A Passionate Girl (51 page)

Rawdon loved it, particularly when I insisted that he be the master of ceremonies. He stood beside the crank, reading the text, while we gazed at the spectacular panorama of Bull Run.

“Next we present you with a very spirited scene in the first Battle of Bull Run, fought on the twenty-first of July, 1861. The Union forces under General McDowell were defeated, and history says they fell back to Centerville, but many of the soldiers, either from the apprehension that the Centerville hotels were full, or in consequence of the impression that Washington was in danger, hastened immediately to the defense of that important strategic point.”

This was the general tone of the text, heavily ironic and semihumorous. Jonathan Stapleton laughed heartily at some of the sallies. It was another encouraging sign that the war was loosening its grip on him. He even contributed some humorous stories of his own from the vagaries of camp life between the battles. I was sure it was good for Rawdon, too, hearing his father laugh and joke about an experience that the boy had contorted into a nightmare in his vivid imagination.

When the March wind ceased to howl, and the snow vanished from the beach and the ice from the bay, we began to play another new game, which had less historic significance but was even more enjoyable—croquet. Rawdon was ecstatic. The game, like the Myriopticon, was sweeping the nation. The newspapers were full of stories about it, and he immediately wanted to know if Jonathan was going to let me pin up my skirt to my ankles, so I could use the pendulum stroke. It seems that there was a curmudgeon of a father from Fall River, Massachusetts, who became very upset when his daughter adopted this tactic and trounced him. He said it was unladylike and only permitted her to play again when she promised to let down her skirt and limit herself to the outside stroke—which meant he beat her handily with
his
pendulum stroke.

Jonathan smiled across the room at me. “Miss Stark is an independent American woman. I have no control over her skirt,” he said.

With my skirt pinned and the pendulum stroke available to all, we were soon in fierce contention on Kemble Manor's front lawn. Neither Rawdon nor I could match the fine ruthlessness, the cold-eyed strategy, Jonathan brought to the game. He trounced us again and again. We would be on the brink of victory, in perfect position before a wicket, when he would appear to smash us back a hundred yards without a blink of remorse.

“I'm beginning to sympathize with Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee,” I said, when he performed this destruction on me for the tenth or eleventh time.

He finally relented and played with deliberate carelessness to let me beat him. Rawdon cheered for me and cried, “Just like the young lady of Dedham.”

“Who is she?”

He proceeded to recite one of the numerous limericks croquet had inspired.

Jonathan's good humor vanished. “What do you mean by that?” he said.

“Nothing,” Rawdon said, looking honestly puzzled.

“Miss Stark is not the kind of young lady who plays games with aging roués. Do you know what a roué is?”

Rawdon shook his head. He was growing more and more upset and angry. “Surely then there was no insult intended,” I said. “I think we're all getting croquet nerves.”

This was a popular term of the day. The papers were full of stories about arguments over croquet in which men had bashed each other over the head with their mallets. At that time it was hard to find two people who could agree on the rules.

Later that day, we went for a walk on the beach, leaving Rawdon behind to work the Myriopticon for the Littlepages, who were fascinated by it. “I think we should resume our earlier roles of governess and employer,” I said. “Your conscience is troubled by our present arrangement.”

“Is yours?”

“I would never have entered it in the first place, if it were.”

“My conscience is troubled,” he said ruefully. “Not because God disapproves. I've long since decided he has very little interest in our concerns. It's because I disapprove of my own conduct. I want to make you my wife.”

He pointed to three or four sailboats scudding across the bay on the brisk April wind. “Our isolation is ending. Soon you'll see fifty or a hundred boats out there. All the country houses around here will be opening up. Friends will be coming to visit. But the situation at home is worse than ever.”

He talked of the bitter quarrels he was having with certain members of the family who controlled a large number of shares in the Camden and Amboy.

“My trust in you is absolute,” I said. “Tonight will be the last of the full moon. Let it be our last night together until you're free to speak for me.”

He shook his head. “I don't know whether I can do it. When I have you in my arms—even when I think of you there—the world has a center. It makes sense. Take that away and it becomes a set of random pictures on a Myriopticon, a ridiculous contemptuous tragicomedy.”

“I feel the same way,” I said, “but we must make the experiment.”

