Men of No Property (34 page)

“I say, Stephen, I don’t want to crash the Mitchel crowd, if you don’t mind. Later, perhaps, but there’s an artist chap over here I know.”

“As you like,” Farrell said. “They’ll be here a while by the looks of them.” Young Ireland had gathered chairs to themselves, and it was quite unheard of that New Year’s callers should sit down.

Vinnie made his way to where Jabez Reed stood at the window, glowering down at the Broadway scene, one hand working out of the other behind his back. His shoulders were sloped and his back hunched a little, perhaps from the weight of an enormous head. From behind, the artist looked like an old man. His face, Vinnie remembered, was like a child’s. The Institute catalogue listed him as having been born in Indian territory in 1828.

“I wonder if you remember me, Mr. Reed?” Vinnie said.

The artist gave him but a glance, beckoned him to his side, and pointed to the scene he attended. Vinnie shaded his eyes from the light of the room. The snow was falling faster in the gathering twilight. He saw then what so intrigued the artist: two inebriates trying to haul their fellow one way while the man’s dog was determined to take him by the coat tail another.

“Who wins, do you say?” said Reed.

“The dog,” Vinnie said. “He’s sober.”

“Sobriety, like virtue, is not always its own reward, my friend.” With that, the artist swept the curtain into Vinnie’s hand, gave the window a great heave, and having it open, thrust his head out. He put two fingers between his teeth and blasted a piercing whistle. The dog let go of the coat to better attend the sound and before he could catch it again, his master and chums had skipped into a tavern.

“One up for Aesop,” the artist said.

Meanwhile, half the candles in the drawing room were guttered, and Reed had gained as much attention within as without. Vinnie closed the window, preferring to face the strangers outside than the friends at his back. Reed, discovering his audience, looked at them a moment in dismay. Then he jerked his thumb toward the window. “My reindeer,” he said. “I’m about to leave.”

Amid the shaking of heads and resumption of talk, Vinnie said: “Will you have a plate before you go?”

The artist looked up at him sharply. “I do know you, bless my eyes! Vincent Dunne, well done, capital done! Lord God of Jerusalem that I should be so slow to recognize a man by whom I was so excellently done!” He leaned close to Vinnie. “I should prefer a glass.”

Vinnie beckoned to the servant.

Reed lifted the glass. “To faithful dogs and faithless lovers. If one had the soul of the other…it would not improve the world an atom.” He downed the wine at one long pull, blinked his eyes and accepted another. “To artists everywhere—who try as they will, cannot possibly eat enough today to suffice them the rest of the year.” Finishing that off, he smacked his lips and rubbed his hands together. “Now, pray tell me, Dunne, who is our host, for I believe I’ve happened on the wrong reception.”

Vinnie told him and presently accounted the identity of as many people as he knew. Reed’s eyes played over the guests while he listened and now and then he would query: “What is it you say he does?” And when Vinnie was finished, the artist went back to one of the names. “A sea captain, did you tell me? Nonsense. He’s a military filibusterer, oh, he is now, don’t be shocked. It’s quite respectable in some circles, and if I rightly heard the accents of mine hostess, this is one. Look at your sea captain coddle Young Ireland. Shall I tell you why? He calculates them soul-cousins to Young America, and rightly. Both will join anything military so long as the gods of war are summoned in the name of Democracy. Conquer the world and call it Destiny. That’s the spirit. Manifest Destiny. Mark it, my friend: your sea captain will be off to Cuba one day soon, a little armed filibuster to set it free from the tyrant, Spain. And all them Cuban black folk—what’s their destiny? He’ll ship ’em back to South Carolina, and manifest it there.”

Rolling back on his heels like a street preacher, the artist had once more drawn attention to himself, including that of his hostess.

“If you’re goin’ to talk about South Carolina, gentlemen, it’s goin’ to have to be in the presence of a native child,” Delia said, appearing, Vinnie thought, with the haste of a ghost, for he had not seen her come.

He presented Jabez Reed as his friend. When Delia gave him her hand in such a manner that he also needed to raise it to his lips, her other guests again dismissed Reed from their attention.

“And do you know South Carolina, Mr. Reed?” Delia persisted.

“I must account my knowledge ignorance until your acquaintance, madam,” Reed said with heavy irony. Vinnie could sense the immediate antagonism between them.

