamie, the oldest of the Lavery children. A “townie” they would call him at New Haven, meaning he was of the age and appearance of a college student but not one. Jamie managed the Essex market for Dennis, a man’s responsibility and at a man’s wage. Vinnie suspected Jamie to hold him in small esteem, still living off Mr. Finn’s bounty. They had nothing to say to each other, so Jamie picked up a dish of nuts and tossed them one by one into Johnny’s drum through which someone had already put his foot.

Dennis came from the kitchen with a great bowl of hot grog, and Norah after him with a tray of noggins and a square of butter which she floated on the punch. Even the children were ladled a sip. The house and all in it were toasted. Jamie must have a leather-lined throat, Vinnie thought, for he could down the hot grog like cold water. He would be a boisterous lad with a few in him. He ran with the engines, no doubt, and drilled with a rifle company, and was a handy lad at elections. He would hire a gig on a Sunday afternoon and ride a girl out in it to Jones Woods. Did he roll her into a blanket with him, Vinnie wondered, and was she willing? He took his cup and followed Norah to the kitchen to offer her his help.

She went to the window and scratched a place in the frost to look out at something she wasn’t really seeing, Vinnie thought. Her face was flushed and a strand of hair had strayed from the bun in her hustle. But for that moment she was unaware of the singing kettle, the bubbling pots, the crackling goose, and of him. She gave a great sigh.

Vinnie crossed the room to her and touched his cup to hers. “To Peg,” he said.

Norah’s eyes filled up. “Ah, Vinnie, what’s to become of her at all?”

“I shouldn’t worry about her till we find her,” he said.

She downed the tears without shedding them. “Have you tried to find her?”

She was closing the trap on his lie already. “Not hard enough I’m afraid, Norah.”

“And shall I tell you why not?” she said. “Because you already found her: Mrs. Stuart, the widow of a bank robber.”

All, she had it all, Vinnie thought. “But that might not be Peg,” he persisted in the lie.

“Mightn’t it? Will you tell me I don’t know her?” Vinnie could not answer that. “Do you think she loved the man itself to marry him?”

“I don’t know,” Vinnie said, for this question had troubled him as well. Often at night sleepless with problems of his own and in the same tenor, he wondered whether if it was a sin to love somebody you couldn’t marry, it was less of a sin to marry somebody you didn’t love. “Stephen Farrell is married,” he added in the wake of his own thoughts.

“And him it was she loved,” Norah said. “I knew it. In my heart I knew it.” She picked up the basting spoon and looked at it. “Och, God help her, if she’d known her place in the beginnin’ and kept it, none of this ever would’ve happened to her.”

What was the use, Vinnie thought. He escaped the kitchen as Mary Lavery invaded it. There was in the look she gave him her estimate of his conversation with Norah. He would not accuse her of eavesdropping, but neither would he put it past her.

“Have you heard yet from your sister?” she started on Norah.

“No,” Vinnie heard, pausing himself outside the door.

“You’d think,” Mary prodded, “she’d send you some explanation and not disgrace us altogether.”

“You’ve no need to own up to her,” Norah said tartly.

“That’s exactly what my Kevin was saying,” Mary went on, having entirely missed Norah’s sarcasm. “If ever she comes back we’ve no need to own up to her. Little ownin’ she did us when she came, and small likelihood her bein’ any fonder now, save an extremity.”

“She’s welcome to this house,” said Norah, and Vinnie could hear the edge in her voice.

“I wouldn’t be rash about it, Norah, if I was you. It isn’t like she asked your leave or advice. Mind, I’m not sayin’ one thing or another about what she’s done. It’s what they’ll say she’s done, and Dennis just gettin’ himself established in the Party…”

Vinnie waited to hear no more. Valois was to have his wish. The Irish were as quick in the chase for respectability as he was. The difference lay only in their choice of respectabilities. It was all for Dennis now amongst them in this house, he noticed. The old man said “yes” to his every word, and to him Jamie Lavery would address a “sir” where he’d choke before so honoring another man. It was Dennis who was asked advice, not Kevin, his older brother, and Kevin, far from resenting it, paid tribute himself. Dennis must indeed be getting himself established in the Party.

“Things have come to a fine pass in this country,” Dennis was saying with a touch of oratory in his voice, “when Irishmen go back to Ireland to find work.”

“Indeed,” Mr. Finn murmured, and the other men nodded.

“If they’d got through the bill for layin’ the Broadway tracks, there’d of been work for them in New York at least.”

“Mmmm,” Mr. Finn said, which was neither a yes nor a no.

Vinnie got the distinct notion that Dennis, with his pauses between pronouncements, was trying to provoke Mr. Finn. He was sure of it when Dennis went on: “But that wouldn’t suit you reformers, of course. It’s a handy thing to plaster a man with corruption when the thing you really want is to bury the franchise.”

“Oh, my, you are distorting the truth, Dennis,” Mr. Finn said, rising then to the bait. “I’m quite as much in favor of laying the tracks as you are, but I’m unalterably opposed to paying a scoundrel twice the price of another bid for the franchise.”

“Do you deny The Prince had his hand in it?” said Dennis, referring to the owner of Stewart’s Marble Palace.

“In this instant I do,” said Finn.

“There wasn’t a thought of the carriage trade in them killin’ the franchise,” Dennis said sarcastically. “The merchants’d be honored to have the car tracks past their doors. In other words, Jake Sharp is the only villain in the whole blessed city.”

“He is not, alas. The villainy is quite as ripe in the Common Council.”

“For pushing the franchise,” Dennis sneered.

“In favor of Jacob Sharp, yes! He would have paid a hundred thousand in bribes for it.”

“And havin’ it, he’d’ve put Irishmen to work for him.”

“So would any man getting the franchise,” Finn said. “Who else would they get for a dollar a day?”

“Aye,” Kevin said, “there’s the pity of us.”

“A dollar a day earned is a hell of a lot better than two of their charity,” cried Dennis, whirling around on his brother.

“You’re right, you’re right,” Kevin said. “So let’s have the matter drop there. We’ll distress the women talking politics on Christmas.

Jamie Lavery motioned to Vinnie to join him at the grog bowl. He must be desperately bored, Vinnie thought, to want his company. “Let me give yer another pull,” Jamie said, and Vinnie held his cup. “He’s a queer little cock.” He jerked his head toward Mr. Finn.

“He knows what he’s about,” Vinnie said, not wishing to be counted against Mr. Finn for a moment.

“Who says he don’t? They all do. Both sides. Yer can always find ’em on the side best payin’.”

“All who?” said Vinnie.

“Forget it. What d’yer do? Besides the books I mean?” Vinnie shrugged. “Me, I run with the engines. Number eleven. D’yer know her?”

“I’ve heard of her.”

“Heard of her! Damn yer eyes, you’ve heard of her. Barnum’s ain’t any famouser.” Jamie stretched himself on the settee. “D’yer hunt?”

“No,” Vinnie said.

“You gotta do somethin’, for Chris’sake!”

Vinnie grinned. “As a matter of fact I’m a pretty good hand with a boat.”

Jamie sat up. There was nothing, save perhaps a horse, the young bucks of New York so admired. “D’yer have yer own?”

“Next summer I might.” Mr. Finn had promised to consider it if he stood in the upper third of his class.

“Will yer tie her up here?”

“In the North River likely.”

“That’s gallus,” Jamie said in honest admiration. “That’s punkins.”

And at that moment Norah summoned them into the dining room. The room was aglare with candlelight as well as the camphene chandelier. The table gleamed with a white cloth the likes of which she had not hoped again to see after she and Peg sold their mother’s linens. There was a goblet at every place and a knife and fork. The children for their setting had spoons and a sprig of holly to match the spray of it ornamenting the big table. Mr. Hickey counted the places aloud while Norah seated her guests. “You married the one of them all,” he said and kissed her cheek while he winked at Vinnie. The eldest present, he said the blessing.

Dennis honed his knife and Norah brought in the bird, crisp and spitting hot, surrounded by apples halved and baked with spice; mashed turnips there were and potatoes nesting an egg of butter; pickled oysters to prod and pacify appetites both at the same time while Dennis set to his carving. Oh, how he enjoyed the master’s role, Vinnie thought. It was manifest even in his pride of the sharpened blade. Norah brought then a dish of red cabbage neither sweet nor sour and compounded with chestnuts, and commenced the serving while Mary attended the children and Vinnie popped the corks on the wine. It was of his selection and Mr. Finn’s providence.

Dennis, when all were served, lifted his glass. “I wish no less for any Irishman wherever he’s sittin’ down this hour.”

“Since I am Irish only by association,” said Mr. Finn, “let us extend that wish to include all men of good will.”

“Hear! Hear!” said Kevin.

“Amen,” said the women.

“Eat hearty,” said Norah.

“Drink hearty,” said Vinnie.

“And all in good health,” Mr. Finn added.

Afterwards, when the dishes were stacked for Norah’s “sweep” who would come at six in the morning, and when the youngest children were tumbled into one bed for their naps, the whiskey bottle was set out with glasses for those who fancied a nip, and a crock of tobacco for any with pipes. They were a long time sighing and wheezing for conversation and the loudest talk in the room the cackle of the coals in the grate and the squeak of the old man’s rocker.

“I’m sittin’ here thinkin’ of my daughter Margaret,” the old man said of a sudden. “I’m wonderin’ what she would say if she knew I was in the country leavin’ me home to pine after yous.”

“Hush, Pa,” Norah said. “That was not her intention at all, no more was it mine, and us bringin’ you over to prove it.”

“To give the devil his due,” said Dennis, “there’s none of you would’ve been here without her.”

“’Tis true,” said Norah. “’Twas her gave me the courage.”

“I’m not holdin’ a thing against her,” said the old man. “She squiggled out of my arms as a child and I never caught her again.”

Dennis reached for the bottle and poured a small glass of whiskey. “Jeremiah Finn,” he said with determined heartiness, “have a drink for it’s Christmas.”

Mr. Finn raised his hand. “No, Dennis, I think not. Thank God that has been the least of my temptations.”

Mr. Hickey hopped out of the chair and took the glass from Dennis. He downed it at one toss. “Thank God,” he cried, looking from one to another and smacking his lips, “it’s been the worst of mine!”

Dennis laughed and gave him the bottle. With another in him the old man lifted his voice in a song. Before the street lamps were lighted, Mary Lavery had tumbled her mountain of red hair doing a jig and with Norah’s father into it after her, nimble as a cat when he had a drop, as Dennis said, and stiff as a bedstead without it. Vinnie sang them a song he had learned from a beggar lady on the Liffey Bridge of Dublin, his tongue curling round the brogue he had all but banished from his speech. He was startled when his sister asked him if she had been there. It was long before she was born, he told her, feeling his age, but the startling thing to him was that she could not remember Ireland at all, nor the boat, so she said, but she seemed to remember her granny.

One tune led to another and suddenly Mr. Finn, sitting forward in his chair, raised a quavering voice and sang a song in a language strange to them, and of a melody they had not heard before and yet could relate to childhood and home and a family’s separation perhaps, for the refrain was sad enough.

“All of that,” said Mr. Finn when they told of what it reminded them. “It’s a lullaby, Russian likely, and therefore melancholy. I learned it from my grandmother.”

“And are the words Russian?” said Norah.

“No. Jewish. In Yiddish.”

“Where were you then, when you learned it, Mr. Finn?” Vinnie ventured, for he had often been curious but thought the better of asking.

“Here, in New York. My grandmother reared me. I was abandoned to her by my parents when they despaired of my growing to manhood.”

“Were they pioneers, Mr. Finn?” said Norah, for only to such surely would a puny child be a burden beyond endurance.

“Oh, I should think the opposite. They were Tories by sympathy, I understand, and ran to England when Mr. Jefferson became president.”

Everyone found this a shocking turn. “My grandfather, now, was a different matter,” Mr. Finn added. “He was a Polish Jew and he fought in the American Revolution with considerable distinction.”

“It takes all kinds,” said Mary piously.

“It does indeed,” said Finn, “and in the end I was apprenticed to a locksmith who gave me more of an inheritance than those who bore me.” He looked at Vinnie then and Vinnie cast his own eyes down. He had been as puny a child surely as ever Mr. Finn was, and he was already as richly blessed.

“I do believe,” said Norah, “the heart is stronger than the blood runnin’ through it.”

“Where did you meet this fella Valor?” Dennis said, “if you don’t mind me askin’ it?”

“Oh, some twelve or fifteen years ago. He had known my parents in England. They were players, you see, as he was some years ago.”

“I don’t take to him much,” said Dennis, who had met Valois first at the party given by Mr. Finn after Peg’s opening as Mag. He knew him now by reputation as a Native.

“I should not expect you to,” said Mr. Finn, “but he will take to some other cause presently. He must have them, you see—his causes—in the absence…of other things which warm most men’s lives.”

“It’s a queer man,” said Dennis bluntly, “that takes to hate when he can’t manage the love of a woman.”

“You’ve things to learn of the world yet,” Kevin said to his brother. “Haven’t you another song like that you can give us, Mr. Finn?”

“I’ve forgotten them all as I have my prayers,” Mr. Finn said, spreading his hands. “My grandmother was overly religious and as soon as I could I turned my back on it.”

“Ah,” Norah said, “it’ll all come back to you when you need it. Many a man has turned his back on God, but God never turns His back on any man.” She put her hand in Dennis’. “Will you sing the hymn now, love?”

No one there, not even Mr. Finn, needed an explanation as Dennis lifted his voice:

“Holy Mother, heav’nly queen, list while thy children pray thee:

Guide us through the shoals of life and o’er its storm-tossed sea.”

It was the song he had sung while The Valiant put to sea, and on every Christmas Norah cherished the recollection of when first she had loved her husband.

4

VINNIE HAD MADE GREAT plans for his fortnight home, looking to the fellowship of his school friends away from the strictures of school. Mr. Finn’s allowance was generous and he attended theatre, opera and a symphony concert. He saw the foreign exhibits at the Crystal Palace and American painting at the Institute. There he bought a landscape for Mr. Finn and struck up an acquaintance with the artist, Jabez Reed. They had coffee together at Windust’s and Vinnie found the man exciting. It was the one incident of his first week home not tinged with disappointment. In the company of young ladies he was shy of addressing himself to those he admired and fearful of those who addressed themselves to him. Not till a costume ball did he find himself at last at ease in the presence of feminine company—and then with an older woman, thirty or so, he supposed, whose husband was in Nebraska. She prated a good deal on Pater, as he later described to his friends, and finding his ear, sought his hand. By this she conducted him into the shadows and confided her wish to be kissed. But there she confided also her despisal of all things Irish. Vinnie smiled and confessed his contamination and wished his tongue as quick as his temper, and her blood as cold as her heart.

And the best of a fancy dress ball was boredom which he shared with two other Yale men; it affected the illness of one and the others must needs see him home. Their clownish farce ended once on the street, and arms linked they marched to Delmonico’s where they drank till their courage sufficed to carry them on to a Venus tableau. The sight of the women close up and the boys would have no other table, all but turned Vinnie’s stomach: their flesh like paste, all bubbles and curdles; and to see the men watching was worse: they wore respectability like a disguise, but their lust rolled out of their eyes. Vinnie departed, a late engagement his pretense, and cheered on by his chums who imagined him bound to a tryst with the spouse of the man in Nebraska. But where to go truly? To be troubled in the groin and the stomach and the soul all at once was an agony beyond any he had known.

On New Year’s Eve he called on Norah and Dennis to see them off in their finery to the Tammany Ball. He was close to admitting his envy when Jamie Lavery arrived with a tin box under his arm: the market receipts of the day. As they saw the celebrants off and bade goodnight to the sitting-in widow, Jamie suggested a sup o’dew at Delaney’s.

At Delaney’s, the nearest ale house, Vinnie put two quick whiskeys between him and his lonesomeness. Jamie, he noticed, was frocked and studded and his soaplocks shone like wet fish. “I’m delaying you,” he said.

“She’ll wait me no fear.” Jamie winked and motioned the barkeep for another whiskey. “Are yer banked in for the night?”

“Nowhere I’ll be missed,” Vinnie said, and brought from his pocket the invitation. He drew it near his nose and then trailed it beneath Jamie’s.

“Phew,” Jamie said. “It stinks sweet as a whorehouse.”

“Oh, and with reason. Many a whorehouse is sweeter.”

“Jesus,” Jamie exclaimed, but not without reverence for he had taken the note from Vinnie’s hand and read the name by the bar lamp. “Is that the shipbuilder?”

“The very same. The topperest of properest society.” He took back the note and held it over the lamp.

“None o’ that,” said the barkeep. “I wanna start the new year with a roof over my head.”

Vinnie tore it up and dropped the pieces into the spittoon. He put a hand on Jamie’s arm. “D’you know how they measure their wealth? By the number of eligibles they can provide for every girl invited.”

“Yer mean they don’t have a gal apiece for yers?” Vinnie shook his head. “Why that ain’t decent!” Jamie pulled a gold watch from his pocket. “Look. I’m to pick up Sally at ten. Yer can come along wi’us if yer like. Odds on one o’ the boys’ll knock out early and yer can take over. What d’yer say?”

“Gallus,” said Vinnie, a little drunk from the third quick drink. He took out his pocketbook and drew a note from it.

Jamie waited for the barman to make change. “How much money yer got there?” He motioned to the wallet.

Vinnie handed it to him and watched his face while he counted the bank notes. Jamie gave no sign of surprise or disgust. He took out five dollars. “This’ll see yer home, but yer’ll buy yer drinks.”

“Right,” said Vinnie, pocketing his wallet.

“Hold on a minute.” Jamie caught him by the lapel. “Don’t be tryin’ yer nobby ways on my Sally or I’ll lam yer.”

Vinnie shook him off. “That’s an insult.”

“Better I insult yer now than have to muss yer later,” Jamie said, and to the barman: “Happy New Year, Jeff!”

“And to you, Mr. Lavery, and you, sir.”

Jamie set his bowler carefully upon his head, and by his gait as he strode to the door Vinnie thought he considered himself the best man present. Perhaps he was, this night surely, Vinnie decided, content in his tow. To his surprise they went uptown instead of down and in good time he learned the reason. They were calling for Jamie’s girl where she worked at Washington Square. Waiting before the kitchen hearth, Vinnie found himself quite as pleased to be there as in the ballroom of such a house. The madame herself came downstairs with Jamie’s Sally, and Jamie gave him a kick which Vinnie supposed an alarm.

“Which of you is Mr. Lavery?” said the lady of the house.

“Me, mum,” said Jamie, rolling his hat in his hands.

There was distress in Sally’s pert face.

“And tell me again where you’re taking Sally?”

Sally opened her mouth but said nothing as her mistress’ hand closed on hers.

“To my father’s house,” said Jamie solemnly, “who’s her uncle, mum. We’re cousins and this here’s our gentleman cousin.”

Vinnie stood as though he were in armor while the woman appraised him. “And are you a gentleman?”

“Aye, mum,” Vinnie said in as thick a brogue as he could muster. “I fancy meself somit o’ the same.”

The woman dismissed them with a smile and the admonition to have Sally in by one o’clock.

“One o’clock she says,” Sally said under her breath when they were out the door, “and keepin’ me scourin’ till ten.”

“Never mind, love,” said Jamie. “I’ll soon unscour yer.” And there before Vinnie’s and any other eyes wandering from business of their own, he gathered the willing girl into his arms and kissed her.

What happened to Vinnie inside made him turn away.

“Now who are you in truth?” said the girl when she could spare him a thought.

“More a cousin to you, I promise, than Jamie.”

“You talk like an Englishman!” cried Sally.

“Would you damn me entirely? I was born in Dublin.”

“Were you indeed? I’m from Galway.” And he could see her smile by the lamplight. Since Jamie could not manage to be on both sides of her at once, she hooked one arm through his and one through Vinnie’s, and as they walked to the railway Vinnie sometimes got a squeeze that distressed him. They were by no means alone on the street or waiting for the railway car, for as the people of property gathered their kind in one house, the servants of another escaped downtown to crowds of their own fellowship. Some whom they met in the car were destined, Vinnie learned, to spend the evening with them and they made a ring about the little stove in the car’s middle and sang their way to the City Hall station. There they tumbled out, girls into the arms of the fellows, and skipped and sang all on their way to Chrystie Street.

“Here’s Maggie Shins’, let’s give her a round,” Jamie cried, leading the way to a cellar.

A dozen or so of the company fell in with them. Maggie herself was behind the bar and her lone customer beat a retreat. Maggie was knotted as the cane she shook after him. “See the jar on the backboard?” said Jamie to Vinnie, and Vinnie squinted to see where he pointed. “Pickled ears—hooman,” Jamie confided.

“What?”

Jamie nodded earnestly. “Battle trophies. She’ll show yer them if yer ask her.”

Vinnie shuddered.

“Hot or cold?” said Maggie, taking a stub of pipe from her mouth.

“Hot,” said Vinnie.

Maggie laid aside her pipe and ladled him a cup of grog from the steaming kettle. For them who took it cold she used the same ladle, but dipped it into another crock. On the wall behind the bar hung a picture of George Washington, his face grimed nearly black with soot. On one side of him hung a small dusty flag of America and on the other the faded emblem of Ireland. A shelf beneath him supported a row of cracked mugs and cups. Round half the room were benches at the wall and in the corners above them you couldn’t tell shadow from cobweb. At the stove opposite the bar an old black man sat, his feet on the fender, and a fiddle hanging on the wall between the poker and tongs beside him.

While Maggie served the company around she contemplated the girls in it, her eyes measuring one and then the other and approving none, Vinnie thought. More particular than he was Maggie. He would have settled for the company of any one of them. Not more than twenty, the oldest, and the youngest a chit of a thing whose giggle was like the mew of a kitten. All of them were likely in service and their gowns faded charity, seeming paler in color for the bloom of the wearers. The boys were a hearty lot, and darlings of Maggie. The only one considering himself Jamie’s equal was likely a butcher and Vinnie thought his own welcome came of keeping his mouth shut.

Maggie cracked the knob of her cane on the bar. “Hey, you bloody old crow!” she cried at the man before the stove, “get off yer perch and warm the fiddle.”

The man, whose hair was white, sighed, got up slowly and straightened a drooping candle where it sat on the shelf above his fiddle. He tightened the bow, took down the fiddle and sawed a few strings.

Jamie leaned near Vinnie’s ear. “They’re common-law man and wife.”

The fiddle tuned, the fiddler closed his eyes and struck up a jig as lively as any ever coaxed a dancing foot.

“Black and white,” Vinnie said, and put his arm across Jamie’s shoulder. Suddenly he felt the world and its wisdom to be his. “Top and bottom, the Irish are democrats, and to hell with the in-betweens! Maggie Shins, will you pour us another round of ammunition?”

Maggie grinned at him, her teeth as yellow as the pipe between them and marked the pocketbook from which he paid her. They were off in pairs then, boys and girls, into the dance, whispering slippers and clattering boots. Vinnie clapped time with his hands and the crockery rocked on the shelf. George Washington dropped to one side and Maggie straightened him with her cane when she turned. Did ever the father of his country expect to look down on such children? And could he in life have stood the fumes of the grog now wafting up past his beak of a nose? By the look of that nose, Vinnie thought, it had thrived on more than fumes.

Maggie poked Vinnie with her cane to attract his attention. She nodded at the dancers. “Is none of them yours?”

“Not one, alas!”

“Yer a different sort by yer looks. What d’you do?”

“I’m a locksmith by trade,” said Vinnie, and by a long stretch you could find truth in it, he thought.

Maggie leaned over the bar, the smell of her pipe ahead of her. “And yer don’t have the key to a woman’s heart?”

Vinnie shook his head that he did not. Maggie shook hers in sympathy. The first dance was done and the girls flounced down on the benches while the boys brought their drinks to refresh them. Maggie hobbled round the bar and carried her man a cup of grog. Vinnie thought it a comfort to see the brew drunk in the family. Whatever she said to her husband, he stretched his neck to look around her at Vinnie. They were scheming something, and Vinnie resolved, seeing the black man lay down his fiddle, wrap a scarf about his neck and go out, to stay the night within hailing distance of Jamie.

“’Tis a pity,” said Maggie with a grin when she again took up her station behind the bar, “to see the likes of you wastin’ yer company on the likes of me.”

“How could you call it waste and you the fairest of the lot!” cried Vinnie.

“Oh, yer a blarneyin’ blatherer!” Maggie crowed.

“Where’s Tim and his fiddle?” said Jamie, coming up. “Or do we go now to Pete’s?”

“Go to hell if yer so anxious to get there. The devil, I hear, ’s a great hand with the fiddle. Tim’s gone upstairs to fetch somethin’.” There was the tone of conspiracy in her voice.

Vinnie thought he caught her winking, but he had looked up too late. Jamie gave a knowing “ah-h-h,” and clapped Vinnie on the back. “He’s a fine lad and I’ll give him recommendation.”

In a few minutes Tim returned and took his fiddle to Turkey in the Straw. “Haw, haw, haw,” cried Vinnie, and spying the broom in the chimney corner he caught it up and danced it into the middle. The girls squealed and clapped as he danced it around, all of them thumping and howling and rocking the house. Vinnie danced his broom to Jamie, thrust it into his hands and whirled his Sally up the line and down again, exchanging her then for the broom which he stood at arm’s length and bowed to. Maggie herself came to the rim of the dancers and with a haul of her arm whipped a strange waif into the dancing ring with Vinnie. The girl near dropped at his feet for want both of balance and courage, thought Vinnie. He flung the broom to the corner and caught her hands in his. The others danced by and about them, and Vinnie swayed his companion lightly and tried to study her face. Great solemn eyes looked into his and quickly away and her smile paid him but the briefest of visits. For all the childlike size of her and the face of a wayfaring angel, her shape was mortal enough and a woman’s.

“I’m Vinnie,” he said, “who are you?”

“Eileen.”

He made her repeat it to coax speech from her. “It’s a lovely name.” He danced her apart and in a moment was sitting beside her on the bench at the furthest corner. “Are you lately over?”

“No.”

“Long?”

“No.”

“Where do you come from?”

“Wicklow.”

As soft as the word itself was her voice. “I know a man from Wicklow,” Vinnie said. “Stephen Farrell. Have you ever heard of him?”

“I’ve not.”

“Is Maggie Shins a relation?”

The girl nodded her head that she was. One thing certainly: if she was meant for his company, she was not to burden him with conversation.

“Will you have some grog, Eileen?” She nodded she would. “Hot or cold?”

“Medium, please.”

She was either simple as a cricket, Vinnie thought, making his way through the dancers, or wise as an ant. To bring her a medium drink he needed to buy two, for Maggie would ladle but a full cup at a time and that hot or cold. Willing she was, though, to give him the extra mug in which to do his own mixing.

“She’s my niece,” said Maggie, “a tender thing. My youngest sister’s youngest daughter, and she’s pale still from a terrible crossing.”

“Ah, that’s it,” said Vinnie.

Then as blithely as she sold her grog, Maggie said: “Yer can have her tonight for two dollars.”

Vinnie could feel the blood rush to his face, but no words would come to his tongue.

“Is it too high? ’Tis New Year’s Eve.” Vinnie shook his head. “I’m sparin’ of her to one man only and waitin’ the night for a proper sort. She’s an uncommon girl, yer know.”

Vinnie brought out his wallet quickly, the quicker to quiet Maggie.

She took the notes, folded them, and tucked them, of all places, under the comb in her gray nest of hair. “’Twill go to her dowery,” she purred, “yer can have it all back one day if yer like. I’d not mind yer sort in the family.”

Vinnie made a sound in his throat and rushed the two grogs to the back of the room. He could hear the rattle of Maggie’s laughter like the noise of old bones shaken up in a sack. He gave the cup into Eileen’s hand and sought out Jamie.

“Let’s move on if we’re going. The witch has sobered me.”

“Hunk with me,” said Jamie. “Yer’ve found company, eh?”

“Do you know the girl?”

“I’ve met her.”

“On other nights like this?”

Jamie looked at him as though he had never met so stupid a man. “In church,” he said.

Vinnie returned to Eileen. “We’re going on if you’ll come,” he said.

She put down the cup which she had not put to her lips, and without a word went to where she had hung her cape by the door. Vinnie followed her and took his coat, hat and gloves. “Have you no muff?”

“I don’t need it. I’m used to the cold.”

She had spoken a sentence at least.

Jamie put his hand on Vinnie’s shoulder and drew him aside. “For Chris’sake, are yer on a lark or a crusade? Facts is facts, man. Enjoy yersel’ or go home to bed.”

Yes, Vinnie thought, facts is facts. He had been pretending to himself it was all an enchantment, like a tale to be told a child of a broom’s transformation into a princess. He laughed aloud at himself and led the way into the street, his arm about the princess.

Where they drank and where they danced along the street and in what festooned cellars, Vinnie could not say. He called her Princess Eileen and she smiled. He kissed her cheek and a fountain statue would have been no colder to his lips. If he sought her lips with his, he wondered, would he feel his heart turn to ice? He could not escape the fantasy and the more he drank the deeper it engulfed him.

Then, near midnight, they came at last to Pete’s Place where Vinnie’s fantasy turned to riot. Crowded and noisy the place seemed when they arrived, and near half the attendance was colored; three Negro musicians tuned up and a few couples faced their partners. Their first steps and glides to the fiddle were almost satirically decorous. What happened then was like an explosion. The drummer took over the rhythm, doubling and tripling the time, the fiddler juggled his fiddle while dancing the bow on its strings, and the third man staggered and reeled under his screaming horn plucking at it like something afire he could not tear away from his lips. “Cooney in der holler” and “hi-eee-oh!” Never was dancing done like this unless by the damned in hell: black men shivered all over and lifted their girls to the beams, swung them down then to slide ’twixt their legs and leap up strong and vibrant to be swung upon and whirled again wildly, obscenely, gorgeously, never a muscle still save in jerks and breaks of private rhythm bringing bursts of applause from the watchers…and over it all the horn, the Goddamned screaming, torturing horn, Vinnie thought, stabbing like a liquid tongue. Jamie and Sally were leaping upon the dance floor, a palsied imitation of the blacks. Vinnie felt soaked with sweat. At the opposite bench the butcher boy was nibbling the neck of his girl, her eyes half closed and her mouth hanging open in giddy pleasure. Vinnie turned to the princess. Half smiling she was to see his distress, and yielded her lips when he kissed her—her bought cold mouth to loveless passion. Vinnie threw back his head in relief. The dance was done. The horn sobbed itself into silence.

Vinnie wiped his forehead and hands with his handkerchief and drained the last drop of whiskey from the flask he had taken from Jamie. He could feel his own lips stiffen against his teeth. “When did you die, Eileen?” he said.

She looked up at him and her eyes were no longer mirthful. “When I was fifteen. I bore a child and died with her.”

“Forgive me. I intended to be cruel…and I succeeded.”

“When God is cruel,” she said, “what hurt take I from a man’s try at it?”

“We are not what we seem,” Vinnie murmured, not knowing what he meant except that he was thinking that things happen in the end which are not contemplated in the beginning. “What I mean is,” he tried to explain to himself as well as to her, “it isn’t right to lay the outcome of our troubles to the interference of God when we undertook their beginnings ourselves.”

“Are you a priestling on a lark?”

“I’m not. I’m a student.”

“Of what?”

“Of life you might say.”

She looked at him and smiled in a way that made him blush. “You’re only a boy,” she said, “and a strange sort to be at my elbow. Have you ever known a woman?”

“No,” he admitted, blushing higher.

“New Year’s Eve,” she mused.

They were alone at the table, the others having plowed off for refreshment which they must fetch themselves at Pete’s place. She was quiet a moment, looking ahead and seeing only what was in her own mind. “I was in the field when he came,” she said, and Vinnie needed to lean close to hear, for she spoke softly and whatever story she was telling had its beginning in her memory only. “I was tending the goat and he asked for a sup of milk. He was brown as gorse in the autumn and I thought him handsome as no man I ever seen. I gave him the milk and he thanked me and went. Every sundown he came then for a week and supped of the milk. He laid his hand upon my head and then to my breast and never a word we said but laid down together in the long grass. I remember the curlew screamin’ off as the trumpet cryin’ tonight, and the goat bleatin’ a welcome when I came back and he went down the hill. He waved and touched his fingers to his lips to me and never came up the hill again. I would not tell his name for I did love him and the child was his and dead.”

Vinnie realized he had been holding her hand limp in his. He squeezed it softly. “Are you only a month in this country as your aunt says?”

“I’m a year and a month,” Eileen said and looked at him sadly. “Have no hopes for me, my gentle friend. I was shipped out apprenticed to a whoremonger, and what care I when a cruel God holds my bonds?”

“Not God, but the fiends who profit by your flesh.”

She loosed her hand from his and laid her head upon his shoulder. “God took the child and gave no other.”

They sat in silence then, his arm behind her on the cold wall that she might rest more easily. When the fiddler again was seeking his tune on the box, Jamie came back to the table.

“Me and my Sally’s goin’ now, will yer come?” He moistened his lips while he waited the answer.

“Come,” said Eileen, getting up, and Vinnie followed.

Jamie had arranged it all: a cab was waiting them on the street and already occupied by the butcher and his girl. Even the driver had been instructed, for Jamie said not a word to him, seating himself in the corner of the hack and with Sally on his lap. Vinnie held Eileen on his and she burrowed her cold face into the soft warmth of his neck. He was moving by rote, he thought, his will suspended between fear and desire. At their feet the butcher boy was loving his girl in the dark.

They were put down Vinnie knew not where, save for the ghosts of market stalls. Jamie took his key to the door of a gray shed, and within it, lighted a lantern and led the way to the loft. Eileen held Vinnie’s hand tight in hers and when the straw-littered floor was in view to them all, Jamie blew out the lantern. Eileen put her arms about Vinnie, groping through his clothes to his flesh. “Don’t be afraid,” she whispered, “and don’t be bashful. Sure, I’m not. I was bold the first time, and I’ll be as bold the last, I’ll warrant.”

5

VINNIE AWOKE WITH A torturing headache which was made none the easier by the realization that he had earned it. Nancy brought his hot water and a pot of coffee and spared him comment save for a few clucks at where his clothes were. He had managed to hang them neatly enough, but in the most extraordinary places. Nancy remarked at the door that he would have company any minute. Vinnie rinsed his mouth and gathered his clothes, and struck what he hoped was a sober pose when the tap came at his door. Mr. Finn, he supposed.

“Stephen!” He ran into Farrell’s arms.

“Happy New Year, Vinnie.” Stephen pushed him away after a hug to look at him. “Good God!”

“I’m awfully glad it’s you, Stephen. Do I look that bad? I am sorry…”

“You’re not the first man I’ve met in your condition this morning,” Stephen said. “Stay on your feet and I’ll fix you something.” He went to the wash stand and took a small phial from his pocket. He mixed a potion in water and brought it. “Drink hearty!” He grinned as Vinnie downed the brew and shuddered.

“It tastes poisonous.”

“It will find good company.”

Farrell set about putting the room in order. He gave the fire a kick and opened the shutters, and then removed Vinnie’s cravat from the bust of Cicero on his desk.

Vinnie watched him and, without his realizing it, the pain left his head. His hand was almost steady as he poured two cups of coffee. “Oh, Stephen, it was the strangest night.”

Farrell sat down on the arm of a chair and tasted the coffee. “Want to talk about it?”

“No, I guess not. If it hadn’t happened I would. I mean…”

“I think I know what you mean. I’m sorry I wasn’t here, Vinnie.”

“It’s all right. I guess one must work things out himself anyway.”

“Rather. Jeremiah tells me you’ve worked a number of things out yourself. The upper third this term, no less.”

Vinnie took a deep draught of coffee. “Remember this time last year?”

Farrell nodded. “I learned more in a month than in all my years in Trinity, trying to keep up with you.”

“You’re a splendid teacher.”

Stephen smiled. “I should like very much to teach,” he said.

“Better than the law?”

“Perhaps. I should not be missed from the bar, that’s certain. But since I’ve settled upon that I must make my mark in it somehow. Not that I want fame. Nor fortune. Perhaps that’s my trouble. I’m not a proper sort for America. I don’t care enough for finance and trade.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Vinnie said.

Stephen nodded. “Especially now.”

“I haven’t congratulated you, Stephen.”

“I’m content to wait until you’ve met Delia.”

“What’s she like?”

“That’s no question to ask a man just married. She’s fair and sweet…and wise and merry. I hope she will be to you what she is to me, Vinnie. I’ve told her very much about you.” He smiled. “But nonetheless she’s eager to meet you.”

“This afternoon,” Vinnie said. “And I promise to be in better condition. Stephen, I’m going to try for a medal in oratory this term.”

Farrell looked at him. “I think that’s splendid.” He drained his cup and put it on the mantel. “There is this you must understand of my discontent, Vinnie. It comes of practicing law with a politician, and Robbins, my senior partner, is that. But I do believe that advocacy is one of the great callings to which a man can turn. I don’t know another which requires more courage. To stand between a man and disaster, sometimes between him and the gallows is a frightening thing. Do you mind if I preach a little—as though you could stop me now?”

“I don’t mind,” Vinnie said.

“I doubt that I have the power to influence you, but I’d like you to know how I feel about it. First must come courage, for you will sometimes lose. That is personal defeat as few men know it, even revolutionaries. The law requires a good mind. But more important by far, I think, is the good heart. To be a good advocate you must be capable of loving all men, for it is the only way you’ll know them. It isn’t much to have learned, Vinnie, but there are some simple things one learns slowly. If you wait until you know a man to give him your love you will not know or love him, and the loss will be yours. But if you come to know men by way of love, you will understand evil, and you will know how much evil a man can do and not become himself evil. This, I think, an advocate must understand and believe. You will never, never defend the evil a man has done. But you will often defend a man who has done evil.” Stephen got to his feet. “Class adjourned.”

“I think you must be a good lawyer, Stephen.”

“I should be a good one. Let’s put it that way. I was trained to be a barrister, but I was not called to the bar until I had discovered some small talent of the pen. The poverty of Irish letters made it seem much larger than it was and then Irish revolt waited upon it. Oh, you will meet John Mitchel today…”

Vinnie was well aware that Mitchel was in New York. He had been given a triumphant welcome on his arrival the month before as though, some said, he had defeated the British, not escaped them.

“… He, too, was trained to the law. But he is still out of patience with it—as he is with a world that will not unseat its tyrants. Well, power and glory to him, I say, and God help him. He will be as bitter a man when he quits New York as was Kossuth. He will learn that Irishmen, like Hungarians, must win their own independence—and at home, not abroad.”

“It’s been such a long time since we talked like this,” Vinnie said.

Farrell went to the window. “If only I could overcome my loathing of this city. Sham and riot. Every day the Fourth of July. Run up the flag and you can run down any man beneath it.”

“Is Delia homesick, Stephen?”

Farrell laughed. “You have perceived the very backside of the truth. Delia was never happier. She loves every curse and whistle of it, and promises to be its belle. Which reminds me I must go home to her aid. She will find New Year’s receptions here more arduous than in gentle Charleston.” He paused at Vinnie’s desk and fingered the neckpiece he had removed from the bust of Cicero. Idly, he put it back. “He was more than an orator, this man. He was an advocate and he had courage. When tyranny ruled under the guise of democratic forms, he dared test the forms…and marvelously, they sustained him! Courage, lad: that’s the thing.” He looked back. “Come early to us, will you?”

6

VINNIE, WHO ON A few occasions had visited Stephen in his rooms on Bleecker Street had thought them the very model of a bachelor’s residence—books and pipes, memorabilia of many a walking excursion, and furniture willing to compromise its dignity to a man’s comfort. What he expected of the Farrell suite at the St. Nicholas, he did not know, but certainly he was not prepared for the elegance which greeted him. The hotel itself was shining new and renowned as the best appointed in the country and with all the modern conveniences. It was said that some of New York’s most fashionable families entered spirited bidding with each other for the residential suites. For some it was as much a matter of convenience as of fashion. Such was the growth of the city’s population it had become well nigh impossible for a man to provide a decent home for his family within a reasonable distance of his place of business. One old home after another was abandoned to industry or tenement, and soon thereafter the entire neighborhood. So it was that many people built summer homes at Newport, Rockaway or other ocean points and maintained as well apartments in the better hotels.

Vinnie gave his hat and cloak to the liveried Negro and with Mr. Finn, waited for his host and hostess to turn from the callers just previously arrived. Glimpsing the sparkling buffet in the room beyond, the crystal and silver and snowy-white linen, the many-ribbed roast and the turkey, white-cuffed at the ankles, and having a second more to estimate the fashion of his hostess by the jeweled comb in the back of her hair, Vinnie thought it small wonder that Stephen was afflicted that morning with a great loathing of finance. By these signs he had needed to devote much thought to the matter of late.

Stephen caught his eye and smiled a welcome while he whispered to his wife. Likely it was word that Vinnie had come, for she laid a delicate hand upon the arm of the gentleman talking to her and in a most artful way dismissed him. She turned and appraised the boy for a long instant and then gave him both her hands. “So you’re Vinnie,” she said. By a power he was by no means sure was entirely his own, he lifted her hand to his lips. Fragrant it was as the cherry blossom, and petal soft. Her smile was quicker by far than her speech, conjuring and vanishing the dimples in her cheeks. Her eyes were china blue and her hair as blond as a tassel of wheat. “I must say Stephen didn’t do you justice at all, tellin’ me about you. But no man ever does, tellin’ about another man, I don’t think.” She gave one hand to Mr. Finn, while holding still to Vinnie. “How nice to see you again, Mr. Finn. I do believe there’s gentlemen here of your acquaintance,” and she named certain of the guests already arrived, sorting the merchants from the rest, Vinnie noticed, for Mr. Finn’s approval. “I declare this Northern custom of makin’ calls like a relay race is barbarous. Uncivilized. Try and slow ’em down a trifle, Mr. Finn?”

A more ingratiating way of dismissing a man, Vinnie had not seen. As a gambler could shuffle cards, so could Delia Osborn Farrell maneuver sociabilities. “You just stay by me a bit so we can talk,” she whispered to Vinnie, “unless you’d prefer the company of gentlemen?”

“No ma’am,” he said emphatically.

“Ma’am,” she mimicked. “If you don’t call me Delia, I’m goin’ to call you Mr. Dunne. I’m not so much older than you, young man. Would you like a plate?”

“Not yet, thank you. I’ll feast my eyes for the present.”

Stephen overheard the remark. “Such savoir faire.”

“Don’t you pay him no mind, Vinnie,” Delia said. “That was a charmin’ remark and I’m flattered by it.”

With a lull in the arrival of callers, Delia left Stephen to receive and drew Vinnie apart to a nest of chairs, choosing one for him less able to his support than a mushroom. “Don’t you worry about that chair,” she said at his hesitancy. “It’s strong as King Louis himself and he lived to near a hundred. My grandfather brought it back to Charleston from when he was in foreign service. I remember him sayin’, “I can tell a gentleman by the way he sits a horse and a Louis Fourteenth chair.’ Most men don’t care if they’re sittin’ on tradition or a tar barrel, but I like tradition, don’t you, Vinnie?”

He smiled his acquiescence although for comfort he’d have taken the tar barrel. One really did not need to say much in conversation with Delia, just occasional words of approval, and she would prattle on pleasantly, her eye straying now and then to her other guests, and if she needed to excuse herself to attend them, her conversation on her return picked up from where she had left off as though she had paused for no more than breath. “Stephen says Ireland’s full of traditions if the people weren’t too poor to care about them. His own family goes back three hundred years. Did you know that, Vinnie?”

“No,” he admitted. Truly, he knew very little about Stephen before America.

“His mother’s a beautiful woman. That’s her portrait Mr. Finn’s lookin’ at now.” Vinnie glanced toward the picture. He would need to go nearer to really see it. “I think your Mr. Finn is so quaint,” she went on. “Stephen’s very fond of him, and I’ll tell you the truth, Vinnie, I like him better myself than the company of wild Irishmen Stephen’s takin’ up with again…” There was something in her attitude toward Mr. Finn that made Vinnie feel uncomfortable, but he had no time then to explore it. “They’re talkin’ about startin’ a paper, you know. John Mitchel just out of jail and startin’ up already. I don’t mind some of his associates, but I’m frightened of Mr. Mitchel. That man’s full of hate, Vinnie. You can smell it on his breath.” She laid cool fingers on Vinnie’s hand. “Stephen says it’s only Englishmen he hates, but I’d like to know how he can always tell an Englishman.” She gave a deep sigh. “I suppose I shouldn’t be talkin’ like this, but it just seemed I was gettin’ Stephen contented and settled when Mr. Mitchel had to escape from Van Diemen’s Land or wherever it was.”

Vinnie laughed. She spoke as though John Mitchel’s escape and arrival in New York had been timed to upset her nicest calculations.

“Oh, you can laugh, goin’ back safe to that Yale College of yours. But you should hear them talkin’. England’s goin’ to get into war with Russia and they ought to send somebody to talk with the tsar. Imagine, talkin’ with the tsar about invadin’ Ireland! He’s got so many millions and millions of acres of land now and peasants and slaves, what would he want with Ireland, will you tell me that? It just don’t make sense, you know that, Vinnie.”

Delia had not noticed her husband’s eyes upon her, but Vinnie did, watching the callers come and go in a nearly constant parade while Delia was talking. Stephen finally crossed the room to them.

“Come, Vinnie,” he said. “I want you to meet John Mitchel.” It was not so much that, Vinnie thought, as that he wanted Delia to return to the place of reception.

Delia sighed. “We were just gettin’ nicely started, Vinnie and me.”

“There will be a time, my dear,” Stephen said gently. “You must prosper us all with your attentions today.”

For an instant about her mouth Vinnie saw the shape of a pout. It vanished so quickly he thought he must be mistaken, for Delia no sooner turned her back on them than she happily picked up the refrain of some previous conversation with another gentleman.

“You will be friends, you and Delia,” Stephen said. “You’ve not had enough of the company of women, I expect.”

“The God’s truth that,” Vinnie said. “My tongue thickens like plaster in their presence.”

John Mitchel was distinguishable from any place in the room, surrounded as he was by a coterie of boisterous fellows. Every now and then their laughter caused guests of more sedate demeanor to suspend their own conversations and turn Young Ireland’s way until the hilarity subsided. Stephen soon forgot his avowed purpose in carrying Vinnie off. From one cluster of guests to another they moved, savoring bits of talk on the theatre, on Thackeray, on what had become of table rappings. Confronted by a party of young men, their plates and glasses full and their praise high for the host they didn’t recognize, Stephen murmured: “We must have a good draft in the chimney. I swear they didn’t come in by the door.”

“It’s a grand gathering, Stephen,” Vinnie said.

Stephen squeezed his arm. “Isn’t it? And men of all persuasions, thank God!”

He would remember that, Vinnie thought, and the fervor with which Stephen said it. It was as though he had determined his guests by their diversity. Suddenly Vinnie spied the artist whose painting he had bought for Mr. Finn a few days before.

“I say, Stephen, I don’t want to crash the Mitchel crowd, if you don’t mind. Later, perhaps, but there’s an artist chap over here I know.”

“As you like,” Farrell said. “They’ll be here a while by the looks of them.” Young Ireland had gathered chairs to themselves, and it was quite unheard of that New Year’s callers should sit down.

Vinnie made his way to where Jabez Reed stood at the window, glowering down at the Broadway scene, one hand working out of the other behind his back. His shoulders were sloped and his back hunched a little, perhaps from the weight of an enormous head. From behind, the artist looked like an old man. His face, Vinnie remembered, was like a child’s. The Institute catalogue listed him as having been born in Indian territory in 1828.

“I wonder if you remember me, Mr. Reed?” Vinnie said.

The artist gave him but a glance, beckoned him to his side, and pointed to the scene he attended. Vinnie shaded his eyes from the light of the room. The snow was falling faster in the gathering twilight. He saw then what so intrigued the artist: two inebriates trying to haul their fellow one way while the man’s dog was determined to take him by the coat tail another.

“Who wins, do you say?” said Reed.

“The dog,” Vinnie said. “He’s sober.”

“Sobriety, like virtue, is not always its own reward, my friend.” With that, the artist swept the curtain into Vinnie’s hand, gave the window a great heave, and having it open, thrust his head out. He put two fingers between his teeth and blasted a piercing whistle. The dog let go of the coat to better attend the sound and before he could catch it again, his master and chums had skipped into a tavern.

“One up for Aesop,” the artist said.

Meanwhile, half the candles in the drawing room were guttered, and Reed had gained as much attention within as without. Vinnie closed the window, preferring to face the strangers outside than the friends at his back. Reed, discovering his audience, looked at them a moment in dismay. Then he jerked his thumb toward the window. “My reindeer,” he said. “I’m about to leave.”

Amid the shaking of heads and resumption of talk, Vinnie said: “Will you have a plate before you go?”

The artist looked up at him sharply. “I do know you, bless my eyes! Vincent Dunne, well done, capital done! Lord God of Jerusalem that I should be so slow to recognize a man by whom I was so excellently done!” He leaned close to Vinnie. “I should prefer a glass.”

Vinnie beckoned to the servant.

Reed lifted the glass. “To faithful dogs and faithless lovers. If one had the soul of the other…it would not improve the world an atom.” He downed the wine at one long pull, blinked his eyes and accepted another. “To artists everywhere—who try as they will, cannot possibly eat enough today to suffice them the rest of the year.” Finishing that off, he smacked his lips and rubbed his hands together. “Now, pray tell me, Dunne, who is our host, for I believe I’ve happened on the wrong reception.”

Vinnie told him and presently accounted the identity of as many people as he knew. Reed’s eyes played over the guests while he listened and now and then he would query: “What is it you say he does?” And when Vinnie was finished, the artist went back to one of the names. “A sea captain, did you tell me? Nonsense. He’s a military filibusterer, oh, he is now, don’t be shocked. It’s quite respectable in some circles, and if I rightly heard the accents of mine hostess, this is one. Look at your sea captain coddle Young Ireland. Shall I tell you why? He calculates them soul-cousins to Young America, and rightly. Both will join anything military so long as the gods of war are summoned in the name of Democracy. Conquer the world and call it Destiny. That’s the spirit. Manifest Destiny. Mark it, my friend: your sea captain will be off to Cuba one day soon, a little armed filibuster to set it free from the tyrant, Spain. And all them Cuban black folk—what’s their destiny? He’ll ship ’em back to South Carolina, and manifest it there.”

Rolling back on his heels like a street preacher, the artist had once more drawn attention to himself, including that of his hostess.

“If you’re goin’ to talk about South Carolina, gentlemen, it’s goin’ to have to be in the presence of a native child,” Delia said, appearing, Vinnie thought, with the haste of a ghost, for he had not seen her come.

He presented Jabez Reed as his friend. When Delia gave him her hand in such a manner that he also needed to raise it to his lips, her other guests again dismissed Reed from their attention.

“And do you know South Carolina, Mr. Reed?” Delia persisted.

“I must account my knowledge ignorance until your acquaintance, madam,” Reed said with heavy irony. Vinnie could sense the immediate antagonism between them.

Delia looked at the artist, the blue in her eyes as cold as stars. “We have more to recommend us than our hospitality, Mr. Reed,” she said, “but to that you’re welcome if you’re a friend of Vincent’s.” And smiling, she left them.

“Someone will chew her hand off one day for that,” Reed said furiously. “But for the present score another point for South Carolina.”