That night was strange and wonderful. We were both filled with an eerie sense of parting, not for a time, but forever. I don't know why. I suppose it was only natural for two people who had come to regard their midnight meetings as the essence of their lives to wonder if even a temporary cessation might produce unexpected results in the deep inaccessible regions of the heart. I had said my trust in him was absolute, and it was, but it was a trust in his word, his promise, which I knew was as true as the steel in the tracks on which his steam engines ran. I did not trust what could happen to alter that promise, especially when I had yet to reveal my deception.

I saw our parting as a step to the revelation. I had no intention of confessing everything I had done, but I also had no intention of apologizing for Bess Fitzmaurice, the Fenian girl. I wanted to make my statement an act of pride, not something whispered in the dark, with eager breasts and thighs offered as consolation for his possible disappointment. If there was disappointment or prejudice or shame, I wanted it faced in daylight.

“Why am I so afraid?” I whispered to him, as the moon dwindled to a last golden patch on the ceiling. “I'll never lose you. No matter what happens, we're part of each other forever.”

“Yes,” he said. “Forever.”

How lovers adore those words. How indifferent the world is to them.

For several weeks, all went well. The spring weather had something to do with keeping our spirits high. Kemble Manor's gardens were a riot of roses—white, red, yellow. Jonathan Gifford, the Revolutionary proprietor, had apparently been a great fancier of them and imported exotic varieties from all over the world. Mingling with them were the wild blaze roses of New Jersey. Rawdon got out his small sailboat from the boathouse and cruised about the bay, meeting several boys about his age, whom he invited back for endless games of croquet on the front lawn. We older folks treasured the garden, with its roses and statues of American presidents and Greek and Roman gods. Beyond it, through a wood, the land broke into a small cove, perfect for swimming and meditating.

We had expected Mrs. Stapleton, Jonathan's mother, to visit us, but she was making her own recovery from grief and announced that she was inclined to visit friends in Newport and wanted to take little George with her. Jonathan agreed, so we remained our triumvirate at Kemble Manor. The world lapped around us like a rising flood. A delegation of New Jersey war veterans came to ask General Stapleton to make the principal address at their Fourth of July picnic. He was inclined to say no, until I talked him out of it. He had a dread of notoriety, a dislike of taking credit for his achievements, which was incomprehensible to me. I suspect it was a fear of ending like his father, a mere politician. He was determined to reserve an interior part of himself free of every sort of compromise. I urged him not to be so literal about it, to wear a mask of the politician, the friend of things as they are. I could see that the deception troubled his proud spirit, but he agreed to try it.

Another delegation came to ask him to be one of the guests of honor at the opening of the new race track at Long Branch. He had no scruples against horse racing. Converted by my philosophy, he said yes. It was to take place on the fifth of July and was, the chairman of the delegation assured him, to be a gala affair. “We expect twenty thousand people from New York,” the chairman boasted.

Suddenly the reluctance was all on my side, but I could say nothing. I had no desire to encounter any New Yorkers, especially when they were almost certain to include well-heeled politicians and public figures like Dick Connolly and Bill Tweed and William Roberts. Long Beach at that time was just emerging as a summer playground of the rich. Hotels were being built at a rapid pace, gambling houses were opening, and the racetrack was supposed to offer the final attraction to round out a resort that would attract millions of New York dollars to New Jersey.

Jonathan spent the last weeks of June laboring over his Fourth of July speech. He delivered it beneath a huge tent at the site of the Revolutionary battle of Monmouth CourtHouse. He was not a great speaker, but it was a strong, manly address, a soldier's speech. It was also a young man's speech, charged with a vision of a hopeful future. He asked his audience to connect in their minds the sacrifices of the men of the Revolution who had fought and had died at Monmouth with the sacrifices of the men who died for the Union. Were these sacrifices in vain? he asked. Sometimes it looked that way. It looked as if they had died for an America dominated by corrupt politicians and get-rich-quick millionaires from Wall Street.

But this was not necessarily the case. Death had long since disbanded the army of the Revolution. Victory in the war had disbanded the army of the Union. But the spirit of that army, its courage and devotion to its dead, must never disband. It must remain a living, united thing, as they marched together into the new America that the war had created. In some ways this new America was a bewildering land, a kind of wilderness. But Americans had fought and won in the wilderness before. They must be prepared to fight now, against new enemies, confident that a nation worthy of the heroic dead would emerge from the confusion.

The applause stormed over our heads for a full five minutes. Rawdon and I were seated in the first row. Behind me I heard a heavy-set man say to a friend, “There's our next governor.” Never did I feel more totally American. I had helped to give strength to Jonathan's proud voice. I had rescued his tormented spirit from despair. My pride, my hope, never soared higher.

