The Parting Glass

by Gina Marie Guadagnino

  A shadow was coming out of the knot of bodies bustling by the fire wagon, a man breaking away from the melee, running toward her as shouts rose up behind him. With him surreally backlit by the flames, she barely realized it until he was upon her. The fair-haired man grasped her hands. His brow was split and bleeding, and his eyes were wide with fear. He was shouting something at her. Dimly, she realized he was asking her for help. “Hide me!” And the part of her brain that was still working took his arm in a firmer grip and began directing their steps south to Chambers Street. Hell broke loose behind them.

  She led him up the narrow steps, recalling vaguely that she never let the cullies know where she lived, and then feeling an absurd reassurance that he was not a cully. She fumbled with the chatelaine chain until she managed to fit the key into the lock, and ushered him into her dark room. She felt her way to the lamp, fumbling hopelessly with the lucifers, her scraped fingers clumsy. Gratitude flooded her when he took the matches gently from her shaking hands and lit the lamp himself before collapsing on her chaise. She sat down on her bed, staring at him in numb relief. She did not remember falling asleep fully clothed.

  It was full dawn when she awoke. The man was still snoring gently on the chaise, and her stays cut cruelly into her breasts. She stumbled about the bedroom, unlacing her boots and pulling them off impatiently before she poured water from the small ewer on her dressing table into a washbasin. She regarded her reflection critically. There was a nasty bruise on her forehead, and her lip was split. The greatest damage was to her hair, the carefully set sugar curls crushed, her braids coming down, the pins lost. She stripped to her shift and began to bathe her face. She didn’t hear him rise over the splashing water.

  When she turned, he was standing in the doorway, staring at her. She stared back blandly, aware her figure was plainly visible beneath the sheer gauze of her shift. He swallowed, his gaze resting on her bosom.

  She broke the silence. “You rescued me.” He nodded. She reached down to pull up her shift.

  “Don’t.”

  She stopped, raising her eyebrows at him.

  “I mean, you don’t have to do that. I have . . . that is . . .” He looked away, blushing furiously. “I mean, you rescued me too.” His heavy accent betrayed him as native to the northwest of Ireland. His voice was thick, clotted with smoke.

  She shrugged. “I only brought you back here.”

  “Aye,” he said. “That’s what did it. And I thank you for it.” He rummaged in his trouser pocket and brought forth a coin, pressing it into her hand. “Hold on to that now. If you ever find things going arseways with one of my people, do you show them that and tell them Johnny Prior gave it to you, and there’s none as’ll trouble you.”

  She looked at the coin in her hand. It wasn’t currency. On closer inspection, she saw it was a tin medal, embossed around the edges with the words Friendship, Unity, and Christian Charity. “Johnny Prior. That’s you, is it?”

  “ ’Tis,” he said.

  She held out her hand. “Liddie Lawrence, at your service, Mr. Prior.”

  He took her hand and pressed his lips to it. “Are you, then?” he said softly.

  She shrugged. “It’s my profession, being at men’s service.”

  “I see. Well,” he said, “if, in the course of your service, you find yourself in need of . . . shall we call it recourse? You just show ’em that token there. And in return . . .”

  “In return,” Liddie said slowly. “And what if anyone shows me a token like that one . . .”

  “Maybe you’ll show them some kindness for my sake?”

  Liddie nodded. “I may at that.”

  “Clever lass.” He pulled on his jacket, moving toward the window to peer out at the pavement below.

  “Well?” she asked.

  “Clear as day,” he said. “That’s me off, I suppose. We’ll meet again, to be sure.”

  “To be sure,” she repeated wonderingly, showing him to the door.

  “Be well, Liddie Lawrence.”

  “Safe travels, Johnny Prior.”

  After he was gone, she examined the small medal. With an awl, she bored a hole through the middle and strung it on a chain. She slipped it around her neck, tucking the medal into her bodice, and wondering what magic this token might work.

  It didn’t take long before she began to feel the effects of her newfound association. In the week that followed, she noticed a surge in custom. Then the cully with the Kerry accent—a regular, with the flat on Elizabeth Street—got rough with her one night. A pert remark of the sort he generally fancied set him off, and his hands closed on her throat. She clawed at his fingers, and suddenly he stopped. She rubbed her neck, shouting hoarsely at him, calling him a dirty prick.

