Men of No Property

by Dorothy Salisbury Davis

  “The very reason I came,” said Peg. “I’ve been ill, you know.”

  “I’m sorry to hear it.”

  “And so I understand is your ‘walking lady.’ What a pity.”

  “An exaggerated account. You know the newspapers. She’s a bit liverish. That’s all.”

  “Mr. Richards, you made a small fortune on Gallus Mag, didn’t you?”

  “A long time ago, Miss Margaret,” he said, never lifting his eyes from his cigar. “I’ve lost it many times over since.”

  “But we were talking about old times, for old time’s sake. I should like to be added to your company at a small salary—not as small as Gallus Mag’s, to be sure—but neither am I proposing myself your star. I should make a most competent walking lady, and I do know that yours is very ill.”

  He pulled at his cigar, clogging the air between them with smoke through which he squinted at her now and then while he thought of the matter. Finally he said: “I was out of town all summer, but I read the dispatches of what happened here, Mrs. Stuart.”

  “Oh yes,” Peg said, “I was away, too, being ill. But they were brought to my attention as you can imagine. That dreadful woman. She claimed to have been an actress. Some of the papers said her name was Stuart, some even Peg Stuart. The implication was strong, so strong that a young lawyer friend of mine suggested I bring suit for libel—against the newspapers, that is.”

  “But not against the woman?”

  Peg lifted her chin. “I don’t suppose it was the first time she libeled me, Mr. Richards.”

  “And do you believe it was the last, my dear?”

  “I understand, on reliable authority, that she is dead,” Peg said.

  “I hope she is for her sake,” Richards said. He put down his cigar and leaned across his desk. “Since you were so direct inquiring of my Gallus Mag fortune, allow me a direct question also: if I were to employ you in some small capacity, Mrs. Stuart, what would you do with your first salary?”

  “I should visit a dentist,” Peg said without a moment’s hesitation.

  Richards straightened up. “Give me a few days to think about it, Margaret. Leave your address with the boxkeeper.”

  “Do you know,” Peg said, rising with a grace she had thought lost, “Old John seems no older now than the day he first brought me and Valois up to this office.”

  “He’s not,” Richards said. “The rest of us turn gray and grow paunches, but old John will petrify. Perhaps he already has and we don’t know it.”

  “I am very much beholden to you, Mr. Richards.”

  “I like to have gracious ladies in my debt, Margaret. I have so often been in theirs.”

  Norah, Norah, wait till you hear! Oh and here’s the thruppence you gave me for tea. And did you notice the cab fare was half? I walked up Broadway, oh yes, I did. I looked in all the shop windows and do you know, there’s the promise of Christmas already about, and Norah…I shall be playing by Christmas.

  We’ll say never a word to Dennis, Peg. Let it come on him a surprise.

  Never a word, not even when I’m out though he’d rather me out than in, out and down and well forgotten. He’d put a willing flower on my grave.

  “I’m going out now, Norah.”

  “I’d rather you not and tomorrow elections. There’s the great danger on the streets tonight, and it no place for a woman.”

  “I am no ordinary woman, Norah.”

  “That you’re not, love, and I’m proud of you. Tell me the hour you’re home and be here.”

  “About nine I should say. I’m dining at a restaurant with some old friends.”

  “Will you want to pay your own way?”

  “It would give me pride,” Peg said.

  “And me pleasure,” said Norah, getting her purse.

  Peg dined alone, however, and those old friends she saw turned safely from her at a distance. Ah well, Peg thought, they will come back, but I shall have to woo them. I have ever had to woo my lovers. She was almost gay despite it when she paid her bill and Papa Pfaff wished her good luck. But at the door she paused, and read a plaque that stunned her: IN MEMORY OF JABEZ REED.

  Go home now, Peg, she told herself upon the street. She had known that Jabez was dead; she even knew how he had died, though how she came to know it she could not say. This was not the time to make such inquiry, and surely not the place. She had not been with the Pfaff crowd then, but with her boys downtown.