That night, I waited until the house was silent and dark, then rose and boldly entered his room. He was sitting by the window, looking out over the sea. “I must kiss you again,” I said. “I must give vent to the pride and joy that are bursting from me.” I sank down beside him and placed my head on his knee. I felt his hand on my neck, in my hair.

“Amo, amas, I love a lass, as cedar tall and slender,” he whispered.

“Yes,” I said. “Tonight we must break our monastic rule.”

I wanted to enter and be entered, to be one with him in the deepest most absolute way that is given to us. I sensed his greatness emerging from the battered, scarred trunk of his spirit, as a great tree in the forest struggles back to life from a lightning stroke.

Other nights, other times, we loved from different reasons, out of need, then out of pleasure of touch and stroke, next out of almost gluttonous delight in each other. That night we went beyond pleasure. We touched joy. A spirit of mutual purpose, mutual admiration, suffused our flesh and made us truly the center of a world. I cried out, I could not help it, when at last I felt his deep pulsing release in me. For the first time I understood why the old poets spoke of love as a kind of death, a holocaust of the spirit, an obliteration of the self. I
was
him, blending lips and thighs, hopes and fears, pasts and futures.

Only when I returned to my own bed did I permit my mind to think about tomorrow. Tomorrow when I would confront those thousands of New York faces, any one of whom might step out of the crowd and ask me if I was Bess Fitzmaurice, the Fenian girl. I planned to deny it smartly and dismiss the interrogater. There was a fair chance, if it happened at all, that I could silence anyone who asked. In the end it might give me the pretext I needed to end my deception when I had Jonathan alone.

How sad, how futile, those thoughts seem now. That night they burned with the purity, the passion, of truth and love. But I was about to discover the blind rapacious power of the past.

The next day we were up early for one of Mrs. Littlepage's ample shore breakfasts. With Abner at the reins, we set out in the open carriage for Long Branch. It was a hot, clear day, good racing weather, and Jonathan, sharing an ancestral love of horse flesh that had come down to him from grandfather and father, spent the ride discussing with Rawdon the pedigrees and speeds of the steeds we were to watch. Knowing not a thing about New Jersey horses, I took his advice, except for the fifth race, in which an Irish horse named Curragh's Choice was competing. I playfully insisted on backing my countryman, and we briskly settled on a private wager of five dollars when I refused to change my mind.

At the handsome new racecourse, Jonathan was one of a half dozen guests of honor, including the governor of the state and the two U.S. senators, who participated in cutting the ribbon. Thereafter we were left to our own devices. It took a half hour for us to walk across the inner grounds to the grandstand, so many people approached to shake Jonathan's hand and tell him how much they admired his speech of yesterday. We had a box reserved in the grandstand, but Rawdon insisted on watching from the rail. I went with him to make sure he did not get lost. The crowd was immense. Jonathan was so busy talking with politicians and businessmen who kept coming into the box that I doubt he missed us.

We had placed our bets with a bookmaker as we approached the grandstand, so we had only to root our favorites home. The first four races proved Jonathan's knowledge of New Jersey horse flesh. All his selections won, and at good odds. The fifth race, the last of the day, was even more sensational from our point of view. Curragh's Choice romped home at 5–1. Rawdon had joined me in betting on him, and he raced ahead of me to collect from our bookmaker. As I followed him, a voice spoke from behind my right shoulder.

“If it ain't the Fenian girl.”

I turned to face Dan McCaffrey. I could not believe it. I was sure he was dead. He was dead to me. He even looked dead, or changed in some total way that only death could explain. He was dressed in a flashy suit of white and black checks, with a large fake-looking diamond in his tie. He had grown a blond mustache, but it did not conceal the snide, sneering expression on his lips. His eyes were glass chips without a trace of charm or friendship in them.

“You must be mistaken,” I said. “My name is Elizabeth Stark.”

“I ain't mistaken. You know I ain't mistaken.”

“I have nothing to say to you.”

“Not much you don't.”

Rawdon came rushing up to us, his hands full of greenbacks. He had collected for us and for his father. “Look at all this money!” he said.

“Who's this?” Dan said.

“I'm Rawdon Stapleton,” he said. “Who are you?”

