A Passionate Girl (34 page)

“You must stop this,” I said, and took the gin glass out of her hand.

With an angry exclamation she snatched it back. “Don't give me orders, baby sister. I know what I'm doin'. Curin' the glooms.”

“And ruining your looks.”

Standing there with the gin glass clutched to her bosom, she started to cry. “Shouldn't say that. Just 'cause you're—younger.”

“Annie. You're only twenty-eight.”

She sat down on the bed, still weeping. “Old, Bess. That's old in this—business.”

I opened the window and poured the rest of the gin bottle into the alley. “You're talking nonsense,” I said. “At the very least you should be able to get a handsome sum from Mr. Connolly. Enough to set you up in a business of some sort.”

She shook her head. “Dreaming Bess. I—no head for business. I want a
man
—to take care of me—to love me.”

“Then go look for him. You still have all your fine clothes, your looks—”

Again, that sad demoralizing shake of the head. “Don't have the heart, Bess.”

“How can you let any man do this to you? Stop it, now. Get on your best dress and we'll go have a good dinner at the Fifth Avenue Hotel or Delmonico's or wherever you please. Like as not you'll catch the eye of some handsome man and you'll be on easy street before the week is out.”

She shook her head. “'Twould only waste your money. When I get rid of the glooms I'll take matters into my own hands. I'll set myself up in a house and go it with a different one every night. I'll send Dick Connolly a list of the names at the end of each week.”

I was appalled but tried not to show it. I gave up trying to persuade her to come to dinner and resolved to take matters into my own hands. I made her promise to drink no more gin and left her there for the night. The next morning I rose early and was at City Hall by nine o'clock. There was a mass of people, at least two dozen, waiting in a straggling line in the hall outside the comptroller's office. I strode past them to the inner sanctum, which was guarded by a number of clerks and assistants toiling at high writing tables, on which ledgers were spread.

“I'm here to see Mr. Connolly,” I said to the nearest clerk, a plump, red-faced, squinty-eyed fellow with slicked-down black hair.

“Do you have an appointment?” he said.

“Yes,” I said.

I was wearing my best daytime outfit, a black plush pelisse trimmed with beaver fur over a green silk gown. It intimidated him as much as my bold lie.

“Over there,” he said, pointing to a corner office.

The comptroller was in the process of taking off his high black hat and hanging up his French-styled green sack coat with satin-faced lapels. He was surprised to see me, but he did not lose his usual aplomb.

“Well, well,” he said. “The Fenian trigger girl. Shot any more lords lately?”

I shook my head. “You know why I'm here.”

“To talk about Annie. Sit down.”

I sat in the straight chair beside his desk. “You can't leave her this way. She's a wreck. You must know it's for love of you.”

“Is it? If that's true, she shows it in strange ways. Like throwing lamps at my head.”

“I might do that, but not Annie.”

“You haven't seen her drunk. Really drunk. I've tried to get her to stop drinking for a good year, but this news about your father—it was just what she was looking for. A perfect excuse.”

“You bastard,” I said. “You know the real reason why she drinks. You won't make an honest woman of her. It's been eating away at her. And why shouldn't it? She knew you were getting her cheap because she loved you.”

A hard, cruel expression settled over his face. His eyes became hooded. I had struck home, but he would not admit it to me—or perhaps to himself. “There are people waiting to see me about more important things than this.”

“There's nothing more important to me. You're a wealthy man, from what I hear. You can take care of her.”

“I have no sense of obligation. I bet I've given her ten thousand dollars' worth of jewelry.”

“Which is worth two at the pawnbrokers. Write out a check now for twenty thousand dollars.”

“Give me one reason.”

“If you don't, I will shoot as many holes in you as I shot in Lord Gort. With as much pleasure.”

“You've got a gun in that purse?”

“Yes,” I said. It was a lie. I had come here to plead for Annie, not to threaten him.

Dick Connolly leaned back in his armchair. “I don't think you'd do it, but why should I take a chance?” He took out a large red checkbook and wrote out the check and handed it to me. It was drawn on the Tenth National Bank. “Don't worry, it won't bounce,” he said. “I own the bank.”

