The Parting Glass

by Gina Marie Guadagnino

  “I’ll not have you blaming yourself. It’s my fault he’s got involved, and it’s down to me he rose as far as he did. Your brother,” Dermot said, stirring the embers of the dying fire, “as I was saying, was a changed man after that first fire. He and the lads had brawled a time or two with the nativists, but this was something else again. A pack of those rabbits down from Ward Eight were threatening to set fire to the rectory at St. Patrick’s. He ended up down in the Five Points when the rioting got thick there.”

  I bit my lip. I had heard, of course, of the rioting and unrest in ’35. We had been in New York for only a year, and that June the Waldens had been in Saratoga Springs, making their annual pilgrimage to the Grand Union. Seeing the newspapers, I had been wild with worry about Seanin, who had remained behind in the city, but when we returned he had seemed whole and sound, save for a split lip, already on the mend. A common enough injury, I had never asked how he came by it. Truth to tell, I hadn’t wanted to know. But curiosity overtook me now, and I looked Dermot squarely in the eye, saying simply, “Tell me.”

  * * *

  Seanin O’Farren was not entirely clear on how he came to be lying facedown in the filth and muck of Orange Street, a nativist rabbit’s boot pressed against his neck. One moment, he’d been drinking with O’Malley and MacBride at the Hibernian, and the next he was near to drowning in the two inches of horse piss and spilled slops that coated the sloping streets while his assailant’s hobnail boot cut into his flesh. The moments in between—the newsboy who brought word of St. Patrick’s rectory on fire, the mad scramble for cudgels and torches, the riotous march that had somehow brought him down into the Sixth Ward—seemed a dream. A blurred glimpse of jumbled images, already half-forgot. There was only now, and now it was imperative that he pull his nose and mouth from the sludge in the street and throw off the crowing bastard above, intent on bashing his skull in.

  From somewhere very far away, he heard Quigley give a hearty “faugh a ballagh,” and the rabbit’s weight shifted slightly as he turned his head toward the sound. It was subtle, but it was enough. Seanin grabbed the bastard’s ankle with both hands and tugged, sending the rabbit sprawling. Gasping, he rolled over to the man, momentarily stunned, and gripped him by the greasy soap locks, wrapping his fingers in the rabbit’s hair and using this handhold to bash the man’s head against the filthy cobbles. The rabbit twitched and was still, stunned.

  Seanin pulled the cudgel from the unconscious rabbit’s hand and rose, wiping his face with a dirty sleeve, succeeding only in smearing the filth. He tasted iron, the bitter, metallic flavor of his own blood, overlaid with the reek of the excrement and filth that had recently filled his nostrils. The street was a battlefield, Irish and nativists grappling in silhouette as the flames from behind the church illuminated the scene. Somewhere, a fire wagon’s bell clanged, announcing its approach, and it was any man’s guess if the arriving company would set to work in putting out the flames or join the nativist rabbits against their Irish foes.

  The church, god forgive him, was the least of Seanin’s concerns just now. The street teemed with fighting men, each side doing its damnedest to savage the other, and Seanin waded into the thickest part of the fray instinctually, without pausing to consider a plan of action, but with only an inarticulate desire to take part in the savagery. Tightening his fist around his newly acquired cudgel, he raised the instrument and brought it firmly down on the head of the nearest rabbit, turning to meet the next foe before the first man had finished crumpling bonelessly to the ground. The weight of the thing in his hands reverberated with the impact as it connected solidly with another rabbit’s head, his arms quavering with the effort of keeping the cudgel in his grasp. A feral glee welled up in him as he brought it down upon a third man, and in this state of bloodlust, he was blind to the fact that the swath of rabbits he was felling had attracted the attention of another of their ilk, who crept up behind him and jabbed a dirk into his side.

