Men of No Property (29 page)

“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.”

A
T 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.”

D
ENNIS 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.