“You're rising to glory,” I said, putting the check in my purse. “But what of your great talk of helping the poor Irish?”

“We have to help ourselves first. We'll help them in the long run. A lot more than you and your Fenian friends with your Canadian dreams.”

“'Tis no dream,” I said. “I saw the list of regiments last night at Moffat House. They've got the guns, the cannon. They're ready to march.”

“Where?” Connolly said. “The whole thing's a swindle. Stanton's unloaded a million bucks' worth of guns and ammunition he doesn't need on you Fenian suckers, and Seward's just waiting for the right moment to scare Johnson into banning the whole thing. Seward thinks this will turn the Irish against Johnson and make it impossible for him to run on a Democratic ticket. Meanwhile he, Seward, washing his hands like Pontius Pilate, gets the Republican nomination and the Irish vote because he tried to help the poor feckless Fenians.”

“Where is the proof of this?” I asked.

“You don't need proof if you know anything about American politics,” Connolly snapped. “We told Roberts to buy the guns and ammo and lie low, drilling, organizing, until we elect our noble Saxon mayor to the governorship of New York next year. The governor of New York is always the country's prime presidential candidate. If we put John Hoffman in the White House, there's nothing we couldn't do together. Instead, Roberts is fooling around with this half-baked National Union Party and with Republicans. He thinks he can deliver the Irish vote to the party of his choice—after promising to stick with us. Bill Tweed doesn't like people who break promises.”

Honest but not level, I thought, recalling Fernando Wood's summation of Roberts. “Thank you for the lecture,” I said. “And the check.”

“You're welcome for both,” he said. “How did you get to shoot Lord Gort? By pretending to have an appointment?”

“That's a state secret.”

“Say hello to Annie. Tell her I'm sorry.”

In spite of his cold heart and crooked ways, I almost liked Dick Connolly.

“I'll say hello,” I said.

Back I went to Annie's lodging house and mounted the stairs to knock and knock once more in vain. At last she opened the door. The room smelled like a distillery. I was furious. “You promised me you'd stop drinking,” I said.

“Gin,” she said. “I said I'd stop drinking gin. I thought a little Irish whiskey wouldn't hurt. I can't sleep without something, Bess.”

“You can't sleep because of the worry. Here's something to banish care.”

I gave her Dick Connolly's check. She stared at it blankly for a moment, then glared at me. “Where did this come from?”

“From Dick. I went to him and demanded it.”

“Without asking me? Jesus God, what business is it of yours? You've ruined me with your goddamn simpleminded Fenian ways. Now he'll never come back to me. He's gone forever. You've let him write me off.”

I was totally bewildered. “Annie, he let you down without a cent. He owed you at least this much. Here's money to live on for years with good management, or keep in a bank as security against hard times.”

Annie kept glaring at me, shaking her head. “You're still nothing but a stupid Irish country girl. Don't you see, as long as I didn't take a cent from him, he
has
to come back to me. The guilt will eat at him forever. He loves me, and he won't be able to stand the thought of what he's done to me.”

“You're dreaming, Annie,” I said. “He loves nothing but the power he has now in his hands and the more power he hopes to get and the millions that will come with it. Men don't love like we do. We must take them as they are.”

Slowly, proudly, Annie ripped Dick Connolly's check to shreds. She walked to the window and flung the pieces into the alley. “Get out of here,” she said. “You've brought me nothing but bad luck.”

I blundered down the three flights of stairs half blind with tears. The next morning I left for Washington with Red Mike Hanrahan. He blarneyed away for a half hour about his acting days, trying to cheer me up. I finally told him Annie's story. He shook his head. “She's playing a long shot. I've seen other women try it. Sometimes it works, but not often.”

He took my hand in his rough grasp for a moment. “It's her life, Bess, not yours. You can't live it for her. It's fearfully hard to change grown men or women. I watch you and wonder if your heart won't break before you find that out.”

“Are you talking about Dan? You don't think we're a match?”