  And suddenly everybody on the street was going downtown again, a great rollicking crowd of people, the torchlights and the singing; the tramping feet louder than the stamp of horses, bold and boisterous men, and in their wake a tumble of limping, hopping beggars, going down, going down all to give a rousing pledge for Lavery and Seymour. Two gentlemen caught her between them and carried her on a few steps. “Are there none of you going for Farrell?” she cried.

  “Sure half us are, but it’s Lavery that’s buying. Come along and see the fun.”

  “Put me down quick or you’ll tempt me!” Kicking out with her feet she was soon given back their burden. She caught the first bus uptown and prayed herself all the way home. Norah was watching for her at the window. She rose like the joy of morning.

  “Peg, you’re early, thank God!”

  “Have you been at the window since?”

  “Look,” Norah said, “a messenger brought it.”

  Peg took the envelope from her hand and broke the seal.

  “Read it out, read it out!” Norah cried.

  “‘Rehearsal at eleven in the morning,’” Peg read in a whisper.

  Norah flung her arms about her but Peg needed to sit down where she could read the words again, and Norah began a litany of plans, the clothes she needed and who would make them up quick, and all the sleep she needed now.

  “Fie upon the sleep,” Peg cried. Not sleep she needed but the waking: the great, noisy brush of people, the touchstone of her living. “The children are abed?”

  “They are,” said Norah.

  “And the girl?”

  “She’s in the scullery.”

  “Norah, the town’s alive tonight. There are people singing in the streets, some for Dennis and some for Stephen, but what odds who they’re for? Dennis will speak and maybe Stephen. I’d give a share of my soul to be there. Put on your cloak and let us go down.”

  “Oh no, I couldn’t,” Norah said. “There’d be no women.”

  “There’s women everywhere,” Peg said. “You won’t even be seen with a shawl on your head, and we’ll keep the carriage waiting near.”

  “Sure,” said Norah, “and I’m past the age of temptin’ most!”

  She consented in the end and Peg thought it like taking a child to the circus. There wasn’t a flare went up in the sky she didn’t herself explode to. “Ohh-h-h, look at that!” and her voice rising up like the Chinese fire. Women there were, but only a few, and leaving the cab, Peg needed to haul her sister. “There’s Dennis now,” said Peg. “Where? Where?” and Norah followed easier to where she could see him.

  Dennis was standing in the light of the tar barrels, waving his hands to the cheering crowd, his patronage in his smile, Peg thought. He was far more at ease on a political stump than ever an actor was on the stage. Where, she wondered, were the ones for Farrell. Dennis gestured his hand for quiet, the motion like patting a dog. Then rose the voices for Farrell, young men by their torchlit faces, giving three times three for Lavery’s foe…Farrell the honest, Farrell the bold, the savior of Irish honor, Farrell, a man who couldn’t be bought for gold. Norah was shrouding her face like a Moslem and began to pull on Peg to go home. Dennis gave a jerk of his thumb to his bullies, never creasing the smile ironed into his face, and as the brawny boys pushed through the crowd, Peg saw Farrell’s boosters link arms. “Hold fast! Hold fast!” She cried out the words, her voice clarion over the crowd’s murmur, and the sound of it hushing them more.

  “Ho, now boys, hear that!” Dennis boomed from the platform, and even his bu
llies turned round to hear him. His hands on his hips, he rocked back and forth. “No wonder they’re cheerin’ for Farrell down there. Sure it’s Farrell’s whore that’s playin’ their bugle!”

  A whoop of glee went up from the crowd, but through it Peg heard the little moan from Norah. For all she hated Dennis, Peg would have spared Norah this. “We’ll go now quick,” Peg said, and pushed Norah through before her.

  “Stand where you are, woman there!” Dennis shouted, and Peg turned back to face him. “Some of you know her for my sister-in-law, aye, and some of you know her for somethin’ else. But let me tell you, boys, there’s none of us know her like Farrell. Now run the strumpet out of here and I’ll document the story.”

  Peg fled through the opening made her as though she were untouchable, and then beat off the beggars pursuing Norah to the cab. They needed to rout out the driver where he had burrowed inside for a nap.

  “Oh, Norah, I am sorry. I’d not have done that to you.”

  “To me?” Norah cried. “Wasn’t it me put the words in his mouth to be twisted, but oh, such a long time ago.”