  “Right, right, I didn’t know,” he said, backing away as she advanced angrily. “Only don’t be telling Johnny Prior, aye?” To her amazement, he paid her double. It was only afterwards that she realized that, in the struggle, the tin medal had come free from her bodice, and lay exposed on her breast.

  A month after the encounter, the bruises on her neck finally faded, she arrived home one night to see a strange man leaning on the wall next to her door, flipping a coin and catching it again, one-handed.

  “You’ll be Lawrence, I reckon?” he asked as she approached.

  She smiled tightly. “Who’s asking?”

  He caught the coin again and flashed it to her, holding it between his thumb and middle finger—his forefinger was missing at the knuckle. In the dim light of the Argand lamp, she could just make out the inscription: Friendship, Unity, and Christian Charity. The man grinned. “Name’s Quigley. A friend of a friend, you might say.”

  “Oh, indeed?” she said cautiously. “And what do you require of my friendship, Mr. Quigley?”

  The man pocketed the coin, still grinning. “Sure it’d be pleasanter to discuss up in your rooms, eh?”

  When it was over, she lay in her bed, wondering if he would leave her anything for her trouble. He didn’t keep her in suspense for long.

  “You’ll be having it ready?” he said, smiling pleasantly at her as he pulled on his braces.

  She blinked. “Having what ready?”

  He seemed as surprised as she was. “Why, five percent, of course.” He took in her expression of incomprehension. “Of your earnings. Johnny said you’d have it ready?”

  She sat up, furious. “I agreed to no such thing!”

  Quigley pointed at the medal, which hung between her bare breasts. “Under his protection, aren’t you? Haven’t had any of the lads raise a hand to you or the like since you’ve been wearing it?”

  Liddie pulled the medal from around her neck and tossed it at him. “Tell him he can keep his protection,” she spat. “I was doing just fine on my own before he started protecting me.”

  He tossed it back, discomfort suffusing his features. “Sure, I’m partial to my throat. Hard to sip a pint with it cut, aye? Tell him yourself, lassie. You’re a fine bit o’ stuff, Lawrence, but you ain’t worth the risk.”

  “And where would I find him to take up the matter?” she asked through gritted teeth.

  “The Hibernian, on Mulberry. He’s there Sundays and Thursdays.” The man rubbed the back of his head, looking sheepish. “But I’ll be needing the money, lassie. It’s worth more than my life to go back to him empty-handed.”

  “No.” She shook her head firmly. “I agreed to no such thing.”

  He laughed. “Aye, you did when you put that thing around your neck. Come now, lassie. Five percent of your take.”

  “I said no.”

  “Aye, I heard you,” he said almost gently. “But I’m thinking you’d not care for the alternative to handing it over.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “What’s that now?”

  Quigley rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. “It ain’t personal, you know. ’Tis just my job, see? But it’s either you turn over Johnny’s cut or I rough you up a bit.”

  “What’s ‘a bi
t’?”

  He sighed, then, looming over her, took her roughly by the arm with one hand, grabbed her little finger with the other hand and twisted it sharply. She screamed, and he released her to cradle her hand, the finger bent out from the palm at a sickening angle.

  “You bloody bastard, you complete fucking bastard!” she howled as he donned his hat and coat.

  “Told you ’tweren’t personal,” he muttered. “I expect I’ll be seeing you Thursday night. Come by after two or so. He should be free by then. I’ll show myself out.”

  At two o’clock in the morning on the following Thursday, she was just finishing her circuit, her finger splinted and wrapped, the medal clutched firmly in her good hand. The crowd at the Hibernian had begun to thin. He was sitting at the bench closest to the fire, with Quigley sitting beside him. He looked up as Quigley elbowed him in the side, and raised his glass to her, gesturing for her to sit. She seated herself and placed the medal on the bench between them with a cold thunk. She pursed her lips, and he looked at the medal, smiling.

  “Dermot,” he called. “Get my friend Liddie a round.”

