The Banished Children of Eve (74 page)

Returning to New York, he advertised “The Best Merchandise for a Fair Price, and for One Price,” and they came by the hundreds, yea, by the thousands, till in the space of several days they had wiped out his inventory, and he began anew, advertising liberally, selling just over cost, piling profit atop of profit.

He began in a room measuring twelve by thirty feet and kept moving to bigger premises until in 1846, having accumulated every penny required to construct an emporium adequate to his ambitions, he built his Marble Dry-Goods Palace on the corner of Chambers and Broadway, overlooking City Hall Park.
The edifice replaced Washington Hall, once a fashionable resort, now a disreputable watering hole for Tammany politicians, which in its turn had replaced the burying ground of some Negro sect that had for some long-forgotten reason abandoned the city.

When the foundation was dug, a number of remains were unearthed. Some said there was a curse on anyone who disturbed the bones of the dead. Some curse: the receipt box for the first day the Marble Palace was open contained $10,000, and it rarely held less than that afterward. Out of the store's earnings came the money to buy the Metropolitan Hotel and Niblo's Garden. When the war came, there were massive contracts to supply uniforms. Wonder of wonders, Stewart decided to do as Solomon had done and build a temple whose very grandeur testified to the good things God bestows on those He favors.

Mrs. Lincoln herself walked the aisles with him, her arm in his, and purchased $2,000 worth of linens and $1,500 worth of silver flatware, shawls, dresses, hats. A shining exemplar to all the ladies of America.

He had sent an invitation to General and Mrs. Grant to be his guests at the Metropolitan Hotel and to visit his store. He awaited their acceptance.

Stewart walked with purposeful step to the main entrance, on Broadway. A long journey from Belfast to this place, but mighty was the Lord who maketh straight the crooked ways. He would not abandon His servant.

The shades on the door were drawn. Stewart tapped with his cane. A face peeked out. It was Hobson's. The store's superintendent unlocked the door and stood back.

“You've secured every entrance, I see,” Stewart said.

“Aye,” Hobson said. “And I've a man hidden behind every window with orders to defend it at whatever cost.”

Stewart knew that he had been hard on Hobson in the past, yelled and stormed at him, dressed him down in front of other employees, threatened his job, questioned his intelligence, left him quivering with indignation and humiliation. But this day he knew also that Hobson harbored no rancor against
him. Whatever had passed between them, they were joined by history, tradition, the ancient awareness of a common foe. Hobson was a Londonderry man. That's why he had hired him in the first place. Thickheaded and stubborn, yes. But loyal as a hound and, if need be, every bit as ferocious.

“The hour has come, Hobson.”

“Aye, Mr. Stewart, so it has.”

The previous Saturday evening, in commemoration of the Boyne, the Loyal Order of the Orange Society of New York had held a dinner at the Metropolitan Hotel. An intimate affair. Only two dozen or so guests. Superintendent of Police John Kennedy had sat on Stewart's right, Hobson on his left.

They had discussed the successful introduction of the draft, which had begun that day. Stewart had mentioned the reports he had heard of agitators trying to whip up the crowd, shouting “Down with property!” and “Share the wealth!”

Kennedy had seemed unintimidated by such reports. He spoke admiringly of Robert Noonan. “He's the best of his kind,” he said. “The fears about his abilities or loyalties seem to have been misplaced.”

“Aye,” said Hobson, “but we've yet to hear from the worst of his kind, and they be the bulk of it.”

Thank God, Stewart had said to himself, for men like Hobson, who understood the nature of that brooding, uncivilizable race. It could not be thought otherwise. The evidence was there for all to see, from Scullabogue to the streets of New York, the same unchanging traits.

At the height of the Famine, fifteen years before, moved by the accounts he had read of the dreadful suffering in the Irish countryside, Stewart had chartered a vessel and sent it to Belfast loaded with foodstuffs. He had told his agent there that for the return voyage the agent was to arrange free passage for as many young men and women of good moral character as the ship could hold. Almost every single one was a Protestant, and the three who weren't had already announced their intention to convert.