  “Poor Stephen,” Peg said. “It will be in all the papers in the morning.”

  “What do I care for him when it’s you that’s knocked down just gettin’ to your feet? Will Mr. Richards hire you now?”

  “Do you know, Norah, I hadn’t given him a thought? I don’t suppose I believed it in the first place. I don’t have much faith these days…in any man, though his was a kindness.”

  Norah sat quiet for a long ways. Then she said: “I heard him sayin’ the words, but I still can’t believe what I heard.”

  “Don’t believe it,” Peg said. “’Tis best for you and for the children. Do you have any money, Norah?”

  “A little.”

  “Let me have it.”

  “I will not.”

  “I can’t go back to the house, Norah.”

  Norah caught her hand. “I’ll not go back without you. My heart split open tonight as if he took the cleaver to it. Do you think I can go home and wait him lovin’ly? I cannot. Do you think I can wake the childer’ in the mornin’ and tell them to be proud of their father? I cannot.”

  “Do you remember, Norah, the night he came home after calling Mr. Finn?”

  “Listen to me, Peg, for I’m plannin’. Let the past lie where it’s dead. I’ll take the childer’ from the house this night and go to Mary Lavery’s. I told you her and Kevin are goin’ to Ireland. We’ll go with them, Peg, all of us. I’ve a bit of money laid by.”

  “Be sensible, Norah. Do you think he would allow it?”

  “He can’t stop me from tryin’ itself.”

  Peg laid her head back for a moment and tried to conjure a vision of Ireland. Ah, Norah, there’s nothing there for us at all. Even could you get them there, your children would flee you back as soon as they were fledged. Go a little ways if you can, and then come back as you must. But I shall stay entirely. She helped Norah rouse and dress the children and bade the serving girl pack and go with them. At an odd moment in Norah’s distraction, Peg put her hand in her sister’s purse and drew from it a small share of the money. Only when Peg put them into a cab and wished them Godspeed did Norah realize her intentions.

  “You’re comin’, Peg,” she cried.

  “Soon. Soon, darling, I’ll follow after.” She slammed the door before Norah could get out, and cried up to the driver. “Go on, sir! Make haste! ’Tis very late!”

  4

  DENNIS WANTED ALL NIGHT to get away home on the odd chance Peg might show up there before him. Small chance, to be sure, now in reach of the bottle, but the little fears stabbed him the while just the same. Some stupid gob swore he saw Norah with her. When that day arrived he would throw in the cards. But tonight of all nights to let Peg get out! From the days of the riots he’d said she was through and his pact with his wife had been that if ever again she took to the streets the door of their house would be locked against her. She was oiling the lock right now, Dennis thought, in whatever groghole she was snuggled. Tonight of all nights! All over the country the War party was winning, and in New York City if he was a sample, his own brother Kevin was going for Farrell. Dennis couldn’t get home while a vote might be coaxed. Ward after ward, stationhouse by house, and the horse near as spent as himself. He could map the streets of the city, Dennis thought, by the welts on his backside. It was well after midnight when the cartwheel scraped his own curb, and he gave over the reins to the trusty beside him.

  “They’re all waitin’ up,” the man said, for the house was aglow with lights.

  Dennis gave a great sigh. “Pick me up at seven.”

  “I’d lock up the doors just the same tonight, Dennis. Them was awful strong words you used in the park.”

  Dennis gave a crack with the whip and flung it after cart and driver. “Get home out of here with your greetin’!”

  It was a strange thing, the house bright as day and not a sound in it. Dennis let the door bang, threw the bolt, and waited. Nary a breath nor a whisper save the singing of light jets, and the hall looking different. The clothes stand was stripped. The small army of coats always pleasuring his eye, gone. A clatter came then from the scullery. Dennis ran the length of the house. And there she was in her glory, lining up the bottles and taking their measure. She turned on him, drunk and still drinking. “Welcome home, brother of mine!”

  “Where’s Norah?”

  “Where’s Norah,” Peg repeated.

  “Christ blister you, answer.”

  “She’s halfway to Dublin by now in her haste, or maybe it’s halfway back she is.”