“Listen to her. Trying to get me to talk down a wild man from Tennessee that could knock me into smithereens with a single punch. If I admit such a meaning, I can just see it coming out the next time you have a spat.” He mimicked me deliciously. “‘And what's more, Mike Hanrahan says we're a sorry pair.' ‘He did?' says McCaffrey and instantly hunts me up. Whop, one punch and I'm smithereens, and a few Tennessee kicks to make sure I'm well scattered.”

By now he had me almost laughing. How I loved that runty Irishman. In Washington we had rooms reserved at the National Hotel. As Mike signed the register, I wrote a note to Fernando Wood and sent it up to his room.
The Fenian girl has returned in search of more wisdom
.

I could see Red Mike did not approve. “If you mention it to Dan, I'll be the one who makes smithereens of you,” I said.

“I didn't see or hear a thing,” Mike said. “I'm not only blind but I've gone deaf and dumb.”

Before I finished unpacking, a note was handed to me by one of the black bellboys.
If you are truly in search of wisdom, you have come to the wrong man and the wrong city. But if you wish to hear the latest pessimisms from a disappointed politician, he is at your service from 10:00
P.M.
until you grow weary of his aged maunderings.

While Mike went off to buck the tiger at Chamberlain's gambling house and learn what he could from the caucus of politicians regularly assembled there, I ascended to Fernando's suite on the sixth floor. He waited for me in the shadowed room, resplendent in a red silk robe with a blue velvet collar. I wore a black lace mantelet over a blue silk gown. Politely, with that ironic detachment that was his safeguard against love, he asked me if our friendship was to be conducted on the same terms as my previous visit. I coolly informed him that I still valued both pleasure and wisdom. So after another delicious late-night supper we performed the sensual ritual of bath, perfume, bed.

Without the dimension of surprise, I was less aroused than the first time. In the very midst of it, even as my breath quickened and my heart beat faster, I found myself thinking of Annie. It was a strange fate that made her so unfitted for this sort of exchange. While I, with my moon-mind watching from above, was far better suited to be a woman of pleasure.

It was a dangerous thought, the beginning of a fatalism that went back to the need to accept the murderous scene in Gort House. Dissembling now, I lay beside Fernando after the consummation and whispered, “I'm glad I don't come here often. I could fall in love with you.”

He liked the compliment. He brought me a robe and sat me at the table once more to end our dining with crêpes suzette and champagne. Then he got out his brandy and his cigar and told me I was a girl when I came to him the first time. Now I was a woman. He could see it in my face, feel it in my measured response to him in bed.

“Is it because you've killed your man? Southerners believe that, you know. Of men. Perhaps it's true of women, too.”

“How they fascinate you still, the Southerners,” I said, preferring not to answer his question.

“They were the only aristocrats we had in this benighted country.”

“I'm no lover of aristocracy.”

“You mean the earldom you placed on my head the last time was a mere compliment?”

“They had their place in the old days, but these are new times.”

“How true. How unfortunately true.”

“How sets the political wind for Canada?”

“Foul weather is all I can see. The president and Congress are at each other's throats morning, noon, and night. The Republicans are determined to humble the South for a generation and suck every cent out of it that they and their business friends can get. The Southerners play into their hands by refusing to give any Negro the vote and secretly encouraging night-riding thugs like the Ku Klux. The president still thinks he can rally a third party—the National Union—against the fanatics of both sides, but I begin to doubt it. I can't believe that Seward, who thinks as I do, has a different opinion. As for Stanton, he's already chosen his client. As secretary of war, commander of the army, he has his foot on the South's neck. He's working with the people who want to keep it there—the Republicans.”

“Doesn't the president know that?”

“It's amazing what the president doesn't seem to know. He clings to Stanton—and Seward. He doesn't seem to understand that both of them have to ruin him to get what they want. I'm beginning to think they may use the Fenians to do it.”

“How?”

“By double-crossing them—and blaming it on the president.”

“What would Seward gain from that? Doesn't he see that if he helps the Fenians win Canada, we'll be heroes to every Irishman in America? We can place every Irish vote in the land behind him.”

“But the Irish are only ten percent of the vote. They can make a difference in a close election, but Seward no longer thinks it will be a close election. To get the Republican nomination, he has to go along with Stanton and with Congress.”