  She allowed a small, tight smile to play upon her lips. “Thank you, but I’ll not be staying. I only wished to return this item, of which I am no longer in need.”

  The big barman came from behind the counter, holding out a mug to her and favoring her with a scowl before returning to his place. Johnny gestured for her to drink up, but she held the mug stiffly in her hands, staring obstinately. Johnny smiled.

  “Suit yourself, lassie. Now, what’s this I hear about you making poor Quigley here break your finger?”

  “Go fuck yourself.”

  He spread his hands. “Have you not had an easier time of it, wearing my medal? Less trouble for you, I’ll wager.”

  “I didn’t ask for your protection, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to pay you for a service I didn’t ask you to provide,” she said, clenching her jaw. “Take that filthy thing back and leave me be, will you?”

  Quigley, who had positioned himself behind her, pressed his broad hands on her shoulders. Johnny leaned back and regarded her thoughtfully. “Now, lassie, that’s what I call a rare mistake. ’Tis terrible dangerous on the streets, you know. Be a real shame if a pretty thing like you should come to harm. Come now, lassie, be reasonable.”

  “It would have been far more reasonable if I’d never taken you in that night,” she scowled.

  “Be that as it may,” he said. “Now pick up that medal, put it back on, and expect Quigley on the first and third Monday of each month, there’s a good lass?”

  She snatched the medal, shrugging Quigley’s hands off, and stormed out, the sound of their laughter ringing in her ears as she fled.

  When the appointed day came, she arrived home to find Quigley leaning against her door again. She sighed, pushing past him into the hall and marching up the stairs. Inside her chambers, she handed him a small leathern purse, which he counted out with a smile. “Right so, lassie. There’s the cash, but your hospitality’s a bit lacking tonight.”

  She stood, hands on her hips, and stomped her foot. “And what further satisfaction can you have tonight?” she asked, falling back, as she often did in times of exasperation, on the familiar Shakespearean quotations of her childhood. His grin was his answer, and Liddie Lawrence learned that night that Johnny Prior’s medal could not protect her from everything.

  Three months of Mondays later, bruised and sore, she rose from her bed on a Tuesday morning, deciding enough was enough. He could have his bloody money, or Quigley could take it out of her in flesh, but damned if she’d subject herself to both. The latter wasn’t part of the agreement anyway. She wondered if Johnny even knew. She remembered the way he’d stammered and his face had reddened, that first morning after the fire when she’d pulled up her shift, and ground her teeth in fury.

  That Thursday, she marched to the Hibernian, intent on having her say. It was a breezeless night in early September, the air still, flies harassing her as she walked determinedly past the reeking miasma of the Sixth Ward and up to the pub.

  Quigley was inside, along with a few of the others she’d come to recognize. Maguire, one was called. And her Kerryman, O’Mara. She scanned the room, but there was no sign of Johnny Prior.

  “Knocked up,” said Quigley, over the din. He held her arm, and not gently either. “What’d you need to see him for anyway?”

  “Mind your own business,” Liddie said tartly, and Quigley laughed good-naturedly.

  “Darlin’, you are my business.”

  She stormed out to curse in the alley, amidst the privacy of the hogsheads, starting in fear as ringing laughter met her curses. She never thought to equate the fair-haired girl laughing on the hogsheads with the fair-haired man who was extorting her. Not even the Donegal accent—so similar in cadence to the one she had expected to hear that night—had sparked any connection in her mind. Exhausted and furious, she took her pleasure with the girl from the alley to remind herself that she was still her own mistress, and that there was still unexpected sweetness in her life.

  * * *

  As we lay together on my pallet on the floor of the Hibernian, I listened to Liddie’s account of my brother in wonder. I’d had no notion of what he talked about with his mates, or what he did once I was too blind drunk to stand. I listened to her talk of Quigley, his brutal ease with her body, and I felt ill. How many nights had he kept my company, so studious of my virtue, after taking Liddie by force? I knew, too, that my brother had spoken with MacBride and O’Mara and Maguire and Riley and the others about “organizing things” in some vague way obscure to myself. I knew they were political—most men here in America were—and I knew that, being Irish and political, they all voted Democrat and occasionally engaged in fisticuffs with Whigs and nativists; that was expected of them. But in my sorrowing rage over Charlotte Walden—it was always, I thought furiously, over Charlotte Walden—it had never occurred to me that Johnny and his mates might be doing much of anything at all besides being friendly with others of our countrymen, voting and fighting for whomever Tammany had decreed. The thought of my brother presiding over a meeting at St. Patrick’s with a cache of guns made my blood run cold. The thought of him part of a group of men that could offer badges of protection—and all such a thing entailed—turned me pale.