Vinnie felt it necessary to offer a defense of Stephen’s wife. “All the same,” he said, “I’ll wager Delia’s no champion of the filibuster. I suspect she has a low opinion of Young Ireland and Young America alike.”

“I didn’t know Southern ladies allowed to political opinions,” Reed said in a mocking drawl.

“Senator Osborn is her father.”

“A-ha, a-ha,” Reed said. “Then mark me this, if she is not its champion today, she will not be its enemy tomorrow…and perhaps by the day after we shall have Cuba, another slave state. This is the lure of the Democrats, my young friend. They would have the South at all costs, which is ridiculous since they might have it for nothing. The Whigs are dead and certainly the South will not go Abolitionist to find a party.”

“Native American, perhaps?” said Vinnie.

“Not so long as the Irish favor slavery.”

“I am Irish,” Vinnie said, “and I do not favor it.”

“You must be a very lonely Irishman then,” Reed said. “Look there, the white-haired gentleman just arrived, George Robbins—do you know him?”

“No,” Vinnie said, although the name was very familiar. The man was on Stephen’s arm, making his way to the Young Ireland group, and presently shaking hands around in hearty fervor.

“There is not a Democrat of harder shell in Christendom,” Reed said. “He’s a national committeeman and a lawyer with offices here and in Washington, and his principal clients, the Southern planters. He serves them well. He is virtually a lobbyist on behalf of their peculiar institution. Now, if I’m not mistaken, he will proclaim his sympathy for the downtrodden Irish, and to illustrate it, subscribe generously to this chap Mitchel’s paper.”

Vinnie measured every word for as soon as Reed had identified the man as a lawyer he realized why the name was familiar: Stephen was his partner. “I wish…” Vinnie said, and the words lagged behind his thinking. There were so many things he wished. Reed tilted his great head and gazed up at him with an innocence that made Vinnie feel his elder. He was reminded of himself in the canny mischief of his childhood when it pleased him to tell the truth only when it could cause more trouble than a lie. “I wish,” he said, “that I could call you a liar.”

“So do all men discomfited by the truth,” Reed said. He drew a great muffler from under his coat. “Perhaps you will convey my thanks to our hostess.” He looked her way while he spoke, and following the direction of his gaze, Vinnie saw that Delia and a companion were watching them only to turn away before their eyes might meet. “Coming from you such thanks will seem of more worth than I intend them, and this much at least she deserves for tolerating one so contemptuous of her house. A prosperous New Year to you, Dunne. If ever you want to look at pictures they will tell you at Windust’s where to find me.”

Bitter, bitter, bitter, Vinnie thought, watching him depart. He wondered when he would meet Jabez Reed again, and if he would learn the reason for such bitterness. He learned part of it far quicker than he expected. He was making his way toward Mr. Finn when Delia intercepted him.

“Dear Vinnie,” she said, “I do believe you’ve done me a harm you didn’t intend.”

“If I’ve done you harm,” he said, “I surely did not intend it. Mr. Reed is a peculiar sort.” He was determined not to offer an apology, for in truth he saw nothing in Reed’s behavior requiring it except perhaps the episode at the window, and he was sure Delia did not mean that.

“Very peculiar indeed,” Delia said. “Did you know he was a Negro?”

“No,” Vinnie said quietly, “I didn’t.”

Delia smiled then and hooked her arm in his. “There,” she said, “I didn’t think you knew it. I just learned it myself from a most reliable source.”

Vinnie, thinking about the man’s features, realized it might be so. “Part Negro, I should say.”

“There’s no such thing,” Delia said blithely.

“I see,” Vinnie said.

“We won’t tell Stephen a word about it. He’s got enough on his mind now.”

Quite enough, Vinnie thought.

Stephen prevailed upon Mr. Finn and Vinnie to stay on to supper. The remains of the buffet made an ample feast.

“We should have asked Mr. Robbins to dine with us, Stephen,” Delia said, and to Vinnie: “He’s an old family friend, you know.”

“I dare say he had many calls yet to make,” Stephen said. “Some houses receive until ten.”

“Gracious! I’d be entirely undone by then,” said Delia.

“You must be weary as it is, my dear,” he said, and added to his guests: “It’s Delia’s way to give of herself unsparingly.”

“I do think you’re describin’ yourself, Stephen Farrell. There’s no end to the things he does for people—always gettin’ himself taken advantage of.”

Stephen shifted uneasily in his chair and cleared his throat as though to hold off further conversation until he found an appropriate subject. “Do you know Robbins?” He addressed Mr. Finn.

“Only by hearsay. An affable gentleman.” It was faint praise, Vinnie thought. Robbins was one of the few men present he had not met.

“He’s very well thought of down home—for a Northern man,” Delia said, folding her napkin.

Mr. Finn looked up. “Do you think so ill of us, Mrs. Farrell?” He would never call her Delia, Vinnie thought. Nor would she ask it of him.

“I do think it’s the other way about, Mr. Finn, and we Southerners have a way of reciprocatin’. It’s human nature, I suppose, though sometimes I do wonder whatever human nature is, all the things men do and call it that.”

Mr. Finn merely nodded.

“That was a strange chap you took up with, Vinnie,” Stephen said. “Did you invite him?”

“No,” he said, and then because he wished it known that he was not ashamed of the association he added: “But I might have. That was Jabez Reed, Mr. Finn.”

“Was it? An excellent painter. Vinnie presented me with a landscape of his this holiday. It was that you admired this morning, Stephen.”

“Indeed,” Stephen murmured. “A remarkable sense of color.”

Vinnie covered with a cough a strong impulse to laugh.

“I do believe I’ll retire if you gentlemen will excuse me,” Delia said. “It’s been such a marvelous day.” They arose from the table with her. “I want you to come to tea real soon, Vinnie…and you too, Mr. Finn, if you can spare us the time…”

Upon Delia’s withdrawal Stephen launched into such an account of her virtues that Vinnie and Mr. Finn needed to avoid each other’s eyes. Had Vinnie liked Delia Farrell a great deal—and he scarcely liked her at all—he should still have been embarrassed. Stephen gave off as abruptly as he had commenced. “Well, Vinnie, shall we toast it instead of telling it? Will you have a brandy with me?”

“Thank you,” Vinnie said, and when Stephen brought the glasses, the boy proposed: “To the charming and lovely Delia.” And she was both lovely and charming, he thought.

“Drink deeply,” Mr. Finn said, and dropped his eyes upon his folded hands.

“The Citizen will go to press within the week,” Stephen said presently. Then, finding his guests’ enthusiasm less than he had hoped, he said: “You must not judge John Mitchel too severely. He knows but one mission for any Irishman—to save Ireland.”

“Well enough,” Mr. Finn said, “but I think he would be well advised to—ah—withhold his sentiments on certain peculiarly American problems.” Mitchel made no secret of his pro-Southern sympathies.

“He does not realize the acuteness of our sensitivities these days,” Stephen said. “And you must understand, Jeremiah, how easy it is for some of us to find similarities between the North and England. I do not believe that a pinch of pious cant sweetens a full measure of exploitation. I must confess myself to an affinity with the Southern dream.”

“And what, Stephen,” said Mr. Finn, “do you consider the Southern dream?”

“An agrarian civilization…enough leisure for thoughtful men to distill the best in government—in philosophy…”

The very backside of the truth, Vinnie remembered his words that morning. Delia was not homesick, but Stephen was.

“Government by distillery,” Mr. Finn said slyly. “Forgive me a bad play upon your words, but we have quite enough of that.” He sat back in his chair. “Oh my, Stephen, you have described the Jeffersonian ideal—but fifty years have changed the world. Commerce was not to be denied. Manufacture will not be confined to the mechanic’s shop. Nor is the agrarianism of the South at all today what Jefferson proposed. He envisioned a nation of self-supporting farmers—and nothing is further from self-support than dedicating the land to one crop.”

“God forbid I should be blind to that,” Stephen said, “when the potato has so cursed Ireland. It is the truth you tell. I know it. I run from it but I cannot escape. But I wonder if John will see it. He was wiser once than all of us as to the true relationship between man and the land. He would have made that the issue of the rising, and at least have had a rising for it. Well, we must see where he will go now. The Citizen will be a lively paper—and an independent one.”

“Independent of whom?” Mr. Finn said, and the same words were on Vinnie’s lips.

“Of the Church,” Stephen said. “Something novel in Irish letters.”

“I asked merely because you mentioned it,” Mr. Finn said.

“Stephen,” Vinnie said, and without sufficient forethought, “is Mr. Robbins supporting The Citizen?”

“No more than certain other gentlemen who will go its bond until it is self-supporting,” Stephen said slowly. “Do I infer censure in your question, Vinnie?”

There was nothing for it then, Vinnie realized, but to spill out his conversation with Jabez Reed, Reed’s account of George Robbins.

“’Tis true,” Stephen said coldly, “all true. Our clientele are largely Southern planters and more honorable gentlemen, by and large, Vincent, than the eminent hypocrites with whom they must trade. These Yankees wheedle, maneuver and squeeze for their profits at both ends. Then they donate a pittance to a home for destitute workers and a public subscription to Abolitionism.”

“I expect John Mitchel will make his policy independent of his investors as well as of the Church,” Mr. Finn said by way of conciliation, for Stephen was plainly angry.

“You may be sure of it—just as you may be sure, Vincent, that because I am in the firm of George Robbins, I do not necessarily subscribe to his politics.”

“I’m sorry, Stephen, if I’ve angered you,” Vinnie said, although the issue to his mind remained unanswered: why George Robbins was so interested in The Citizen.

“You are perilously close, my lad, to catching that abomination called a New England Conscience.”

It was Vinnie’s turn to be stung to anger. What he was defending he was not certain—his school, his fellows there, something to which he felt quite as loyal as to his Irish origins. “I’d prefer that,” he blurted out, “to sharing ideals with Simon Legree.”

“Oh my, oh my,” Mr. Finn said immediately. “How righteous are the young!”

“What in the name of God did you mean by that?” Stephen said to Vinnie, ignoring Mr. Finn’s aphorism.

“Just this morning, Stephen,” Vinnie cried, “you said you didn’t like practicing law with a politician! You said it…”

“This morning I was given to sentimentality,” Stephen said—and oh, how great the distance he put between himself and Vinnie with the words. “It is a weakness in which I do not often indulge.”

Vinnie had not said at all what he intended. Nor would he have got the opportunity had he found the words and been healed enough to say them. For by Mr. Finn’s earnest endeavors the conversation was turned to matters of no controversy and held upon them until their parting could be accomplished at least in quiet temper. But at the door while they shook hands, Stephen said with sadness: “How strange to have won the day against recrimination with the house full of mere acquaintances—only to lose it in the presence of my friends.”

“If the day was lost,” Mr. Finn said, looking from one to the other of them, “surely not the friends.”

When they reached the street, the sounds of the city were muffled in snow, the clopping of horses’ hoofs, the runners and wheels of late conveyances all near noiseless save their scraping on the occasional cobble worn bare. Little bells tinkled on the harnesses, and from far down the street came the off-tune songs of late carousers, thin and lonely sounds in the vastness of the whitened night as though even in song men could not keep together. Not even a whore was upon the street to coddle the desolate for a shilling—and Vinnie remembered—was it but the night before? Not even a match girl, nor a vendor of three-penny logs. Never was there such a peace upon the city, nor one so ominous, he thought.

“Why?” Vinnie cried. “Why did he marry her?”

Mr. Finn lifted his face from out the collar of his greatcoat. “Alas, many matches are ill-made in the hour of discontent, Vincent.”

“But,” Vinnie said, “it’s forever!”

“Oh, indeed it is. Forever and ever he will love and cherish her.”

“But he doesn’t,” Vinnie said. “I don’t think he does. I don’t think he believes all those things he said about her at all.”

“You are wrong, Vincent. What you do not understand about Stephen is that he will always believe what he must believe. If that were not so, I should fear greatly for him tonight.”

Vinnie did not go to tea with Delia. And within the week he returned to school without again seeing Stephen.

7

THE WINTER OF 1854 was severe in many ways. Ice crackled frequently under foot and tempers were as brittle. Many men were unemployed and Uncle Tom’s Cabin sometimes played in two New York theatres at once. At Washington, Senator Stephen A. Douglas in his bill for the organization of the Nebraska Territory threatened not merely to upset the Compromise of 1850, but in effect to repeal the Missouri Compromise as well, the law which since 1820 had prohibited the extension of slavery north of latitude 36˚ 30´.

Mr. Finn had often commented to Vinnie in conversation and letters on the mediocrity of men in public office since the Great Compromise. Better, he wrote now, mediocrity than this. Better a timid man than a rash one. Douglas was called far worse than rash by many of Mr. Finn’s persuasion who, like Finn, were forced to reexamine their political alliances for the second time in half a decade.

“I feel too old for this,” he wrote in February, “but I must get out and canvass. My ballot is no longer loud enough to speak for me. I am a poor speaker, but I dare say I shall manage. I even fancy myself a relief to an audience after, say, the haranguing of our friend, Valois. Well, the bill must be defeated at all costs.

“I must tell you Stephen is not displeased at the agitation. He sees in it a distraction from Nativism. Likely he is right. Valois has found a new cause certainly. I have not heard him curse the Irish for a month. But oh my, what cynicism in such an attitude. It becomes European despotism better than American democracy. Tyrants have always made wars abroad to distract from bankruptcy at home. As you can see, I am greatly distressed. Stephen’s wife is extremely partisan. I find I cannot go there often. I must be the only acquaintance of the house ill at ease with her. Yet, I quite admit her to be as charming as Stephen believes. Her father is said to be one of the powers behind Senator Douglas, and more canny than Douglas by far, pushing him into a position far beyond that he contemplated. All with flattery and promises of Southern support in the next election.

“The Democracy, so-called, is behind him for reasons of their own. I cannot help but wonder if they know or care the difference between Nebraska and a bottle of Sarsaparilla. He has Young America also who would like to see our boundary extended to include Spain no less, and Ireland of course. If that meant war with England, so much the better. Perhaps I exaggerate, but truly my notion of them is no more exaggerated than their own. This Manifest Destiny business has always turned my stomach. And now these armed filibusters in Cuba! That falls nicely into the Southern scheme of things—more black people to bolster their infamous institution.

“John Mitchel’s paper has picked up a strange assortment of friends. And lost a host of them early. That wish of his for a good plantation well stocked with healthy slaves damaged him sorely among respectable circles. Even Delia Farrell was repelled by it! (‘Why, Mr. Finn, that’s not even civilized, you know that!’)

“Dennis, I understand, has been chosen an elector for his district. Much of that neighborhood is Whiggish so I suspect Tammany is testing him, for what I don’t know exactly. I should like to think he was testing Tammany. They are still behaving themselves, which is in itself cause for alarm. The home of reform. They have said it so often some people believe it, perhaps even themselves. It is my own feeling that when every door in the city is open to reform, Tammany fires its locksmith. As you see, I am again a man without a party. Where I shall turn, I know not. Perhaps Abolitionist if I am pressed too hard, but I am a moderate man.

“I went up briefly to the opening of the newest Eight O’clock Market. In the Jefferson Place. A lick of candy free to every child and a square of tobacco for the men. The women, presumably, will turn out without inducement. A canny business man, our Dennis.

“Now dear boy, in your last letter you blamed yourself for not having written to Peg. If it has become a matter of conscience that you write her, do not do it, and ease your mind on it. She herself would not want such a letter. And it is not a matter you can help. I do believe it a most remarkable thing that you remembered her with such affection for so long. And on the whole, I rather think it well that this image you held of her has faded. You have changed. She will have changed. (So far as I can ascertain, by the way, Foley’s company has reached St. Louis and is doing very well there. This pleases Val, occupied as he now is with the Nebraska affair. I fear for his disposition if the bill should pass. But then I fear for much more than that if it passes.) To get back to Margaret for a moment, you will renew an acquaintanceship and if you are to have a relationship at all it will be based on what you have become quite as much as on what you were. I wonder if you understand?”

Vinnie, re-reading the last paragraph, thought he understood it very well and certainly he was relieved by it. He had almost reached the place where he dreaded meeting Peg. By Mr. Finn’s calculation, she must feel the same. It wouldn’t be so bloody bad if she expected in him a changed man. He glanced through the rest of the letter again and tossed it to his roommate. Mr. Finn’s letters always did him credit. Furthermore he and his roommate, a lad by the name of Alexander Taylor, shared most everything, having become fast friends.

“Say-oh, Taylor,” Vinnie said, “do you know a painting chap named Reed—Jabez Reed?”

“Can’t say.”

“Next time in I’ll take you by to meet him. He bloody well knows what the world’s about and don’t need the politicians to tell him.”

8

DENNIS’ OPENING IN THE Jefferson Market was the fifth of his shops, and all of them prospering. As the poor expanded uptown, so did Dennis Lavery. His stores no longer opened at the regular closing hour, but they bore in common with the first Catherine Street venture the slightly stale character of the merchandise and the cheap price for which it sold. Nor were the Eight O’clock Markets limited to produce any longer. They carried dry goods and cutlery and even a little hardware. A poor man, for example, thinking to repair his own house, might buy used nails at a penny a pint measure. The manner in which Dennis had come by the first batch of such nails was typical of his enterprise: an urchin picked them up in the ruins of a fire, scraped them clean, and offered them for sale to Dennis. Dennis proposed to buy as many as he could supply and it was not long until the arab had several of his own kind at work for him. Thus it came about that many a man who had never met Lavery and who certainly had not traded in his markets, would remark, seeing a youngster poke through char and ashes: “He must be going in business with Lavery.”

While the poor blessed him for selling at a price they could afford, the well-to-do admired him for his acumen, and all of them admitted him an honest man. It was small wonder then that his favor was sought by politicians on all levels.

For his own part, Dennis determined that having started at the bottom in business, he had no need to start there in politics. Furthermore, thinking over what he wanted out of politics, he knew it was not to be found at the bottom. He wanted no more than to better the lot of the Irishman, his own and that of fifty-odd thousand others in the city. Wherever he went, whether to the docks to bargain for damaged cargo or to a ward meeting, he enquired if anyone knew of a job for a man he could recommend. The jobs were rare for Irishmen even on Lavery’s recommendation, and it was looking to the improvement of this cursed situation that he agreed to serve on the Democrat General Committee should the Softs be able to seat him.

Dennis pondered and puzzled their reason. He had not declared himself a Hard or a Soft, but a Democrat only, and perhaps that was their why. To win the city elections in November, there damn well needed to be neither Hards nor Softs, nor should there be room even for Whigs and Reformers; it needed to come down to Democrats against the Natives. On the whole, his tastes within the party ran to the Softs. He had first fallen in with them the night he fell out with Mulrooney. They were younger men and it didn’t tear out their guts to make a change. That, by his notion, was the difference between the Democrat factions: the Softs were willing to compromise if need be, but the Hards wouldn’t budge from conservatism. There was, of course, what amounted to a third faction: Free-soilers, who had split from the Softs and were now the anti-Nebraska men, but their power within Tammany was negligible, and by the autumn it was expected, the Kansas-Nebraska issue would be forgot, and they would come home to vote if the Hards and Softs could reconcile.

This, Dennis calculated, would be the work set out for the General Committee, and the balance would lie with the new men elected to it. There was no canvassing of votes in the matter. Indeed the committee of Softs was counting as much on surprise as on their candidates, and on the night of the meeting Dennis made himself even less conspicuous than usual. He stuck his head in the barroom to hallo the barkeep and then went upstairs. He had come to consider it wisdom to be on the best of terms with bartenders whether at Tammany or in the neighborhoods of his markets. Nor was it a strain on his affections, these friendships. He had yet to meet an unlikeable barman.

Since this was a general meeting it was open to all members of Tammany; and Dennis wondered, as he sat down by the bunting-draped wall and lit a cigar, which of the men not at the table aside from himself were candidates. There were but three openings, calling at most for six nominees and yet the room was crowded. It must be the lonesomest sort of creature came in for no purpose save to be there. And many there were of that complexion. Wherever men of their party convened, there they were, quiet, watchful and worshipful as ever a dog of his master. And these were the men, Dennis thought, who if they but knew it of themselves, made the party: they canvassed the neighborhoods every election, got affidavits for foreigners so they could vote, and made sure every man got a ballot. Yet these little men, apologetic of the noise they made scratching a match, had no notion of their own power. If all men were created equal, a remarkable change came over some of them between the cradle and the meeting chamber of Tammany Hall.

The gavel fell convening the meeting. Dennis had attended caucuses and ratifications enough to know that much of the business was already accomplished including the one-two-three of putting him up, and keeping him up, and shutting up them who opposed him. So while the ponderous men of the Hards and the quick sly boys who were Softs sat down and convened in a show of harmony, he turned his mind to the contemplation of his acceptance remarks. He would start by describing himself as “What you might call a middlin’ man, neither soft-shelled nor hard, and in truth, nothin’ a true Democrat couldn’t swallow with ease…” But there was one Hard, he thought, who might choke on it—Daniel Mulrooney. A state senator was not much of a climb from city alderman, but it had taken all his busters and all his toadies to hoist him up to Albany. Still, he was a power in Tammany, and all of him present tonight. One thing certain, Dennis thought, if he had hitched himself to Mulrooney as Kevin had wanted him to on that first night, he wouldn’t be up now for the General Committee. At best he would be downstairs drinking small beer and ready to make a muss if word came that a muss would prosper Mulrooney.

Ah, he thought, what confidence comes to a man with the offer of a job he didn’t seek! Nonetheless when it came to the nominations, his cigar went out on him. The other two men were elected before him, one a Hard and one a Soft, and with an equal number of defections in either camp to carry the majority for the opposition. His heart gave a leap when his name was put up, for he carried the balance of power alone. Never was a candidate more surprised, nor would Dennis himself be again, to see an expected enemy rise to his promotion. Daniel Mulrooney raised his great bulk to a seconding speech. He’s fooling them all with his second, Dennis thought, putting me up so’s he can tear me down before the nominations is closed.

Mulrooney took his time in showing his intentions. “The young man,” he said, half-turning like a ship in a tight slip. “Sure, he wasn’t too modest to come, was he?”

Ah, sweet Jesus, Dennis thought, we’re for it now. He stood up and called out: “I’m here, never fear!”

Mulrooney looked him up and down as was his old habit. “The first time I saw him,” he growled, “he was as raw as a peeled onion.” There was a rumble of amusement. “And about as chummy.” The laughter broke then and Dennis told himself to take a lesson. If the old fox wasn’t lithe he was leery. “As some of you may know, I made this lad’s acquaintance near as soon as he stepped from the boat. In them days, I thought he was an arrogant pup. Now I find out it was bravery. Let me tell you what makes the difference. If a man aims high when he starts out and falls short of it, you can call him brash. But if he makes it, you call him bold. Now there’s as bold a lad as ever set foot in Tammany. And if ever we needed bold men, we need them now.” Mulrooney sighed heavily. “There’s some of you sayin’ Mulrooney’s gone Soft, and you’ll bear me a bitter grudge if you don’t soften some yourselves. You must think of the times, gentlemen, as I’m thinkin’ of them, for the plain truth is this: we’ll elect Democrats in the fall if we can unite. If we can’t, we’ll elect Know-nothin’s. Those are the times we live in.” The big man shook his head and his jowl quivered in the shaking. “I swear by the livin’ God, I’d rather by far put my hand into Dennis Lavery’s tonight, than my neck under the foot of a Native hereafter. I second the nomination.”

The nominations were closed before another was put up which in effect saw Dennis carried by acclamation.

“There have been times,” he said, coming forward to take his place, “when I’ve accused Mulrooney of takin’ the bread out of my mouth, but I never thought the day would come when he’d take the words out of it as well.” And leaning across the table he shook hands first with Daniel Mulrooney.

It was, all in all, a remarkable night, Dennis thought, as he rode uptown. It was the sort of night on which a man takes his own measure—if for no other reason than that he suddenly realizes his measure has been taken by others. There had been a time when he would have carried home news of his election like a prize for Norah to wonder and exclaim over. Instead it felt like a new responsibility, one surely he believed himself equal to, and satisfying in that at least. But he missed—though he could not quite put a name on what he missed—the high sense of glee—he would once have known on such a conquest. Well, it was part of many a change he had scarcely felt come upon him. He could now, for example, hear the fire bell and ride on where once he would have lept from the bus.

He saw the lamp near the window when he reached his corner, and he knew that Norah would be sitting by it, her sewing in hand and likely a bit of thread dribbling out of her mouth where she had taken two lengths from the spool at once to be the faster in her work—and that by his calculation, a work never to be entirely done until life itself was done. He shook his head as though to clear it of so heavy a thought, and paused on the stoop to look in upon his wife. It was all as he had expected even to the thread between her lips and the frown of concentration, the mark of which would remain between her eyes when she was no longer concentrating at all. She was not quite as prim as he had fancied her in his mind’s eye, and with her nose forever pointing the way for the needle, her chin had made a little cushion of fat for her head to rest on.

He threw back his shoulders and called in from the hall with a deliberate heartiness: “Will you put on the kettle, love, for I’ve news to tell that won’t grieve you.”

“It’s twice boiled dry,” Norah said, coming out and kissing his cheek. “I thought you were never comin’. Did you win, then?”

“I did and unanimous.” He followed her into the kitchen. “And I’ll tell you how unanimous. It was Daniel Mulrooney seconded me.”

Norah looked up at him. “What would he do that for?”

“For the sake of the party, that’s what,” said Dennis, trying not to snap in the irritation her question prompted.

Norah shook her head. “’Tis my opinion Mulrooney wouldn’t do anything save for his own good.”

“Oh, it’s for his own good all right,” Dennis said. “Without the party he’s nothin’ but a bag o’ dung.”

“Then what good is he to the party?”

“Wet the tea and I’ll tell you,” he snapped. But tell her he could not for he did not believe an instant in Mulrooney’s worth to any man alive, and yet if there were men in Tammany who thought him useful, Dennis knew he must be bided. Never was his instinct truer than at the moment he offered his hand into the putty-soft mauly of the Seventh Ward leader. It was then he had distinguished himself among the sachems, he knew, and not at the moment of his election at all. “I’m goin’ up and look in on the childer’,” he said.

“Don’t be bringin’ Michael down with you,” Norah said, “for I’ve news of my own to tell you this night.”

“Tell it then,” Dennis said, sitting down, “and I’ll not disturb them.”

Norah basted the sugar in the cups with hot water and then poured the tea in upon it. She waited until Dennis had tasted his and nodded approval. “Peg’s comin’ home.”

“I can’t say I’m surprised,” he said, but he took a scalding mouthful of tea, for something strange stirred inside him at the news as nothing else had been able to stir him that night. “What do you mean, she’s comin’ home?”

“Back to New York. To play upon the stage again.”

“Oh, for the love of God,” Dennis said, “she’ll undo us all with her reputation now.”

“What are you leapin’ at, Dennis? All we know of her reputation is what we seen in the papers.”

“And where else do you get a reputation, will you tell me?”

“Mr. Valor is goin’ to see to it there’s nothin’ indecent printed about her.”

“Mr. Valor is goin’ to see to it, is he?” said Dennis, finding in that name an outlet for his temper. “Do you know who he is at all, Norah?”

“You’ve told it often enough,” she said.

“Not near often enough by the sound of things. He’s an Irish-hatin’ and baitin’ bastard. If it’s him she’s with again, she’ll not come into this house.”

“Try and not say anythin’ rash till you think on it, Dennis. I know it’s a troublin’ situation but it’s him bringin’ her home. And it’s her da as well as mine is here, and he’s beside himself now to see her.”

“He’s a bloody old fool then, for it’s not to see him she’s come back, and maybe won’t own him at all. When did you get word of all this?”

“Mr. Finn came round tonight.”

“And he got it from Valor, did he? As snug as nuts in a squirrel’s nest they are.”

Norah carried her cup to the sink and clattered it into the pan. “As snug as you and Mulrooney,” she said half to herself but not unwilling that he overhear it. She turned back to face him. “You’ve to live and let live in this world, I know, but you needn’t be so high and mighty about Peg when you come home pridin’ yourself on Mulrooney’s second.”

“Would you have me spit in his face and the wind against me? It was him come to me, woman. I didn’t go to him.”

“And it was Valor went to Peg. Not her come to him. All I’m askin’, Dennis, is you to be as understandin’ of her as you are of yourself.”

Dennis finished his tea and sat in silence while Norah cleared away the things. “When is she comin’?” he asked finally.

“Within the month maybe. By the first of May at the latest.”

“It may be she won’t come at all,” he said. “She was ever a chancy sort.”

“No chancier than yourself,” said Norah. “I never seen two people more alike.”

“Me and Peg?” cried Dennis.

“You and Peg. I’ve lived with both of you long enough to see it.”

“Then you’ve a sight more than the rest of us,” he said. “Sure the good Lord that made us both would be hard put to see the resemblance.”

“The devil would have no trouble at all,” Norah said.

He marveled, following her up the stairs, at the ways of a woman in sorting her fortune: it was a wonderful thing to need but two baskets.

9

“BUT, BUT … THE RECEPTION is for you, Margaret! God’s teeth, dear lady, you must attend it!”

Peg did not even open her eyes. Tom Foley’s “musts” no longer stirred her. She lay her head back on the lounge, buckling the collar of her costume. She was dressed still as Kate, the last Kate of a triumphant tour, according to Foley’s posters. Alas, his posters told the truth no oftener than Foley. But if this were the truth, that Washington was its end—and there was a witness to it present—beyond must lie New York. “Thou’dst shun a bear,” said Lear, Peg thought, “but if thy flight lay toward the raging sea, thou’dst meet the bear in the mouth.”

Whenever she opened her eyes, she saw Valois standing, his back to her, his hands beneath his frock coat flipping out the tail of it in impatient anger. Was he flesh or phantom? Phantoms do not change from the remembered, she thought. He was real enough and as full of wrath as ever. If his appearance had changed, his disposition had not. He had greeted her cursing Washington and all roads leading to it. What he was now silently cursing she did not know. He had seen her performance and needed to stand through it because every seat was sold. He had heard the ovation; while unlike Foley, applause was not his measure, he must react to it nonetheless whether with disgust or favor.

Foley diverted his pleading. “Tell her, Valois, the importance of a gathering like this.”

Valois but darted him a venomous glance.

“Well, Val,” Peg said then, “is it a silent partnership you’ve entered with Tom Foley?”

“We are not partners, he and I, until you reach New York…if you reach New York.”

“Ah, that’s it,” said Peg. “You’ve bought another pig in a poke, have you?”

“Didn’t I tell you?” Foley said. “She’s impossible. A complete impossibility. I’ve gone over the country on my knees to her, and all I get for it is ridicule and sarcasm.”

“And money,” Peg said. “You are no poorer for it, nor any humbler.”

“Amn’t I?” said Foley. “You could humble an archangel.”

“And you could bleed a ghost,” Peg snapped.

Foley rubbed down his sweating face. “Dear Margaret, you shall have a rest, a nice rest, as soon as this week is done.”

“She needs it,” Valois said.

Peg laughed. “You put me in mind of my husband. He bought a mule from a man coming out of the gold fields. By the time he got it back to the diggings, the beast dropped dead on him.”

“I do not deserve that of you, Margaret,” Valois said.

In truth he did not, she thought. The contract with which she was bound to Foley body and soul was not of Valois’ devising. “Leave us alone, Tom. For the love of God, do. Val and I are old friends and we’ve not had a moment together.”

“Will you come then to the reception?”

“It is not in my contract that I must attend receptions!”

“God’s teeth, woman, Embassy folk from over the world and half the United States Congress will be there. I’ve had trouble enough with the arrangements.”

“Convincing them I’m a curiosity and not a contamination?”

Again Foley turned to Valois. “What did I tell you?”

Valois flung his hands at him. “Damnation, sir, you can’t drag her to it. Go yourself. Take that frill of a walking lady… and Mrs. Stuart’s regrets. She cannot be expected to give a performance like tonight’s and an exhibit thereafter.”

Tom Foley backed out of the dressing room.

“Mrs. Stuart’s regrets,” Peg repeated. “I don’t have as many as you might think, Val.” She smiled at him and held out her hand. “Come and sit beside me and tell me what’s graying your hair.”

He came willingly then and took her hand. Suddenly his eyes filled. Peg was deeply touched. She did not know him capable of that much feeling. “So I am going home,” she said. “I suppose that’s shortened my temper more than anything else. Home. Where is home, Val?”

“I’ve never found it,” he said.

“We are a pair tonight,” Peg said, getting up wearily. She brought a bottle and glasses from the washstand cupboard.

“None for me,” Valois said.

“It’s an excellent brandy,” she said. He shook his head. “Not even for old time’s sake?”

“I’m a Temperance man now.”

“That too?” Peg said. “Then I must drink to temperance.” She watched the scowl on his face, seeing it through the mirror, for she had taken the glass to the dressing table away from his eyes. “Don’t be alarmed. I have not yet taken a drink before a performance.”

“You were so beautiful upon the stage tonight,” he said.

“Thank you, Val. I’ve waited such a long time for those words.”

He came up behind her and put his hands upon her shoulders as though he would shake her and then plunged them behind his back again. “Oh, Margaret, how ever could you have been so blind? This did not need three years of heartache to accomplish, and a voice gone rasped at the edges with dust and over use. And there’s lines in your face, Margaret, and smudges under your eyes like patches of the plague. God in heaven! I could take a knife with my own hand to Foley’s black Irish heart!”

Peg shuddered for all that she had known it well herself. She could not feel so weary and strained without its showing. She downed the drink and felt the warmer for it. “It was so wonderful in the beginning, Val…There are wonderful players in California, and our company—I don’t think there was ever another quite like it…in the beginning. It was as though we came alive upon the stage in one another’s presence. We admired each other truly and never ourselves as much as when we pleased one another. Let me show you something…” She got the signed letter—the “tribute of players”—from a leather case.

“I wish I had signed that,” he said, having looked at it.

“Tom Foley was one of us in the beginning. He made a small fortune, but in fairness to him, I must say he would have been content with less. Then my scandal hit him, hit all of us, and he changed. And there was no reason for scandal. That’s the strangest thing of all. But it was as though Tom Foley wanted to believe it. He would hear no explanation, swearing his loyalty without it. It made both John Redmond and myself beholden to him. The contract Foley gave us has proved itself our gift to him, however.”

She swung about upon the stool and faced him. “Don’t misunderstand me, Val. I don’t account this story for sympathy but that you will understand what Foley calls my petulance. He has exacted a heavy price for his loyalty. Even my escape has been to his profit, for I’ve escaped into every role I’ve played, and been the better actress for it. I’ve rewarded those who came in response to his sensational billing, sometimes I think each and every one of them with a little piece of my soul…just as they take from my gowns little snips for souvenirs.” She lifted her head. “Isn’t that ridiculous, the snipping of my gowns, I mean?”

Valois ground his teeth and then buried his face in his hands. Peg took the opportunity to have another drink. “I’m frightened…that’s all it is tonight, Val. I do believe if Foley came in now and said ‘We’re off to Memphis in the morning,’ to Cincinnati, to Chicago…to anywhere…except New York…I would caper off to his reception with him.” She got up and moved about the small room restlessly. “What have I complained of? Pay it no attention, Val. What a sorry thing when a player complains of playing! I’ve served an apprenticeship, that’s all. Once I came too early to the New York stage. Val…” She waited until he looked up at her. “You must answer me truly—is it too late I’m coming now?”

“That,” he said, “is quite as stupid a notion as I have ever heard from you, and I think even you will admit to several.”

Peg smiled then. She drew a deep breath and could almost feel the return of her energy. “Isn’t John Redmond a splendid actor?”

“Adequate,” Valois said.

“He was off a bit tonight, but you’ll see.”

“I shall not see unless it’s under someone else’s management. He will be let out of his contract.”

“But he doesn’t want to be let out of it.”

“Margaret, it is not my intention to expose—or to tolerate the exposure of your misfortune in New York. I am more than a little offended that you should think I would. If Redmond is as fine an actor as you say he will soon accommodate himself to another company. But you will be received there as an actress, not as an exhibit—or I shall have no part of it.”

“Thank you, Val,” she said in little more than a whisper. “Thank you very much. I have often wished that I might come back with a little dignity.” She sat down at the dressing table then and began to get out of costume. “I’m feeling better now,” she said presently, “the way some women do when they have shed their tears. Shall we go to the reception after all? Or is it too late? Will everyone have gone home to bed?”

“No one goes to bed in Washington in these times. They vituperate all day and spend the nights fêting their enemies. They fear to think upon their legislation in the dark, it is so terrible. We are near civil war, Margaret, and I say let it come now, for nothing short of it will purge the country.”

“Dear Val,” she said, “you are as violent as ever. Will you fasten my gown?” She watched him in the mirror. “Where shall I stay in New York?”

“I shall arrange all that, but first, Margaret, I want you to go to the seashore for at least a fortnight of utter and complete rest. There are certain remedies I want you to take for your voice—and a play I want you to read.”

“A new one?”

Valois nodded. “Translated from the French. Dumas. It is called The Lady of the Camellias or, as I prefer, just Camille.”

“When shall I see it?”

“In good time,” he said.

Peg caught his hand and kissed it. “I am glad to be going back, Val. Truly I am, though I didn’t know it until this moment.”

Valois laughed. “Many an actress has risen from her deathbed when promised a new play.”

Peg shook out her hair and rebraided it. “There is something I must ask you before we go—do you remember Stephen Farrell?”

“I do.”

“Is he in Washington, do you know?”

“He is in New York, set up in the practice of law and housekeeping.”

“He’s married?”

“Yes, thank God.”

Peg smiled. “You needn’t be so fervent about it. I asked only because when last I knew of him he was in Washington, and I didn’t want to meet him unexpectedly tonight.”

“Perhaps you will meet the bride’s father. He’s a senator from South Carolina and a fire eater.”

“Is he?” Peg murmured. “Isn’t that strange.”

“Not strange at all,” he said.

Peg decided there was no reason to explain her remark. “Val, am I remembered in New York by anyone save yourself?”

“I have a letter for you from Jeremiah. By the weight of it I should say you are well remembered.”

“My dear Miss Margaret,”… So began her last mile home, Peg thought, and she would take it slowly. Not a sip did she drink during the two weeks’ seclusion, and night after night she slept the clock around. Scarcely a word she spoke except to the woman attending her cottage who was not inclined herself to conversation and an occasional hallo to a fisherman passing out of the cove. Never in her life had she known so much solitude. Nor would she again by her choosing. Too many phantoms walked with her amongst the dunes, and could she have met any one of them in the flesh he would not have said the old, familiar things. Vinnie was in his second year at Yale…Matt had a brother sent there, she remembered his telling, who came home Abolitionist to Alabama. “I am taking the liberty of informing your sister the date of your arrival,” Mr. Finn wrote, “for I know how anxious she has been of your welfare. Your father is here, you know, living with them…” No, Peg thought, I did not know, but how typical of Norah to have sent for him. One more phantom to be met in the flesh.

The best she could remember of him was his wailing after her mother: My poor lost bride, my love, my life. How she had despised him for his weakness then, and fled his groping, clinging arms. You are a cruel one, my daughter, he had said to her, and she had smiled because that hurt her more even than her mother’s death. She had run from the house in fury when Norah took him to her bosom, making him weep the more. Thinking back on it now she could see where she had vied with him for Norah’s affections, and as she won them he took more deeply to the drink. It was all too true, she had been cruel, and all the time protesting that it was herself was put upon by his intemperance, and believing it: youth enjoying its righteousness and self-conjured pain.

Well, old man, Norah has made it up to you. And how does your son-in-law feel? He has no sympathy with bottle men, and little more for failures. He likes a fighter, Dennis Lavery does, a man to stand up and fight for his rights, as he fights for his…five markets, three children and a Tammany sachem, whatever that might be.

And not a word from Mr. Finn on Stephen. How he must have labored over that omission, putting and taking and tearing up and beginning again, for he must know at the very least as much as Valois. A wife was to be expected, and perhaps as Val said, thank God. But a Southern wife—what a remarkable coincidence!

Poor Matt. How he enjoyed self-righteousness and the pain it gave him, even to death and the pitiful confession, I did it for my wife. Did he believe it? He must have needed to, being never more than a child. And ten years from now, remembering Matt, would she say: I was cruel to him, too? The cruelty was in marrying him. But as God knows my heart’s intent, she thought, it bore no evil in that consent. Not a whit cared I for his promised inheritance could he prove his worth of it; nor cared I a whit for the proud votin’ Stuarts whose only measure of a son was could he make a fortune. More loving of him who had distinguished himself a black sheep were they likely than ever they would have been had he returned a failure. All for the love of a woman, poor lad, they would say. She turned his head, an actress. And if there were not ladies present, unmarried ladies leastaways, one would nudge another and confide: I never thought the boy had it in him, myself.

Poor, poor Matt. No wonder he died misunderstanding. That much he had in him at least, to covet and claim a woman he never believed himself worthy of. And needful she was of such adoration to have yielded to his persuasions. Not out of spite did I marry him, not out of ambition, nor greed, nor lust, but out of the need for love in honor and honor in love, and never thinking for a minute was what I brought as honorable as what I sought. I married out of my own weakness in truth—even as my father took the bottle to himself in the stead of love. Perhaps I am his daughter after all. What do you say to that, old man?

10

“MANY A DREAM HAS a man for his childer’ when he puts them by for himself, but never in my wildest conjurin’ could I o’ coaxed a night like this.”

So said the old man to Peg on the night of her opening. He had come to the stage door and insisted on seeing his daughter although there was but a half hour before curtain time. There was not a member of the cast who didn’t know him, for on every day of rehearsal he called for Peg to promenade her the few blocks up Broadway to her hotel. “The ol’ dandy is here,” was the way in which he was always announced, and this night was no exception. Peg came out to him, took his flowers and fondling and herself gave him into the hands of the boxkeeper, telling him he was the handsomest man she would see the night. He was not out of sight when he turned back to tell her that Norah and Mr. Finn blessed her also, but they had come in the front door while he the back. Peg eased him again into the charge of the boxkeeper, and seeing finally the tail of his coat laughed aloud while Valois fumed. “And to make matters worse,” she said, teasing, “he’s an Irishman.” “His disguise is fair enough, if only he would keep his mouth shut,” Val said.

Peg was never cheerier than in such moments. When tempers were shortest backstage, hers was the most soothing. No virtue she thought, but self-preservation. She went a moment then to the door of the Green Room. “Bless us all,” she said in to the assembled players, and took with her their echoing blessings as she returned to her dressing room. There she waited, eye to eye with her other self in the mirror, and in the manner she had come to prepare a role, examined again the conscience of the character as ruthlessly as though she must in fact be confessed of her most secret sins. And she would go forth then to live upon the stage the life confessed.

It was a night to be conjured out of a dream as the old man had foretold, but for most of the audience it commenced as might a hundred other nights of theatre. Valois had muffled Tom Foley, had indeed all but banished him, and the publicity had been devoted to the play with only the most reserved mention of its star. The small theatre, consequently, was not even full, and the playgoers distinctive only in the number of critics among them. Valois had invited the critics first to an elegant dinner in the selection of which his reputation was greater than it was in the theatre. He gazed out upon them in the final agonizing moments before curtain and for an instant wished they were not there at all. He watched the prompter light his candle through its wire cage and set it upon the box. The call boy stood with his fistful of sheets in one hand and with the other scratched himself. Then to Valois’ horror, he shifted the callslips from one hand to the other to better reach the spot that itched him. Finally the boy gave a great yawn and Val ground his teeth to keep from screaming.

“Camille, you are called…”

Unknown by appearance to most of her audience, Mrs. Stuart made her entrance without flutter or flourish, and paying the audience no attention by which they might take their cue to applaud the star. The play for being much to her was more to them, and when Camille’s first moment of travail arrived and she did not bring it downstage to thrust upon them, they went willingly within the play with her. Of a poignancy strange to everyone was the instant when she turned her back on them entirely. Her very shoulders seemed frail and the slow drooping of her head quite heartbreaking.

So real, so true, so much of flesh and blood upon the stage she was that ladies of extreme delicacy withdrew from the forward seats at the end of the first act lest, as they explained, the experience permanently afflict them. Such sensitivity was reassuring to their escorts, for many a man despised the younger Duval or the elder in himself, according to his years, not for his cruelty to the courtesan, but for his stupidity. If Camille was pitiable, she was by no means pathetic: this was the disturbing part of the interpretation. As the Tribune critic was to write, in Mrs. Stuart’s hands the play became a comment on society. Camille was responsible for her own fate, which must sorely wound the pride of gentlemen accustomed to beating their breasts over the ruination of a woman.

“Never in my wildest conjurin’,” the old man repeated as the curtain fell and men arose to stamp and cheer and women to flutter their handkerchiefs. Call after call Peg took, but from the depth of the stage beneath the gaudy setting which she had put out of mind with her performance. She would come forward no more than the step which she withdrew in her curtsey, and she would not consent to a solo bow until the other players abandoned her to it.

Mr. Finn and the old man needed to near drive a wedge for Norah through the excited crowd at the stage door. There were many there who had not seen the play at all, but got word of it in the nearby taverns and came to glimpse a new star. Valois floated about, directing and protecting, as sweet of disposition, the stage manager said, as Little Eva let down from heaven. He even lifted Norah’s hand to his lips on their re-introduction. If ever he was convivial, Peg thought, it was this night. And of all the compliments showered upon her, she found his by far the most touching. “Now,” he whispered, leaning down to her ear as she sat at her dressing table, “I understand your Gallus Mag.”

Moved as she was by the words, she was saddened by them also, and the more for thinking on them. What a difference might have been in her life had Mag been seen in her true and limited light! Norah sat withdrawn in a corner, weeping still, and the old man beside her, as solemn and detached as a stranger at a wake, and on the other side of her Mr. Finn, a noble friend, but containing himself and his pleasure as had been his wont for a lifetime. As Valois reached the door, Peg made the effort to cast off the dark mood, by shock if must be. “Well, Val,” she cried, “there was a whore of a different color, eh?”

Norah let up her sniffling. “She wasn’t a whore, was she?” she said in wonder.

“Wasn’t she now, ha!” said the old man.

Norah turned on him. “Hush, Pa. What do you know of such things?”

The old man opened his mouth to answer and then closed it again without saying a word.

Peg laughed and rose from the chair, sweeping the velvet skirt at them. “Out now, all of you, till I dress. Will you get us a carriage, Pa, and we’ll ride to the hotel together?”

“There’s one attending us,” Mr. Finn said. “We’ll await you in it.”

With her ears ever as keen as her eyes, Peg heard Norah remark to her father, or perhaps to herself: “Maybe it’s as well Dennis didn’t come after all.”

Quite as well, Peg thought, for this was no reunion, and yet she was almost certain Stephen Farrell had been in the audience. She had felt his presence, or was it merely the wish for it that she could not banish? Whatever would she do, if meeting him (and they must meet soon, she knew, because by chance or fashion’s dictate, they both lived at the St. Nicholas)…if when they met, he too were to make Valois’ confession: now I understand your Gallus Mag? No fear. Though they meet, this could not happen, not until Camille blossomed in the gutter and Mag sipped champagne in the St. Nicholas.

“Eleven o’clock rehearsal, Mrs. Stuart,” the doorman said.

“Thank you, John, and a good goodnight.”

With one arm through her father’s and one through Mr. Finn’s she made her way through the gaping, sighing, clapping enthusiasts. Only a prizefighter, Peg thought, was better received in New York on the night of his success than an actor. And as the carriage reached the hotel, she realized her fame had come home ahead of her. She wondered at first what the crowd was doing on the steps at that hour, but when a bold lad pulled open the door, stuck in his head and jerked it out to bawl: “It’s her, all right, nine cheers!” she knew well enough. It’s the bold she! Peg thought, for something of the instant reminded her of the night on the boat when Stephen was asked to exorcize her. She caught Mr. Finn’s hand and asked the question out: “Was Stephen there tonight?”

“He was, and his wife with him.”

“And did they stay till the end?”

Mr. Finn nodded. “Even until the applause was ended.”

“And never a word,” she said bitterly, gathering her skirt, “he was ever a man of courage.”

Norah held her back a moment. “Peg, with all them elegant people comin’ me and Pa are goin’ on home now. We’ve had a full night.”

“All them elegant people,” Peg said, “are not as welcome as you are unless you intend to apologize to them for your presence.”

“And why should I do that?” said Norah. “Amn’t I your sister?”

“And I her father which is more to the point,” said the old man. “In the long run I had as much to do with all this as Mr. Valor.”

“Then come and act it,” Peg said, stepping out into a barrage of flowers and scent. She ran through it, laughing…as never I ran as a bride, she thought. Not a harpie on Broadway was left that night with a withered bloom to sell. People turned as she passed through the lobby, and catching the mood if not the meaning, applauded as she passed. She needed to pause on the staircase and wave and nod her acknowledgment. So many gentlemen, she thought, looking over the upturned faces, and yet not the sight of him amongst them. Or had she sought his face so often, here and in the streets, in every crowded place, that she had worn out her recollection, and seeing him had not known him? The messages pursued her to the apartment, and were followed soon by gifts of wines and sweets.

Norah fussed and fidgeted, creating chores where there were none. The service for the supper that was to be sent up confounded her, and she in turn confounded it with her re-arrangements. The old man was easy enough for, Peg thought, there was never a bottle he couldn’t get the cork out of, and to that task he set himself. Peg restrained the caterer who would have relieved him.

Valois arrived and with him a party of scribes and managers, and at his coat tail, Tom Foley. He had not believed in the worth of the venture, Peg realized, until the fall of the curtain, and now he was set to make amends to himself for his misjudgment. Failing to get the attention of any gentleman of importance, he gave himself up to the company of Michael Hickey and a bottle of brandy. He was soon regaling the old man with the lore of California, and the lure of it. “I’m a discoverer, man, not an explorer—a pioneer and not a purveyor. New York is full of purveyors…purloiners and purveyors and no place for an honest man.” Hickey nodded in admiration of the words, and Foley added to them: “I’ll be heading back soon across the long trail, for I’ve left a wife in the hills who’ll be wasting.” “Godspeed,” murmured Valois, overhearing, and Peg thought: poor wife, she must live in a bottle, for she never comes out save when he pops a cork.

Wonderful as was the talk, for men were present who had seen Kean and the Kembles and Macready in his youth, and Junius Brutus Booth in his and could thereby argue his merits against those of his son, Edwin, Peg escaped it to peruse the messages. She could feel the melancholy gather in upon her. Norah perched on the edge of a chair ready to leap to anyone’s bidding, and Mr. Finn beside her, the servant of a servant by his mien. Only the old man could skip at ease between the two worlds, she thought, and that because he felt a responsibility to neither and deserving of both. Honeyed words she read in the messages, and names some half-remembered, but none to conjure the face she longed to see. She opened another envelope, the paper scented with an essence at once familiar and distant, its recognition then sudden upon her—magnolia. The signature was Delia Farrell.

“Jeremiah,” Peg said, without realizing she called him. Both he and Norah came, and Peg read aloud: “‘My dear Mrs. Stuart, My husband consents that I write you this note to tell you of our pleasure in your performance tonight. It was so, so exciting. I do believe my heart is still palpitating. Stephen and I would be most honored if you will come to tea with us Thursday afternoon at five. Or if that fails of your convenience, won’t you set a date of your own choosing? Yours in admiration, Delia Farrell.’”

