Men of No Property (38 page)

“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 Norah sat withdrawn in a corner, weeping still, and the old man beside her, as solemn and detached as a stranger at a wake, and on the other side of her Mr.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.