I remembered what Dick Connolly said about the whole thing—selling us the guns, encouraging us to go for Canada—being a swindle. I told Fernando this theory. He laughed sourly and shook his head. “Connolly and Tweed are swindlers, so they think like swindlers. Seward thinks on a different scale. There's another reason for letting you threaten Canada. Seward is claiming that the British owe us two hundred million dollars for the damages the
Alabama
and other raiders did to our commerce. He's letting the Fenians threaten to take Canada to force the British to negotiate a settlement. If they buckle and agree, he'll sit on the Fenians and simultaneously make himself look like a diplomatic genius and a peacemaker.”

“Could any man do such a thing?” I said. “Lead us on to make fools of us before the whole world?”

“I'm afraid men who think on this scale—in terms of national destinies and the part they can play in shaping them—don't worry too much about such things.”

“You're one of those men, aren't you?”

He sighed and stared into his brandy. “I'm afraid I am.”

“Would you do the same thing if you were in his place?”

“Probably. You Irish aren't really part of this country. You're international flotsam. As a piece of national flotsam, I recognize our kinship.”

I put my brandy aside. It suddenly tasted like worm-wood. “You've poisoned my pleasure this time, I fear.”

“Remember you're talking to a disappointed politician. Isn't it wisdom to be prepared for the worst?”

“There's something about being Irish. Just hearing the worst seems tantamount to it happening.”

“It's happened so often in the past?”

“Yes.”

“There's only one way to avoid it. Wait. Do nothing. You have your guns. Let Seward and Stanton sweat. Maybe Johnson will wake up and throw them out. Maybe Connolly and Tweed will pull off their big play and land their woodenheaded Mayor Hoffman in the White House. Maybe next year this old war dog will be able to help you.”

“Here in Washington?”

“In New York. I'm coming back to go another round with Tweed. There are people who think I could take Tammany Hall away from him. He's scaring a lot of people with his sloppy, greedy style.”

I suspected this was only a dream. I brought Fernando back to reality, to Washington, D.C., with a practical question. “Robert Johnson. Is he still worth my time?”

“Less and less. He's become the biggest souse in the city. Falling down drunk in the street. When he's on a real bender the president has to lock him in the White House. It's too bad. He could have been the adviser outside the cabinet that the president needs so badly.”

I told Fernando about my encounter with Robert in New York. For a moment the disappointed politician lost his serenity. He sprang up and walked around the table and placed his hand against my cheek. “I feel responsible for that. It makes me ashamed of the whole male sex.”

It was time to go. I rose and kissed him softly on the mouth. “Don't talk of shame. You're the only man with whom I've felt none.”

Downstairs in my room I bathed again and waited for Red Mike. I heard him open his door and called to him. He reeled into my room clutching a fistful of greenbacks. “Look at that, will you?” he said. “I called the turn four times running. With that kind of luck, how can we fail to conquer the whole blithering world?”

I told him what I had heard from Fernando Wood. It sobered him momentarily. “Ah, Bess, why do you want to think about it now? Let's go get drunk and worry about it in the morning.”

“What you heard is just as bad?”

“Worse,” he said. “None of the congressmen or the generals take us seriously. They think it's all Irish moonshine.”

“Which gives Stanton and Seward a completely free hand.”

“The crown prince was there, losing a fortune. Before he got too drunk to make sense, he swore the president was still behind us. He begins to think now the Fenians are his best hope to steal a march on the Republicans and distract the country from the South and the Negroes.”

“Jesus,” I swore. “When I think of how often they call drink the curse of the Irish.”

Everything we heard in the next few days confirmed our original gloomy information. In Congress there was nothing but rant and more rant about Southern perfidy and the rights of the Negro. The newspapers printed shocking stories about President Johnson, calling him as big a drunkard as his son, accusing him of taking bribes from Southerners, of being a traitor to his oath of office, the Union dead, the martyred Lincoln.

Johnny Coyle, head of the
National Intelligencer,
the one true friend we had among the capital's newspapermen, was inclined to agree with almost everything Fernando Wood said and added a few pessimisms of his own. “They'll risk no war with England till they've got the South well in hand. There are some of them in Congress who'd like to grab Canada, but they've small enthusiasm for letting the Irish do it. You can be sure they'll be against tryin' it while the South remains defiant. They've gone too far with their rage for punishment to get a man from the South to fight England. It might well be the other way around.”