Peg shoved the note into Mr. Finn’s hand, who had no wish for it and yet no choice but to take it. She laughed aloud. “So the dead have spokesmen after all.” Norah relieved Mr. Finn of the note and studied it. “I wonder, Jeremiah,” Peg went on, “is Mrs. Farrell’s heart still palpitating? Oh, Lord God, that I should palpitate such a heart!” She went to the secretary, opened it, and sitting down began to write hastily, with far less care and delicacy she realized than Mrs. Farrell. “Norah, please pull the service bell for me.”

“Peg, ’Tis terrible late to be sendin’ a message.”

“It is rather late,” Mr. Finn added. “I was about to depart.”

“I quite agree,” Peg said, going to the bellcord herself, “but not as late as Thursday.”

“They’ll be in bed,” Norah pleaded. “’Tis time all respectable people were.”

“And they are the most respectable of all people, I’m sure,” Peg said, pacing to the secretary and back. “Palpitating!”

“Peg, you’re unstrung,” Norah tried again. “Put off your answer…”

“If I’m offending your respectability you needn’t wait to meet them,” Peg said.

“You’re askin’ them here now?”

“I am. She must be palpitating still, having written this.”

“Dear Peg,” she crooned, “is it to hurt yourself you’re askin’?” She turned to Mr. Finn. “She was ever one to begrudge herself a little happiness.”

“What could hurt me tonight?” Peg cried. “I want them to share in my happiness.”

Mr. Finn shook his head. He had told her all there was to tell of Stephen, even to Vinnie’s disillusionment in him, and his own grave doubts.

“They’ll think you bold,” said Norah.

“The bold she!” Peg mocked, but Norah had no recollection of the phrase.

“She must know…” Norah started again.

“”What must she know? As much as you? I doubt it. Stephen’s counsel with himself is cozier than mine.” And with the arrival of the porter she gave the message into his hand with instructions for its immediate delivery.

“I’m gettin’ Pa,” Norah said, taking her cape from the commode. “He’ll be disgracin’ you soon and you can do it well enough yourself.”

The old man was by then tapping his feet about the chair, a way he had when the liquor moved him, as though he would coax back the life into them which once was quick enough. Foley was nudging him on. When Norah reached them, Valois was at her side immediately to hold her cape. “You have a pair here to cope with,” he said. “Shall I go down to the hack stand with you?”

“There’s but one of them mine,” Norah said, “and him I can manage. Come, Pa, and pick out your hat.”

“Touché,” Valois murmured.

Mr. Hickey got to his feet without a murmur and lingered no longer than it took to shake Foley’s hand. Well he knew the conditions under which he lived in his son-in-law’s house. Also, as he told Norah, leaning on her arm: “The oul’ windbag. I couldn’t get a word in edgewise with him all night.”

Foley, for his part, gave a great yawn, and Valois encouraged him into a chair of a size to sleep him. He joined Mr. Finn then, and tried to draw him and Peg into the company of managers. Peg turned from them and went to her boudoir where she took the comb to her hair and the rouge puff to her cheeks. She waited there, marking her own heartbeat until the bell sounded. Two possibilities, she thought, at its summons, either of which must be met with courage.

“How nice of you to join me and on so little notice,” she said as she went forward to meet them. It was said to Stephen’s back and for the instant he blocked his wife from her view, having not seen Peg until she spoke.

He swung around, and she met first his eyes, full of…nothing. I could have tears in mine now, she thought, if I dared the luxury of embarrassing him. “How thoughtful of you to include us,” Stephen said, offering his hand. “Welcome home, Margaret.”

“Is it home for you?” she murmured, but not waiting for an answer nor taking his hand. Instead she gave hers to Delia.

“I’m just very pleased to meet you, Mrs. Stuart.” Delia bobbed a curtsey like a child, and she was not much more, Peg thought. “I never did meet a real actress before.”

Pretty blond curls and china blue eyes, Peg thought. Pouty lips to wheedle and beg and never, never command him. Master of himself he was now, and of his household. “Indeed,” she murmured to the distinction in which Delia had just set her.

“What I mean is we did all sorts of theatricals down home ourselves. Every Christmas we did a tableau and most everybody came from all around.”

“How exciting,” Peg said, and turned to Stephen.

“You were very affecting tonight, Margaret, but I expect you have been told it by people of better judgment than mine.”

“But none more willing with their judgment,” Peg said.

He had the grace to color a bit. Seeing Mr. Finn, he excused himself to speak to the little man.

“He has not changed,” Peg said in his wake, “except in the ways of prosperity perhaps.”

“He’s doin’ just beautiful in spite of everything,” Delia said.

“In spite of everything?”

“Abolitionists and seceders. I do believe they’re goin’ to drive us to doin’ exclusive business with England. You wouldn’t believe how things have changed in the last year, Mrs. Stuart. Why I came up here with Papa no more than a year ago, and I was welcome just everywhere. There wasn’t a cotillion or a masquerade we weren’t sought after for. We just couldn’t attend them all. And now Papa won’t even come, for Yankee guff, he says. Except in Newport where there’s still gentlefolk. I got to visit him in Washington to see him.”

Everybody knew who “Papa” was, Peg thought, and of course they did. “And can Stephen spare the time from his practice for such visits?” she asked.

“Better, he says, than he can spare it from me. Isn’t that sweet of him, Mrs. Stuart?”

Peg looked at her. It was said in earnestness. “Charming,” Peg said, fetching the word instead of the vulgarity which this dimpled ball of pink flesh provoked to mind. “I think you must meet Mr. Valois, Mrs. Farrell.” If she were malicious in proposing the introduction, knowing Val to be quite as violent in his politics as any Southern fire eater, her malice was to have no satisfaction. Not politics nor theatre did they talk, but French pastries! Pastries and pones, oh my God, thought Peg. She had quite forgot that Val was at his best in the company of ladies if the ladies were happily married. And Mrs. Farrell was sugared in happiness. Peg turned to Mr. Finn and Stephen.

“So, Stephen, you’ve gone Southerner in politics since last we met,” she said.

“And are you Abolitionist?”

“I’m indifferent to both,” she said.

“So much the worse if you are—which I doubt. You were never likely to be indifferent in any controversy. I’d hoped your sister might be here. I saw her at the theatre. Quite lovely she looked.”

He had seen her leaving the hotel too, Peg thought. “She’s gone fat,” she said.

“And you’ve gone thin.”

“Which is not to your tastes, obviously.”

Mr. Finn cleared his throat.

Peg smiled. “You are right, Jeremiah. What nonsense to renew an old acquaintanceship this way. Mrs. Farrell seems very charming and I wish you happiness, Stephen. Did you know that I also married a Southerner?”

“So I had heard,” he said.

“We were not…as complimentary to each other as you and Mrs. Farrell, but I learned much of Southern ways from Matt…before he died…” She looked at the fan she was unconsciously twirling at her wrist. “I could not very well have learned them from him afterwards, could I?” She opened the fan and closed it again. “And the answer to that is ‘yes’. Though much is taken, much abides. Did you know, Stephen, you taught me to read poetry and I expect I read more now than you. Or do you read aloud to your wife also? I mean…I used to read to Matt. I read him clear around Cape Horn…and he slept blissfully all the way. Poor boy, I hope he sleeps as well tonight. This was a gift tossed onto the stage. Pretty?” She held up the fan and then flung it away. “I wonder from whom. Let us have some wine. We’ve many toasts to drink.”

“I must have but one,” Stephen said. “We were about to retire when your message came.”

“Thank you, Jeremiah,” she said, for Mr. Finn had gone to bring the wine. “I should have sent word earlier, if I had heard from you earlier.”

He looked at her and for a moment she thought that alone in each other’s hearing only they might touch spirits at least. “I could find no words for it, Margaret,” he said.

“Because you had no heart?” He did not answer. “You must not be sad about it, Stephen, for the love of God, not that. Whenever you’re so tempted, remember that like young Duval in the play tonight, you did once offer me honorable matrimony.”

“I wondered how much of me you saw in him.”

“And you saw me body and soul in Marguerite Gautier.” He cast his eyes down. Peg smiled. “Of course, you did. Ah, Stephen, we are not changed, only more of what we were when last we met. Come, since there is to be one toast, let it be in the happy company of your wife.” She led the way toward Delia, and glancing at her in profile, stopped and looked up at him. “Is she with child?”

Stephen nodded that she was.

Peg lifted her chin ever so slightly, and scarcely paused to draw the breath she felt so desperately in need of. “Will it be a boy or a girl, do you think? But what odds that?”

“None,” he said, “so long as it’s its mother’s child.”

Amen, Peg thought. Well, I’ve learned everything tonight I sought to know. I have made myself what I wanted to become…and Stephen will oblige his fate. Now cracks a noble heart. Good night, sweet prince.

Mr. Finn brought the frosted bottle and popped the cork. In one of those silences which sometimes fall simultaneously on many conversations in a room, the popping cork seemed a small explosion, and everyone turned for a moment. Friends and foes, Peg thought, all friendly now, but one of them wrote of her a long time ago, it seemed, and then again but yesterday: “Why for hast no slung-shot, Juliet?” They all had slings, these gentlemen, and shot enough to fire upon players. Not an actor present save herself, she realized. No wonder she was lonely. She lifted her glass, and with her lifting theirs, were the gentlemen of the press and of the theatre…of it, but not in it. Elegantly clothed and ample bellied, they fed upon it whether their mouths or their vanities. But thus had it been from the days of kings and likely would be beyond republics, and its little players would be at least as well remembered.

“To players everywhere,” she said and drank deeply.

11

FERNANDO WOOD WAS A gentleman who knew how to conduct himself in all company: he was pious amongst the religious, ribald in sporting circles, debonair in the presence of ladies, and his enemies said, a thief amongst thieves. But no man in politics escaped such charges and Wood had been in and out of politics for many years, having, he said, to repair his private fortunes after every turn in public service. In this he claimed peculiarity, most men turning to public office by way of improving their private fortunes. In his early forties, he was graceful and quick, with an easy smile and eyes as sharp as his memory. Upon Dennis’ presentation, he said: “But I know Lavery. We met last summer at Jones Woods—the Mechanics’ picnic.” And so they had, but Dennis thought himself the only one to remember it. Wood’s house was as well appointed as himself, Dennis thought, and certain of the men caucusing there looked as unnatural as warts. He might well seem wartish himself, he decided then, for it was the first meeting of a political nature he had attended outside Tammany or the back room of a ward pub. They were a peculiar mixture of trades, the men present, one a printer, another a builder, a man he often met on the docks but after much larger salvage there than himself, a wagoner with a fleet of wagons…he knew them all by politics at least: they were Softs from the loftiest to the least of them. The only chairs vacant by the time he arrived looked too delicate for a thoughtful man, so Dennis sat on the floor and folded his legs beneath him and his arms across his chest. “I’ve learned this from my childer’,” he said to the man who settled beside him. “’Tis the only position for smokin’ a peace pipe—so I’m told by my son, John.”

“We should all sit on the floor then,” Fernando Wood said, taking off his coat as he prepared to start the meeting.

It was early July and the city was already foul with heat.

All the men followed Wood’s example and removed their coats. There was something eerie and familiar in the incident to Dennis, but he could not recall the association.

“It’s been suggested,” Wood said, half-sitting on a mahogany table and looking from one face to another, “that I get us started tonight by repeating a few thoughts of my own on government. Contrary to my enemies, I’m for it. I’m for what I may call strong government locally and loose government nationally. I suppose that may offend some of my friends here…” He smiled toward two gentlemen, and in answer to a whispered question, Dennis’ neighbor said: “Customhouse men,” into his ear. “But they will know me even if I don’t reveal myself,” Wood proceeded. “I am beyond states’ rights, for cities’ rights. I believe that the strongest unit of government in the world should be a man’s rule over his own household: if the children are without discipline, the wife without guidance, in no time at all the house becomes no more orderly than a pigpen…”

True, true, thought Dennis, for he had often said Norah was too lax with the children, and the house was a shambles for it.

“And now, gentlemen,” Wood continued softly, “I must refer you to City Hall…” So obvious an association between there and the pigpen brought laughter. Wood detailed the ills of the city, and suggested then the reason: “The usurpation of power by the state legislature that by right belongs in the hands of the people of the city, to be exercised by them through the man they elect mayor.”

Most of the men present agreed. There were few things said by Mr. Wood that night with which they did not agree, and when he was done it was obvious that the real purpose of the meeting was not to settle upon Mr. Wood as their candidate but to determine the best way to elect him. To the veterans of such meetings, Dennis learned presently, the best news of the evening came from the Customhouse men, appointees of the federal government, who confided that President Pierce’s administration favored the election of Fernando Wood as Mayor of New York.

“You will forgive me again, my friends,” Wood said, and with a wink to Dennis who chanced to be standing by, “but I wonder at this date whether that’s an asset or a liability.”

“It’s whichever you make of it,” the customs man said, “which is why it is offered.”

“I see,” said Wood, which was more than Dennis did until Wood added: “I assume the administration is aware of my labors last winter?”

“If they weren’t we wouldn’t be here,” the customs man said.

Dennis surmised them to be talking of Wood’s labors toward the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill. The bill had carried that spring and had been signed into law by President Pierce, and a new phrase was in style much as “Manifest Destiny” had been in the previous decade. The phrase was “Popular Sovereignty,” implying the rights of settlers to determine whether or not they would abide slavery in their territory. Wood was a strong slavery man. “I am grateful to the administration—and to you gentlemen,” he said.

The customs man was studying his cigar and Dennis was about to turn away, having been included in the conversation only by a wink, when the man said to Wood: “Do you know John Mitchel or any of the people at The Citizen?”

Wood’s eyes and Dennis’ met, and because Wood hesitated in answering the question, Dennis nodded his head. “My good friend Lavery knows them better than I do,” Wood said blandly as though it had often been discussed between them. “You gentlemen should know each other if you don’t.” The customs man and Dennis shook hands.

Whatever it was, he was into it up to the throat, Dennis thought, and without the chance to smell it. But once again he had been prompted by an instinct which told him it was time to act. “I don’t know Mitchel,” he said, “except by reputation, but I came over on the boat with Farrell, their lawyer.” All said as though he’d been thick as butter with Farrell since, when he’d not laid eyes on him save at a public meeting.

“Isn’t he George Robbins’ partner?” the customs man said to Wood. Wood nodded. Then to Dennis: “What’s their reputation you mention?”

Oh God almighty, Dennis thought. If he had turned his back in the first place he would not be floundering now not knowing how his opinions would sit with the man. After all, The Citizen had been all out for the Nebraska bill. Where you weren’t sure of the present, he decided, the safest thing was to dig up the past. “We Irish have a way of forgettin’ over here the good or the bad a man did at home so long as the English turned on him. Back in the forties, and during the famine, mind you, these boys tried to stir up a revolution. The people couldn’t vomit much less revolt, but Young Ireland split the country up the middle…”

“You’ve said it all, Lavery,” the customs man said when Dennis paused. “They haven’t changed, and Farrell at least should know better. As I recall it, he got his own tongue clipped by the Archbishop before he was long here.”

“His tongue and his wings,” Dennis said. “He’s been solid since.”

“Then he should not be hard to persuade,” the customs man went on. “The proposition is simple—The Citizen is doing more to divide the Irish vote in this city than the Irish American has done to bring it together in five years.”

“They’re a testy lot up there,” Dennis said.

“Lavery’s right,” said Wood, “there’s the chance if he goes at them the wrong way, they’ll use our own ammunition against us.”

“I’m assuming he’ll go at them the right way,” the customs man said coldly. “They’re to scold Natives in the public press, not Irishmen. Let them leave that to the pulpit. And let them stay on the right side of the Archbishop, at least until after elections. Or else, and mind this, Fernandy, let them use our ammunition against us…now. Many a newspaper has vanished from the streets in less time than, say, now and October.”

“That would be a great shame,” Wood said. “Really, it’s the only literate Irish paper I’ve ever seen.”

The customs man permitted himself a smile. He would have begrudged it to anyone else, Dennis thought. “The town is overrun with literate newspapers, and not one of them willing to give the people plain facts.”

And there ended the discussion of The Citizen. It was not long before the men of the national administration departed, saluting around, and Dennis sought a quiet corner in which to puzzle the chore ahead of him. It was all right to play by ear, he thought, as long as you weren’t tone deaf. If Farrell was the partner of Robbins, and Robbins high up in the party…a national committeeman, why in the name of God send Dennis Lavery on such an errand? Ah, but there it was: Robbins was a Hard and the administration had been getting Softer and Softer. They were taking a long step promising themselves to Fernando Wood. They were working at the top and the bottom, skipping them in between. They must be counting on Fernando Wood to take over the party leadership in New York. Dennis whistled softly. There were things you could get in through a keyhole which you couldn’t bring in the door.

“Well, boys,” Wood said, returning from seeing the customs men to the door, “we’ve got our big boost early, but we can’t use it till late. Needless to say, the gentlemen who just departed were not here at all tonight.”

“What men?” someone said.

They all laughed.

Dennis was to get yet another chore before the night was over: the proposal at the next meeting of the General Committee to appoint an executive committee to decide all ward cases of disputed elections. It made good sense, for many an election was undecided for weeks while the General Committee wrangled and finagled. It promised the efficiency characteristic of Wood. “We’ll need a sound man to head the committee,” Dennis said.

“We will,” said the man who proposed it.

“Because,” said Dennis, “in a doubtful situation we can use the balance.”

“My very thought.”

“Do you have a name in mind?” said Dennis, “for I’ll need to have it quick nominated.”

“Fernandy himself,” the man said. “What better way to conceal till the last minute his intentions?”

Dennis smiled to disguise his surprise at that turn. He was learning, he thought, but not fast enough.

12

THE DAYS THAT FOLLOWED found Dennis doing things that he himself would have been hard put to explain. He bought a great book of Blackstone on the law and a book on parliamentary practice, and if the latter was gray to his understanding, the Blackstone was black indeed, but he forced himself to pore over them night after night. He went to a custom tailor for the first time and set the date for his call on Farrell by the delivery of his outfit. Passing the display rooms of Boardman and Gray, he ordered home a pianoforte, and with not a word to Norah until its arrival.

“I’m delighted for the girls,” Norah said, “if I can bring myself to let them touch it at all. But Dennis, I’m worried as well. It was my head and not yours I thought would turn in success, and that in my pride of you.”

“Oh, blast your pride!” he said. “There’s nothin’ to nourish it.”

“I see,” she said then, for the words came out like a cry of pain. “Can you tell me what is it that’s hurtin’ you?”

He stopped a moment in his pacing. “You’d laugh out loud if I told you.”

“That I wouldn’t, seein’ you suffer.”

He looked at her. “I’ve the need to pay a call on Stephen Farrell for the party, and every time I step out of the door thinkin’ myself on the way to it, somethin’ rises up in my way like a wall and I can’t get round it.”

“Because of the boat,” said Norah, “or is it Peg?”

“Peg has nothin’ to do with it.”

“I was only askin’,” she said.

Dennis shook his head. “I never knew a man could so humiliate me.”

“Dear one, he didn’t mean to humiliate you.”

“Didn’t he, sprawlin’ me on the deck.”

“Dennis, ’Tis over five years.”

“If it was over twenty I’d not forget it.”

Norah sighed. “Is there no other man they could send out of the whole party?”

“I volunteered because I had to. There’s times in your life, Norah, when you’re standin’ eye to eye with opportunity, and if you can’t act on it, you’re better not seein’ it. If you pass up your big chance, you’ll scurry your life for the little ones.”

“And yet,” she said, “’Tis a little thing botherin’ you. Mr. Farrell hurt your pride and pride is a little thing altogether.”

Dennis sat down at the table and thought about that. If there were two things in the world that didn’t mix they were pride and politics.

“And as far,” Norah said, standing over him, “as goin’ back to the boat for your hurt, it was Peg hurt you more and you know it. And if it’s any help to you to know it now, she got as much and more hurt back, and from him, Dennis, for she did love him.”

Dennis looked up at her. “What are you sayin’?”

“I’m sayin’ more than I know, but I can put things together. When she went off to the wilds it was to get over it.”

“Did she tell you all this or are you makin’ it up?”

“She told me once she was seein’ him,” Norah said carefully. “And how else did Vinnie and him and Mr. Finn get so close? Remember it was him went up to the school when Vinnie was in trouble.”

“I remember,” Dennis said, and he remembered now the day the first strain had come between him and Vinnie. He remembered it all, trying to tell the lad to promote a marriage between Peg and Finn, for he had rightly calculated that at least: a man was providing her. He tilted the chair back and laughed aloud. “Holy mother of God, Norah, and me thinkin’ in them days it was Mr. Finn she was ticklin’!”

“You’ve the sense of a duck,” said Norah.

“What need I of more, when you have enough for us both?” He hugged her about the waist in sudden good humor. “So Farrell got his from her too, did he?” He slapped his hand on the table. “With his learnin’ and preachin’ and shrivin’, he knew no more of women than me!”

“You’re puttin’ words in my mouth I didn’t say, Dennis.”

“How could you say it and you her sister?” He went to the window and looked out. Knowing Norah to be watching him, he wished she would leave him and not be examining his turn of humor.

“Now is it her you won’t forgive? Why, Dennis, why is it you always have to have someone to hate?”

“Will you go out of here, Norah, and see to the childer’? They’re wreckin’ the house up there.”

He sat down again at the table when she was gone and permitted himself for the first time since his marriage the vision of Peg as his memory conjured her on the deck of The Valiant, her mouth smiling red to him. So must she have smiled on Farrell in turn, and sought him out. Likely he was not hard to find. Nor would Dennis have near as much trouble finding him now himself, he decided. A woman was even more an equalizer of men than was money.

The next morning after his tour of the docks he walked up to Wall Street. Locating the number he stood a moment looking up at the sign: Robbins and Farrell, Attorneys-at-Law. An elegant hand had painted that sign, he thought. As trickish as the law itself. He squared his shoulders and climbed to the second story office. The steps and the floor were scrubbed white. Whatever their clientele, it didn’t come in off the streets. Two clerks were standing at their desks, one very old and one very young, and both, by the sign, very deaf, for neither attended him till he called out: “Is Mr. Farrell in?” The young clerk jumped at his voice, but the old man’s pen did not even quaver on its journey across the page.

“I shall see, sir,” the young man said. “May I have your card?”

“The name is Lavery, tell him. Dennis Lavery. He may recall it—if he’s in.”

At the sarcasm in Dennis’ voice the old man squinted at him over his spectacles. I shall see, sir, Dennis thought, as though Farrell came in and out the window in there.

It was but a moment, however, until Farrell came from the inner office, smiling and his hand extended. “Lavery! I wondered how long it would take until we met again. Come in, man.” He swung open the railing gate.

Dennis, despite the world he thought himself equal to, wiped his hand on his trousers before shaking Farrell’s. “’Tis a warm day,” he said, cursing the humble gesture in himself. The office was equipped with chairs and table, but to Dennis’ surprise, he saw that Farrell stood up to his work the same as his clerks, for the tall desk was littered with papers.

“Are you in need of a lawyer?” said Farrell.

“If I am I don’t know it, thank God,” said Dennis. “’Tis another matter.”

Farrell motioned him into a chair and sat opposite him. He offered the cigar box, and Dennis resisted the temptation to take one and put it in his pocket.

“A family issue?” said Farrell, but lightly.

“More delicate than that,” Dennis said.

Farrell laughed. “Then it must be politics. Tell me first, how is the gentle Norah?”

A politician in his own right, Dennis thought, and yet it was asked in real affection, and for that he needed to honor the man. “Thrivin’ and the mother of three with one in the oven as the sayin’ goes. She bade me give you kindest regards—and congratulations on your own marriage.”

“Thank you,” Farrell said, “and I’ll accept them on another count also. We too have something in the oven.”

“There’s nothin’ in the world to settle a man like childer’,” Dennis said.

“Well,” Stephen said, “I was some time in settling. You’re a Democrat committeeman, aren’t you?”

“Aye, and that’s what brings me. We’re looking to The Citizen for help in the fall elections.”

Farrell nodded. “I’m not sure you’ve come to the right man,” he said after a moment. “I’m doing my best to keep the paper nonpartisan. Or at least out of the camps of the extremists. But I’ll be glad to take you to see Mitchel.”

“I don’t want to see Mitchel till I’ve talked to you,” Dennis said, “and make sure we’re thinkin’ of the same things. I can’t believe you’d call opposin’ the Natives extreme for an Irishman.”

“On that issue we’re with you, heart and soul,” Farrell said.

“It’ll be the only issue in November, Mr. Farrell.”

“You intend to make it that?”

“It’s not of our makin’ at all. They’ll have the city if we don’t stand solid.”

“It’s difficult to stand solid,” Farrell said, “with one foot on a Hard shell and one on a Soft.”

“No harder than it is to unite a people that has two papers speakin’ for them—one encouragin’ them and the other scoldin’ them.”

“I see,” Farrell said, rubbing a groove in his chin with his thumbnail.

“I can put it another way still for you,” Dennis said. “Do you scold a child while it’s drownin’ for playin’ near the river?”

Farrell smiled. “Do you read The Citizen, Lavery?”

“Now and then. The God’s truth is it’s a bit aristocratic for my tastes.”

“You’d better not say that to Mitchel. I ask for this reason: for my own part, I don’t like John’s attitude toward Irishmen here as though they were all exiles, waiting to be recruited into a liberation army, and sailed for Ireland, and I wondered how men like yourself felt about it.”

“There’s nothin’ the Natives’d like better than to ship us all back. They’d raise as much money for that as to free the niggers.”

“I should think you well equipped to talk to John Mitchel,” Farrell said. He went to his desk and got his watch where he had laid it out of his pocket. “Have a six-penny plate with me and we’ll go up and see him.”

He gathered the papers on his desk, took his hat, and gave instructions to the younger clerk. The older one looked, Dennis thought, as though he took orders only from God.

“I’ve to be in Appellate Court at two,” Farrell said on the stairs. “I’m trying a case myself. I don’t often have the opportunity, so I’m a bit nervy.”

“Who’s the judge?” said Dennis.

Farrell smiled. “I can see you’re in politics.”

The street when they reached it was boiling and bubbling in the midday traffic. It was alive with sweating, scurrying men, clerks of every size and flavor, from banks and brokerages, law desks, The Exchange and the offices of insurance underwriters from over the world. You could polish your boots, buy your lunch, place a bet on an English race course, subscribe to the next volume of Dickens or Thackeray, never moving a step from the corner bookstand. Above the clatter of cartwheels and the howling of oyster vendors, came the wheedling plaint of the beggars. The smallest of them traveled in droves, swooping down on a man if they saw him put his hand to his pocket.

“’Tis worse than Dublin,” Dennis said.

“And no need for it here, which makes the matter more sinful.” Farrell caught an arab up by the rags on his back. “What’s your name, lad?”

The mite’s eyes darted from one of them to the other, blue eyes in a face near as dark as Africa’s own. “Oy done noight, merster!”

Farrell looked at Dennis. “What does he say?”

“As near as I can tell he don’t know it.”

“Ha!” Farrell said, “I can understand him better than you. He says he’s done naught. Give us a penny, Lavery, for I can’t reach my purse. You shall have that, lad, if you tell us your name. We didn’t say you did anything.”

“Moike Touhey,” said the boy, his hand out to Dennis.

Dennis put the penny into it and Farrell let the boy go. His heels and face were of a complexion.

“Mike Touhey,” Farrell said, striding on. “Young Ireland’s share of American prosperity.” He stopped short. “Do you know, Lavery, whenever I throw them a penny, I can feel the hole in my hand where the coin burned into it?”

Fire or ice, the spot felt like in his own hand at the suggestion. He clenched his fist over it. “God damn charity,” he said, “may the Lord forgive me.”

Farrell shook his head, walking on. “Let’s damn the poverty instead. But charity should be a blessing, not a weapon.”

“Eye to eye, we see on that,” Dennis said, and he marveled, as they went into the Hogshead Tavern and ordered their six-penny plates of roast beef, at the number of things on which he was in agreement with Farrell. A peculiar thing happened to him and he admitted it. For the first time he felt warmth in his heart for Young Ireland—all the proud young men splitting their hearts and their heads over the poverty and famine, which by the prompting of their own stomachs they needn’t have noticed at all—and charity England’s weapon. “Is it any wonder you cried revolution?” Dennis swore.

“That’s what you and I must understand about John Mitchel,” Farrell said. “Our concern now may be more with the Mike Touheys, but his is still with Ireland. I’ve tried to convince him of the difference. Maybe you can.”

“If he won’t listen to you,” said Dennis, “he won’t hear me at all.”

“Ah, but he will. You represent the Democrat party and he is convinced Stephen Douglas will be the next president of the United States, and to him he looks for American intervention on behalf of Ireland.”

“He has the long vision,” said Dennis.

“He does, and his powers of prophecy are of small concern to you except that you know the man. Convince him that unless the Irish can sustain themselves in the United States and defend their rights of citizenship, they are not going to very well be able to sustain Stephen Douglas.”

“Doesn’t he know it already?”

Farrell studied his face over the rim of his coffee cup, and Dennis grew uncomfortable under the gaze. “I don’t think you’re likely to tell him anything he doesn’t already know. Isn’t it all a matter of emphasis?”

“Aye,” Dennis said. “That’s all it is: a matter of emphasis. Let him scold the Natives and not the Irish.”

“And shall we not recruit Irishmen to the polls rather than to the target and marching societies?”

“To both,” said Dennis, “and that should please him. I’ll tell you the truth, Mr. Farrell, there’s nothin’ stirs my heart as much as seein’ an Irishman with a gun in his hand and marchin’ to Dun lavin Green.”

“Alas, but true,” Stephen said.

“By the glory,” said Dennis, pushing his plate away, “we’re in such agreement, I wonder if I have to go at all. You could tell him all this in a nutshell: the Democrats need the Irish solid, and never did the Irish need the Democrats like they do today.”

“You must understand, Lavery—we are in agreement, you and I, because we’ve exposed only our area of agreement. And it is only that area you would be wise to examine with Mitchel. Now I happen to be almost fanatically opposed to an ‘Irish vote’ or a ‘German vote.’ But when I see the alternative to that: the denial of the vote to the Irishman at all, I must become your ally, and without even asking the names of your candidates.” Stephen wiped his mouth with his handkerchief. “Do you remember an Irish paper publishing here when we arrived called The Nation?”

“I remember somethin’ about it.”

“I remember it very well because I shared its fate. It undertook to look at Irishmen as they were in this country, and it dared to place the blame on certain men of Irish origin. It was a short-lived paper. The Irish American was founded to put it out of business, and it was so blessed by the bishop that it’s still flourishing today. What happened to The Nation must not happen to The Citizen, Lavery, whether John Mitchel is for you or against you.”

“I give you my word,” Dennis said, “I’ll not raise hand or tongue against it.”

“That is easily given,” Farrell said, stuffing away the handkerchief. “I hope that if you have the power to solicit us and are using it, you will also have the power to protect us, and will use it as willingly. Shall we go?”

After talking with Farrell, Dennis found Mitchel no trouble at all. There was no exchange of commitments, but no wiles, Dennis thought, for Mitchel was a man of zeal and direct attack. It was Farrell had the legal mind and looked for snares finding them whether or not they were there. He had much preferred himself to forget the implications of the customs man’s remark that night on the sudden death of a newspaper. But Farrell had forced him to take a look at it. Well, it was queer, the things a man could stand or fall on. Here he was, measuring his future by a newspaper he had scarcely read. But it was a principle he was standing on, and a fair one. He would have preferred not to have had to stand on it at all, but that choice wasn’t given him. To hell with it, he thought, waiting day after day, and reading at last The Citizen. And then the day came when The Citizen ran an editorial on the duties of American citizens of Irish origin, and foremost among them was the exercise of their franchise on behalf of men of good will.

The Citizen was sound. Fernandy could not ask more.

13

HIS SUCCESS WITH THE Citizen gave Dennis the confidence to move in the General Committee boldly. He exposed his plan to certain key Softs and the creation of the Executive Committee was handily accomplished. He then favored the opposition by confiding to Mulrooney the opportunity to nominate Fernando Wood its chairman. Mulrooney took a long pull at his cigar and saw in its smoke a vision of the future. The regular Hards put up a howl, but enough of them followed Mulrooney to combine with the Softs and carry the nomination. There might be a fight on it, but every man present knew that the mayoralty nominations would go the same way in the fall. Fernando Wood wanted to be mayor of New York. To that purpose his forces were already regimented, and foremost among them was a young and able lieutenant, Dennis Lavery.

Norah, on reading in the Irish American of Dennis’ coup, remarked: “It’s a wonder you wouldn’t’ve told me.”

“I’m near discoverin’ it first myself,” he said, for while he had followed one sound move with another sounder in the committee, he could not say that he had planned the full course beforehand. He explained as much to Mr. Finn, who knocked on their door at teatime.

The little man looked sour as a quince, Dennis thought, for all the smile he put on to Norah, apologizing to her for not having sent word of his coming before his arrival.

“And why would you need to send word,” said Norah, “when we mightn’t have a door to open at all if it wasn’t for you? There’s no one welcomer.”

“You do me more credit than is due, but thank you, my dear,” Finn said, and Dennis was inclined to agree with him. “Well, Dennis,” he started when Norah had left them, “you have fashioned quite a position for yourself.”

It was as much a reprimand as a compliment, Dennis thought, and in a way Mr. Finn had the right to be hurt: he had always been interested and willing to help. So Dennis explained the steps he had taken up the ladder, but he thought it best to make no mention of Mulrooney. “In truth,” he concluded, “I wouldn’t’ve called myself Wood’s lieutenant. It was him gave the story.”

“Mmmm,” Mr. Finn said. “You put me in mind of another gentleman much in the news these days, Senator Douglas.”

It was only then that Dennis realized to what extent Finn’s visit was in the way of a reprimand. Finn had exerted himself strongly against the Nebraska bill. He was in fact an enemy at the other end from the Hards, he was a Free-soiler. “You don’t like Douglas,” he said, “so I’m in for a talkin’ to, am I?”

“I shouldn’t say I don’t like Douglas,” Mr. Finn said. “I didn’t like his bill, but I dare say it was not his bill at the end. I make the comparison because he, too, is a man who cannot wait, who must act whether or not he has thought out the full consequences. What, may I ask, and in all honesty, Dennis, tell me: what recommends Mr. Wood to your admiration?”

“You’ve said the word yourself, sir: his honesty. He’s willin’ to admit what most Democrats won’t—and this should please the likes of you—he admits the corruption of the Common Council. I think if he’s mayor, he’ll unbalance them.”

“Mmm,” Mr. Finn said again, and Dennis was beginning to find it an irritating noise. “I’ve known a master thief to stand in the street and cry out Stop thief! and while the storekeeper ran out in pursuit, to go about plundering the store at leisure.”

“And that’s your opinion of Fernandy Wood,” Dennis said evenly.

“It’s the opinion of many people, Dennis, including his former partner in business. For my own part, I should be willing to admit a man could reform. I am more concerned with what seems to recommend him most to you: his confidence in his ability to undo the Council—‘unbalance’ I believe was your word.

“I wonder, Dennis, would you concede that perhaps it is his promise of efficiency which so attracts you—his efficiency in combination with the impossible situation in the Council?”

“I’d concede that.”

“So,” Mr. Finn said, and with such precision that Dennis regretted even that concession. “The world has known many despots, benevolent and malign, and I do believe all of them were efficient men. Would you not hate to see us abandon a democratic form of government for the sake of efficiency?”

“The word was yours, Mr. Finn, not mine.”

“So. ‘Unbalance the Council.’ Those were your words, weren’t they? The Constitution of this country was devised to obtain a balance in government: the executive, the legislative, the judiciary; and by and large the pattern holds in state and city government. You will forgive me if I am talking to you as I might to Vincent—if he did not already know more than either of us—but I want to show you, Dennis, what I and the country have learned from an experience in my lifetime, and something I think you must consider before binding yourself to Mr. Wood. In my lifetime a way has been discovered to, in effect, circumvent the Constitution: it is called the Spoils System.”

“I’m for it,” Dennis said bluntly, for he knew what it meant well: by no other means did the common man get a chance at government office. Without it, the aristocracy would rule the country. And it occurred to him then for the first time how much it would mean to a man of Finn’s origins, standing and stature to be counted amongst the aristocracy. Wasn’t he raising Vinnie like a crown prince?

Mr. Finn folded his hands. “Then we need go no further. I had thought once you were a man of open and independent mind. Well, Dennis, I tell you now: I shall oppose your Mr. Wood, and to the full ability of my heart and lungs. If, as seems inevitable, he is nominated by the Democrat party, I shall vote the Whig ticket for the first time since Jackson’s second term.”

“And elect a Know-Nothing,” Dennis said, feeling his temper edge out of control. “What do I care, God damn it, sir, for your delicate balance and unbalance when there’s Irishmen starvin’ for want of a job? When a nigger is given the nod if there’s but the choice of the two? I’ve crawled on my belly to worse than Fernandy Wood to find a place for a man whose only sin was his church and his race.”

“But not to Daniel Mulrooney,” Mr. Finn said in his irritatingly quiet way. “I understand he’s ready to crawl to you now.”

“I ask no man to crawl to me, sir,” Dennis said.

“It will be interesting to see if you can make reptiles walk.” Mr. Finn got up and took his hat. “Suppose you were told that Mr. Wood himself has been in the high council of a Know-Nothing lodge?”

“I’d put my fist down the throat of the man tellin’ it.”

“It will be told, and I hope you’ll weigh the evidence before losing your fist. I understand you’ve been reconciled, as it were, with Stephen Farrell.”

“We’re together in this, if that’s your meanin’.”

“I’m happier about that than I am your reconciliation with Mulrooney at least. But I wonder if Farrell will stay in your camp when the true nature of Mr. Wood is exposed.”

“I’ll know who took him out if he goes,” Dennis said.

“Oh, my,” Mr. Finn said, “don’t credit me with such influence. I have but a small voice and it doesn’t carry very far, really.”

14

VINNIE FINISHED THE SCHOOL term in high spirits. He stood in the upper tenth of his class in written examinations, and the upper fifth in oral; he had won himself an oarsman’s place on the senior crew, and he had been elected to the debating society. Above all, he was respected by his classmates, and most of all by those who had made his first year miserable. Humor did it, the Dean of Studies said, the humor of adversity. On the fifteenth of July he shipped his trunk home by rail, and on the seventeenth, pushed off with three chums on the Gay Blade, a sloop belonging to his roommate, Alexander Taylor. Such an exploit was frowned upon by the school during terms, but the boys had their parents’ written consent and all were excellent swimmers. More than one professor saw them off and sighed after his own bold youth. It was a glorious sail they ran through the Sound and many a fisherman cursed them, wiping their spray from his eyes. They poked and lolled in the little inlets along the Connecticut coast, sometimes lying the night at anchor and invading a town like sailors home from across the world. Then with the rising wind they would scud across the Sound and count the new construction along the Long Island shore. At sunset of the fourth day, they tacked under the railway bridge and sailed down the East River. Even around the Battery the wind sustained them, and with skill as great as their daring, they maneuvered amongst the Brooklyn ferries, the tows, the packets, and the steamers loading for moonlight cruises. All over the island the myriad lights were flickering up as they hauled their riggings at a slip in the North River.

Vinnie, with his share of the work done and his seabag at his feet on the dock, drew the smell and the sight and the feel of the city into him. He felt he could stretch his arms and fold every sliver and slab of it to his breast. Whatever its scent in the heat of day, there was the sweetness now of hot corn in the air, and little splotches of fire dotted the gloom where the pots were kept a-boil. Roasting chestnuts he could smell, too, and the burnt sugar of taffy. The cries of the vendors quivered in the air and yet were constant as buoys upon the waves, the crack-ho of the draymen to their horses both late to their suppers and the long Johnny-oh of a mother to a child fishing past bedtime at the river’s edge, the wash, sw-wash, wash of water that would not let up its sighing before the brash and gaudy city: he harkened to every sound. And of this Stephen proclaimed a loathing—an island where at this very moment, Vinnie thought, he could envision the details of a hundred lives, from the cellar of Maggie Shins to the bohemia of Windust’s, from Norah’s kitchen to good black Nancy saying prayers to her Baptist God for him every time she heard the Catholic church bells. How could Stephen despise all this and yet love any man, even himself? Ah, that was it, Vinnie thought, his vision seeming as sudden clear as the star-flecked night: it was himself that Stephen despised that moment New Year’s. How little one man understood of another when he set his mind like a clock! He had tweaked and prodded Stephen with the righteousness of a Low Church deacon, Stephen, his friend, while at this moment he was forgiving the vilest sinners abroad—even to Maggie Shins!

Taylor came up from his boat and flung his arm about Vinnie. “Glad to be home?”

“I am,” Vinnie said. He shook hands around for his companions went uptown while he went down.

“See you in September, Dunne, God wots!”

“Tomorrow night, Alex,” Vinnie said, “ten minutes to seven.”

“Never fear. Even if you have to pass me in in your pocket.”

The date Vinnie and his friend set was to attend the theatre—the last performance of the season of Camille. They had timed their cruise home by it and Vinnie needed to persuade Mr. Finn to relinquish his booking to Taylor. It would not be hard, Vinnie thought, Mr. Finn’s having seen the play twice and every other role Peg had essayed since her return: that and Vinnie following home the College’s report of his standing. It was a wonderful world to him that midsummer’s night. His hands were callused and his body tanned. He could knot the muscles in his arms into bulges the size of potatoes. Sure, he could balance an ox in the palm of his hand!

Vinnie dressed the next night with the care of a dandy, Nancy standing by with her iron hot on the stove and a cloth half wet and half dry to attack the faintest of wrinkles. “Them country tailors makes too much allowance for a gen’leman’s appetite,” she complained, sticking a hand the size of a raven between his coat and his stomach. She liked a tighter fit obviously, her own bodice straining its buttons like Dickens’ Peggoty. “There. Go show yourself to Mista’ Finn.”

Mr. Finn approved, of course, although he murmured about the difficulty in keeping a white coat clean.

“He don’t slop no more,” said Nancy, “and where he’s goin’ they’ll be napkins big as bedsheets.”

“Oh?” said Mr. Finn.

Vinnie took his wallet from his pocket and from that a note in answer to one he had sent that afternoon. Mr. Finn carried it to the light by the window.

My dear Vinnie:

I shall be delighted to have supper with you and your friend, but let it be at my apartment for I am not quite up to dining out after a performance. You will understand?

Peg.

“How nice,” Mr. Finn said.

“Très intime,” Vinnie murmured. Thank God for Taylor’s company should his own tongue be hobbled. With four sisters at home, Taylor was a practiced gabber.

“She is much sought after these days,” Mr. Finn said, extending his hand for Vinnie’s pocketbook. This was an old custom in the house. He put in it the boy’s allowance. Vinnie said his thanks. “You’ve ordered her flowers?”

“Yes, sir,” Vinnie said.

“Well, I envy you the experience—seeing Mrs. Stuart’s Camille for the first time. Have you read it?”

“Yes, sir. The novel.”

“In French, I suppose?”

“Yes, sir.”

Mr. Finn smiled. “Good night, my boy, and give Margaret my felicitations.”

It was not the Peg of his memory he saw upon the stage with Taylor straining beside him lest he miss a nuance. His friend was plainly enchanted, sighing like a bagpipe every time Peg came in his direction. All in all, Vinnie needed to take his word for the glories of play and performance: he had expected too much or could concentrate too little. He could not lose himself nor yet find Peg, and he was miserable until the moment he and Taylor went backstage and Peg near flew to meet him having let out a little cry of joy on recognizing him. She kissed him upon the mouth and when he recalled himself to introduce his friend, he could see the jealousy dancing naked in Taylor’s eyes.

On Peg’s dressing table there was but one bouquet of flowers although the stage had been strewn with them at curtain. These she now plunged into a vase. “All the rest I’ve sent to the Cathedral. Do you remember, Vinnie?”

He nodded and could feel the blush in his face. “And do you play Lady Macbeth like a cat?” he ventured. Peg frowned, not quite remembering that, and he went on, the recollection of Peg’s first tea with him and Mr. Finn as vivid as her slap across his face that day: “You said she was a cat and had no children because all she could bear were kittens.”

“That’s marvelous!” Taylor cried.

Peg nodded, her eyes moist. She threw back her head. “I’ve never played Lady Macbeth,” she said.

“Nor should you,” Taylor put in. “She’s a hag.”

“Oh, bless you, I’ve played many hags, but not that mistress of them all. Someday perhaps I must, but not till then.”

“Why not?” said Taylor. And this, Vinnie thought, from a lad jealous of his own privacy!

But Peg was tolerant. “Because,” she said, “the last time I saw Macbeth was the night of the Macready riot. I doubt that you’d remember that.”

“Oh, indeed I do,” said Taylor. “We live near Astor Place and I remember father taking down his gun. We feared the mob’s recrimination, you see.”

“There were enough guns that night,” Peg said. “People were bleeding to death in the streets.”

Vinnie knew what she most remembered: it was the night she had met Stephen Farrell again.

“You and my friend, Dunne, Mrs. Stuart,” the boy said, smiling. “Vinnie will be the greatest criminal lawyer in the country. He’s always ready with his defense of the Unwashed. And do you know, he’s got me looking twice before I damn them.”

“But he damns them just the same,” said Vinnie slyly.

“How else shall I know I’m superior to them?” Taylor retorted, which was why he loved Alex Taylor.

They were off soon, and to a delectable supper of savory chicken and rice, golden wine and fruit hastened fresh from the tropics by clipper ship. “Just like the club,” Vinnie murmured, referring to his and Alex’s eating place at college where the beef and porridge seemed of a taste and a texture. All Vinnie’s fears of a tuneless tongue proved groundless, and story for story he matched his friend to keep their hostess amused. Peg told them tales of California and of the Mississippi, tales in which she was never the heroine, Vinnie thought, but running through most was an Irishman, young or old, and the brogue crept into the telling.

Peg was to close her brief but successful season the following week, the last night to be her benefit at which she would again do Kate. Then, God willing, she would have a month at the seashore.

“Where?” Taylor asked.

She told him.

“Oh, I say. Our summer place is only a few miles off.”

“A few miles?” said Vinnie, knowing it to be thirty at least.

“By boat,” Taylor said.

“Better measure it then by the wind,” Vinnie said, for he could foresee what was coming.

Vinnie might not have been present then, for his friend’s pursuit of his own fantasy. “How will you travel out, Mrs. Stuart? Or let me ask right off will you permit me to sail you there? I have a sloop moored in the river. I shall go out in it tomorrow myself, but I’ll come back for you whenever you say. I’m an excellent hand with it, amn’t I, Dunne?”

“As good as a hod carrier,” Vinnie said sourly.

“You Judas of a friend!” Taylor cried. “He’s just been four days at sea with me.”

“And should have been there still,” said Vinnie, “if I hadn’t taken a hand myself.”

“The only hand he took was to shade the sun from his eyes.”

“Witnesses,” Vinnie said, holding out his hands to show the calluses.

Peg laughed and caught his hands in hers. “I must have you both or neither.”

“I doubt there’ll be room,” Taylor said.

“Then I’ll swim alongside,” said Vinnie.

It was all in the best of humor, and the boys betook themselves arm in arm from Peg’s that night, and toasted their friendship at Windust’s before parting. When the appointed day arrived, however, Vinnie went no further than the dock with them. He had planned to sit through the hearings at Special Sessions Court and held himself to the plan. Within a few days he received a letter from Alex’s mother, inviting him to spend a week with the Taylors as soon as court adjourned.

15

IT WAS NOT JEALOUSY he felt toward his friend, Vinnie thought, certainly not that. Once he had been jealous of Stephen, but that was because he was a child in an adult’s world in those days. Now if Peg’s company warmed him, it did not set him tingling. He supposed that was why what he felt toward Alex Taylor was no more than pity. He had tumbled madly in love with an actress, and since he had rarely needed to measure the cost of anything in his life, he was not looking to what this would cost him in hurt and disappointment. Vinnie carried at the bottom of his portmanteau a sheaf of Taylor’s letters: ten of them delivered in three weeks time. The post had been scarcely as quick as his bleeding pen. The only time Taylor had found her company exclusively his, he complained, was the day of his sailing her out. And yet a blessing that: he felt that he must devour her alone. When a minnow can feast on a whale, Vinnie thought. He could not see himself making love to Peg; nor could he see Alex Taylor about it either. It was all in the letters he was carrying back to their sender: letters which numbered the flowers at her gate, the stars over her house, which excoriated her guests, a different batch every week, and one more revolting than the next…“That eel-like man, Valois, a prig of prigs named John Redmond, willing to pose for all and sundry artists and satisfied with no portrait of himself save that in his own mind. I despise them. My heart turns to stone when I come upon them there…”

Ah, Alex, my friend, a stone heart makes a fine hone to sharpen wit upon.

Vinnie transferred to the coach for the last miles of his journey, and tried not to be rude in vying for a seat with the gentlemen coming out to Rockaway to join their families over Sunday. He kept his good manners finally by taking the place atop beside the coachman. At the end of the line a bevy of waving, parasoled ladies was waiting. Vinnie was studying his directions to the Taylor house when he heard his name. “Alex’s friend, Mr. Dunne:” this in a girlish voice, and the retort from a passenger Vinnie had made room for inside the stage. “Blast Mr. Dunne if Alex can’t meet him. Is he off again on that boat?” “No, Papa. He’s working.” “At what, pray?” The girls giggled, very prettily, Vinnie thought. “He’s writing a play.” “Oh my God!”

Vinnie brushed the dust from his clothes. He could have used a trowel to it. Then he presented himself: “Excuse me, sir. I believe you’re Mr. Taylor?”

“I am,” the man said ferociously. He was of a girth to pay double fare and with the beard of a plowman, but Vinnie knew him to be in Wall Street.

“May I introduce myself, sir? Vincent Dunne. Mrs. Taylor has invited me.”

“Very good,” Taylor grumbled, shaking hands. “My youngest daughters, Priscilla and Anne.”

Vinnie bowed and the girls curtsied, Priscilla with an awkward and impatient bob. Fourteen she would be and a hoyden. Anne was her senior by a year or two, slow and shy, and Vinnie thought, greatly resembling Alex.

“Well. Did you bring the cart?” Taylor asked.

The girls had brought it, a pony cart, with two seats and a Shetland in harness.

Vinnie hoisted his and Mr. Taylor’s luggage under the seat. “I rode out with the coachman,” he said. “I can walk the rest with the pony.”

“We shall walk with Mr. Dunne,” Priscilla cried. “You get into the cart, Papa.”

“To look like Gulliver? Nonsense. Go along home the way you came, you two. Dunne and I will walk it.”

Sooner or later he would have needed to face this, Vinnie thought, as Mr. Taylor quizzed him on his standing in school, his prospects, the books and hobbies in which he took interest. With four daughters, he must measure every young gentleman with an eye to the future. Thank God, it was not the past he was examining. And then it came. “This Mrs. Stuart, is she a sensible woman, Dunne?”

“Yes, sir,” Vinnie said, and then added frankly: “where everyone’s interest is concerned except possibly her own.”

The big man put his hand on Vinnie’s arm and squeezed it. “Thank you, my boy.” Vinnie was quite touched.

“I’ll read you the first act if you promise to be honest in your criticism,” Alex said, looking from Vinnie to his sisters and then to Vinnie again.

“If we are,” Vinnie said slyly, “he’ll not speak to us for a week.”

