Men of No Property (58 page)

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.”

D
ENNIS 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!