  Dennis tumbled the bottles with a swipe of his arm and caught up the camphene lamp. He climbed the back stairs three steps at a time, Peg wailing after him out of the dark. All of them gone, his children, lifted out of their sleep and their beds left gaping, and Norah’s not slept in at all. Dublin. Christ, Christ, she might try it, that daft on her sister, and enemies he had willing sure to help her. He climbed to the attic to waken the girl; she could sleep up there through hell’s eruption and Peg was now bearing watching. But the girl, too, was gone. She had emptied the house.

  Peg meandered up the front stairs as he reached the landing. “Where did they go this night or I’ll kill you?” Dennis cried.

  She dangled a bottle like a trinket from her wrist. “The St. Nicholas I think, or was it the Astor House?”

  Dennis slashed his hand across her face. Peg’s head jerked back and the bottle spun from her hand, clinking on the floor. Her teeth shone in the venomous smile. “I just admitted a gentleman downstairs inquiring after you,” she said.

  Dennis had but one thought then, to reach the door. He flung Peg from his way and lunged down the stairs. Peg cried out, “Stephen!”

  Farrell reached the door before him and barred his way.

  “Take the house and all in it,” Dennis cried.

  “It’s only you I want,” Farrell said, “and if you go from here it will be with me.”

  Dennis eased himself from the stairs for he feared Peg at his back, but she was gone from sight. “Where is it I’m to go?”

  “To Nassau Street and swear to a retraction in every newspaper office on it.”

  “Shall we take the whore with us?” said Dennis. He saw Farrell’s nostrils whiten and the veins were standing out on his temples. He moistened his lips and held up his hand to make Farrell listen yet. “And while we’re about it, there’s something else I could swear to: The War Democrat’s wife spinnin’ wool in the cellar, aye, and pullin’ it over his eyes comin’ home…”

  Farrell said not a word but came on, one step at a time, and Dennis knew then by his hands that he carried no weapon. He climbed a few steps backwards and waited for the fist to come up, to catch the arm and the shoulder and tumble the man on the stairs and then bolt to the door himself. But Farrell never lifted his hands. Walking into whatever blow Lavery might aim, his intent was the same as Dennis’, to ride out the punch and ca
tch the man, and Dennis knew him of old to be quicker. Dennis retreated another step. He’d like to have shot his foot out at him, but he dared not and land on his back if Farrell got hold of it.

  “All right,” Dennis said. “I’ll go with you. Wait in the parlor and I’ll come.”

  “I wouldn’t trust you from my sight while I blinked my eyes.”

  Dennis chanced the kick then for he’d reached the top. Farrell caught his foot but as Dennis went down he caught the rungs of bannister. He could kick his free foot while he clung, and at the same time pulled himself within reach of the bottle where Peg had dropped it. Dennis pistoned both feet like a sledge and loosed the man’s grip, Farrell needing to catch his own balance. Dennis caught up the bottle and cracked off its bottom. A great jagged spear remained, the neck its sturdy handle. He waited. Farrell was coming on again. “Christ!” Dennis cried. “Don’t make me use it!” Farrell quickened his pace; Dennis turned and ran. “’Tis the coward’s friend, the bottle!” Peg sang out of the dark.

  Dennis tried to reach the door to his bedroom, but Farrell gave a leap and caught him about the waist. Dennis twisted around and plunged the speared glass again and again into the man’s back until the body went limp at his feet. Only then did Peg show herself, rushing and falling upon the fallen as though she was greedy for the sight, the touch, the blood of him dying. Dennis closed his eyes on it and pulled himself away. Sick of heart, stomach and soul, he groped his way down the stairs and into the street. Not a soul was there upon it, nor in any house save his own a light. At the end of a block he rested, leaning over the stone watering trough. He plunged his hands into the water, cracking the surface of ice, and sluiced his face also and washed the foul motes of dryness from his mouth.

  Going on then, he saw a roundsman pass beneath a street lamp and called out to him.

  “Mr. Lavery, is it?” the man said, coming up to him.

  “Aye,” Dennis said. “I killed a man in my house.”

  “One askin’ it, like as not,” the officer said, taking Dennis’ arm.

  Dennis tried to tell him on the way of the mad woman waiting them there as well.