  Stung, Seanin whirled, the blade still lodged between his ribs, and brought the cudgel across the rabbit’s face, satisfaction blooming across his own features as the man’s face caved obligingly in with a splattering of blood and a splintering of teeth and bone. He plucked nervelessly at the handle of the dirk, pulling it out and shoving his hand against the slice. Blood flowed freely against his hand, and he wondered absently if the blade had cut anything vital. If he was a walking dead man. That would be a shame, he thought in a detached sort of way as he raised his hand from the wound to wield the cudgel again. It would be unpleasant not to see his sister again. He felt the skin rip as he brought the thing to bear on yet another foe, and wondered if she would break the ruse they’d maintained to claim his body.

  The shouts of the men, the sounds of metal and wood hitting flesh, the screaming of the fire horses at last arrived seemed muted and dull. His arms ached from swinging the cudgel, and then went numb. Time slowed, and there was suddenly no moment before this one, his face covered in shit and sweat, his hands slick with blood. He had always been here on Orange Street, wounded and wounding, the heat of the flames warming his back. He would always be here. The stars were muted in the light from the blaze, but they prickled Seanin’s eyes: the last thing he saw before collapsing in the street.

  He awoke on the floor of the Hibernian. Scattered around him, a handful of men bled into the sawdust on the floor. His shirt was off and someone had bandaged the wound on his torso; every part of his body was sore. Moaning, he heaved himself upright, and a man in shirtsleeves who had been attending to one of his wounded mates turned at the sound.

  “O’Brien!” the man called, and Dermot came clattering up the stairs, a bottle of whiskey in one hand, a pail of soapy water in the other. The man nodded at Seanin before turning back to his prone patient, and Dermot came over to help him up. Once he was seated on the floor, his back to the wall, Dermot poured him a mug filled to the brim with whiskey.

  “For the pain,” Dermot said, putting the stopper back in the bottle. “Yon Sweeney there”—the man in shirtsleeves cocked his head at the sound of his name—“Sweeney stitched you up. Says you’ll mend fine, and a finer nick than Sweeney I know not, so you’ll do.”

  “Glad to hear it,” Seanin said, still dazed. He took a hefty swig of the whiskey, which helped his dizziness not at all.

  “By all accounts, you acquitted yourself well,” Dermot said, seating himself beside Seanin. “Very well indeed. So well, in fact, there’s some of the lads looking to put a stop to all these riots that would see you and your mates do more in that line to prevent such things from occurring.”

  Seanin scrubbed a hand over his face. “More of that hell?” he asked. “Christ, Dermot, do y’know what went on out there?”

  “That I do,” the barman said wearily.

  Seanin paused for another bolt of the whiskey. “There’s knowing,” he said. “And then again there’s knowing. And now I know.”

  “What do you know, lad?”

  Seanin told him. With the blood of his body and the filth of the street drying stiff on his trousers, the words tumbled out of him. Slowly at first, then gaining momentum, then—

  “And when I woke, I was here,” Seanin said. “Dead to the world while the finest nick you’ve ever known sews up the slits in me. And you want me and the lads to go out seeking that?”

  Dermot refilled the whiskey, which had run low. “Well, lad,” he said mildly. “Never did figure you for a coward, for all it’s always been your sister with gumption.”

  Seanin scowled. “Aye, my sister. The one who can put on a voice and take off Ireland and never think twice about it. She always finds a way to get what she wants. To rise.”

  “And that’s her way. Fine enough way, for a slip of a thing like her. But you’ll never rise by the same path, Seanin.”

  Seanin shook his head. “Well, you’re right enough about that. But she wouldn’t have to take that path if she could do what she does and use her own voice plain enough. Or worship in her own
church on Sunday. Dermot,” he said suddenly, “is the church standing, still?”

  “Flames never touched it,” Dermot assured him. “Our boys had the water pumping away, to be sure.”

  “And what if it’s this tavern next time?” he said. “Or what if one of them bastards hears us out on the street? I brought her here to protect her, but being Irish is no protection in this town, not from the likes of them.”

  “Then it sounds to me like you should meet up with those lads,” Dermot said. “They’re talking about taking a stand. And, sure, lad, isn’t that why you’re here after all? To make a better life?”

  “That’s so,” Seanin said. “I’ve seen that there’s more to life than the way I’ve been living it.”

  “Then get to living, lad,” Dermot said. “Get to living.”

