Men of No Property (36 page)

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.

“B
UT, 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.”