  “How many more?” I finally asked. “Like you, I mean?”

  Liddie sighed. “Whores? Or businesses?”

  I started. “Come again now?”

  She rolled over onto her back, settling her cheek next to mine. “It’s not just streetwalkers. They’ve brothels, of course. Then there’s a fair few pubs, some of the groceries, most of the boardinghouses—that’s all in the Sixth Ward, you know—and I think two of the dance halls on the Bowery. One of the girls I know who does her route along Houston says they even have a theater, but I’ve never seen a sign of it.”

  “They, they, they! But, Liddie,” I asked, “who are they?”

  She shrugged, discomfited by my upset. “Why, the Order, of course. Who else would I mean?”

  “What Order?”

  “Are you Irish or aren’t you?” She laughed nervously. “Lord knows you’ve more of a nose for quim than for politics, but I would have thought even you would know about the Order.” I stared at her, all uncomprehending. “The Ancient Order of Hibernians. Republicans, you’d call them, back home?”

  “The Ancient Order of Hibernians?” I asked. “Surely not? Were they not just the lads who’d banded up to protect the churches after the nativists were burning them the past two summers?”

  “They’re Catholics, certainly, banding together against the Orangemen and the Whigs and the nativists,” Liddie said. “And it did all start after those fires, I’m told. They started holding meetings to protect Irish businesses. That’s what got them together. But, well, people tell things to whores. After, usually, when they’re feeling talkative. So I’ve gathered there’s a bit more to it than protect
ing churches and taverns.”

  “Like what?”

  “I’ve heard tell they’re raising money—all that protection money, of course, but donations from the churches they protect as well—to send back home to the anti-Unionists in Ireland.”

  “Anti-Unionists,” I mused. “What, you mean like the separatists who want to break with England?”

  “Isn’t that what all Irish are after? A sovereign nation of their own?”

  I shook my head. “I couldn’t say. It’s what Robert Emmet wanted, sure enough. Da used to talk of the Rebellion sometimes, but it wasn’t a thing we’d discuss openly back on the estate. The Boyles, them that ran the estate, Ballyboyle it was called (“Of course it was,” Liddie muttered), Mr. Boyle used to say that it was their own parliament Irishmen were so keen after. That there would be one day the same rebellion the British faced in America if they denied the Irish a voice in Parliament.”

  “That may be,” Liddie said. “But the rebellions don’t grow out of the ground overnight like a pack of Phoenician soldiers, do they?”

  “A pack of what?”

  “Cadmus? Tsk. Never mind,” she said, waving her hand impatiently, as was her wont when I failed to cotton to one of her literary references. “The point I’m making is this; to start a rebellion, you must have arms and ammunition. It takes more than rhetoric to fight for freedom; it takes tactics, does it not? But arms and ammunition cost a pretty penny, and the Irish haven’t had so much as a whiff of spare cash for nigh on three hundred years.”

  My mind reeled as I thought in a flash of Ballyboyle: the stately white stone manor house, set back from the manicured drive; its tapestried halls; the rows of silver candelabras that always wanted polishing; the sparkling crystal chandeliers that must be lowered once a week for dusting; the gleaming oaken floors, rubbed bright with wax. It was the epitome of wealth and privilege and luxury, the inhabitants thereof a species removed from those who toiled and suffered most under British rule. The thought that they might part with a single shilling to support a cause that could risk in the slightest their fragile way of life was laughable. But when I had lived there, I had always thought of my brother and me as part of that life, as fixed and firm as the flagstones on the hearth. I tried to imagine anyone who had come up on the estate as a radical patriot and failed.