  * * *

  It was the small hours before I made my way down to my pallet in the basement, and, though I had only a few hours to sleep before I must return to Washington Square, I found my mind too full of Dermot’s story to seek my repose. With great prodding on my part and great reluctance on his, he had slowly revealed how Seanin had begun organizing the protection ring to keep Irish businesses safe from nativist gangs and Know-Nothings. I closed my eyes, but saw only Dermot’s pleading face, asking me to consider Seanin’s intentions, and I cursed myself for not considering them sooner. Seanin would have grappled at any chance he got to make something more of himself; was he not in love with the beauty of her generation? I was a fool to think he’d be content sneaking in and out of her bed, love’s thief in the night. Perhaps someday, he had said, and I had never thought for a minute he was doing anything that might make “someday” a reality. More fool, I. Seanin O’Farren planned to get to living, and those plans included the woman he loved and the money to keep her. I wondered, excluded from and ignorant of his plans, where that left me.

  You should therefore obey directions with alacrity and cheerfulness, and not look sulky or mutter because those do not exactly accord with your own particular notions.

  —The Duties of a Lady’s Maid

  As the first thaw eased its way onto the island, the chill of Johnny’s absence began to fade from the house on Washington Square. There was a new groom, Mr. Vandeman, engaged before Easter, having been recommended to the household by the ever-solicitous Mr. Dawson, and having passed deepest scrutiny from Mr. Buckley upon his hire. Young Frank, the stableboy, was grumbling in the kitchen that he should be passed over, and Cook rapped him sharply on the ear with a wooden spoon for gainsaying Mr. Buckley’s wisdom in passing over a sixteen-year-old for the position. Grace Porter and I smiled into our teacups from across the room as Agnes tended to the wounded ear while Cook fumed.

  “Aren’t you ashamed of yourself, whining before Miss Ballard and Miss Porter, when you got no right to any station in this house except what you earn in it?” Cook left off brandishing the wooden spoon momentarily to stir something on the stove before turning and waving it menacingly at the pair, tiny, savory droplets scattering on the flagstones. “And don’t you be getting any ideas up, Agnes, just ’cause that boy’s making up to you with his hurt ear. He’s a sly one, and I should know it. Just like his old daddy was.”

  “My daddy was good enough to be the Waldens’ groom,” Young Frank grumbled. “Seems like I ought to get a chance.”

  “Your daddy was twice your age before he ever came north, and thrice your age before old Mr. Walden hired him. He’d been breaking horses all over Georgia since he was a mite. How many horses’ve you broke?”

  Agnes said something to Young Frank in an undertone that made both of them laugh, and Cook shot them a glare. Agnes excused herself, and Young Frank was left alone on a stool by the hearth, looking quite forlorn indeed.

  “My father was a groom as well.” The words were out of my mouth before I knew it.

  Young Frank looked up, surprised, as well he might be. I had never addressed him directly before; he was always with Johnny. Cook looked at me queerly from the corner of her eye but said nothing.

  “He started out in the stables when he was a lad, and he worked his way up. He was made head groom by the time I was still a little girl. There was no one gentler or trustier with horses. The old master used to say there was no one who could train a team like him. But he worked at it for years, you know. His whole life he did nothing but train horses.”

  Young Frank swallowed. “My daddy, too. When I was small, he used to take me up to the fields in Harlem with him to watch him break horses.”

  “Maybe you could ask Mr. Vandeman to let you help?” I smiled encouragingly.

  “I’m sure he would,” Grace put in unexpectedly. “After all, Mr. Dawson recommended him, and I feel certain that a man who came with Mr. Dawson’s stamp of approval would have the whole household’s best interests at heart.”

  “Yeah, maybe I should ask him.” Young Frank brightened. “I’d like that.”

  “Then you best shake a leg back to the carriage house and be where he can see you,” said Cook, her hands on her hips. Her son leapt from his stool, pecked her hard on the cheek, and, grinning at me, dashed out into the mews, slamming the door behind him.

  Cook shook her head, sighing as she turned her attention back to the stew.