“So we must wait,” I said, thinking of what Fernando Wood called the Irish in America, international flotsam. There was a bitter truth to it. We and our rage and our woes were not in step with America's history. We marched to our own grim drumbeat, and it was easy to see why the clashing rhythms could cause disaster.

“Wait,” Coyle agreed. “You must lie low, and maybe Stanton and Seward will hang themselves with the rope they're trying to loop around the president's neck.”

My impatience, my hunger for victory, vengeance, would not permit me to accept this advice. Fighting against it, I decided to overcome my repugnance and risk another meeting with Robert Johnson. I could think of no one else. There was no hope of getting to see the president, nor much point to it. A twenty-year-old Irish girl could hardly convince the ruler of a great nation that his two most trusted advisers were ready to betray him and ruin his chance of winning four million devoted Irish followers.

Each Monday night, Johnny Coyle had parties of friends in for supper, drinks, and cards. Most of them were congressmen. Because the
Intelligencer
supported President Johnson, Robert Johnson had been a guest in the past, before his drinking became unmanageable. Coyle agreed to risk ruining his party by inviting him again. I was to be the surprise guest of honor.

The party began well. The congressmen were all from states where the Irish vote bulked large—Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania. They toasted me and vowed they were ready to do brave things on Ireland's behalf. It was political hot air but pleasant listening. The party was well along, and supper was about to be served, when Robert Johnson appeared. He was thoroughly oiled and made straight for the sofa where I sat chatting with Coyle and a congressman from New Jersey. With the skill of a born host, Johnny instantly drew the congressman away and let me deal with the crown prince alone.

“Bess,” he said. “How's my old girl?”

“If you think I'm old, you need glasses,” I said. “If you think I'm your girl, you need a doctor, because you're on the verge of lunacy.”

“What in hell are you talkin' about, Bess?” he gasped.

No one had treated him this way since his father became president. He had enjoyed a full year of uninterrupted adulation.

“I'm talking about you. It's the last time I'll talk about you, or to you, until you convince me that you're a gentleman. Now please go away.”

All this was said in a quiet voice that attracted no attention from anyone else in the general babble of two dozen voices.

“I was a little rough with you, I guess, but I was sorta sore at the world, that night, Bess. You know what happened.”

“Yes,” I said. “I know what happened. I learned to despise a man about whom I had cared a great deal. I learned to loathe a touch that had once aroused me as few other men have done. Now leave me before I begin speaking in a voice loud enough for the world to hear.”

He reeled off in total disarray from these thundering lies. He stayed at the party only a few more minutes, conversing abstractly with one or two congressmen, glaring across the room at me the while. The next day he appeared at my table while I was having lunch at the hotel with Mike Hanrahan. Robert was hopelessly drunk, but he babbled his devotion to me and swore he would never again abuse me.

“Love you, Bess. Love Irish girls,” he said.

“I will believe you only if you prove it by escorting me in public like a gentleman and acting in private like a man of sensibility,” I said. “You can't do either when you're drunk.”

“I ain't drunk,” he mumbled.

“You're stupidly drunk,” I said. “Come back when you're sober and we'll talk.”

He crept away like a chastened child. “By God,” Mike Hanrahan said. “You'll make me swear off if you keep it up, Bess.”

“It's the faro table that you must swear off,” I said, like a true termagant.

Two days later, Robert Johnson reappeared at the hotel, his hands trembling, his lips twitching, to vow he had not had a drink in twenty-four hours. We went for a ride along Rock Creek in his chaise. It was a lovely day in late April. The trees were leafing; the wisteria and Spanish bluebells were in bloom. Robert breathed deeply and said he felt like a new man. I deserved all the credit. “I'll tell you the truth, Bess,” he said. “I never thought anyone cared that much about me. I mean, I could have gotten sore, could have turned into an enemy. You cared enough about me to take a risk like that. It means a lot to me. It really does.”