“I swear I shall take it in manly fashion.”

“Then we must duel?” Vinnie teased, “and I without a friend to call upon as second.”

“I shall be your second, Mr. Dunne,” Priscilla cried. “I’ll wear a disguise!”

“So will I in that case,” Vinnie said, and the girls laughed.

Ellen and Therese were older than Alex, Ellen already betrothed and therefore of an age to consider herself chaperon. The elder Taylors were playing whist at a neighbor’s house. “You will disguise yourself in a nightdress if you don’t be still,” Ellen said to her youngest sister.

“Then I’ll haunt you,” Priscilla said. “Alex, is there a ghost in your play?” To Vinnie: “I do love ghosts and apparitions, don’t you?”

“There are no ghosts and I’m not going to read it at all,” Alex said.

“Oh, Alex!”

“He’ll soon read it to Mrs. Stuart, I’ll wager,” Priscilla said.

“Priscilla!” Ellen warned.

“Pris, where did you hear of Mrs. Stuart?” said Alex.

“From the birds,” she said, smiling her withdrawal. Oh, she was an imp, Vinnie thought. “It was a seagull told me.”

Alex caught her braids as he would the reins of a horse. “What did it tell you?”

Priscilla jerked her head away. “Something you don’t know even. Mama’s going to invite her to luncheon and tea while Vinnie’s here and you must fetch her.”

“Mr. Dunne,” Ellen corrected.

“Good God, no.” Alex exploded at the prospect of an invitation to Peg.

“Are you ashamed of us?” said Therese.

“She’ll be bored silly, Priscilla looking at her with—with cow’s eyes, and the rest of you gaping…”

The Taylors were all talking at once for a moment, popping off like Roman fire. Alex was truly annoyed. He would be sorry for him, Vinnie thought, if he could take seriously his infatuation with Peg.

“There are some things a man doesn’t need to share with his family!” Alex cried, trying to articulate his wrath.

“Like a mistress,” Priscilla put in, and it so happened that the words fell into silence in the wake of Alex’s roar.

The child was ashamed of them immediately, Vinnie could see, but without a moment’s hesitation Ellen got up and caught her wrist. “You’re going straight to mama with me right now and tell her what you said.” Priscilla did not add to her embarrassment by resisting.

“What I want to know,” said Alex, “is where she heard such a word?”

“Stop acting like papa,” Therese said. “She listens in corners like a common sweep.”

“I’d rather be a common sweep than a prude like all of you,” Priscilla flung at them from her captivity.

“Do you know,” Vinnie said, making a desperate effort to soothe the situation, “Miss Priscilla is very much like Mrs. Stuart?”

Alex remonstrated, but Vinnie went on to account Peg as first he had known her. Priscilla’s banishment was abandoned at the door because, Vinnie thought, Ellen did not wish to miss the story of the actress. He was aware that the freedom implicit in his and Peg’s adventure their first night in New York might shock young ladies not permitted so far as an ice cream saloon unchaperoned, but he couched the incidents in tender words and the story did have a romantic ending: their arriving home to discover Norah and Dennis betrothed. The girls pressed him for further adventures. Even they had heard of Lavery’s Eight O’clock Market. He told them of Dennis’ beginnings. He glanced at Priscilla and was surprised to see her weeping.

“I thought I was telling a happy story,” he said.

“But your father was dead all the time?”

He had merely mentioned that he was coming out to his father. “Yes,” he said, “before even we had left Ireland. Mr. Finn is my guardian.” Not quite an adequate description for someone who had taken in a wild waif like himself.

“Tell us about him,” Priscilla said. “I think I shall like him better than anybody.”

“Someday you will meet him,” Vinnie said, without much thought at the moment. But later that night when he was trying to distract himself from the buzz and sting of mosquitoes in his attic room, he remembered it. She was only a child, he thought, no older than himself when he arrived in New York. And as canny in her fashion. Yes, she would like Mr. Finn, and he would like her.

The next morning Alex and he rose at dawn and sailed up the South coast putting in at the cove which Peg’s cottage overlooked. It was low tide and they waded ashore, remarking that they would need to swim out. They trudged through the sand and climbed to the top of the bluff. Even as they reached level ground the sounds of revelry reached them—laughter and singing as though it were nighttime and not the middle of the day. A fire was burning in the open and before it a hulk of a woman sat basting a turkey as she turned it on the spit. An old man was beside her and as he drew near Vinnie recognized Peg’s father.

Vinnie hailed him and introduced his friend. “What are they celebrating?” He jerked his head toward the cottage.

“I’d rather you asked someone but me,” the old man said. “She’s marryin’ that fella Redmond.”

“What!” Alex exclaimed.

“What, what,” the old man mimicked. “I couldn’t ask her ‘what’ as a child, much less now.”

Vinnie looked at Taylor who had gone a trifle pale. He was ready to return to the boat without stopping, but Vinnie shook his head. Then Alex drew from beneath his blouse the manuscript he had concealed there.

“May I burn some papers in your fire, please?”

The old woman looked up and threaded the gray hair from her eyes with an arthritic finger. An obvious native, she was tanned by the wind and the spray. She grinned toothlessly. “Love letters allus sweeten a bird,” she said, poking a place in the embers. She gave a wheeze of a laugh at her own joke.

Vinnie watched the pages curl up, more elegant in script than in substance. He waited for his friend to signal that they might carry on. “I shan’t stay long,” said Alex.

“Whenever you say,” Vinnie said, and put his arm about his friend’s shoulders for a moment.

The whole of the Windust’s crowd seemed to have taken up residence with Peg. Bohemia-by-the-sea. A woman sat at the door, her bloomered legs stretched before her, a cigar in one hand and a pencil in the other with which she was sketching furiously. She flicked the ash from the cigar in the same gesture as the greeting she spared the boys. Around a lad with a squeeze box were the carolers, men with more hair on their faces than on their chests, bare to the navel, singing the songs made famous at the barricades in France, by the Garibaldi Legions, by the English coal miners. The smell of coffee was as strong as the smell of wine, and both were suffused with the smell of sweat. There was one great room to the cottage, which could better have been called a lodge. Vinnie moved into it, Alex following him, timid now as a child. Two chess players were hunched over a board, immobile as the pieces, and a delicate boy of nineteen or so was at an easel a few feet from them. Vinnie looked at his project. Not in a hundred years would he have expected from so fragile an artist the hard, bold lines in which he was capturing the players. “You should sculpt them as well,” said Vinnie. “I expect to,” the boy answered. A lovely girl, with her blond hair streaming, was explaining to her companion: “There’s so much sky, I want to weep. The world’s too large!” “It’s the size of a pea,” the man pontificated, “and we are less than dust.” Peg had gathered them all, piping them out of Manhattan even as the piper had the children from Hamelin, the false and the true, the seers and the bemused, the dissolute and the determined. God have mercy on them all!

“Where’s Peg?” Vinnie called out.

“Am I called?” Peg rose from a cluster of people at the end of the room. “Vinneee! My first, my own true love!” She came tripping as though it were sponge beneath her feet, her hands out to him. Her bodice was fresh and the scent of rosewater hung about her, but Vinnie felt the little sway of unbalance in her body as she caught his hands. Her over-bright eyes gave credence to his suspicions: Peg had been drinking, and a considerable amount. She turned to Taylor. “Alex, thank you for bringing him.”

Poor Alex! He bowed like a diplomat in a hostile court.

“Is it too early for a drink?” said Peg airily. “Dear Vinnie, don’t frown. It was with you I bought the first jug of whiskey I ever approved. Have you met all these wonderful people? No? In time, in time. They’re frightfully busy, God knows about what—but what odds? So many friends. David has written a play for me.”

In time Vinnie met the man, a playwright of high repute, and his wife, to whom he promised twice within Vinnie’s hearing that she should have another play, one better suited to her talents. And Vinnie met John Redmond and asked him bluntly if he was to be congratulated.

“You are as well informed as myself,” Redmond responded. “Anyone is.” Someone else explained that it was off one minute and on the next.

Thank God for that at least, Vinnie thought, for he looked as priggish as Alex had described him. But there was no joy in the news for Alex. If he had been disillusioned at the word, he was disenchanted now. A quick cure, Vinnie thought, for a slight malaise. Ah, but Peg: there was the deeper ill. Her hand was cold and moist although the day was warm, and she clung to Vinnie at every chance.

“Peg,” he asked, “is Jabez Reed with this crowd, by any chance?”

“Do you know him? He’s the sweetest man.”

“Like a sugared pickle,” Vinnie said. “Is he here?”

“Somewhere. Someone will know.” And there was that vagueness again.

Taylor was persuaded to stay long enough to have lunch. Vinnie then went down to the beach with him. He had promised Peg to stay on.

“She’s drunk, isn’t she?” Taylor said.

“I shouldn’t say that.”

“What shall I tell mother, about her invitation, I mean?” They had carried it with them.

“The truth. Mrs. Stuart has guests of her own this week.”

Vinnie returned to find Peg changed into a walking costume, her skirt above her ankles and split to the knee. She fastened a green kerchief under her chin.

“May I come?” Vinnie asked.

“You and no other.”

They started along a path through the scrubby pines, following until it divided and then redivided and then vanished altogether. They scrambled down through the dunes and with scarcely a word took off their shoes and trudged in the warm sand barefoot. At last they rested in a wind-hollowed valley.

“Dunes. It’s a lonesome-sounding word, isn’t it?” Peg said.

“You can make most any word sound lonesome if you want it to,” Vinnie said.

“I never thought you would grow up so sensible. But that’s Mr. Finn’s influence, I suppose.” She thought a moment about what he had said. “No, I don’t think I agree with you—about words. There are some which cannot be made sound sad. Baby, for example. Isn’t that a happy word?”

“If you want a baby,” Vinnie said flatly.

“Good heavens! What should I want with a baby?”

Vinnie shrugged.

“Are you very disappointed in me, Vinnie?”

“No.”

“Or don’t you care enough for that?”

“I’m surprised, that’s all. You’re different.”

Peg laughed. “Have you any notion at all how different you are?”

“Are you going to marry Redmond?”

“I think not. I can’t marry every child who asks me. Your friend was rather smitten, wasn’t he?” Vinnie nodded. “He comes from a very proper family, I suppose?”

“Four sisters, too,” Vinnie said.

“And there is nothing more proper than one’s sister. Can you imagine Norah walking in on me now?”

Vinnie whistled.

“Yet I should rather this by far than to be alone. There is nothing in the world more desolate than a solitary player. People mean quite as much to him as bread. The only time he really wants to be alone is with his other self—until they become intimate, married, one. Then that self struts upon the stage, again in search of himself amongst people of his own kind. It’s a sort of fulfillment. Can you understand?”

“Better than table rapping anyway,” he said.

“It is mystical, I expect. Do you still go to church, Vinnie?”

“Now you sound like Norah.”

“Ha!”

“I go to church fairly regular, but that’s all. I should like to find my own religion.”

“God help us, no wonder Norah’s after you!”

“Stephen is Irish without being a Catholic,” Vinnie said, jumping to the point in his mind which disturbed him.

Peg was a moment finding the relevancy. “’Tis a strange thing,” she said then, “the Irish will forgive you for falling away from the church. They’ll wink at your transgressions—if you transgress with a grace, and are a man. But if you turn to another religion they’ll neither forgive nor forget it in your lifetime.”

“And yet they’ve had to fight to practice their own religion,” Vinnie said.

“Sure and that’s why.” Peg leaned back in the sand. “I remember Stephen saying at the time Bishop Hughes went against him—that by making the Irish martyrs to Rome, England had best destroyed us…something like that.” She touched Vinnie’s hand. “Most of them back at the house feel that way about it, too.”

“I know,” Vinnie said. “It wasn’t hymns they were singing this morning. And it’s true, Peg. People are fighting for their freedom all over the world and the Church is on the other side. Think of it, Irish volunteers to keep the people’s army out of Rome!”

“How that must destroy Stephen,” she crooned.

“Do you know what I believe to be at the source and bottom of it all?” said Vinnie. “Original sin.”

“No Irishman will say that’s a lie,” Peg said.

“Well I shall say it’s a lie, and if that makes me an apostate, I’m one from this moment on. I don’t believe men created in the image of God are born evil, are born in sin. The trees are good—they bear fruit and shade and shelter. Are we less than the trees, than animals on the farm? How comes there a Shelley into the world? A St. Francis? How comes there democracy after tyranny? Light after the dark ages? How comes equality after slavery, if men are not perfect-able? We may be born in ignorance, but not in sin. What is sin, Peg? Truly what do you believe is sinful?”

She glimpsed his earnest face and averted her eyes. “I’ve always believed that the only grievous sin was to purposefully hurt another person.”

“Nobly said!” Vinnie cried. “Not the law, but man himself is the measure.”

“And you to be a lawyer?” Peg chided.

“A lawyer does not make the laws. He interprets them. Have you ever read Emerson?” Peg shook her head that she had not. “The law is only a memorandum, he says—a currency which we stamp with our own portrait. I shall loan you a book, if you like.”

“Dear, serious boy, you flatter my intelligence thinking I’ll understand it reading it. I shall try, but I warn you, don’t expect a convert. I’ll go a long way, but I swing back to the old faith like a pendulum. I’m not a Bloomer and I’m not a Fourrierist or whatever you call them though many a try has been made for my conversion.”

“So long as you’re not afraid to read the book,” Vinnie said.

“That I’m not. Perhaps because I’m too stupid to be afraid of it.”

“You?”

Peg smiled. “Endow me with many things, Vinnie, but not too much intellect or I shall again disappoint you.”

“You have never disappointed me. Stop saying it.”

“Then your heart sees less than your eyes, for I disappoint myself. Tell me about the Taylor girls. Are they pretty?”

“Rather.”

“And intelligent?”

“Not especially. One of them maybe, but she never says anything.”

Peg laughed. “Will you loan her also a book?”

“And one of them reminds me of you sort of… before…”

“Sort of—before,” Peg repeated his hesitant words. “When we were very young?” Vinnie nodded. “And her you’ll marry?”

“I shan’t marry until I’m thirty!” he cried.

Peg took his hand in hers. “I’m so glad you came, Vinnie. Somehow, your coming makes things seem to have a purpose, and they don’t always for me. I don’t know if it’s because my success came so late, but truly it did not exalt me at all…the praise, the recognition. I was doing what I had to do in Camille. And Val was still Val. You never liked him, did you?”

“Not much,” Vinnie admitted.

“It doesn’t matter. How often does one love in a lifetime? Ha! If this were Norah saying all this I should say she was born old. But she’s a child, Vinnie. When I came home I discovered she was still a child.”

“With children,” said Vinnie.

“Ah yes,” said Peg. “That’s the reason.” Which Vinnie thought then a wandering logic. “How do you come to know Jabez Reed?”

Vinnie told her even to the meeting at Stephen’s and Reed’s exchange with Delia Farrell.

Peg was delighted with the story. “You must stay with us, Vinnie, the night at least. Jabe will come home at dark. He’s painting beautifully. He quite takes for granted my hospitality. I begrudge it to no one, but he is the most welcome to it, besides yourself. A living, he says, is not much of an exchange for a life. A deep ’un, Jabe. Will you stay?”

Vinnie consented.

“You may have to lay your head on the sand.”

“So long as I don’t stick it in it.”

But the night was not an especially happy one. Reed did not return, apparently having found the hospitality of some fisherman more to his liking. There was too much wine and too many people talking without listeners. Vinnie played a game of Father William, a drinking bout with experts, and he could not even forfeit sobriety. He joined for a while in the singing of ribald songs, recalling to Peg’s pleasure some of the best from Dublin’s slums. But in the midst of one of them he discovered that lo! he had forgotten the words. He was prodded and primed and could but shake his head and wonder what he was doing, singing them at all. He got to his feet. “There must be something better of Ireland for me to remember than that,” he said, puzzling the matter aloud. “If there isn’t, to hell with it. I’m going to bed.” And turning, he marched out clacking his heels. He was drunker, he thought, than he knew.

Peg followed him outdoors with a blanket.

“The stars will cover me,” he kept saying. “The stars will cover me.”

Inside, the singing had turned again to the revolutionary tunes he had heard in the morning. He lay on his back, his hands beneath his head, and listened. “But when they’ve won the revolution, what then?” he mused aloud. “What will they do then, poor things, poor things? They will sit in the barn and keep themselves warm, and hide their heads under their wings, poor things…”

“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…

16

VINNIE 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.

17

AS 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.”

There was nothing in his career, Dennis thought, that so pleased Norah as his making common cause with Stephen Farrell. She was a queer loyal woman, never stepping beyond her place save when necessity lifted her, but more graceful then than them skipping their lives in the best society.

“I wonder, Norah,” he said one day, “would you call on Farrell’s wife? Her time is nearer than yours and I told him you would. Havin’ brought three already into the world you might be a comfort to her.”

“There’s no comfort for a woman but the child itself,” said Norah, “but I will if he asked it.”

The call was forgot, however, in the twists and turns of political fortune. The campaign was drawing near its close and the dirty deals being made were enough to turn the stomach of a lobster. Tammany had watched the Hardshell rump leave the city convention rather than line up behind Wood. It was too bad to lose them, but let them go. They were led by a man who wanted himself to be mayor, and worse things could happen than another candidate in the field. A worse thing did happen: the Hards threw their support to the City Reform party, and suddenly it looked as strong as the Democrats themselves. A three-way race was on.

It was the likes of Jeremiah Finn who had done it, quiet men making the patient rounds of the business interests of the city, for plainly the Whigs wouldn’t carry a district; appealing too to the Temperance vote and absorbing their ticket. They decried alike the evil discipline of the Natives and the corruption of Tammany. With a desperate situation, the Democrats needed desperate means. The men behind the Reform party were hard to discredit, for they were a mixture of all opinions save the one with which best to damn them: Nativism.

At this crucial point, within a week of elections, the Natives, thinking to strike their most telling blow against the Democrats, provided them instead with a weapon to use on the Reformers, and Dennis was the man who found it. In the public press certain well known Natives published their sworn affidavits that Fernando Wood himself had once been high in a Know-Nothing order. Even, Dennis realized, as Jeremiah Finn had promised. And one of the men taking his affidavit on it was Valois, the bosom friend of Finn’s. What could be plainer than that the Reform party was but a silk dress over Native sacking?

Wood swore publicly to the lie against him and advertised his oath in the papers. The Irish American editorialized on the calumny. So touched was he by the sudden rallying of his friends, Wood remarked that if he committed a murder in his family between then and election, the people would still elect him mayor.

Dennis was foremost among those assigned the chore of discrediting the Reform party by proving its Native influence. He was not half so eager to make the exposure in public as he had been in the rooms of Tammany.

“’Tis true!” he stormed at Norah when she protested. “You know as well as I do it’s true.”

“Are you convincin’ me or yourself, Dennis? I’ll never believe Mr. Finn a Native. Never, never, never. Look at him takin’ Vinnie.”

“And makin’ the boy less an Irishman than himself. Like Valor did with your sister. Is she playin’ the simple Irish girls that ’ud warm your heart? She’s not. She’s playin’ French whores and English bitches, and the one bit o’ Ireland she ever transplanted, she made into a slut!”

“What has Peg to do with all this?” said Norah.

“They’re a bunch of heathens, all of them!”

“Dennis, if you’re lookin’ for me to agree before you go into the streets with your rantin’, I won’t do it. I cannot. You didn’t come askin’ my leave afore shakin’ hands with Mulrooney.”

“Christ almighty,” he exploded. “What has that to do with it?”

“I don’t rightly know, but somethin’. And you needn’t be cursin’ to prove it.”

“All right,” Dennis said. “Since you brought it out let’s air it. Wasn’t it Finn set me on Mulrooney, playin’ on my pride, for I was an arrogant pup as Dan’l says, and maybe him set Mulrooney on me. That bears investigation.”

“You’ll find what you’re investigatin’ for, never fear,” Norah said tightly.

“That’s enough, Norah. More than enough. You’re my wife and an Irishwoman and a Catholic. You’ll be bound to that and no other loyalty. Now lie down and rest. Your own time is not so far off.”

“It’s near three months.”

“Three months,” Dennis repeated and grinned. “He’ll be born in the reign of Fernandy.”

As Norah foretold, Daniel Mulrooney swore that it was a minion of Finn’s put him up those many years ago to the destruction of the first Eight O’clock Market. And by way of proof he cited the fact that nary a cart nor a stand of a Chatham Street peddler was touched that night, and a wealth of them sheltered behind the Eight O’clock. Dennis remembered the urchins stealing them to haul off the debris of his market. “My boys respected a bargain,” Mulrooney growled, “even with a Chatham Street Jew.” Then remembering yet another proof of Finn’s complicity, he asked: “And how did he know where to find you that night? He knew where to look for me. The Empire Club.” Dennis had thought till then it was Kevin who found him, but Mulrooney’s logic was tempting.

Dennis went out to his ward campaigning with more will than he had expected, but not as much as he wished. He picked up his band of the faithful and made his first stand of the night in the old neighborhood—a stone’s throw from the Catherine Street market. With the gathering throng, he gathered his own resources. Nothing warmed him more to his message than people running to hear it. He cried the Reformers down as hypocrites, as Natives in the disguise of missionaries, and cited the friendship between Fernandy’s perjuring slanderer and a sanctimonious, tea-drinking Reformer—a turncoat Democrat, a gentleman soured from birth because he was born without hope of Christian redemption.

“Name him, name him!” cried someone from the crowd.

“I’ll call him tomorrow!” Dennis shouted. Tomorrow at least was not tonight. Then, lest it be supposed that he cringed from his duty, he cried: “Will you meet me the same hour here tomorrow? Will you bring your friends to hear me? And I’ll tell you a tale that ’ud wither a ghost!”

A shout of approval boomed into the night.

The drums rippled and his boys broke into a marching song to the tune of The Girl I Left Behind Me. The words ran, “Oh, Fernandy is the workingman’s friend, a friend we’ll always find him…”

Dennis led the way between the torchbearers to the next district.

Stephen Farrell fell into stride with the leaders and elbowed the man next to Dennis out of his place. “Is it Finn you’re talking about, Lavery?”

“Are you askin’ it or tellin’ it?” Dennis said, for of all the people from whom he could not now brook censure it was Farrell. Not a word had The Citizen published in Fernando’s defense against the Know-Nothing slander, and Dennis felt in his heart it was because Finn had got to Farrell.

“I did not quite understand that bit about Christian redemption. Are you hinting that he’s a Jew? Is that it?”

“Construe it as you like,” said Dennis, although until that moment he had refused to think about the epithets he hurled at his unnamed adversary. He never really knew where the words came from when he needed them, but they never failed him. And the most his conscience demanded of him that night was that he not name Jeremiah Finn.

Farrell kept a silent stride with him, but Dennis knew his eyes to be as cold as the horns of the moon. Blast and damn him. With his lawyer’s guile he could suck a blister without breaking the skin. “Is it a slander on him? Is he ashamed of it?” he demanded.

“I’ve never heard him deny it,” Farrell said. “The shame is not his.” He dropped from the marching, chanting boys.

Dennis moved on to the steps of the public pump at Paradise Square. The faces crowding in on him there were hoary and wizened; the ears listening for one word only—was Fernandy standing a drink tonight? A pull at a hose for tuppence you could buy them, lining them up like sucklings at a sow’s tits, but come Tuesday, they’d line up again and themselves suckle the Democracy.

“Aye, he’s standin’ you!” Dennis shouted, “and a puff of tobaccy as well! And who will you vote for on Tuesday?”

“Fernandy, Fernandy, Fernandy!”

“Aye. He’ll see you get work are you able, and are you not able, he’ll see you get bread at least. How many of you out there are workin’?” But a few hands went up and them as unsteady as the jobs they tokened. “And how many willin’ to work?” Ah, they were all willing in election week, and some with two hands, Dennis noted. “Take care you but vote with one,” he said, showing his teeth in a grin. “An honest vote is enough for an honest man. And that, my friends, is Fernandy! Take over, boys.”

The cheering crowd broke into clusters, each surrounding a ward man whom they knew by the ticket in his hat. Before Dennis had left the Square it was abandoned to him and his torchmen, and to Farrell was he playing the haunt. The democracy was toasting Fernandy, and roasting the Know-Nuts and the Temperance Reformers who begrudged them even tuppence of solace. The night was black and Dennis’ thoughts of a shade to match it. He could not retreat from the attack of his own devising. If The Citizen was lost they would say he had lost it, but damn their eyes, it was him who found it, and not much of a find at that! All rhetoric and no guts, all head and no heart! Let them turn, they had turned before. He could roast them all on the same spit.

“Sing, God damn it!” he cried to his men, “and push on to Chrystie Street. They’ll come out to us there in their nightshirts!”

18

THE CITIZEN WAS LOST to the cause, and claimed in effect never to have been found to it. “We have uniformly urged upon Irish citizens that they should not act together as Irishmen—should not isolate themselves from other American parties, should not place themselves in the hands of Irish priests, still less of Irish grog sellers to be disposed of as political capital…Every Irish voter ought to vote upon his individual judgment about measures and men…”

Dennis carried the paper with him to headquarters, his face as long as the column. But it was a smiling Fernando who greeted him. “You were right, Lavery, about the Mitchel crowd after all,” he said, and Dennis thought he would never forget the moment. Not a word of blame or chastisement. What other man in Wood’s place would smile at a defection on the eve of election? And commend a man for being right in the first place when in the second and last place, he had sworn the camp to be solid and sound! “It all goes to show,” Wood went on placidly, “what’s wrong with the national administration even to the Customhouse desks. They’ve wanted everybody to ride on the donkey, and now they have to carry the poor beast themselves. It will be a clean sweep in ’56. Pierce is through. I shouldn’t wonder but Douglas is through as well.”

“I wonder,” said Dennis, “if that mayn’t’ve been in their minds at The Citizen, turnin’ tail like they did. Mitchel was countin’ on Douglas bein’ the next president.”

“He has less chance of it than Fernando Wood,” said the candidate for mayor.

Dennis grinned. “I wouldn’t put his chances near that high,” he said. He tapped the copy of The Citizen in his hand. “There’s one good thing in this, they showed their true colors goin’ out—Irish priests and grog sellers,’ God almighty.”

“The Native tongue. It might have come from their handbook.”

“Oh, to hell with them,” Dennis said, throwing down the paper in disgust.

“Certainly you weren’t intending to waste time on them? Bring down the Reform ticket, and you’ll have them in the same blow.”

“My very thought,” said Dennis.

“There are things you must say in the heat of battle, Lavery, for which you can apologize when the day is won.”

“I never apologized to a man in my life,” Dennis said.

Wood smiled. “Oh, I have. But then I’m not as temperate a man as you.”

Dennis started home to an early tea, having spent the afternoon with Jamie Lavery who was carrying the burthen of the business during the campaign. He hoped for a few moments with the children, the only relaxation he permitted himself. There was not much to recommend Norah’s company, and even less that afternoon to recommend his own. Let the night come soon. Hit them harder and longer. Call them out. He took to the stump like some men to drink, shivering over the first taste, and then for it.

Norah was watching for him at the window, but not a child with her. Nor the old man either, thank God. He had got himself a job at last, proving his title to charity by the gesture of work. Dennis could hear the little ones from the top floor when he opened the door. “Don’t they come to meet their father no more?” he said when Norah came out to him.

“I put them up,” she said. “Mr. Farrell and Mr. Finn are waitin’ you in the parlor.”

“What do they want comin’ here? Have they no pride?” Norah turned from him without an answer. He caught her arm. “What did they tell you?”

“Nothin’,” she said, “but they won’t take even a cup of tea.”

“They’ll wish they had then for I’m goin’ up to the childer’ first.”

He went up and stayed up a half hour but the men were still waiting when he came down.

“They’ve more patience with you than me,” Norah said tightly going out of the parlor as he went in. Her face was beet red with the temper.

“I make it a rule always to see the childer’ first when I come in the house,” Dennis said. “What can I do for you, gentlemen?”

It was Finn who spoke, Farrell taking himself to the window, disguising his temper by turning his back.

“This is very difficult, Dennis,” Finn started.

“Excuse me a minute,” said Dennis, and raising his voice to Farrell: “Are you put out that I kept you waitin’? I remember waitin’ weeks in the stinkin’ hold of a ship for you to welcome me.”

Farrell did not turn from the window.

“Dennis, I was in this house last Christmas Day,” Finn started again. “I was invited and I came and was received with such affection, I cannot believe you did not mean it.”

“I did mean it, but there are things I know now I didn’t know then.”

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.

19

THERE 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…”

Dennis caught the messenger up by his shirt front. “Was it him shot?”

Lynch wagged his head that it was.

“Is he hurt bad?”

“There’ll be the devil to pay anyway. There’s a call to the National Guard…”

“Let them put in a call to hell!” Dennis screamed. “Is he livin’ or dead?”

“About half and half what I heard. They carted him home.”

Dennis let go his grip on the man and stood himself as much dead as alive. “The bloody little fool,” he groaned, “to come out on the streets tonight.”

“Is it Jeremiah?” said Peg.

“Aye, aye, aye,” Dennis cried, making the runner giggle. “’Tis Jeremiah Finn.” He lifted his foot and the runner fled, leaving the door gaping. Dennis gave it a kick that shook the house. He turned then and pushed himself to the stairs, groping there his way for his eyes were blinded. He labored a few steps and faltered. “I called him tonight,” he cried out. “I called him for a Know-Nothin’ and a heathen, for a Jew, for a Christ-killin’ Jew.” Then, lifting his voice, he gave a great howl of pain as though his own agony were mortal.

20

PEG WAS BLESSED IN her haste by the return of the hackman for her as she reached the street. Tom kept to the side streets and thrashed his horse and brought her quickly to Chambers Street. The police had mounted guard at Finn’s store entrance as well as the stairs to the private apartment, and in the street a few angry men had taken up their own vigil. All Peg’s persuasions would not gain her admittance until black Nancy identified her as a friend.

Scarcely a nod Nancy gave her, but taking her by the arm, the big woman shoved her into the apartment as she might a child. “Where Mista’ Farrell?” she demanded of the policeman.

“We sent for him.”

“Get him,” the woman ordered, and then to Peg who was shedding her cloak: “There water on the stove. The doctor want it bilin’.”

“I’ll watch and bring it,” Peg said. “How is he?”

The woman gave no answer.

Peg, carrying the water into the bedroom a few minutes later, saw Mr. Finn herself. It was a shock to see the man so pale and small in the large bed, and with the doctors standing tall above him, and their shadows taller still crowding the wall into the ceiling. Nancy put a finger to her lips. Mr. Finn’s eyes were closed, but watching closely Peg could see the counterpane rise and fall ever so slightly in his breathing. Suddenly the little man opened his eyes, and seeing Peg, they filled with tears. She knelt down by the bed, by the bucket full of bloody towels, and no one stopped her. She put her lips to the cold, limp hand where it lay at his side.

“Vincent,” was the only word the stricken man said.

“He’ll come soon, Jeremiah,” Peg said. “Save your strength.”

Peg held back her own tears until she left the room, but beyond that she could not. The dear man, the dear little man. In all the world she had never known a brighter, gentler soul.

Stephen Farrell arrived and went into the room without seeing her. They were of a kind in a way, the two of them, and Vinnie the third. Truly, she cared for no others, and there should have been a place for her in their midst. Yet the one not dead to her amongst them was dying now to all of them. She put the kettle on the kitchen stove and wondered if somewhere in the house aside from the doctors’ satchels there was a drop of brandy. She was searching the shelves for it when Stephen found her. They looked at each other a moment when she turned at his step. She set the lamp on the table.

“’Tis the evilest of nights that brings us together, isn’t it, Stephen?”

He nodded, holding his hand to her and smiling a little.

She caught his hand and lifted it to her cheek while he drew her against him and held her lightly in loveless comforting. She kept her face away and not to strain the blessed moment of his touch, she made the least of it and inquired after Delia.

“Her time is near,” he said.

Oh, God in heaven, would that my time had come with him! “I have always thought it a marvelous wonder,” she said, “to be waiting a death and a birth at the same time. Has Vinnie been sent word?”

“I telegraphed,” Stephen said. “We must pray he gets it in time to catch the morning steamer.”

“There’s no hope?”

“No. His insides are splintered with shot. I wonder if your brother-in-law is as comfortable.”

“He wailed like a lost soul when word came. I was there.”

“Well he might. Oh, none of us are blameless in it, Margaret, even Jeremiah himself. He was tolerant of intolerance, finding excuses for Valois. Let us have no doubt of it: if Valois and his kind come to power, it will not be because of the failure of demagogues like Lavery, but because of the tolerance of men like Finn.”

“And if he doesn’t come to power?” said Peg.

Stephen smiled. “A good question. It may very well be for the same reason.”

Peg waited the night, sitting before the kitchen stove, sometimes nodding with sleep, sometimes starting up at footsteps, at whispering voices. Of whomever she asked the question, doctor or Nancy, the answer was the same: “no change.” She woke once to discover that Nancy had wrapped a blanket about her, and again she awoke to discover that Stephen had returned, that he was standing above her looking at her, and with such compassion in his eyes that she felt like a child again stirring out of an illness. She stretched her hand to him and let it and her eyes beg the touch of him. He bent down and kissed her gently on the mouth.

“It’s coming dawn,” he said, going to the window and opening the shutters.

“Stephen, do you remember…”

He shook his head and she let the question go. “I have forgotten, Margaret… and for all time.”

Peg tried to rub some warmth into her hands. “How I loathe the woman you married,” she said.

“You shouldn’t. It is me you should loathe.”

“God knows,” Peg said fervently, “I would if it were in my power.”

“Shall we try to make some breakfast, Margaret? Doctor Burns has watched the night and poor old Nancy is near as prostrate as her master.”

Stephen went to his home again after having coffee, and he was so long gone Peg feared Vinnie might come before his return. Not for her sake, but for the boy’s she wanted Stephen there when he arrived. Vinnie did not approve of her, she thought wryly, and he should not have his only comfort from her. Outdoors the police kept the curious moving. Chambers Street was a business thoroughway. Move on. Move on. Find a park, or find a church. The newsboys cried their wares: Peg was a long time listening before she made out what they were hawking: ASSASSIN UNDER GUARD AT TOMBS. She had not even given a thought to the man who had fired the shot. Some drunken slob of an Irishman, likely, boasting the only gun ever trusted to him to hold.

And there as though he had prompted the thought came Valois prancing up the street. He walked always as though he would climb the back of anyone in his way, and this morning he carried a stick. Peg watched him whack it against the legs of a persistent newsboy. The cruel asp. She moved quickly to find Nancy. Confound Stephen and his confined wife! He should have been here now to cope with such wrath as Valois carried. One thing must be secured: he should not be allowed to see Jeremiah. Nancy agreed as did Dr. Burns, and the big woman took up her station outside the bedroom door. Peg waited in the drawing room, there to receive him when he was turned from the door of the stricken man.

“I wondered in which house you were to be found this morning, Margaret,” were the words with which he greeted her.

“I have been here the night,” she said.

“Without its occurring to you to summon the friend for whom he is giving his life.” His voice quivered with emotion, sincere or feigned.

“I don’t think Jeremiah is giving his life for anyone or anything,” she said. “He was robbed of it.”

“So that is the story!” Valois cried. “The cruelty of it—the coldblooded cruelty of the Irish. Let me tell you something, Margaret Hickey—you are wrong. He will die for his country as surely as if on the field of battle.”

“Val, would it destroy you entirely if the poor man were to live?”

He turned his back on her. “I want to see Jeremiah,” he said. “I shall wait until I am summoned, and I depend on you, Margaret, to see that I am admitted to his presence.”

“Not until Vinnie has come,” Peg said quietly. “He’s the only one Jeremiah has asked for.”

21

IT WAS A MOST remarkable thing, Vinnie thought, as the steamer throbbed into sight of the Battery: all autumn he had felt responsibility hovering over him like a bird and now it had lit upon him. Stephen’s message had said only that Mr. Finn was seriously wounded, but the papers put aboard at The Narrows gave some details of the incident and in his imagination Vinnie followed Mr. Finn on his not uncommon wanderings of the night. “Pugs” Reilly, according to the Herald, had fired the shot, claiming self defense. The Tribune blamed Dennis Lavery…Reading that account Vinnie felt his heart thump terribly. All the accounts together did not make a story, but in them all it was implicit that Finn would die, and for just a flashing instant, Vinnie saw the empty house, the empty world without him.

He leaped from the side of the steamer before it was secure in the slip and crashed his way through the crowd, alerting the foremost cab before he reached it. When the cab bogged down in traffic, Vinnie abandoned it and his carpetbag in it, and ran with all his might, pausing only when his lungs seemed collapsed. God wait, wait, let him wait. His vision was true, Vinnie knew, the dear man hanging onto life until he come. The cursed crowd outside. Was he living or dead to have gathered them?

Stephen caught him in his arms at the top of the stairs. “He’s very weak, Vinnie. Quiet yourself, lad.”

Vinnie nodded and sucked the breath into his lungs. Peg came and took the muffler from about his neck, and with her own handkerchief wiped the sweat from his face.

The doctor came from the room and Vinnie got his first panic over him in glimpsing his guardian before meeting the full image of him. “You can both go in now,” the doctor said to Peg and Stephen.

“The boy’s here,” Stephen said.

“Thank God. Go in, son.”

Nancy was kneeling at the foot of the bed, her head bowed upon the counterpane, her back to the door. Vinnie, passing, put his hand upon her shoulder an instant.

So bright and almost merry were the eyes of Mr. Finn when they opened upon him, and his voice was quite clear. “Oh my, you have come quickly, Vincent.”

“I ran part way, sir,” Vinnie said. Someone put a chair where he could sit close without disturbing the bed. The odor of blood was stifling, blood and what he could only surmise was the foresmell of death. Someone was burning incense in the room to overcome the stench.

“I’ve thought all night, Vincent, what I should say to you. There is something you must see to for me. I don’t want any flags, do you understand? Stephen will know what I mean. No flags. All night I’ve kept my lips sealed. Oh, my boy, if you had not come soon…”

“But I am here,” Vinnie said.

“I am a Jew. Have I ever denied it? I have almost wished you were…”

“Isn’t it bad enough that I’m an Irishman?” Vinnie said.

Mr. Finn smiled and the blood mingled with the spittle on his lips. Peg put a cloth in Vinnie’s hand and he wiped the man’s mouth.

“Such a long time ago,” Mr. Finn said, and he had begun to breathe heavily and with a hissing noise, “it came to me that no man could find truth so long as he made common faith with a congregation, a party…dogma is the enemy of truth, even if it is itself truth. I had it all so clear in my mind to tell you. But you must find it out yourself. If you believed it because I said it, we two would be a congregation…” He gave a cough that wracked him and then whispered, “Do not let them say I am a martyr. I do not want to die, but all men must. And I would thank Dennis for one thing—a barefoot apprentice he brought me when his heart was pure.”

The last words were very faint and after them Mr. Finn closed his eyes. He opened them again in a moment, but not to look at Vinnie or anyone. “Doctor,” he said very clearly, “ask everyone to leave. I want to be alone for a while.”

A few minutes later the doctor came out to where they waited and said that Mr. Finn was dead.

PART VI

1

THE NIGHT WAS BITTER when last we met, sister of mine, with the cry of winter in it, and men without souls were upon the streets. We were drawn together by a power as strange as the moon’s upon the tide, and for a little moment gave one another succor. Then came Dennis home. And which of us dared live till spring?

Yet the tulips are in bloom around the Battery.

“And so, after all, all’s well, sister of mine?”

“Ach, God help us, what is well? And when in the world’s turnin’ ever was all well? All’s well enough.”

“It must be. You named the child Fernando.”

“’Tis a saint’s name—Ferdinand or Fernando.”

“I’ve heard it said the church would canonize the mayor if that would flatter him.”

“The spoutin’ of bigots, that, though I dare say there’s worse in heaven than His Honor.”

“And some say better in hell. Is it true he will hire none but Irish?”

“A thousand Irishmen got work this winter who’d of died without it, true enough.”

“And is it true they’re paying a little off their wage into the mayor’s fund?”

“When the rich are buyin’ power, would you begrudge the poor a hap’orth of privilege?”

“Ah, Norah, when you give back a question to a question, your heart’s not in the answer. Did you know that Stephen named his son Jeremiah?”

“Vinnie must’ve lost his faith to stand up at a Protestant christenin’.”

“Do you wonder at that, Norah, after what happened?”

“What happened happened. If there was no bad in the world there’d be no virtue in good, and no need of penance for sorrowin’ men. Now will you leave me alone on it?”

I will. But I wonder if you remember how often I begged that of you—long ago when you thought bad and good such a clear and simple matter, sister of mine.

“And with you, Stephen, all is well?”

“Quite well, thank you.”

Is that a darn in the finger of your glove? A fray at the pocket of your coat? “I understand you’re leaving the St. Nicholas.”

“Not quite the place to rear a child.”

Nor the place to live when a man’s fortune is falling below his honor. How I love you, Stephen, for that choice which I cannot mention when you do not yourself. But surely you must prosper even without so prosperous and politic a partner. “Your son is very beautiful.”

“Thank you. I’m glad Delia brought him to call.”

“Delia did not call. I sometimes sit a moment with Nancy in the park and I pretend…”

“Ah, yes, you and Nancy are old friends.”

“I pretend that Mr. Finn is not dead, that the apartment is not boarded up with all my happy ghosts inside. Then both Nancy and I weep and borrow handkerchiefs from one another.”

“You must forget, Margaret.”

“Why? I like remembering. So does Nancy and she does not deny me the company of her grief.”

“Will you come to tea one day before we move?”

“I expect not, Stephen. I shall be much engaged from now until the season’s end. I’m to have a new play for a smashing finish.”

“So all Valois’ fury was so much froth?”

“Thank God for that. I don’t like to think how dependent I am upon him.”

“Surely he is as dependent upon you? What manager would not throw open his doors to you?”

“You would be surprised at how few would, Stephen, if any at all. They say I am ahead of my times, whatever that means. I think it means that I am unreliable in drawing custom, that they fear my alienation of their gentler patrons. And they are right. I’ve marked myself the scarcity of true ladies in our audience.”

“Nonsense.”

“Nonsense indeed, and I am sure Delia has been often to see me upon the stage since that first palpitating Camille?” Ah, Stephen, I have no tact yet, and you were ever its master. “You must come, both of you, when my new play is announced.”

And with you, Val? But of course all’s well. And how should I know otherwise, daring not to ask. You smile in anger as in mirth and sometimes grind your teeth when you are as near to loving as your nature will allow. You denounced me because you did not see your friend alive, and I have thought you blamed me when against your pleading he was buried without flags or pomp or deadmarch. I thought you might be avenged of Irishmen on this poor bit of Irish flesh. Instead you have held your tongue in my presence and promised a new play this springtime. What more could I ask?

“But when, Val, when?”

“Soon enough, you will say, when you must learn it.”

“Have I complained? What actress has carried a heavier season? Six roles I’ve added to my repertoire.”

“And now can’t wait to add a seventh.”

“I’m bored with things once chewed and now eschewed. I don’t want Cushman’s hand-me-downs. A new play suited to my talents: that was your promise, Val, and I hold you to it.”

“Pray, peace, Margaret. You will have the play, and by my soul, you’ll play it!”

It was the softest of June days when the messenger delivered into Peg’s hands The Benefactor. She gave the boy a shilling, at which he looked twice and forbore testing by a surer method only as long as it took him to escape her sight. She took the envelope to the open window and stood a moment looking out. Ah ha, she said aloud, seeing the lad run down the steps, swing wildly between horses, carts and carriages. Across Broadway he bumped noses with a waiting ginghamed maid, as though it were an accident of course, and then skipped up the street with her to some ice cream haunt of their choosing. I remember springtime, oh, very well I remember.

She drew a chair to the window and opened the folder. If fame were less than love, it had some little power of making up for it…if what she had was fame. It was no common thing certainly to have a play written for you. The Benefactor. Its dedication page made her heart flutter a bit: “To the memory of Jeremiah Finn.” She turned the page without further self-preparation. The Benefactor, a play in five scenes by An American. “Oh, mother of God,” she murmured, and put her hand to where it might ease her quickened, thumping heartbeat.

Eight out of ten characters were Irish, not very Irish to an Irishman, but wanting only the actors’ brogue, the birdnests of hair, and raggle-taggle shirt tails to be all Ireland to an audience who thought one Irishman quite the same as another.

It was clever and horrid, and it would play like leaves in the wind. If Valois had not written it, he had sat on the shoulder of the author. Peg wondered if it was pride or shame that hurt her most. If only an Irishman had written it! What a strange thought, that. An Irishman having written it would need by now to be halfway across the world and in the opposite direction to Ireland.

“Well, Jeremiah,” she said, getting up at last, and addressing herself to the empty, darkening room, “it’s dedicated to your memory. There’ll be more love in the playing than’s in the writing. But who ever would have known that better than yourself, God rest you?”

2

“BRIDGET, YOU ARE CALLED.”

Called and must make answer. Peg rose and flung the tattered shawl about her shoulders. And why not, truth be told? Yes! Tell the truth and shame a people. There was never a boat to Blackwell’s Island wasn’t crowded with cursing, weeping Bridgets, and never a boat back didn’t bring them with hopes as pale as their faces, and both faces and hopes to be soon changing colors; black was never the color of hope, nor was rouge the beckon of virtue. But a pious start’s to be given you, Bridget, and ye’ll fight yer fall though ’tis not in the script. Oh, Bridget is called, but when she answers there’s no one left in Mrs. Stuart’s dressing room.

And who was cheering her, Peg wondered at the curtain. Did they cheer her fall or her fight, or was there no fight seen in her? Was her soul dead by their vision the moment she escaped the convent, for on such an incident Valois had opened his play, or worse—was the soul in her destroyed in the convent, for surely that notion most suited the author.

Step up, boys, and take your bow (this to the first and second comedian)! Look at them snatch off their wigs, just to prove they aren’t nit-headed Irish. Till the weariness left her and the long sleep drowned the sound of them, their lines would go round in her head, one of them trying to tell the other the name of the state each star in the flag stood for: “Conn…Conn…Conneh…” “Connemara?” “No, blight yous, isn’t Connemara in Ireland?” “Not for long. They’ll be loadin’ it into the next packet.” “Mass…Massa…Massa…” “Ah-choo!” “That’s it!” “What’s it?” Massachusetts….” On and on, like an organ grinder’s tune. Ah, but the calls for Bridget were louder—perchance men of taste as well as prejudice beyond the wall of light? “Gentlemen, good night!” Words unheard, of course, but with them Peg left the stage, and it was soon apparent she would not appear again that night.

Valois stood at her dressing room door, grinning, and scratching the back of his head with the knob of his cane. “Do you know what I’m trying to decide, Margaret? If you are truly as great an actress as you seem, or if I am so poor a scribbler. Congratulations. The victory again is yours.”

So, Peg thought, despite him I have given Bridget dignity. “Val, it was not a contest I should have ever asked for.”

He threw back his head and laughed, a high weird sound like the bray of an animal. “Oh, by the living God! That you should be gentle with me at this moment!” The smile left his face. “Eleven in the morning,” he said coldly, and then called out to the stage manager: “Philip! We’ll cut in the morning…to the bone and the heart we’ll cut, and we shall announce The Benefactor to play each night until the season’s close. If you wish your benefit, Mrs. Stuart, it will be The Benefactor.”

“The bill for my benefit is of my own choosing,” Peg said.

Valois bowed. “As you wish, my dear. But I warn you the audience will not be of your choosing.”

Peg slammed the dressing room door and hastened to have a quick drink before Norah and the old man were in upon her. I don’t care what they say, she told herself, I really don’t care at all, but she waited their coming nonetheless with trepidation.

When they arrived backstage, obviously both of them had been weeping.

“’Twas terrible sad,” the old man said, sniffling.

Norah stood in the corner a moment, apparently turning something over in her mind, and then she made Peg laugh at her remark: “They say some of them convents are terrible strict.”

Between Valois’ wrath and their easiness, Peg herself felt suddenly better. The old man was gabbing away about the wonderful fun there was in the comedians… “Ah-choo, Massachoosetts, and how else could you say it, but sneeze?” Peg was about to button him up when the boxkeeper tapped on her door and handed in a card.

Stephen Farrell’s. “May Delia and I have the pleasure of driving you home?”

“The pleasure,” Peg repeated. “Oh, my God. Did they see the play?” she demanded of the man bowed and deafened by time.

“Eh-h? Oh, it was good. Very good, Mrs. Stuart.”

Better she thought for his not having heard a line of it. But of course Stephen had attended. She had urged it at their last meeting, and not knowing then the play. But to write “the pleasure of driving you home,” he could not have been as disturbed as she was in it.

“Now you go along as you will,” Norah was saying. “Pa and I must be hurryin’ home. Dennis’ll want to know.”

“And what’ll you tell him, Norah?”

“Well, I didn’t care much for the parts about the church, but it was wonderful Irish and I enjoyed myself.”

Now would come Stephen, Peg thought, who wouldn’t care at all for the Irish parts, but could find amusement in the digs at the church. She sent word of acceptance to the Farrells and put Norah and her father into the carriage waiting her.

“Will you have supper with me?” Peg offered as soon as greetings were spent.

“I don’t really think we should,” Delia drawled.

“Nonsense,” Stephen said, and then explained to Peg that Delia was reluctant since their moving even to call upon her friends in the hotel. To his wife he joshed: “We did not carry off their silver, you know.”

“I know exactly how Mrs. Farrell feels,” Peg said. “If I were to go into Jeremiah’s house, I should want to lock myself in, not out.”

“How understandin’,” Delia murmured.

“Did you know the play was dedicated to him, Stephen?”

“No doubt because he would have found it so enjoyable,” he said dryly.

“Then you found it as offensive as I did?”

“Except for Bridget, quite. And the strange thing about it, Margaret, had an Irishman written it…”

“Stephen! My very thought. If only an Irishman had written it, I said to myself the day I read it, this would be better, this would be fine.”

“I can believe that from your playing. It must have cost you much anguish to decide on doing it.”

“The decision was not mine to make, Stephen. I have purposely foregone the privilege of selecting my roles. My judgment was never the best.”

“But could you not have broken the contract? Surely you could not be held to a role offending your race and church?”

“I suppose I could,” she said slowly, and thinking about it for the first time. “I have always been faithful to contracts—at the risk of health and honor, and sometimes life itself. And it’s not virtue, this faithfulness. It’s stupidity. The heart of a bondsman. I’m Irish to the core, Stephen, obedient until dispossessed.”

Stephen said nothing, and as they jogged and jostled through traffic, she thought that there was a time when Stephen would have said those words, but not she. Not the bold she! Peg turned to Delia. “Your husband was not always so tolerant, Mrs. Farrell.”

“I must say he’s very tolerant of me, and I got some just dreadful defects.”

Stephen murmured some nicety of protest and Peg was about to allow herself the opinion that Stephen’s wife was indeed a fool, when Delia said: “Did you see Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Mrs. Stuart?”

“I did,” Peg said.

“And did you believe it a true picture of Southern life?”

“The only picture of Southern life I’ve ever truly credited, Mrs. Farrell, was drawn for me by my late husband.”

“I often wanted to tell you, Mrs. Stuart—only Stephen hushed me on it—how terrible sad I thought that was. He must have had great pride, your husband.”

“Yes,” Peg murmured, “as proud as a bullet.”