Delia looked at the artist, the blue in her eyes as cold as stars. “We have more to recommend us than our hospitality, Mr. Reed,” she said, “but to that you’re welcome if you’re a friend of Vincent’s.” And smiling, she left them.

“Someone will chew her hand off one day for that,” Reed said furiously. “But for the present score another point for South Carolina.”

Vinnie felt it necessary to offer a defense of Stephen’s wife. “All the same,” he said, “I’ll wager Delia’s no champion of the filibuster. I suspect she has a low opinion of Young Ireland and Young America alike.”

“I didn’t know Southern ladies allowed to political opinions,” Reed said in a mocking drawl.

“Senator Osborn is her father.”

“A-ha, a-ha,” Reed said. “Then mark me this, if she is not its champion today, she will not be its enemy tomorrow…and perhaps by the day after we shall have Cuba, another slave state. This is the lure of the Democrats, my young friend. They would have the South at all costs, which is ridiculous since they might have it for nothing. The Whigs are dead and certainly the South will not go Abolitionist to find a party.”

“Native American, perhaps?” said Vinnie.

“Not so long as the Irish favor slavery.”

“I am Irish,” Vinnie said, “and I do not favor it.”

“You must be a very lonely Irishman then,” Reed said. “Look there, the white-haired gentleman just arrived, George Robbins—do you know him?”

“No,” Vinnie said, although the name was very familiar. The man was on Stephen’s arm, making his way to the Young Ireland group, and presently shaking hands around in hearty fervor.

“There is not a Democrat of harder shell in Christendom,” Reed said. “He’s a national committeeman and a lawyer with offices here and in Washington, and his principal clients, the Southern planters. He serves them well. He is virtually a lobbyist on behalf of their peculiar institution. Now, if I’m not mistaken, he will proclaim his sympathy for the downtrodden Irish, and to illustrate it, subscribe generously to this chap Mitchel’s paper.”

Vinnie measured every word for as soon as Reed had identified the man as a lawyer he realized why the name was familiar: Stephen was his partner. “I wish…” Vinnie said, and the words lagged behind his thinking. There were so many things he wished. Reed tilted his great head and gazed up at him with an innocence that made Vinnie feel his elder. He was reminded of himself in the canny mischief of his childhood when it pleased him to tell the truth only when it could cause more trouble than a lie. “I wish,” he said, “that I could call you a liar.”

“So do all men discomfited by the truth,” Reed said. He drew a great muffler from under his coat. “Perhaps you will convey my thanks to our hostess.” He looked her way while he spoke, and following the direction of his gaze, Vinnie saw that Delia and a companion were watching them only to turn away before their eyes might meet. “Coming from you such thanks will seem of more worth than I intend them, and this much at least she deserves for tolerating one so contemptuous of her house. A prosperous New Year to you, Dunne. If ever you want to look at pictures they will tell you at Windust’s where to find me.”

Bitter, bitter, bitter, Vinnie thought, watching him depart. He wondered when he would meet Jabez Reed again, and if he would learn the reason for such bitterness. He learned part of it far quicker than he expected. He was making his way toward Mr. Finn when Delia intercepted him.

“Dear Vinnie,” she said, “I do believe you’ve done me a harm you didn’t intend.”

“If I’ve done you harm,” he said, “I surely did not intend it. Mr. Reed is a peculiar sort.” He was determined not to offer an apology, for in truth he saw nothing in Reed’s behavior requiring it except perhaps the episode at the window, and he was sure Delia did not mean that.

“Very peculiar indeed,” Delia said. “Did you know he was a Negro?”

“No,” Vinnie said quietly, “I didn’t.”

Delia smiled then and hooked her arm in his. “There,” she said, “I didn’t think you knew it. I just learned it myself from a most reliable source.”

Vinnie, thinking about the man’s features, realized it might be so. “Part Negro, I should say.”

“There’s no such thing,” Delia said blithely.

“I see,” Vinnie said.

“We won’t tell Stephen a word about it. He’s got enough on his mind now.”

Quite enough, Vinnie thought.

Stephen prevailed upon Mr. Finn and Vinnie to stay on to supper. The remains of the buffet made an ample feast.

“We should have asked Mr. Robbins to dine with us, Stephen,” Delia said, and to Vinnie: “He’s an old family friend, you know.”

“I dare say he had many calls yet to make,” Stephen said. “Some houses receive until ten.”

“Gracious! I’d be entirely undone by then,” said Delia.