“Stapleton,” Dan said. “Is your father the general? Made a speech everyone's talkin' about? Claims he knows how to make politicians honest?”

“Yes,” Rawdon said. “Who
are
you?”

“Maybe you seen my name in the papers. I'm Dan McCaffrey. Chief of staff of the Fenian army.”

“Wow,” Rawdon said. “The dynamite brigade?”

“That's right. You know a lot about the Fenians. She been tellin' you?”

Rawdon shook his head. “I keep a scrapbook. Where did you meet him, Miss Stark?”

“On—on the boat, coming over,” I said, looking fearfully around me. The races were finished. The crowd was moving toward the gate. Jonathan was still in the grandstand box, talking earnestly with several men.

“Yeah,” Dan said, with a nasty laugh. “We met on the boat comin' over. What you goin' to do with all that money?”

“It's our winnings. I have to give Miss Stark her share.”

He counted out almost a hundred dollars. “Now go pay your father like a good lad,” I said. “And remind him that he owes us each five dollars for Curragh's Choice.”

Dan took the hundred dollars out of my hand and put it in his pocket. “A kind of down payment on what you owe me,” he said.

“I owe you nothing. Get out of my sight before I call for a policeman,” I said.

“You ain't gonna call for nobody. If you do, the general's gonna want to know why. I don't think you want to tell him, do you, Miss Stark?”

“You are truly despicable,” I said.

“Yeah. And you're such a wonderful girl. If I know you, the general's gettin' a lot more than governessin'. After the kid goes to bed, you really start earnin' your money. Ain't I right?”

I turned away from him, too full of loathing even to look him in the face. A moment later, I saw Jonathan and young Rawdon approaching us through the crowd. Jonathan had a perplexed expression on his face. He was obviously in good humor but was puzzled by what Rawdon had just told him about Dan McCaffrey. He spoke from his good humor first.

“I can't believe the way that Irish horse ran. It wasn't even a contest.”

“Don't think much of Irish horses, General?” Dan said.

“I take it you're Mr. McCaffrey of the Fenian dynamite brigade?”

“Formerly of, General. And formerly of Jeb Stuart's cavalry. Had a bad habit of pickin' the wrong side, I'm lookin' for work, General. Any chance of a job on your railroad?”

“I'm afraid not. What jobs we have, and they are few in these slow times, will go to Union veterans.”

A mindless fury convulsed Dan's face. “Do you think that's fair, General?”

“Yes, I do,” Jonathan said. “I think the war was a fair gamble. You lost, and you should take the consequences without whining—or dynamiting innocent people for pay.”

“Come, Miss Stark,” he said, turning to me. “We have a long ride home.”

In the carriage, Jonathan cheerfully settled his bet with me and Rawdon. “Where in the world did you meet that fellow McCaffrey?” he asked.

“On the boat,” I said. “I disliked him then and—and detest him now.”

“Did you give him money? As Rawdon was pointing him out to me, I thought I saw him take some money from your hand.”

“Yes,” I said. “I—I felt sorry for him, in spite of all. He told such a pathetic story. He lost his last cent at the races.”

“You're too charitable by far,” Jonathan said. “The man's a lowlife if I ever saw one. He was an officer in the Fenian army? No wonder the Canadians trounced them.” He shook his head. “He makes you think the English may be right about the Irish.”

My world was reeling toward collapse. I was dazed with shock and grief. It was almost unbearable to hear him saying such things. By now we were on the coast road, which ran along the magnificent bluffs known as the Atlantic Highlands. I gazed numbly out at the sea glistening in the late afternoon sunlight. How could nature be so at peace while I was at war in my mind and heart?

Behind us we heard the hoofbeats of a lone horseman. I paid no attention to him—my back was to the road—nor did Jonathan, sitting beside me. But Rawdon, facing in the opposite direction, suddenly looked past us and said, “It's McCaffrey! The Fenian!”

Before we could turn he was upon us, glaring down at us from the saddle. His suit was caked with dust. “General,” he shouted. “I've been thinkin' about what you said. You're right. No point in whinin', and dynamitin' is no good either, it don't pay. So from now on, me and my girl Bess here are goin' to change our ways. We're goin' to make a lot of people pay—startin' with you.”

“What the devil are you talking about?” Jonathan said.

“I'm talking about this,” Dan said, and produced his pistol.

Abner Littlepage had been looking over his shoulder at this performance. “Stop them horses,” Dan said, “if you don't want to lose your other arm.”