Delia laid her gloved hand on Peg’s for a moment. “No true Southerner ever admits he’s beaten till he’s dead, and then he don’t know it.”

“Unlike the Irish,” Stephen said out then, harsh and hearty: “who’d flop on their backs at the first shot and arise at the last to boast the victory.”

“A nation of Falstaffs!” Peg added in hurtful pleasure.

“Hush up, both of you shut your mouths,” Delia said in a fury quicker than her speech. “I never heard such talk, and about your own people, too!”

“‘Know ye the truth,’ “ Stephen said, “‘and the truth will make you free.’”

3

DENNIS SCARCELY LISTENED TO Norah’s account of the play that night. He was sitting before the window brooding when she returned so that she had to light the house. The city was foul with the first long heat and the smells accompanying it. All the waters of Croton wouldn’t cleanse it, but if the city stank the people held their noses when the Mayor drove by. There was nothing his enemies wouldn’t use to discredit him, and this despite the fact that he was hailed everywhere else as the finest city administrator in the country.

Dennis allowed himself to be drawn into the kitchen where he watched the brewing of the tea and heard Norah’s chatter to her father without letting on he attended. The old man drank down his cup scalding and vanished himself near as quick as the tea. He often shut the door on his own shadow when Dennis was home. Finally Dennis roused himself to a show of sociability. “So she’s playin’ an Irish girl, is she?”

“She is and beautiful. And there’s a pair of old men in it, I thought pa would explode with the laughin’.”

“I half wish I’d gone myself,” Dennis said. “I could stand a bit of cheer.”

“You’re always sayin’ that after,” Norah said.

“’Tis the greetin’, keenin’ parts she plays. Doesn’t a man have troubles enough of his own without goin’ to the theatre to watch other people’s? Aye, and them people he don’t even know.”

“Is it the only reason you don’t go, Dennis?”

“Quit your proddin’ and probin’. I’m not stoppin’ you from goin’.”

“But you’re sour as a quince if you’re home when I get here.”

Dennis caught hold of her skirt and pulled her to him, catching then her hands in his own. “It’s not that I mind you havin’ the good time, darlin’, ’Tis only irksome that you’re able to have it without me,” he said, trying to make light of his ill humor.

“Oh, Lord,” Norah said, letting her eyes play in his for an instant, “didn’t I feel there now like we were back over the stable? Ah, they were good days, Dennis.”

“And are these days so bad you need all the time to be lookin’ back on them past?”

“You’re gettin’ as touchy as your brother Kevin. Mary says she can’t say a word to him but he thinks she’s sizin’ him up next to you.”

Dennis laughed but without pleasure and let go her hands. “And that makes him touchy, does it? It wasn’t so long ago he’d’ve taken that for a compliment. He loves to see a man strainin’, Kevin does, and no understandin’ at all if he sits down to a bit of thinkin’ in the middle of the day. If he sat a bit himself and used his head instead of his back it wouldn’t be bent double on him now.”

“’Tis late,” Norah said. “We better go to bed or the childer’ll be up afore we’re down.”

“Aye, we better,” Dennis said. And there was this to be said for the dark, he needn’t watch the flight of her eyes from his own when there was a chance he might trap the truth in them.

Within the week certain newspapers took cognizance of the anti-Irish, anti-Papist nature of The Benefactor, and the Irish American ran an editorial castigating management and players. It recommended that Catholics and Irish stay away from the theatre and let those in attendance be known for what they were, Dennis read it aloud to Norah.

“And you didn’t even know it,” he said, putting down the paper.

“I wasn’t lookin’ for it,” Norah said tightly and went about her work.

The Nativist press was quick to respond. They found their best offense in a bill of particulars about the star: had not Mrs. Stuart trained the brogue from her speech and then avowed herself an American actress? Had she not toured America from California to Boston? How many stars could say that? How many stars knew America as did Mrs. Stuart? The exchanges continued, much to the delight of the publishers who printed every word and sold the better for the strongest of them. It was not long until the Freemen’s Journal could truly call Mrs. Stuart the Know-Nothings’ darling.

Dennis watched it all, not with pleasure, but with a small grim satisfaction. He would not for the world have wished Norah hurt, except that this hurt might ease the pain of an older one, or might indeed cure it altogether. She was more understanding now, confounded by her own ignorance. Then one day he overheard Mary Lavery at her: “Sure she’s more use to them than a unfrocked priest on a street corner.”

Dennis walked in on the conversation. “That’ll do on it, Mary.”

“’Tis time someone gave the truth,” Mary said, “and not have Norah makin’ a fool of herself and her da, chasin’ in and out their theatre like it was the church.”

“The truth was in Norah’s heart before ever you advised her, Mary,” he said with quiet sarcasm. “And it just happens I’m plannin’ to go and see the play for myself tonight.”

“Are you, Dennis?” Norah cried, and the homing flight of her eyes to his made a feeling run through him he thought was stilled. He wished then that Mary was gone.

“Well, I hope you at least know what you see,” the big woman said, shrugging herself like a lazy cat.

“Now, I tell you, Mary,” he said, and bent his head so that he could wink at Norah out of his sister-in-law’s sight, “if it comes to a choice between not knowin’ somethin’ I’ve seen and knowin’ somethin’ I’ve not seen at all—d’you know, I’ll chance my own ignorance? Go along with you, Mary. You know you agree with me.”

She melted into a smile, for what she could not swallow whole, she was always willing to nibble. “Listen to him turn my own words on me, will you?”

“Ach,” said Norah, “if he could curl hair like he can turn a phrase, there wouldn’t be a thatched roof in the family.”

Unbeknownst to herself Mary was eased into an early departure.

“Are you truly goin’?” Norah asked him then.

“I am,” he said gravely.

Norah explored his face. “Is it for me or on politics? I know there’s ructions brewin’.”

In the end for her, surely, and for now not to brew ructions. “We’re tryin’ to keep the boys away from there. I’ve a notion there’s nothin’ they’d like better, the Natives, than to stir us up to a riot.”

“Then it’s for me,” Norah concluded, and thought about it a moment. “Is it a sin for you to go, Dennis?”

He lifted her chin with his forefinger and kissed her. “Only if I enjoy it, love.”

And enjoy it he would not. How could you bless and damn a woman at once, Dennis thought, scowling at himself in the mirror as he dressed that night, and those were his feelings toward Peg. The only blessing coming her was for something she didn’t even know: the turning of Norah into an understanding woman—and God knows, he would take an understanding one over a humble one any day in his life. How many men he knew with humble wives…and proud mistresses. But if peace were coming to him at home out of this, there was nothing of comfort in the remarks abroad. He had never boasted it, but it was known nonetheless in the Hall that Mrs. Stuart was his sister-in-law. More than one man said it was a good thing this was not an election year. There were men in the party itself who would make the most of the connection: it was by no means forgotten that sworn affidavits had once affirmed Fernando Wood to have been a Native. Plainly Margaret Stuart needed soon to be discredited.

Still, whatever Peg was, she was no Native, and therefore might be reasonable. But what reasonability would save her now with the Know-Nothing tag upon her? Mary Lavery was all too right: a renegade priest spouting venom from the Customhouse steps prospered their cause no more. There was nothing at all for it that Dennis could see but retirement from the stage altogether—or at least for a couple of years. God make her willing to that, God make her persuadable.

He got his gloves from the drawer, one of three pair, by the grace of God, and one pair as good as the other. If only Farrell had married her—instead of making her unmarriageable to a decent man. Small prosperity to him, and small he had in spite of his elegant wife. He sang like a nightingale in Surrogate, Oyer and Terminer, and though, it was said, he moved juries to tears, he could not coax a verdict this side of Appeals. But whose affair was that save the Almighty’s? Thanks be to Him, it was none of Dennis Lavery’s, at least.

4

EVEN AS DENNIS WAS turning from the mirror, Peg was sitting down before hers in the theatre. She had been badly deceived, she thought, even beyond what she knew of men’s powers of deception. She opened the butter jar and commenced making up for a role that was nightly becoming more painful to her, and for that, alas, the more tender-seeming in performance. Suppose she refused to go on tonight? That would break the contract…but late, so late for honor. But what to her was honor? What to her was Ireland, what, indeed, the church, to volunteer this price? She shook her head against the torment. Oh, Valois, your revenge is subtle! A turncoat, a renegade, a Know-Nothing: even that she had been called in the penny press. And the Natives brought flags to the theatre like picnicking children which they waved while they cheered her. It was all too incredible.

Valois tapped at the door, came in, and took her clothes brush to his coat. “Sold out,” he said. “We may have a noisy house again, but what odds? I’ve taken the precaution of police protection, especially for you, my dear.”

“The protection I needed was from you, Val, not any provided by you.”

“What charming flattery!”

“Get out of my dressing room. It is not provided in my contract that I need share that with you.”

Valois curled a loose strand of her hair about his finger. “What a pity you are Irish,” he said, looking at her in the mirror.

She jerked away from his touch. “How you must have enjoyed confiding that information to your lodge brothers.”

“Oh, my dear,” he said, drawing a long face, “if I’d thought for a moment you wanted it concealed…”

“The devil catch and carry you out of here!” Peg screamed.

Valois skipped from the room.

Peg needed to steady the stick on the light cage as she held the cork to the flame, and needed to hold one hand with the other as she made up her eyes. But she was waiting at Bridget’s call.

The moment she appeared on the stage the huzzahing started, the stamping and waving of hats and handkerchiefs—and strangest of strangenesses to Peg, many a cheering idiot was a gentleman! A few scattered boos rang forlornly amongst the cheers, and somehow Peg took pleasure in them. She left off the business with which she was usually occupied through the commotion, and moved a few steps downstage, tilting her head to listen. Immediately came the words: “Speech! Speech!” amongst the clamor. Peg made an impatient gesture with her hand, and that apparently was taken as a signal for silence amongst those who found discipline so easy. The house was suddenly still.

Only having come so far could she see each face defined now beyond the wall of light and she was again reminded of the marching men the night Jeremiah Finn was shot. Their darling, she? Oh, the fools, the fools.

“Gentlemen,” she said, for it was now both natural and imperative that she speak, “Gentlemen, I must tell you that you mistake me…” and Bridget’s brogue came and went from her tongue, as though it might prove itself close to home. “Hear me, for I shall say but a few words. If I were to say to you now that I despised Ireland, would that make me a better American? If I were to spit in the Pope’s eye—oh yes, such words have been spoken in Ireland—would that make me a Protestant? God help you for a wonder of a religion if all it takes to get in is a mouthful of hate. Now I shall play a part for you upon this stage—I am honoring a contract playing it, more honor than the contract does me asking me to play it—but do not again mistake the player for the play. I was born poor in Ireland. I might rather have been born in America and prosperous, but deny Ireland I will not, I cannot, and I would not if I could.” She rubbed her hands together, the cold sweat running in them, and then stiffened her arms at her sides as she backed away from the apron and saw again the merciful blue-white wall rise before her. She turned her back to the audience, and only then was there any sound from them—a thick Irish “Hear! Hear!” and with so murmurous an applause in its wake, the opposition best opposed it by its silence.

The play went on and to an enduring stillness, as though, the first comedian said, they were playing on a tombstone. When the final curtain closed there was no applause at all. Only the shuffle of feet in the aisles, the hawkers’ voices at the doors betokened the presence and departure of living men.

Valois waited Peg in her dressing room. He sat in her chair and did not rise. “I did not credit you with such cunning, Margaret, or I might add, such eloquence.”

“Nor did I myself,” she said, throwing off the wig. “’Tis a hard world to live in and we do what we must. Please get up from my chair, Val. I’m very tired.” She shed Bridget’s shawl and sacking for her own silken gown.

“Neither did I know you were so religious,” he said, sliding out of the chair and pushing his backside along the table until it found a place uncluttered.

“You know the contrary to be true,” Peg said. “Let us have no more pretense between us, Val. You trapped me viciously and the more so for my ignorance of how to escape. Do you know what I felt like tonight when they started cheering? Like the whore who’d been had for a button.”

“You’ve become the most vulgar, disgusting bitch, Margaret.”

“I know,” she said, taking from beneath the table the naked brandy bottle and pouring herself a drink. “It is the way I best enjoy the company into which you have introduced me.” She lifted her glass. “To you, Val—to the Know-Nothings’ pimp.”

He leaped at her screaming like a wild bird. Peg laughed, lifted her foot, stiffened it and met his frail force mid-on. But at that instant Dennis admitted himself. He caught Valois by the coat collar and lifted him so high the little man’s feet danced in space.

“Will I blister him for you, Peg?”

Peg looked at her brother-in-law, the empty glass poised in her hand for the drink had spilled. “Were you in the theatre tonight?”

Dennis flung Valois from him. “I was and proud of it, God bless you.”

Peg felt a chill come over her. She turned to the table and poured herself another drink. She downed it while Valois gathered himself to his feet and cursed darkly. “You came,” she said, meeting Dennis’ eyes in the mirror, “to hear my speech.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” said Dennis.

“And if I’d not made the speech, what sort of a blessing would you give me now?” Dennis did not answer. “As long as you’re bent on the truth, tell me, Dennis, how long is it since last you saw me on the stage?”

“I’ve not much time for theatricals.”

“Wasn’t it Gallus Mag?”

“It might’ve been—it might.”

Peg sunk her teeth into her lip in fury. “A plague on your soul!” she spat out then, and darting her head toward Valois at the door: “On both your filthy souls!” She caught up the first thing at hand to fling at Dennis, Bridget’s shaggy wig which tumbled the brandy bottle with its tatterends, and in the swing of her arm she trailed the wisping silk of her sleeve across the burning gas jet. The flame ran up her arm and a streak of it leaped to the brandy-soaked table, but Peg by then was a dervish of screaming fire. Dennis’ body was cruelly, harshly upon her, pressing, rolling, smothering, and all the while, the terrible, terrible pain, his long screams of alarm and the crackle of flame, the smell of singe and the searing pain… and then a long, long fall into nothingness.

PART VII

1

“DO NOT SAY THAT Cicero wants courage. Say only that Cicero is afraid…” Vinnie repeated the words to himself in time with the slow processional step while he looked at the heels of the man before him. Thus would begin his dissertation if he could yet remember it when his turn came in the Commencement program. He threw his head back, his shoulders erect, and looked to the sky. The elms, the proud colonnade of elms seemed to hold up a cloudful of rain. Oops. They were leaking. The pebbles shuffled beneath the quickening feet upon the graveled walk. Demosthenes wore a pebble in his mouth.

“Do not say that Cicero wants courage…” Wants courage? Lacks courage? If wants is poetic, lacks is specific. And how many times over this question? Compose yourself, Vincent, as your speech is composed. Why can’t the Sinfonie pipe us in any faster? Ah, look at the wiggle on Matheson’s hips! You should wear a hoopskirt, my lad. Now at last the church doors swing open to us for whom the day was made, the orchestra blowing itself to a fury, and needing its strength to combat the Yale choir. Lucky chaps they, sharing the gallery with the ladies, and nothing to do between sieges but chase a maid’s eyes like butterflies across the campaign grounds.

“Say only that Cicero…” Say only that it would have been better to have drunk a half as many, a third as many, a quarter as many toasts last night, Linonians or no Linonians. All the old grads need to do with their heads this day is to keep them from tumbling into the aisles. All their speeches last night, who remembered a word of them now? And their songs…

Oh, see the rosy tint of morning

Bid us hence away.

There’s where my heart is turning ever…

Oops. Sorry.

Dum, dum de dum de dum dum de dum

The sterner cares of day.

Well, here’s Vincent Dunne facing up to them by the grace of God, a cold plunge and black coffee. Vincent Dunne at your service, mademoiselle. May I have this dance? I do love a waltz and weren’t you captain of the Tarantelle I never saw a race so thrilling oh I do love racing I do love Gala Week I do love I do love one two three one two three… And who were you named for, Mr. Dunne? Likely a saint, Miss. Vincent de Paul (or perhaps for the charity ward in Dublin which in turn took its name from him). Oh! Vincent de Paul Dunne! I do love names with des or vons or vans, it’s so distinguished-sounding. Oh, aye! like dese and dems and dose, Miss!

Keep your back up there, Taylor! You’ve made it this far. Be as furiously proud as you were furious in despair a month past. You’ve but one thing more to answer to—your own name. As your father said in his beer last night: “You may not be a scholar, son, but I’ll lay a dollar on you with a boat in any waters.” And so will I, dear friend, and another on you with any girl you favor.

Crash, boom, the thunder rolls down like a cannonade and at the moment the prexy says “Let us pray.” Hypocrite! “Let ME pray!” If ever a one of us opened our mouths to peep upon that sonorous peal, long ago should we have been muted. Roar, heavens! that an erstwhile Catholic lad shall hear no more heresy! So roars the prexy that he hear none, that none Transcend from Boston. No Over-souls need apply. Ah, Mr. Finn, how much wiser, you, to welcome heresy as though it were the truth, because such it well might be. Suppose Vinnie Dunne had taken that for his theme instead of courage, say, The Benefits of Heresy. Ha! Hie thee hence to Harvard, churl!

Would Stephen know from where his theme had come? From a New Year’s morning, and by God, into the same sort of groggish haze where it shone like a gem in the brow of a toad? Two and a half long years ago…in a kingdom by the sea where a maiden there lived…Out, blasphemy! Who opened the door to Mr. Poe, who in common with all his aristocratic brethren of the South, gives off the odor of over-ripe fruit. Like Verdi’s music. South of Italy, no doubt, Senor Verdi! Ow-w-w-w. Sic transit Dunne. Dunderhead. Oh, to be Dunne and out.

“A splendid composition, young man. Well reasoned.”

“Well spoken, Dunne. Befits a laws degree.”

“So that’s what they’ve been cooking over Lockwood’s, ha!” (The Law School was over Lockwood’s café.)

“And where will you practice, Mr. Dunne?”

Yes, sir, and thank you, sir, and New York City if the Bar admits me, sir.

“Ha! You’ll be welcome tomorrow to the lower courts, my boy. And let me tell you there are few places lower these days. Even the courts have been sold out to mammon. Democracy! Pah!” It was an old man speaking, his jowl and his hand both a-tremble. His eye however was steady and fierce as an eagle’s. “Or are you a Democrat?”

“Not a New York Democrat, sir.”

The old man winked at Stephen who was standing by and then frowned as though trying to remember him.

“Dunne’s retiring president of our Fremont for President Club, Granduncle,” one of Vinnie’s classmates said.

“Retiring? Does he despair of Fremont or of the Republican Party?”

“Of neither, sir. I retired in favor of a younger man,” Vinnie said slyly.

The old gentleman laughed.

“An undergrad, Granduncle,” the boy explained unnecessarily.

“Come and see me in my chambers, Dunne,” the old man said, and turned to Stephen. “Don’t I know you, sir?”

Vinnie was then introduced to the family, and to more families after that than it seemed he had classmates. It was not until the afternoon was all but spent and the guests departing that he learned from Stephen the old gentleman’s position: a justice in the appellate division of the Supreme Court, and indeed a distinguished jurist.

“He reminded me of old Gaunt in Richard Second,” Vinnie said.

“He’d enjoy the role,” said Stephen. “All lawyers are actors.”

Vinnie watched the loading of a hack for a moment. “Have you ever seen Peg?”

“No, but I know that she is recovered.”

“How do you know it?”

Stephen hesitated as though he preferred that the question had not been asked. “I saw her name on a theatre bill.”

Her name, Vinnie thought, but not her performance. “What theatre?”

“The Bowery.”

So now it was the B’hoys who bade her welcome.

Vinnie took a deep breath that ended in a sigh. Stephen laid his arm across the boy’s shoulders. “Better pack the bag I’m taking, lad.”

Vinnie nodded and led the way to his room. “I saw an ad in the Tribune last winter—Valois’ French pastries.”

Stephen merely made a noise in his throat acknowledging that he had heard.

Vinnie folded his dress clothes and several changes of linen into the portmanteau Stephen was taking on to Newport for him. They were both to spend a few days there, guests in different houses. Delia’s father was up that summer so that she and Jem were having the entire season by the sea and in a fashion Stephen certainly could not afford. The Taylors also were there, and according to Alex, renting from friends gone abroad a cottage they could not afford either. To them Vinnie was going. He closed the case and drew the strap on it. “Isn’t it strange, Stephen, that no one has ever taken Peg for her true worth? She has either been worshiped or abused, admitted to be all fault or praised for having none.”

“That’s a canny observation for one so young,” Stephen said.

Vinnie parted the curtains to look out the window. “I’m not so young,” he said.

Below, all the guests were gone or going and the gardeners already at work repairing the ravages of Gala Week. It was all over: his dissertation was a tattered paper at the bottom of a trunk; his name was engraved on a silver cup—stroke and captain of the scull Tarantelle—and the dust already gathering on the cup. The birds could be heard again in the absence of women’s laughter, and the churn of steam from the distant trains as they stoked for departure.

“I wish we were clearing out tonight, too,” Vinnie said. “I could forego another feast.”

“It might have been as well,” Stephen said.

“Aren’t you going up with Mr. Taylor?” Vinnie said, remembering Taylor’s suggestion to that effect.

“No. I’m dining with the editor of the Register while I’m here.”

“Beware he don’t poison you,” said Vinnie. “He considers Yale the devil’s proving grounds.” He looked at Stephen. “Is he a friend of yours?”

“I’ve never met him but he runs a Democrat paper.”

“As sure as Buchanan’s their man,” said Vinnie.

“I’m editing a paper now myself, Vinnie. The Popular Sovereign.”

“What?”

“It’s sponsored by Douglas men.”

“Not by Republicans, surely,” Vinnie said.

“Nor by the slave interests.”

“And yet,” Vinnie said, “they too support Buchanan. Which raises an interesting point: which of you will Buck buck up to?” He lit a pipe the stem of which was the length of his forearm, the bowl the size of an acorn. “Or will he buckle down?”

Stephen raised his eyebrows. “I’m glad to see you put such a distance between you and tobacco.”

Vinnie grinned.

“It is a bitter thing,” Stephen said then, “for Douglas to need to support him, however much grace he tries to show in it.”

Vinnie wondered if that were the bitterest thing in Stephen’s mind at the moment. It had been a hard year for him. He and Delia had lost a second child at birth. “Oh, I could write an ode to melancholy at this minute,” Vinnie said.

“Why?”

“Have you given up your law practice?”

“It gave me up when I gave up my partnership with Robbins. Old Gaunt is right, Vinnie. We are sold out. But…the law stands a newspaper editor in good stead. I am content.”

“Are you?”

Stephen smiled. “In my discontent. When you are older still and appraise me as you have Margaret, you will discover that the fault was not altogether in my stars.”

Vinnie watched his friends coming for him through the garden. “Do you know what I think, Stephen? I think you should have been born an Englishman.”

A yodeled greeting came up from the trio beneath the window. “Yo, ho, Dunne! Is your seabag ready?”

Vinnie leaned out and saluted Taylor, Matheson and Phipps. They four would sail Alex’s sharpie to Newport in the morning. “Aye, aye, mister.” He flung his bag down to them. “I’ll be with you right off.” He closed the window. “Did I offend you saying that, Stephen? I’m very free with opinions today, it seems.”

“No offense…and no defense.” He got up and took the portmanteau which was to go with him by train. “Take care tonight, Vinnie. Enjoy yourself, but take care.”

The four boys hoisted their seabags on their backs and marched across the Green unattended save by an occasional scurrying tutor more eager than themselves to be quit of the college grounds. But at the end of the Common a group of sullen “townies”, sleek-haired, dapper boys of their own age, but long of men’s employment, were lounging on the courthouse steps. They blackened the Yale men’s wake with a spray of tobacco juice and fouled the air with a chorus of rude remarks. A bad week they had had, poor lads, thumped by the college crews on Regatta Day and snubbed by their girls if a Yale man tipped his hat. And their backs were arched over politics, too, for the likes of Vinnie had gone out in their shirt sleeves to stump for Fremont on the ticket of the new Republican Party while Old Buck and the Democracy were good enough for the townies any day.

It was a season of sudden and open hatreds, the summer of 1856. Sumner of Massachusetts had loosed a vitriolic tongue upon the South that spring, making a florid and intemperate speech, poor in taste and lacking in logic, upon the Senate floor. And there he was answered a few days hence by Representative Brooks of South Carolina, not with his tongue but with his cane, whipping the old man senseless and the North to fury. The House failed the two-thirds majority necessary to expel him, but managed a vote of censure. But home a hero’s welcome waited him. And at that afternoon’s exercises Yale College bestowed upon the stricken Sumner an honorary Doctorate of Laws. Only the Southern boys failed to applaud it.

It would be a great shame, Vinnie thought, to have finished the term without incident between the factions and spoil it now by answering the taunts of a few local sports. He could feel the roil of his temper, nonetheless, at their insults, and the rise of his pride in his own strength and that of his chums. The ripple of muscle in Matheson’s arm stirred him as they linked arms and marched on. There was something both terrible and wonderful in this knowledge of one’s power to excite hate. It was a matter for philosophic discussion at dinner.

The boys stowed their bags aboard while Taylor checked the rigging and sniffed the wind, making his favorite boast: that his beak was the only true barometer. To which Vinnie retorted that it was a chancy instrument that could be knocked a-kilter by a cold in the head.

The tavern lay close to the water’s edge, a stone bulge amongst the docks. Its mistress was famous for her cooking, and her father for his German beer and the yarns he could spin of the whalers and the good old days before the steamers spoiled the sea. Like all public houses, it was out of bounds to undergraduates, which, his guests commented, made it truly remarkable that Alex Taylor should be on intimate terms with Mistress Tucker.

“I whistled her down to the shore,” Alex said.

“But I wouldn’t go near the water,” Mistress Tucker said with a wink.

“It was the wrong man then who invited you,” cried Phipps. “You shall have your choice tonight when the moon comes up.”

“At the rate you’re goin’, my lad, you’ll be down before ever the moon has sight of you.”

“I’ll drink two to the one of any man present,” said Phipps, “and be on my feet at the night’s end.”

“But which end’ll ye be on in the mornin’?”

“Can you put your wit to a tune, Miss Tucker?” said Vinnie, his own spirits popping now with the corks.

“If I can will you shuck the oysters?”

“I might,” said Vinnie.

“Will you plank the lobsters and will you baste the duck?”

“God help us, have you that many verses?”

“Oh, and a roast as well!” She whirled, laughing, from the room.

A handsome woman she was if it were not for the lack of a tooth. It was a shame, Vinnie thought, she needed open her mouth. But open it she did in song when her chores at the ovens were over, and never was a tooth missed less. She quaffed the wine from Alex’s glass, and bounced her bottom on Alex’s knee while the boys gave the chorus after her verse.

Vinnie had reached the interesting condition of watching it all as a spectator, his toes tucked under the rail of the oak table, his chin couched in his hand. They were tapping Miss Tucker’s store of ribald songs now, one richer than the other, and Vinnie found a moth’s courtship of the camphene lamp much more diverting. He was reminded again of Peg as he had often been that day. Poor fragile moth, once spangled as a stormy sunset.

Suddenly the door between them and the bar flung open and a great sleek lad of the town stood, his hands on his haunches, watching them. Mistress Tucker cut off her song in the middle.

“For the love of Mother Mary,” said the townie, “will you look who she’s closeted with!”

“You get out of here, George Reilly, and close the door,” Miss Tucker cried.

But Reilly came on. “Thank you, Miss Tucker, I don’t mind if I do.”

Taylor bounced the girl from his lap and lurched to his feet. “See here, Reilly…”

“See where?” said Reilly, pulling a chair from the corner and straddling it.

Vinnie glanced at the men at the bar straining to see into the room. He could count a half dozen. With their long, thin cigars and square-rigged chin whiskers, they were chums ganging together, and likely drew lots to see who would come in. And yet, Vinnie thought, he’d seen Reilly before and often enough to remember at another time than this.

“I was shocked at the tunes I was hearing,” said Reilly. “Or were you puttin’ Republican words to them?”

That was it, Vinnie thought, getting hold of his memory. Reilly was the pride of Young America, New Haven chapter. He it was who had led the jibes and jeers wherever Vinnie had tried to recruit for the Young Republicans. Alex, the fool, was taking off his coat, and Reilly’s friends were edging toward the room despite old man Tucker’s remonstrations. Vinnie rose from his chair, and gave Alex a pull into his. “By my soul,” Vinnie cried, “it’s Mr. Buchanan’s little boy.”

“The captain it is,” said Reilly, and with his face to his chums and the jerk of his head toward Vinnie: “Oh, we’re skirlin’ the pipes tonight, boys. I’d never’ve thought from the noise of it this was a ratification meeting. Where’s your bloomers, Tucker?” And as the girl was wheeling past him, Reilly lifted her from her feet and turned her over and onto them again in a quick somersault, Miss Tucker squealing like a frightened chicken.

“That’s enough,” said Vinnie.

“Now there’s a smart lad’s had enough before he’s had any. “Wouldn’t you like to go a few rounds with me, captain, a last tilt you might say, to celebrate?”

The boys in the door gave a loud vote of approval.

“I might be persuaded,” said Vinnie.

“Oh, God,” Matheson groaned from the table, “I wish I were sober.”

“I wish I were drunk,” said Taylor.

“We’re with you, Dunne, honor bound,” Phipps piped in a voice to match his size.

Somehow it was always the coxswain who was raring for a fight, Vinnie thought. “Isn’t there a Buchanan rally tonight? Or do you only show up for Fremont, Reilly? I have some recollection of meeting you there.”

Reilly took off his coat. “We won’t be missed till we get there,” he said.

“And if you don’t get there at all, will you be missed?”

“Are you mussin’ or hedgin’?” said Reilly.

“I never muss if I can find a hedge,” said Vinnie, “if you’d like the truth but I’m a terrible man when I’m hedged. May I choose the weapon, Mr. Reilly?”

The man looked at him, startled, but for only an instant. “Why not?” he said, with a wink at his friends and a glance at the table. It was cluttered with fruit knives and bottles.

“What’s your first name?” said Vinnie.

“George. Does it offend your highness?”

“What a thing to hang on an Irishman,” Vinnie said, “the patron saint of England.”

“Save your wits and name your weapon, captain.”

“But my dear fellow, that is my weapon. I’m challenging you to match wits with me—to debate any subject of your choosing.”

“I’ll be damned,” said Reilly.

The groans and hisses from the doorway fouled the room.

“We can muss any time,” Vinnie shouted over them, “but how often can Young America and a Black Republican cross wits?”

Vinnie could see the idea take hold of Reilly. He was the makings of a rough and tumble politician, and as proud of the quip on his tongue as he was of his knuckles. Vinnie glanced at his own friends. They were sitting as stiff as Indians in Congress.

“Aren’t you Irish yourself, captain?” Reilly said then.

“I am. I was born in Dublin.”

Reilly wiggled the tip of his nose with his thumb in the way of a prizefighter. “What a promisin’ start in life to come to such a sad end.”

“Touché!” Vinnie cried. “Am I on?”

“You’re on,” said Reilly.

And the idea caught fire then with his friends.

“You can take him, George!”

“We can allus muss.”

“Go it, Congressman!”

“Congressman,” said Vinnie. “Are you running?”

“No, I’m too young.”

“But not too tender.”

“Not in the head leastaways,” said Reilly with a grin. “Now I’ll tell you what we’re goin’ to argue: what in the name of God is an Irishman doin’ a Black Republican.”

The Reilly partisans howled with glee.

Vinnie met Reilly’s eyes. As blue as his own they were, and the two men were of a height. There was almost as little of the brogue in Reilly’s speech as there was in his own, and yet the color of it ran into both when native strength was needed. Vinnie extended his hand to his antagonist and said: “Resolved: no Irishman who is an Irishman has the right to join the Republican Party.”

“I couldn’t put it better myself,” said Reilly, shaking hands. “And now I’ll tell you where we’ll debate.” And this he added under his breath to Vinnie: “In case the boys don’t like the scorin’.” Aloud he named the place: “In the Hibernian Hall, we’ll bust open the Democrat meetin’ and finish it for them.”

Unaware of that arrangement, Miss Tucker at that moment brought another lamp into the dining room. “Now there’s a vote of no confidence!” Vinnie cried. “She doesn’t think we’ll shed any light at all.”

“That’s what comes of reachin’ her age without havin’ struck a match,” said Reilly, and he dug his forefinger into Vinnie’s ribs.

Vinnie howled with the rest and he in self-pity. Did ever a man so confidently engage himself to less advantage? This will teach you humility, my boyo! With no more sleep in a week than he could use in a night, and with more spirits in a night than he could digest in a week, he was about to argue a point of which he had lingering doubts himself. There was but one thing to say for the situation: it was better than a clout on the head, and better by far than a tavern brawl.

He and Reilly led the way into the night while Alex settled his bill. Someone picked up the lamp and put a coin into the hand of Mistress Tucker.

“See here,” she called after him, “that lamp’s worth more than a shilling.”

“Then put it on the rich man’s bill.”

“And what’ll I do with the shilling?”

“I’ll be round for its worth in the dark, never mind. Just remember the man who gave it to you.”

2

“BUT THE REALLY MARVELOUS thing, Father, we could all have been in a most tremendous brawl.”

“And would that have been so marvelous?” Mr. Taylor asked dryly.

“No sir. The marvelous thing was the way Dunne avoided it.”

“His lifetime in the most expensive schools in the country and he needs to say a thing twice to convey his meaning.”

“Perhaps you should have sent him to school abroad after all, John,” Mrs. Taylor said.

“No, by the living God! But I shall make representation.”

Vinnie wondered to whom he would make it. He had heard him say the same thing under other circumstances.

“More tea, Mr. Dunne?” Mrs. Taylor asked. Vinnie gave her his cup. “He does not underestimate your accomplishment, and I surely am pleased that Alex avoided a row—as the Phipps and Mathesons will be, I know, for their boys.”

“I expect I was solicitous first of my own reputation, Mrs. Taylor,” Vinnie said. His heartbeat quickened for his having said the words, but as long as he had been visiting in her house there had been in her attitude toward him a benign sort of condescension—something which implied that however clever he might be, his purpose in being at all was to reflect glory on her son—which he was only now able to define and respond to.

“Of course,” she said, meeting his eyes, “but one’s reputation is so often in the keeping of his friends, don’t you think?”

Vinnie said yes although he did not altogether agree.

“Excuse me, Mr. Dunne.” She turned her attention to her husband. “Whatever is it, John?”

Mr. Taylor was talking loudly as was his habit when he needed time to think. Mrs. Taylor was still a beautiful woman, somewhat younger than her husband and much wealthier in her own right. This was likely the reason she seemed pained whenever money was mentioned. Vinnie had remarked on this to Alex who was often in pain for lack of funds, and in debt to Vinnie for a not inconsiderable amount. Vinnie had no genuine expectation of collecting the debt, although he made a careful record of each addition to it in Alex’s presence. His inheritance from Mr. Finn was sufficient, wisely invested, to bring him an income of two thousand dollars a year. And if he sold the Emporium…but that was a responsibility to face up to on his return to New York.

Mr. Taylor was expounding on how much money he had already spent on Alex, and Mrs. Taylor looked very pained. “Really John, I don’t think it’s a matter to settle this afternoon. The girls must rest…” The girls, Anne and Therese, were much occupied at the moment on the terrace steps with Phipps and Matheson. “… And perhaps the boys would like to go bathing?”

All four young gentlemen groaned at once. They had made a perilous entry into the Newport waters that afternoon; Alex, thinking to make a short cut, had scraped bottom on a reef at full sail.

“Alex, I’m warning you,” his mother said then, assuming that something frightful had happened, “you will not sail that boat from here to New York.”

“Posh, posh, posh,” said Mr. Taylor.

“My hair is gray with the concern that boat has given me. He’s my only son, John.”

“If you had another, would you drown this one? This is where he gets his lazy grammar. Right in this house.” Mr. Taylor got up and buttoned his riding coat. “Well, I must ride out and find my girl.”

“You send your girl home immediately,” Mrs. Taylor said, “or she will not go to the ball.”

It was only then that Vinnie realized Priscilla was now of an age to go to a ball. She had been abroad at school for two years.

“I don’t see what you lads want to go to Europe for,” Taylor said to Phipps and Matheson. “There can’t be anything there to surpass this.”

Vinnie wondered if there was beauty to match this one view anywhere—a long vista of green grass and beyond it the ocean, blue, deep clean blue, with small white crests. This cottage—and such were the mansions called—was more intimate than so much space might suggest. It came of the presence of many people, Vinnie thought. Not to have many people would have been immoral. How often he thought in terms of morality when wealth was an issue! He had not expected to like Newport and found it vaguely disturbing that he was enchanted with it. But then, he had only been here for tea!

“And will you be going to Europe also, Mr. Dunne?” Mrs. Taylor said.

“No,” Vinnie said. “I don’t feel that I can afford it at the present.”

“That would make a fish sneeze,” said Alex, who wanted very much to go.

“Perhaps Mr. Dunne is not speaking of money,” she ventured.

“As a matter of fact I’m not,” said Vinnie. “Not altogether. I’m two years older than Alex, and I feel I must be quicker about settling down.”

“A gypsy would be quicker than Alex at that,” said Mr. Taylor. “Would you like to ride out with me, Dunne?”

“Yes, sir, I should.”

“But when will you two select your costumes?”

Mr. Taylor picked up his riding crop. “I’m wearing mine, dear wife. And if you don’t cease carping on it, I shall bring my horse.”

The town of Newport was much to Vinnie’s liking, the neat houses of the tradesmen and their shops hunched along the shore. The seaport had a bitter history of British occupation during the Revolution, and cherished its scars. No wonder it could now take with an easy grace its summer occupation by the American aristocracy. Vinnie marveled to himself as they rode—the exquisite gardens, each of which might have honored an entire town in spacious grandeur. There were trees the like of which he had never seen—quaint, twisted-limbed and silver-barked, sighing endlessly in the wind.

Mr. Taylor’s riding did not permit of conversation except with his horse to which he talked constantly, explaining the road they would take, the reason for taking it, its condition, sand, dust, or stone. He was not a very good rider, Vinnie thought, the reason no doubt he sought to ingratiate himself with the steed. On they rode, passing an occasional phaeton in which the ladies sat beneath their parasols, until the way was no longer passable to vehicles, to where the rock and scrubby trees were native as time and weather. Mr. Taylor reined in his horse. “I’ll ride on a piece, Dunne, if you’d like to stop and look.”

“I would,” Vinnie said. He dismounted and led the horse as far toward the edge of the cliff as she would go. He stroked her head, and she went a few steps further, and Vinnie could look down at the shoals beneath. A solitary gull circled a reef and then sat down upon it, a reef that would vanish with the rising tide, a hidden shoal. How many hidden shoals, and likely best unknown, unseen. Who would venture at all upon the sea seeing its hazards only? Fear comes with knowing. Fear comes with living? So is it the young have fewer fears? No. Fear comes with dying. When a man looks only to his fears for guidance, that man is dying. For how many centuries had the sea beat against these walls, and how many boats sent crashing among the shoals, and then washed out again in bits and tatters, flesh and fleshly acquisitions. He lifted his hand and looked at it: flesh. Alive it dared smite continents, number stars. Dead, it could not mark its own grave. What a world of wonder was his mind, what a feasting ground for nonsense! Then came the worm of conscience to the picnic. He should have called on Delia during this hour and met that distinguished gentleman, her father, possessor of Southern charm and human chattel. And Nancy. “Masta’ Vincent, I happy like home,” she had answered his last inquiry, and home he had realized then was not Mr. Finn’s house for all the years she had spent there. Home was slavery’s capital, South Carolina, where she had been born in bondage. She wanted only to belong—to someone, somewhere irrevocably—as who in God’s world did not?

The horse flicked her ears and neighed softly. Vinnie listened, but he could hear nothing save the wash of the sea. Then he caught sight of a rider, one with the horse, racing atop a distant cliff as though at the world’s edge. Not for an instant did Vinnie doubt that the vision was Priscilla Taylor. She passed from his sight then and in vain did he wait, holding his breath, for her to reappear. He put his arm around Biscuit’s head and fondled her ears, then her muzzle. Nothing he knew had quite that soft, sensuous feel.

A few moments later Priscilla and her father rode up to where Vinnie waited, hat in hand. She was no prettier, and yet more beautiful than she had been as a child, Vinnie thought, and that she was no longer. She leaned down, smiling, and gave her gloved hand while her father made a hearty introduction that Vinnie scarcely heard. Her cheeks with the ride’s excitement were the tint of coral, her skin the blend of shell colors, and with that pearl-like delicacy. But her eyes were as he remembered them, blue-green like the changing sea, and bright with the promise of mischief.

“I shan’t forget seeing you come across there,” he said, with a sweep of his arm toward the cliff.

“Nor shall I,” said Taylor. “For a moment I thought the beast had bolted over with you.”

Priscilla removed a glove to tuck her strayed hairs back under the bowler. Then she played her fingers over the black horse’s withers. Vinnie watched his skin twitch beneath her touch. “Don’t think we weren’t tempted, Papa. Sable thinks he can fly like Pegasus.”

“With Minerva aboard him,” Vinnie said.

Priscilla smiled and with the gentlest motion forward of her own body prompted Sable on. Her idle foot was like a bird, he thought, the toe peeking out from beneath her riding skirt. She paced them at a trot and then suddenly looked back and called: “Have you ridden lately, Mr. Dunne?”

“Not enough,” Vinnie shouted.

She changed the pace to a gallop, and Vinnie wondered at such consideration for his comfort. Alas, too soon, they were slowed to a walk in the dusty mainways, and at every start in a conversation, compelled to suspend it to acknowledge the parasol dips, and, Vinnie suspected, the arching eyebrows, of proper maidens who would as soon mount an elephant as they would a horse. Simpering hypocrites!

“Will you wear a costume tonight, Miss Priscilla?”

“Oh yes. We all must, you know.”

“Will there be many people?”

“Four hundred, I heard.”

“I shall find you within ten minutes of your arrival,” Vinnie said, “and claim the first dance unless it’s promised.”

“It is,” she said.

“What’s promised?” said Mr. Taylor.

“The first dance, Papa.”

“Whom the devil to?”

“To you, Papa.”

“Oh.”

“The second?” said Vinnie.

“Promised,” and when Vinnie allowed his disappointment to show: “to Mr. Vincent Dunne.”

Vinnie took charge of the horses under the portico and led them to the stable where Tim, the groom, came out to get them. He eyed the horses, and then gave a call to the stable boy, giving him his instructions before Vinnie was out of earshot: “Give the black one a rub and the others a run. ’Tis a fine thing when a young miss is the only one in the house able to sweat a horse.”

Vinnie looked back and tipped his hat, grinning. Better a groom’s scorn than an aching hindside for the dancing. He stood a moment on the terrace and watched the preparations going forward at the next “cottage”. A castle it was, the driveway streaming with vans and messengers, the grounds dotted with men stringing lanterns. How would Priscilla dress? As a Quaker maid? An Indian? Out of Shakespeare or Dickens or Scott? Likely there would be more “Japanese” at the ball than ever sailed away from Japan for here was the home of Commodore Perry. Gods wot! What would he wear himself?

“What sayest thou, bully Bottom?” So Alex greeted him, settling the matter. Taylor was stretched on his bed, a book on his stomach, and Phipps was perched on the footboard.

“Midsummer Night’s Dream,” Phipps explained.

“It’s time you read it,” Vinnie said.

“Why read it when we saw it?”

“We four,” said Matheson, “we’re going as Snug, Bottom, Flute and…who am I?”

“Snout,” said Taylor. “No lines. You roar like a lion.”

“Am I to be Bottom with or without the ass’s head?” said Vinnie.

“With,” said Taylor. “You want to look handsome, don’t you?”

“Where are we going to find him one at this hour?” cried Phipps, a literal-minded coxswain.

“Don’t let it trouble you,” said Vinnie. “I’ll pick one up for myself. There’ll be many an ass lose his head tonight.”

3

WHAT NONSENSE IT ALL was! What glorious, ridiculous nonsense. At ten o’clock the young gentlemen left the house, having supped alone as though it all were a religious rite through which they were not permitted the distraction of ladies. Tim, who drove the coach (the only economy Vinnie had observed, Tim’s doubling as groom and coachman) held the door to them.

“How do we look, Tim?” Alex asked.

“If I was them over there you’d do your dancin’ in the scullery.” Tim cracked the whip and drove them down one drive and up the next, delivering them in less than five minutes. He drove back then for the family.

With the great doors open the lights shone as though the halls were strung with diamonds. Vinnie’s next observance was of the staircase, vast and winding, and every step a marble slab. He thought of the number of tombstones which could be made of it, but kept the thought to himself. The only lady in sight was their hostess to whom the boys immediately presented themselves.

“Wandering minstrels,” she interpreted their costumes. “You must play for me by and by.” She motioned them into the ballroom and turned to greet Captain Kidd.

“We seem to have disguised our disguises,” Taylor said. They had costumed the characters after Burton’s production, the blouses open at the throat with wide laced waistbands, and each carried a symbol of his trade.

“Maybe she thinks this a bagpipe,” Phipps said, holding up a bellows.

“No,” Vinnie said. “She sees what she wants to see. If your cap were pointed she would have you as her fool.”

Taylor whistled and put his arm through Vinnie’s. “Softly, my friend. What stung you?”

“I’m not stung. Do I sound it?”

“I thought perhaps mother had said something.”

Which meant, Vinnie thought, that mother had said something to Alex. “Am I credited with the mechanic’s influence in costuming?”

“Good God, no. Besides it was my idea.”

Vinnie smiled, gave his friend’s arm a squeeze, and turned to watch the guests pass through the receiving line. The extraordinary thing was he liked Mrs. Taylor anyway. She was what she was, and not as he suspected their hostess to be, as false as her smile from which she rested between arrivals.

The orchestra was playing chamber music. “Better than Bergmann’s Sinfonie, eh?” said Phipps.

“And there’ll be girls to dance with, too,” said Vinnie. He accepted a glass of champagne from the tray of a liveried servant. Many a guest fancied himself a naval man, Vinnie observed—from Viking to Her Majesty’s Admiralty. Or was that the real thing? Couples had commenced to arrive as well as chaperoned misses, and Vinnie realized that it had been pure conceit on his part to think he would immediately find Priscilla. Thank God she was dancing first with her father, him of the plowman’s beard and surely not parting with that for frivolity. Then arrived the king and queen of hearts—he with four hands, she with a daisy, a tableau for an instant as she curtsied to host and hostess. Now there was a queen to the manner born! With them was a white haired gentleman in a dress suit, adding only a faded yellow sash as a concession to costumery. And that might be authentically ancestral. As they came through the ballroom door, Vinnie recognized them, Stephen and Delia, and sashed in yellow, the senator no doubt.

“Vinneee!” Delia cried, holding her hand to him. He kissed her cheek as well as the hand. “Let me think,” she said. “I know I’ve seen it. Don’t tell me.”

“I’m a weaver by trade,” said Vinnie. “I’ll play any part. I’ll roar like a lion, and make you flood the house with your tears when I fall on my sword.”

“Tripping on Shakespeare, no doubt,” Stephen said. “You are discovered, Bottom.”

Delia clapped her hands. “Of course, it’s Bottom! Papa…this is our dear Vinnie, Mr. Vincent Dunne.”

Vinnie brought his heels together and bowed.

“Ah, yes,” the senator said with a smile that jerked the corners of his mouth. “I was regaled at dinner by an account of your skill at ex tempore debatin’, sir.”

“Mr. Taylor and the senator had dinner at the same table,” Stephen explained.

“Then Mr. Taylor will also wear a dress suit tonight,” Vinnie exclaimed.

Stephen looked startled but Delia laughed. “Not Mr. Taylor’s costume, but one of his daughters’ is Vinnie’s concern, I’ll warrant.”

“Devious reasoning, but effective,” Stephen said.

“Logic don’t mean a thing in such matters,” Delia said.

“Like the darky fattenin’ his hog,” the senator said then. “‘It’s takin’ you a long time to fatten him,’ his master said. ‘Time don’t mean a thing to hogs,’ says the darky.”

Vinnie put his name in Delia’s “hop” book. Someone was asking the senator how Washington managed without him. “Enough heat there without me, sir. Enough heat. They’ll adjourn the quicker with me in Newport.”

“There’s your Mr. Taylor,” Delia said, as though Vinnie had not seen him the moment his beard preceded him across the threshold. “I know the girls, you know.”

“Do you,” Vinnie murmured without taking his eyes from the door.

“We drive out together every day.”

“Do you ride, Delia?”

Delia looked at him in surprise. “Oh, Vinnie! It’s the child you’re watching for! We call her the changeling.”

“I’m not surprised,” Vinnie said coldly.

“Twenty bunches for sixpence, three bunches a penny,” Vinnie said, coming up behind Priscilla where she stood with her sisters. “I’ll buy all your matches.”

“Then I shall have to go home!”

“One stick at a time then and the last as the cock crows.”

The sisters giggled behind their wide oriental sleeves. “Alas,” said Vinnie, “I know no Japanese by which to compliment these princesses. Do you suppose I should try them in French?”

Priscilla loosed a stream of French so fluid and fast Vinnie could scarcely follow. He cleared his throat when she was done. “I expect I had better try the Japanese after all.”

They were joined by Flute, Snug and Snout as the orchestra sounded a flourish. Its leader announced in a strong German accent that their hostess and the Commodore would lead the grand march. Alex took his mother, and Mr. Taylor took Priscilla, while Snout and Snug snared the Japanese misses. Vinnie watched from a dais beyond which the doors opened upon the garden. Never had he seen such jeweled magnificence—at the throats, on the arms, the fingers, in the hair, at the girdles of all these maids and matrons. One lady was so bedecked he surmised she must wear a diamond in her belly button. He fled into the garden to escape the march. He had heard that this cottage was fashioned after Versailles. Was there then a hall of mirrors here? And did their hostess fancy herself Marie Antoinette? How long ago departed? There were men dancing tonight alive when she lost her head. And there was poverty in New York and slavery in the South. What was the senator’s story? Time don’t mean a thing to hogs.

The four-quarter music changed: a waltz, the first dance. Alex called him my beloved friend and conscience. A chronic malcontent. And yet, Vinnie thought, I, too, have gone to a dancing master.

“I expect I don’t dance very well, Mr. Dunne.”

The second dance was a hop, a polka, and Priscilla’s fingers resting on the back of his hand were cool, delicate and without rings. “All we need do for this is pretend we’re hares,” he said, “and stay out of the path of the hounds.”

The polka was not meant to allow the dancers conversation, so Vinnie could but nod and smile his encouragement. She was too timid for this boisterous thing, dancing prettily but shyly. A charging Pierrette and Robin Hood crashed down on them and Vinnie saw his partner wince and her eyes dart in their wake. “After them!” he cried, and there was spirit then in her dancing: fire and storm, flash and fury.

“Now,” she said, patting her brow with her kerchief when they were done, “I know how to dance the polka.”

“It should be done on horseback,” Vinnie said. “Wine or soda?”

“I can be quite giddy on soda, thank you.”

“Wine, then.”

“Soda, please.”

Vinnie brought it to where she waited on the terrace.

“Do you know, Mr. Dunne, I don’t find you at all frightening.”

“Is there any reason you should?” he asked, rather enjoying the idea, however.

“Therese and Anne do, and they’ve seen you ever so much oftener than I have. But then, I’ve seen so much more of the world than they have.” She sipped the soda and wrinkled her nose at the sparkle.