At the end of the dinner, Hobson
rose and proposed a toast. Though not a man given to public declamations, he spoke with passion, almost as if he sensed the disaster about to befall them. “In the days ahead,” he said, “let us not forget the brave example of the thirteen apprentice boys of Londonderry who in closing the gates of the city against King James secured the sacred cause of liberty as well as their own immortality.” The names rolled off his tongue without prompting or text: Henry Campsie, William Crookshanks, Robert Sherrard, Daniel Sherrard, Alexander Irwin, James Stewart, Robert Morrison, Alexander Cunningham, Samuel Hunt, James Spike, John Cunningham, William Cairns, and Samuel Harvey.

Standing in the vestibule of the store, there was little that needed to be said. Both Stewart and Hobson knew the threat they faced. Had known it all their lives.

Behind the inner door a crowd of frock-coated ushers strained to see what was going on. They seemed to Stewart an unimpressive band for conducting the resistance to a pike-carrying, bloodthirsty tribe of savages. But perhaps the apprentice boys hadn't looked much different when they slammed shut the doors of Londonderry.

Moved and shaken by the awareness that the God of Hosts had put them where the Reverend George Walker and the apprentice boys had once stood, right here, in the midst of New York, a city that bore the very name of the Great Apostate himself, James, Duke of York, the Traitor King, Stewart and Hobson embraced.

Stewart held Hobson by the shoulders and gently pushed him away. “I've always trusted you,” he said.

For all the abuse he suffered, Hobson knew it was true. He alone had complete access to the books and managed not just the store but supervised the military contracts, a wondrous source of orders to fill. He sank to his knees and looked up into Stewart's face. Around the great bulbous nose the eyes were filled with a fine mist, and the gray pupils seemed to shade closer to blue.

“The day I hired you, Hobson, I knew you were
a boy to be depended on!”

Hobson bowed his head. The cold tile of the floor pressed hard into his knees, and the ache turned into a sharp stab of agony. He tried to listen to the words of praise that Stewart was lavishing on him, but the pain drew all his concentration, and unable to bear it any longer, he tried to rise. His legs wouldn't unbend. In an instant of panic, he grabbed Stewart's arm.

Stewart pulled away and Hobson pitched forward on all fours. The ushers jockeyed with one another to see where he had disappeared. Hobson sensed that the stone gray had returned to Stewart's eyes. He pushed hard with his arms, forced one benumbed leg forward, and struggled to his feet.

“No surrender!” he shouted.

S
QUIRT WAS TOO BUSY
moving Mulcahey along to pay much attention to the press of people along the Bowery. Morning was not Black Jack's best time. Eliza and Squirt had spent half an hour rousing him and getting him out the door of the hotel. Mulcahey stopped. “Christ,” he said, “they've cooler weather in the Sahara.” He wiped his face with his sleeve and walked toward the entrance of a beer hall.

Squirt grabbed him by the tail of his coat. “No time, Jack,” he said. “Mister Brownlee made it clear. You got four new minstrels in the show, and 'less you get 'em to dance when they's suppose' to dance and sing when they's suppose' to sing, he don't want you back. Told you that in front of everyone.”

Mulcahey half recalled it from the night before: Brownlee's red face, loud voice, wagging head.
Don't make the has-been's mistake, Mulcahey. Don't imagine for a moment that you can't be replaced!
He felt Squirt's hands pushing him from behind.
“All right, all right,” he said. “Don't treat me like a mule.”

“Don't act like one, I won't treat you like one,” Squirt said.

They turned off Canal onto Broadway. At the corner of Broome, they stopped to let a caravan of beer wagons pass. A short distance down Broome, a saloon was already going full tilt. Someone was playing the piano. Mulcahey walked over and peered in the window.

“I thought so!” he said. “Nobody can play the piano like Mike Garvey. God, I haven't seen him in an age. Be insulted if he knew I was this close and didn't stop in to say hello.”

Squirt took Mulcahey by the sleeve and pulled. Mulcahey staggered and almost fell into the gutter, but Squirt caught him and dragged him across the street. “Say hello later,” Squirt said, “when you know you still got a job.” Mulcahey followed Squirt the rest of the way without saying a word. They went into the alley beside the theatre, up the iron stairs. Mulcahey dropped into a chair. Squirt went to the basement, lit the stove, brewed coffee, and boiled a towel. He served the strong, black brew to Mulcahey. When Mulcahey was finished drinking, Squirt brought up the steaming hot towel and wrapped it around Mulcahey's face. Several times Squirt returned with freshly boiled towels and full cups of coffee, and by the time the rehearsal began, Mulcahey was on his feet, quick and alert and full of jokes. Good old Jack Jack.