  “It’s that age. It’s tragedy one minute, and sunshine the next. Lord, if I wasn’t trouble too in those years, always sighing after something. Boys have it easier, I expect. Something to do with all that energy. Least I wasn’t crying at the drop of a pin like that Agnes.” She pursed her lips. “Impossible to train. Tears if you give her the slightest word. I declare, that girl’ll be the death of me.”

  I heard a distinct sniff from the shadow of the stair, and it was clear Cook heard it too, for she raised her voice, saying, “And unreliable! Never around when I need her!” There was a scrape and a scuffle and Agnes fell over herself into the room. Grace, in a remarkable and hitherto unprecedented show of actual human decency, set down her teacup, rising and excusing herself. I followed, the sounds of Cook scolding the girl echoing up the stair behind us.

  The changes wrought by Johnny’s departure extended throughout the house. Mr. Dawson had become a regular fixture in the Waldens’ parlor, and at the dinner table as well, as Charlotte, sobered by how close she had come to ruin, began at last to heed her mother’s matrimonial urgings. Upon Charlotte’s full recovery, Mrs. Walden had closeted herself with her daughter in the drawing room for hours, and Liza—waiting, she claimed under Mrs. Harrison’s withering look, to do the dusting—had lingered outside the door and heard it all. The merits of becoming Baroness Muskerry were laid out, debated, and abandoned in favor of the Dawson estates and their substantial income. For once, the ladies of the house were in agreement; a title, however grand, that could be maintained only on Charlotte’s annuities was a precarious investment for any future issue in Mrs. Walden’s opinion, while Charlotte remained adamant that she should not wish to emigrate.

  Grace Porter sniffed derisively at Liza’s recital, closing it with her considered opinion that it was rank brazenness to listen at doors, and her declaration that she would trim her new bonnet in her own quarters until supper before exiting the kitchen with sanctimonious dignity. Cook snorted after she was gone.

  “Jealous she couldn’t break the news herself, I expect,” she said. “There now.” She turned to Liza, who looked both pleased and stricken. “There’s not a one of us that wouldn’t have done the same, girl, least of all Miss High-and-Mighty Porter.”

  Mrs. Harrison inspected her keys, something like mirth creeping at the corners of her mouth, and said, “Oh really, Bertha, don’t encourage the girl.”

  “You go on and have yourself a good laugh, Jane,” said Cook, “if you haven’t forgot how. Now, I think Liza’s brought us news worth celebrating.”

  “Celebrating?” inquired Mr. Buckley. “Whatever exactly would we celebrate?”

  “Just like a man! Why, the fact our princess won’t be leaving the country!”


  “Now, now,” said Mr. Buckley. “I would think that’s a little premature. After all, she hasn’t married Mr. Dawson yet.”

  I laughed outright at this, bitterness mingling with amusement. “Indeed, Mr. Buckley, you must be the only man in New York who thinks that Charlotte Walden couldn’t marry any man she sets her cap on.”

  Mr. Buckley sputtered a bit at this, but the knowing looks of every woman in the kitchen stifled him before he could give voice to his indignation.

  Another requisite of attention is, an observant eye to every thing that you see done; and if you are not perfect for want of practice, try your hand at it privately till you are.

  —The Duties of a Lady’s Maid

  In the month that followed Charlotte’s resolution to secure her place in society as Mrs. Elijah Dawson, I would have been hard-pressed to say who was wooing whom. Mr. Dawson’s visits were marked by an increase in Charlotte’s musical repertoire; as fast as he brought her gifts of sheet music, she had the songs memorized. The tulips and lilacs he brought her were arranged carefully on the side tables in Mrs. Walden’s best crystal vases. Young Frank was kept busy currying Charlotte’s palfrey, Angelica, for, though she did not relish riding, she accepted Mr. Dawson’s invitations to join him on horseback with alacrity.

  In addition to his morning calls, Mr. Dawson seemed to have developed an almost preternatural sense of when Charlotte could be found taking a turn in the Square. More than once, she had gone out with Prudence to take in the spring air and returned with Mr. Dawson, who had fortuitously happened upon the ladies and insisted upon squiring them home. Invariably, he would return with them flanking him to the Walden residence, one auburn and one dark, one sedate and one agitated.