“Do you like France?” he asked.

“Oh, yes. I almost ran away instead of coming home.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I wasn’t quite certain how I should make my way,” she said earnestly. “I should probably have had to beg and the beggars are terribly poor in Paris.”

Vinnie touched his fingers to a tattered sleeve. “The condition is fairly common among beggars.”

“You sound just like papa!” Vinnie made a face. “And of course,” she said, “I could have entered the convent, but then I should have seen nothing of the world. They did want me. Ever so sly about it they were and you mustn’t tell papa because my cousins are going next month and I shouldn’t want to spoil it for them.”

“What did they teach you?”

“Silly things mostly: how to walk and how to curtsy and how to sit at the opera. Painting, of course, endless imitations of old ladies in high collars, and oceans of morte d’art. Isn’t that a strange description, but I suppose it’s right. Fruit and flowers do die when they’re picked. And once I did a cherub and got into dreadful trouble.”

“Why?”

Priscilla hesitated. “I…I forgot his wings.”

Vinnie laughed aloud, doubting very much that it was the omission of wings from a naked babe that offended the holy women.

“I expect I’m talking too much. Mother said I would.”

“Nonsense,” Vinnie said.

They were discovered then by Phipps who had the next dance with Priscilla. Vinnie had but time to ask if she would go in to supper with him. At her nod of acquiescence, a tweak of pleasure caught at him. And even that he was not allowed to contemplate further, for Alex came and insisted on taking him on an introductory tour of the available young ladies. He accounted the virtues and antecedents of each sotto voce. How different he was here, Vinnie thought, from at school. A chameleon, Alex: at ease on a hearthstone creepie or balancing a tea cup with the Astor ladies. And what a handsome fellow. It was, Vinnie thought, to win Alex’ favor that these maids allowed a dance to his friend.

“Halt, enough!” he cried, after a fourth had signed him on.

Alex turned on him. “Snob!”

“Me?” said Vinnie.

“Yes, you! You’d be less disguised in the robes of a bishop. I’ve got a half-dozen dear, charming friends who have asked to meet you, hoping your excellency might offer them an arm to dance, but you cry halt, enough!”

“Alex, Alex, my only thought in the matter—I suspected every last dear of them to be accepting my attentions to gain yours.”

“Good God!” Alex cried. “Come along then and stow your modesty.”

Perhaps, Vinnie thought wryly, finding himself booked for the night, that was not quite his only thought in the matter. He danced also with Anne and Therese who concealed very nicely their fear of him and went then to claim the dance he had asked of Mrs. Taylor, and needed to conceal his own fear. It was but a turn or two until she claimed fatigue and a preference for conversation.

“Did Priscilla tell you of her travels, Mr. Dunne? She had three months in Italy, France and England. With the Prescotts. Do you know them?”

“I don’t believe I do,” Vinnie said.

Mrs. Taylor fanned herself. “You must meet them while you’re with us. Jeanette was in school with Priscilla. Arrangements are so difficult to make for girls. Young gentlemen have no troubles over the proprieties if they are well brought up….”

Vinnie wondered how long it would take her to approach the matter she was working up to, but as it turned out, Mr. Taylor rescued him.

“Here you are, my boy. I want you to meet someone.” To his wife he explained, “Grisholm in Judge Sanders’ firm. Will you excuse us, my dear?”

She should have been on the stage, Vinnie thought, with that ability to smile through chagrin. She had set her mind to persuading him abroad, the better to persuade Alex’ father, and here was the old boy carrying him off to the opposite pole. “From what Alex tells me, Dunne, you are not yet connected with a law firm?”

“No, sir, but I have several introductions, and I shall go fairly recommended.”

“You know who Grisholm is, I assume?”

“Yes, sir. I greatly admire him.” Sanders, Grisholm and Cox was one of the most highly respected law firms in New York. Grisholm himself was primarily a criminal lawyer. He was renowned for a scathing tongue with witnesses and the gentleness of a shepherd with a jury. The closer Vinnie came to the man’s presence, the fiercer beat his heart.

“Mind,” Taylor said, “I don’t propose suggesting tonight that he take you in. He must be up to his elbows in clerks now. But it may someday be well for him to have met you here.”

“I understand, sir, and I am grateful.”

His introduction of Vinnie was, however, by no means so casual. “Grisholm, this is one of Judge Bissell’s boys, the lad we were speaking about at dinner.” (Judge Bissell until his retirement the year before had long headed the Law School at Yale.)

Grisholm was a tall, gaunt man, past middle age. He looked at Vinnie from under slashing dark eyebrows which it was said were as eloquent sometimes as his speech. By the time he spoke Vinnie’s knees had begun to tremble. “Ah, yes,” he said at last, “the lad who would persuade Irishmen to vote Republican. What do you think are your chances?”

“Fifty-fifty, sir.”

“Oh?”

“They will vote one of two ballots, sir, and I should not like to predict the worst.”

Grisholm smiled. “I can see the mark of Bissell on him. How is the old gentleman?”

“Well for his years, sir. I visited him last week.”

“I never knew so sour a countenance to go with such a convivial nature,” the lawyer said.

“Quite,” Vinnie said, although he had yet to see old Bissell convivial.

Grisholm nodded a moment to some thought of his own. “Good fortune to you, Dunne. It’s good to be reminded that it was David slew Goliath.”

Vinnie clasped the hand offered him. “Thank you, sir. Good evening.”

Mr. Taylor gave Vinnie a wink as their eyes met. He did not drink often but with a little spirits in him he was wonderfully expansive. Now, Vinnie thought, would be the proper time for Mrs. Taylor to plead Alex’ European cause with him. But, of course, her dignity would not permit it.

“I’ve been waitin’ the whole blessed evenin’, Vinnie, to tell you what I meant about Priscilla.”

Vinnie did not want to talk about Priscilla with anyone at the moment except Priscilla.

“I’m very fond of her,” Delia went on, “and we’re the dearest of friends, I’ll have you know. I went abroad to school, too, you know.”

“Were you a child then, Delia?”

“Of course I was a child, but I didn’t think so.”

“I don’t think Priscilla is a child,” he said. “She’s much more sensible than her sisters.”

“But Vinnie, that was my very meanin’! She’s ever so much wiser than her years. One mornin’ when Jem was frettin’ I got up with him. Just dawn it was and I looked out the window. She was ridin’ in the mist like a spirit. Stephen was there and I woke him up to come see. I forget his words, just—a changelin’ of man’s heart, somethin’ like that. It just fit beautiful. A broodlin’. Oh, I’ve got it all mixed up and I thought I’d never forget it. I’ve had some champagne.”

“Broodling,” Vinnie said, smiling. “I like that word.”

“There’s no such, is there?”

“Now there is,” he said. “Shan’t we dance?”

She nodded and took his arm. “Tomorrow will you come to tea? Mr. Grisholm, the famous lawyer, is comin’ and Stephen says it’s important that you meet him.”

Vinnie nodded. There was something about Stephen now that made him sad, something deeper than the change from law to politics, or maybe something very shallow: he didn’t like to see him as the king of hearts.

“I also plan to ask Miss Priscilla Taylor,” Delia added.

“Forgive me, Delia. I too, have been at the champagne. I was trying to remember if I had otherwise committed myself. I should love to come to tea, and I’ve not seen Jem and I’ve not seen Nancy.”

“They’re both fat as pullets and twice as scratchy.”

A hundred people went in to supper at once. Vinnie did take Priscilla. He had hoped that they might sit between couples absorbed in themselves only, but Mrs. Taylor followed as close as the sunrise dawn, and then having her husband seat her next to Vinnie, had the bad grace to proclaim it a charming surprise.

“Look, Mother,” Priscilla cried across him, “gold plate!”

“And golden birds,” said Vinnie, for as one set of attendants served those seated, another group paraded in the roasts to be carved for the next seating. “Don’t it make you feel like Midas’ daughter?”

“I’d rather be a match girl,” Priscilla said. “Do you know how I hit upon the notion? I mean for this costume? I remember ever so often the night you told us about arriving in New York, going about the streets singing with Mrs. Stuart. It’s strange you know, but I always thought it a very sad story. And you were happy, weren’t you?”

“Yes,” Vinnie said, “but that’s why it’s a sad story, if you know what I mean.”

“Oh, I do, I do,” she cried, as though she had discovered the world’s wisdom.

“What is it you do, child?” Mrs. Taylor queried.

“Understand something Mr. Dunne said, Mother.”

It was like sitting before a roaring hearth in a drafty room, Vinnie thought, sharing himself with these two: toasted on one side and frosted on the other.

“How nice,” Priscilla said, for at that moment the king and queen of hearts came up and took the places opposite the elder Taylors, Delia with ever so slight a wink at Vinnie.

Mrs. Taylor inquired after the senator. He would retire before the President, Delia said, if the President stayed up after midnight. The White House, however, was early darkened these days.

“Old Buck will keep him up,” Mr. Taylor said. “There’ll be sociability in the White House when he’s elected.” And Vinnie first realized that he must plan to vote Democrat. That was something of a shock. But then a great many old time Whigs were going Democrat, in the hope of keeping peace—and prosperity.

“Frémont will retire him early,” Vinnie whispered to Priscilla.

“Mr. Buchanan is at least a gentleman,” Mrs. Taylor said then.

Vinnie knew she was contrasting him with Douglas, not Frémont. So did Stephen, for he said: “I must protest that having shared the company of an English queen does not necessarily make a gentleman.”

“In fact,” said Vinnie, “it’s been the unmaking of a few.”

Even Mrs. Taylor laughed, and Delia, bless her, then took upon herself the distraction of Priscilla’s mother until the ices were served. What little things they talked about, he and Priscilla, but turning each one over discovering in it a charm, always a new and shining charm. Once when his eyes met Delia’s and she smiled at him, he thought she must be as happy as he was at the moment. Perhaps she was touching Stephen’s hand beneath the table—as he longed and dared not to reach for Priscilla’s. And God knows, he wished Delia happiness, he wished it upon all the world of men and women—such pleasure as this exquisite moment of discovery when hearing her first whisper his name, Vincent. It gave him such joy that he sat grinning, speechless.

“Vincent,” she said again, “papa’s sending for the carriage.”

Vinnie pushed away from the table, making a clatter that turned many eyes upon him. “Mrs. Taylor,” he said, and even his voice seemed to rattle. “May I ask Priscilla for a last dance before you leave?”

She looked up at him, a trifle annoyed and obviously about to refuse him. Suddenly her face changed. Compassion, God knows what, but he could feel the muscles in his own face ease. “Why, yes, Vincent. You may ask her.”

A waltz, he prayed, please Lord, a waltz, even a Verdi waltz. They stood, Priscilla’s fingers on his arm, poised at the ballroom door while the conductor tapped on his stand. “I’m rapping spirits,” Vinnie whispered. “I too,” she said. And the night was full of spirits all attending them. It was a waltz, a glorious spiraling waltz, traveling them far and soon and beyond the garden doors for a shadowed instant when he brushed her lips with his, a kiss as brief as a grace note and unsuspected by anyone save everyone whom their spirits touched that night.

4

“I SHOULD VERY MUCH like Priscilla to have it, Mrs. Taylor,” Vinnie said.

“It is a lovely painting, but I should think you would want to keep it for your own home some day, Vincent. Didn’t it belong to your guardian?”

“I gave it to Mr. Finn, and I should now like to give it again,” Vinnie said.

“And he shall have it back, Mother, when he has—when he has his own home.” Priscilla blushed at having hesitated. But God knows, Vinnie thought, he would never call the bachelors’ boarding house he now lived in home.

“In that case we shall ask your father if you may accept it,” Mrs. Taylor said. “It would seem that you two have already discussed it.”

“We often discuss paintings,” Vinnie said. Not often enough did they discuss anything, however, and then almost always in her company or that of her other daughters.

“Jabez Reed,” she read the signature. “Is he an American?”

“He is,” Vinnie said. “I hope Priscilla will meet him this afternoon.”

“So,” Mrs. Taylor said, having already consented to their attending the opening at the Academy of Design. “Where does he live, this Jabez Reed?”

“I have no idea,” Vinnie said. “We shall be meeting him at the exhibit.”

“I should certainly hope that’s where you were meeting him,” the woman said tartly. Vinnie knew that her inquiry had been directed toward discovering Reed’s measure of respectability by his address. Nor was he rebuffed by her tartness. Such exchanges had become common between them, the warning fire by which they had come to respect each other’s strength. “And will you not have to return to the office today?”

“Not today,” Vinnie said.

“How generous of Mr. Grisholm. Mr. Taylor won’t allow himself a day from the office.”

“I spent the morning closing out my guardian’s business.”

“Oh. That’s very sad, Vincent.”

“It was a matter which would have decided itself before long, and no more happily,” he said.

“Perhaps you should have discussed it with Mr. Taylor—as a friend. But I suppose you had advice.”

Vinnie had discussed it with Mr. Taylor, but if he had not mentioned it to his wife, Vinnie did not intend to.

“And was there nothing you could salvage?” she persisted.

Vinnie restrained himself from looking at his watch, wondering if she was purposely diminishing the time he was to have with Priscilla. “The property is valuable, and the people, the clerks and all.”

“Surely they will find other employment. And you have kept them…how long is it?”

“Three and a half years.”

“More consideration surely than they would have found at the hands of most heirs.”

Vinnie met her eyes and gave her the answer she deserved, but he cloaked it in a question: “Any word from Alex?” Alex would go into his father’s office when he returned from abroad, a business into which it was expected he would take his children when that time came.

“No, no word,” she said, having quite understood his meaning.

“I do think that if Mr. Finn intended you to be a locksmith,” Priscilla said then, “he would not have sent you to law school.”

Vinnie smiled. “And I do think you’re right.”

“You will have Priscilla home at five, Vincent, and you may stay for dinner.”

Always their first moments alone were raw with shyness, fraught with the agony of beginning again, and for Vinnie at least, of parting forever with something dear out of their last meeting so cherished and dwelt upon between times as to make its loss seem, however fleetingly, irreplaceable.

This sense of loss hung the more heavily upon him that day. It had been a bitter morning. When Mr. Finn died the Emporium had been put under the management of Barrons, the chief clerk, with the understanding that he should have a partnership when Vinnie took over. The times had been good; as Mr. Taylor said: dangerously good, but the Emporium had deteriorated. Vinnie had been shocked at the time of Mr. Taylor’s pronouncement that if in this country a man is still a clerk at the end of ten years it’s because he wants to be a clerk. But that was the very thing driven home to him this morning. Barrons, who had taken up responsibility as though it were his due laid it down with abuse and recrimination: it had not been fair to expect him, a mere clerk, to take on a master’s responsibility. It deprived him now of a livelihood, him and another clerk, a locksmith, a journeyman and a sweep. His sudden concern for the others Vinnie found ironic. When Barrons first came to power and foresaw himself a partner, he suggested the economy of dismissing the other clerk, who had also been a lifetime employee of Mr. Finn’s. Still, he was right: there was a large measure of unfairness in it.

“How cruel life is!” Vinnie exclaimed.

Priscilla never had enough of driving, of watching the passing scenes. “Yes,” she said, apparently commenting on an observation of her own, “you can see it in people’s faces.”

“After we’ve seen the exhibit,” Vinnie said, “we shall drive for a couple of hours.”

“Can you afford it?”

“No.”

Priscilla laughed. “That will be lovely.”

There were more than five hundred paintings exhibited at the Academy that year, representing the work of American artists at home and abroad, and more sculpture than ever before.

“A sure sign of prosperity,” Jabez Reed said. “When artists can afford to paint, mechanics can take mistresses.”

His tongue was as ribald as ever, his temper as acid, Vinnie thought, but he had prepared Priscilla for it and if she did not laugh, neither did she feign shock, as did some of the ladies within hearing. Indeed she among all of them, he thought, was interested in paintings.

“Look at those hands!” she cried in a sudden enthusiasm. The portrait was of an old fisherwoman, her gnarled fingers laced together crookedly in her lap. “I do admire that.”

“Chambreau,” Reed said. “Works nights in the New York Infirmary. I shouldn’t be surprised if he collects old hands.”

“I should have guessed he knew anatomy better than most,” Priscilla said. “I wish I did.”

Reed attended her then for the first time, Vinnie thought. He had acknowledged the introduction and then accompanied them through the gallery that he might have an audience. Next to painting, Vinnie suspected, he liked best to talk. Although it was a warm May day and the rooms were crowded, he wore still the scarf about his neck. But then, he might be missing a shirt. Suddenly the artist put his finger beneath Priscilla’s chin and lifted it. “Will you sit for me?”

“Certainly not,” said Vinnie.

“Why not?” said Reed, his eyes blinking in a mischievous pleasure.

“Because you do abominable portraiture.”

Reed jangled the skylight with his laughter. “Ah, my friend, the truth cannot always so oblige your humor. How’s the senator’s daughter and her poor lame husband?”

Vinnie and Priscilla exchanged glances. “I assume you mean Delia and Stephen Farrell?” said Vinnie.

“You may not see the limp,” Reed said, “but that boy’s hobbled for life. Now.” He rubbed his hands together. “I have nothing to sell. As you observed, my paintings have already been purchased. I have disposed of the fortune they brought me, and have now fulfilled my obligation to the trustees—an appearance without riot this afternoon. Where shall we go?”

Vinnie cast Priscilla a hopeless glance.

“Perhaps Mr. Reed will have tea with us,” she suggested, and Vinnie hoped she did not feel as amiable about it as she sounded.

“Coffee,” Reed said. “Pfaff’s then…if you’re as interested in artists as you are in art.”

“If they are civil,” Priscilla said.

“Civil but not servile,” Reed said, taking her arm to steer her out. “This is our day. We own New York, having bought it with guts and blood, and we sell it as cheap as Stuyvesant paid the Indians. We sell it and have it still, for next year at this time we’ll put it on the block again. There’s a riddle for you: what can you sell and not be shy of, what can you buy and not own?”

“A soul,” Priscilla said.

And that silenced Reed for the moment, Vinnie observed with delight.

The smell of coffee and the sound of high good fellowship came up the cellar steps to meet them. Whatever else they owned or lacked, Pfaff’s was the artists’ domain. Vinnie was reminded of Peg’s Bohemia by the sea, and he wished that he had not brought Priscilla here, not yet. There was so much that he must tell her first. But her eyes were dancing and she nodded ever so slightly when Reed hailed his friends and they returned a hearty greeting. Neither snob nor boldling was she, and his own heart sang at the inviolate dignity she carried by her nature.

They sat apart and ordered coffee. Reed cursed Buchanan for the worst president the country ever had: a Southern lackey, more their slave than any black man in their bondage. While his governor made peace in Kansas his cabinet made war upon the governor. For his part Vinnie swore he had last autumn made his first and last political sortie. “So swear we all the morning after battle,” Reed said, “and by nightfall count the price of peace too dear.” “Then it will take a greater man than Fremont next time to blow the horn on me,” said Vinnie. “Desperate times make desperate men reluctant heroes. What is greatness?” “I don’t know,” Vinnie said, “unless it is the lonely warrior.” “Who must inevitably be beaten. Would you say then the only great men champion lost causes?” “No. Nor would I say a cause is great because it’s lost or won. I would say that a great man is proud and steadfast even in defeat. And equally great I’d call the man who’s humble and yielding in victory.” “Say compassionate instead of yielding,” said Reed, “and I’ll sugar your coffee.” “Compassionate,” said Vinnie, “but no sugar.”

On they talked, Priscilla half-attending while she filled her mind with faces, the tense yet often mobile faces, some beautiful, some grotesque. Vinnie had glimpsed them as he entered and purposely seated Priscilla where she might watch…the man with the whitening beard, the woman with red hair, the lean Winters, the handsome O’Brien, those he had recognized. He was aware suddenly of Priscilla’s eyes following someone who was approaching them, of her inclination to speak and then holding back. He was about to turn around when the woman behind him spoke, the voice husky and yet so familiar, once so dearly familiar.

“Hello, Vinnie.”

He rose and turned and spoke her name at once. “Peg! Dear Peg!”

How changed that face. So many lines. The dark hair was threaded with gray. How hollow her cheek when he brushed it with his lips, and alas! the grog-tainted breath. Ah, but the eyes, warm and merry still.

“Mrs. Stuart, may I present Miss Priscilla Taylor?”

“I thought I was about to meet Miss Priscilla Taylor,” Peg said.

“However did you know?” Priscilla said, having arisen and making now a little curtsy.

“It may seem less than flattery to you,” Peg said, “but once Vinnie told me you reminded him of me.” Vinnie noticed that some of the brogue had returned to her speech.

“More than flattery, Mrs. Stuart. I’m honored,” Priscilla said.

Bless her, bless her, Vinnie thought, giving his chair to Peg, for the resemblance now was remote, and he noticed as Peg leaned forward to sit down, the scars beneath the veil at her throat and breast. Reed sat where he was, his chair tilted back, an amused expression on his face—a face it seemed then to Vinnie which was changing with the years from childlike to a weird agelessness, like something preserved at Barnum’s. Damn his lack of manners. When the world was Peg’s he had been welcome to it. “I assume you remember Mrs. Stuart,” Vinnie said to him coldly.

Reed righted himself and his chair. “Better than you know, my young friend.” He rose and thrust back his heavy head, and put a shilling on the table. He addressed himself to Priscilla. “Have you ever heard of El Greco?”

“Oh yes. I’ve seen his paintings at the Louvre.”

“When God was done with creation He handed over the molds to The Greek.” So saying, he rolled off to where his friends made room for him at their table beneath the cellar steps.

“Did you know he’s a mulatto, Vinnie?” Peg said.

“Yes.” Vinnie made an unpleasant surmise then, of which he was half ashamed, but it persisted. Jabez Reed was purposely rude to those who had hurt him. Peg wore a wry smile. She shivered and Vinnie asked if he might bring her coffee.

“Tell him who it’s for,” Peg said, and then to Priscilla: “How much like spring you look!”

With but a nod to Vinnie’s order, Pfaff poured a dram of whiskey into the cup and filled it then with coffee. Priscilla would surely smell the fumes. One more thing for which he had not prepared her. And it was already past three. His quick joy at having met Peg was running out.

“And did you see Rachel?” Peg asked Priscilla, smiling her thanks to Vinnie for the coffee which she sipped eagerly.

“Oh, no,” Priscilla said. “The nuns would never have allowed it. But she was in this country while I was abroad anyway.”

“The nuns,” Peg mused. “I should have consulted you before my last…before one of my last plays. An escaped nun I was in it. Well. They say I was fortunate to escape at all. I wonder. When I was your age, Priscilla—or maybe it was closer to Vinnie’s, I used to dream about Rachel. Not that I’d ever seen her, you understand. But she was a child from the streets of Paris and rose like the morning star above them. Ah, what is a star that one should envy it so? ’Tis but a little fire that must go out. I’m talking a great deal, amn’t I, Vinnie?”

“Do, please,” Priscilla said.

“I once made the acquaintance of your brother,” Peg said, and drained the cup. Whatever her signal, Vinnie did not see it, but shortly Pfaff brought her another to which she murmured, “God love you.”

“That was the summer we were at Rockaway,” Priscilla said.

“And where will you go this summer?” said Peg.

“I expect to Newport again.”

Peg thought about that. “And do you know Stephen Farrell?”

Oh, God almighty, Vinnie thought.

“Yes. I’m tremendously fond of him and Delia.”

“Him and Delia,” Peg repeated. “They came to see me, Vinnie, when I played the runaway nun. He was never kinder. But you know all that. Or don’t you ever speak of me?”

“Vinnie speaks of you very often, Mrs. Stuart,” Priscilla said. “As often almost as of Mr. Finn.”

“I was never in better company surely. What have you done with the old place, Vinnie?”

“It will be torn down soon. There are all new buildings in the block. Manufactory and no one lives there any more.”

“Ah, yes,” Peg said, “’Tis much better that it be torn down when no one lives there. Happy times…and sad. There’s none of them I’ll forget, though some I would, God knows. I remember the first time I came to tea. You wanted to show me a picture—and your eyes popping out like eggs from a cup…‘a man all in his bones, Peg!’” She mimicked his speech of the time. Then to Priscilla: “Mr. Finn would not allow him to show it to me. Very proper was Mr. Finn…as proper as your Mr. Dunne today.” Priscilla looked at Vinnie with shy affection and Peg must have seen it. “You must have so little time together,” she said then, “and me cluttering it up. Well, I’ll be off in a minute.”

“Are you playing, Mrs. Stuart?” Priscilla asked.

“Yes, I’m playing.” She pulled herself up erect and almost prim, fingering the scarf about her neck to know that it was high enough. She must know it only by tracing the scars beneath it with her fingertips, Vinnie thought. “I’ve never thanked you, Vinnie, for all your kind inquiries in my trouble.”

“Nor would you allow me to visit you,” he said.

“Vanity,” Peg said. “You must always forgive a lady for seeing you only when she wishes it. Now tell me a bit about yourself, for Norah will want to know.”

“Let me tell you about him, Mrs. Stuart. He won’t tell you half.”

“I’m sure he won’t,” said Peg.

Vinnie laid his hand upon Priscilla’s for a moment. “How are Norah and the children?”

“Norah is well enough and all the children are thriving.”

“How many now?” said Vinnie.

“None after Fernando.”

“And Emma—does she ever inquire who she is?”

“Why should she, knowing who she is to her satisfaction?”

Vinnie looked at his hands. “You may greet Norah for me.”

“Is that all you have to say to her? Vinnie, Dennis is in Albany as much as he’s home now, and she would love to see you.”

He shook his head. “I’ll not go into his house ever. But tell Norah there’s nothing in the world I wouldn’t do for her except that.”

“She made him the first pair of trousers he wore in America,” Peg said to Priscilla.

“And you might say I’ve been scratching since,” said Vinnie.

Peg laughed. “Irish talk. Tell me quick of him and I’ll release you.”

“There’s nothing to tell except that I finished school last year and I’m clerking and reading law now.”

“Well,” said Peg with a sigh, “if there were less to tell it might have taken longer. Be off now, the two of you, and let me see you skip.”

“We have but an hour left,” Vinnie said, rising.

“Then run, run!” cried Peg. And after them: “God bless you both. May your feet never falter and the road never end!”

“What a lovely woman,” Priscilla said in the carriage. “What a beautiful, lovely woman. Do I truly remind you of her?”

“Once—in spirit. When I was a boy I worshiped Peg.”

Their eyes met and Priscilla’s lips parted as though there were a question on them. She looked quickly away then and Vinnie watched the sparkle of sunlight on the moisture of them. “Where are we driving?” she asked.

“Where would you like to go—to be there and back in an hour?”

“I’ve never been to your house on Chambers Street,” she said without looking at him. “I should like to see it before it’s torn down.”

Vinnie’s heart began to thump. He carried the apartment key in his pocket. He had spent much of the morning there, as black a morning as he had known, having gone upstairs from the Emporium and found the worst of memories waiting him. And now his pulse raced at the thought of returning. “Would you like to go there now?” She nodded that she would. He leaned forward and redirected the driver. “I don’t suppose,” he said, settling back beside her, “I have ever done anything of which your mother would so thoroughly disapprove.”

Priscilla laughed. “I dare say Mr. Finn would also have disapproved.”

“I don’t think so. I don’t think you could do anything of which he would not have approved heartily.”

Vinnie tried desperately to compose his mind, his heart, but it pounded on, louder in his head than the rattle of carriage wheels. What was any moment they had ever had together compared to that approaching? Always, always they had been in sight of other eyes. Four walls had never found them alone together, the night had never darkened on them.

“Peg was in love with Stephen, wasn’t she?” Priscilla said after a silence the duration of which Vinnie could judge only by the many blocks they had come.

“Yes.”

“Did he know it?”

“I’ve never talked about it with him,” Vinnie said evasively.

If he had answered the truth she could not have divined it more clearly. “Isn’t it a great pity when people cannot love as much as they are loved?”

“How wise you are,” Vinnie said.

“What was her husband like?”

“I have no idea. I don’t think he was much.”

“How can you say that if you have no idea?”

“He tried to rob a bank, if you must know. That’s how he was killed.”

“He mustn’t have been a very good bank robber then,” Priscilla said. “Had he ever done it before?”

Vinnie, for no reason he could think of, was for the first time, annoyed with her. “I don’t think so.”

“Poor man,” she said.

“The busiest corner in America,” Vinnie said as they approached Broadway and Chambers Street.

“What did Mr. Reed mean about Stephen, his being hobbled?”

“I suppose he meant with Delia. He doesn’t like her, having met her but once. He’s the sort who makes up his mind about people in a hurry.”

“I don’t think that’s what he meant,” Priscilla said.

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t think he likes Stephen either.”

Vinnie thought about that, and something else that he had wondered over for some time. “Do you really like Stephen, Priscilla?”

“Sometimes,” she said. “But I don’t understand him. Nothing seems important to him except maybe Jem. And I think that’s dreadful.”

“The things that were very important to him, he feels he failed at,” Vinnie said. “Irish independence, a school he started for immigrants here, the law…”

“And with Peg?”

“Maybe that, too.”

“Poor man.”

Vinnie threw up his hands. “Oh yes!” he cried in vast impatience. “All of them poor men, poor, poor men—dead, wounded, hobbled, but it’s Peg who’s got the scars!”

“You saw them, too,” Priscilla said.

“Yes.”

“It’s strange. I felt then like you just now—angry, hurt for her, but I didn’t feel sorry for her. I didn’t dare to. How I wish I knew her! Instead of some of the silly people I do know. Fashion! Who’s calling on whom! Weepy novels, poor little Deborah lost in the snow. Help…hel-1-l-p. Shadow boxes! Miniatures! Sometimes I feel as though I were living in mother’s watch case.”

Vinnie grinned. How he loved to see her explode like this.

“It’s not at all funny,” she said.

“I suppose not,” he said, “but I was thinking I’d borrowed her watch today.”

“We could walk faster than this,” Priscilla cried.

“Then let’s do. It’s not far.”

This, too, was an unusual pleasure for her, Vinnie realized, walking in the stream of afternoon traffic amongst tradesmen, mechanics, clerks, bootboys, through peddlers’ carts and hawkers’ wares, meeting rarely a woman who wasn’t a beggar or a child who wasn’t a newsboy…the garble of talk, the snorting of horses, the creak of vans and pulleys, the endless rumble of wheels.

Vinnie turned the key in the door, allowed her to precede him into the dusty vestibule and then threw the inside bolt on the door. “God knows who would fall in after us if I didn’t lock it,” he said.

“How exciting it is out there! Oh, Vinnie, I could love the city now. It’s the little squares of park I loathe, the morning promenades down Broadway, and heaven forbid you glance down side streets.”

“It isn’t always this noisy here,” he said. “By seven o’clock anyone on the street has likely lost his way, and then you can hear the traffic from Broadway, all night long, like a spinning song. I used to sit at the window and think of people going to the theatre, to Niblo’s, to Nassau Street and Buttercake Dick’s, to Chrystie’s, to any old oyster cellar, to any old shop with a lamp in the window and a fiddler at the hearth. And your heart doesn’t yearn for it any more now, Pris, than mine did then. You’ll have to give me your hand on the stairs.”

So soft, so trusting a hand, like a child’s meekly given in the dark. He opened the upper door—opposite Nancy’s scullery. He pointed to it. “Whenever I came in Nancy would call out: ‘Is that you, Masta’ Vincent? When I don’t hear somebody I knows is there, I knows it’s you.’”

How natural that he should have brought her here, after all, Vinnie thought, as they went from room to empty room. Trying to recall their lore for her, he saw it all again himself and the happy-things—the beginnings, not the ending of it all. “The most remarkable thing in the world to me was a room of my own with two windows, one looking one way and the other another. I suspect that’s why I didn’t run away—I could not make up my mind by which window to go.”

“Truly?”

“No, not truly. I knew very well what was out there besides the music and the lights and the freedom. And in a manner quite his own, Mr. Finn convinced me I was needed in here much more than I was out there.”

“That’s what’s important, isn’t it? To be where we’re most needed.”

“To be needed, that’s what’s important.”

“Was it very bold of me to ask you to bring me here, Vinnie?”

“It was very dear of you to want to come.”

“I wanted to come to be near you—I don’t mean now, though that too, of course. Oh dear, I’m being still bolder now, and I’m not saying at all what I meant.”

“May I say something then?”

She nodded.

“When I went away from here this morning, I could have taken a sledge hammer and brought it down myself. It was like wanting to kill something too long in dying. Does that horrify you?”

“Why should I be horrified at mercy?”

He thanked her with his eyes. “Then when you came in with me it was all serene, composed. How could I find such havoc in empty rooms—and suddenly now, joy. Enormous joy.” She stood, looking up at him, her face so lovely in the late, dust-paled sunlight, so alive, filled with the wonder of his rapture. “Oh, Priscilla,” he cried, “I love you. I have never known a moment like this.”

Still she watched him, wordless and smiling. He held out his hands to her, but she made a little twisting leap between them into his arms, her own arms about his neck. They clung together in a wondrous pleasure, trying to move apart an instant to look into each other’s faces. That was too painful, fraught with shyness of their ecstasy, and they again held each other, Vinnie kissing her hair, her forehead, her cheek, her mouth, gently, lingeringly. Then, her head against his shoulder, she sighed.

“Dear one,” he whispered. “Asthore.”

“Asthore,” she repeated.

“Gaelic,” he said. “It means ‘dearest’.”

“A lovely word.”

Thus were they able to draw apart. “There’s not even a chair to sit down upon,” he said.

“As well,” she said. “I might not want to leave.”

“Nor shall I let you until you’ve said something to me.”

“Oh, Vinnie. I love you with all my heart. And I know I shall never love anyone else.”

He kissed her hands and turned them about, kissing her wrists, holding her pulsebeat against his lips.

“They say I’m too young to know, but I’m not, Vinnie. There’s no one I want to know except you, and no one I shall, no one I could.”

“None of those nice young men of family and position?”

“I couldn’t give you the name of one of them.”

“Your mother could give you the names and genealogy of all of them—and will. You’re the youngest and she will want you to marry last. And your father will agree to that because he loves you the best himself.”

“Will he love me less because you love me also?”

“You always leave me with a question I cannot answer. Since last summer I’ve dreamt of this moment, and yet it finds me scarcely knowing what next to do. I’ve done nothing to prove my worth. I’ve nothing to recommend me except my love—and yours for me.” He thought about that for a second. “That should be enough, shouldn’t it?”

She nodded.

“But is it enough for you, Priscilla? You’re just discovering what it’s like outside your family. It’s not so wonderful as it seems, as you would soon find out.” A look of puzzlement came into her eyes. “But I should try to make it more wonderful than even you dared dream.” She smiled then. But again the enormity of what he was about to propose crossed Vinnie’s mind, and he needed to give it voice: “Grisholm says the most he’s managed to teach me this year is how little of the law I know. Many a practicing lawyer, of course, never learns that.”

“Are you afraid, Vinnie?”

“I am a little, I suppose.”

“Of what?”

“I don’t know exactly, because I really think I have great expectations.”

“Then it’s only mother and what she stands for.”

“That’s quite a lot.”

“Shame on you, Mr. Dunne. She’s just as much afraid of you.”

“And what I stand for?”

“”What do you stand for that you’re ashamed of now?”

“I’m not ashamed of anything I stand for,” Vinnie said.

“And have I ever blushed for you?”

“So prettily…right now,” said Vinnie, “and I deserve it. I shall screw up my courage on the way home. On the way home.” He repeated the words. “Did you hear that, Priscilla? On the way home. Oh, my beloved, how could I have been afraid of that? I do love you so.”

“Say it again, Vinnie. There’s an echo in here.”

“I love you,” he said more loudly, and sure enough, it was faintly echoed.

“I am twice-loved,” she said.

“Twice and forever. If my courage equals my love, may I ask your father tonight to consent to our marriage?”

“And if he will not consent?”

“Will you marry me with or without it?”

“With or without their consent, Vinnie. Tomorrow or a year from tomorrow, I promise to marry you. May I die if I break that promise.”

Vinnie held her close to him. “Oh, my darling, live…that I may live.”

“We are betrothed now?” she said in a sort of wonder.

“Betrothed and beloved…now and forever.”

5

YES, I’M PLAYING TONIGHT. Mrs. Stuart is playing tonight. Mrs. Stuart? That actress who made such a splash in Camille, remember? You know, she was caught in the fire the night The Valory burned. There was talk it was arson. Some said she was drunk. It was right at the height of the Know-Nothing troubles. Her brother was there, or brother-in-law, Lavery. He’s in the State Senate, a Wood Democrat. He carried her out and supposedly said, “Let it burn.” But whoever said what, the machines took up sides and put out each other instead of the fire. New York, New York, a fine city, New York. And what happened to her? Trouble she was, and who hires trouble? Oh a couple there were who’d have chanced it, but to tell you the truth, she’s a beauty no longer and not even the actress she once was. Wrapped up eight months in swathes and dressings, you don’t just come out the way you went in. Fire, they say, eats fire. My friend, to borrow a phrase from the Bard, poor Peg’s a-cold.

“Fill your cup and join your friends, Mrs. Stuart. I’m leaving and they’re calling for you.”

“Don’t leave, Jabe. And don’t be bitter with me. I’m sure you’ve had no more ‘no’s’ in your life than I have.”

“I could match scars with you…and did,” Reed said.

“A cruel way of making love,” Peg murmured.

“Have you ever found a kind one?”

“No.”

“Nor I.” He sat down opposite her and put his elbows on the table. “Perhaps we should have started from that proposition, that making love is a cruel affair.”

“Or never started at all. It was a passing weakness with me, Jabe.”

“There’s this to be said for passing weaknesses, they frequently recur until they’re leeched.”

Peg looked at the dregs in her empty cup. “I will not hurt you again, Jabez.”

“Then you would accommodate your sensitivities to my affliction if I were to propose myself again your lover?” Peg said nothing. He put his hand to her chin and jerked it up, forcing her to look at his eyes, fierce and searching dark. “You would take me into your bed and pretend me as white as an Irishman.”

Peg could feel her mouth quiver. “It has been a long time since I pretended anything to myself,” she said.

“God damn your charity,” he said, rising and kicking the chair from beneath him.

Pfaff came across the room waving his apron. “Out! Out! Wild man!”

But others had taken hold of Reed, and it was Peg who fled the cellar. What a sorry end to the afternoon. But which of them ended happier? A chancy thing, her happiness—like a sunny shelter on a windy day. If you stayed in it too long, the sun itself moved off. People there were with less of it, like Jabez, and people with more, like Vinnie and his darling girl. There were not many women, Peg thought, to whom she was affectionately inclined. Well, as Norah would say, he deserved it. Whenever good fortune befell people Norah said they deserved it and whenever bad, she would say it was but the will of God trying the size of their souls.

Peg stepped into a watchmaker’s shop and inquired the time of day. It was sufficient to a quick visit with Norah and maybe a share of the children’s supper. Now there was a little shelter—sitting down at the kitchen table with Emma and Kathleen, Johnny and Michael, and them putting on their best manners, craving a tale of the west. No questions of them but were easy to answer: what do the Indians wear at night and where do they go to sleep, and do the mothers lie on their stomachs so the babies can stay in their pouches?

How easy it was with the flight of fame to ride in a public bus. If she was noticed at all and recognized, its only acknowledgment was made behind the back of the hand to a neighbor. Well, she might ride up Broadway and not stir a pulse, but the devil a step she could take on the Bowery without bringing out the neighborhood. “Ho, Peg! and what’ll you give us tonight?” “How are yer dyin’ and who ’ull you kill?” And God help the one who would harm her. “Name the man and I’ll muss him. I’ll hammer his head to the fit of a penny!”

“Peg!” The surprise in Norah’s voice made her wish she had not come. “Dennis is home, but he’s goin’ off soon.”

“Will I go and come back?” said Peg with a sarcasm lost on her sister.

“No, but sit quiet in the kitchen and I’ll come by and by. Fix your own tea. The fire’s started.”

She might sit quiet, Peg thought, but Dennis was threshing round like a mad bull up the stairs. She had but the choice of plugging her ears or listening to what he was saying.

“‘Look, my boy,’ says his honor,” Dennis started as soon as Norah went up to him. “‘I put you in Albany and I can bring you down,’ as though, mind you, he’d ever’ve been mayor at all if it wasn’t for the likes of me. And didn’t he know what I was thinkin’?”

“You’ll miss your train,” said Norah.

“‘When the people pin their faith in a man,’ he says to me, ‘they’re not goin’ to be parted with it till he loses faith in himself. And Lavery,’ he says, smilin’ like a cat, ‘I was never more confident.’ And this, mind you, in the teeth of the state legislature and the courts.”

“He’s a remarkable man,” said Norah.

“Oh, God help you. He’s no more remarkable than them who put him where he is. Where’s my razor?”

“It’s packed. Everything’s packed.”

“’Tis indeed,” said Dennis. “Judge and jury.”

“If you go now you’ll have a few minutes to stop and see the childer’.”

“It’s a wonder you couldn’t’ve kept them home today.”

“’Tis Thursday and I didn’t know you were leavin’.”

Thursday, Peg thought, and remembered vaguely that once a week Mary Lavery had the four oldest there to their suppers. She heard the trudge of Dennis into the nursery. There would only be herself and Norah and the little one, and the old man when he came home groaning with the ache in his back. She filled the kettle with water and took it to the stove. The flames leaped up when she lifted the lid and she shied from it, spilling the water. It hissed and spat and Peg bit her lip for courage. “God have mercy on the souls in purgatory,” she whispered.

“Where is he off to this time?” she asked when Norah came back.

“Washington, Godspeed him.”

“No less,” said Peg.

“’Tis a delicate mission.”

“Then he’d better take off his boots,” said Peg. “The way he was thumping up there I thought he would come through the ceiling.”

“You’ve no idea the change comes on him in company,” Norah said. “You wouldn’t know him for the same man, his tongue soothin’ as butter. Have you time for supper?”

“A bite. I wish the children were here.”

“You know it’s Thursday.”

“I scarcely know one day from the next,” Peg said.

Norah scalded the pot and put in a fistful of tea. “They’re abolishin’ the Municipals,” she said.

“What?”

“The police. The State Legislature has ordered them disbanded. The tool of the mayor, they called them, as though it wasn’t one of their own they were lookin’ for in the city.”

“Well,” said Peg, “it was a thieves’ holiday one way or the other. From the ones I know of them we’ll be as well off without any.”

“Maybe better,” said Norah. “Dennis says the mayor won’t obey the order. There’ll be two forces and maybe fightin’ each other. They’ll rue the day they did this at Albany.”

“And not the day in New York they elected Fernando Wood?”

“Why should they rue that? The choice was an Orangeman, and he’s done good things for the people whatever he is. Look at the Park and the men workin’ at it. The trouble with them in Albany, they can’t abide the Democrats holdin’ New York. They’ve the Republican majority now and they’re spoilin’ to grab the city. ’Tis a terrible thing they’re doin’ to the people. What they couldn’t get by the vote, they’re makin’ laws to take from us anyway.”

“I had no idea you were so well versed in politics,” Peg said, smiling at the gentle dig she intended.

“It’s not politics I’m talkin’. It’s the truth.” Norah sawed at a loaf of fresh bread with a dull knife.

Peg laughed. Norah had not seen the irony in either remark, dear simple woman. “Do you know who I had coffee with this afternoon? Vinnie. Vinnie Dunne, and if I’m not mistaken, the girl he’ll marry.”

“Oh, Lord,” said Norah, looking off, “is he of that age already?”

Something in her remark and the tone of her voice gave Peg a queer feeling. It seemed to imply that Norah had accommodated herself to Vinnie’s absence from this house as though its circumstance were casual, a trip abroad, residence in a distant city.

“I asked him if he wouldn’t like to visit you,” Peg said, probing, “but he said no.”

“I dare say he’s come up in the world,” Norah said. “He always had it in him, even on the boat.”

“He said to tell you there was nothing in the world he wouldn’t do for you—except come into Dennis’ house.”

Norah frowned a bit and then sighed. “Ah, the pity of it. What’s the girl like?”

Peg managed a small description and a small supper for which her appetite had faded. They were one, husband and wife, Peg thought, and like the old judge said, that one was the husband.

“When will you come again?” Norah said when she rose to leave. “I don’t like to think of you sittin’ alone in a rented room.”

“One day next week when it isn’t Thursday,” Peg said, though she felt now it would not be again so soon.

“And I don’t like to think of you playin’ so near The Points these days.”

“Do you think I like it, Norah? Do you think I’ve forgot what it’s like to step upon a proper stage and leave behind this poor thing, Margaret Hickey? To be all Kate, all Beatrice? I saw Mr. Richards the other day, the manager of the Broadway, and do you know what he said? ‘Mrs. Stuart, one of the greatest moments I have ever known in theatre was in your Camille—when you turned your back on the audience.’ And I asked him, is that why you turn your back on me now?”

“You shouldn’t’ve said that to him,” Norah said.

“Why not?”

“Because it’s no way to talk to a man, that’s all.”

“He said, ‘Perhaps it is, Mrs. Stuart.’”

“And what else could he say, you puttin’ the words in his mouth?”

“Would you have had me beg him? Go down on my knees?”

“When you want somethin’ bad enough you get on your knees for it,” Norah said tightly. “Like the song says, ‘Root, hog, or die.’ Isn’t Dennis crawlin’ to Washington now to beg favors of men not half his own worth?”

“For what, Norah?”

“For his childer’ and me, for his place in this world. And if he didn’t another man would, and have it soon, let me tell you.”

“I shall steal before I beg,” Peg said. “Oh, may I have the loan of a dollar till the next time I see you?”

Norah went to the cupboard. “Did you pay back pa the two you borrowed from him?”

“What business is that of yours?”

“None, save you’re makin’ more than your da.”

“Pa doesn’t need to look prosperous,” Peg said.

“’Tis the queer thing in America,” said Norah, “the things needin’ to look what they aren’t so they can get to be what they look.”

“It’s water that primes the pump,” said Peg, taking the money.

“I wish it was water you were spendin’ that on. Oh, I lived in the house with the disease long enough to know the signs of it.”

“’Tis a wonder,” Peg said, “Dennis doesn’t run on the Temperance ticket.”

“Peg, why don’t you come home? Dennis was sayin’ again there’s the room upstairs and you’ve the learnin’ of a governess. The childer’ need…”

“Oh my God,” Peg cried over her words. “What a turn you give me, saying that. Do you remember sending me to the priest on the boat? I proposed myself to Stephen Farrell to be recommended as a governess to his fine friends in New York. And here I am—offered the position in the home of Dennis Lavery.” She laughed.

“There are times I think your accident undid your reason,” Norah said, “and I forgive you more than I would others.”

“If God is just,” Peg said, “I have no need of your forgiveness. Goodbye, Norah.”

“Save your actin’ for the stage, Miss High and Mighty.”

Peg was but a few steps down the walk when Norah called after her. She looked back and Norah waved. “Don’t stay away too long, Peg. I’ve worries enough without you.”

“Ha! And who hasn’t?” Peg said over her shoulder.

She saw the old man getting down from the tail of a van when she reached Broadway and hastened to board the omnibus before they should meet.

6

“TWO YEARS AT LEAST,” Vinnie said in his first moment alone with Priscilla. Her mother and father had gone from the room, Mrs. Taylor deliberately closing the door as though confiding in them a sacred trust. “It’s not tomorrow nor the day after, Pris. Do they think we’ll change our minds?”

“I shall never change mine, Vinnie, no matter what they think.”

“‘What’s two years at your age, Vincent? Time to prove yourself and you will do it the sooner, trust me, without the encumbrance of a family,’” Vinnie went over Mr. Taylor’s words. “As though my dearest could be an encumbrance.”

“Tell me the truth, Vinnie: you think they’re right just the same, don’t you?”

“Only a little, Pris,” he said, wishing she were not always so zealous of the truth. “My need for you is very great and they know that. The need for a home recommends an early marriage, and they cannot be blamed for asking that I, too, grow up a little more.”

“Did papa say that?”

“In other words he said it. I’m very fond of your father. I made something of a fool of myself, proposing to demonstrate my solvency to him.”

“Ha! That makes you mother’s fool. It’s her favorite folly.”

“That’s an unkind thing to say and not half-true.”

Priscilla looked at him most peculiarly.

“Now what are you discovering?” Vinnie said.

“That maybe they’re right after all,” she said slowly. “In some ways I’m ever so much older than you, Vinnie.”

“I’ve never claimed to be Methuselah,” he said.

“But you are!” she cried, and suddenly leaped from her chair and nested in her gown at his feet. She caught his hands, kissed them, and then looked up into his face exploringly.

“Now what?” he said.

“I don’t know exactly. I’m wonderfully happy. I don’t know how to tell you what happened just then inside me. Like a lifetime in a minute.”

“Was it something I said?”

She set her chin upon his hand where it rested on the chair, and thought about it. “What you said about mother, it sounded so—so patriarchal! I could just see you an old, old man, gathering us all around you!”

“Stow such visions!” Vinnie cried, rising and lifting her to her feet. “I’ll not play the grandfather until I’ve spent my life your lover.”

“Oh, Vinnie,” she whispered, “when you say that I do mind waiting terribly.”

“I love you, Priscilla, with all my heart and all my soul and all my body.”

Her arms tightened about his neck. “Beloved.”

“Betrothed.”

And those two words became their parting sigil whether for the summer months or a winter’s night.

The city was blighted with riot that summer, ironically cursed by a prevalence of the police; and in the autumn Vinnie sat in court at Grisholm’s side while he presented part of the State’s case against Fernando Wood. Vinnie was no longer confined to the copying of Grisholm’s briefs; he assisted in their preparation and was sometimes allowed to follow their argument at the counsel’s table. One of the virtues on which his mentor commended him was his quickness to anticipate a legal reference, and be ready with page and volume. It was a pity, Grisholm said dryly, that he insisted on becoming a trial lawyer when he would be of so much more use an attorney. Climbing the courthouse steps, his arms loaded with statute books and books of statutes, he came face to face one morning with Dennis Lavery. It was their first meeting since Mr. Finn’s death and caught them both unprepared. Dennis stared for an instant and something in his eyes moved Vinnie to compassion, but before he found a word to voice it, Dennis pulled himself up and drew his lips against his teeth contemptuously. “You’ll need to cart in more than that if you’re thinkin’ of cartin’ us out, my lad,” he said and showed Vinnie the tail of his coat.

And his words, it turned out, were prophecy. The courts found against Wood once more and irrevocably. His Honor paid damages and promptly disbanded the Municipals. But then with the grace of a Hallowe’en cat he climbed onto the governing board of the Metropolitans, the new state ordained police force. No wonder men called it misfortune that he was a scoundrel.

Then came a circumstance, however, that even the mayor could not turn to advantage—the panic on Wall Street. No plague could spread faster. By snowfall more men than His Honor were out in the cold. The banks were cursed first for suspending specie payment and thereafter for not suspending it sooner. Railroads went under, manufactories closed. Mechanics and laborers were both unemployed, and the frames of abandoned construction trembled perilously in the wind. Brokers met on the street each on his way to beg a loan of the other. Soon a baker’s van wasn’t safe on the streets, butchers rode on their carts with their cleavers in hand, and carriage trade merchants put their wares on the street till Broadway and Chatham looked one.

Vinnie’s small fortune proved safe, based as it was in real property. The worst that befell him was halving his income pro tem, and the best that for twenty-four hours, his bond stood between Mr. Taylor and bankruptcy.