“You must be weary as it is, my dear,” he said, and added to his guests: “It’s Delia’s way to give of herself unsparingly.”

“I do think you’re describin’ yourself, Stephen Farrell. There’s no end to the things he does for people—always gettin’ himself taken advantage of.”

Stephen shifted uneasily in his chair and cleared his throat as though to hold off further conversation until he found an appropriate subject. “Do you know Robbins?” He addressed Mr. Finn.

“Only by hearsay. An affable gentleman.” It was faint praise, Vinnie thought. Robbins was one of the few men present he had not met.

“He’s very well thought of down home—for a Northern man,” Delia said, folding her napkin.

Mr. Finn looked up. “Do you think so ill of us, Mrs. Farrell?” He would never call her Delia, Vinnie thought. Nor would she ask it of him.

“I do think it’s the other way about, Mr. Finn, and we Southerners have a way of reciprocatin’. It’s human nature, I suppose, though sometimes I do wonder whatever human nature is, all the things men do and call it that.”

Mr. Finn merely nodded.

“That was a strange chap you took up with, Vinnie,” Stephen said. “Did you invite him?”

“No,” he said, and then because he wished it known that he was not ashamed of the association he added: “But I might have. That was Jabez Reed, Mr. Finn.”

“Was it? An excellent painter. Vinnie presented me with a landscape of his this holiday. It was that you admired this morning, Stephen.”

“Indeed,” Stephen murmured. “A remarkable sense of color.”

Vinnie covered with a cough a strong impulse to laugh.

“I do believe I’ll retire if you gentlemen will excuse me,” Delia said. “It’s been such a marvelous day.” They arose from the table with her. “I want you to come to tea real soon, Vinnie…and you too, Mr. Finn, if you can spare us the time…”

Upon Delia’s withdrawal Stephen launched into such an account of her virtues that Vinnie and Mr. Finn needed to avoid each other’s eyes. Had Vinnie liked Delia Farrell a great deal—and he scarcely liked her at all—he should still have been embarrassed. Stephen gave off as abruptly as he had commenced. “Well, Vinnie, shall we toast it instead of telling it? Will you have a brandy with me?”

“Thank you,” Vinnie said, and when Stephen brought the glasses, the boy proposed: “To the charming and lovely Delia.” And she was both lovely and charming, he thought.

“Drink deeply,” Mr. Finn said, and dropped his eyes upon his folded hands.

“
The Citizen
will go to press within the week,” Stephen said presently. Then, finding his guests’ enthusiasm less than he had hoped, he said: “You must not judge John Mitchel too severely. He knows but one mission for any Irishman—to save Ireland.”

“Well enough,” Mr. Finn said, “but I think he would be well advised to—ah—withhold his sentiments on certain peculiarly American problems.” Mitchel made no secret of his pro-Southern sympathies.

“He does not realize the acuteness of our sensitivities these days,” Stephen said. “And you must understand, Jeremiah, how easy it is for some of us to find similarities between the North and England. I do not believe that a pinch of pious cant sweetens a full measure of exploitation. I must confess myself to an affinity with the Southern dream.”

“And what, Stephen,” said Mr. Finn, “do you consider the Southern dream?”

“An agrarian civilization…enough leisure for thoughtful men to distill the best in government—in philosophy…”

The very backside of the truth, Vinnie remembered his words that morning. Delia was not homesick, but Stephen was.

“Government by distillery,” Mr. Finn said slyly. “Forgive me a bad play upon your words, but we have quite enough of that.” He sat back in his chair. “Oh my, Stephen, you have described the Jeffersonian ideal—but fifty years have changed the world. Commerce was not to be denied. Manufacture will not be confined to the mechanic’s shop. Nor is the agrarianism of the South at all today what Jefferson proposed. He envisioned a nation of self-supporting farmers—and nothing is further from self-support than dedicating the land to one crop.”

“God forbid I should be blind to that,” Stephen said, “when the potato has so cursed Ireland. It is the truth you tell. I know it. I run from it but I cannot escape. But I wonder if John will see it. He was wiser once than all of us as to the true relationship between man and the land. He would have made that the issue of the rising, and at least have had a rising for it. Well, we must see where he will go now.
The Citizen
will be a lively paper—and an independent one.”

“Independent of whom?” Mr. Finn said, and the same words were on Vinnie’s lips.

“Of the Church,” Stephen said. “Something novel in Irish letters.”