Mr. Brownlee didn't show up until the rehearsal had been going on for over an hour. Mulcahey expected him to be pleased and happy. Instead, he appeared pale and shaken, barely taking any notice of the troupe. He told them that on the way downtown his coach had been stopped on Third Avenue by a gang of thugs who held a knife to his throat and plucked his watch and chain and pocketbook. “In the middle of Third Avenue!” he said incredulously. “In my own coach! In broad daylight!”

After a few minutes the manager came and whispered something in Brownlee's ear. Brownlee got up and left. The rehearsal was called off. A stagehand told Mulcahey
that a full-scale riot had commenced in the northern part of the city. “The people is on the warpath,” he said. “Brownlee's a Republican and is afraid of losing his scalp.”

The box-office clerk came in and reported that there was a crowd outside yelling for the minstrels. Seemed good-natured enough, he said, but this day there was no telling what the likes of them might be up to, and it was best if the troupe made an appearance and sang a song or two to keep everybody happy.

Mulcahey led them to a small balcony that protruded over the sidewalk. Stepping out, he was surprised to see that the traffic on Broadway had almost completely disappeared. Down below, gathered in a semicircle around the front of the theatre, was a crowd of about two hundred, a mix of clerks and workingmen who cheered when the minstrels appeared. Mulcahey launched the group into “Old Dan Tucker” and followed it with “Who's Dat Nigga Dar A-Peepin'?” He spoke the last verse:

Now, ladies and gents, my song is sung

And I'se hope you hab had some fun;

If you want to keeps from sleepin'

Come hear dis nigga here a-peepin'!

The crowd laughed and applauded. Mulcahey bowed and told the minstrels to go inside. From below, a voice cried out, “You got any niggers in there?”

“Who wants to know?” Mulcahey said.

One of the minstrels poked Mulcahey in the ribs. “Leave it be, Jack,” the actor said softly. “Let's go.”

A boy in a blue errand coat stepped forward. “The people want to know!”

Mulcahey strummed his banjo. “Well, boy, tell the people we got coons galore. But none a good bath wouldn't bleach as white as your ass!”

There was more laughter and applause. Mulcahey went inside. The box-office clerk met him on the stairs and said that Brownlee had sent word to cancel
the evening's performance. “All the theatres is closing,” the clerk said. “The streetcars is stopped running, and there's mobs everywhere. Some is sayin' a Rebel fleet been spotted off Red Bank on its way here.”

Mulcahey went to his dressing table. He took off his sweat-stained shirt, sponged himself with a wet cloth, and put on the fresh shirt Squirt had laid out. Squirt sat watching him.

“You'll have to stay here a bit,” Mulcahey said.

“Figured that out for myself, Jack.”

“All sorts of rumors floating about. Who's to know the truth? But seems certain there'll be trouble for your kind.”

“Which kind is that?”

“It sure ain't redheads.” Mulcahey reached over and rubbed Squirt's orange-colored nap. Done it a thousand times, before every performance, for good luck. Squirt never seemed to mind. Now he pulled back.

“Look, boy,” Mulcahey said, “it's for your own good. Soon as I'm sure it's safe, I'll be back to fetch you. Meantime, you have the place to yourself. You can strut the boards like Edwin Booth himself. Just be sure to keep that woolly head out of sight.”

Squirt walked away without another word and disappeared into the basement.

Mulcahey finished dressing and left the theatre intent on going directly to the New England Hotel and checking on Eliza. He hadn't gone more than a dozen yards when he met two players from the Adelphi. They were filled with stories of how the riot had started up at the Ninth District headquarters on Forty-sixth Street and was breaking out in other quarters of the city, almost simultaneously, and how the police were on the run, abandoning entire neighborhoods to the mobs. “Word is,” one of them said, “it's all been planned ahead of time, and there's to be a coordinated attack this afternoon on Wall Street and the Sub-Treasury.” He glanced nervously up Broadway. Without anyone suggesting it, the three of them went to Tom Kingsland's, which was packed with theatre people exchanging rumors and enjoying the prospect of a night's liberty.