Fernando Wood was defeated by a Reform Democrat whose name appeared also on Republican and People’s ballots, and by way of reprisal the Buchanan regime—Wood’s friend by Wood’s wooing—cut Reform Democrats from Federal employ in the city. Some said Old Buck had a place waiting Wood on his cabinet—Crown Prince of Spoils, he might name him, or Chief Demagogue of Nigocracy. But Buck had his own fight before him. Determined to foist a pro-slave constitution on unwilling Kansas, he met Stephen Douglas head on, the Little Giant standing fast by Popular Sovereignty, the people within a territory’s right to determine by ballot their own institutions, and once more the Democracy split down the middle.

In Gotham Douglas won a new champion, Greeley and his New York Tribune, and no honor ever commended a man less to his own party faithful. What a scurrying of politicians in those years! To be or not to be, that was their question, and to hell with what was nobler: whether to feed now at Buchanan’s trough and retire fat, or to go lean to Charleston in 1860 and try to make Douglas president. For his part, Fernando Wood yielded the domination of Tammany to a man named Tweed, and set up “the true Democracy” at Mozart Hall. He was laughed at and lauded by turns as he took his little band of followers to State conventions, to party caucuses, and sometimes lost his faithful there, but never lost his faith.

Through it all Vinnie spoke no louder than his vote and a “siccum” to Stephen Farrell, for he was the man these ill times prospered. He put his Douglas paper solid behind the Reform mayor and went himself to work that terrible winter of depression on the Commission for the Poor. Not once did he ask a man’s politics, only the number of his dependents. Once appointed to the job by the Mayor, Farrell bludgeoned the City Council into allotting more funds, and demanded of Albany that since they took to themselves the administration of Central Park, they provide immediate funds for its development. He got what he sought, and men trooped uptown by the thousands to the park excavations, to the opening of new streets north of Forty-second. Suddenly even his silence found in his favor, his, whose eloquence couldn’t find a verdict in a New York courtroom: he declined to attend an extravagant ball proposed to raise funds for the poor, and soon it was quoted about as his saying, “But suppose I should come to the feast without a wedding garment?” And Stephen could not remember saying it at all.

“Oh, he might’ve said it all right,” Delia concluded. “I never knew another man whose guarantee of success was him not makin’ money at it. It’s the truth, Vinnie. Look at his career. Not that I mind of course, him not makin’ money. If I was goin’ to marry for money it wouldn’t’ve been an Irishman, as papa says. “Whenever papa gets sentimental he says ‘I’m glad I provided for my little girl so’s she could marry a man of her own choosin’…’ though I don’t know what’s goin’ to happen in our family now, Mr. Douglas takin’ a stand against us. An’ I don’t suppose you like Mr. Douglas any better for it than we do. Do you, Vinnie?”

Vinnie admitted that he was not yet converted to Douglas although he admired his courage.

“Courage, fie!” Delia said. “If it was courage he had he’d be helpin’ poor old Mr. Buchanan fight for Southern rights. Why his own wife is a Southern lady, an’ I haven’t heard tell of her settin’ free her darkies.”

Vinnie squeezed Priscilla’s hand. Very often they sat hand in hand listening to Delia’s monologues. It was better than Mrs. Kemble’s readings, Priscilla said. And the Farrell house was their favorite meeting place. Sometimes they took Jem for a walk between them and nothing gave them such pleasure as some matron’s exclamation: “What a lovely child you have!”

“What more could be asked of a man’s courage,” Vinnie said, meaning it lightly, “than that he disagree with his wife?”

“There’s some men get positive pleasure out of it, and they know they can’t lose. Even when they’re wrong they’re right by virtue of them bein’ their own special sex. And I don’t mean my Stephen…” Delia fingered the folds of her gown in one of the rare pauses in her conversation. “I know it hurts him to disagree with me. Sometimes now when I’m alone so much I can’t help thinkin’ how far round he had to come to get where he is today. And it was all to get round me without hurtin’ me. And in the end maybe it’ll be me hurtin’ him. I never was anything except what I am now, and I don’t guess I ever will be, ’cause he didn’t try to change me. It’s a terrible thing, my dears—and you are dear to me, both of you, closer than kin—it’s a terrible wicked thing to let outside folks’ opinions of somebody you love get inside you. I almost feel ashamed now when I hear people praisin’ him, the same people I know looked down their stabbin’ noses at him. And I don’t think I ever heard Stephen say a bad word about any man.”

Vinnie was reminded of something Stephen had said that New Year’s Day and told it now. “‘If I were to be a good advocate,’ he said, ‘I should never defend the evil that a man did, but I should often defend men who did evil.’”

“That’s him,” Delia said. “That’s him and no other.”

Vinnie came close again then to liking Delia and Priscilla had long since been won thoroughly to Stephen. With her engagement to Vinnie, she had won a woman’s stature in her father’s house. She was no longer strictured by the nonsense contrived to evidence a maiden’s marriageability. She was for example, besides her study of painting, permitted to work three days a week in the poor wards, an enterprise which in her uncommitted sisters would have seemed immodest despite the company of the Mission Ladies. Stephen sometimes looked in upon the Five Points Mission, and one day he had come when Priscilla was near despair. Her problem was a very old one, or as old in New York as the famine emigration from Ireland: Irish distrust of non-Catholic endeavor. “Two dear little girls, Stephen, and their mother came in here and cuffed them out. I wanted to kill her. Really, that’s how I felt. They’re so bright, and her stupid prejudice!” Stephen stood, his arms folded, a little frown on his brow while he smiled. (The women all thought him enormously handsome.) “Do you know where they live?” he asked. “I do.” “Then shall we have a try, you and I, at getting them back?” He had gone with her then to Doyer Street, up a foul hallway to a back room with but one window, and that half-stuffed with rags. He sat down on the edge of the bed while the little girls hid in a corner and peeked out now and then at Priscilla. Their mother was huddled over a pile of sewing at the window. He talked on about nothing special until suddenly the woman asked him if he was Irish. “I am,” Stephen said, “and so is Miss Taylor’s fiancé. He and I came over on the same boat.” And soon they were talking of what the crossing was like ten years before, and the difference Castle Garden made now in the immigrants’ landing. “Och,” said the woman, “if we could live half as decent as they’re landin’ us, we wouldn’t be destroyin’ ourselves and our childer’.” And soon she poured out the tale of her life, and gave back to Priscilla the daily care of the two girls and the promise to send them to school.

That Stephen was Irish was soon made the most of, and in circles beyond the poor missions. At first he resisted his welcome to Tammany, but at Douglas’ urging sat down in their council. Having won over Lincoln at home and returned to the Senate, the Little Giant must now save his party, yea, the country itself from Seward’s “Irrepressible Conflict” and Lincoln’s “House Divided.” Douglas for president in 1860!

Rally the New York Democracy! Fête again brave Ireland’s sons! Plumb ancient history and turn out the contemporary vote. Remember the men of ’48, Ireland’s exiles, America’s boon. Whatever was said in ’48 to their damnation, in ’59 was unsaid. Better Red than Black Republicans, and sure most of them now were a faded pink. And wasn’t a new clan rising in the nick of politic time? Not a ward politician that couldn’t spell “Fenian” however hard put he was in the lettering of his own name.

Stephen avowed the primacy of his American citizenship and declined office in the Fenian Convention. But who went up while he hung back, and took the chair as well as the Irish Brotherhood oath? Aye, Dennis Lavery. Now there was a true revolutionary. Ireland, Ireland, you are saved! Fear England’s heel no longer, perched safe on America’s toe!

But through the quick days and the long, long nights, what was all this to Vinnie compared to Coke and to Story, to statutes and codes, to writs of dower, of entry, possession, of mandamus, goddamus! Let me try and be tried! More than his life, his happiness, waited that first day in court.

7

“NEVER ARGUE A CAUSE which best argues itself.”

Vinnie could not remember the occasion on which Mr. Grisholm had made the remark, but over and over again he had thought of it in the last few hours. He was convinced that his client was innocent of the charge for which he was brought to trial in General Sessions Court, October term, 1859, the willful murder of his wife.

Never had Vinnie carried a burden such as this, and so casually thrust upon him: “I think you had better take this one, Dunne,” as though Grisholm had asked him to pick up some papers on his way downtown. What sleep he found at night was worse than none, tortured with dreams of guilt, with visions of himself the defendant, and the sad, despairing eyes of the accused accusing him. What good to this man to say to him tomorrow, I did my best, if that best was worse than no defense? What right had Grisholm under heaven to commend a man’s life into a boy’s keeping when little more than his sage presence at the counsel’s table might save the accused? A boy’s keeping? At twenty-five, a boy? Oh God, God, make me a man. Give me at least a manly disguise. Let Stephen be right in his promise that I shall find resources sufficient to my need.

“If I may suggest to youthful counsel…” the prosecutor had said in the beginning in a mere matter of court procedure, and at every opportunity since he had suggested that Vinnie’s youth made him naive of such infamy as the defendant was guilty, and Vinnie thought his own sole point with the jury had come in his retort: “It would seem that the esteemed prosecutor has reached the age of suspicion. I cannot but wonder what condition he recognizes as the absence of guilt in any man. Is there none of us here, gentlemen, in the state of grace?”

The assistant district attorney was now cross examining the defendant. Throughout his trial the man had maintained not only his innocence of his wife’s murder, but his ignorance of her unfaithfulness to him. By the sheer number of the witnesses he called to testify to this infidelity, the prosecutor had made seem ridiculous this claim of ignorance. Yet as Vinnie listened to the snapping of cross examination, his subconscious was again visited by the phrase: never argue a cause which best argues itself.

“…And do you expect the jury to believe that knowing your wife was unfaithful, that she was having illicit relations with another man, do you expect us to believe you would still have stayed the bloody hand?”

“I object, your honor! Furthermore, if your honor pleases, I wish to enter a motion for the dismissal of the charges against my client.” To the last cause he would ever defend, Vinnie would not know where the impulse, the surety, the courage for that instant came from.

“On what grounds, Counselor?” the judge asked, barely lifting his chin from his breast. But the jury had come tensely alert.

“May it please your honor, the State’s case rests on proof beyond doubt that my client had knowledge of his wife’s illicit relations. If your honor will graciously refer to the written brief, the charge is explicit, and now my worthy colleague himself admits the prosecution’s doubt of that necessary premise to his case. Hear those words again, your honor: ‘Do you expect the jury to believe that, knowing your wife’s illicit relations, you would still—would still have stayed the hand…”

“The bloody hand,” the prosecutor interposed sarcastically.

“May I submit that too, to be a cause in conjecture?” Vinnie snapped.

The judge gaveled the courtroom into silence and recessed the court for ten minutes while he considered the motion.

How quickly it was all over, the case dismissed, the jury discharged. Vinnie himself sat a moment as much stunned as his client, and the murmur of the next court business rose about him. Afterwards, the prosecutor admitted that in that doubtful approach, he had gambled on Vinnie’s inexperience. The Law, a game of chance, Vinnie thought, with a man’s life hanging, perhaps on the thread of his counsel’s concentration. God have mercy on me for having arrogated to myself such responsibility.

Vinnie discovered then to his surprise that Grisholm himself had been in the courtroom. He confessed to having had no doubt of the outcome, shaking Vinnie’s hand, and the realization came slowly to the younger man, that the experienced lawyer had carefully selected a first court case for him. It must have been settled in his mind when he accepted the retainer for the firm. “Truly, sir,” Vinnie asked, “did you know just where the break would come?”

Grisholm looked at his watch. “Not to the precise moment,” he said.

“Thank you very much, sir,” Vinnie said.

“Now,” said Grisholm, “you will begin to learn the Law. Practice is the only teacher. Ah…I have a message for you. John Taylor would have you stop at his office on your way down. I believe he said a matter of a contract to be settled? Something to do with his daughter? Does he hold a promissory on you, Dunne?”

“No, sir,” Vinnie said, grinning, “but I hold his.”

“Make a settlement then, lad. Make a settlement.”

No conveyance on the streets of New York was quick enough for Vinnie’s travel. He ran the eight blocks to Wall Street. Both Alex and Mr. Taylor came with outstretched hands to meet him when he reached their office.

Vinnie and Priscilla were married in the chapel of St. Paul’s on Thanksgiving Day of 1859.

8

“GENTLEMEN, GENTLEMEN, YER PERLITE attention, please! And ladies…Ye’re all of yers ladies, now aren’t you, dearies? The night’s entertainment’s about to commence. There’ll be no service at the bar, and no leavin’ yer tables. Tonight’s drammer—Mrs. Margaret Stuart, our own Peg, as the b’hoys call her—in Please, M’Lord Stop Teasling. Snuff out yer candles, mates!”

The squeak of the pulleys pierced through the whistles and stamping, and Peg stepped upon the six-foot platform called a stage and waited for Lord Teasling. Not a footlight shone beneath her, but brighter than any footlights were the faces of the young gentlemen of the press, the newsboys allowed in for the play at two-penny a head but no selling. They sat cross-legged on the floor and would cheer her every point, God bless ’em.

She commenced in the best formal style, her language exquisite, and strangers in the house groaned audibly until hissed down. The newsies’ faces were rapt, tense, their eyes popping with expectation.

“Ah, m’lord, but do you remember? Do you remember the little brook, bubbling up you said, like your darling’s laughter? Do you remember the heather we plucked, and oh, the blue, blue bluebells? You took my hand in yours…and said to me, ‘Now will you?’ And pulled me down in that damn fool thistle!” The boys let out a howl. Peg lifted her skirt and gave the mute lover a kick that sent him sprawling and off, his shilling earned for the night. Then she came forward and sang: “He promised me a bed of down and bedded me down in the thistle.”

Such was the drama now claiming the talents of Mrs. Stuart. The buffoonery was born of a Bowery audience’s impatience. They groaned even under her Kate until she turned Kate gallus. So with the help of a drunken scribbler, she tuned her repertoire to a dance hall ear, and starred amongst the lowly. For a while she had clung to one straight piece a night, but that was gone now, too, except once in a while as on this night, when someone grew sentimental about having seen her a few years past. He was slightly drunk but a gentleman, and Peg accepted his hospitality when her stint was done.

“Give us a bit from Shakespeare,” he would say. “Listen, all!” And a few at the bar would attend and Peg would forget herself, forget the blaring music and the dance against which she spoke, her benefactor cupping his ear to hear her better.

“Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful,” he said, and wiped the tears from his eyes. “Drink up, and give us another.”

Harry, who owned the house, came down to make conversation with them, and just for an instant laid the palm of his hand over the top of Peg’s glass.

“I’ll have one more tonight,” said Peg, “for I’ve yet to dance at a wedding.”

“One here then,” said Harry into her ear, and then he brushed its lobe with his lips. “But you know where you’re welcome to drink your fill.”

Peg drew away from him. “I wonder whatever I did with the invitation. Ah, well, no matter. I’m afraid by now I’m a little late…Still

‘The bird of dawning singeth all night long.

‘And then they say, no spirit dare stir abroad;

‘The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,

‘No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm

‘So hallow’d and so gracious is the time.’”

“Beautiful, whatever it is,” said her host.

“It was meant for Christmas,” said Peg, “but will do as well for Thanksgiving.” She lifted her glass: “To your long life and overflowing heart, sir.”

“Wait till you see her kick when the drink rises in her,” said a man at the next table.

Peg looked at him over her shoulder, thinking on the words not meant for her ear. “I once kicked a man to the moon,” she said menacingly, “and he’s up there now laughing fit to bust.”

“Easy, Peg,” said Harry, his hand working soothingly upon her shoulder. “He didn’t mean a thing.”

“Nor do you to me, proud Harry,” Peg said, shrugging off his waxy hand and getting to her feet. She stood a moment, holding fast to the bar, striving for a look of great, hard dignity, and the lines she wanted to go with it:

“‘Oh Harry, thou hast robbed me of my youth!

‘I better brook the loss of brittle life

‘Than those proud titles thou hast won of me;

‘They wound my thoughts worse than thy sword my flesh:

‘But thought’s the slave of life, and life’s time’s fool…’

“And I’ve forgot the rest which doesn’t mean a thing to anyone here, or there or anywhere—but me. It means a deal to me, Peg Stuart. So keep your crawling hands for the backsides of your whores, and remember I’m a lady.”

PART VIII

1

DENNIS MADE HIS BREAK with Fernando Wood at the State Democratic convention in ’59, merely crossing to the hall of the regulars during the muss at Syracuse. It was as easy a step as he had ever taken. He had always felt about Wood’s Mozart Hall organization that it was like the Episcopal Church: the trimmings were there and the show was fine, but you could tell the minute you walked in it wasn’t the real thing. Tammany gave him the prodigal’s welcome. He was a Hard now, crusting over as the slave agitation grew and the Softs got softer toward Free Soil, and it was the Hard wing of Tammany led the cheers when he came home. They put him up and held him up as a national delegate to Charleston. “And what’ll they want of you for that?” said Norah. “The collapse of Fernando Wood since you ask it.” And Charleston might be the place for it, Dennis thought. Thank God he had been wise enough to prophesy the return of Wood to the mayor’s office with or without Lavery. To have promised his defeat and seen him win, Dennis would have crippled himself entirely. “And what is it you want of them, Dennis?” “All I can get, woman. All an Irishman can get isn’t enough for all the Irishmen he has to get for.”

Many a man aboard, Dennis thought, as the Charleston packet sailed out of New York, would gladly see him crippled. The upstate men were mostly Softs, but Hard or Soft they feared him: he hadn’t much to lose, and he had more than most of them to gain. They had bound themselves and Tammany to a unit vote—thirty-five or nothing, and they were going pledged to Douglas by the majority feeling. Ah, but there was a trap smuggled on by the Hards if they could manage to spring it—New York must go, its thirty-five strong, for a New York son if such a name came up at the national convention. And here, Dennis knew, was his only power. If Douglas won he would not have a bat’s chance in daylight, city, state, or nation. Douglas, he thought, was the nothing he had to lose. And who was Mother Tammany sending South for Douglas (for if she was Hard at bottom, sure she was a bit Soft atop) ? Aye, Stephen Farrell, Douglas’ own. Oh, mother, mother, wait up for us and see what your boys bring you home from the hunt!

No one aboard, Dennis knew, could afford more to be merry than himself, and looking at it another way, no one could afford less not to be merry. He poured the whiskey for the delegation and proposed the toasts, and made himself especially agreeable to Delia Farrell who was accompanying her husband to Charleston for a visit home. She was soon inquiring of him about one and another of the delegates, where did they come from and what were their homes like, and was Mr. Belmont as rich as was said? And then sly as a vixen she came round to the point, if she kept it secret would he tell her what he thought Fernando Wood’s chances were of getting his independent delegation seated? “Stephen just won’t tell me anything,” she said, “exceptin’ things don’t matter at all. Why home we ladies take to politics like gossip, Mr. Lavery. You’ll see.” Dennis skipped round the question on Wood and ventured to ask if her father would be there at the convention’s start. “I should think he will,” she cried, “him bein’ practically its host.” “I’m lookin’ forward to his acquaintance,” Dennis said. And Delia smiled encouragement. “He’s partial to Irishmen.”

Nowhere surely this side of the Atlantic was there a city so graceful and pretty as Charleston. The air was as soft as the eyes of its women, providing they liked what they saw. The houses all wore verandas and the trees were draped round with a lazy moss. There was but one thing he saw Dennis found offensive: the buzzards perched up on the roof of the market, swooping suddenly down for a perishing scrap, tearing it out from the jaws of the woebegone dogs who chanced to come on it sooner. Oh, and one more offense he took—the condescension to him of the niggers. And both were protected by law! Free them? Then God save the Irish when they came swarming north. The dogs had more chance with the vultures.

The day after their arrival Delia Farrell played hostess to the New York delegates that evening in her father’s house, and an elegant house it was, with servants galore and plenty of whiskey. The senator himself was present and made a warm speech of welcome. But for all his tickish smile, Dennis thought, he was picking over their every word, and before the night was done he knew the insides of all of them. He knew Dennis to be a Fenian and commended him on a speech he had made, and with him, he too came round to discussing Wood’s chances. The executive committee had ruled the mayor and his company out. “I’ll tell you frankly, sir,” the senator said, “I’ll support him on the floor. He’s more national in complexion than what I know of you gentlemen.” Meaning, Dennis thought, that the mayor was willing to coddle slavery. “We’ve men in our delegation who’d not offend you,” he said. “And are they here tonight, sir?” Dennis waited until the old man’s eyes met his. “You’re talkin’ to one now, Senator.” Osborn gave his arm a little squeeze. “Come and see me at the Charleston House in the mornin’, Mr. Lavery.”

Well, Fernando, Dennis thought, in my position you’d do the same thing. It was you taught me: before you can bargain you got to have something to sell.

There was some precedent for Wood’s claim to half the New York seats. Syracuse had been riotous, and four years before the Cincinnati convention had settled a similar situation by recognizing two New York delegations and splitting the state’s vote amongst them. If Wood got support on the floor he still had a fighting chance. Dennis confided to his brother delegates what he proposed to do: reduce to the bone Wood’s Southern support, and most of the boys approved it. But not Stephen Farrell. And that, Dennis thought, was how it would be all the way down the line. “You don’t know him like I do,” said Dennis. “He’s bland as cream and he’s already put up a good case.”

“I am not one,” Farrell said, “to underestimate either Mr. Wood or yourself, Lavery. Or for that matter, my father-in-law. What’s his price for dropping Wood?”

“Wouldn’t you credit me with an ounce of persuasion?” said Dennis. “I hope to persuade him Wood’s not worth the fight.”

“As long as there are men like you in the regular New York delegation?” Farrell said evenly.

Dennis could feel his temper flare, but as he had taught himself his best control was to put a smile on it. “Would you begrudge a little gesture of friendship in the beginnin’, Farrell, when it’s plain there’ll be so little of it at the end?”

“I am not opposed to compromise,” Stephen said. “I expect to make more than most men before this is over. But I do not like to expose our weakness by asking unnecessary favors. If we have to beg help in order to stand up against Fernando Wood, gentlemen, we may as well go home.”

Farrell found support for that sentiment, and the truth was Dennis agreed with him, but he badly needed this wedge for himself that trading with Osborn would give him. “Let’s not make a mountain out of a molehill,” he said, “and believe me, boys, that’s all I’ve got here. But it’s always been my experience, you unarm a man by askin’ his help. Oh, there’s other ways, too. I could spit in the senator’s eye, but it wouldn’t seem decent after his hospitality…or was it yours we were enjoyin’ last night, Mr. Farrell?”

“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” Dean Richmond said, and since Richmond was their chairman, Dennis apologized. Thereupon the chairman ruled that he be allowed to consult with Senator Osborn. When it came to political infight, Dennis would meet Farrell anywhere any time.

Oh Lord, Dennis thought, as the convention opened, home was never like this. There were men from the North and men from the West, and even their faces the color of gold, and some with voices like eagles, screaming out to be heard on the floor; the pages were flying with word to the chairman, and him pounding the head off his gavel. And when finally he got enough quiet for business you still couldn’t hear a thing that went on, for the traffic outdoors was a torture. Boulders studded the streets, bold as eggs in a basket, and the clatter of wheels thumping round them would jar loose the soul from your body. Nothing more was achieved than the grinding of tempers till cartloads of sawdust were spread in the street. The only name Dennis heard while he waited was Douglas—Douglas here and Douglas there, up with Douglas or down with Douglas, it was Stephen Douglas everywhere. If the West was near solid behind him, the South was his rockbound opposition.

We’re off, thought Dennis, when at last he could hear the gavel. A Mr. Fisher of Virginia soon rose to the purpose of seating Fernando Wood. Poor Fernandy: when he couldn’t get a good man behind him, he needed to go with a poor one, and Fisher had the voice of a mouse, aye and soon it was seen, the temper of a lion, a grievous mixture in any politician. Fisher was speared on a point of order, and Fernando asked to stay on as a guest! Dennis’ cigar did not even go out, so unvexatious was the matter, and for his part in it he concealed his pride by keeping his eyes before him. Before the day was out, he had trouble keeping them open. If the last judgment was run according to parliamentary procedure Iscariot would escape hell on a point of order. It came down in the end to the convention’s waiting for the resolutions committee’s report. Dennis watched the committee withdraw, Farrell going out from New York, to work on the party platform. A jolly time he’d have there with his Free Soil notions, for the South held the committee majority.

Day after day they stayed out, working night and day by reports—all, Dennis thought, to the choosing of delicate words, as though words now would accomplish a thing. The longer the convention waited them, the less their platform would mean, for men North and South were spouting, over and over the same thing like a fountain, states’ rights and constitutional rights, and the higher law under God. Ah, the wonder of political men, each one thinking he was saying something new and everyone else of the opinion that he had said the same thing himself and better, and at the first chance, asking to be heard say it again!

Dennis was aching for action. He had been from one to another of the New York Hards each unbeknownst to the other, exploring their views on available candidates. The choice by the most was for Dickenson—including Dickenson’s choice—but except for him, they were all persuadable that he could not carry even his own delegation. The one name Dennis picked up and cherished was Horatio Seymour, the only man, he was told, whose candidacy could budge Dean Richmond from his loyalty to Douglas. Well, if he couldn’t budge a mountain, Dennis thought, at least he could tremble the foothills. He was ready and waiting the message from Senator Osborn. His only surprise when it came was that it was in his daughter’s handwriting—a social invitation. But that was the way of the South, making even politics gracious.

The gabled manor was aglow with lights when Dennis walked up. Nary rig, cart nor carriage had he found for hire. And the music of strings floated out to meet him. While Farrell was locked in debate, his wife was frocked for receiving. Dennis tried to remember her gown to describe it to Norah, a blue silk that was frosted in lace, and her hair bedecked with jeweled white combs. There was no mourning here, Dennis saw in a wink, the tunes rather struck up for rejoicing.

“How nice to see you here, Mr. Lavery,” Delia said, giving his hand a soft squeeze of welcome. “It would be a great pity to have you go home rememberin’ us by nothin’ more than that terrible convention.”

“And glad I am to come,” said Dennis, “for I’m sick of their company.”

“Poor Stephen,” Delia said. “But then bein’ of the mind he is I don’t reckon he’d be at home here either tonight.”

Dennis was sure of it, but he didn’t say so. “’Tis a lovely place to be at home in.”

“Yes,” Delia said, her eyes wandering in chase of her thoughts. Some couples were dancing a waltz in the room beyond. “I suppose we could live here most times if Charleston was the capital.” Dennis looked at her, not understanding, and Delia recalled herself. “That’s just dreamtalk, Mr. Lavery. You must meet some people. Then papa wants to see you in the library. But don’t you let him keep you there all night with his old fogies. Supper’s goin’ to be in the garden.”

The drawing room was crowded, mostly with young men whom Delia spoke to by first name and some she called her cousins. The weakest as well as the sturdiest bore themselves as though they thought they were giants, and Dennis was not long in their company when he caught the gist of what Delia had meant by “dream-talk.” A Southern republic was in all their minds’ eyes, with its own representatives over the world. Choosing up places, these lads were, with their belles clapping hands in approval. Youth, Dennis thought, making love to the future. Delia, reconciling herself to her husband’s position, envisioned the day he would represent the North in the Southern capital…when everybody would be friends again. Well, Dennis thought, since dreams were in order, he wouldn’t mind taking such a place for himself!

He straightened his back and had his presence announced to the gentlemen in the library. He had never before been in company like this, he realized hearing the names, the biggest party men of the South, or maybe the loudest, but what odds that for they were the ones who’d be heard. He was not quite at ease until one of them mentioned the Fenians. That turned the talk to the Irish, and a question was then put to Dennis he had never set his mind to before: why did the Irish, by and large, favor the Southern cause. “There’s some that don’t, you know,” he said with a little smile and rubbed his chin.

“Oh, I know that for a fact,” Senator Osborn drawled. The other men laughed.

“It’s like askin’ me why I’m a Catholic,” Dennis went on, exploring his own mind as he went. “I’ve always been one, and maybe a better one for the abuse I’ve taken on that account. And that, gentlemen, I’d say is the heart of the matter. I’ve never known an Abolitionist yet who had a good word for an Irishman. Aye, scratch an Abolitionist and you find a Native. They wouldn’t raise their hand against enslavin’ the Irish, but they’d take the nigger into their beds with them.”

Someone commented on the friendship between Seward and Archbishop Hughes.

“The Archbishop isn’t in politics,” Dennis said, “so he can afford to have friends on both sides. And sure, Seward’s in nothin’ else, so he can’t afford not to.”

Dennis was probed then on the depth of the Douglas loyalty in the New York delegation and he told them. “It’s the damn unit vote that’s holdin’ at least a third of us in his name now. We’d revolt in a minute for a favorite son.”

“And the rest, what would it take to move them?”

“There’s a few die-hards, like your son-in-law, Senator Osborn, so bound up now with Free-Soilism, they’re but a nudge away from the Republican Party. Take Douglas away from them and they’ll run into Seward’s arms.”

Osborn gave a nod that that was his very thought.

“I could better stomach the party without them,” a man said, washing the taste from his mouth with whiskey.

“Do you think there’s a chance they’ll quit this convention, Mr. Lavery?”

“Not willin’,” said Dennis.

“Suppose the platform offends their free-soilism?”

Dennis shook his head. “The platform reported by the majority, I know you can swing that, gentlemen, but it won’t go down with the convention if there’s a slave plank in it. If a minority of one even brings in a mild platform the convention will stand on it and so will Douglas. If he can get a foot on it at all, he’ll stand this time until he’s knocked down. But I’m tellin’ you somethin’ you know better than me. Let me talk about the New York delegation. At the opposite end of free-soilism, there’s the Hards like myself. The only way we were brought into line at the state level was on the promise that the New York votes would go to a New York man if one was nominated here. And between the head and the tail there’s the middle, canny, good business men who call you gentlemen friends and ’ud go a long way to keep peace with you.”

“And who would you say, Lavery, would be the candidate with whom best to wean them from Douglas?”

Dennis let on to be thinking about it and accepted a cigar while he thought. He was determined if he could prompt it to have them put the name in his mouth.

“Then let’s put it this way, Lavery, would Fernando Wood have a chance?”

“God help us,” said Dennis, “have you no better way of puttin’ it than that?”

All the men present laughed.

“As I can foresee the country’s need, to say nothin’ of the needs of the party,” Dennis started over the same grounds again spelling out his meaning, “we should head the ticket with a Northern man of your likin’, gentlemen, who could carry as well as New York one or two other states North, and run with him a Southern Union man. That would make the cheese more bindin’.”

“So it would,” said Osborn, “but suppose he turned out to be another John Tyler?” The other men nodded.

“I must’ve been cradled in Ireland then,” Dennis murmured.

“It’s twenty years ago,” said Osborn. “My God, twenty years. Tyler was elected vice president with Ben Harrison, both Whigs. But Harrison died soon after election, and Tyler turned Democrat while he was in office.”

“I suppose you heard what Sanders is tellin’ about Douglas?” Dennis said then, referring to one of the New York men who was striving by another tack to come out with a winner. “He says Douglas’ health is in such a state that he’ll oblige with the same performance you spoke of. It’ll be the vice president runs the country if Douglas is elected, accordin’ to Sanders.”

“Sir, I would not put it past Douglas to have started that rumor himself. There’s nothing he wouldn’t do to get the nomination.”

“Gentlemen, I have a ticket I should like to propose for your consideration.” As Dennis recalled his introduction, the man speaking was from Mississippi. “Horatio Seymour of New York and Breckenridge of Kentucky.”

“Seymour is a fine, conservative gentleman,” Dennis said blandly. “We’ve got no sounder.”

“To my tastes, we’ve sounder men than Breckenridge,” someone said.

“Not for this purpose,” Osborn said, putting his hand on the wrist of the speaker. “He recommends our good faith in compromise.” Osborn looked about. “Horatio at the bridge: Mr. Lavery should be able to make something of that, eh, gentlemen?”

They all seemed content in it.

Osborn touched Dennis’ elbow. “When the time is propitious, Mr. Lavery, I think you may propose to your delegation that certain gentlemen of the South are willin’ to meet them on the bridge.”

On the fifth day of the convention at a little before noon the resolutions committee returned, tired, raw-nerved men. The very looks of them hushed the hall, for they came in like doom-ladened prophets. The ladies of Charleston crowded the gallery and their laughter rang last on the hush. Farrell stopped and looked up and then came on to his place. Ah yes, my boy, Dennis thought, your belle’s hanging high today. The printed reports, majority and minority—for they had not managed a compromise—were passed from hand to hand. The murmuring rose to a din. They could have written it better, Dennis thought, never leaving the hall.

The majority, signed by the slave states plus California and Oregon, declared that neither Congress nor territorial legislature had the power to abolish slavery or to impair its propagation, that rather it was the duty of the national government to protect even on the high seas the rights of persons and property.

The minority reaffirmed the principle of popular sovereignty, and admitting the difference of opinion within the party on the rights and duties of Congress, resolved that the convention abide by the Supreme Court on questions of constitutional law.

There was nothing new in the arguments then, only more noise, and by late afternoon the biggest noises of all were about to shoot off. When word reached the gallery that Mr. Yancey of Alabama had asked to speak, the excitement was such a lady fainted with palpitations. Farrell did not even look up. Dennis stepped outdoors for a breath of fresh air. Gone was the gentle weather, the rain coming down in a steady pour. His own spirits were as damp as the day. He missed the children and Norah. Without his family a man was nothing. And he could not get Farrell out of his mind, the last man in the world he had ever expected to pity. With a family like his what was he? A man should rule his own wife…or stay at home her prisoner. Dennis spat in the puddle at his feet, returned to the convention and at the door joined a cheer for Yancey. In his seat, however, he followed the example of his delegation and sat on his hands until Pugh answered for the North. He’d have sat on them then as well by his own inclination.

The Lord’s Day was given to plots and negotiations so the vote on the platform didn’t come till Monday morning. As Dennis foretold, the minority version carried, 165 to 138, over a roar of voices trying to hold it back with points of order. Then the Douglas forces, the complacent arrogant fools, Dennis thought, consented to vote resolution by resolution. The first point carried, reaffirming popular sovereignty, the border states voting with the North. The Southerners then got their wind up and began to blow hot and hard. That brought a quick motion to table the rest of the platform and get on to the nominations, where, Dennis swore, they should have started in the first place. Farrell rose and spoke to its second. “Before it is too late, gentlemen,” he shouted. “It was too late when you put it in,” a Southerner cried. Dennis threw away his cigar. “Aye, the God’s truth,” he cried into the din, “he brought it in by the front door and now wants to sneak it out by the back.” And the split in the New York delegation showed wide enough to seat the South between them. Dean Richmond marched his thirty-five New York delegates out for consultation. As they passed the Illinois seats, the cry went up, “Stand fast!”

Farrell was bristling mad in their conclave. If there was to be a vote on the Supreme Court resolution, then for God’s sake vote in its favor. Do not yield the last honorable point on which Douglas could stand.

Dennis made his move. Most of the delegation was willing now to yield on the resolution and Farrell himself in his desperation was exposing Douglas’ weakness. “Gentlemen,” Dennis said, never having spoken softer, “if Douglas cannot stand, there are men who can.”

“No, no,” Farrell cried. “One thing at a time.”

“I’m thinkin’ of only one thing,” said Dennis. “There isn’t a one of us doesn’t know the platform won’t be worth its paper if we don’t elect the president. Tear up the platform altogether, and stand by a man who can stand without it.”

“Who, who?” rose now over Farrell’s protests.

“Horatio Seymour of New York. Douglas’ll be hard pressed to get two-thirds of this convention, aye, even a simple majority, and you know it, Farrell. Let them ballot themselves till they’re weary. Then we can put Horatio at the bridge as they say, and he’ll hold it. Don’t you forget it, gentlemen of the Softs: you pledged yourselves to a New York man if the convention found one, Douglas or no. Now I’ll give you a ticket that was proposed to me and with the solemn pledge of at least a dozen Southern votes to prime the rest: Seymour of New York and Breckenridge of Kentucky.”

You could see the change coming into their faces, Dennis thought. They’d been given a draft of hope. There wasn’t a man, even Farrell himself, wasn’t worn by the care of nursing Douglas through the sick convention. Bury him, gentlemen, Dennis said to himself, bury him quick for he’s dead.

“Let me ask you, Lavery,” Farrell said, and with cold quiet now himself, “did you propose it to them or did they propose it to you?”

“As God is my witness, it was them said the name first.”

“Then I ask you why did they not name Dickenson? I’ll tell you why: they know he could not break New York’s vote for Douglas. And that’s what they want, gentlemen. Not Seymour.”

“But I should want Seymour if I could have him,” Richmond said, and an easy majority of the caucus agreed. Dennis needed say no more.

“I tell you,” Farrell cried, “they will not be here to vote for him. I have lived in the house with them. I know. The young people the night you were there, Lavery, you heard them—yes, I knew you were there, I saw you leave—a Southern republic, that’s the sentiment of the South. Not the blandishments they handed you in the library.” Farrell lifted his fists in the air and shook them. Playing the priest again, Dennis thought. “Gentlemen, we have been too long cursed with available candidates, little, little men, whose only-recommendation is ignorance or absence. The people are wiser than you think. And they are stronger than you know. We are indeed at the bridge, and we shall have a strong president now whether he comes from this convention or not. Do you forget there will be another convention in Chicago? Whether or not they name Seward, Seward will carry New York state for them—unless Douglas is the man against him.”

“And will you vote for Seward if Douglas is not the man against him, Mr. Farrell?” Dennis asked.

“I will vote for Douglas and no other,” Stephen said.

“You will vote here as this delegation votes, Farrell,” the chairman said, “or resign in favor of your alternate, and we shall not close the door on Seymour.”

“Please, gentlemen,” Farrell pleaded. “I shall vote as the state convention directed me, but I beg of you, let us not be beguiled by the fire-eaters. No more Buchanans. They corrupted themselves, corrupting him. Let them not corrupt us as well.”

“Enough,” Richmond said. “They’re calling the roll on the resolution. Is it your sentiment, gentlemen, to yield on the platform and stand by the man?”

“What man?” Farrell cried.

“Douglas, sir, as long as Douglas stands,” Richmond said tartly.

A shout of approval went up from the rest, and the New York delegation marched back into the convention, and showed the heal in its breach by a vigorous vote that brought the gallery cheering to its feet.

New York was but the crest. The convention voted mightily against the resolution, taking the sidetrack to avoid a crash. But as bitter men of the North rose to explain their concessions, to make the most of the compromise, they discovered the South blowing up on its victory. They wanted no less, some of them now, than a slave code in the platform! Even Dennis thought this a bit thick, and his heart sank when Alabama withdrew because they did not receive it. Mississippi went also, and shouting prophecy: in sixty days the world would see a united South. The cheers rocked the hall. Dennis stood up on his chair when South Carolina withdrew, Osborn going out with them. Dennis sat down, cursing softly to himself. A politician was a politician, South as well as North. But Richmond’s eyes were aglow. “Never mind, Lavery,” he said, “we may yet get him to the bridge, and those who walk out one day can walk in another.”

All night long the town of Charleston celebrated. The crowds were still gathered at midnight cheering an independent Southern republic. “Perhaps even now,” Yancey told them, “the pen of the historian is nibbed to write the story of a new revolution.” Yea! Yea! and hurray for Dixie! If it was nibbed tonight, Dennis thought, it might be nubbed tomorrow.

When he returned to the hotel he found that Farrell had moved from his father-in-law’s house. He was stretched out on a cot not far from Dennis’.

“It’s a hell of a turn, isn’t it?” said Dennis, passing.

“Well, there were more schemes than yours went a-foul today.”

“Aye,” said Dennis. “They’d’ve gone out one way or the other so there’s no harm done.”

“Not to your cause anyway,” Farrell said, never moving from his back. “You’ve made friends South, so what’s the loss of a few North?”

“Oh, bag your head and go to sleep,” Dennis said. “I never knew such a poor loser in my life. There’s another election in four years, man.”

Farrell sat up. “God in heaven, Lavery, what are you doing here? This is not the Fourth Ward. You’re not putting up a man for alderman.”

“And do you think you’re puttin’ up one for president, Mr. Farrell? Let me give you a bit of advice: you can’t ride a dead horse, not even to his own funeral.”

The last business of the convention was balloting on the presidential nominations. New York insisted that to win, a candidate must have votes equal to two-thirds the convention as convened, not merely two-thirds of the delegates present…and then voted solidly for Douglas as though they had not made it impossible for him to win at Charleston. The convention adjourned without a candidate, to reconvene in Baltimore six weeks hence.

2

“TILL THE DAY I die, Norah, I’ll see nothin’ wrong in what I did. But they’re stormin’ at me like I stirred a hornet’s nest. Oh, I’ll sting them back, never fear. In the end it’ll still be the New York vote they’ll need whoever they put up at Baltimore. And in the end I’ll do more for them than ever they did for me if they ask it. And if they don’t, God help them when they come to gettin’ the vote. They thought they were stranglin’ me with the unit vote and it was themselves they hung up. I tell you, Norah, Farrell’s a fool. He called me a liar when I told him Douglas was in debt to Fernando Wood for a fortune. He’s been livin’ on Wood’s money and never knowin’ it. He has no more sense of politics than—than Michael here. And maybe less for my boy has the sense at least not to talk back to his elders, eh, Michael? Did you know that Osborn wants me to chair another convention if we don’t get what we want at Baltimore? And I might do it, by the glory! If Farrell can go for a rail splitter—and I’ll wager that’s what he’ll do in the end—I ought to be able to stomach a gentleman, eh, Michael?”

“Pay some mind to little Fernando, Dennis. He’s cravin’ your notice.”

Dennis laughed. “Oh, isn’t he now?” he said.

3

“COUNSELOR…” JUDGE ADAMS SAID, having interrupted Vinnie’s argument while he read a note the bailiff handed him. He puckered his mouth a couple of times to speak, but changed his mind each time about what he was going to say. At moments like this it always seemed to Vinnie that he was rearranging his teeth.

“Yes, sir,” Vinnie said, hoping to prompt him. The trial had been long and tedious, a matter of property damage, less urgent by far than other matters pressing him that day.

“It has been brought to my attention, Mr. Dunne, that you are simultaneously pleading a cause in another court.” Vinnie frowned. He did have other cases calendared, but none in judication. “It is grossly unfair to this court, sir,” the judge went on severely, “and if I may say so, to your client. I am going to put this case over until that other is resolved. And if I were sitting in judgment there, I should direct the verdict—and award you twins. You have been sent for, Counselor. Go and Godspeed!”

Oh, Godalmighty, Vinnie thought, fleeing the laughing courtroom, Judge Adams and his humor. He lept the iron fence of City Hall park and caught the rail car as it was pulling into Centre Street.

“Take it easy, lad,” the trainman said. “The war ain’t started yet.” Vinnie paid his sixpence fare. “Sure looks it though,” the trainman went on. “Ever seen so many flags?”

The devil flag you, Vinnie thought. Was there no steam in the boiler? “Never,” he said.

The trainman went down the car and collected the rest of his fares, then came back to Vinnie, apparently having a sorry choice of listeners. “Didn’t vote for Abe, myself, and I ain’t sure I’ll fight for him, but I think he’s right all the same. I wouldn’t give you a chewed corncob for the nigger, but when it comes to shootin’ down the flag, I don’t hold with that. No sir. I’m a Union man, one country indivisible. Hail Columbia!”

Hail Mary, Vinnie thought, and remembered then something from his childhood. He looked up into the face of the trainman. “When I was a boy in Dublin,” he said, “there was an old woman who knelt in the back of the church, and do you know what she prayed all through the Mass?”

“What?”

“Haily holy haily holy haily holy haily holy.”

“Daft, was she?” the trainman said.

“I didn’t think so,” said Vinnie. “I just thought she didn’t know when to say ‘amen’.”

Vinnie arrived at home only in time to say amen himself to the first cry upon earth of his daughter.

“You were ever impatient, my darling,” he said when he was permitted to Priscilla’s side. She looked like a child herself, pale and bright of eyes. “You were indecently quick about it, you know.”

“Would you have had me linger?”

“I would not. And selfish that, too. You were over the pain before I had time to catch it.” He sat and held her hand. “Dearest, dearest one. Was it terrible?”

Priscilla smiled. “I’ll wait for tomorrow to go through it again.”

“Don’t joke about that for maybe you’ll have to. Judge Adams directed a verdict of twins.”

“Is he a midwife?”

“They have much in common,” Vinnie said.

“Will they never bring the child to me? Is there something the matter with her, Vinnie?”

“Only her temper, dearest. She came in like a Bowery gal and they’re trying to soothe her.” He went to the door then and waited. In a moment he took the infant from the nurse’s arms and brought her to her mother.

“She isn’t really very pretty,” Priscilla said, “but then I’m not either.”

“Then never in all my life,” said Vinnie, “have I seen anything pretty.”

She made a face and then closed her eyes for a few moments. When she looked at him again she said: “Vinnie, all the while I was waiting, between the warnings, I was thinking of Delia and Stephen. What will happen to them if there’s war?”

“Nothing more than has already happened to them, I suspect. And perhaps the war will solve it—end the strain, at least.”

“Will it be over quickly, do you think?”

“No. I wish I could say I thought so, but I’m afraid the South will fight until her last resource is spent—unless the Union yields. And we cannot yield, Pris. Not now.”

Priscilla put her cheek to the tiny head beside her. “Do you suppose Maria understands?”

“Maria,” Vinnie said, for the child would bear the name of Priscilla’s mother and his grandmother. “Maria Dunne.”

“Maria Elizabeth Dunne,” Priscilla said.

“I don’t think she understood a word we said,” said Vinnie.

“Vinnie…”

He could tell from the tone of her voice what was coming. “Don’t ask it now, Pris. I don’t know. I shan’t go right away surely. But some men must. Oh, some are willing and anxious. They’re mustering in all over the town. Alex, by the way, has a captain’s commission. ‘I wish I was in Dixie.’ I never heard so many bands playing so badly. And I wish Dixie were at the bottom of the sea.”

“Poor mother. Her only son,” Priscilla said.

“And us starting another family of daughters,” Vinnie said, trying to lift the dark mood from them.

“They at least don’t have to go to war.”

“This will be the last war, Pris—for America surely. So let’s manage a son if we can.”

“Oh, darling, I do love you. Come close and kiss me.”

Vinnie brushed the infant’s brow with his lips and then kissed Priscilla softly, her eyes and her mouth. “I must send the good news home,” he said. “You had better rest now. I’ll walk down and tell them myself.”

“Do. Mother will love you for it. Not that she doesn’t now.”

“I’ve grown rather fond of the old girl myself,” Vinnie said. “Sleep, my darling.”

Priscilla nodded. “Vinnie,” she said when he reached the door. “Maria and I shall be quite all right, you know—if you feel that you must go.”

He looked at her and scowled that the tears not come into his eyes. “Don’t say that, Priscilla. Don’t make it easy for my conscience to rule against my heart so soon.”

But that summer Vinnie drilled with a target and rifle club, and in the autumn was offered a lieutenancy by Thomas Francis Meagher, once a Young Irelander, known in ’48 as Meagher of the Sword, in the Irish Brigade. Vinnie accepted. By Christmas they were encamped outside Alexandria, Virginia.

4

September 4, 1862

MY BELOVED HUSBAND,

Where this will find you, I do not know. I can only pray that they know in Washington where you are. I have read all the newspapers and all of them saying different things, alas. And alas, none of them very encouraging. Papa says I shouldn’t read them at all, that they are a bundle of lies, that when reports tell of a great victory it means that Gen. McClellan has again retreated. Reading now what I just wrote, it sounds as though papa has turned doughface. He hasn’t. But everyone is frightfully concerned about the suspension of habeas corpus, and the politicians are making the most of it. But what do you care about politicians—and what do I care about anything except my beloved’s safety? I hear so little from you, Vinnie. Do not try to spare me your ordeal. I am quite as capable of suffering as I shall be of joy when you come home to me.

In Newport I followed your instructions and took Maria and myself to a photographer. I am sending you the results for which I can only pray you will some day forgive me. But perhaps you will remember us better for saying—oh, no, this is not my family! I tried to paint you a miniature of Her Grace, but I could not. She is as hard to catch as smoke these days, and now can say “papa.” Alas, she says it to her grandfather and her Uncle Alex. (He’s home on leave. I thought surely he would have seen you, but no.) And to her new uncle, Jeb, Anne’s husband, and to Stephen and even to Jem who takes a dim view of babies. He likes frogs and kittens much better, and adores puppy dogs. He has long conversations with them. He and Nancy went up with us, by the way. But not Delia. I cannot quite understand her these days. Stephen is working very hard, sixteen hours a day sometimes. I don’t know just what it is he does, something with the placement of immigrants under the Federal Government. Everyone says he’s doing a splendid job, and my father says that if such a bureau had been set up twenty years ago the Irish would not be in such low esteem today. A good many people have refused to work. I suppose I shouldn’t tell you something like that, but truly, Vinnie, one cannot blame them. Prices have gone so high and wages are low. (This I get from Stephen. Papa says—Damnation, draft ’em into the army. See if those wages suit ’em. Then, of course, he contributes more than he can afford to the relief of their children.) But that, too, the politicians are making the most of. I am afraid there is no doubt at all that Mr. Seymour will be elected governor. There is much talk of a draft if Mr. Lincoln doesn’t get his 300,000 volunteers. I am heartsick afraid they are not coming, Father Abraham, no matter what the song says. And I shall turn Bloomer if necessary to promote the draft. How dare they promenade up Broadway, court their girls in the park, tailor in the best of fashion, and not of shoddy either while my darling carries a gun, my darling who needs to grit his teeth before killing a fly. Oh, dearest one, I do not want you to have to kill. Then when I think of what the choice might be, oh my God, my God, be merciful. I am aged with fear for you as you say you are aged for having watched younger men than yourself die. Shall we never be young again? So soon. But I must tell you, dearest one, we shall be. When you come home and Maria calls you “papa” you will know how young the world is for us yet. And when I feel your body warm with mine and mine with yours, and I shall feel the beginning of life again within me, I shall believe truly then that we are neither dead nor old.

I started a long time ago in this to tell you about Delia. How I do ramble! Wait till you see the park now. The new reservoir. No. Not till I tell you about Delia. Not that there is anything to tell especially. But I cannot understand her. Except for calling Mr. Lincoln “that vulgar man” once in a while, she doesn’t say a word against the North—“I reckon it had to be”—she says, and you remember what she was like when she came home from Charleston. But she was supposed to go to Newport with us. Mother really put herself to an extreme test of charity to invite her. And it was all arranged. Then two days before we were to leave, Delia called on me and asked if we should mind taking Jem and Nancy. She felt she didn’t want to leave Stephen for the week, even. So she said. But Vinnie, Stephen was in Washington most of that week. Isn’t that strange? Mother will never invite her again of course.

Judge Grisholm called himself with your quarterly draft on the firm. A handsome sum which I duly deposited. He is such a dear old gentleman. He calls you his boy. “What word from my boy, Mrs. Dunne? Such a shame to interrupt a career like his. We’re waiting him. Tell him we’re waiting him. I’ve got to retire one of these days. Got to retire.”

