Men of No Property (60 page)

“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.

“T
ILL 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.

“C
OUNSELOR…” 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.

September 4, 1862

M
Y 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.