Now, my darling, I must go up and see to our daughter. I like to attend to her supper myself although Nurse is very good. We sit down Maria and I and we pretend we have you between us. We lean across you to put bites into each other’s mouths. I must say your place is very untidy. Vinnie, dear Vinnie, I can scarcely bear to end this, but you will never have it if I don’t. I sometimes wonder if I write for you or for myself. There. Maria has ended it for me. Very unsentimental, your daughter. Or perhaps that cry means—“Give papa a kiss for me.” A kiss from her, a heart from me. I shall not need it until you bring it home with you. Adieu, beloved husband. I lie down at your side wherever you are tonight.

Pris

Headquarters Hospital

Washington

January 1, 1863

My dearest wife and little one:

I wonder if you received the few poor words I wrote you three days ago. If you did you will now know how rapid is my recovery. I am said to be Dr. Morgan’s work of art, and surely no one was ever required to make more of an exhibit of himself. I am thinking of charging admissions. I might contribute the sum to a fund for indigent generals. The worst you have read about Fredericksburg is true. Or as close to the truth as someone who had not lain upon the field amongst the dead could come to it.

Do not ever, ever allow to your presence, my darling, any calumniator of the Irish. We are a magnificent race and our courage is equal to that of any people upon earth. Our brigade lost 545 out of 1315 men at Marye’s Hill. Poor Jamie Lavery. Do you remember, I wrote you of having him in my outfit. He fell in the second charge. God was merciful. He died while his comrades were yet advancing. I must visit his mother. I have a few poor things of his to give her. I remember how very kind she was to me my first day in America. I seem to have lost my own treasures—your dear, dear letters. If they have fallen into enemy hands I must now be the most envied Federal alive.

I have thought a great deal about the Irish as I lie here. You must understand, dearest, that I have lived intimately with these brave lads for more than a year, and sometimes now I find myself telling their names, like the beads on a rosary. Gen. Meagher knows Stephen, of course, having been in the Young Ireland movement. Meagher has little patience with the American Irish. But I seem to remember Stephen’s saying he has little patience at all. And that is the truth. He is a brave man, but a rash one. In the end I think that men like Stephen and Thomas Davis and Fenton Lalor will have profited Ireland more. These names are strange to you, I know. Davis and Lalor were Young Irelanders and are long dead. But ask Stephen about them.

My own men would turn upon me for what I am about to say and knowing the fierceness of their loyalty to that in which they believe, I should honor them for it. But how much longer than it should will it take Ireland to gain her freedom when she must do it on terms satisfactory to a Universal church? A church which for its own propagation must content and contain its faithful in every country, and therefore must compromise the grievances of one to the ambitions of another?

But for that matter, Pris, why are most churches in this country so conservative of slavery? Not to estrange their Southern brethren must surely be the reason. Can you think what a blow they could strike for peace and justice if tomorrow in every pulpit of the land, North and South, our reverend gentlemen of all persuasions would rise and declare excommunicant all condoners of human—nay inhuman servitude? What in God’s name are the pulpits for if not this?

Well, I myself have been a long time signing in with the Abolitionists. But then, so has Father Abraham. The Emancipation Proclamation—what will history say of it, what of this day, January 1, 1863? Perhaps it will make us all free, to soon go about the proper business of New Year’s Day. I wonder who is calling upon you at this moment, who is paying appropriate if inadequate tribute to Her Grace. I cannot find you, Pris. I look and look and I try to remember, but too much that is too terrible has happened for me to conjure a serene image of my beloved family. I tell myself that you will find me, and I believe it, but I cannot feel it. And nothing frightens me quite as much as their promise here that I shall soon be able to come home again. Sometimes, God help me, I feel that I should have more courage if they told me I was about to die. I know that it is cowardly and unmanly of me to write these things to you, for I know they will make you suffer. But I think in my not altogether logical way, that this is how you wish it, and that this is how we shall find each other again. Oh Pris, come to me. I don’t mean to Washington. That would be more than I could bear just now. But send me some little part of you, of your soul—I almost had it then. I am alive. There is fire yet in my heart. Oh darling girl breathe quick upon it, for I do feel something now when I say I love you, Priscilla.

Vinnie

5

“WELL,” SAID DENNIS, “THANK God I put Kevin in the boy’s place when he went.”

“How can you think of business at a time like this?” said Norah.

“I’m not thinkin’ of the business at all, woman. I’m thinkin’ of how it’s kept his mind off his troubles.”

“And what’s to keep Mary’s off hers? Oh, what has any woman bearin’ sons but trouble? Peace or war, men are killin’ creatures.”

“Aye,” said Dennis. “The world should be made up of women only. Gentle and lovin’ they are, and forever keepin’ the peace like your sister.”

Norah began to weep.

“Will you stop your greetin’ till Mary gets here and you have somethin’ decent to cry over.”

“Peg was ever decent, Dennis. You’ll not tell me she’s not.”

“Do you know where she’d be right now if it wasn’t for me? The Island. Aye, Blackwell’s Island, and maybe the workhouse ’ud be better for her than some of the houses she’s workin’ in.”

“I do wish she’d come home,” Norah said. “Did you ask her, Dennis?”

“She knows the number. She’ll come when she’s ready.”

Norah wiped her eyes with her apron. “Do you know, Dennis, I’d love to take the childer’ and maybe Peg and go over home for a year.”

“I can’t leave the county much less the country, Norah. By the bloody law now the niggers are free to roam the nation but if a white man crosses the county line, he’s arrested for evadin’ the service.”

“I was thinkin’ you’d stay yourself,” Norah said quietly, “and we’d go till the war’s over.”

Dennis looked at her and felt a sudden lump in his throat. “So it’s come to that, is it. You could go without me and never a pang?”

“I couldn’t count the pangs I’ve had for you, husband of mine. I may as well say it out. I had no name for them till you came back from Charleston. There was always a good reason for the things you did till then, or so I told myself.”

“And what am I doin’ now offends you?”

“You are not the man I married, Dennis. Him I will love forever.”

“You haven’t told me what I’m doin’ offends you. Do I mistreat the childer’? Did I begrudge a livin’ to your father? Do I lock the door of my house on your sister as many a decent man would, himself in the public eye? Or is it you’ve turned political and my record for peace offends you?”

“None of that,” Norah said, “though I’d rather you didn’t spout it in front of Mary and Kevin.”

“It ought to be spouted in front of them. If every Irishman in this city and every workin’ man stood up and said, ‘This is not my war, boys. I’ll neither fight nor starve for it while the rest of you are makin’ fortunes’, it ’ud be over in the mornin’.” Norah gave a great sigh. “Am I wearyin’ you with such talk? You haven’t answered my question. What’ve I done wrong?”

“Vinnie Dunne studied years to become a lawyer,” Norah burst out, “and you had yourself made one overnight by one of them judges.”

Dennis laughed. “All you’re sayin’ is he’s a better lawyer than I am, and I’d be the first to admit that. I’ve no intention of practicin’, if that’s what’s troublin’ you, and I know a mite more of the law than you credit, more than a few of them practicin’ it today with all their degrees and their pedigrees.”

“If you’ve no intention of practicin’ what’d you do it for?”

“There was a day, Norah, when I’d’ve confided it to you afore takin’ the step. But I amn’t the only one changed in this house. I’ll tell you this and no more: there might be an office I’d run for next fall and I want to be ready. Now you know more than most.”

“And I care more than most, if you don’t mind my sayin’ it.”

“Norah, Norah, let us count our blessin’s,” Dennis said, standing at the window. “Look at the two of them comin’ up the street now. That’s my brother Kevin and his wife bowed down. I never heard a laugh like hers. Like the peal of a church bell it was, and never a sound these months. Why the hell did he have to come tellin’ her all of it now, and her gettin’ over it?”

“She wasn’t gettin’ over it at all, Dennis, not believin’ him dead. Maybe she’ll have some peace now.”

“Peace!” he cried. “Look at them, Norah.” He caught her wrist and pulled her close to the window. “Look at them and say ‘I’m for the war’ if you can. Tell me a nation of niggers is worth it. Tell me it’s right to march an army of them through the lines of workers stayin’ off for a livin’ wage so they can work for half a livin’ and say ‘thank you, Massa Ab’ram’. Aye, and the police clubbin’ down the white men to let them through. Whatever Fernandy was he wouldn’t’ve had that when he was mayor, I’ll tell you. God’s curse on the ape in the White House! I’ll say it if I hang for it, and then you can take the childer’ and go back to Ireland where the tyrant at least is a white man.”

Before night fell, Kevin was persuaded into a tour of the markets and the promise to be on the job in the morning. What children are to women in time of trouble, Dennis thought, work is to a man. He was by no means sure that Kevin had the brains of his son, Jamie, having lost his own business, but he was determined to carry him now till he proved it. And oh, what a blessing it was to get out of the house. If they weren’t crying over Jamie they were maudlin over Vinnie Dunne. There was never a lad like him come out of Ireland, or anywhere else for that matter, and his poor leg shot up so’s he hobbled with a cane, and never a thought between them, the women, that if the captain came home with a ball in his leg, the corporal lay where he fell. They didn’t have to carry him back from ole Virginny.

When the men reached home again a message had come for Dennis. “Tell him,” Norah repeated it, “there’s a fine buy on the goose tonight.” Dennis swallowed down his tea.

“Let me go,” said Kevin.

Dennis laughed. “You wouldn’t know a goose from a goblin,” he said. “The women have need of your company.” He took his hat then and a fresh handkerchief. “Don’t wait up if I’m late, Norah, and you don’t need to leave the lights.”

He walked the few blocks to the house off Washington Square, and there in the window was the porcelain goose. He took his handkerchief from his pocket, shook it out and blew his nose as he went up the stoop. The door opened without his knocking.

“How very nice to see you again,” Delia Farrell said.

Dennis watched at the parlor door while she took the goose from the window and set it upon the mantel, returning then to the vestibule. “How’s your husband?” he asked.

“He’s just fine—unless the Yankees are evacuatin’ Washington. That’s where he is just now.” She lowered a bell from the ceiling to where it would clang if the outer door opened.

“’Tis obligin’ of him to go so often,” Dennis said.

Delia smiled, taking up the lamp. “Patriotic, Mr. Lavery. He’s very patriotic. The other gentlemen are waitin’ for you.”

Dennis marveled at her coolness as he followed her down the narrow steps. He shook hands with the Southern courier and a gentleman of the New York pacifist press, but he could scarcely take his eyes from Delia where she seated herself at a great hand loom and began to weave. If the alarm sounded she would rise and go up with a ball of yarn in her hand—or maybe just sit, to be discovered alone and weaving in the dreary hours of the night while he and the others vanished out the cellar door. And he could believe she would not so much as lift her eyes at their departure.

6

THE FARRELLS AND THE Dunnes met at St. Paul’s that Sunday morning in July. It was Maria’s first appearance in church since her christening, and except for the sermon, she took to it very politely. Vinnie was glad enough to take her outside through that, and as he was going he winked at the pleading-eyed Jem, and the boy accompanied him. There was talk on the steps of nothing but Gettysburg, and the victory it was told had been won there. Lee was said to be withdrawing South. Everyone said it would make the draft more palatable, even in New York City. Hadn’t the first day’s drawing gone off without incident? And this despite the Copperhead orators. A swarm of newsboys came screaming “extries” and more men came out of the church. Vinnie had Jem get two pence from his pocket and buy the paper. He was able to manage his cane and Maria, but a fly on his nose, he thought, could enjoy the sun there.

Jem, his head reaching now to Vinnie’s chest, read him the “Latest”, the names drawn in the Saturday draft: John Reilly, drayman, Fourth Ward; Philip Tone, laborer, Fourth Ward; Michael Sheahan, laborer, Sixth Ward; Thomas Davitt, chandler, First Ward; Simon Hinternhoff…”

“How did that one get in there?” Vinnie said.

“I beg your pardon, Uncle Vinnie?”

“Never mind,” Vinnie said.

In the carriage on the way home, Vinnie showed the extra to Stephen who glanced down the list. “Well, they chose a fine day for it,” Stephen said, “the twelfth of July.”

“That’s right,” Vinnie said. “Orangeman’s Day. Do you think they’ll make something of it?”

Stephen shrugged.

“There will be no talk of the war in our house, today, gentlemen,” Priscilla said.

“Oh, don’t make the rule on my account,” said Delia. “I feel now like I got the plague, people shyin’ off when I come near.”

“I’ve never done that, Delia,” Priscilla said, “even when Vinnie was away.”

“Bless you, honey, you’re my only friend,” Delia said, patting Priscilla’s hand. “You and Nancy. Poor old dear, she don’t know which side she’s on.”

“I’m on both sides,” Jem said, “only more on papa’s.”

“When the war is over, Jem,” Stephen said, “you and your mother and I shall go to Charleston, and you will see how lovely it is, and there will be no more sides.”

“I shall never go to Charleston again,” Delia said, “if the Yankees get there before me.”

She was docile as a dove, Vinnie thought, as long as the Rebels were winning. But the vixen was coming out now. “I expect Pris is right,” he said, “we’d better talk about the weather and the park. I say it is beautiful. Perhaps we can take a drive there this afternoon.”

“Along with everyone else in New York,” Stephen said. “I wish you ladies had been persuaded to go to the country without us, however flattering Vinnie and I find your devotion.”

“Perhaps tomorrow,” Vinnie said. He had been watching the streets as the carriage drove north. In the poorer sections of town there was an uncommon activity for Sunday, men gathering in clusters, and everywhere amongst them someone was waving a newspaper in his clenched fist.

“I shall not leave the city this week,” Delia said, and Vinnie glancing at her without raising his head, thought there was an extraordinary brilliance to her eyes. He sighed. He was quite capable of imagining anything these days. Too much work too soon.

“And I shan’t go without Delia,” Priscilla said.

7

THE LAVERYS WENT TO early Mass that morning and Dennis, having gone downtown from there, was late getting home to dinner. “I can’t keep the poor girl in the scullery all day,” Norah chided, speaking of her sweep.

Dennis ate in silence and then sent the children from the room. “I’ve decided to take you and the childer’ to the ocean,” he said.

“To the ocean?” Norah repeated.

“Aye. To the seashore. It’s goin’ to be a perishin’ week of heat they say, and I’d like you out of it.”

“Oh, Dennis, that’ll be lovely. And what are we keepin’ our money for if not for somethin’ like this?” She thought about it for a moment. “Or is it there’s trouble you’re takin’ us out of?”

“You’ll have trouble enough gettin’ ready by tea time,” he said.

“Tea time? Oh, I couldn’t do that.”

“You can and you must, Norah, if I’m to go with you. Or would you rather I didn’t?”

“Don’t be witherin’ me with your tongue, Dennis. It’s only yourself ever keeps you from us.”

“Then it’s myself that’s takin’ you,” he said, and began to see nothing but pleasure in the jaunt. “Do you know who’ll be our neighbor? The governor of New York, no less.”

“Do I need to take clothes for that?” cried Norah.

“I’d better not catch you without them for that,” said Dennis.

“You know what I mean.”

“Can you swim, Norah?”

She threw back her head in laughter. “Like a wheelbarra’.”

Oh Lord, Lord, Dennis thought, going out of the house, why had he never thought of this before necessity prompted it? A rig was waiting him at the corner, and he drove downtown to the Mechanics’ Hall in the Fourth Ward first. There a crew of men was working on placards:

NO DRAFT

NO $300 ARRANGEMENTS FOR US

“Haven’t you a better word than ‘arrangements’?” said Dennis. “If I have I can’t spell it,” the man said. “Then I’ll give you words you can spell,” said Dennis. “‘The poor man’s blood for the rich man’s money,’ write that.” He went next on a tour of the fire houses. “All I’m askin’ mind, if you’re told to bear arms, make sure who you’re bearin’ them against. We’ll kill the bloody draft for once and all. If the war’s to free the niggers, then let the niggers fight it. They’re talkin’ now in the legislature of a full time, full pay fire department. You know who’ll be the first in line for your jobs then, don’t you? Aye, like it happened on the docks, it can happen to you, my boys, so stand fast by your rights and to hell with the nigger.” His last arrangement of the afternoon was to provide arms for those key men who might need them for their own protection—the best arms Rebel money could buy, and for them he had spent the gold provided him. Not a cent of it had gone into his own pocket. No traffic in shoddy for Dennis Lavery.

It was almost midnight by the time Dennis had his family settled at the New Jersey watering place, and not until noon the next day did he make his presence known to the governor—in time to get word that there was rioting in New York City. The enrollment office at Forty-sixth Street and Third Avenue had been destroyed. Seymour could not help remarking that he had foreseen it, and Dennis said, “Oh, aye, and didn’t you prophesy it on the Fourth of July?” The next telegraph brought word of an attack on the home of the Republican mayor, Opdyke, whom Dennis predicted was by that hour as far from the city as they were—a man without guts if he didn’t have an army to call out, and Lincoln had called all the soldiery from the city to hasten the rout of Lee. And the next word then was that the Draft was suspended, and Dennis went down to bathe with his children. He had never felt the power within him as great, and the only peace he ever knew in his life came to him, whatever the battle, after he knew he had won it. While the children were puddling nearby, he fell asleep in the sand.

Norah shook him awake and his first thought was what the devil was she doing there at an hour the ladies were prohibited the beach. “Dennis, they’re lookin’ all over for you. They say New York is in flames!”

Dennis ran back to the hotel where he read the last dispatch before the wires out of New York had gone dead. The Twenty-second Street arsenal was burning, hundreds of rioters trapped within it. The colored orphan asylum was burned to the ground, the Tribune building threatened. The fools, Dennis thought, the bloody fools, to let things get out of hand, and the whole purpose accomplished by noon.

Dennis left for the city immediately, carrying word that Governor Seymour would arrive in the morning. Norah’s parting words to him were: “Find Peg. Promise me you’ll find her, or I’m comin’ home with you now.”

Dennis gave his promise.

The ferries were running all night, carrying women and children out of the city. It was, by report, the only transport in motion. The cars and the busses were lined up abandoned, and the sky was alight with the fires. Two navy gunboats guarded the Battery, their guns trained, should the Treasury come under attack. A drizzle of rain started as Dennis put his foot on land, and he prayed it would soon come a deluge. He first made his way to downtown police headquarters. Men were stretched on the floor, their sticks in their hands, sweating and stinking from the day’s exhaustion and the unmerciful muggy heat. The mayor, Dennis learned, his house twice attacked, had set up his office in the St. Nicholas Hotel. Dennis sent him the governor’s message. All night long the work of repairing the telegraph went on. If the rioters stayed in out of the rain by morning the police would have contact with each other, and the city with the rest of the land.

Every grog-hole was crowded, Dennis perceived, crowded and spilling as he reached Chatham Street, swarming with men far gone in liquor, and sprinkled with women who’d gone a bit farther. That was the curse he had not counted on, being himself a man of abstinence. He could hear them bragging the stores they had pillaged and giving a cheer for the ones they’d cage in the morning. God keep us from morning, he prayed, and commenced a tour of the dance halls. Wherever they saw him, the ones who could see gave a great shout for Lavery. He could but wave and wish them peace, and for that they were willing to riot. If it wasn’t so fearsome, he thought, it would surely be magnificent.

“Peg? Peg Stuart? Yes, she was here all right. God be praised she took her custom elsewhere!”

“Peg? Oh, yes. There’s the remains she left us,” and a sweep of the hand showed a heap of smithered glass and chairs and bottles.

Then Dennis caught up with her entourage in transit, a dancing, prancing swirl of urchins, some in long pants rolled up at the ankles, the price tickets hanging yet from their backsides. Boots they were carrying they couldn’t put on, and fancy pillow covers were draping their heads. They were trailing elegant shawls, sweeping the streets with white linens, pelting each other with apples and lemons, and singing the songs of the war, Dixie Land and Johnny Comes Marching Home. “My eyes!” they cried, “my eyes! ’Tis gallus, gorgeous, grand.” Mine eyes have seen the glory of the comin’ of the Lord. The children’s crusade.

Dennis plowed through them, but he could not crash the inner guard, a shoulder-busting ring of toughs, sports of the town, its gambling men, his own dear ballot-box brigade. Join them he could, but not go through them, and there was Peg, skipping into the dance hall before them. The b’hoys swept after her and about her, two of them lifting her up to a table.

“A drink for the honor of Peg,” they cried. “A round of drinks for Mrs. Stuart!”

“Peg takes nothing she doesn’t earn, my gallants!” she cried. “You there, at the fiddle, and you at the drums, give us a jig I can buy with!”

A scratch and a squeak and a muddle of thumps was the best the poor players could manage, but little odds that for them that had tongues soon drowned them. The windows, the roof, the house from its foundation jangled with the roar. Half the city it seemed crowded in with their coming. High, high, Peg kicked, her toes shooting out like flames. Her hair was wild and her eyes still wilder and the sweat glistened down her breast. Her face was red, her throat and her chest, and the scars shone out of it white like lightnings.

Oh, my God, my God, Dennis thought and the tears welled into his eyes. He made his way to the bar and demanded a glass and a bottle. With them over his head he was made way for and by the dance’s end he stood beneath her, coaxing.

Peg looked down. Her eyes were glazed but she knew him. She gave him her hand, but instead of coming down she pulled him up, and the boys beneath were quick to boost him.

“My brother-in-law, Dennis Lavery!”

Oh, what a shout went up! Enough to carry all the way to the White House.

Damn the draft.

Bloody the perlice.

Burn the niggers.

Hang old Greeley on a sour apple tree.

Are ye listenin’, Father Abraham? We’re acomin’ for yer, a hundred thousand strong.

Dennis wiped the sweat from his face. He caught Peg’s wrist and held her close to him. “You’re comin’ home with me now, my girl.”

“Home!” Peg cried. “Where in the name of Christ is home?”

“No, no!” those within hearing shouted.

“God damn it,” Dennis shouted at her, “you’re comin’ out of this.”

But Peg gave him a shove that tumbled him over the edge of the table and into the arms of them crowding below. Some bloody fool picked him up by the head, and somebody cuffed his ear. Dennis sickened with fear. One blow, then another caught him, tobacco juice sprayed into his face and his one hope was to get his feet on the floor. He was kicked and shoved and hoisted, and finally flung out on the street. There the arabs lept upon him, caging his watch, his purse, his tie pin, and at last while he lay still playing dead, they pulled the shoes from his feet and left him.

8

VINNIE AND STEPHEN WORKED side by side the first day of the riot, trying to rescue the wounded. By the second day both men armed themselves and volunteered to fight. Neither of them said it, but Vinnie knew that without Stephen, he would have been tortured at the prospect of firing upon Irish men and women armed only with whiskey and bricks. And they were Irish, mostly. It could not be denied. Justice might sanction their revolt, but not their riot. But where poverty and degradation have tasted a little power, who will say “enough!” These were not evil people, Vinnie swore. Yet horrors of their perpetration stank upon the streets. He and Priscilla had turned their house into a hospital where rioters and police alike were treated. A sign of mercy was hung up outside, and ambulances came often to the door. Dressings and help were supplied from the New York Infirmary, and Vinnie thought that a mercy depot was the surest hope for his home’s safety, although he doubted that such a thought had ever occurred to his wife.

And now he was taking arms himself in another part of the city. They were moving, Invalid Corps and Volunteers, their muskets and carbines ready, upon the mile long barricade thrown up overnight out of rail ties, furniture, carts and telegraph trees. Stephen’s face was as gray as the paving stones. Vinnie suspected he had never fired a gun in his life. The police sent in the first round of shot and the screaming mob fell back. It was then that Vinnie and Stephen saw, stark against the smoke, the man’s body hanging from a lamp post. They had been told of such things, but this was their first sight of it. Not even waiting for a signal, Stephen ran forward, firing, and when the gun was empty turning its butt upon any who stood in his way. The wrath of the wounded, the soul-wounded, Vinnie thought. He knew it well from seeing comrades fall. They broke through the barricade at that point, and some of the mob retreated into the buildings, jeering, pelting down sticks of furniture, stones, whatever their fury could loose. Some climbed to the rooftops, women as well as men. Vinnie was slow with his blasted limp. Stephen and a policeman had cut down the maimed body from the post.

“He’s a white man,” Stephen said.

Vinnie saw the face then, the enormous head, the better by which to hang him. “Oh, Jesus,” Vinnie said. “Jesus, Jesus.” He looked up to where the women were howling curses from the tenement roof. Then he turned and vomited. When there was nothing left in him, he looked back to where Stephen and the other man were loading the body into a cart. He called Stephen’s name, and Farrell came to him.

“That’s the artist, Jabez Reed,” Vinnie said. “Stephen, I think Peg is on the rooftop.”

Stephen’s mouth trembled and then toughened to a hard, vicious line. He put his gun in Vinnie’s hand and strode through a shower of spit and stones to the building. Vinnie lifted his own musket to cover him. Then she came to the very edge of the roof, teetering there, her legs spread, her hands on her hips and giving a spit below herself. It was Peg all right, the bold she! Vinnie had not thought of that for years. What a terrible unity there was in all their lives. The volunteers were moving down on the barricades, breaking them up, driving the mob south before them with grape, and as they went another horde swept out of their shelters and set about rebuilding their wall to the north. Vinnie saw a soldier turn and take aim at Peg.

“Hold your fire!” he shouted.

When he looked up again, Peg put her hand to her face as though she would shield it from his eyes. She had seen him. She drew back then, and from the scream out over the noise of the mob, Vinnie knew she had fled into Stephen’s arms. Thank God, Vinnie thought, he did not need to witness that meeting. Waiting, waiting, he suddenly took fear for Stephen. This woman was not sane. Jabez Reed had been horribly mutilated. Vinnie was rallying help to follow him in when she and Stephen came out, arm in arm, onto the street, the confused crowd cheering them.

“I’m taking Mrs. Stuart to her sister,” Stephen said in a voice Vinnie had never heard.

“That’s Vinnie,” was all Peg said, and after one glance at her he could not take another. She was covered with filth and blood. The smell of it rose from her. Her hair was matted, her eyes bloodshot, and her dress so torn that one breast shone out of the bodice.

“Will I come?” said Vinnie.

“If you will,” said Stephen. “Can you get us transport? None of us will be missed here.”

Vinnie commandeered an ambulance van and drove the horse himself. Sitting stiffly, his back to the gate, Stephen held the woman gone spent in his arms.

It was Dennis Lavery who came to the door at their pounding. He was bruised and bandaged, and his first words: “So you found her, God damn her craven soul.”

“The same to you,” said Vinnie. “Where’s Norah?”

A servant girl came then and helped them take Peg to a bed. To her Vinnie put the same question. “Where’s Mrs. Lavery?”

“Her and the childer’ went to the seashore Sunday,” the girl said.

“And where was Mr. Lavery then?”

“Mr. Lavery returned last night,” Dennis said from the door, “if it’s any concern of yours.”

“I promise you, Dennis, I shall try and make it mine,” Vinnie said. “I have heard you cheered too often today, you and Tweed and Seymour—and a sheriff that’s at home in a mob, but couldn’t stand by his regiment when the fighting started in Virginia.”

“Go to hell,” said Dennis. “I was beat up myself last night. Look at me.”

“Wear it in health,” said Vinnie, “as Mr. Finn would have said. Or don’t you remember him?”

Stephen and Vinnie climbed to the seat of the van and Vinnie turned the horse around. For some way they drove in silence. The streets were all but deserted. Finally Stephen roused himself from his thoughts. “I want to go home,” he said. “If this is the turn things have taken, I’m fearful for Nancy.”

“We’re closer now to my house,” Vinnie said. “Do you mind if we stop there first?” They were passing through the scene of the previous day’s rioting. All was quiet now, ominously quiet, with the sound of gunshot reverberating in the distance. The cars here were lined up unattended, the tracks twisted out of their beds.

“Can’t you move the damned horse any faster?” Stephen cried. “If men can run why should beasts have leisure?”

Vinnie cracked the whip, realizing the sudden terror that had come upon the man beside him. “Only a minute, Stephen,” he said as they turned into his block and he pulled up the horse. At the door he gave the reins over, but he had not stepped down when he saw Jem at the window. “They’re here, Stephen. All’s well.”

“Thank God,” Farrell said, and jumped down.

Vinnie needed to hitch the horse to the post and by the minute it took to do that, Jem had run out and into his father’s arms on the step, and Vinnie knew that all was not well.

In the parlor, the boy sobbed out his story. They had come to the door, a gang of men with clubs and sticks, asking for the nigger. Delia had told them she was gone away, shipped back to South Carolina, gentlemen. And Nancy was all the while in the commode. The men had gone across the street and Delia got Nancy from the commode and pushed her down the cellar steps. She made Jem promise to lead the woman out the cellar door and to the police at the corner station. Nancy was so slow, being big and terribly scared, and the men had come back while she was still on the stairs. Mama got the sword from the wall, and Jem heard her screaming at them while he coaxed Nancy out the back way. They two went through Mrs. Oglethorpe’s yard and then Mr. Oglethorpe came out and took him and Nancy another way to the police and then brought Jem here.

“You are a very brave lad,” Stephen said. “You stay here now and help Aunt Pris.”

“Stephen,” Priscilla said then, “don’t go home.”

“No?” he asked, somewhat bewildered, and very docile.

“Don’t you understand?” Jem said. “They took the sword away from mama and they killed her. The police came and told us she was the bravest woman in New York.”

PART IX

1

“I’M OBLIGED TO YOU, Judge, for dismissin’ the charges. I’ll vouchsafe he behaves from now on…” How many times during the weeks that followed the riots Dennis said those words, pushing them out with a smile though his gorge rose with them. There was not a man he let down for all that he felt himself let down by having to plead for their freedom. Still, they were a penitent lot he got off, only waiting the chance to get back in his favor. And some in high places had learned a good lesson: they knew now the strength of the people in temper.

“Aye, she’ll be on the best of behavior hereafter, your honor.”

There was the promise to stick a man with! Him needing to crave the court’s pardon for a woman giving her address his own house, and getting no thanks at home. “If I’d’ve been here,” said Norah, “it wouldn’t’ve happened in the first place.”

Wouldn’t it now, Dennis thought, but he said not a word. Like the old fellow in the White House put it, you shouldn’t be sitting on one volcano and scratching the top of another. He was a queer lot, that old one. With his ugly mug and his easy gab, he was as common a man as there was on the street. They’d soon turn him back to where he belonged, the aristocrats, when they’d used him.

Well, Douglas was in his grave. The truth be told, he prospered Lavery as well there as he would have in the White House, Democrat or no. This way Lavery had standing at least in the party. He’d been right three years ago saying Douglas couldn’t win, and he’d like to be right a year hence, saying who could. If he couldn’t be right, he’d rather be quiet, for he was a young man still, the war couldn’t last forever, and it was the war that blighted his prospects. Of all the friends he had made in Washington, no more than a handful were left, the rest of them out of the Union completely. It was a bad piece of luck sent him into high company so late…or maybe so early. Sure that was the way he must see it. All in all, it was a hard dilemma for a man to be in: here he was at the height of his power with the people, with the lower wards and them to the east willing and eager now to carry him anywhere, and him, you might say, with no place to go!

Horatio Seymour made it known that he would like Lavery on his ticket when he ran for re-election as governor that fall. It wasn’t Lavery he wanted, Dennis thought, near so much as the Lavery votes. And it wasn’t governor he wanted to be near so much as president, and nary the chance of that if he wasn’t sitting in the governor’s chair when the time came round.

“Once I can smell the ambition on a man’s breath,” Dennis said, talking it over with the big man at Tammany, “I turn my back on him quick.”

Tweed smiled, for he was not ambitious of office himself. “What do you do for your own breath, Lavery?”

“I eat the first thing I can get my hands on,” Dennis said bluntly. “’Tis only stale ambition offends me.”

It was decided to run Lavery at the county level for Recorder on the ticket headed by Seymour. Dennis was well pleased in it. He would be going before the people on his own behalf and, not needing to worry about the upstate vote, he was sure of winning whatever happened to Seymour, aye, and a snug office in which to ride out the national storm in politic safety.

2

NEVER WAS THERE A time it so little honored a New York man to boast his Irish origins as in the autumn of 1863. Even the mention of Marye’s Hill brought scoffing. “Sure,” Vinnie heard said in a mock Irish accent, “the trouble there was they confused the tune, mistaking a charge for retreat. What a bloody surprise when they got the grape in their faces instead of their backsides.” Bloody enough, Vinnie thought, and for the first time looked over his medals. He was of half a mind to wear them and a shamrock, to appeal to the President himself if necessary for some new military privilege. “But don’t you see,” Priscilla said, “such violent attrition only gains more notice to something best forgotten.” “What would you have me do?” “Only your work as Vincent Dunne, Counselor-at-Law.”

Priscilla was right as she usually was, and Vinnie worked as he had never worked before, and now against odds of an appalling increase: of all the forms corrupted in the decade, the most frightening was the New York bench. Then came the announced candidacy of Dennis Lavery for Recorder by which office he would sit as judge in Special Sessions Court.

“By what right?” Vinnie cried.

“Rather, by what privilege,” Stephen said. “The privilege of office bestowed by the rights of the people.”

“You must oppose him, Stephen.”

“No. I’ve given up The Democracy and its conventions.”

“You cannot. I don’t believe you have at all.”

“Shall we talk about Lavery?” Stephen said. “You asked by what right, presumably by what right he deems himself worthy of such office. I doubt he has given a moment’s thought to his qualifications. The fact that there was rioting justified him to himself, and by the peculiar reasoning of a demagogue, the fact that it got out of hand has put the people in his debt. It is now their duty to exercise their rights on his behalf. He has no doubt whatsoever of his ability to sit in judgment of them individually or collectively.”

“To whom does he think he’s responsible?”

“To God, Tweed and Lavery, but not necessarily in that order of importance.”

“After what happened to you, Stephen, won’t you do something about it?”

“Vinnie, Delia’s death was a consummate irony. Whatever I do cannot be predicated on it.”

Vinnie looked at him for a moment, wondering at all the things to which Stephen had maintained an apparent blindness which he could now believe was no blindness at all, but a silent calculation of his own power to change them. This was what Mr. Finn had meant the night he said Stephen would believe what he must believe. “There is a part of you I shall never understand, Stephen,” he said.

“The part that should have been an Englishman, no doubt,” Stephen said wryly, and Vinnie remembered the day he had made the remark: after his graduation. What a long, long time ago!

“Stephen…suppose, mind now just suppose the Union party were to nominate you…”

The man was shaking his head. “I could not defeat him, Vinnie.”

“Would that really matter—if it were true?”

“Very much if they put up a man who can defeat him.”

“And would you work for that candidate?”

“As hard as I have worked for any cause.” Stephen rose from his chair and went to the window, outside which Jem was playing in the garden with Maria. Now that she was of a toddling, chattering age and still of the inclination to adore him, Jem was highly tolerant of her. “When this war is over, Vinnie, I want to take Jem West. I want to open a law office, perhaps in a town like Springfield, Illinois. I might marry again—for Jem’s sake as well as my own, though I’ve no one in mind.”

Vinnie saw the little frown as he hesitated—in memory of someone he might once have married before ever he met Delia? He always built upon his mistakes, but without ever trying to mend them.

“And yet,” Stephen went on, “this city has been my home. It seems now that it chose me rather than my choosing it, and it deserves more of me than I could wish to give.” He turned and looked at his friend. “All my life, Vinnie, more loyalty has been needed of me than I have found it in my power to give. Where is the flaw?”

“Perhaps in your stars after all.”

Stephen smiled. “How easily you give absolution, Father Dunne. I must come oftener to confession.”

Vinnie talked first with Judge Grisholm, and with him went to the Union League Club, where the opinion and advice of other gentlemen were sought. He went also to Mr. Taylor and his friends. Time and again he heard it said there was no doubt that the reluctance of honest men to risk the opprobrium of public office accounted for the situation of the day. His record as Poor Commissioner and in the Immigration office recommended Stephen Farrell to them. “Oh, yes, a fine fellow,” they all agreed, and some remembered him as a good lawyer…“but.” The “but” was never accounted in Vinnie’s presence, yet he knew very well what it was. That Stephen was Irish made the respectability hesitant to act on his behalf.

“Why, sir,” Vinnie said to Judge Grisholm, “it has come now to this: they prefer their prejudice. One good Irishman would destroy it, and that would never do.”

“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.”

3

“GODALMIGHTY,” 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.

“Ho, now boys, hear that!” Dennis boomed from the platform, and even his bullies turned round to hear him. His hands on his hips, he rocked back and forth. “No wonder they’re cheerin’ for Farrell down there. Sure it’s Farrell’s whore that’s playin’ their bugle!”

A whoop of glee went up from the crowd, but through it Peg heard the little moan from Norah. For all she hated Dennis, Peg would have spared Norah this. “We’ll go now quick,” Peg said, and pushed Norah through before her.

“Stand where you are, woman there!” Dennis shouted, and Peg turned back to face him. “Some of you know her for my sister-in-law, aye, and some of you know her for somethin’ else. But let me tell you, boys, there’s none of us know her like Farrell. Now run the strumpet out of here and I’ll document the story.”

Peg fled through the opening made her as though she were untouchable, and then beat off the beggars pursuing Norah to the cab. They needed to rout out the driver where he had burrowed inside for a nap.

“Oh, Norah, I am sorry. I’d not have done that to you.”

“To me?” Norah cried. “Wasn’t it me put the words in his mouth to be twisted, but oh, such a long time ago.”

“Poor Stephen,” Peg said. “It will be in all the papers in the morning.”

“What do I care for him when it’s you that’s knocked down just gettin’ to your feet? Will Mr. Richards hire you now?”

“Do you know, Norah, I hadn’t given him a thought? I don’t suppose I believed it in the first place. I don’t have much faith these days…in any man, though his was a kindness.”

Norah sat quiet for a long ways. Then she said: “I heard him sayin’ the words, but I still can’t believe what I heard.”

“Don’t believe it,” Peg said. “’Tis best for you and for the children. Do you have any money, Norah?”

“A little.”

“Let me have it.”

“I will not.”

“I can’t go back to the house, Norah.”

Norah caught her hand. “I’ll not go back without you. My heart split open tonight as if he took the cleaver to it. Do you think I can go home and wait him lovin’ly? I cannot. Do you think I can wake the childer’ in the mornin’ and tell them to be proud of their father? I cannot.”

“Do you remember, Norah, the night he came home after calling Mr. Finn?”

“Listen to me, Peg, for I’m plannin’. Let the past lie where it’s dead. I’ll take the childer’ from the house this night and go to Mary Lavery’s. I told you her and Kevin are goin’ to Ireland. We’ll go with them, Peg, all of us. I’ve a bit of money laid by.”

“Be sensible, Norah. Do you think he would allow it?”

“He can’t stop me from tryin’ itself.”

Peg laid her head back for a moment and tried to conjure a vision of Ireland. Ah, Norah, there’s nothing there for us at all. Even could you get them there, your children would flee you back as soon as they were fledged. Go a little ways if you can, and then come back as you must. But I shall stay entirely. She helped Norah rouse and dress the children and bade the serving girl pack and go with them. At an odd moment in Norah’s distraction, Peg put her hand in her sister’s purse and drew from it a small share of the money. Only when Peg put them into a cab and wished them Godspeed did Norah realize her intentions.

“You’re comin’, Peg,” she cried.

“Soon. Soon, darling, I’ll follow after.” She slammed the door before Norah could get out, and cried up to the driver. “Go on, sir! Make haste! ’Tis very late!”

4

DENNIS WANTED ALL NIGHT to get away home on the odd chance Peg might show up there before him. Small chance, to be sure, now in reach of the bottle, but the little fears stabbed him the while just the same. Some stupid gob swore he saw Norah with her. When that day arrived he would throw in the cards. But tonight of all nights to let Peg get out! From the days of the riots he’d said she was through and his pact with his wife had been that if ever again she took to the streets the door of their house would be locked against her. She was oiling the lock right now, Dennis thought, in whatever groghole she was snuggled. Tonight of all nights! All over the country the War party was winning, and in New York City if he was a sample, his own brother Kevin was going for Farrell. Dennis couldn’t get home while a vote might be coaxed. Ward after ward, stationhouse by house, and the horse near as spent as himself. He could map the streets of the city, Dennis thought, by the welts on his backside. It was well after midnight when the cartwheel scraped his own curb, and he gave over the reins to the trusty beside him.

“They’re all waitin’ up,” the man said, for the house was aglow with lights.

Dennis gave a great sigh. “Pick me up at seven.”

“I’d lock up the doors just the same tonight, Dennis. Them was awful strong words you used in the park.”

Dennis gave a crack with the whip and flung it after cart and driver. “Get home out of here with your greetin’!”

It was a strange thing, the house bright as day and not a sound in it. Dennis let the door bang, threw the bolt, and waited. Nary a breath nor a whisper save the singing of light jets, and the hall looking different. The clothes stand was stripped. The small army of coats always pleasuring his eye, gone. A clatter came then from the scullery. Dennis ran the length of the house. And there she was in her glory, lining up the bottles and taking their measure. She turned on him, drunk and still drinking. “Welcome home, brother of mine!”

“Where’s Norah?”

“Where’s Norah,” Peg repeated.

“Christ blister you, answer.”

“She’s halfway to Dublin by now in her haste, or maybe it’s halfway back she is.”

Dennis tumbled the bottles with a swipe of his arm and caught up the camphene lamp. He climbed the back stairs three steps at a time, Peg wailing after him out of the dark. All of them gone, his children, lifted out of their sleep and their beds left gaping, and Norah’s not slept in at all. Dublin. Christ, Christ, she might try it, that daft on her sister, and enemies he had willing sure to help her. He climbed to the attic to waken the girl; she could sleep up there through hell’s eruption and Peg was now bearing watching. But the girl, too, was gone. She had emptied the house.

Peg meandered up the front stairs as he reached the landing. “Where did they go this night or I’ll kill you?” Dennis cried.

She dangled a bottle like a trinket from her wrist. “The St. Nicholas I think, or was it the Astor House?”

Dennis slashed his hand across her face. Peg’s head jerked back and the bottle spun from her hand, clinking on the floor. Her teeth shone in the venomous smile. “I just admitted a gentleman downstairs inquiring after you,” she said.

Dennis had but one thought then, to reach the door. He flung Peg from his way and lunged down the stairs. Peg cried out, “Stephen!”

Farrell reached the door before him and barred his way.

“Take the house and all in it,” Dennis cried.

“It’s only you I want,” Farrell said, “and if you go from here it will be with me.”

Dennis eased himself from the stairs for he feared Peg at his back, but she was gone from sight. “Where is it I’m to go?”

“To Nassau Street and swear to a retraction in every newspaper office on it.”

“Shall we take the whore with us?” said Dennis. He saw Farrell’s nostrils whiten and the veins were standing out on his temples. He moistened his lips and held up his hand to make Farrell listen yet. “And while we’re about it, there’s something else I could swear to: The War Democrat’s wife spinnin’ wool in the cellar, aye, and pullin’ it over his eyes comin’ home…”

Farrell said not a word but came on, one step at a time, and Dennis knew then by his hands that he carried no weapon. He climbed a few steps backwards and waited for the fist to come up, to catch the arm and the shoulder and tumble the man on the stairs and then bolt to the door himself. But Farrell never lifted his hands. Walking into whatever blow Lavery might aim, his intent was the same as Dennis’, to ride out the punch and catch the man, and Dennis knew him of old to be quicker. Dennis retreated another step. He’d like to have shot his foot out at him, but he dared not and land on his back if Farrell got hold of it.

“All right,” Dennis said. “I’ll go with you. Wait in the parlor and I’ll come.”

“I wouldn’t trust you from my sight while I blinked my eyes.”

Dennis chanced the kick then for he’d reached the top. Farrell caught his foot but as Dennis went down he caught the rungs of bannister. He could kick his free foot while he clung, and at the same time pulled himself within reach of the bottle where Peg had dropped it. Dennis pistoned both feet like a sledge and loosed the man’s grip, Farrell needing to catch his own balance. Dennis caught up the bottle and cracked off its bottom. A great jagged spear remained, the neck its sturdy handle. He waited. Farrell was coming on again. “Christ!” Dennis cried. “Don’t make me use it!” Farrell quickened his pace; Dennis turned and ran. “’Tis the coward’s friend, the bottle!” Peg sang out of the dark.

Dennis tried to reach the door to his bedroom, but Farrell gave a leap and caught him about the waist. Dennis twisted around and plunged the speared glass again and again into the man’s back until the body went limp at his feet. Only then did Peg show herself, rushing and falling upon the fallen as though she was greedy for the sight, the touch, the blood of him dying. Dennis closed his eyes on it and pulled himself away. Sick of heart, stomach and soul, he groped his way down the stairs and into the street. Not a soul was there upon it, nor in any house save his own a light. At the end of a block he rested, leaning over the stone watering trough. He plunged his hands into the water, cracking the surface of ice, and sluiced his face also and washed the foul motes of dryness from his mouth.

Going on then, he saw a roundsman pass beneath a street lamp and called out to him.

“Mr. Lavery, is it?” the man said, coming up to him.

“Aye,” Dennis said. “I killed a man in my house.”

“One askin’ it, like as not,” the officer said, taking Dennis’ arm.

Dennis tried to tell him on the way of the mad woman waiting them there as well.

But it was no mad woman waited them, only one just dead. In his little absence Peg had put the jagged bottle to a last use, driving it into her own heart.

The policeman looked down at them a long time, complaining of the light from the jet. “Get a lamp, man,” he said, and Dennis obeyed him. But he used the light of it to explore Dennis himself. He said then with great care and meaning, “This is the way you found them when you got home tonight, Mr. Lavery.”

Dennis hid his own eyes from the look in the other’s, a look without horror or pity, ladened only with calculation. He raised his voice and called out: “Norah, Norah, where are you?”

5

NORAH CAME TO THE Dunne house late the next afternoon. She wore a black bonnet and her face beneath it as white as a nun’s wimple. “I’m Mrs. Dennis Lavery,” she said at the door, giving a bob of a curtsy to Priscilla, and unknowing that Vinnie was watching her from the parlor. “I wish to see your husband.”

“You had better go upstairs, Jem,” Vinnie said. “I’ll come as soon as I can. We must soon go.”

The boy put down the magazine. If he had been reading it, Vinnie did not know. He had been turning the pages at least. “I shall go and see Nancy,” he said.

“Do,” said Vinnie, and then called out: “In here, Priscilla.”

Jem needed to stand aside at the door for Norah. He bowed, making way for her, and Norah paused.

“You’re Mr. Farrell’s son,” she said. “I’ve one like you myself and four older. God love you, young sir.” And she came on to Vinnie.

“I’m sorry for your trouble, Norah,” Vinnie said.

“If I didn’t think you were I’d not be bringin’ it,” she said, taking the chair he offered her.

“Shall I bring a pot of tea?” Priscilla asked.

“Do,” Vinnie said.

“That’d be a great kindness, Mrs. Dunne,” Norah said, and when Priscilla was gone: “I cannot weep. I used to wonder at Peg that she couldn’t, and now I cannot myself.”

“Nor I,” said Vinnie.

“Dennis is in jail. He’s in the Tombs.”

“I have only loathing for him, Norah. That is why I cannot weep. I have been sitting here all day and wishing for the first time in my life that I were a prosecutor.”

“That’s the greatest pity of it all, isn’t it?” Norah said after a moment.

Vinnie did not answer.

“Couldn’t you’ve stopped Mr. Farrell from comin’ to our house last night, Vinnie?”

“No.”

“Or come with him then?”

“I didn’t know he was going, Norah. When I left him he promised to go home.”

“All their promises,” Norah said, “and me chasin’ off like a wild goose in the night when all of them needed me most.”

“Do you know what was said in the City Hall park last night, Norah?”

“I was there when he said it. I went down with Peg in her gladness. Ah, but that’s another story and yet part of the same. He saw her there and construed the blame hers for them cheerin’ Farrell. He’s a mad man with his tongue when he’s cornered.”

“With more than his tongue,” Vinnie said.

“Goin’ always so far he cannot turn back…till someone comes and gets him. Like a child, like a willful, terrible child. But do you know, Vinnie, he wouldn’t be in jail at all if it wasn’t for me? There was no one alive to tell the true story exceptin’ Dennis. The policeman he took to the house gave it out on the telegraph first it was Peg killed Mr. Farrell and herself. Then Dennis found me and made me go with him and tell them the truth.”

“No doubt because he was proud of it,” Vinnie said.

“If that’s what you want to believe, Vinnie Dunne, I’m sorry I came.”

“Of course it’s what I want to believe! Stephen Farrell was my friend. Shall I forgive the man who boasts his murder any sooner than I would forgive him for concealing it? You forgave him Mr. Finn’s murder, Norah. I did not. If he had answered for that crime he would not now need to answer for this one. If God is just he will answer now for both of them.”

“Dennis and me expect to answer, Vinnie, and in their time our childer’ will need answer for us as well.”

Each of them sat silent while Priscilla brought the tea. She was about to withdraw when Norah said: “I wish you’d stay a minute, Mrs. Dunne. I’ll not stay longer myself.”

Vinnie gave his chair to his wife. “What is it you want me to do, Norah? Defend Dennis I cannot.”

“I can see that now,” she said.

“Did Dennis ask it?”

“No. But he didn’t tell me not to when I told him I was comin’. And I wanted to tell you about Peg, and you, too, Mrs. Dunne, for she took a great likin’ to you. She was goin’ back to work today at the Broadway Theatre. I saw the letter myself to prove it. She’d not a drop taken since the summer until last night. I was that proud of her…” Norah almost broke then, skewering Vinnie with her words.

Priscilla leaned forward and touched her hand to Norah’s clenched fist. “And aren’t you proud of when and how she died, Mrs. Lavery?” she said very softly.

“I am, God have mercy on me.”

Norah sipped a mouthful of tea and asked when Mr. Farrell’s funeral would be and from where he would be buried. Peg would be buried in the morning, and from the church, having been deemed mad at the time of her suicide. A few minutes later Vinnie sent out for a cab. He and Priscilla went to the door with her.

“I am very sorry, Norah,” he said again.

“Listen to me, Vinnie Dunne, and then you can do what your conscience as well as your grief and your righteousness tells you: if Dennis was proud of what he had done, he’d not’ve needed my help to boast it.”

She went down the steps without faltering, and never looked back.

“And if he expected his freedom,” Priscilla said when Norah was out of sight, “would he accept you as counsel at all?”

“You are getting to speak like the Irish,” Vinnie said, “as well as acquiring their logic.”

But before the night was spent he went to visit Dennis in the Tombs. On the way he heard the newsboys out with their first extras: DEAD MAN WINNING ELECTION. How the Irish loved their martyrs.

About the Author

Dorothy Salisbury Davis is a Grand Master of the Mystery Writers of America, and a recipient of lifetime achievement awards from Bouchercon and Malice Domestic. The author of seventeen crime novels, including the Mrs. Norris Series and the Julie Hayes Series; three historical novels; and numerous short stories; she has served as president of the Mystery Writers of America and is a founder of Sisters in Crime.

Born in Chicago in 1916, she grew up on farms in Wisconsin and Illinois and graduated from college into the Great Depression. She found employment as a magic-show promoter, which took her to small towns all over the country, and subsequently worked on the WPA Writers Project in advertising and industrial relations. During World War II, she directed the benefits program of a major meatpacking company for its more than eighty thousand employees in military service. She was married for forty-seven years to the late Harry Davis, an actor, with whom she traveled abroad extensively. She currently lives in Palisades, New York.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1956 by Dorothy Salisbury Davis

Cover design by Tracey Dunham

978-1-4804-6058-4

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